Too perfectly.
Kaan bellows another order. “Hach te nei, Rygun. Ack!”
Rygun stretches his wings, turns his face to the sky, and releases a searing screech—the sound accompanied by a mushroom of red flames that scorch and lick and flick at the powdery blue.
Folk scream, crouching over their younglings to shelter them from the heat. Others dive upon the ground, as if that could save them if the massive dragon decided to tip his head and pour his flames into the crater.
I also crouch, but for different reasons … binding myself into a ball as my skin illuminates with the remnants of a million wilted runes. Turning such a stark shade, the light emitting from the old etchings rivals one of the Moonplume moons perched within The Shade’s otherwise gloomy depths.
I’m so crouched over myself, trying not to look too close at the residue of runes sketched across my skin—at the layers upon layers of tiny etchings used to stitch me together more times than there are moons in the sky to count—that I forget Saiza’s beside me. At least until my eyes open and I catch her bulging perusal.
Her gaze drifts up my body, meeting mine. My heart leaps into my throat, and I open my mouth to speak—
“No wonder you laughed,” she says, then reaches behind me, flicking a blanket over my back and easing it around my shoulders. “The unbreakable always do.”
I don’t correct her. Don’t tell her I’ve broken too many times to count. That I laughed because the pain I’ve felt in my heart eclipses any damage that could ever be inflicted upon my flesh and bones.
Instead, I give her a dozy smile of thanks, tucking deep into the corded fabric as Rygun throws his fiery tantrum toward the sky, like he’s trying to sizzle the moons.
Seems he’s more than displeased about being told what to do. To be fair, if I could rip off this iron cuff, I’d be taking fate into my own fucking hands.
His flame snips off, and he shoves into the sky, bits of rock raining from where his claws were pierced into the crater’s lip. He tills his massive wings, stirring the crater into a billowing gale, forcing us all to shield our faces from the whip of sand.
He circles higher … higher … until he’s far enough away that the clan’s folk grow comfortable enough to unbundle themselves.
My mouth dries as Kaan stalks toward the crater’s center, to where Hock has resumed his pacing, again wielding the same spiked mace he used to defeat Zaran. A spiked mace I picture swinging through the air with untraceable speed, colliding with the side of Kaan’s face.
Shattering his skull.
I flinch, my body reviving its terrible tremble, more blood leaking down my temple. The antivenom is working hard to smooth the wobbly crinkles from my equilibrium, but not fast enough.
Not fast enough.
Even so, I force myself to my feet. Saiza leaps up to help me rise, acting as my post to lean against. The other female dabs at the wound on my head again, slathering it in something thick and potent while the males circle each other in prowling strides that trample through my chest.
Finally, they charge—clashing in a bludgeoning bash of fiery rage, again and again, each meaty, growling collision ricocheting through my bones so hard I jolt.
Skin splits.
Blood sprays.
Weapons turn wet and red.
There is no rhythm to their rippling motions that remind me of cracking earth and shattering stones. Of quakes that rattle the world hard enough to knock you off your feet. They’re a chaotic dance of bulging muscle and feral regard I don’t want to see, don’t want to hear, my chest crushing a little more with each new scar slashed across Kaan’s beautiful skin.
But despite the crippling sensation, I can’t bring myself to look away.
Saiza leans close. “You should sit, Kholu. Your legs are shaking, and that cut on your head is losing a lot of blood.”
Kaan fails to parry another swinging attack that lacerates the air, hacking shreds of skin from his abdomen.
A strangled scream slips up my throat, and his bloodshot stare latches onto me as something painful grubs through my chest like a flesh-eating worm.
My knees give way.
Saiza lowers me to the rug while Hock rains upon the King in a flourish of deadly strikes. As I cling to Kaan’s málmr like the motion alone could hold his body together and protect him from the advancing blows that
don’t
stop
coming.
Snarling, Kaan reaches into the swinging mass of lethal force, eating a spiked blow to the chest in order to snatch Hock’s arm, and I think another sharp sound wrestles up my throat.