AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“As if I have. Did you have a plan?”
“I’ll be your distraction. Just try to cut its head off; that’s the only way I know how to kill them. There’s no such thing as a mythical vulnerable spot. Ready?”
“No,” Oliver said. “Are you okay? I mean…I don’t know. Are you?”
And Tir’s eyes got less guarded, more affectionate, more familiar. “I’m fine.”
They ran into battle—for the first time ever—together.
The world transformed. Became a crazy collision of black scales and lunges and scorching fire.
Oliver had trained with a sword, but never against a horse-sized heap of fangs and claws and spiked tail; he ducked, dodged, felt the sharp sudden sting of a tail-barb scrape one leg. A flicker of blue-black flowed past him, and a shimmer of gold burst in the air.
Tir. And magic. More of it. Spinning rock-dust into glittering light, calling a Fairyland-beast away from Oliver.
That would’ve worked, except that Ollie stumbled on a rock. The dragon’s head swung his way and snarled. Fire bubbled up: not ready yet but building.
Tir threw a knife instead of magic this time. It whirled back to face him.
Oliver dove in and tried to do what his fairy said, really tried, and the sword slid through scales like butter, but the dragon got quicker and meaner when hurt and it pulled back and teeth clashed above Tir’s head—
No. Not happening. Oliver panicked, lunged in, flailed around in scales, gave up and stabbed it through where he hoped the heart lay. Malevolence collapsed in a clatter of scale and bone, and ceased to move.
He sagged, exhausted.
“Hmm,” Tir observed, coming over to his side. A fresh scratch marred one graceful cheekbone: not a claw, but flying shards of rock slicing skin. Red, but not deep. “That shouldn’t’ve worked.”
“Guess you’re just that good at magic.”
“I meant—” Tir paused, shook his head, smiled. He looked abruptly tired, though Ollie couldn’t spot any other wounds. “Let me wrap up your leg, and then you can go peer into your enchanted water.”
“I didn’t know you could do magic like that,” Ollie nudged, while skilled fingers bandaged his cut. It also wasn’t bad, a slash across the meat of his left calf that hurt and would take some care but wouldn’t leave lasting damage. “Sparks and swords and everything.”
“When have you ever needed a magical sword before now?” Tir retorted, which wasn’t an answer. “Can you walk on it?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s fine, it’s barely even anything, thanks.” He got up to prove it, and held out a hand. Tir, who’d been sitting on the ground to examine his leg, took it.
Nothing changed, not outwardly. He’d grabbed Tir’s hand countless times before. Had held both those hands in his the night before, smeared with salve.
He’d never noticed the strength of those fingers. The way they fit into his without hesitation, nothing held back.
“Quest,” Tir remembered, letting go. Rock-dust lingered in his hair, lightening dark silk to silver. “Why we’re here.”
“Oh…right.” He’d forgotten.
He left the sword. He didn’t want to, but it seemed to be stuck in the dragon, and Tir said it wasn’t enchanted anymore anyway. He walked past the scaled body and up to the crystalline mirror of the Seeing Pool in its moonstone bowl.
He looked into clear shallow waters. Why they’d come. Perils defeated. Ready to meet his destined other half, whom he’d go and save from one last Peril and marry in triumph.
He saw Tir.
He regarded this face—unfairly long eyelashes, aristocratic cheekbones, dark hair, the profile he knew better than his own—for a minute.
“Oh,” Tir said, behind his shoulder. His voice sounded odd. Almost wounded, though he hadn’t been, unless Ollie’d missed something. “It’s me.”
“You…?”
“I mean I must be making it go wrong for you. Magical interference. Sorry.” He vanished so quickly that Oliver wondered whether that expression wasn’t figurative, whether teleportation might be possible for fairies at home in the North; but when he glanced back Tir was sitting on a rocky outcropping a few strides away and studiously pretending to clean a knife.
