Page 32 of The Dragon King's Pregnant Mate
The spirit guardians. The true protectors of this cursed place.
And they won’t let us go without a fight.
The sounds of the battle far behind us seem to dull, consumed by the swirling blizzard. No more arrows fly through the cold air. Arvoren has seen them too, I know. His grip on my arm tightens painfully as they close in, dozens of them now, their forms rippling between solid and translucent. The air crystallizes around us, patterns of frost spreading across stone in delicate, deadly spirals. Behind us, I know Ulric's men approach at this very moment, or will soon, their boots hard on fresh-fallen snow, following our scent into the storm. We're surrounded. The noose is closing; I can feel it.
"Stay behind me," Arvoren growls, but I can hear the edge of real fear beneath his bravado. These aren't enemies he can fight with fang and talon, not with his brutal force.
The nearest spirit reaches for me with fingers like icicles. Their touch burns with impossible cold, sending pain shooting up my arm.
They speak in voices like winter wind through dead branches, in a language that tugs at something deep in my blood—words I should know, should remember, as if they were whispered to me in a dream I've forgotten.
I think for a moment, absurdly, lucidly, that I may die. I feel death so very close upon me, a fearsome sensation, and then something settles into place within my gut, perhaps something that has been waiting to take rest there. Power surges through me, different from before—wilder, more ancient. My magic mingles with the baby's, amplifying everything, burning through whatever remains of Ulric's poison.
The sensation is terrifying and exhilarating at once, like standing on the edge of a precipice in a long fall.
Cracks appear in the ice beneath our feet, spreading outward like a web of silver lightning. The spirits pause, their glowing eyes fixed on me with sudden intensity. Not hostility now, but recognition. They can sense it too—the old power stirring in my blood, in my child's blood. Magic older than Kaldoria itself.
Like calls to like.
"Calliope?" Arvoren's voice seems to come from very far away. There's something new in his tone—uncertainty, yes, but also wonder. "What are you—"
The ice across the bottom of the ravine shatters.
Raw power explodes from me in a wave of killing frost, turning the very air to crystal. The spirits cry out in voices like breaking glass as my magic catches them, pulls them down into the frozen depths to our left. They try to resist, their own power flaring bright as starlight, but they can't fight what they themselves are made of—winter claiming its own.
One by one they dissolve, their ethereal forms absorbed into the depths they once guarded. Their voices fade to whispers, then silence, leaving only the howl of the storm and the crackle of spreading frost. Behind us, I sense Ulric's advancing men fall back in terror as the ancient magic ripples outward, freezing the air in their lungs.
The effort leaves me hollow, trembling. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision as whatever strength the magic granted fades. My knees buckle, and I would have fallen if not for Arvoren's arms around me.
He catches me against his chest, and for a moment—just a moment—I let myself remember how it felt to be held by him without fear or doubt between us. His heart hammers against my cheek, dragon-fire warmth seeping through his clothes. When I look up at his face, his expression steals my breath: shock and awe and something deeper, something that makes my own heart stutter.
"How did you…" He trails off as shouts echo from the fortress. More of Ulric's men are coming. Whatever fragile moment we've shared shatters like the ice beneath our feet. "Never mind. We need to move. Can you walk?”
I manage a nod, though my legs feel like water. "For a little while."
"It'll have to be enough."
He half-carries me across the remaining ice, which groans ominously beneath our feet. The storm rages fiercer than ever, driven by my fading magic and desperate fear. Through the curtain of white, I catch glimpses of endless forest stretching out below—a sea of dark pines frosted with snow and ice. Somewhere out there lies safety, if we can reach it.
Behind us, I hear cursing and the clash of steel as our pursuers pick their way more carefully across the treacherous surface. An arrow whizzes past, then another, but the storm makes accuracy impossible. Arvoren's grip never wavers as he guides me down a treacherous path I hadn't even seen, his body angled to shield me from the worst of the wind and any stray arrows.
We reach the tree line just as dawn begins to stain the eastern sky. The ancient forest closes around us like a shroud, swallowing all sound save the endless howl of wind through branches. Soon we're deep enough in the wilderness that pursuit becomes dangerous even for Ulric's skilled trackers.
We've escaped. For now.
But as exhaustion claims me and darkness creeps at the edges of my vision, I can't shake the feeling that we're running from more than just Ulric's forces. The spirit guardians recognized something in me—something old, something powerful. Something that even Arvoren, with all his dragon's wisdom, doesn't fully understand.
Perhaps they will give chase. Perhaps this nation itself, this very land, shall be my enemy after all.
And there's something else too, harder to name. In the way the king holds me now, the way his thumb brushes absently against my arm as he steadies me, I sense the battle raging within him—between the possessive monarch who sees betrayal at every turn and the man who still, despite everything, yearns to trust me. To love me.
I don't know which side will win. Don't know if we can ever bridge the chasm of doubt and fear between us.
But as consciousness slips away and the storm rages on, I feel the child move again within me—a flutter of warmth and magic and possibility. And for the first time since I fled Millrath all those months ago, I let myself hope.
The ancient forest swallows us whole, and somewhere in the endless white, powers older than kingdoms or crowns stir from centuries of slumber.
Chapter 16 - Arvoren