His power was ancient. Destructive.
“You would give your child to monsters.” Sy didn’t raise his voice. Instead, it was filled with a promise of pain and suffering.
“My child is a monster!”
“Wait –“ Elliot called out.
But Sy didn’t listen. Instead, he threw Gideon away like he weighed nothing. I watched the councillor fly across the dirt and hit the ground hard.
Sy turned and behind his face, something flared. He roared, raising his body off the ground with his half shifted wings.
Beneath us the ground shuddered, like something bigger was waking. I was sure Sy was about to rip all of us apart when I heard it.
Thump.
Thump, thump.
I turned towards the sound. “What was that –“
Sy landed in a rush of displaced air, nostrils flaring, his massive form drawing weapons instinctively from the Equinox soldiers.
“Wait!” I shouted, stepping in front of him. “Sy—”
The dragon shifted beside me, slow and deliberate. A moment later he stood there in human form, tall, unashamed, entirely unconcerned with the chaos he caused by existing.
“She is near,” he said.
Hope flared in my chest.Seph—
Then I heard it again.
Someone was yelling beneath our feet.
“Seph!” I yelled.
We tore at the rubble with bare hands until a doorway to the underground gave way. Dust billowed out—then a hand appeared.
Then another.
And then—
Seph’s small, bloodied body collapsed out onto the concrete, shoved from below.
“Oh my god.”
K leaped for her instinctively. “Seph.”
Something else moved in the darkness behind her.
A larger shape.
I saw the silver hair first—matted, dark with blood.
Sy was already moving. A low growl tore from his chest as he surged forward.
“Ash,” I breathed.
He dragged himself free and collapsed beside her, one arm curling around her body instinctively. He bared his teeth.
