Chapter 50

50

R hi

We’ve failed to kettle their fighters as we planned, and the students and teachers and others are fighting one on one with Christopher Kennedy’s men, magic exploding above their heads and enemies mingled together with our friends.

Gwenhwyfar’s fire is too indiscriminate. If I let her blast fire down below us, she’ll take out just as many of us as she will the opposition. I can’t risk it.

“Damn it!” I curse, kicking my heels and encouraging her back up into the sky.

We stay there right below Christopher Kennedy’s gray clouds, circling, waiting for a chance to strike and I’m just debating giving up on this plan altogether, and flying down the mound to take out the rest of Christopher Kennedy’s men when I hear a faint whistling in the air.

I look up but I’m already too late.

Large weapons tear through the sky in our direction, so quick, Gwenhwyfar barely has time to swoop out of the way, one of the great balls of steel narrowly missing her left wing. The other dragons scatter too, diving and dodging the onslaught. I lean flat on Gwenhwyfar’s back, willing her back to the meadow.

I’m already too late. One of the balls of steel smashes straight into the body of one of the smaller dragons.

For a moment, it’s like time stops. The two great objects collide in the sky and then hang there, joined together, the ball wedged deep in the dragon’s side. The dragon wails and then it’s spinning, round and round like a maple seed, crashing into the side of the hill.

It flattens several of Kennedy’s men who were climbing the bank, and then it rolls, over and over again until it reaches the bottom, its enormous body flopping to a stop. It lies there unmoving and dead.

Gwenhwyfar throws back her head and lets out a mournful wail of her own and I feel her sorrow, raw and immense. She swoops down towards the dead dragon, skimming over its body and her scales heat again as she lets out a breath of fire, cremating the dragon’s body in one mighty bellow. Then she swoops up into the sky, her scales boiling hot with anger now, an anger that vibrates through her body.

She sets her eyes on the men below, ignoring more cannonballs as they whizz around her. She’s going to scorch the earth, obliterate everything and everyone.

Yes, this is what we need to do. We can take out the rest of Kennedy’s troops – the ones waiting at the base of the hill. The reinforcements. Gwenhwyfar and I can weaken his army and give our fighters a chance.

The dragon rumbles in response to my encouragement and her scales are so hot they burn against my flesh. I grip them anyway, steely determination running through me, that darker magic driving me onwards.

The dragon swoops down, her body casting a shadow over those below.

We are going to do this. She and me together. We are going to kill them.

This is what I saw in my dream. The world burning and we are going to burn it.

My skin sizzles hot like the dragon’s. My magic roars in my ears. The anger and the rage spills from my fingers.

Those dark memories from my past come rushing back into my mind. All the times we were forced to run, all the times they beat my aunt, all the times they hurt her. All those times.

The crimson magic inside me takes hold, reacting to all my fear and fury, feeding off the dragon’s rage. There’s no Pip here anymore to contain it, to cage it, it’s running free.

It’s more powerful than the light magic. More hungry. More destructive.

Yes, I want to burn them all.

Yes, I want to destroy everything.

Yes, I want to make them pay.

Christopher Kennedy killed my mother. Now I am going to kill him.

Gwenhwyfar spits out her fire, roasting the magicals below us and I let out a torrent of my magic, dark and sinister, strangling and suffocating all those that escape the dragon’s flames.

My gaze, sharper, more vivid, tinged with blood, counts the bodies. One, two, three … hundreds. Hundreds of them lie dead .

An energy courses through my body. It’s eager for more. More death, more destruction.

I flick my gaze up to the academy and more dark memories flood my mind. Newer, fresher ones. Those people fighting up there, they aren’t my friends. They despise me. They treated me like dirt. They abused and bullied and hurt me. Over and over again.

And now this is my chance. My chance to make them pay.

Gwenhwyfar loops up into the air, deftly missing the weapons that fly towards her. Her breast rumbles with fire and she swoops down again.

This time towards the academy.

I am going to burn it too.

I lift my hand.

Rhi .

It’s a voice from far away. Faint. Muffled. Fighting to be heard.

Rhianna!

It’s not one voice. It’s five.

My mates. My men. I feel them through the bond. Something bright and good. Something I want to protect and cherish. Not something I want to destroy. Not something I want to harm.

I jolt. The anger melts away, as something warmer, something brighter rears up instead.

But the crimson magic has a stranglehold on me and it won’t be so easily suppressed this time. It battles to regain its grip, fights to control me.

“No!” I yell as I struggle against it, struggle to hear those voices, to feel the bond. “No!” I scream and try to push it back down, down into the pit of my gut. I tug on Gwenhwyfar’ s scales as she hurtles towards the mansion. “No, Gwenhwyfar, don’t!”

She ignores me. Her own rage deafening her to my pleas.

I press my hands to her scales and try to reach her with my magic, my lighter magic that’s battling to keep the crimson away. The dark memories swirl in my head, trying to drag me down into hate and revenge, but I focus on the good. On my aunt. On Pip. On Azlan and Stone, Tristan and Spencer, Renzo. I focus on them all and gradually the light dominates inside me, submerging the dark, and I battle with the dragon, yanking her upwards away from all those people.

“No, Gwenhwyfar,” I say, resting my face against her burning-hot scales and stroking my palm down her neck. “I know it hurts. I know it hurts so much. But this will bring you no relief. No comfort. Trust me. Trust me.”

Gradually as I whisper to her, her rage cools and with it her scales, her heartbeat slowing and her body skimming the current up here in the sky.

I’m so focused on consoling her, on calming the situation, I don’t see the cannonball.

I don’t see it until it’s too late. I don’t see it until it’s driving right at us. Gwenhwyfar jerks to the side, swerving to miss it. The movement is so sudden, so violent, I’m jolted from my seat and thrown loose into the sky.

And then I’m falling.