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The two warriors began fighting in earnest then, and this wasn’t like before. This wasn’t a brawl with flying fists and bloodied lips over some petty jealousy. This was life and death. And I watched,my heart in my throat, smoke puffing from my mouth and nose in billows as I tried to decide if I should intervene. If I could...

I hovered above the ground, just a few inches, my wings working, churning the air, my dragon knowing how to function without any direction or instruction.

As intent as the two men were on killing each other, their eyes would flick to me, as if checking, proving to themselves that I was real. That this was not all some terrible dream, a waking nightmare.

Stig had not given up on killing me. More than once, he circled and took a wild stab in my direction. I either dodged out of the way or Fell was there, his sword blocking Stig again and again. The fight continued that way until the first spray of blood.

Stig howled as Fell’s sword cut deep into his flesh with an unmistakable wet, grinding squelch.

I gasped, watching as Stig’s hand went to his shoulder, clutching the wound. It was deep. He staggered and almost lost his footing but caught himself, propping his back against a tree with wheezing pants. Blood pumped through his fingers, thick as syrup, dark as wine, fast as the flow of a river.

“Fuck,” Stig growled, and peeled away his fingers to inspect the damage. And that was when I saw that the damage was to more than just his shoulder. The wound ran wide and long from his shoulder down into his chest. Men had died from less.

And despite everything—despite how quickly he’d given up on me and tried to kill me—my heart twisted and squeezed like a fist with knuckles gone taut and white and bloodless. I didn’t want him to die. Even after everything, I didn’t want that.

Fell made a move toward him, no doubt to finish him off.

I couldn’t let that happen.

I knew Stig had tried to kill me. That he still would see me dead if he could. But I couldn’t do the same to him.

I couldn’t forget all that we once had and were to each other, and simply let him die, bleed out here in the snow like some animalwith no name. Maybe it was too late. But this, I could not allow. I had to try.

I lifted myself higher, flew above Fell, and came back down on the ground between them, snow crunching beneath my great weight as I blocked Fell from finishing Stig.

I held Fell’s gaze, wishing for the words to make him understand. He stared at me with those frosty eyes of his, and I recognized that he understood. He didn’t need to hear me say it. He didn’t need to hear me ask. He knew me, I realized with a start.

He shook his head. “Damn fool. He wouldn’t return the favor for you,” he said as Stig scurried away, crashing through the trees, running off through the woods like a rat through a cellar.

True words, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t watch him kill Stig. He was likely dead anyway. A wound like that...

I lowered my head with a sad shake. Stig would not make it to see tomorrow.

Fell approached, lifting a hand slowly, gingerly toward me.

I wished I could communicate. Instead, I just dipped my head farther in invitation, allowing him to touch me if he wanted. A last touch. The last moment I would have with him.

Suddenly I regretted all the time lost. Time we could have spent together, no yawning gulf separating us. No denial. No space at all. Just us. The two of us together before I became this creature that the world demanded he kill.

His hand flattened against my nose, his palm hot against my flickering dragon skin, the X sparking like fire. I blew out warm air from my nostrils, letting him feel my breath.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Always.”

My heart swelled. I wanted to weep. If tears had been possible, I would. Because he knew. We both did. There was finality in his voice. Good-bye in those words.

He dropped his hand and sent a look back in the direction Stig had disappeared. “You know he is going to tell. He might die, but not before he tells everyone. You have to go. Far from here, and never come back.”

Never. Come. Back.Each word fell like a blow, a nail hammering, vibrating into bone. Never see Fell again. The meaning was the same.

Anguish washed over me in an endless current. I nodded in agreement. I would have to go. Brave it alone out there. I would have to leave Fell and everyone, everything, I had ever known behind. Fear gripped me, nearly crippling me, doubling me over. I wanted to drop where I stood and curl up into a ball. I wanted the world in all its awfulness, its terror, its endless breadth to go away—to disappear around me like the fading clang of a bell.

I would finally have my time in the Crags. I would dive headlong into the mystery of those summits. I was getting what I wanted, but it felt hollow now.

After so many weeks of feeling their lure, I would venture there. Except this wasn’t the way I had imagined it. This wasn’t the way I wanted it.

Fell uttered a stinging curse, still staring at me.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t cry. But he must have read my grief.