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Her heart beat faster, her pulse racing, throbbing at her wrists and throat. She felt breathless with exhilaration and anticipation.
Something was happening. Something life-changing. Destiny-altering.
She could feel it. She wanted to burst out of her skin with it.
Unknowing what she did, she charged past Ben and Sai, practically bounding up the mountainside as if she had wings.
She had to get to the top.
She had to get tohim.
Another ground-shaking roar boomed above them. It felt as if the mountain could collapse at any moment.
Annie climbed faster and practically threw herself with a strength she never knew she had over the edge of the plateau, her two companions several steps behind.
Through the smoke and debris, the gray ashes that fluttered around the air like dirty snow, Annie covered her nose and mouth with her forearm and squinted her eyes to see.
The dulled enamel of crimson scales flashed for a moment in the almost opaque dark gray haze, so thick it could be cut with a knife. The scales looked coated with rust, or perhaps dried blood. The edges were chipped and worn.
A thinning swirl of smoke revealed the tip of a tail. Most of the large spikes that edged the tail were broken, looking more like jagged glass.
Something else flashed before Annie’s eyes and was quickly gone. Whatever it was, it looked horribly painful. Like masticated muscle and gnawed down bone.
A sawed-off appendage? Or a limb torn by brute force from the creature’s body, shredding flesh and skin?
The wound looked like it was closed, and that it was made a very long time ago. Yet, somehow, it seemed fresh and far from healed. Just glimpsing it made Annie’s throat fill with acid.
Everything inside herhurtto see it.
Ben and Sai had reached her side by now, peering into the smoke and ashes just as she did. No one spoke a word. All of them were mesmerized and stunned into silence.
The plateau was in complete shambles. Every rock facing looked like they had suffered significant missile fire. Blackened craters, split rocks, and crumbling rubble littered all around them. It was the scene of a deadly battle, and yet, no opposing forces could be seen.
And now, all was silence and burgeoning dread.
Something large and ominous lurked within the smoke.
Someone.
Annie didn’t know what pronoun was most appropriate to describe the creature, for in its current state, it was more monster than a thinking, feeling being.
Nevertheless, she refused to dehumanize the dragon even in her own mind, despite that the very thought itself was an oxymoron—human and dragon. Coexisting in the same sentence. Coexisting in the same magical creature.
They could hear his low, rumbling growls. They couldfeelthem too, for the earth seemed to vibrate beneath their feet with the bone-deep resonance.
Then, a cloudy, citrine eye appeared through the haze, a thin reptilian slit cutting down the middle of it. It seemed to be swimming in blood, though not a single drop leaked out.
And it glared directly at them.
Ather.
Annie couldn’t help the gasp that burst from her chest. It was so tight she couldn’t breathe.
There was infinite agony and despair in that one citrine eye. Such endless fury and violence.
And a potent shot of madness as well, she perceived.
The eye stared unblinkingly into her, seeming to sharpen despite its cloudiness.
