My eyes widen because this dragon’s presence feels like the undefined presence I sensed when we were traveling through the forest.
I’d detected another creature in the forest and a sort ofbreathing, not much more than a breeze around us that seemed to follow us along our path. Even with my wolf’s eyesight, I didn’t see this dragon. Not even an outline of it.
Its wings and body shiver as it hovers now above the forest, floating there, while its focus darts from Graviter Rex to Milena, where I laid her down on the warm stone, wrapped up in a fur.
“There you are, Torva Viridia,” Graviter says with a huff.
“Graviter Rex,” the new dragon calls in a distinctly feminine voice. She sounds as angry as Graviter did when he first raged at us. “Do you mean to fight me?”
The air seems to rush out of Graviter’s mouth, and his shoulders sink a little. His reply is quiet. “I do not.”
“Yet you declared war on my rider and vowed to kill her.”
Graviter bristles a little. “Milena Ironmeld has much to answer for.”
“We all make mistakes,” Torva snaps. “Especially when it comes to the ones we love. Betrayal from those closest to us cannot always be foreseen.”
Graviter is quiet for a moment. “I concede that I did not foresee Thaden’s duplicity, either.”
Torva considers him for a moment, still hovering, her wings beating slowly, her focus flashing once more to Milena. “Then will you let me go to her?”
Graviter backs up a little, although there isn’t really enough space for him to go anywhere. “You may.”
Tucking her wings, Torva shoots toward Milena, landing beside her in a rush of wind that rustles the blue leaves on the tree Asha healed.
Her expression becomes increasingly downcast as she looks Milena over until tears form in her emerald eyes.
Finally Torva says, “Milena Ironmeld will not live another day.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “There is nothing we can do but make her as comfortable as possible for her final hours.”
“I’m sorry, Torva,” Graviter says, his voice a sad growl.
Torva nods, her eyes glistening. “Thaden lured her here. It was the same night we heard that he had killed your son. She didn’t think about her own safety or how it might appear if she went to him. She was heartbroken that he had chosen his father’s path. She wanted only to bring him back to face justice. I flew her here, but he was ready to fight. I have never seen him so angry.”
Her emerald scales pale as she looks at the tree and the monstrous creature that lies dead behind it. “He was always so peaceful. It was all a shock.”
When we first arrived in this clearing, it was protected by both a monstrous bear with six powerful legs and a tree in which Milena was encased. The tree had transformed its trunk and branches into a spider-like creature, trying to trap Asha in its web.
The tree and the bear had both been implanted with a device like the one Malak used on me. If anything, those devices were even more elaborate and skillfully created than the one that changed me into a wolf.
Torva continues. “The moment we arrived, I was driven back by the dark magic in that tree and that monster. Each time I tried to approach, I nearly passed out. The dark magic… It was killing my light and destroying the peace in my soul.”
She shakes her head. “Milena threw herself into the danger. She demanded to know why Thaden killed your son. They were shouting at each other and it was hard to hear them through the pall of darkness, but he spoke of you, Asha Silverspun.”
Torva’s focus swings to Asha, whose shoulders have tensed.
Asha has remained kneeling beside me but slowly draws away from me, as if she expects she will need to leap to her feet at any moment to face another threat. “Why?” she demands to know. “What did he know about me?”
“He knew everything that Milena knew,” Torva replies. “Everything she also divulged to me. That you were imprisoned in the cursed city by a beast of Malak’s making, and that your power of creation, should you be able to access it, would be limitless.”
My breath stills. It feels like a lifetime ago that Asha and I stood together in her room in the tower, her cage in the sky, and I pressed my palm to her chest above her heart in the same way she’d pressed her hand to my heart when I wrapped her up in furs and kept her warm.
I told her that I saw her as two opposing natures constantly in conflict with each other. Fragile but strong. Fearful yet unafraid. Compliant but deeply defiant.
I told her there was only one respect in which she was constant.
She is limitless.
Now, Asha’s jaw clenches and in her eyes, I see a flicker of the darkness that clouded her mind when she was exposed to Malak’s dark metal.
