Page 66 of Feralheart

His eyes rolled toward me. Exhausted. Full of panic.

I hummed my mother’s tune—my tune—my voice croaky with fear.

His breathing jerked, but he followed as I wove along the floor of the canyon, barely passing runes before they blasted flames into the air.

They pulsed on either side, heat building behind stone. I counted the seconds between eruptions, watching for the pattern.

Left wall: five seconds.

Right wall: eight.

Both walls: ten.

Except when it wasn’t. The pattern kept shifting, or I was miscounting.

I paused, urging Lykor to stop with me. And I waited, my breath as hot as flames, and my hair standing on end.

Sweat dripped into my eyes. The talon-blade at my hip heated until it burned through my pants. Every inhalation smelled of scorched flesh and the tang of old blood baked into stone.

The runes on either side of us brightened.

My grip tightened on Lykor’s harness.

“Now,” I cried out, tugging him forward, running through a gap in the narrow walls.

Flames blasted behind us, heat blistering the air.

I kept humming as we approached another narrow channel.

Fragments lay in the sand, half-buried. A piece of saddle leather, melted into a shape that might’ve been functional once. Buckles fused to fabric fused to sand.

Dragon and rider, mixed together. Refuse left behind by the retrieval crews.

My stomach lurched, but I kept humming, kept moving. If I stopped, I’d see Mother in those melted fragments. Father. Tolross.

Myself.

Lykor’s breathing raged. His claws skittered, scraping stone as he tried to move without stepping on the remains.

This was where dragons like him ended.

“With me,” I said, and Lykor followed.

The final gap stretched ahead. Seventy feet of open tunnel, the longest run yet. Runes lined both sides, glowing brighter than the others. Heat built behind the walls, eager to blast through and burn.

I stopped in the gap between sets of runes and counted.

We’d have seven seconds to make the run. Not enough time to fly. Lykor’s wings were shaking, his muscles spent.

Walking, I could time my steps. Control something in this place designed to strip control away.

I watched one more cycle to be sure.

“Now!”

I ran, dragging Lykor along with me.

Heat blazed in my palms, the red lines glowing bright. I poured everything I had into Lykor through my touch, the same magic I’d given the wild dragon in the woods.