Page 103
“Well, that is for us to decide, so step aside and let us through. We won’t ask again,” I warn him. He stares at me, and I can tell he doesn’t like taking orders from a Fae, let alone a woman.
“Your funeral,” he says, nodding to the men by the gates, motioning with his hand toward them. They press some buttons and the gates slowly start to open. We all start walking toward them.
“You’re going to die, you just killed everyone here by leaving the safety of the city.”
“We are no safer out there than we are in here,” Aldrin tells the Vampire, who glares back at him. We march through the gates to the other side. I can feel everyone’s excitement about breaking out of the city, but I am too nervous to feel excited along with them. All I can see is white, a sea of white, everything dusted in snow.
“Stay alert!” I yell to everyone, and they fall silent. We continue walking toward the mountain knowing there must be caves in them. We walk for hours, and I never let my guard down. Too many people have given warning about leaving the confines of the castle so obviously there is something that has them worried.
Suddenly out of nowhere, I hear a thunderous roar coming from the direction of the castle. They must have woken, and I am actually surprised the Vampire didn’t warn them earlier about us leaving. Maybe he was hoping we all died. Everyone picked up pace. It seemed to get colder, and I can tell the humans are really struggling with the icy blast of the wind, hearing their teeth chattering. The snowstorm becomes so bad, it starts to get hard to see what is directly in front of us, like walking into a wall of snow. We are unable to tell where the ground ends and where the sky starts.
Everyone starts holding hands so no one drifts off or gets lost. That’s when I see something. I stop, Aldrin’s wife bumping into my back.
“What is it?” she asks as I squint, trying to see anything through the wind. Even with my enhanced eyesight, I can hardly see anything, but I swear I saw something dark move and whatever it was, was huge. Blinking, I strain my eyes looking for movement when I feel a cold sensation rush down my arm, feel my magic seeping into my fingertips, feeling something wrap around my hand before feeling the coldness of steel pressed in my palm. Looking down, I see the Aziza sword and gasp, it looks crystalline like my wings but feels hard as steel, purple veins of my magic woven and intertwine in it.
That’s when the awe of it shatters into a million pieces. Aldrin said the sword would come forward when danger was lurking so as much as I was amazed by it, it frightens me. Aldrin rushes over and I see his whip in his hand spiralling to the ground.
“Well, whatever is out here, we just found it” he whispers looking down at my sword.
“Can you see anything?” I ask
“Not a goddamn thing,” he says, squinting through the wind.
“Human’s move to the center, those who know how to use magic form a perimeter around them, we are not alone out here anymore,” I call over the wind, unsure if everyone heard, but I feel movement on the ground and through the tugging of hands and clothes. Abigail’s hands glow subtly, her eyes searching, looking for any danger. That’s when I see it out of the corner of my eye, and I whirl around trying to catch a glimpse of it, but it once again disappears.
Everyone is on edge and alert. The wind dies down slightly, making it a little easier to see when we notice it. Scales. Though it doesn’t look like a Dragon, it is grotesque and bigger than human, has a long-barbed tail and talons but stands on two feet. Everyone held their breath when they too notice it in the distance. It turns around, its face morphed reptilian, cold-blooded eyes staring back at us, and I can just make out its features. It looks like a half-shifted Dragon, stuck in an unnatural form between shifts. It doesn’t move for a second just staring like it is shocked to see anyone out here, then suddenly it roars, which sounds more like a wail, my ears ring but I refuse to take my eyes off it.
The Broken Ones are Dragons.
