Page 5 of The Last Syphon

A burst of magic hit the air. Something stirred in her chest. In her soul. Something powerful, ancient, unexplainable, and entirely beyond her understanding. It grasped her tightly in its claws, refusing to let go as what she could only describe as a torrent of red-hot fire exploded in her body. She screamed, her back bowing. Her magic beat at her skin, looking for a way to fight the foreign intruder causing harm, but it was unable to do anything, unable to stop it.

In a blink, the pain disappeared, vanishing as fast as it came on. Confused, she looked down, one hand to her chest, unsure about what just happened. It had her questioning whether anything had happened at all. If she had simply just imagined it.

Inara straightened, standing tall. Their gazes locked once again. Her soul pulsed. She clutched her chest at the strange sensation.

What the Fates was that?

Intensity built in the air, and then the Guardian did something Inara never would have anticipated.

It bent down and offered her its back.

CHAPTER TWO

“AHHHHHHH! OH, FATES! LET ME DOWN! LET ME THE FUCK DOWN! NOW! AHHHHH! FATES, HELP ME!” Felix screamed in Inara’s ear.

“Woooooo! FUCK YEAH! Faster! Faster!”

The wind rushed past her, and the dragon picked up speed, its ginormous wings flapping through the air as it soared higher and higher into the purple sky. Magical. It was completely and utterly magical.

Adrenaline surged in Inara’s body, pumping in her veins. Flying on the back of a dragon the size of a fucking mountain was the most exciting thing to ever happen to her in all her life, and she had done a lot of death-defying stunts in her twenty-seven years. She and Felix had broken into some of the most secure vaults in the realm. They had battled giant mythical creatures they’d come across on their travels, barely surviving.

But this? This was something Inara never thought she would get to experience, and yet, here she was, perched on the back of one of the Guardians of Arelia as if she had every right to be there. As if she belonged there.

Felix was still screaming. His arms were bound so tightly around Inara’s waist that she was having a hard time drawing breath. “AHHH! DOWN! DOWN! TAKE ME DOWN!”

“Oh, come on, Felix!” she screamed over the rush of wind. “Put your hands up and close your eyes! It’s more fun this way!”

“YOU’RE INSANE!” he yelled, cheek plastered to her back.

Yeah, she probably was a little insane. Anyone in their right mind would never have entered a dragons’ den to begin with, let alone climbed onto the back of one. But the opportunity to ride dragonback was just too good to pass up, and in her opinion, one had to be even more insane to refuse such an opportunity.

Inara patted the dragon’s hard, thick skin, and it rumbled in its throat, an almost content sound vibrating beneath her. A smile pulled at her lips, bright and beaming.

Far down below, she glimpsed the outskirts of the Borderlands.

Her home.

Her heart lightened. From above, it didn’t look like much, but it was home. Her home. Her place of happiness despite the hardship living there caused.

Inara spotted her village, Deadhaven. A cluster of worn-out, broken-down homes and ruined, falling-to-pieces buildings centred around the area’s small magic-induced watering stream.

She had no way to communicate with the dragon and ask it to land. Does it have a name? She’d have to ask it. Can it understand me? Is it male? Or female? Or both? Or neither?

A million questions soared through Inara’s mind that she wished she could ask. It was at that moment that she realised her knowledge of Arelia’s Guardians was abysmal at best.

Each of the remaining three kingdoms in the realm had a species of Guardian. A protector. A powerful, mythical beast whose sole purpose was to protect their kingdom from harm.

For Roylan, the kingdom far out to the east, behind the Vahler Mountains, it was the Cyclops. A huge, terrifying giant with a terrible temper. It had one eye instead of two, and it was rumoured to possess devastating magical abilities.

For Pregon, the kingdom that floated out in the middle of the Shadowed Seas, it was the Basilisk. A giant, serpentine creature who had the ability to paralyse its victims with nothing but one look from its cold, black eyes.

For Arelia, the heart of the realm, it was a monstrous dragon.

And, when the Dead Kingdom had once stood, thriving like all the others, it was a tall, mighty Griffin.

Only the royal families had dominion over the great beasts, able to wield their power and command them to do their bidding—or so all had been led to believe, because Inara did not have a drop of royal blood within her.

She was a Border Rat, born and bred in the Borderlands—miles and miles of rough, desertlike terrain that bordered one kingdom from the other.