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Chapter Six
Even in the drivingrain, the dragon’s wings stirred the air, a mini vortex she felt all the way across the small outcropping.
It was done. The monster who’d stolen her childhood and her father was dead.
Some might have been put off by the fact that they hadn’t been the one to strike the final blow, but Gia had only ever wanted the Redcap dead, dead in a final way that meant he’d never terrorize another child, never destroy another family.
It was done.
She squinted into the darkness, following the dragon’s form as he took to the air, but he didn’t climb high into the clouds, seeking to push above the storm. Her breath froze in her chest as he folded his wings about his body and plummeted, disappearing down into the valley, swallowed by the mists and murky rain.
Terror beat inside her heart, as if some small, winged creature had trapped itself there and she ran to the edge. Dropping to her knees, she braced her hands on the slick wet stone and looked.
“He’s looking for clothes.”
Wyn’s voice had her jerking upright, an arm instinctively flying out to block him from moving any closer to the edge, and a drop off that would kill almost any creature.
“What?”
Wyn sighed, the look on his young/old face a weary one. “He went to find clothes. I think he’s going to take them from a dead person.”
“Who?”
“The dragon.” Wyn pointed past her to indicate the trail where Rand’s men should have been.
Several had died. Gia had felt it when their lives ended, a sharp reverberation as blood spilled onto the earth. She felt no pity for their deaths—they’d been coming to kill her after all. But death echoes left a mark all the same.
Her brain finally started to make sense of the information and she smiled at the boy, patted his shoulder. “Go watch over your mom.”
He gave her a suspicious look, the sort a child gives adults when the kid is being dismissed simply for being a kid.
Gia never dismissed a child, not for any reason. But she needed to settle her head—and her hormones. Doing that under Wyn’s too watchful eyes? Nope. Wasn’t happening.
Her lips still burned from the dragon’s kiss. Her blood felt too hot, her skin too tight. Her heart was racing, adrenaline crashing through her veins.
And then there were all the emotions, everything from relief and victory to tears of grief.
It was done. Over.
Her father’s death had been avenged. She and her mother had justice.
Justice can be a cold and lonely partner, my darling child. What will you do one day when you have justice and realize there is nothing else?
The echo of her mother’s voice was unwelcome, the refrain something she’d heard a hundred times.
She didn’t want to think on those words now.
Her entire life’s work come to pass on a cold, rainy mountain top where a golden dragon killed with one breath, then kissed in the next.
Tears pricked her eyes and she stood on the edge of the steep drop, the gusting winds tearing at her hair and clothes, while rain pounded down on her. If the boy and Amy hadn’t been there, needing protection and help down the trail, she might have just screamed her pain into the storm.
Both her parents were gone, and the shade, the gift her father had helped her find in her youth, was likely gone.
Sister...
Gia gasped, clasping one hand over her heart, the other over her mouth to stifle the sound. Staggering back a few steps, she turned her eye inward and found the connection there, strong, certain.
How? Gia demanded. She’d felt the damage done to her shadow, had been certain there was almost no chance of survival and even if her magic companion did live, it would take months, perhaps even years to build up the reserves needed to function as a shadow witch’s companion, and that was after repairing the damage the Redcap had done.
