Page 129 of Destined Dawn

“You let him go?” Spencer stares at me in disbelief. “But you love that pig and he really loves you!”

“I know but it had to be done.”

Spencer and Tristan examine me with curiosity but Renzo nods his head with understanding.

“You had to let him go sooner or later, little rabbit. You did the right thing.” He scratches at the healing wound on his neck. “Although I would have liked the opportunity to say goodbye to the little dude.”

“He knows you cared about him,” I say.

Renzo’s eyes widen. “Did I?”

I squeeze his arm. “Yep, you did.”

We hurry down to the meadow and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see all the dragons crouching in the long grass as if they’ve been waiting for us.

Gwenhwyfar rumbles and I walk up to her and lay my hand on her snout. It makes the men with me shuffle on their feet uncomfortably. I don’t think even Renzo entirely trusts these dragons and my hand looks tiny against her vast size, like a mere pimple. If she wanted to swallow me whole right now, she could do it with one snap of her jaws.

Her eyes swivel over me and she’s looking for Pip.

“He’s gone,” I tell her too. Did she know who he was?What he was? She seemed to recognize him all those days ago back in the mountains. Had she known my mom? Did she understand?

The dragon rumbles and is that my imagination or does it sound mournful?

I pat her snout.

“No time to be sad,” I say and I wonder where I’m finding this strength. I hear rustling in the grass behind me, my bond tugging, and then Azlan and Stone are here too.

“What did you find out?” Tristan asks them both.

“It’s your father,” his cousin answers him. “And it’s as we suspected. He’s brought an entire army.”

“Just for me,” I say with a smile.

“I’m guessing the Lord Protector believes more of the rumors about the Fourth Prophecy than he’s letting on.”

“And we’re really just going to let them come?” I say, peering down the hill and out across the countryside. There’s movement on the horizon. A lot of movement. “We’re not going to take the fight to them?”

“That’ll be what he expects us to do,” Tristan says. “He’s always accused me of being rash and reckless. If we head down there to meet them, we lose all our advantage.”

“We stay and we wait,” Spencer says.

“But we have dragons!”

“Something he knows. Something he’ll have prepared for.”

I turn back to address Gwenhwyfar.

“We have a job to do. They’re coming.” She stares at me hard and I know she understands. “But you’re going to have to stay here and wait. We will come to you when we need you.”

Then I walk back with the others through the academy campus. Students and teachers alike are stationed instrategic positions. Tristan and Spencer give them encouraging nods or a few words of advice as we pass, and then we’re walking right around the academy mansion to wait at its front. The drive up to the academy is our weakest point and we have our strongest fighters here. Principal York, Coach Hank and several of the magicals who make up the resistance including Winnie and Trent.

With my five men beside me, I stride right to the front of the small crowd of people and stare straight down the hill. The movement on the horizon has morphed to a grayness that crawls over the countryside like rot. It moves at speed, slithering closer and closer and we can see the tanks and the trucks and the aura of magic around them.

I peer back towards the meadow where the dragons are waiting as ordered. I could climb on Gwenhwyfar’s back right now and fly over those troops and that machinery and blast them all away with Gwenhwyfar’s fire. But Tristan is insistent that that is what his dad wants us to do. To attack with a recklessness that will see us fall.

I chew my thumb. Winnie’s always teased me about my lack of patience. It definitely isn’t one of my virtues. But fate gave me these men for this reason. I have to trust in them and their plan.

Azlan removes my thumb from my mouth and grips my hand tightly in his.