Chapter 22 Dragon and Avalanche
Ahead, Sylvain screams in surprise and the people in front of me come to a quick stop. Alric runs into his donkey’s ass, making the thing bray in surprise, but the resounding silence after that makes my ears ring. Why did Sylvain cry out?
Why have we stopped?
“Dragon!” Zaries roars from the path somewhere above me.
My eyes dart out toward the blizzard, away from the mountain, but I see nothing. My pulse jackknifes as adrenaline spikes.
It’s the black dragon! You must pin yourself to the mountain quickly! She’ll fire on the overhanging snow!
I fling myself toward Calder without thinking, shoving the donkey against the cliff face and jamming the poor kid’s leg against the rough rock wall.
“Gah!” he screams, gripping my coat in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“Duck, Calder! Duck!” I shout, plastering myself to the side of the donkey and bracing for impact.
The thunderous wings of the large dragon beat the air as it lets out an ear-splitting cry. Glancing over my shoulder, I can see a black silhouette in the clouds, monstrous and terrifying. Its serpentine body flashes in and out of sight as it flies and spirals back and forth. It screams, its anger vibrating in my very bones, then stops, wings flapping as it hovers in place. The massive form of the beast divides the clouds, revealing it in all its glory.
Her body is immense, her head covered with a crown of enormous horns. Her wings block the sky, rending the world in a darkness far deeper than the shadow of the storm. But it’s her face that captures my attention. Mesmerizes me. Broad and angled, every inch is ridged and spiked. Her red, slitted, eyes flash fury, and rage drips from her just like the blood from her fangs.
She’s made a kill.
Who has she killed?
My heart clenches, seizing every breath in a vise as I stare into her furious eyes. Her massive jaws open, teeth as large as I am gleaming brighter than the snow. Fire, blazing red and burning orange rises in her throat before the crackling of flames reaches my ears.
I climb the donkey and use my body to shield Calder. “Brace yourself!”
My back is already destroyed with scars from dragon fire, so if I survive this, it will only be with new scars. But I won’t let Calder die to dragon fire. Not while I can save him.
The dragon roars as she unleashes her inferno above our heads. The heat is instantaneous; an inferno melting the frozen vista. Calder screams, his smaller body tucked against mine. The donkey brays and the mountain seems to groan, but nothing is louder than the crash far above us.
“Avalanche!” Malachi roars.
“Are we going to die?” Calder whimpers.
I don’t have the heart to answer him. The beating of the dragon’s wings fade as the roar of crashing snow above us becomes louder and louder. I’m screaming, I know I am, but I can’t hear it. All around us, snow is crashing, growing in size and power as it rips down the mountain. I glimpse a donkey and rider being flung off the side like a god itself had reached down and knocked them off the pass. I pinch my eyes closed, not wanting to watch anyone else lose their lives.
There’s sound everywhere and nowhere. There’s every shade of white I never knew existed. I’m surrounded by freezing cold and the echoes of fiery heat. Throughout it all, the passing of the avalanche seems to take forever, the crashing and screaming all around me tearing at my soul. My mind spins. Is Zaries alright? He was higher than we were, did he find shelter? Oberon, did he survive? Sylvain? Fuck, Alric!
It’s then that I realize I’m able to think all this because the snow hasn’t touched me or Calder.
I lean away from the kid, eyes searching as snow falls just over us. We managed to find a nook of sorts, a crevice of rock to protect us. The raging waterfall of white isn’t touching us. Except… The whole section of the trail is completely clear from the avalanche. I disentangle myself from Calder, watching the snow flow over us as if held back by an invisible barrier. Electricity arcs through the clear shield of the wind itself, like lightning trapped in glass.
“What—” I start, confused, but then I see him. Crouched before our donkey is Alric, his hands splayed on the ground, his eyes directly on me. They arc with the same blue electricity as the shield around us and seem to channel energy from his bracers. “Alric!” I shout, sliding off the donkey and running to him.
He grins at me but doesn’t break focus.
“Alric, how?” I ask, staring from him back to Calder, who’s trembling in fear.
“You asked how I split my scale.” He chuckles, shoulders relaxing slowly as the avalanche peters out. “What if I told you I’ve had one all my life?”
The avalanche has finished.
The dragon is gone.
Time stretches out, waiting for me to process what just happened.
Alric’s shield drops and he stands, his eyes now looking perfectly normal. They’re clear, not the eyes of a man who’s been drinking for hours. He takes a swig from his flask and winks at me as I stare at him in astonishment.
“You’ve mastered dragon magic?” I stutter over the words.
“The scale called to her match as soon as I entered the trial. I found it without any difficulty and got out.” He grins again. “Now I have two, and it’s so very nice to wield this much power.”
I snatch the flask out of his hands and sniff, finding no scent at all. I take a swig, and ice-cold water dances over my tongue. “You were never drunk!”
“Not even a little,” he chortles, looking around at the dome-shaped clearing and the several feet of snow that now blocks our way.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone else on the path, or if there is, they’re buried by the snow and likely dead. I swallow hard, fighting the tears that are starting to burn my eyes.
“You weren’t afraid because you knew you could face anything that came.” The truth settles in my soul like bitter bile. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“No act of nature can hurt me, little girl, and with me at your side, you’re safe. As you should be.” He looks at me with that spark of laughter, but under that, is a deep, dark knowledge I’m not sure I want to decipher.
“Are…are we the only ones alive?” Calder cries, his body trembling with fear.
“I doubt it,” Alric assures him, rolling his shoulders and stretching. “Silas and Thorne have magic, I’m sure they’ve saved everyone.”
“Not everyone.” My mind flashes to the rider on the donkey that fell off the mountain.
“True, my attendant wasn’t close enough.” Alric sounds sad, but when he turns his face to me again, he’s grinning. “She should have stayed close and talked to us.”
I have to swallow the bile rising in my throat. He could have chosen to save her, but he protected Calder and me. He sacrificed his own attendant to save us.
He’s more than what he seems, Anara. Stay close to him. It may be the difference between life and death.
But who is he? Why did Alric already have a dragon scale? How has he mastered dragon magic? Why is he even here?
One could guess he’s here for you, Anara.
Chills scrape down my spine and I turn my back on Alric and return to Calder, placing gentle hands on his thigh to calm the poor kid.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me, Anara. I’m here to protect you,” Alric says from behind me, his hands resting on my shoulders as he leans closer. “We are the same, you and I. Destined for dragon magic in ways we have yet to understand. We have to stick together.”
I feel his eyes on my scale, but his hands on my shoulders are warm and his words are calming.
“Neither of us should have been in the maze, but we both made it out. Defied the odds. All the scales were found and then you find the one of a dragon just hatched? And my scale led me to her pair. It was all meant to be, Anara.”
I hold still as Alric moves closer. Fate is forging this moment, I can feel it.
“We were meant to pass the trial together.”