“Oh,red.” The rider patted his dragon on the scales.
What, did that have some significance to him? Tothem?
“Like yourgirlfriend, Agrevlari,” he added.
A rumble reverberated through the dragon—Syla could feel it against her thighs. Had that been a growl or a sigh? Did dragonssigh?
The rider patted him again. “Check on the old fellow, will you?”
Only when the dragon flew back toward the courtyard did Syla realize the words had been for their scaled mount. Maybe the riders didn’t always use telepathy with them.
She pointed toward the doorway, and dragon and rider looked in that direction. Surprisingly, Fel stepped out from another half-crumbled structure in the courtyard. He’d grabbed her pack but dropped it by the door while he focused on the dragon. He’d traded his mace for his crossbow and had it loaded. Even as the rider turned, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, Fel fired a quarrel.
The dragon’s head whipped around, and he spewed fire at the projectile as it streaked toward them. The rider also released Syla to draw a sword, as if he’d planned to deflect the quarrel. Maybe he could have. Syla didn’t wait around to ask. She used her brief moment of freedom to jump off the dragon’s back.
As the wind whistled past, her shoulder bumped against a scaled flank, and she pitched off-balance toward the ground. She almost shrieked, terrified she’d made a mistake, that she would break every bone in her body. When she landed, she hit hard, coming down on her side and hitting her hip so badly that it jolted her to the core and sent her spectacles flying.
Her fear of losing them overrode the blast of pain that made her want to curl up and cry. Instead, she forced herself to her hands and knees so she could pat around for the spectacles. She couldn’tloseanotherpair.
An inferno of blurry orange burned through the air to her left, and she flinched, certain the dragon had decided to torch her. In the blast of light, its green outline was visible even to her poorvision. She realized it faced the opposite side of the courtyard. Toward Fel.
He had to be firing again, buying her time to escape. Determined to use it, she patted around at twice the speed. Where had her spectacles landed? Her knuckles grazed hard rock, drawing blood, and she swore.
“Princess Syla,” the rider called from the dragon’s back. “That was not necessary. We’re here to protect you. I?—”
When he broke off abruptly, she hoped he was dodging more crossbow quarrels. No, she hoped he wasfailingto dodge them.
“That’s Captain Vorik,” Fel yelled from across the courtyard.
The words prompted fresh fear. Wasn’t that the officer that Fel had identified earlier? The one whose dragon had smashed the roof onto them?
“You tried to kill us!” she yelled.
A thump nearby made the ground shiver. Had that dragon slammed its tail downagain?
“Find cover!” Fel yelled.
No kidding.
Syla brushed something small that moved at her touch. Her spectacles. She snatched them up and hooked them over her ears, relieved when the world came back into focus. The lenses weren’t cracked. Thank the earth god.
Something big whistled through the air above her. The dragon’s tail. The creature was swinging about to face its attacker. Fel had left the cover of a building to run—limp—across the courtyard.
“Look out!” Syla knew he was trying to lead the dragon away from her, but he would get himself killed doing it like that.
“Find cover!” he roared to her again.
He probably hadn’t seen that she’d lost her spectacles and that was what had delayed her. Even though she wanted to linger andhelp him, she didn’t have a weapon. The dragon’s muscles bunched as it prepared to spring, its tail out rigid.
Surprisingly, the rider—thecaptain—had lowered his sword and patted the creature’s side. The gesture seemed more designed to calm the dragon than propel it into motion. As Fel ran away, dodging behind a rubble pile before reaching the gatehouse and crouching there under partial cover, their scaled enemy didn’t spring to follow.
Syla didn’t know why they were hesitating to finish off Fel, but she obeyed his order and ran toward a doorway that led to the throne room, theater, and the council chambers. Half the building had collapsed, but she remembered there was a tunnel entrance in the back. Maybe she could reach it. If nothing else, she could hide among the wreckage. Unlike the wyverns, a dragon wouldn’t fit through the doorway.
Of course, itsridercould.
As she darted inside, Syla glanced back. Though the dragon remained facing Fel, tail twitching as if it longed to chase after him, the rider had turned to gaze after her. He hadn’t yet leaped off to give chase. As she ran deeper inside, she hoped he wouldn’t.
She needed a reprieve. No, she amended as she skirted a body. She needed for this day to have never happened. Unfortunately, even the gods could not turn back time.
