“Take off first. I’ll be right behind you.” Thauglor says with a wicked smile that shows too many teeth. Oh yes, the drow are in deep shit.
I wait for everyone to move to a safe distance before I back up, my muscles coiling like springs. Then, I launch myself into the air, my powerful wings catching the wind. Several massive beats and I’m gliding on the thermals over everyone, the wind rushing past my scales with a sound like tearing silk. I feel Ziggy preening my scales to soothe me while we wait, his claws gentle and methodical. Dad joins us moments later, his massive form dwarfing even my new size, and I follow him toward a mountain pass he knows about.
We hug the mountains tightly, our bellies nearly scraping the rock face, making sure not to be visible to whoever lurks below. The trees are so densely packed down there it looks like a sea of dark green leaves stretching to the horizon. It must be pitch black underthere—perfect for drow to move around in without the sun burning their sensitive eyes. Dad must have had the same thought I did because he swoops down suddenly and lays a thick band of acid a hundred yards from shore. The trees hiss and smoke where his breath touches them, leaves curling and blackening.
For good measure, I follow up behind him and breathe my acid onto the trees fifty feet from the shoreline. The acrid smell fills my nostrils—bitter and sharp like burning metal. Nothing is going to come to their aid if we can help it. We’re cutting off their reinforcements, their escape routes. Dad’s taloned hand drops below his body, and that’s my signal to move.
I glide close to the water as I cross the lake, so low I can smell the decay rising from its surface. The very tips of my wings touch the water with every flap, sending ripples in multiple directions that disturb the unnatural stillness. The lake is cold—I can feel it through my wing membranes—and something about it feels wrong, like the water itself is watching us.
Silently, I land on the beach behind the cavern’s entrance, my claws sinking into sand that’s oddly warm. Carefully, I lay down, allowing my family members to slide off. Balor shifts back to human form, but Orpheus and Ziggy remain shifted—one basilisk wrapped around my horns, one displacer beast crouched beside me with his fur bristling.
“I’ll whistle as loud as I can when Ziggy pulls us from the cave.” Balor says as he stands in front of me. I nod so he knows I understood him before he leaves. This could be the last time I see the three of them. The thought makes my chest constrict, makes it hard to draw breath. I watch them walk toward the cavern entrance—Balor’s human form wrapped in black leather, Orpheus slithering beside him, Ziggy’s displacer beast form flickering in and out of visibility.
Then, I start my next task. I bathe the beach around the island in acid, moving in a careful circle. The stone and sand start melting around me, liquefying and bubbling, making the air turn toxic. The chemicalsmell is overwhelming even to me—like ammonia mixed with sulfur. Good thing black dragons are immune to the fumes. I move into position to watch the cavern entrance, my body coiled tight as a spring, ready either to attack or flee.
Time stretches. Every second feels like an hour. My heart pounds in my chest — racing with anxiety.
Balor’s voice echoes from deep in the cavern, and then screams echo up to me—high-pitched and inhuman. The drow. The scent of ozone fills my nostrils, sharp and electric, and then Ziggy appears next to me, Isolde limp in his arms. “She’s alive, just drugged.” He says before vanishing again in a rush of displaced air. Relief floods through me so intensely it makes me dizzy.
She’s alive.
My sister is alive.
I focus on the cavern, waiting for the whistle to come. My talons dig deeper into the sand and pebbles below me, grinding them to powder. Every muscle in my body is tense, ready. Balor’s high-pitched whistle fills the air—three short bursts—and if my dragoness could smile, she would be grinning viciously.
Slowly, I fill my lungs with as much air as I can, feeling my chest expand to nearly twice its normal size. The acid builds deep down in my gullet, burning and churning. Opening my mouth wide, I turn it to a thick gas and let it flow down into the cavern like a living thing seeking prey. With every deep breath I take, I release a thick mass of acid gas down the tunnel. The smell is overwhelming—caustic and deadly. My throat burns from producing so much so fast.
Wing beats echo above me, and I glance up to see my father preparing to land beside me, his massive shadow blocking out the sun. When he does, the ground trembles beneath his weight. He breathes his acid breath down the tunnel, adding to mine. His is darker, thicker, from centuries of age.
Between my father and me, we breathe enough acid gas that it no longer goes down the tunnel—it starts backing up, spilling out of the entrance like fog. The entire cavern must be full by now, every chamber, every crack saturated with our poison.
“Raven, take flight. I’m going to shift and strike it with my lightning to ignite it.” Mom says as she walks up Dad’s back, her small human form dwarfed by his dragon’s bulk.
Without hesitation, I take flight, my wings beating hard to gain altitude fast. Sand and melted stone spray behind me from the force of my launch. I circle the island, climbing higher with each pass. Dad launches next and circles below me, positioning himself between Mom and the blast zone. I watch my mom take a running leap off his back, and for a heartbeat she’s falling. Then, her iron and emerald dragoness explodes into existence—a transformation so violent it creates a shockwave I can feel from here.
I can feel the moment she summons her lightning—my scales want to stand on edge from the electrical charge building in the air. Every nerve in my body screams danger. The strike she lands is massive, a bolt of pure white lightning that slams into the gas-filled cavern like the fist of an angry god.
Unfortunately for us, the explosion is even bigger than we expected.
The sound is deafening—a roar that shakes the mountains themselves. Fire erupts from every opening in the rock face, shooting skyward in columns of flame. The concussion from the strike hits like a physical wall, knocking the air from my lungs in a single violent exhale. My wings fold involuntarily, useless. The world spins—blue sky, black water, green trees, fire. The last thing I see is the blue of the sky as I fall, tumbling end over end toward the dark water below.
Then everything goes black.
Chapter 37
Keir
I wasn’t fast enough.
The concussive force from the explosion disorients me, rattling my brain inside my skull. It takes several heartbeats too long before I can see straight—my vision blurs, triples, then finally focuses. I look to the sky where Raven was circling moments ago, her black form silhouetted against the blue. She’s no longer there. All I can see is the wall of water rushing toward me, a wave created by something massive hitting the lake.
She fell.
Terror floods my system like ice water in my veins. My blink hound howls inside my mind, a sound that reverberates through every cell of my body. I dive into the water without thinking, the cold shocking against my overheated skin. I swim as fast as I can toward where I think she landed, my arms cutting through the foul-tasting water. It reeks of decay and burnt flesh, but I don’t care.
By the time I get there, her human form surfaces—small, fragile, wrong. There’s a problem. Her right wing is broken. The main flight bone bends at an angle that makes bile rise in my throat. I’m thankfulthe water is supporting the weight because otherwise the pain would be unbearable.
Carefully, I move to support her head, my hands cradling her skull. Her hair floats around her face like dark seaweed. I rest her body on mine as I swim backward toward shore, letting the injured wing trail behind her as straight as I can manage. Her skin is too cold against mine—hypothermia cold.
