Chapter 91 What We Choose
Damien
We are still falling. There is no sense to it — no measurement, no rhythm, just endless descent, the world stripped down to rushing air and Bella’s scream tearing through the dark as she clings to me. My arms are locked around her, muscles screaming as gravity tries to rip her from my grasp, and beneath my skin the dragon thrashes, furious and afraid in equal measure.
Let her go.
“No,” I snarl back, teeth clenched as the wind howls around us. “Absolutely not.”
You must shift, the dragon insists, his voice sharp with urgency. We cannot fall like this forever.
“I’m not dropping her,” I growl. “I don’t know how far this goes.”
I do, he snaps. And I will not let Snowflake fall.
The ground is still nowhere in sight. Just darkness, broken only by flashes of stone and root tearing past us. Bella’s fingers slip, then tighten again, her grip desperate but unyielding. My heart hammers so hard it feels like it might tear itself free of my chest.
Trust me, the dragon urges, his voice lowering, steady now. I have you. I have her.
I swallow, throat raw. Every instinct I have screams against it — every part of me that is man, that knows loss, that knows what happens when you let go. But the dragon is right, and time is running out.
“Bella!” I shout, my voice ripped thin by the wind. “I’m going to let you go so I can shift!”
Her reply comes back distorted, half-scream, half-command. “DO IT!”
There’s no hesitation left in her voice. Just trust. That’s what breaks me. I let go. The shift is instantaneous — bone and fire and power exploding outward as the dragon tears free, scales snapping into place, wings unfurling with a thunderous crack that splits the rushing dark. My vision sharpens, the world resolving into brutal clarity as the dragon’s sight cuts through the void. Bella. She’s falling. The dragon dives.
We snatch her out of the air in one smooth, violent motion, claws closing around her with devastating precision. She’s light in our grip, fragile and precious, and the dragon curls protectively around her even as he spreads his wings fully, arresting our descent just enough to turn it into something controlled. Something survivable. Now we fly. Down. Down. Down. There is no up anymore. Only forward, only descent, the dark stretching endlessly beneath us as the air grows warmer, thicker, charged with something that makes the dragon’s scales prickle. Then, finally, there is light. It's a spark at first, distant and small, but unmistakable. The dragon roars and folds his wings, angling us toward it with savage intent. The light grows rapidly, resolving into an opening, a tear in the darkness that widens as we race toward it. We burst through, and the world explodes into green. Trees. Leaves. Sky fractured by branches far too tall, far too orderly to belong to the forest we left behind. The dragon flares his wings hard, braking just enough to land in a clearing with a bone-rattling impact, earth buckling beneath our weight. Silence crashes down around us. The dragon lifts his head slowly, nostrils flaring as he scents the air.
We are not in the woods anymore, he says, certain.
That does nothing to ease the tight coil in my chest, because what I’m seeing makes even less sense. The forest around us is wrong; it's too clean, too symmetrical, with trees growing in neat, deliberate spacing, as if planted by design rather than chance. I don’t release Bella. She’s still cradled safely in our claws, and the dragon refuses to loosen his grip even as his attention sweeps the clearing.
Hold on, Snowflake, he purrs gently through the bond.
Then, with surprising delicacy for something his size, he flicks her backward onto his back, satisfied when she squeaks in protest and lands astride his spine.
Safe, he declares.
I feel her fingers latch onto two of my scales, gripping hard, and the dragon purrs again, low and pleased.
Her voice comes through the bond immediately, breathless but sharp. Now is not the time to be smug, dragon. We need to figure out what hellhole we just dropped through.
The purr cuts off, and the dragon stills.
Agreed, he says, all humour gone. This place is not what it seems.
The dragon lifts his head slowly and looks up. I expect to see torn earth, hanging roots, and some sign of the impossible fall we just survived. There is nothing. Just a seamless canopy of leaves overhead, unbroken and complete, as though the ground never swallowed us at all.
There is no way back, he says.
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. I already felt it settle in my chest the moment we landed. Whatever rule governed that fall, it was a one-way passage. Forward. The dragon lowers his head again, eyes scanning the clearing, then fixes on the only direction that doesn’t resist us. The trees part there, not invitingly, but permissively, like a door left unlocked for reasons I don’t trust. Without discussion, without ceremony, we move. The ground firms beneath our steps as the dragon walks, claws sinking just enough to feel real. Bella stays braced against my back, her grip steady now, her breathing even. I can feel her awareness pressed close to mine through the bond, watchful but unafraid. Ahead of us lies a path of perfectly laid brick, dark red and fitted together with impossible precision, not a single crack or weed to mar it. The dragon slows.
“This is…” I start, then stop. No word fits.
Wrong, the dragon offers.
“Yes,” I agree quietly.
We step onto it anyway, and we follow it for what feels like far too long. Then it splits into a clean crossroads, the brickwork branching left and right with deliberate symmetry. At the junction, two wooden signs rest on simple posts, their surfaces smooth, the lettering carved deep and precise.
The left sign reads: WHAT THEY MADE YOU
The right sign reads: WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO BE
“What happens if we choose wrong?” Bella asks softly, leaning over our shoulder.
I look at the signs again.
“I don’t think there is a wrong,” I answer. “Just consequences.”
The dragon lowers his head toward the right path without hesitation.
We have spent long enough being shaped by fear, he says. I am done wearing what others named me.
Bella presses her forehead briefly against the back of my neck.
“Me too,” she whispers.
Together, we turn, and the moment my claw touches the first brick of the right-hand path, the forest reacts. The left path dims, its bricks dulling as though the colour is being pulled from them, the sign sinking slowly into the earth until the words are swallowed entirely. At the same time the right path brightens. The woods don’t cheer. They don’t protest. They simply seem to accept the choice. We move forward. And I'm sure somewhere, something ancient takes note — not of what we were…
…but of what we have decided to become.