THIS ISN’T FUCKING HAPPENING!
Ignos begins to waver, and I look away from the spot where Essi disappeared, too scared of what I’ll see. Her lifeless body in the slosh—ravaged.
Dead.
More Moltenmaws flock the scene, like a thunderous storm churning above. No doubt drawn by the stench of fried flesh, they screech, swooping down to snatch roasted beasts. Some draw so close their barbed tails almost whip me in their haste as I slump to my heels and tear at my hair.
She just—
SHE—
A screeching roar fills the smoggy air.
The hairs on the back of my neck lift, and I look up—
Into the bright-red eyes of a dark-purple Moltenmaw diving at me, claws splayed and ready tosnatch. A buck, based on his gargantuan size.
The rhythmicthumpof his beating wings bashes air against my skin, tilling ash and embers, fanning the dying flames.
This is it. The fucked-up end I’ve been waiting for since the dae I failed to realize what Mah was about to do. Since I trailed her through the castle like a rowdy shadow, groaning about an argument I’d had with Dothea, missing the flatness in her eyes that appeared sometimes … when she fell into thoughts about our younger sister who died too soon.
Until it was too late.
Until she was looking sidelong at me as the wind tangled with her bloodred hair, her foot sliding forward.
Until she was falling away while I screamed for her to come back to me.
I don’t cower. Instead, I tip back and look the Moltenmaw right in those ruddy fucking eyes. I bare my throat, hands fisted as I tense every muscle in my body and scream two blasted words.
“FUCK YOUUUUU!”
Something collides with my internal barrier with such might I jolt from the impact. A flash of panic busts through me before a screeched roar attacks from behind.
There’s a gust of air. A bellowing heave. A flash of yellow-and-gold-threaded plumage, swooping almost low enough to touch.
My heart thunders, then slams to a stop as Maell collides with the beast nearly twice her size, but not before the foreign dragon whips its tail forward and tries to stab me—poisonous barb glinting in the firelight.
Too close.
Claws slash, beaks snap. Orange flames are thrown as both dragons battle for dominance, Maell screeching her wrath to the world while I’m crushed by fear for her safety.
For herlife.
She’s too small for this. Too sweet and tender—
“Maell! Retreat!”
I lift my internal wall and scream it through our bond. Get nothing in return, her attention homed in on surviving each blow of flames.
Each pronged stab and open-mawed attack.
“RETREAT!”
The roar comes with a spit of blood.
A second much smaller Moltenmaw with the same purple plumage joins in the smash of flames and snapping beaks—like warring mountains.
Heart racing, I stagger to my feet. “MAELL, RETREAT!”
