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But it’s freezing cold, so all I can think about is whether Sammy, Coral, and Jade are warm and safe. Then whether Gideon’s picking a fight with Axel. Whether the weird old woman’s alright. I can’t decide whether I liked her or whether she gave me the heebie jeebies.
I should have come up with another way for Azar to switch to Axel. I need to be around when he’s giving orders.
Then I worry about whether the other dragons will pick fights with Axel while Azar’s not around to keep him safe. I’m basically running round and round in futile mental circles, and I don’t love it. Although there aren’t any dragons anywhere in sight that I need to hide from, I finally hobble over to the shed to see what’s inside.
It takes about four strikes with the hilt of my heart-stone blades before I knock the lock open, and I find myself hoping that my difficulty means there’s something great inside. No such luck.
It’s carcasses.
Someone has strung meat carcasses up in the shed, possibly to cure? They don’t smell spoiled, but the scent is overpowering all the same. I back out immediately, closing the door as best I can, which isn’t very successful. Thanks to the lock I busted, the door swings open as soon as I close it. The wind isn’t helping me, either.
That’s when I first notice the howling.
It could have been going on before, certainly, but now I can definitely hear the faint howling of wolves in the distance. Is that why this shed was locked with such a nice lock? Was it to keep the wolves from eating the curing meat? Ugh. And now I’ve opened the door to invite them to come for dinner.
Axel told me to stay put, but I doubt he meant to leave me here as bait for the local arctic wolf pack. I have swords, and I know how to use them, but I don’t know whether I can bring myself to kill cute, shaggy wolves who are just hungry. I’d probably just toss meat at them until they disappeared.
But what if they prefer fresh meat?
I start walking away from the howling, but that also happens to be toward the volcano. I stop myself once I realize my direction, but a moment later, I’m trudging along again, as if encouraged by some unseen arm. About three hundred yards along the path, I notice the gnarled form of a tree that’s right next to a large boulder.
I’ve seen them both before.
On that night so long ago, I fell and face-planted right beside this exact tree. I remember thinking that it looked like my great-grandmother’s fist, just before she died.
It still does, honestly.
I pick up the pace, something inside of me almost compelling me forward now. As I climb, the wind worsens, ripping at my dragon-scale clothing, which wasn’t really made to keep me warm to begin with. My only solution to the now-constant shivering is to move faster—why didn’t I insist that Axel craft me a thick cloak or something before he left?
Probably because we both assumed the shed would provide some shelter, at least from the pernicious wind. I suppose I could have held my nose and stayed there, so really, it’s my own fault that I’m freezing out here.
But I can make fireballs. Right? Right.
I look up ahead at a dried-up bush protruding from a patch of ground where the snow layer is thin. I focus as hard as I can, and then I fling my hands outward.
Nothing happens.
At least no one’s here to laugh at my failure.
I continue onward, moving as fast as I possibly can without slipping and falling flat on my face. It’s hot where the volcano was—I remember that much. Plus, I’ll get a sneak peek into the place my mom says I imagined. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find evidence of this heart.
Or maybe I really am nuts, and I made it all up.
But as I climb higher and higher, I hear something even more disturbing than the howling of the wind.
Chanting.
I freeze in place, my booted feet no longer moving.
My mom’s phone showed me the truth, the reality. There were no people present years ago when I came. No one was chanting. No one else was even there. I was alone with the woman with the artificial leg, Beer Can, and Driver. I murdered them and escaped down the mountain for no reason—Mom and Dad were already closing in on us.
But if all that is true, then who am I hearing now? The chanting sounds just like the voices I heard before.
I’m trembling all over, and I can’t tell anymore whether it’s from the temperature or from my own fear, which is now clawing its way up my body to lodge in my throat. I’m a strong, confident warrior, and yet, without my big dragon as backup, apparently, I’m a big fat coward. The problem is that, surrounded by all this dark, snowy wilderness, I’m not sure whether it’s safer for me to head back to the wolf-bait shed, or continue climbing upward toward the volcano-of-crazy-chanting that I know is probably all in my head.
I want to sit down and sob.
Maybe Azar will sense my distress and come flying to the rescue.
