Then I take in Asha.
She lies on her back in the now-shallow water only ten paces away from me. Her hair was once silver, her skin once pale, but both were tarnished in forge fire, and now a dark sheen covers her skin and her hair is nearly black.
Graviter Rex, the dragon king, looms over her, his large body extending back across the clearing, his tail nearly touching the trees.
He pins Asha to the ground with a paw pressed onto her torso. One of his talons is rammed into the ground beside her shoulder, but the others appear to be impaling her sides.
She was already bleeding from the fight with the monsters that guarded this clearing.
Fresh blood swirls in the water around her.
I take it all in within a heartbeat, and my vision instantly clouds with rage. He’s hurting her.
For that, he’ll pay.
A savage growl builds in my throat and my muscles bunch.
I’ve already left the ground, leaping the distance to him, when Graviter utters a final threat to her.
“Blacksmith, with your last breath, you will tell me: Where is Thaden Kane Ironmeld?”
The world spins.
Shock floods my body.
Thaden Kane is Malak’s son?
Chapter 44
How did Thaden Kane deceive me?
The ramifications are sickening. The consequences, disturbing.
But in that split second as I fly toward the dragon’s shoulder with my claws outstretched, all I care about is keeping Asha safe from the threat that’s right in front of her.
Graviter flinches, becoming aware of my attack too late.
I register Asha’s cry and the way her eyes fill with hope and a rush of tears. “Erik!”
Her left hand flies to the side of Graviter’s paw, as if she would try to use her power on him, even though his scales will protect him.
At the same moment her palm lands on his paw, my claws rip across his shoulder.
It’s a far more savage cut than I would have delivered when I still believed we could reason with this dragon without causing him serious harm first. Even when I stabbed his back during our earlier fight, I caused only shallow puncture wounds.
His scales tear open in long gashes, and he roars with pain, releasing Asha and leaping backward, his head lowering, his fire only moments away.
I drop to the ground between Asha and him, my right hand upraised and claws fully extended.
I let my teeth sharpen and my eyes change, calling on my wolfish nature. Skirra’s soul used to influence my thoughts, his wildness dominating parts of my life, but no more.
Since Asha removed the device from my chest, my thoughts are wholly my own.
I growl with all the ferocity of the primal predator that I have become. “Graviter Rex!”
Graviter’s ears prick up, a wary light entering his eyes. He remains hunched as he backs away another step, heat continuing to radiate from his mouth while blood gushes from the cuts in his shoulder.
“I could have killed you,” I snarl. “I didn’t have to stop.”
