Page 124 of Dream Reaper

It was too heavy for her to throw, the blue tendrils of fire spiraling around her wrists and forearms as they licked greedily at her scales. The edges of those scales were beginning to turn molten gold, as if they were heating in a forge. She lifted her arms as high as she could to offer the magic to Jerrid.

He swooped toward her, batting away a vine of smoky shadow before scooping up the fireball.

Ava began to build the next one as Jerrid hurled it into the storm with all his energy. The explosion flung him backward, smoke and shadow and blue fire filling the night sky.

“Dragon’s teeth!” he yelped as he flapped wildly to keep himself in the air.

Prince Haryk emerged from the smoke, staggering out of the storm where he had been trapped. He was forming his own flaming inferno, his unseeing eyes a blaze of blue magic. White and gold lightning crackled around his hands as he too flung his attack toward the shadow.

The storm changed its shape, no longer a spiraling tornado, but now a mass of flailing tentacles and vines exploding from a huge, dark mass at the center. The heart of the beast was so dark, so huge, it seemed fathomless. A thing born of pure nightmares.

A thing too great to be defeated. Too massive to be contained. Too deadly to be survived.

Ava’s hopes shriveled within her. Suddenly, she felt so very small. One small creature in a massive forest of shadows. A blip on the map of Rhuin with all its great rivers, mountains, and deserts. A speck in a wide, wide universe.

She wasn’t ready for war, not like this.

She’d never been ready. Those long days when she and Persis and their friend Omarie fled through the Shadewood, chased by Talos and his hounds? She hadn’t been ready then.

When Talos dragged her through the darkness, intending to use her as a tool before he sliced her throat and tossed her to the side? She hadn’t been ready then.

And now that they faced this nightmarish creature that attacked helpless girls and children, that went after the weak and vulnerable, those who should be protected, who should run free through the trees, laughing in the sunlight… She still wasn’t ready.

But if she lost her nerve now, all would be lost.

Finnr and Siri and Roar. Brynja and Ylsi. Prince Haryk.

And Jerrid.

All her new friends. If she quailed now, they would all die in this forest. Devoured by something that had no soul. Something that ate other souls.

And now it was coming for them.

For her.

A tentacle lashed out and caught around her ankle, ripping her off balance. She fell backwards, rolling onto her stomach and grunting as she clawed at the soft ground, grass and dirt embedding beneath her fingernails.

Then the earth fell away, and she soared into the air, high above the ground, which spun in a wild circle beneath her. Nausea surged, and she tried to bend at the waist to reach her ankle.

But the shadow shook her hard, snapping her like a flag in the wind.

Pain lanced up her spine, and darkness exploded behind her eyes. But it melted away, replaced by spangles of skull-pounding stars. Then the grip around her leg released. She plummeted toward the abyss below and squeezed her eyes shut, a scream caught in her throat.

But then something slammed into her, sweeping her up and away from the ground mere inches from her face. The shadow had a hold of her wrist and was swinging her in a wide arc⁠—

But no. Those were fingers around her wrist bones.

Her eyes snapped open, and she briefly glimpsed dragon scales and light-colored hair spinning with her. She twisted as she swung and tried to reach for the hand hanging on to her wrist. But they were out of control, flailing up and over and back toward the ground below.

“Dragon!” she screamed, knowing they would hit the ground with shattering force at any second.

Pain exploded in her back, a combination of violent itching and painful burning. Then she hit the ground so hard it drove the breath from her lungs. Jerrid landed on top of her, and they skidded across the ground.

No, they skidded through the ground.

The force of the impact was so strong that they had sunk into the earth and were carving a path through the soft soil and molding leaves. The burning intensified all along her spine as they skidded to a halt on the far side of the clearing.

Jerrid groaned and flopped to one side, his arm draped across her stomach. She blinked furiously as she tried to clear her spotty vision and make sense of where her limbs were.