Page 17 of Wings of Destruction

I stifle a groan.

Adjusting the boy on my hip, I smooth the stuck pieces of hair away from his rectangular face. Tears have dried on the child’s cheeks and fresh ones carve trails down to his chin.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him in my fakest and most soothing voice. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get you back with your momma in no time. Won’t we? She’ll be so happy to see you.”

The child refuses to smile. I don’t blame him.

If I were in his position, I’d want to bawl my eyes out as well.

Who am I kidding? I am absolutely in his position.

I bounce the toddler on my hip and return my attention below.

The dark warrior has managed to hold his ground even without the help of his beast. They are shadow made flesh, moving with smooth and terrible precision.

Elspeth stands her ground, and my mother fights valiantly.

Then again, so does the enemy. They are ruthless and the arrival of the dragons almost seems to herald the beginning of the end.

Those kinds of thoughts will take me nowhere. Lanai, sensing my change of mood, scoffs low in her chest.

“Who wants to be out there in that mess anyway?” she asks with a huff, just loud enough to be overheard.

I swear, if she incites more objection among the people, I won’t hesitate to boot her right down the hill and watch her stumble with the rest of the loose gravel.

My temper is already wild and unpredictable, and my tether of control is thin.

The toddler refuses to quiet as he grabs a piece of my braid and gives a violent tug to show me, with pain, his displeasure.

“It’s going to be fine, little one.” There’s no way for me to free my hair.

I tamp down the pain and grin at him. “You’re very strong, aren’t you? You’re going to be a fine warrior one day.”

His eyes pool with tears, and his lower lip trembles.

Resigned, plagued with a headache and weighed down by the cursed necklace, I can’t look away from the field. So far, none of the other dragons have joined the battle. They stay perched in the air above, watching.

What are they waiting for?

Is their presence merely strategy? As though our people will cower from the mere glimpse of their scaly bellies?

I scoff out loud just like Lanai.

They’ll find we’re no cowards if we haven’t proven ourselves already.

The enemy is dancing, driving our herd toward the edge of the field where they will be forced to either retreat into the safety of the valley below or meet their doom against the edge of the mountains.

My attention latches on that single fighter in black. He hasn’t hesitated since his arrival, and he’s somehow managed to cut his way into the thick of things. Unlike the rest of his brothers in arms.

I track him the way I’d track a wolf circling the herd. If I lose him in the chaos, the next place I’ll find him is by the bodies. A cold prickle starts at the rear of my skull and spreads, a warning with no words in it.

His twin blades catch the watery sunlight as he cuts down the people I care about and the ones I grew up with. A fierce hatred bubbles up from the depths of my being at this unstoppable and fearless warrior.

Hatred, and beneath it something colder. The certainty that no one down there can stop him.

If a blade like that had been born on our side of the mountains⁠—

The toddler wails again and beats his fist on my clavicle before resting his head against the crook of my neck. I shush him with meaningless whispered noise and bounce from foot to foot.