Tage’s body contorts and twists from the pain, but he doesn’t fall. He stands, staggering for balance but not going down as the blood runs in thick ribbons over his chest. His big frame adjusts and squares off, blocking me and inviting any incoming abuse onto himself rather than expose me to it.
I grab hold of his shoulders, both supporting and urging him away. “Tage, go!”
He can fly. Just like the birds in the trees, he can get away. He doesn’t need to stay here and die. If he flees, they’d let him go. I’m the prize they’re after. The witch. The thing they hate most, the thing they wish to put down.
They’re fighting over me. It’s all aboutme.
That’s what brought them here. The stink of me, my blood. If I’m not here...ifI’mgone...dead...
Then Tage could get away. He could escape.
A dragon stomps to the front, pushing aside the one who clawed Tage in the chest. Iridescent hints of onyx flash in and out on his skin. “You know this witch?” he demands, and I recognize the voice as Kaldr.
“Of course he does!” the onyx snarls, flicking his claws and spraying droplets of Tage’s blood. The other dragons all growl and make noises of agreement. “He’s protecting her!”
Kaldr looks from Tage to me. “I should have known. You never had the mettle to do what we were born to do. You couldn’t kill a human. Shouldn’t be surprised you would spare a witch.”
“You’ll not touch her,” Tage warns, only serving to confirm Kaldr’s assertions. I shake my head. What is he doing? He should be denying any connection to me, insisting he doesn’t care about me.
Kaldr grins cruelly, displaying a set of stained teeth with bits of meat trapped between them, and I shudder to think what he consumed to achieve such results. “Oh, Tage, what a waste,” he says thickly around teeth that begin to pull and stretch, growing into fangs in his mouth. “You could have served our pride, but instead you chose this.” He waves at me. “I should have put you out of your misery instead of exiling you. That was my error.” He angles his head in that telling way. It’s a reminder that he’s an animal, something base and feral and savage at his core. Not like Tage. With Kaldr there is no decency. He has no regard for life. Not even for his own kind, if his treatment of Tage is any indication. “There is no room for the weak among us.”
Kaldr spreads his arms wide in front of Tage, his claws pushing through the tips of his fingers. Long and deadly, rivaling those the harpies possessed.
His cohorts back away from him, and I brace myself, my insides churning so much that I fear I’m going to retch in the snow at my feet.
Tage’s breaths come fast and hard. “It’s not weakness to stand up to the monsters of the world.”
Kaldr pulls his lips back from his teeth in a hissing snarl. “The monsters of the world are the ones meant to rule.”
The earth rocks beneath me as Kaldr bursts out of his skin in a blinding flash of light. Snow showers from nearby trees as he transforms into a massive dragon of rippling onyx skin. He’s bigger than Tage with more horns adorning his frill, thick and scarred with deep knicks as though accustomed to frequent battle.
Standing behind Tage, my head falls back to look up at Kaldr, my stomach bottoming out at the fearsome sight. Then I’m blownbackward by a blast of light close to me as Tage shifts into his dragon.
I drag myself away, pulling back on my elbows through the snow as the two dragons charge each other, colliding with violent force, shaking the earth so much that I’m surprised more of the ground doesn’t break open to swallow us.
Jaws snap, scoring and tearing flesh. Deep purple sprays the air, soaking the snow around them until it becomes more purple than white.
Like dominoes falling one after the other, lights burst behind the warring pair of dragons as the others turn, manifesting into their full, awesome forms: three more onyx; one bronze, similar to Danhy; and one a cerulean blue that would shame a sunlit sea.
Their dragon eyes narrow on Tage sharply, and I know with a sick suddenness that even if they’re willing to stand back and watch these two brawl one-on-one, it’s not like in a profa. They certainly won’t let Tage win. Even if he could win, he can’t. They would never accept it.
They huff and paw the snowy ground eagerly, inching closer around the two combatants, and I begin to suspect they might not watch the spectacle and await the outcome, after all.
Drool drips off the fangs of one onyx. The muscles gather and bunch on his great chest and trunk-like legs in barely restrained anticipation, and I know he’s on the verge of springing and joining the melee between Tage and Kaldr.
I scramble to my feet. The movement draws their attention and reminds them of my presence. The drooling onyx dragon shifts, pointing his body toward me like the tip of a sword, his eyes revealing his intent.Me.He wanted me dead ever since he first caught my scent. Now nothing is stopping him.
I look around wildly as though some weapon might materialize.
A nearby copse of trees breaks the stark beauty of the horizon, interrupting the white expanse, interrupting the sameness. Innumerable icicles hang, daggerlike from the branches. Any one of them could skewer a body. Even a dragon’s body. Well, maybe notskewer. Adozenof them would be necessary to inflict damage on a dragon, but such a thing could hurt and slow one down in the same way the stalactites in the cave had incapacitated Cyphus.
If only my hand could seize one, seize themall, and plunge them into the thick chest of these creatures. The fantasy of that burns through me, so vivid I could taste it.
The terrifying onyx dragon takes several thudding steps toward me, hot breath huffing from his nose. He’s my immediate threat.
I move backward, falling, scrambling, clawing away.Please, no, no, no.
I jam my eyes shut, envisioning one of many icicles finding its way into him, first one and then another and another. Opening my eyes, I stare up at the icicle-ridden branches.
