Daybreak (11 page)

He was a monster: a beast more than thrice her size with wings that bullied the storm. They flattened the bumps from its crest and tore a hole through its maw. The mass of scales and spines that covered his body were the color of a starless night. Kyleigh felt lost, staring into their depths.

But that was before she saw his eyes.

For a moment, the world stopped turning. She hung suspended in his gaze while her vision darkened around its edges — plunging her into a dream. She’d seen those eyes before. She’d felt the fury of that gaze in a shadowed stretch of her thoughts. There was a part of her that remembered them well.

Other things filled the corners of his gaze … a softness the dragon in her remembered, a courage that framed her chest in steel. A strange feeling clawed at her as she watched him. She dropped a little closer, filled her lungs to call out …

All at once, the dragon’s eyes changed. Their blackened slits narrowed; the yellow flames inside them burned with hunger. His jaw cracked open, revealing a jagged cage of teeth. The collar around his neck flared brightly. Its glow matched the hunger within his eyes.

She didn’t have time to think. Whoever the dragon had been before, Crevan owned him now. The curse controlled him. Kyleigh’s flames turned to ice inside her chest, and she flew for her life.

His voice filled the air when he roared. The rumbling inside his chest warned her of his strength. His claws could crush her ribs as surely as his voice could rattle them. Panic seized her limbs when she heard the thunder of his wings. But though the human cringed, the dragon in her was calm.

Pictures flashed before her eyes — memories that were not her own. She saw those powerful horns crush other dragons beneath them, saw those teeth snap through flesh and bone. She watched those claws rake through lines of scales: they fluttered from the chests of his enemies in a rain of glowing ash.

His eyes came to her again — eyes she’d seen many times in her dreams. They were walls of yellow flame bolstered by fury, pressed against black, merciless slits …

He is not all he seems
, the dragon in her whispered.
He’s strong, yes … but only dangerous if he catches us
.

When Kyleigh chanced a look behind her, she saw the black dragon wasn’t as close as she’d thought. In fact, he’d only just managed to turn around. His strength was frightening, but his girth slowed him down.

She would face him as the crow faced the hawk.

Kyleigh cut upwards. She looped back and shot behind the black dragon — sailing directly over his monstrous wings. A furious roar split the air and she couldn’t help but grin at his cursing. Those were Crevan’s words,
his
fury. But though the King deserved to have his skull crushed in, Kyleigh didn’t want to harm the dragon.

Perhaps she could lead him into the desert, or find some obliging mountain to trap his great body against — any obstacle that might slow him down. She’d only just begun to plan when a blast of air spun her to the side.

The black dragon was right behind her.

Kyleigh shot downwards with a single, powerful beat. She tucked her wings against her sides and let the force of the earth whip her towards the black dragon. She darted past his scaly face and had to twist to avoid crashing into his wings. But at least she managed to get him angry.

His eyes shot towards her and his body twisted to follow. When he roared, it was all she could do to ignore the might of his voice: 
Stop
!
Stop, she-dragon
!

His words made her heart tremble upon its strings. Ice climbed up her spine when she heard him gaining. She blinked against the panicked memories that flashed before her eyes: trees bent to breaking beneath the gales, smaller dragons batted aside.

Two powerful beats, and he was right behind her.

Kyleigh shot upwards and grimaced when she heard his fangs snap into the space she’d been just seconds before. She tore away in a book’s corner of a turn, earning herself a few moments to breathe.

She slowed her pace and waited for him to come up behind her again before she tucked her wings and dropped — falling upside down between his monstrous arms to lash his belly with her claws. She shoved hard off his middle and towards the crashing waves.
 

He roared in annoyance, and she had to drop again to avoid a swat of his tail.
Stop, Dragongirl
!

She spun to watch as he raised his head — and nearly tumbled from the sky when she saw that his collar had burst into a white-hot blaze. His eyes sharpened against the burning. The black slits inside the walls of yellow widened in rage.

You will answer to me, Dragongirl
!
You … will … answer
!

Kyleigh’s blood went cold as the black dragon barreled down upon her. It was all she could do to avoid the deadly swipes of his claws. She cut from side-to-side — leading him south, then east, then north. Villages whipped beneath them. Lands passed in a blur. Kyleigh couldn’t even pause long enough to be shocked, or to wonder how in Kingdom’s name Crevan had managed to enslave a dragon. Her worries shrank back and she listened to her other instincts, to the oldest part of her soul … the part of her that dreamt of dragons warring long ago.
 

She dropped from the sky and glided close to the seas. When the black dragon dove down to snatch her, she opened her wings as wide as they would stretch and let their span drive her to a halt. The black dragon couldn’t stop: he sailed overhead and crashed among the waves.
 

A torrent of water spewed up where he landed; the noise of his great body crashing down quashed the thunder’s roar. Kyleigh watched for a moment too long. Had she spun away quickly, she might’ve avoided the fall of his tail.

But instead, it coiled and slapped down as the dragon tried to free himself from the waves.

Its spines caught her in the side. The world spun as her body flew skyward. The insides of her head slapped hard against her skull. Pain seared her flesh, burned her eyes. Most of her scales held against the blow, but she felt blood welling out of a gash along her ribs.
 

Somehow, Kyleigh managed to get control of her wings. She climbed into the shelter of the clouds before the black dragon could pull himself free. She slipped into their thickest depth and forced herself to beat on through the pain.
 

As she flew away, she could hear the dragon’s frustrated cries booming behind her:
 

He swore to find her … and he swore her harm.

“We — we’re alive.” Gerald raised his head slowly from the crooks of his arms. Though the skin across his cheeks was raw and the tip of his nose burnt to a bright red, it didn’t stop him from laughing. “I can’t believe we survived that! It’s a bloody wonder, I tell you. I’m beginning to think no spell can kill me.”

Mandy was far less pleased. Her fingers traced gingerly down her burns, and her eyes welled with tears. “Why is it always mages? What have we ever done to them?”

It wasn’t only
mages
: it was the King’s mages — and after seeing the way they’d taken off after Kyleigh, Kael could only imagine what she must’ve done to them.

 
But he thought better of saying it aloud. “We’ll have time to figure it out later. Take the helm for a moment, Gerald,” he called, waving him up. “Anybody who’s got a burn, come straight to me. Don’t just sit there and bear it.”

They were all a bit singed — some worse than others. Raw streaks had appeared in the places their arms couldn’t cover. A few sported bright red chins and at least one man had a very distinct X through the middle of his face. It was easy to tell which of them had peeked: raw lines crossed their eyes in a bandit’s mask, and their brows had all but vanished.

Blisters dotted the backs of their hands and those who’d run out in their nightclothes had welts rising upon their feet. But there were plenty of unhurt patches of skin between the marks. Kael dragged the bits of flesh that weren’t burned over the raw bits, sealing them. His stomach churned while he worked, but it wasn’t the villagers’ wounds that troubled him …

It was
his
.

He could feel their eyes upon him, feel the questions forming on their lips. Their mouths fell open as they stared at the mask of red that crossed his features. But they never asked — and Kael didn’t have an answer.
 

He’d never been hurt by magic before. He’d fallen through fire to gouge the Witch, sprinted through Finks’s spells. Perhaps if he’d thought to conjure his dragonscale armor, he wouldn’t have gotten burned. But he never imagined he would need it.

Now he realized just how close they’d come to death. He had no doubt that they would’ve been devoured to their bones, had that spout of fire reached the boat. It’d destroyed much larger ships than theirs. The winds that’d torn from the orb’s middle cast enormous vessels into the waves.

But at the last moment, the fire spout had disappeared … and that’s what troubled him the most.

Perhaps they’d merely sailed beyond the spell’s reach. Perhaps Kyleigh had managed to lure the King’s mages away. But a strange feeling whispered that the truth was something far more sinister.

As he worked, Kyleigh’s voice rang inside his ears:
The King always … knew. It was like he knew where I’d be before
I
even knew it
.

It seemed like ages ago that they’d argued about flying into the Unforgivable Mountains. Kyleigh had insisted that it was too dangerous. She worried that the King might find them if she took to her wings so close to Midlan.

Kael had thought the whole thing a bit ridiculous. He didn’t see how the King could’ve possibly known where Kyleigh would turn up — and he certainly didn’t think Crevan would send his whole blasted army out to find her. But after what he’d just seen, he could imagine nothing else. He was beginning to believe it.

Midlan had come after them in the dead of night because the King knew Kyleigh would be there. He’d attacked Copperdock because he knew she would be desperate to protect it. He’d rained fire upon the ships knowing it would draw her out.

And the fact that it’d all gone silent could only mean …

“Kyleigh.” His stomach dropped and for half a breath; his worry froze him where he stood.

“Is that it, then? Am I healed?”

The villager’s question drew Kael back to the present, and he knew he had to focus on what needed to be done. He had no time to worry. For now, he had to trust that Kyleigh knew what she was doing.
 

There were too many people depending on him.
 

“Yes, that’s it. Is there anybody else?” he said.

“Just me,” Gerald called from the helm.

But as Kael made his way over, something itched in the back of his memory. “Are you sure?” He looked around again. “I could’ve sworn there was one more … a man we pulled from the water, I think.”

“Well, what’d he look like?”

That was precisely the problem. Kael couldn’t remember much of anything about him except that he’d been wide-eyed and dripping wet. But he was certain there’d been one more man.

“Someone go check below, will you?” Gerald barked.

A guard ducked into the ship’s one tiny cabin for a moment before he returned, shaking his head.

Kael was about to go look for himself when a familiar roar sent him sprinting to the helm. “Kyleigh!”

She dipped from the clouds and swooped by, the blast from her wings filling their sails with a lurch. Kael waved madly. He yelled at her to come down. But she soared into the dark without a backwards glance.

He couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if she was favoring her left wing.

Gerald squinted through the storm. “Where’s she —?”

“She’s going to see the pirates,” Kael said as he shoved him from the helm. “She’s going to Gravy Bay.”

*******

The night passed into a hazy afternoon. Once the relief of their survival had worn off, the sorrow crept in quickly. The villagers spent the night in a tight circle, worrying over loved ones on other ships — hoping they’d made it to safety.

“Fate help them,” Mandy had murmured, time and time again. Though the night was black as pitch and the stars hidden behind a wall of clouds, she still seemed to know which way was home. Her chin turned towards Copperdock with every whispered hope: “Fate help them.”

One by one, they dropped off — each falling into a fitful sleep. But Kael couldn’t sleep. All of his concentration was bent on the next crest of waves, on reaching the distant edge of the horizon. And once they arrived in Gravy Bay, he wasted no time.

His worry was a creature all its own: it vaulted him over the ship’s edge and into the crowd of pirates below. When it was clear he had no intention of stopping, they scattered from his path — bellowing questions at his back.

The hill to Gravy’s mansion shrank beneath his feet. One of the maids saw him and managed to whip the door open just in time — otherwise, Kael might’ve gone straight through it. He charged to the back of the spiral staircase and saw, just as he’d suspected, that the trap door to the basement was opened. He rushed foot over fist, dropping down the last half of the ladder and to the earthen floor below.

Clang
!
Clang
!
Clang
!

He followed the familiar song of Kyleigh’s hammer, grimacing against the heat that billowed up from a glowing corner of the room.

Kyleigh was there, thrashing at her forge — and she wasn’t alone. An old man with frazzled gray hair and a twirled mustache stood stubbornly at her side. He had his hands clamped over his ears and his cane tucked beneath his arm. Though his tunic was nearly transparent with sweat, he still managed to bellow over the hammer’s fall:

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to climb down that blasted ladder? I feel I deserve an explanation! What in high tide has happened?”

“Midlan,” she barked. “Crevan’s found me. He sacked Copperdock last night, and it won’t be long before he finds me again.”