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CHAPTER SEVEN

T he world echoed violently around me, my skull pounding from the infusion of light, sound, scent and touch.

Endlessly I had been confined to the cold, dark embrace of stone, the fickle illumination offered by dim flames and the ever-present glow of the stone collar which was buried in the flesh of my neck, the pressing silence only found beneath the ground.

A roar built in my lungs as I lumbered across the baren landscape in my Dragon form, snow clumping in my claws, fire blazing in my chest. But I held it back.

Even in my panic, the rush of adrenaline brought on by my sudden and unexpected freedom, I hadn’t lost all sense.

I needed to hide. I needed to get out of this frozen tundra and find my way back to my homeland.

My steel grey scales were dulled from years of captivity but the moonlight still managed to glint off of them, marking me out plainly against the backdrop of endless white.

My lungs laboured for breath, my time as a prisoner having slowed me, weakened me, and yet I wasn’t broken.

The lights and towers of the city I had spied upon my escape from the cavern - which had been my only home for hundreds of years - had long since faded beyond sight, but I didn’t dare slow.

I knew I was the prey now, hunters baying for my blood in the shadows of my footsteps. I doubted I held much chance of escaping them entirely, but I refused to give up. Even the broken wing which dragged through the snow at my side wouldn’t shatter my determination for that.

Perhaps the best fate I could hope for now would be a warrior’s death. If all I could wish to gain was to end this night with my blood staining the snow red around me and my death cries piercing the sky, then so be it. Because I was free at last. And I would die free one way or another.

I tipped my head back, surveying the slice of sky which had become visible between the roiling snow clouds above, trying to discern my location from the position of the stars.

I frowned at the few glimmering specks I could see, trying to remember their names, begging them to whisper words of wisdom or guidance to me.

But they remained silent and my years beneath the ground had stolen much of my memory of the sky from me.

Or perhaps the sky itself had changed in all this time, because little of what I could see beyond the moon held any meaning to me.

A growl rolled up my throat, threatening fire again though I managed to quell it. Fire could be seen from a great distance in these conditions and I hardly needed to make it any easier for my hunters to find me.

Smoke tumbled along my tongue in protest to the death of the flames I swallowed back and I let it seep through the gaps in my fangs as I bared them at the snow which covered the world in every direction.

The sky was already losing the inky black which marked the dead of night, dawn rushing closer, promising to sell my position to any who might wish to seek it.

I raised my snout into the air and inhaled deeply, closing my eyes as I focused on my sense of smell, trying to discern the best path to take.

From behind, the faint scent of smoke and packed bodies drifted on the wind, suggesting I was still headed away from that city I had spied. Nothing else of note caught my attention on the wind though I turned my head cautiously from one direction to the next.

The longer I stood still, the more the frigid wind nipped at my flesh like the gnawing of some starving beast on a bone.

I had no way to tell the direction but I did know that I wanted to stay as far from that city as possible. My captors almost certainly hailed from there and I had no desire to make their hunt for me any easier.

I set my gaze ahead again. The sun would rise soon enough and give me my bearings, though I intended to find somewhere to hide myself by then.

In the meantime, I sent a prayer to Taurus, begging him to send more snow so that my tracks might be covered, though perhaps Virgo would have been the more merciful deity to beg favours from.

My memory snagged on the man who had cut his way free of my cavern, the reek of blood clinging to him as he had fled. I hadn’t seen any sign of him out here in the snow, nor of the woman whose pink hair had clung to her cheeks, a fire in her eyes hot enough to rival that growing in my chest.

Whoever they were wasn’t my concern. Yet fate had chosen to put them in my path and release me from that hell.

Perhaps I owed them my thanks. Then again, the stars always had found amusement in my suffering. So I likely owed them my wrath instead.