Page 19 of Under Restless Skies

He raises the staff, its brilliant crystal tip swelling with light until it erupts, sending searing tendrils of energy toward me. The magic strikes me in the chest like a swarm of hot needles piercing through skin and muscle, driving the air from my lungs in a silent gasp.

The light pushes back my body, and then there is nothing under my feet—just open air and the roar of rain.

But my hands catch something: a narrow ledge jutting from the hillside just below the path. I didn’t fall. I didn’t die—yet. How long will my arms hold me?

Trembling, I wait for the rider to approach the edge and kill me. My shirt is soaked with blood, and a glance confirms the wounds are deep, an agony unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

I look down. The beach is too far below to jump, and the ledge I’m gripping juts out from the wall, leaving nothing but open air beneath me, with no footholds, nothing to break my descent. Above me, the path is just as unreachable.

Suspended, holding with difficulty to a wet, slippery rock, blood streaming down my front, I realize I’m about to meet Thantos. Of course the rider didn’t bother killing me.

There’s no surviving this.

Regret takes me as my brother comes to my thoughts. I told him I wouldn’t leave him, and here I am. Perhaps I should have listened to Laristella. Was life in that restaurant, caring for Kaio, that bad?

My mother’s face comes to mind, and I wonder if I’m about to meet her, or if she’s still in this world, somewhere too far from us, somewhere where she doesn’t need to care. The man who sometimes visited us comes to mind too, but he doesn’t have a face.

A whoosh of wings calls my attention, and I see a dragon, flying under the heavy rain, even if it should be impossible. Coming toward me.

Fear should be clawing at my throat. Instead, I’m taken by a strange, calm wonder. His scales are a stormy pattern of obsidian and amethyst, each one brilliant, catching the rain and the distant lightning. To be unmade by something so beautiful and become nothing but ash drifting in the wind would be a cleaner end than bleeding out on these rocks.

There’s nothing else for me to do, and I watch as he opens his jaw, a brilliant, purple spark illuminating his throat. This is it, and I’m ready. My brother has a job and a place to live, even if it’s not perfect. He’ll survive.

But the dragon’s spark fades, and yet he keeps flying toward me, his row of huge, pointed teeth on display. I always heard that dragons don’t eat people. What a time to be wrong.

My eyes close, bracing for the end. But the tongue beneath me is warm and gentle, and the mouth that lifts me from the rock does not bite down.

I’m flying. Too late now to reconsider my life goals.

Then, the teeth stop holding me, and my body freezes as I realize I’m falling.

Falling a short distance, landing on fluffy sand, the dragon above me, his powerful legs around my body. I’m safe on the ground, and yet sharp pain spreads from my chest wounds. Deep, bleeding wounds. Death is still coming.

I look into the dragon’s brilliant purple eyes, and, strangely, see not an enemy, but a friend. He gazes at me with compassion, probably about to deal a merciful death blow. The feeling that comes to me is love, a warmth spreading over my chest. Calm. Not a love that wants to own someone, but a bigger, different kind of love.

Peace fills my mind. Acceptance.

The dragon then grazes his teeth over me. Instead of scraping or cutting my skin, all he does is rip my bloody shirt, then shear my undergarments. Cool wind reaches my upper body, my wounds, my breasts. I don’t feel ashamed. If anything, I feel free.

The dragon opens his jaw again, and runs his tongue over me, in a soft, soothing caress, wiping the blood, easing the pain, causing a strange, pleasant buzz,. He licks me again, a powerful energy connecting us, humming through my skin, spreading through my body.

Another graze of his tongue, and the pain fades. I reach out a hand and pat his snout, his skin so soft under my palm.

He closes his eyes as if basking in my touch. Then, without warning, he flies away and disappears into the storm. An impossible flight. Everything so impossible.

Rain pelts my body as I touch my chest—no longer oozing blood, no longer painful. I’m half naked on a strange beach, my breasts exposed, unable to comprehend the last minutes of my life.

And then it hits me: I’m alive. I survived. But now I need to return to my city.

My breath is ragged and my mind confused as I get up, then tie the shirt with the belt. I look around me, searching for Alayel, and exhale when I see him running toward me, his hair wet against his face.

“Fuck, Mayara.” He sounds relieved, angry, desperate. “I thought you were dead. Let’s go.”

He ties the rope around my body, jumps into the water, and I follow, trying my best to swim fast, even if there’s no boat in sight. At least the rain is still heavy.

We swim, and as much as I kick, Alayel’s still the one pulling me.

Reaching the boat and climbing the steps feels like moving through a hazy dream. For a second, I wonder if I died when that magic hit me, but then I press my fingers on my bloody shirt. I’m here.