Page 1 of Wings of Destruction

One

Morgan

Adragon’s roar spells doom⁠—

Depending on your perspective. You’re either in the air with them, wing to wing, loyal to the cause … or you’re not. And if you’re not, then you’re a tasty snack. There and gone with a flash of sun on white fangs.

It’s a hard lesson learned.

Today, great droves of unicorns clog the open grassy plains of Fallkirk field, nostrils flared and red, panicky. Two agitated males clash their horns together and the bell clang of their meeting lands like a death knell inside of me.

Their whinnies are rallying cries.

Early autumn has yet to change the shivering aspen leaves to pure gold and it’s hot enough to force moisture along my skin. Sweat plasters my forest green and oak brown tunic to my back. I turn away from the field, my lungs straining.

My insides throb a horrible beat and my blood crests to a boiling point.

Does advance warning mean anything if your opponents are the size of mountains?

Will Fallkirk still stand by the end of the day?

“To the armory! Outfit the first wave!” The call of the armorer snaps my head to the left.

Ether take me.

Too many of the people I love will be resigned to the darkness between stars before the day is done. I know it, I feel it, in my blood, and singing in my bones.

The crest of the field rolls toward distant mountain peaks and craggy, wooded hills. Nestled in grass and trees are the carefully crafted log cabins of the village, and in the space between neighbors⁠—

It’s bedlam. Humans don their armor, sliding sharpened swords into sheaths. The chink of metal mingles with the trumpeting blasts of unicorns preparing to defend their homes.

We have no hope of winning this.

Am I the only one who sees it?

“Morgan! Out of the way, girl. Or are you planning on growing roots to match your stubbornness?”

The armorer elbows me, his face shadowed, his eyes like twin pools of water churned by rapids.

I step dutifully to the side but pause there. “Where’s my mother?”

“Somewhere in this melting pot of madness,” he replies, on edge. “She has no time for you. Go be useful somewhere else.”

Neither does the armorer. He hooks a finger through the knife band around his wrist and jogs off, belting out orders like he’s the chief of Fallkirk instead of my mother, his scent of metal and leather and solvent lingering.

Most of the herd are deep in preparation, but newly hammered armor outfits the unicorns near me. The delicate-looking hooks and chains keep the plates secure and glint beneath the blazing sun in a cloudless sky.

It feels like a bad omen.

A metal-plated shoulder knocks against my back in a silent bid for me to move faster and I break into a run. The unicorns race into battle. Tension clots the air until it’s dense enough to choke.

The dragons are coming.

I shake my head, turning against the tide and struggling forward. An uprising. That’s the official word from the palace. What a joke. My features twist into a disgusted sneer too easily for it to be anything but a habit.

We’ve done nothing against the empire of Manifest, certainly nothing large enough for the king to take notice.

I pump my arms for more speed, my sprinting swallowed beneath the thunder of a thousand stampeding hooves.