Page 102

Story: A Fire in the Sky

There were so many things I wanted to say. Questions I wanted to ask that formed and took shape, crystallizing in my mind.

What explanations could he provide? How would he stop Stig and his army from turning their wrath on him? Was he any safer here than I was?

He had just killed Stig. Well, not technically. But that would be the outcome. Stig would die from his wounds. The lord regent would never let Fell live after that. He would plan the most miserable death imaginable for him.

He dragged a hand through his dark locks. “Fuck. I can’t let you go.”

Hope stirred inside me.

Fell settled cold gray eyes upon me and my hope began to fade. Grim resolve glowed there, along with something else. Something like... anger. Barely checked fury. “You owe me an explanation, and you’re not going anywhere without me until I get it.”

I heard only one thing.Without me. Not going without me.

“Understand me?” he growled.

A sigh shuddered through my great body. I understood.

With a single nod, I lowered myself on the ground and extended my front arm, flattening my clawed hand on the crunching snow, hoping he realized what I was offering.

He looked from my arm to my face.

I nodded once, encouragingly. Let’s do this together. Whateveritwas.

Come with me, Fell.

He hesitated only a moment, and then, as though he’d heard my thoughts, he launched himself atop me, securing himself between my wings, clamping his hands around the base of each one. I felt his strong thighs squeezing my back, his heels digging into my sides.

Hopefully he would hang on. Hopefully his strong warrior body would not fail him. Hopefully I would fly in a way that wasn’t too wild and reckless.

Hope.

Hope.

Hope.

That was all I had right now.

I waited a moment longer, making sure he had time to secure himself... making surehewas sure, making sureIwas sure.

Making sure this wasn’t a completely insane idea, but that assurance never came.

And still, I lifted off and sprang into the air, letting hope guide me.

34

Fell

WE WERE CHAOS ON THE WIND.

I clung to her as she flew. I obviously didn’t know anything about flying, but it seemed she was a novice, too. And that was something. New information. It meant she had been telling the truth, and she had not been doing this all her life. Not until recently. The dragon, I suspected, for whatever reason, had just revealed itself.

She flew toward the Crags, and it was not long before we were above the clouds, cutting through wet vapor and soaring through those jagged summits I had never seen except a handful of times, on a rare summer day when the clouds and fog were thin enough.

I dared to look down, peering over her red-gold shoulder. I couldn’t even see land.

It was terrifying. Exhilarating. I dared to lift myself higher on her back and let loose a shout, the rushing wind gobbling up the sound.

She took us closer to the summits, until we were flying between mountains, beside the dipping slopes and jagged ledges and rugged, uneven shoulders. Curving humps and sharp pinnacles.