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I hadn’t been able to save them, and I was starting to worry about what that meant for the realm.
The village of Nifaria was close by. I suspected they might fall prey to the wraiths any day now, and I wanted to be close by in case they came under attack. I flapped my wings hard and swept over one of the higher peaks, enjoying the mist that beaded on my scales as I flew through the clouds.
Immediately, the bright orange of a fire caught my attention.
The swarms of orcs that came through the rift sometimes made campfires, but they hadn’t in a good long while because they knew that I was looking for them. They’d stopped making them some time ago as a way to try to outsmart me, but they had plenty of other tells that made them easily trackable.
Orcs didn’t usually travel along the treacherous peaks since the paths were often hidden by deep snowdrifts. They typically hid down in the dark lower reaches of the valleys that cut in between the mountains.
This was highly unusual.
I soared closer so that I could see into the cave. This area was known in the past as a place of enlightenment for the traveling monks that wanted to be closer to the gods and goddesses that ruled our worlds. I hadn’t heard of anyone venturing this far north in centuries.
I swept down and dug my claws into the mountain cliffside, preparing myself to attack whatever was inside.
I didn’t know what to expect, perhaps an elf or a dwarf or a monster sent from Helheim, but what I found was most certainly the last thing that should have been in a place as cold and remote as this.
There was a human woman inside.
Her long, silver blonde hair shone like golden thread in the light of the sun. Big doe-like eyes stared straight at me, full of horror and wonder and abject confusion. Sapphire-blue irises sparkled like the frozen tundra that surrounded her. There was nothing about her clothing that suggested she was from this world, except for the thick snow wolf mantle around her shoulders. Her cheeks were pink from the chill, the tip of her nose rosy with color. Her lips had the slightest twinge of blue.
It was a sign I’d learned to look for when Yasmina had still been alive.
I swallowed past the ball at the back of my throat. With a mournful scowl, I shifted into my human form and swept my dark blonde hair off my forehead.
“I think I’ve lost my mind. There can be no other explanation,” she thoughtfully murmured out loud.
“Who are you?” I growled, and she took several steps back, looking at me like I had four heads instead of one.
“You were a dragon,” she mumbled, her disbelief growing by the second. She took several steps backward, stumbling over a rock. She caught herself on the wall, lifting her gaze to meet mine. I stared into her eyes, trying to figure out how and why she’d come to be in a place like this.
A wind swept up from the back of the cave and I caught her tempting scent.
No.
It couldn’t be.
My eyes settled on the pendant around her throat. It was the same sapphire stone that had marked her descendants for centuries.
She was exactly who I feared she was.
CHAPTER3
Ella
That’s it.
I must have gone certifiably, irrevocably, unequivocallyinsane.
From far away, that flying beast had looked like a massive bird, maybe an eagle of some kind like the ones from Lord of the Rings, or a colossal black vulture that lived out here in the snowy mountainous wilds. Or maybe it was just a massive mind fuck of a hallucination, and I needed to be on some really heavy drugs to correct whatever chemical imbalance was happening in my head.
I hadn’t expected it to turn out to be a mother fucking dragon that would land right in front of me.
Dragons aren’t real, you idiot.
The only thing left for me was a room with padded walls and a straitjacket after this. Maybe I’d spent too much time watching fantasy movies and shows like Game of Thrones, because the dragon that had stared right into my eyes had been just like the ice dragon ruled by the Night King.
Honestly, the sight of it landing right in front of the cave almost made me piss myself.
