Blinking, I shake my head as I turn to face her. “It was…a guess. My grandparents taught me about the anatomy of dragons, and that many of them produce a nasty smell with their flames.”
“So there’s a dragon out there?” Beatrice’s voice quivers.
“No, we don’t know that yet. Wouldn’t we have heard it by now?” Aelia searches each woman’s face.
“The other women had already made it to the stairs. I doubt they had to make it past a dragon,” Marcella supplies.
“Well, we need to move if we want to get to the stairs, too. There’s no telling when the next bout of fire will come,” Aelia says.
We all rise, with Marcella peeking around the side of the A-frame to the arena beyond. Waving her hand back to us, she slips out from our shelter,with us not far behind her. Left and right we cut through the arena, with more women climbing over the A-frames ahead of us.
When the next clicking sounds, that smell wafting over us, we all duck into the closest frame. Waiting until the fire subsides again.
“Come on, we’re almost there!” Aelia jumps to her feet and slips back out.
We run after her, the bottom of the stairs peeking out between the last few A-frames in front of us.
Click, click, click.
Holes in the walls open up, and what look to be cannons slide out. A flare of orange appears in their center, that scent rolling over us again.
“Last one!” I call when the flames roar out of the cannons.
Everyone crowds into the closest A-frame, but as Marcella and I are the last, there are women from another group already in it. Leaving not enough room for the two of us.
We both realize it at the same time, turning to each other with wide eyes.
It’s my turn to play savior. I grab the back of her shoulder pad and shove her as hard as I can into the A-frame before she can protest.
“Lyra,no!” Aelia screams from the inside.
As Marcella whips around to face me, her eyes connect with mine for a split second as the flames barrel toward me.
Everything suddenly snaps into slow motion.
I rip my gaze away from them, spinning myself around to the back side of the A-frame as the flames explode around it. I drop down, covering my head with my arms and hands and curling into myself against the ground.
Heat rips over and around me. Everywhere. The dragon armor around my body keeps me from burning, but doesn’t deter the heat boiling within it. Despite clenching my teeth against it, a scream shakes from my lips as my bare hands are ravaged by flame. Digging my forehead harder into the dirt, trying to tuck myself away from the flames, I’m lost to a sea of agony. All consuming, every nerve in my hands alight with pain.
It could have been three weeks or three seconds. But when the flames stop, I roll over on the ground.
“Lyra!” Aelia’s cry is an echo in the distance.
Hands wrap around my shoulders, and someone hisses. I’m liftedoff the ground, hardly able to balance myself on my feet. Everything is blurred by my tears. I still can’t think beyond the pain screaming in my hands.
When I blink, my sight finally focuses on the one who’s holding me up.Marcella.“What were you thinking!” she barks when she sees my hands.
Aelia tries to slip underneath my arm to help steady me, but her brows pinch and she winces. A smolder of smoke rises from my armor where her and Marcella touch me.
Marcella grunting slips underneath the other side of me, and together, we all hobble for the stairs. Moe, Stella, and Beatrice are in front of us, with several other women who were in the A-frame. The group of women hit the first step.
Click—
My head sags with each step, eyes threatening to close as the pain in my hands fades to total numbness.
Click—
Then Stella, Beatrice, and Moe make it to the stairs.
