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AS YOU WERE, DRAGON

CEDRIC

She didn’t pause. Didn’t look back as she sprang forward, her staff spinning in a flash of wood and metal. With a leap, Elyria was parallel to the dragon’s snout, ripping her dagger back out as the creature howled. Fangs dripping, it snapped at her in retaliation, but she was little more than a blur as she darted out of the way.

The fae warrior’s movements were fluid, graceful. She danced around its whipping tail and avoided its slashing claws. She wielded her wings like fins—flaring them one at a time when she needed to make a sharp turn, using a quick flap to boost the height of her jumps. She struck with precision, the hard metal end of her staff finding points of weakness in the dragon’s armor-like scales as if she could see straight through them.

It was a miraculous and terrifying sight.

Cedric tore his eyes from the beautiful onslaught and stumbled over to his sword, though he hardly needed it anymore. Not as Elyria’s calculated barrage of blows had the beast retreating by the time he wrapped his hand around the hilt.

“Stop showboating!” called a voice, somewhat familiar. Kit stood a short distance away, her silver hair glowing in the aurora’s light, golden wings fluttering with agitation.

Elyria rolled her eyes but pulled back. With a single pump of its massive wings, the dragon was in the sky, soaring away with a forceful blast of air that pushed Cedric back down to one knee. He planted his sword in the ground to keep himself from being knocked over completely.

“Just doing my civic duty,” drawled Elyria at the same time her gaze landed on Cedric. “Oh. It’s you.” Her lip curled, her wings folding in closer to her body. “Hey! Dragon!” she called, her eyes darting to the sky. “You can come back. As you were and all that.”

“Hilarious,” Cedric grumbled as he got to his feet again. He couldn’t begrudge the fact that she’d clearly saved him from a rather...chargrilled...fate, but did it have to be her ? The idea of owing his life to her twisted something deep in his chest, a knot of conflicting emotions that made his armor feel too tight.

He wanted to snap at her, to brush off her aid as wholly unnecessary, to prove he wasn’t some helpless fool in need of her rescue. But, of course, that wasn’t true. Not even in the slightest. Cedric’s cheeks warmed as he had to begrudgingly admit to himself that she had not only saved him but had done so with a level of skill and precision that left him feeling...small.

And that made him hate her even more than he already did.

“I certainly thought so,” Elyria said with a smirk. “Next time, I’d recommend not getting nearly roasted by dragonfyre, by the way.”

Cedric clenched his jaw, forcing himself to meet her emerald gaze. “What are you doing here? I thought you were above games such as these,” he said, grunting as he freed his sword from the rocky soil.

She arched a brow. “That’s an interesting way of saying ‘thank you.’”

Cedric opened his mouth, an entirely different set of words on the tip of his tongue, but Thraigg’s rough voice interrupted him before he had a chance to retort.

“Oi.” The dwarf wheezed a bit as he helped Zephyr to her feet. “You two want to finish this later? Dunno about ye, but I’m ready to get the hells out of here.” He pointed his hammer at the glowing archway.

“Right,” said Cedric, striding over to the pair. “All right there, Zephyr?”

The sylvan nodded. “You?”

Cedric prodded gingerly at the back of his head and grimaced. “Nothing you can’t help fix, I’m sure.”

Elyria snorted as she walked past, her almond scent hitting him again. It reminded Cedric of fresh marzipan—sugary and nutty, with a note of tart cherry...and the barest hint of something floral. But there was something dangerous there too. After all, too much bitter almond could kill a man.

Heart pounding, he refocused on the glowing archway ahead. Elyria, Kit, and Thraigg were already moving toward it—only Zephyr stayed back, a worried expression on her face as she looked at Cedric.

“I truly am fine,” he told her, his eyes still on the trio as he started after them. The dwarf said something that made the two fae women laugh and a sour taste crept into Cedric’s mouth. “How can they act as if we weren’t?—”

“A few seconds from being dragon fodder?” Zephyr offered.

“Precisely.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps they are used to this sort of thing.”

Cedric frowned. What kind of life must one have lived to be able to act so nonchalant after such a harrowing experience? He’d trained the majority of his life to enter the Crucible, yet he’d nearly met his death how many times already?

He found himself wishing Lord Church had assigned him more missions that took him outside of Kingshelm, had bade him take on more dangerous quests. His world experience felt significantly lacking all of the sudden.

Cedric shuffled forward, Zephyr trailing a few steps behind. He was so lost in thought he didn’t hear the beat of wings, didn’t feel the whoosh of air. But he did hear the dragon’s bone-chilling screech—they all did—as it returned, membranous wings spread wide, nearly blotting out the aurora.

Cedric quickened his step, heart pounding in his ears. “Go!” he yelled. “Go through!”

Elyria and Kit ran for the archway. Nonsensically, Thraigg slowed to a stop, turning back to face Cedric and Zephyr. “Faster, ye ninnies!” he bellowed, waving his hammer wildly as he urged them on.

Cedric issued a strangled yell for Thraigg to hurry up as he rushed past, but the dwarf appeared to have other plans. With a defiant cry, he drew a hatchet from his belt and released it into the sky. It spun toward the dragon before lodging itself squarely in the fleshy underside of the joint where the creature’s wing connected to its body.

The resulting shriek of shock and pain nearly shattered Cedric’s eardrums. The dragon floundered in the air then twisted toward the ground, one wing flapping uselessly.

“I told ye not to ignore—” Thraigg’s victorious shout was cut short as the flailing dragon plummeted toward the exact spot where the dwarf stood, stunned.

Without thinking, Cedric doubled back, hooking Thraigg under the arm and pulling him aside. The dwarf barely missed being crushed by the creature’s massive tail as it met the ground, sending rock and debris flying.

“Move!” Cedric barked, pushing Thraigg toward the archway. Elyria and Kit were almost through, Zephyr not far behind.

A furious roar lit up Cedric’s nerves. He spun to see the limping dragon, eyes wide and wild, flaring with rage, with pain.

Its head tipped back.

“No!” Cedric rolled diagonally so he was no longer in line with the other champions, an attempt to keep them out of the path of the dragonfyre he knew was coming his way. The heat of the dragon’s breath grazed his skin once more, and he felt a sickening certainty that he would not be lucky enough to escape a second time. The dragon was too close, too fast?—

A blur of motion caught his eye. Not a person this time, but a weapon.

Thraigg’s massive hammer flew through the air, striking the underside of the dragon’s jaw with a furious crunch that forced the beast’s mouth shut before returning to the dwarf’s outstretched hand .

Cedric wasted no time scrambling back to his feet. “Handy trick!” he shouted, nodding at the hammer as he sprinted for the exit. Just twenty feet away now. Ten. Five. Thraigg grinned toothily as he matched Cedric’s step and the two threw themselves into the glowing archway with a final burst of speed.

The world tilted, the familiar sensation of being pulled through space washing over Cedric. And then they were through, the ground solid beneath their feet once more.

“They made it!” shouted someone as Cedric stumbled forward, catching himself before he fell. Thraigg burst forth just a few paces behind.

Zephyr approached Cedric first, her face pale. “You did it,” she whispered, her gaze darting between him and the archway as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.

Cedric could only nod, his heart pounding too fast and fiercely for his tongue to form words. He surveyed his new surroundings between gulps of labored breath. Zephyr, Elyria, Kit, and a handful of other champions were strewn about a stone antechamber. Most didn’t look much better off than Cedric felt—he noted the blood and grime covering the majority of them, though spirits seemed to vary. Gael Winters was clapping her friend Paelin on his shoulder with a hearty, disbelieving laugh. Alden Ashford’s sandy head was bent as he muttered prayers of gratitude to Aurelia. The remaining nocterrian champion, Tenebris Nox, simply leaned against a wall, silent and still as a statue.

Cedric managed to slow his breathing. His heart started to beat more evenly. Then, it stuttered as he caught Elyria’s eye for the briefest moment, her expression utterly bewildering. It was fleeting, gone too fast for Cedric to make sense of the emotions he thought he saw flicker across her face. Was she...relieved to see he’d made it through?

He looked back at the archway and thought of the way she saved him—about all the ways he’d already escaped death by a hairsbreadth. Cedric’s heart sank with the knowledge that this had only been the beginning.

And much worse was yet to come.