It spills in rhythm with my galloping heartbeat, my serrated voice cutting through the din. A language not of the common tongue, but something … different.
Something I don’t understand. And should probably question.
The dragon blinks, head tipping to the side while the foreign tune clumps against my teeth like fractals of frost and snow …
I frown.
Is the beast doing more than just listening to my words?
Is it … digesting them?
Instead of me?
Small drops of hope burgeon in my chest, at least until the Sabersythe cranks its cavernous maw and roars—a billowing blaze spiked with the stench of fried flesh. My heart lurches as I stare at that bulb of ruddy flame welling at the base of its ribbed throat, waiting for that incinerating blast to surge.
To burn.
The beast strikes.
Sharp teeth close around me, casting me in a pitch of darkness that’s hot and wet. Splitting, crunching sounds attack me from all around before the stake I’m bound against dislodges from the stage and lurches sideways, taking me with it. Leaving my plunging stomach behind.
Fear finally masticates me into oblivion.
Islept in the hutch last slumber, cradled by the silken tuft of Slátra’s curled tail, dreaming of happy things. High on the aftermath of seeing Haedeon take his first flight upon Allume’s back, smile beaming, both of them hollering victory screams to the sky. High on the ride we’d taken together, drenched in moonlight, soaring between jagged mountain peaks, snow gusting in our wake from the giddy swish of our Moonplumes’ silky tails—Haedeon more alive than he’s ever been.
I slept in the hutch last slumber, dreaming of happy things while my family slept on pallets they’d never rise from. While some sort of ingested poison threaded through their bodies and strangled them to death.
Mah.
Pah.
Haedeon.
I know their final moments were painful. I can see it in their bulging eyes. In the unnatural twist of their mouths that won’t smile or sing or whisper my name no matter how hard I hug them or scream at them to try.
This huge hurt … It fills every bit of my chest and makes it hard to breathe. Makes me so heavy I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move again. Nor do I think I want to.
How can someone you love so much be here one moment, gone the next?
Just … gone?
Allume, Náthae, and Akkeri keep swooping past the window, screeching, blowing their flames. Every time they cry out, more scores slit across my heart.
They must know something’s wrong.
I don’t have it in me to show them what they’ve lost. Not yet. I’m still hoping I’ll open my eyes to find it’s all been one big, horrible dream.
Mah and Pah’s aides say I need to let them go. That we need to commit their bodies back to the elements. To the Creators who failed to be there for them when they needed them most.
That feels too final.
I don’t want this to be our final hug. The final time I look into their eyes and tell them I love them.
I don’t want this part of them to disappear, too.
They say I need to wear Mah’s diadem now that it’s finally loosened from her head, but only after it suckled every last drop of life from her body and made her unrecognizable. Now the Creators won’t stop screaming, spitting hissed words I’ve never heard before. Words I don’t know, nor do I have the desire to learn. Not right now.
I think they also want me to don the diadem.
Mah once told me she’s never felt closer to death than the moment she settled it on her brow, so perhaps I will finally put it on … if only to be exactly that.
Closer.
My new cage reeks of fiery death and sulfur—a spongy, billowing blackness that rumbles all around me, noises echoing. Gurgling, grinding sounds, and the drumming beat of …
Wings.
Thud-ump.
Thud-ump.
Thud-ump.
I groan, my face cushioned by a pool of gooey wetness that keeps trying to drown me, slopping over my head and slugging through my hair with every dramatic bank and rise and heart-plunging dip.
A serrated blade of fear slices through my chest.
The Sabersythe hasn’t cranked its jaw and nudged me between the wall of sabers my knee is rubbing against. Which means I was, unfortunately, correct. There’s only one place I’m destined for, if I don’t drown to death in its saliva before we make it there …
This beast is lugging me all the way to Gondragh to feed me to its spawn.
Fuck.
I have no idea how long we’ve been airborne. No idea how fast this beast can fly with its mammoth wingspan. For fifteen buckets of bloodstone, you can purchase a risky one-way passage to Gondragh from Gore’s public hutch for those stupid enough to attempt to steal a Sabersythe egg, but it’s advertised to take seven aurora cycles—if you make it there at all.