Page 3

Humans might want to forget the magic. But it hasn’t forgotten us.

I close my eyes. My aunt stole my money and left me to the mercies of the Faerie. Of all the things she could have done, it was neither of these acts I will remember. It was her total lack of empathy, her refusal to allow me to grieve the loss of my parents, which slices through my mind in these last moments.

“Come with me.” The dark voice rasps in my ear and claws curl around my body.

I willingly surrender myself to my fate. How could anything be worse than what I had here?

ALICE

The movement is violent and terrifying as the creature which has me lumbers into the sky, its huge wings beating down as we go higher and higher, the moor disappearing.

My life disappearing.

The darkness encloses me, terrifying and ancient. I’ve always hated the dark. It was the darkness which told me my parents had gone. The absence of light and heat and food which meant I had become an orphan, one who wouldn’t succumb to the plague, even if my aunt would have wanted me to.

The night sky spins around me, and I’m dimly aware of shouting for it to stop, it makes no difference. The huge claws form a terrifying cage which I have no option other than to clutch. They’re as hard as steel, cold from the wind where as the scales I kneel on are warm and slippery, every movement feeling like it will be my last. The creature who has me is going to eat me, and perhaps I should be pleased there will be no pain. And that everything will finally end.

But the flight doesn’t stop. We don’t stop. The wings beat on and on. On and on. I’m lulled into a trance, not sleeping, notawake. The creature flies on, occupying the starlit sky over the dark earth below.

If it wants to eat me, it’s taking its time about doing so. I see the thin grey lines of dawn breaking ahead. Wherever we are, I know it has to be beyond the veil or the creature carrying me would have never been able to fly so far or so long before encountering some form of resistance.

I’m jerked to full consciousness as the creature lurches to one side. For a brief instant, there’s enough light for me to see, partially, what has me. A huge blue-green dragon, with a long sinuous body, vast wings, and a tail which flutters in the strong breeze his wake creates.

The head I already know about. The thing we’re told is a dinosaur. The monster our souls are terrified by. All teeth, slitted eye, long barbs and horns, endless horns curving back over the long neck.

I should be terrified. I am however, simply tired. And my bladder is making itself known.

I seriously need to pee.

It’s terrible timing.

The ground rushes up to meet us, and I find myself pushing back within the clawed hand as if I could somehow stop us from slamming into the cold, hard earth.

But instead there is a winnowing, a long elephantine rush of breath, and we drop onto the ground like a butterfly.

The cage of claws releases me, and my knees buckle as I’m placed onto the scrubby grass.

There’s enough light to see. Ahead is a line of dark forest, huge conifers poking up in rows. The moorland is no more. Instead it’s grassland, dotted on the skyline with skeletal trees, leaning away from the wind, their bare branches poking up into the sky.

“Where…” My voice croaks from the rushing wind and long gone adrenaline. “Where am I?”

“The Yeavering.” The dark voice is closer than I expect, and I spin around to find, not a dragon, but a monstrous man towering over me.

His height and breadth are impressive. The horns are still evident, curling back from his forehead and surrounded not by barbs, but by long blue-black hair, plaited in places, small silver beads dangling. The wings extend from his back, and a tail curls around his feet. His chest is impressively bare, exposing a set of abs covered in iridescent scales.

He studies me with an air of detachment. I get the feeling if I make the wrong move, I will see the dragon again, but for the time being, I accept this is who I’m dealing with.

“The Yeavering,” I repeat.

His brow furrows over a set of amber eyes, clearly unimpressed with my response.

“I’m not from the Yeavering,” I add.

“I know. You were given to me by the Yeavering stone.”

“I was?” I feel my body tremble. “Why?”

“I’m due a mate.”