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V ahly raged out of the passageway, arms scraping against the rocks and heart punching up into her throat.

The dragon barked what might have been a mocking laugh, the rain pelting his moss-green scales and the membrane of his outstretched wings.

Vahly’s sword pierced through the pouring rain, and just when she could’ve shoved the point toward the soft spot in on the dragon’s groin—a place he would certainly block with ease—she turned to surprise him, swinging the blade under the rogue’s wing joint.

The steel bit into the dragon’s flesh.

He fell back, then lunged at her, his fiery, slitted eyes flashing. A razor-sharp talon raked across Vahly’s chest, then struck out horizontally again, this time missing her. A deep burning seared her flesh, and blood poured down her shirt between her breasts from the dragon’s first strike.

Dragonfire erupted from the rogue’s open maw.

Every inch of Vahly buzzed as she ducked in what seemed like a slowed version of time, her free hand covering the egg inside her pack as if she were a gryphon mother.

Her gut clenched, and her heart screamed for the innocent creature inside.

Dragonfire rippled—sapphire and citrine—the flames bright as jewels overhead.

The heat, unhindered by the rainstorm, drew sweat from every pore on Vahly’s body.

A battle cry tore the air behind her.

Rotating in a crouch, she watched Arc raise an air magic wind that blasted the silver spears of rain away from his outstretched arms and pressed the dragonfire toward the Jade.

The creature shrieked. His fire died.

The air magic pushed against Vahly, and, wincing, she fell onto her injured knee. The wind circled, whirled, then dragged both her and Arc away from the rogue Jade before dropping them to the wet earth.

Nix leapt to her feet, her face cloaked in mud, eyes like suns breaking through the storm. She stumbled toward the rogue Jade. “This is the Earth Queen, fool! She’s trying to save your arse from the sea!”

The Jade twisted and threw a glare at Nix. His great tail lashed at Vahly and Arc, who flattened themselves to keep from being struck with a deadly blow.

The dragon shifted to his human-like form in a flash, faster than she’d seen any dragon change.

His voice snapped through the sound of thunder. “Call me fool again, Lapis worm!” His voice was rough from the sudden shift. Lightning cracked, and he drew the sort of breath that preceded dragonfire.

Nix held up her hands. “I’m no Lapis. I’m a Call Breaker. The Call Breaker. Mistress of the Cider House of Dragon’s Back. If you rain your fire down on me, every Breaker on this island will hunt you down.”

Vahly sheathed her sword. The earth’s heart thudded in echo to her own pulse, the beat that shuddered through the cut beneath her collarbone.

The rogue dragon’s nostrils bled night-dark smoke.

He was going to attack again.

Drenched to the bone and bleeding freely, Vahly bent and dug her fingers into the sandy mud. The grit pushed beneath her fingernails, and she welcomed the feel of it, the scent of the world supporting her, holding her.

“Rise,” she called to the earth.

The ground trembled as if a great clap of thunder had rolled through.

But this was her power. Not the storm’s.

A circle of the earth rose around the rogue dragon, bringing a salt cedar shrub with blood-red blooms and a tangle of long-since-forgotten akoli grapevines with it.

Nix’s smile was white in the storm’s gray light.

“Defend,” Vahly whispered to the earth before her.

A tremor shook her bones, and the storm nearly blew her backward as the beat of the world thundered in time with the angry sky.

Arc stood beside Vahly, eyes wide.

The ground piled upon itself to form a circular barrier around the rogue.

And then it fell, crashing, pressing, shoving the enemy dragon into the ground.

The rogue’s terrible roar was cut off with a finality that could only mean death. Lightning washed the mountain pass and the new grave.

A spasm shook Vahly, and her teeth chattered enough to make her jaw ache. Her knees jellied. She fell, all her energy drained from using her new magic.

The rain departed like a crowd finished with the entertainment at hand.

“Not bad, Queenie.”

Vahly wanted to feel triumph, but only a hollowness filled her, a shade of the sadness that haunted her since the death of Dramour, Ibai, and Kemen.

Arc put a warm, strong hand on Vahly’s back. “It was necessary.”

Her eyes shuttered at the gentle contact, and she imagined soaking in Arc’s kind words. With a deep breath, she was able to nod in silent gratitude.

“Stones, yes, it was.” Nix blew a bit of dragonfire over the dead and buried rogue. “He would’ve killed at least one of us if it came to more fighting. What a maniac. No manners whatsoever.” She crouched by Vahly, her gaze darting from Vahly’s cut to her face.

Arc moved the partially ripped neckline of Vahly’s shirt, then let his hands hover over the jagged talon cut on her chest. Tingling warmth eased into her flesh. The blood stopped flowing, but the pain lingered.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

“I’m hurt,” she said dumbly, her ears ringing.

“Yes.” Arc traded a pinched look with Nix.

Nix brushed Vahly’s hair from her forehead with a cool, damp hand. “Arcturus is healing you. I’m guessing the magic you did sucked you dry. What do you think, Arcturus? Don’t you think that’s really the big issue here?”

“I do. You aren’t accustomed to wielding your earth magic. It’ll take time and practice to grow strong enough to withstand the toll it takes on your human body and soul.”

“Does magic drain elves, too?” Nix asked.

Arc finished his healing work. “It does. When I was younger, the magic exhausted me. But after much training, I seem to remain unfazed by using great amounts of magic.” He plucked a soft, unusual leaf from where it sprouted beneath another salt cedar shrub and dabbed it along the dried blood of Vahly’s cut.

She took the leaf from him with gentle fingers. “Thank you, Arc. I’ve got it from here.”

Her body was still shaking, and her ears rang with the knowledge that something was off, but she couldn’t sit here forever. Perhaps moving on—back to the ruins in the sea—would ease the feeling. Perhaps her magic was urging her to get under the sea as quickly as possible.

She cleaned the blood away as best she could and straightened her vest, and they headed down the mountain.

Their voices mingled in low tones, talking of the rogues and how Vahly’s magic might work against the sea folk.

“I could raise a small island in the ocean, perhaps.” Vahly stepped beneath two olive trees, their leaves dripping from the earlier storm. “But I’ll most likely pass out right afterward, so I’m not sure how helpful that is.”

“My kynd could leap to your new islands,” Arc said.

“I said one island. Don’t get too excited.”

“When you grow stronger—which you will—and you create several new islands, my kynd could use them as a base from which to throw spellwork farther away from shore. We can blind the sea folk temporarily by darkening the sea to black, then washing it in bright light. Their eyes are far more sensitive than ours.”

Nix plucked an olive from another tree and popped it between her lips.

“If your islands are large enough, and you wall them up like you did to that rogue, we dragons could be further protected from salt water the sea folk spell with their spears and chanting. We could use the earth creations as bunkers between strikes.”

Arc’s eyes flashed. “And I could drive back the salt water near the land bunkers as the dragons lift off again. This could truly work.”

Vahly shook her head to try to stop her ears from ringing. She touched her pack, feeling for the egg, for the strange comfort it gave her.

“I love your enthusiasm,” she said, “but the Sea Queen can raise waves taller than a respectable mountain. My islands would have to be enormous. How can I possibly—”

Her heart stopped.

The pack was flat as a cooking stone.

Empty.

Her stomach heaved, and she fought to stay upright.

“Vahly?” Arc was at her side in a flash of movement, Nix just behind him.

“The egg.” Vahly’s trembling fingers lifted her satchel to show a ripped seam along the bottom. The rogue’s second strike must have torn the pack open. “It’s gone.”