“It’s got the princess!” Fel yelled.
“Fire!” someone cried again from the courtyard wall.
Despite the fresh flames blazing all around the castle, more cannons boomed.
It didn’t matter. The dragon’s powerful legs shifted, and she leaped into the air. Wind from her wings whipped at Syla’s dress as she flew higher. No, she wascarriedhigher. Like a hapless fish caught in an eagle’s talons. Except a fang-filled maw wasworsethan talons. If the dragon shifted her jaw in the slightest—if the dragonburped—Syla might be eviscerated.
As the creature rose higher, Syla’s heart hammering against her eardrums, the damaged castle grounds came into view. The devastation was as bad as she’d feared. Then they flew over the edge of the bluff, and she dangled over a drop of more than a hundred feet down to the harbor. That was terrifying, but worse was the view of all the carnage, the destroyed and smoldering ships, docks and piers incinerated, and wreckage and bodies floating in the water.
A cannonball streaked toward Syla, and she almost cried out again. The dragon adjusted her grip as she tilted her wings to turn, to fly parallel to the coastline.
The cannonball sailed past inches below Syla’s dangling feet. More booms came from the castle walls.
The dragon’s wings flapped easily and steadily, and Syla had the impression that her captor was supremely unconcerned about being fired upon.
After a few moments, Syla got her fear under control. The dragon hadn’t yet killed her, and they’d flown out of range of the cannons. As she gazed grimly back at the smoldering city, she resolved again to find a way to help her people. More than ever, she knew she had to restore the sky shield so that more predators couldn’t take advantage.
If she could get away from the dragon, maybe she could yet find her aunt.
“Just one problem,” she whispered, all too aware of the fangs wrapped around her, holding her tightly so that she wouldn’t fall. “Getting away.”
After a journey shorter than Syla had expected, the dragon tilted inland.
Syla had thought her captor would take her to some distant lair, but this… She twisted her neck, careful not to prong herself with unnecessary body movements, and peered in the direction they were going.
The lighthouse. She blinked. Captain Vorik had saidhewould be there, but why would this red dragon take Syla there?
This red dragon, she reminded herself, had been chatting with Vorik’s dragon.
“Oh.”
As they approached the lighthouse, the fire still burning in the top, sending a beacon out to sea, Syla could make out a huge dark form resting on the ground beside it. The green dragon.
Her vision wasn’t strong enough to see in the gloom if Vorik was also down there. In the tunnels, the soldiers had chased afterhim, so it was possible he hadn’t made his way out here yet. It was also possible he was dead.
Her captor flapped her wings and angled toward the top of the lighthouse. Before reaching it, the dragon flexed her neck and startled Syla by letting go.
Syla shrieked, arms flailing, as she plunged toward the ground. She was still twenty feet in the air!
She flapped her arms as ifshemight fly, but she plummeted like a rock. The dragon on the ground lifted its head but did nothing to intervene. Syla squinted her eyes shut, expecting to hit so hard that she broke her neck.
But a man darted from the dragon’s side. At the last second, he positioned himself underneath and caught her under her knees and shoulders. Even so, her weight and momentum almost carried her to the ground. But he compensated and kept her from injury.
With terror surging through her body, Syla gripped his shoulders, half afraid he would do as the dragon had and cast her away. The cliff above which the lighthouse perched wasn’t that far away…
“Your Highness,” Captain Vorik said in surprise. “I didn’t expect you so soon.”
Syla groaned.
11
Vorik heldthe stunned Princess Syla in his arms, looking back and forth between her and Wreylith the Red, the powerful and aloof female dragon perched atop the lighthouse.
He felt almost as stunned as the woman in his arms. Since Agrevlari had pined after Wreylith from afar for years, Vorik was aware of the dragon, and he’d listened in on a few of the telepathic conversations they’d shared when they’d passed in flight before, so he knew that the independent female cared nothing for humans, whether gardeners or stormers.
Why had she flown to the castle and plucked Syla away from her people? Why had she even known who Syla was?
Oh, Vorik had no doubt that Wreylith could sense which humans had magic, either granted via bonds with dragons or by birth because of their gods-touched heritage, but the wild dragons cared about neither.
