She scrambled up again, running to kick the pinecone back toward me. Her wing stubs fluttered in excitement, sending puffs of frost drifting into the air.
“Again!”
The pinecone hit my chest.
She froze, blinking at me, unsure.
My eyes narrowed, and in the blink of an eye, I swiped the tree branches above her. A cascade of snow tumbled down from the branches, covering her in a layer of snow. She squealed in outrage and delight.
A sound escaped me. Not quite a laugh—too rusty, too unfamiliar.
She grinned as she swiped snow away from her eyes, and it reminded me of the sun breaking over the mountains.
“I will get you for that!” she called out, and jumped at me.
I dodged.
I indulged her in a game of chase until she collapsed in a breathless heap, panting happily, her breath nothing more than frozen white puffs into the air.
“Hungry,” she announced as if informing the sky itself, so it would rain down all her favorite foods.
I lifted her effortlessly. She curled into my chest: small, warm, trusting.
“I will search,” I vowed.
We continued north.
The air sharpened, growing colder than seawitches could tolerate. Their magic thinned in the frost. Their bodies cracked under the cold. They would not follow us past this line.
The northern mountains rose ahead, vast and jagged, their peaks glowing faintly with reflected starlight. Ice coated their flanks like ancient armor.
The child stirred against me. “It’s cold. Still hungry.”
I huffed.
“I know.”
She blinked up at me. “I will make you warm.”
That ache returned, sharp and unfamiliar.
“Little one, keep the heat for yourself.”
I wrapped my wing around her, trapping heat inside the membrane. She sighed—a soft, content hum—and snuggled deeper against my chest. She burned like a miniature sun against me.
And just like that, I was no longer alone. But we weren’t safe: this fragile, little drakling and me. Not while the red draken tracked us like prey. And she was still hungry, so I kept pushing further north.
The farther north we climbed, the quieter the world became. Snow swallowed sound, and pines stood like black spears stabbing the sky. Even the wind held its breath. The drakling fidgeted in my arms.
“Hungry,” she whispered again.
The cold bit at her little cheeks, flushing them pink. Her wings trembled beneath the wrap of my own. For all her stubbornness, all her trust, all her baffling bravery, she was still small. Still fragile.
I needed to feed her.
I had gone hungry for days before. Weeks. It did not matter; my body was built for it. I’d endured worse in the fighting pits. But she … she was not built for deprivation.
I lowered her gently onto a bed of dry needles beneath a thick cedar.
