What if Leopold hadn’t been my firebrand?
Nein. Wrong. Of course he was. Had to be. The way I’d shaped my life after his death proved it.
Didn’t it?
And yet the question pressed harder. What if, what if, what if?
I’d assumed he was, though he’d never faced my fury. Never had an opportunity to calm me. Taron had, and he’d passed the test with extra credit. What if it had never been Leopold at all? What if this particular Locke was always meant for me?
If Taron could be made into a phoenix…if he were indeed my firebrand… if he could forgive me for the long line of Lockes who’d died in the past…if he could survive my flames… Longing gripped me. So many ifs. Questions, suppositions.Risks.
Could I—wait. Hmm. What was that? A cloud of smoke loomed ahead. Frowning, I narrowed my focus. The second I identified what I saw, my stomach roiled. Two shifters flew our way.
A very much alive Nyla sat astride the one on the left, and my injured father rode the other. Rainer, Lorik’s right-hand man. The former lay slumped over, soaked in bloodand secured by rope. While Nyla possessed her hands and feet, Cedric did not.
To escape my dungeon, he’d needed help from within. Seemed I had a traitor in my midst.
I swallowed back bile.
The pair noticed my approach, their initial shock quickly twisting into glee. Before them flew the queen, no army in sight, only a vulnerable human in tow. A single strike to knock me off course and Taron would fall to his death.
“Shifters,” I hissed, craning my neck to toss the word at Taron. His human eyes wouldn’t be able to see through the smoke, as I could.
Rainer branched off, seemingly flying away from me. The other kept coming with Nyla, war written in every line of his body.
“Do what you gotta do,” Taron shouted over the noise. “I’ll be good.”
Let’s hope so. With a thunderous shout that shook the entire realm, I unleashed my fury. Fire ignited in my veins, a searing promise of the coming pain. In a blink, my body surged outward. Limbs elongated, scales erupted across skin as liquid flame then quickly hardened into molten armor.
I am dragon, hear me roar.
I folded my wings without a word, knowing I had one chance to turn the sky into a weapon.
For a heartbeat, the world became a roar of wind and the sick, sweet tang of adrenaline as I plummeted. The current that had carried Taron vanished, and he fell with me; for a breathless second, we plunged together into an open throat of sky. He didn’t panic. Rather, he trusted me.That trust steadied something raw inside me, and I angled my body with a violence that made the air scream.
He landed hard between my shoulders, an unforgiving weight that knocked the wind from us both. I felt every impact through every bone, while his exhale was a grunt of pain and effort. Still, he didn’t falter. He clamped his thighs tight around me, the grip of a man born to ride. His hands clutched my scales. He rode like a second heartbeat.
The shifter answered with a jagged river of fire, cutting the sky into a molten rift. Heat licked my flank, but I didn’t lose speed or countered an attack. I folded one wing, twisting beneath the blaze to shield Taron from the worst of it. Sparks slapped at me; a strip of my left wing smoked and drooped, the shifter’s flames tinged with dragon poison. Pain sang sharp under my scales, but I couldn’t afford to scream.
Retaliation would be useless. Flames wouldn’t even blister our foe’s hide. The best I could do was what my opponent intended: injure his rider. As Taron had trusted me, I trusted him. Rather than expend my energy on Nyla, I would focus on the beast and let Taron handle the manticore.
This fight was going to be blood and bone.
Incoming. . .
Rainer and I bit and clawed at each other as we passed. Nyla maintained her saddle seat, angling and attempting to shear me open with a sword. Taron stopped her.
Fight far from over, I turned mid-air to approach Rainer once more. He turned as well. We met in a tangle of tooth, talon and wing, wind howling. Taron and Nyla fought just as savagely.
I threw myself into a twisting maneuver, claws out,scraping the scales of my rival. Blood misted the air. A direct hit!
Rainer had expected the action, however, and returned it, raking his claws along my flank. A wet, searing pain dragged raw across muscle, scales and exploding like scattered glass shards. My damaged wing slogged like dead weight, and my flight wavered.
“Olyssa?” Taron demanded, moving as if we were extensions of the same will.
“I’m good, I’m good,” I assured him. Or I would be. Injuries healed, though not as swiftly as I would have liked.
He countered my continuing wobble, steadying me with his knees and lunging with his dagger flashing bright as lightning. The manticore’s tail missed his head by inches, singeing the air so close my ears rang. On its return strike, the tail’s tip nicked his cheek, drawing blood that splattered the weapon in his hand.
