Agatha

"Aah!" My scream tore through the rumble of collapsing stone, the ground bucking beneath my feet like a wild beast. Stale dust choked the air, blinding in the strobing light of the tumbling lantern. I windmilled my arms, desperate for balance as the floor tilted at a dizzying angle.

In that split second of freefall, strong arms engulfed me, crushing me against a solid chest. Norsuk! He curled his body around mine as we plummeted into the abyss, his heartbeat a frantic drum in my ear.

We hit bottom with a bone-jarring thud, the impact stealing my breath. If Norsuk hadn"t shielded me... I couldn"t finish the thought.

"Go!" he roared, wrenching us upright. "Away from the?—"

The floor disintegrated, hurling us into space once more. His grip on my hand was an anchor in the chaos, the only solid thing in a world gone mad. Wind whipped my hair, tearing at my clothes. We fell too far, too fast. There was no surviving this.

Norsuk heaved upward with shocking strength, not once, but three times. Reality blurred, my mind buckling under the impossibility. But somehow, miraculously, my flailing feet connected with blessed solidity.

Norsuk crashed beside me in a tangle of limbs, his labored breathing harsh in the sudden hush. I dropped to my knees, the narrow beam of his comm light revealing his battered form. His leather jacket hung in shreds... No, not shreds.

Wings. Honest to god wings unfurled from tears in the supple hide, their iridescent sheen painting the darkness in impossible colors.

Wings. My brain stuttered, trying to process the enormity of what I saw. Not a dinosaur after all. A dragon. My dragon.

Norsuk"s face was a rictus of agony, eyes clenched shut as he pressed his forehead to the cold stone. Sweat-soaked hair clung to his neck, muscles trembling with strain. The transformation looked excruciating.

Mere inches away, a cataract of rubble and dirt continued to plunge into the yawning chasm. Heart in my throat, I seized Norsuk under the armpits and heaved, desperate to pull him from the crumbling brink. He was so heavy, his bulk nearly impossible to budge.

"You have wings!" I half-sobbed, half-screamed over the thunder of falling rock. "What"s happening to you?"

That"s when I saw it. A livid bruise forming on his temple, the regal gold of his scales mottled green and purple. A gash bisected one elegant cheekbone, leaking rivulets of crimson. He must have been struck by debris in the collapse.

"Norsuk!" I patted his face, my hands coming away sticky with blood. "We can"t stay here. The ledge could give out any second!"

He didn"t so much as twitch, his pulse sluggish but steady beneath my questing fingers. From the depths of the crevasse, a familiar squealing cut through the rain of stone. The stalkers. At least one had followed us over the edge.

I had to get us to safety. Now.

Gritting my teeth, I fisted my hands in the remains of Norsuk"s jacket and pulled with every ounce of strength I possessed. Again. And again. His inert body scraped over the uneven ground, wings dragging behind him. I prayed I wasn"t hurting him worse, but a few bruises beat being crushed to death.

The rockslide slowed, dwindling to a trickle of pebbles and dust. I heaved Norsuk a final few feet, arms trembling with fatigue, and slumped beside him. We were safe. But where...

It wasn"t a ledge we"d landed on. It was a shelf of rock, an entrance. Not to another mine tunnel, but a cavern. No, a cathedral.

And spread out below us, bathed in ethereal light...

A city.

Shock rippled through me as I took in the breathtaking sight. Towering spires and swooping buttresses, domes larger than any stadium. The foundations glittered like captured starlight, massive crystals throwing impossible colors onto the still surface of an underground lake far below.

It was a scene straight out of fantasy. Rivendell meets Coruscant.

"Norsuk," I breathed, "you have to see this."

I eased his head into my lap with shaking hands, mindful of the ugly wound at his temple. He was so still, his breathing shallow. The blow to the head or the strain of sprouting wings?

My fingers wove through sweat-damp strands of his hair, my heartbeat slowing to match his. He looked strangely vulnerable in repose, a fallen titan.

"Come back to me," I whispered. "You"re safe now. I"ve got you."

But he didn"t stir, lost in depths I couldn"t follow. Dread uncurled in my belly. If there was a city, there had to be people. People with medical knowledge. As soon as he woke, we"d seek help...

Unease prickled the back of my neck as I stared out at that impossible skyline. The longer I looked, the more I noticed the wear and decay. Crumbling spires. Gaps in the graceful spans of the skyways. A city, yes... but one that seemed long abandoned.

Where had its inhabitants gone? And why did the hairs on my arms suddenly stand at attention?

I thought of the mine"s prisoners, who"d supposedly vanished ages ago without a trace. Could they have escaped to this strange utopia? Had some calamity befallen them, or...

A soft groan drew my attention back to Norsuk. His brow furrowed as if in pain, lips parting. "Agatha..?"