Page 107 of Boundless

We had steered clear of the main pathway that carriages from all fae kingdoms and all Verenthian territories took to bring prisoners into this place. Instead, we got closer through a forest, far away from the bridge, and we would not be able to get down there—without wings, at least. Because just like that reading said, this place really, truly had just one bridge into it off the main pathway, and it was huge.

It started far into the distance to our left and snaked its way down to the edge of the gorge, standing on pillars as thick as a dozen tree trunks put together. The gorge was vast and the walls around the entire place were made of jagged rocks coatedwith something black that was shiny, and possibly very slippery. There were buildings, all a single story high, built on all three sides of the gorge that was locked in so perfectly nobody could ever dream of climbing out. There were bars between pillars just off the bridge, and then in the very middle were what I assumed the jail cells—and the silver lights burning over more than ninety percent of them.

The lights were as big as a basketball, if I had to guess, and they really did look like miniature moons—if moons were transparent, and sent charges of electricity every few minutes down to thesecagesbelow them. That’s what they were—cages, like the golden ones in that incubus’s basement at the Enclave, only these were much smaller, and crammed together, one after the other.

The narrow roads built between rows upon rows of those cages were covered in what looked like grey snow.

Ashes.

God, just the thought that there were actual dragons nearby made my skin crawl.

Carriages rushed up the bridge, three of them as we watched. Soldiers were moving from both sides, too, screaming something we couldn’t quite hear. It was easy enough to see that they were soldiers—they all wore armor. Something was definitely up there.

Maera moved first, jumped off the horse, and she was taking her clothes off like she was in a hurry, throwing them over the saddle. “I’m going to get closer, see if I can pick up the king’s scent. They’re on high alert.”

“I want to come with.” I made an attempt to get off the horse, but Rune stopped me before I did.

“No, Wildcat. Maera’s right. Something’s happened here. Her wolf has a much better chance of getting close without being seen,” he said.

And Maera nodded, standing completely naked in front of us now. “I will call for you once I have something.”

“Wait, how—” But the shifting had already begun.

I really was never going to get used to the sight of her body changing the way it did right before our eyes. To witness a woman turning into an animal within seconds like that was traumatic, even if it was considered normal here. Even if I’d seen it happening before.

Then Maera’s wolf ran along the edge of the cliff, so fucking close my heart jumped—before she did.

She jumped right off the cliff and into the gorge, and it was a damn miracle I didn’t scream. The fear was to blame for the fact that I’d frozen in place and I couldn’t move, couldn’t get off the horse and follow her, but Rune’s shadows were gliding in the air like black ribbons of satin, following behind her until I couldn’t see them anymore, either.

“She will be all right,” Rune told me. “She’ll be back soon.” He said it like he said almost everything else—with complete conviction, not a hint of doubt in his voice or eyes.

Words of my own were at the tip of my tongue—you didn’t tell me. You said nothing.

I bit them back with all my strength because now was not the time. It was easier to bury the thought as deep into the darkness of my mind as I could and focus on the now.

Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to try for long.

The ashes came as if by magic, from the other side of the gorge right across from us, possibly over two miles in the distance. But the moment I saw the white veil that seemed to fall on the branches, then spread out over the cliff, I knew what it was.

Within seconds, ash drifted down over the other side of the gorge like a storm. It wasn’t snow—snow could never fall soheavily.Rune and I watched the flakes spinning lazily in the airwith the coming wind that brought more than just ash—but a sharp, metallic scent, too. The smell offire.

A dragon had made it. Whatever these ashes had been before, a dragon had done this, and I waited and waited for the entire gorge to disappear under a grey blanket, but it didn’t. There wasn’t too much of it—and it settled over the rooftops of the buildings surrounding the cages, between the thick bars, and on the narrow roads between them.

Next came the sound—aroar,seconds before we saw the dark shape in the distance, rising in the air.

I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, wasn’t entirely sure I was alive as I watched an actual dragon rise from the tips of the trees in the forest on the other side of the gorge, massive wings beating that air as it moved higher and higher, then disappeared behind thick clouds too fast for me to make out properly.

A dragon.

That was a dragon.

“Rune,” I breathed because I didn’t have better words to describe the mix of emotions that were going through me, the fear and the panic and the sheer fascination and helplessness that seemed to fall over me all at once.

“It’s okay. The dragons don’t come close to the gorge,” he told me, but that wasn’t what concerned me, though. It was the fact that dragonsexistedjust a couple of days away by horse from the very place he called home.

But again, I didn’t have the time to dwell on anything, to come to my senses, to focus on the people going about down at the gorge and over the bridge because we heard the sharp howling loud and clear.

It was Maera—and she was most definitely calling for me.