Page 39 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Rorsyd

Once in the air, I run another check on myself. I’m newly healed but cannot take anything for granted. We don’t know why Wyntre’s healing works, and though she hopes to learn more in Slaedorth’s library, that place might be a complete disappointment.

I should be more optimistic.

I circle to check our assailants outside Slaedorth’s wall and find them camped a mile away, on the road leading to the gate. They show no signs of moving, and the undead are roaming freely before the walls. Everything and everyone is a pinpoint, a toy figure from this height. The clouds scrolling by and misting over them only makes the people below seem even more fantastical.

I wish they were. I don’t like having to flame or kill anyone. The screams from the other day still echo.

Andacc’s note brought me back to war. It has his plans, a few dates, mentions of how and where he wants to attack first. What he thinks we can do to aid the rebellion. He has ambitions in that he believes Wyntre and I could be important pieces on the battlefield. Yet she is so small, so delicate. Ironic that I’ve come to this—loving a necromancer and thinking her delicate.

Wanting to hide her away in a cave until the madness passes over.

War. Always war. It seems impossible for us fae to avoid throwing ourselves into slaughter to fix what we think has gone wrong. Words are rarely enough.

I will visit Orish to pay my respects, seek peace in those few moments I spend with him. I will find my balance in this world before rejoining Wyntre for this rebellion against the Aos Sin and King Madlin. I hope we win, and if we do, I hope someone worthwhile ends up on the throne…for at least a few decades.

The power always gets to them after a while, leaches into their minds, makes them think they are special and better than those they rule.

The distance to where the battle occurred is small by dragonflight. It would take me three days if I walked, but I don’t intend to shift. My shadow darkens the land as I drop in altitude. My shadow dragon coasts below me, flitting, distorting as I ride above trees, rocks.

And then I am there, gliding above Orish’s corpse.

I should have returned and paid him the honor of my grief a hundred more times than I have. I land, pounding the ground with my heavy footsteps, thundering to a halt, my wings half-furled as I approach.

Though long-dead, his body remains. His immortality or some combination of darkthing matter and dragon has kept him almost as he looked on that day. The redness of the blood he shed is gone and the color of his scales has dulled to a pasty matt brown and mauve, yet I can discern the details. The holes they tore in him. The one eye that burst, the ribs where they blew outward as he crashed. Parts of him were shredded.

I’m heaving in air, not due to exhaustion but my wretched sorrow. This is why I did not return much at all. I am afraid of what I see. I remember him alive, and now I can only picture his death.

And yet…and yet I understand why Wyntre’s parents did this. I suppose I always did.

I pad forward and sit on my haunches. My job today is to put aside my bad memories of his death and to remember him as my friend, the dragonshifter I shared much joy with. The happiness should be filling my thoughts.

Am I strong or weak? Strong. I will honor him.

I bow my head and let this happen, allow my memories to drift through everything we did together over the decades of our companionship.

A strange scent wakes me from my fine reverie. I lift my head to detect it more fully.

Something rams into my flesh, burrowing through me from left side to right, ripping through the full width of my body. I’m screaming, bellowing, flopping, trying to rise into the air.

What? What is this abomination?

Iron. The searing burn of iron gobbles up the magik in me and pulls me from dragonform like a tornado wrenching someone through a metal pipe. I’m shrieking like an animal, but the pain, the pain blots my mind and ravages me.

I waken to myself, blood splashing down, gouting. I’m lying in a red puddle, the ground drenched with blood. My blood. The shreds of flesh are now mine. An iron bar still impales my torso, though I can breathe, minimally, rasping wetly.

Gritting my teeth, I struggle upright onto a knee, then topple over again, headfirst into the wet dirt. I’m coughing, scanning wildly through tear-blurred eyes to find those who attack me. Ten or more enforcers sprint forward, armed, yelling. They carry coils of rope and steel chain, carry yet another iron spear.

“Beware! I will… I will kill!” I wrench myself into a half-squat, straining against the immense weight of the devastating metal, its shaft as thick as a forearm. I gape at this weapon. How?

Teeth bared, I confront them as they circle me, but my mind reels.

Another frightening pain thrusts, tears into me. I look down to see the second, smaller iron spear has been driven through me. The point and a few feet of the spear project from my stomach.

I sway, clutching at where I’m newly wounded when two of them grab the first spear and begin to haul it out of me. The suck and drag, the waves of agony combine and crash down on me.

I fall and fall…

Into a nothingness, where all I can hear is my screams.