Nothing could distract her.
I crouch to the ground, ready to spring at the dragon, but Asha’s right hand flies out toward me as if to command me:Stop.
My eyes widen at her gesture.
Damn. Maybe she won’t ask for help, after all.
“A war that begins with the purest flame and an impossible choice,” Graviter rumbles. “Yourchoice.”
“What choice?” she asks, a demand for an answer.
Graviter doesn’t give it.
Flames as blue as the purest sunlit sky burst from his mouth, rushing across the short distance between him and Asha.
My shout of fear is drowned in the shrieking fire. “Asha!No!”
I leap forward, but so does Asha.
She throws herself into the flames, her left hand outstretched toward the dragon’s face.
The blue flame engulfs her, filling the air with light so bright that it blasts me backward.
Chapter 46
Ifind myself lying on the stony ground, unable to understand why I can’t get up until I realize there’s an immense pressure on my chest.
When the light burst toward me, so, too, did the dragon’s paw strike me, but not with talons extended.
I recall thethumpof the dragon’s paw against my torso as it drove me to the rocky surface and now pins me there.
I can’t see anything through the brightness in the air except the paw that restrains me.
An icy heat is cracking my heart. “Asha!”
I’m ready to stab and slice at the dragon’s leg to free myself from his hold when a heartbeat later, the flames stop.
The light clears a little. Not completely, but enough to allow me to see through it to Asha.
She has remained standing, now very close to Graviter’s face.
Both of her hands are turned, palms up.
Blue light pulses around her, swishing across her legs, torso, arms, and head. It plays most intensely across her arms, where she appears transfixed by it, her gaze following its ebbs and flows up and down her forearm.
“What have you done to her?” I growl at the dragon. My claws are drawing his blood, but I don’t care. “What are you doing to Asha?”
His focus swings to me and he rumbles back at me, “Be calm, Wolf. You can’t help her. She has to make her choice.”
Be calm?Easier to command than to obey. It’s impossible to feel anything but fear right now. I only snarl harder, my claws pressing into his paw.
“Be calm, Wolf,” the dragon says more forcefully, giving me his full attention. “Your fear won’t help her.”
I force myself to retract my claws—a move that makes the dragon wince when the sharp edges glide across his skin.
“I’m calm,” I snap. “Let me up.”
He arches an eyebrow at me.
