Page 47 of A Matter of Dragons

A long, low growl filled the air. I sheathed my sword and turned slowly, almost against my will. Something was beginning to emerge from the darkness inside the mountain, something huge and rustling. Something hurting.

“Come,” an inhuman voice growled.

I stepped forward, out of the shelter of the brush oak, pulled forward by a longing I could never have explained. A head emerged from the darkness, all fangs and horns, and then a massive, scaly leg. Blood streaked down the talons, blood as dark as the night sky. The butt of a spear stuck out from beneath the dragon’s front leg.

“Come,” the voice said again, only this time it was almost a whimper.

I came.

The dragon’s jaw opened, and I saw that her throat burned red, like a furnace. Flames licked the interior of her mouth, engulfing her jagged teeth, erupting into the night air. I felt heat, and wind, and then the dragon’s flames swallowed me whole.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Doshir

I’d done everything I could for the man.

Ailen the healer had opened her door after my frantic pounding and screaming. The woman had seemed oddly unperturbed by the sudden appearance of a naked man dragging a seriously wounded stranger through her door; healers must lead very interesting lives. I hadn’t much cared for the serious set of her brow as we’d lifted Eadberh onto a large bed of straw in one of her darkened back rooms.

“Doshir,” she’d begun, fixing me with a serious expression that made me wish, once more, that I’d been wearing pants instead of awkwardly trying to cover myself with my hands.

“I’ll pay anything,” I’d blurted, stopping the healer before she could finish her sentence. Now that I’d managed to deliver the man Rayne had called Eadberh, and he was still kind of breathing, I was suddenly desperate to get back to the mountains. The Mothers only knew what was happening with Mad Scarlett. And the men who’d attacked Eadberh. And Rayne.

“It’s not a matter of payment,” Ailen had replied. She’d lowered her voice as she’d begun to loosen the tourniquet Rayne had applied.

I’d taken a step toward her door, hoping to avoid witnessing whatever was about to happen.

“Do whatever you can,” I’d said. “Please.”

“Of course.” Ailen had nodded distractedly as she’d bent over Eadberh’s leg. “Send in my boy, Doshir. And tell him to start heating some water.”

I’d turned and fled, barking out Ailen’s request to the handsome young man wiping sleep out of his eyes in the corner of her front room. And then I was back outside and shifting into my dragon as soon as I’d cleared her stoop. My wings had ached as I’d beaten the night air, climbing fast against the looming bulk of the Knife’s Edge mountains.

The fire that had surrounded Rayne and her injured friend had spread in an arching fan through the gully, licking at the rough, steep flanks of the mountain. It was a calm night and we’d had a wet spring; with any luck, the fires would spend themselves on the dry pine and scruffy brush oak before they reached the road.

Luck. Not that I’d ever had a surplus of that. My chest grumbled with a roar, and I closed the cage of my teeth to keep it from escaping. Something moved in the brush above the fire. I pushed my wings harder, my nostrils flared for any new scents.

Just blood. Human blood and the heavier, thicker scent of dragon blood, and ash, and the hard sting of melted metal. I narrowed my eyes at the ledge by Mad Scarlett’s cave. There was only one thing in these mountains capable of melting forged metal: dragonfire. My wings beat upward, and the twisted, smoldering remains scattered outside Mad Scarlett’s cave came into view. My stomach knotted as the aching throb of my wings spread across my chest. That wasn’t Rayne, couldn’t be Rayne—

Stone scraped against stone. Metal hissed. Somewhere, someone had just sheathed a sword. Something moved in the shadows of Mad Scarlett’s cave. I gasped for breath, my throat as raw as the stones, as Mad Scarlett dragged herself out of the darkness. She was dying, some distant part of me noticed. The stench of death hung all around her; blood poured down her legs and fell in thick drops to the stones.

“Come,” Mad Scarlett growled.

But not to me. Every muscle in my body tensed. A woman stepped out of a stand of oak brush clinging to the edge of Mad Scarlett’s ledge. The fire of her hair caught the dull silver of the moonlight. She stood tall and proud, one hand on the hilt of her sword, the angry welt across her face almost a badge of courage.

No. Mothers, no. I opened my mouth to scream, to cry out a warning.

“Come,” Mad Scarlett called again, her dying voice almost a gurgle.

Rayne walked toward the dragon, her human body so fragile and so bold. Mad Scarlett’s jaws gaped open. Rayne’s hand dropped from the hilt of her sword. I screamed, but the sound was lost in the oncoming rush of flame.

I reached the ledge just as Rayne's body was swallowed by dragonfire. My talons bit into stone as my heart ripped apart in my chest. Mothers, no! My vision blurred as the heat of dragonfire washed over me, distorting the world. Rocks crumbled to dust beneath my talons; rage flooded my body with heat and energy, a raw, vicious fuel aching with the bottomless hunger of the forest fires beneath me.

Mad Scarlett may be dying already but, by the time I left, she would be dead. She would be dead, and she would suffer.

The dragonfire ebbed, leaving darkness. My eyes widened, trying to adjust to the sudden absence of light. I could still see the spot where Rayne had stood, her brave and beautiful human body, as though her form had left a hole in the fabric of the universe.

Mad Scarlett made a coughing, gurgling sound. The hole that had once been Rayne moved. My heart stopped. The entire world held still.