I turn fast as a massive grated gate shudders, then starts to rise, wrenching upward inch by inch with a brutal grind of metal and rock, revealing a dark cave yawning wide in the mountain face behind it.
I try to swallow but my mouth has gone dry.
Fuck, Lyra. What have you gotten yourself into?
All around me, the crowd starts hammering against the cage—fists, boots, anything they can slam against the bars.
The rhythm builds, louder, faster as I spot a flicker of red moving in the dark beyond.
Clenching my hands into fists, the burn scar on the back of my hand stretches taut and I suck in air as I drive my boots into the ground, bracing for whatever is about to emerge.
I can do this. I can do this. I do stuff like this.
Repeating the mantra over and over, the noise continues to swell, drowning out the frantic drumming of my blood as it rushes through me, rising higher and higher until everything breaks into one deafening cheer when a tiny, slow, unusually fat red dragon buzzes out into the centre of the cage.
I blink.
Hovering inches above the ground with slow, laboured beats, the red creature flaps his small, ridiculous wings that seem as though they belong on something half its size. The frantic effort only makes its round, almost comically plump body appear even more absurd.
Is this a joke?
“He’s called Dave,” Reya yells from behind me. I pivot to face her, straining to hear over the noise. “Well—I call him Dave... He’s unbonded and won’t tell anyone his name, so—Dave it is! Dave the dick! He’s a bit of an arsehole?—”
A roar erupts in front of me, my hair whipping across my face as a wave of heat blasts through the cage.
Spinning around, the floor drops out from under me when I find that Dave is no longer small. Instead, he towers over me—his wings unfurling, massive now and blocking half the cage out.
Shit, shit, shit.
Shuffling along the outer wall with my eyes locked on him, I try to put space between us, when my boot comes down on something that crunches underfoot.
Jolting back, I lift my leg to find a human skull—blackened and split open, like it’s been cooked from the inside out.
Bile floods my mouth, sour and burning, as my stomach twists so hard I think I might be sick.
“And what the hell am I meant to do with Dave?” I shout over my shoulder to Reya, my voice fraying at the edges.
But before she can respond, Dave inhales as a red-hot glow builds behind his teeth.
I react fast, everything in me tensing as I reach for my Threads?—
but they don’t come. Don’t answer.
Locking my jaw, I grab for them again, harder, deeper this time.
But still, nothing.
What the fuck?!
A cold spike of panic rips through me and I try again, teeth grinding, hot air catching in my throat, but there’s nothing there. No pull. No spark. Nothing.
No. No, no?—
Dave’s pupils dilate.
His mouth curls back?—
—and then for the third time in less than twenty-four hours, fire explodes toward me.
