Page 75 of House of the Iron Reaper

Snap.

The doomkin writhes, flames sprawling haphazardly. Deimos glints away, grinning.

“Perhaps if you had a brain somewhere in those bones, you would be quicker,” he calls, sing-song.

The crowd cheers. Ronan joins them, clapping and whooping. Even Deyanara smiles. Even I smile, a laugh bubbling up.

I have been outside of Coalsburgh only once—to visit Stormwatch, the coastal town where Frostalm docks. It sits upon the edge of a cliff, with the Crimson Deep spread like a shimmering ruby blanket beneath it. Jutting out from the cliffs were curiously shaped towers of land—arches and points and crooked obelisks. They looked impossible, as though the Saints had formed them from clay and placed them haphazardly against the coast. When I asked my mother about them, she only sighed and said she did not know.

But a kindly local took pity on my confusion and explained.

“They’ve been carved by the ocean,” she told me.

I frowned at her.

“That makes little sense. How can water carve land?”

“Oh, it takes many, many years,” she conceded with a small smile. “But the waves come, in small ripples and huge crashing waves, and it takes a little bit of land with it each time.”

I stared at the cliffs, trying desperately to picture it. How land so huge and unmoving could be worn down by something as soft and gentle as water.

Now, watching Deimos, I understand. Like waves against a cliffside, he wears down the doomkin, breaking only a piece at a time. Relentless in a way I have never seen nor considered before but, I decide, is wholly terrifying. A strange pride at knowing him, being friends with him, lights up inside me.

Deimos, grinning brightly, spins out of reach of the doomkin and lands another hard blow. Ash billows out into the sand. The flames burn blue but they grow smaller with each strike. The crowd cheers and stamps their approval. His victory is clear.

Deimos turns his face to the tunnel, looking at us. He may not be able to hear us over the roar of the crowd, but he can see us and so we cheer all the same. Ronan jumps up and down, Deyanara bounces on the balls of her feet, clapping.

I press a finger against the glass and mouth I’m proud of you.

Deimos’s grin melts into something softer, eyes glistening.

He does not need his faeth to win. Perhaps that is why it comes to him all the same.

Azure light spills from Deimos’s eyes. Shimmering scales surge across his skin.

All three of us grab each other. Deyanara makes a choked noise of excitement.

“Yes, fella!” Ronan hollers. “YES!”

Deimos lengthens, dropping onto all fours as his hands grow into claws and bleached white spikes push out of his spine. He unfolds his wings, a translucent blue shimmering like raindrops in the morning light. The crowd, and Ronan, scream in delight.

But Deyanara and I are quiet. Fat, hot tears stream down my cheeks and I know I have no hope of stopping them. Deyanara has a hand at her throat, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Faeth bubbles beneath my skin, sharp as acid but painless.

Something like pride swells inside me but the word itself feels too mild to describe it. Without their faeth, a dragon can only feel half of themselves, like a coconut scraped clean and only the shell left behind. There is no word in dragon tongue or otherwise for what this means.

Deimos stands, head high and wearing the weight of his faeth like a crown. I look up at him in awe.

“That’s our friend!” Ronan shrieks. “That’s him!”

The doomkin, flickering and broken, tries to crawl towards Deimos. He takes a breath, chest rising, and opens his maw.

Water shoots like a jet, hitting the doomkin square in its middle and sending it across the sand in a damp, scattered mess. Flames extinguished, it leaves behind only a mess of clumpy wet ash and broken bones.

Deimos turns his face to the sky and breathes water again. This time, it is a shower of fine rain. It catches the cresting sun and a rainbow shimmers into existence. The crowd stamps and cheers.

He did it. He did it, he did it.

All three of us rush out at once, bursting into the sunlight. Deimos melts into his usual form, scales sloughing off with the ease of a dragon with faeth at his fingertips. He turns to us with a wide smile, arms wide for our embrace.