Page 37

Alina

A BURST OF BLUE FLAMES tears across the sky, illuminating the forest and causing the horse pulling our wagon to spook. Grandfather deftly calms her down, shushing her gently as she prances in place, harness jingling.

The entire company whirls around, searching the darkness for the source of the fire.

On the front bench seat, I twist about, casting my gaze to the sky. And as I do, a reptilian scream cuts through the night.

My heart leaps.

Raelan.

He is free.

While the others pick up their pace, trying to hurry us along the narrow dirt road back toward Wysteria, I wait with a mixture of excitement and apprehension curling through my veins .

“What the hell was that?” one of the knights asks.

Another says, “It sounded like a—”

“Keep moving!” Sir Larsen calls, cutting them off swiftly.

I wonder if he knows. Grandfather most certainly does. But what of all the others? How many of them are aware of what Raelan truly is?

Another scream rends the night, this one long and echoing. It sends goose bumps dancing across my skin despite the thick cloak draped over my shoulders. The knights move faster, their armor clinking in tandem with one another as their boots strike the soft ground. They’re moving at a slow jog now, the horse pulling our wagon clipping along at a trot. No one speaks, but I can feel their fear.

It has been a century since the Dragon Wars, since most of the dragon shifters were killed or went into hiding. I was taught all about this as I grew up, but the words on the pages of my history books were only that: words. Now I feel them in my bones, have finally come to understand what the books meant when they described the awe-inspiring power of the dragons.

“Grandfather,” I say, whipping around to face him. “We should go back. We—”

A tremor shakes the ground, jostling the wagon so violently I very nearly fly from the bench. Some of the knights lose their footing and hit the ground hard. The trees around us sway and creak.

My gaze flicks up to the path ahead.

But it is obscured.

By a dragon. My dragon .

“Raelan,” I whisper. And before Grandfather can stop me, I leap from the wagon, the heavy cloak billowing around me as my feet hit the dirt.

“Your Highness!” Sir Larsen calls. He reaches for me as I sprint by, but I twist from his grasp at the last moment.

And then I’m running toward the beast that everyone else is backing away from. I break through the front line of knights, and now all that stands between me and Raelan is a stretch of wooded path sprinkled with crinkly autumn leaves.

Like the first time I saw his true form, I am filled with a mixture of reverence and terror. But I don’t let the fear stay my feet. I push myself forward, closing the distance between us one stride at a time.

Raelan rises up, his sharp head reaching the tops of the trees. His eyes glitter with flecks of gold despite the thin moonlight. And when he looks down at me, I feel he sees right into me, like his gaze is tugging at the threads of my heart.

“Your Highness!” someone calls from behind me.

Then Sir Larsen yells, “Don’t!”

I think he’s speaking to me. But then a whistle sounds, the tell-tale sound of an arrow cutting through the night.

My magic reacts before I can think to call upon it. I throw my hands out, and a burst of ice strikes the arrow midair, sending it flying into the woods rather than into its intended target.

Finally, my magic does what I want it to.

Raelan blinks slowly, and a rumbling growl vibrates from his massive chest .

“Let me go!” a familiar voice yells. My gaze is drawn immediately to Raelan’s clawed paw, which is wrapped tightly about a struggling figure.

With little fanfare, Raelan opens his claws and drops the figure onto the cold dirt. I wince as the person hits the ground.

“Shit,” the man says, gasping for air as he pushes himself to his hands and knees and shakes pine needles from his messy hair. When he looks up, my stomach turns.

Tristan.

Raelan brought him back to us. He could easily have ended him with a tightening of his claws, and yet he stayed his paw.

And I wonder, somehow, if he did it for me.

I turn my back to Raelan, putting myself between the company of knights and my dragon. Their hands are on their swords, and some have bowstrings already drawn, arrows pointing either at Raelan or at Tristan, who sits back onto his heels with a defeated sigh.

In the wagon, Grandfather stands. Pushing back the hood of his cloak, he looks upon Raelan with eyes wide and lips parted.

There’s movement behind me. Then Raelan’s head is beside me, his slitted eye easily as large as my hand. More bowstrings are drawn as he breathes warm air over me, like a summer breeze on the warmest of days. My hair flutters away from my face, and my cloak billows softly.

“Raelan,” I whisper, lifting a hand to place it upon the end of his scaled nose. He blinks slowly, like a cat, then casts his gaze to the night sky .

He wants to fly. Of course he does.

And I’m going with him.

“Alina!” my grandfather calls, but I don’t heed him as I turn fully to face the dragon towering above me. There’s a murmuring of dissent amongst the ranks as I walk closer to Raelan, so close I have to tip my head all the way back to look up at him.

With trembling fingers, I reach out to trail my hand across his scales. They’re warm and glossy, soft like silk against my skin. And at the gentle touch, Raelan lets out what sounds like a low purr.

He lowers a wing for me, and with my feet bare, I climb upon it, then gasp as he lifts me into the air. I wobble but don’t fall. Then I’m walking carefully across his wing and settling myself into the spot just between his neck and mighty shoulders.

“Lower your weapons!” Sir Larsen shouts at his knights. “That’s the princess you’re aiming at!”

But I’m not paying attention to the army anymore. Because Raelan is stretching out his glorious wings, turning his head toward the sky. I lean forward, taking hold of his glistening scales in my hands.

And I don’t even scream as his wings come down in a mighty gust and he lifts off the ground, buffeting everyone below and rising into the night.