Page 69 of Starside

The man emerges on the back of a spiked dragon. He beams at the woman, and their group erupts in cheers. His smile is triumphant. He unsheathes his sword and lifts it to the sky in celebration.

Then he jerks forward as an arrow pierces through his chest. He looks down, slowly, as if in shock. The yells go quiet.

His body slumps forward. He slips right off the creature.

This time, the dragon doesn’t save him. The woman’s cry shreds my senses.

He hits the ground, and one of Cadoc’s friends surfaces from the lower branches. He leaps onto the back of the dragon—and flies away.

My blood goes cold.

Cadoc and his friends couldn’t get creatures by leaping. Now they’re taking them by killing those who have bonded. Just like stealing swords.

I look over at Zane, the woman’s weeping swallowing the world. Even if we don’t fall to our deaths … Cadoc’s archers will kill us.

He looks down in the direction of where the arrow came from. Just a few branches below. Then he looks back at me. “Go. I’ll deal with the archer.”

I frown. “Wait—”

He doesn’t. He strides back toward the stairs, and I race after him. I catch his wrist. “Zane. You can’t go alone. They’ll kill you.”

His face is as serious as I’ve ever seen it. “I’m getting my ax.”

He makes to move, but I pull one more time. “The reason you gave us for making the quest,” I say, the words spilling out of me. “That wasn’t the only reason, was it?”

It shouldn’t be important. For some reason, it is.

A flicker of surprise passes across his tanned face. His dark brows lift. He looks at me for a second, before saying, “No. It wasn’t.” Then, he slips from my grip. A moment later, he’s disappearing beneath the leaves again.

I wait. I wait for him to come back. Wait for some sort of sign that he was able to reach the archer. No one else jumps, so I can’t be sure. They’re all just mourning.

Zane doesn’t have a weapon, at least not until he recovers his ax. Did Cadoc and his friends get to him first?

The sun isn’t overhead anymore. It’s rapidly sinking. I wonder if we would be safe up here from those night demons. If maybe we can wait out Cadoc’s friends.

I just keep sitting.

Until the spot beneath me begins to tremble. I stand and take a few steps back, away from the moving branches.

Just before nothing short of a giant bursts through the treetop. His eyes glimmer when he sees me. When he sees my sword.

Pagnus Ender.

Fuck.

By the time I’m on my feet, he’s already traveled multiple yards. He has a new sword, and it’s taller than I am. It rings through the open air as he unsheathes it.

Fuck!

He swings it down, and I roll to the side, barely missing being sliced in half. The branches below crack at the contact. My breath spills out of me.

No time to think, just move. I unsheathe my own sword with both hands, then launch forward. Pagnus bellows as I stab his leg, my metal piercing two layers of armor, right through bone.

He falls to his knees.

I turn around just as Cadoc and his friends emerge. My eyes desperately search for both archers, and I only find one. The other isn’t with them.

Did Zane kill him? Did he kill Zane?