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His dying shrieks echoed around me, but my chaos created wings to keep me suspended in the air. He plummeted to the beautiful forest below. I heard a loud explosion and when I turned to the sound to look it was a part of Cedric's castle that had imploded.
A massive dragon, all silver and twice the size of the one I’d just killed, leapt into the air.
He held his head back, and up to his throat, blue light appeared. Blue flames escaped his mouth, engulfing the red dragon Lucian was fighting. Chunks of ice on various parts of the dragon's body, where Lucian had attacked him, melted instantly, and the dragon wailed in agony as he was engulfed in blue flames.
I held my chest as a sharp pain coursed through my body—a pain I knew belonged to Rumir—and I screamed as I plummeted to the ground.
I slammed into the rocks, falling near the Goddess, who had yet to move. She was like a statue, frozen. She turned to me, “Natalie?”
“I’m okay,” I reassured her as I sat up with a strained groan.
She didn’t respond or move, but she tightened her hold on the scale in her hand. Then, Lucian telepored before me out of no where and then she suddenly teleported away.
“Natalie!” he yelled. “Natalie!”
“Cedric took him,” I groaned, my hand fisting my clothes over my chest. “Cedric took Rumir, Lucian. He bit him. He infected him!” I did not have the time to ask how Lucian teleported here.
“I know,” he whispered as he helped me to stand. “I saw. We’ll find him, Natalie. We will.”
The thought hadn't occurred to me until now that, like Cedric, I'd bitten Rumir—but only to mark him. That had been the only thing I’d been focusing on. Had I infected him then? If I had, why couldn’t I tell? And could I bite others and infect them the way Cedric had? I was infected, after all, no matter how different I was.
Every bite meant infection, didn’t it?
Maybe for Cedric—and perhaps me as well—it was like vampirism. After all, a vampire could control the outcome of a bite, either to feed, or to infect. Could that be why my bite hadn’t affected Rumir?
I shook my head. That didn't matter now. What mattered was finding Rumir and stopping Cedric from destroying the realm.
Overhead, the silver dragon circled above us, and I saw other dragons start to pour out of the castle, flying into the forest in a panic. I could feel their confusion and terror.
But even more, I could sense portals being opened inside the castle—no doubt Cedric’s allies were escaping.
I gritted my teeth.
This had all gone so wrong.
When the silver dragon descended to the edge of the rocky balcony we were standing on, a woman climbed off his back. Her black hair blew in the wind, and I stood at the ready, my chaos like a buzzing bee in my head.
This silver dragon, whoever he was, had killed one of Cedric's allies. But that didn’t mean he was on our side. Then I recognized the woman approaching us.
“Yelena?” I asked, remembering the green-eyed woman I'd met inside the castle.
She was the only dragon who’d spoken to me when we arrived in Aerilon. But when we'd met, her hair had been white, like mine—Cedric’s idea of a twisted tribute to me.
“Natalie,” she said, her eyes glowing. “Where is he? Where is Cedric?”
I frowned at the anger and authority in her voice. Who was this woman? Was she working with Cedric? She no longer looked like the demure, innocent woman I'd met. Her brows were furrowed, her shoulders squared, and she oozed authority.
"Who are you?" I growled. "And what are you to Cedric?"
“I’m his daughter,” Yelena answered. “I’m Rumir’s half-sister.”
I stepped forward, red mist engulfing my hands. I hadn't seen any of this in her mind earlier, when I’d offered to show her memories of my life on earth and in this realm. She'd claimed she'd never been beyond the Dragon Territory.
I'd felt bad for her, trapped here. But she was Cedric's daughter! Why hadn’t I known?
“So you’re working with him?" I growled, and a thick red fog poured from my body. "Where has he taken Rumir? Tell me!”
"Natalie! Wait!" Lucian shouted. But just as I was about to attack Yelena, a massive silver foot came down between us.
