Chapter 25

When my eyes opened,nothing about the world around me had changed—except Shadow. He was no longer flying in circles over my head, but he'd landed on the rocks right behind that edge that was supporting my weight and keeping me half seated. His eyes opened as soon as I moved and he spread his wings, but he'd been asleep with me, and I had no clue how long either of us had been out. No clue, but I had to get moving.

My muscles were sore. My feet hurt and my stomach growled. As much as I wanted to just start running up against the wind again, I knew I wouldn't last long. I must have slept for longer than I realized to be this hungry. With shaking hands, I took the last of the cheese and bread from my bag, but I had more dried meat left to last me to the closest town if I somehow made it back from this mountain.

If I found Storm and convinced him to join me.

The more I thought about it, the less hope I had. But even so, I kept going.

Shadow was still trying to warn me as he came after me, flying slower by the minute. Again, I ignored him, and it was easy to do when I could barely see where I was stepping—everything was covered in so much snow. I told him to leave, to get down there and wait for me, three times, but he wouldn't listen. So, we both continued up the mountain.

I tripped and fell too many times to count. The climb got steeper the farther up I went, and Shadow's roars became more desperate. I could hear the other dragons, too, but they sounded distant still, so I wasn't afraid, not yet.

And what must have been hours later, I finally managed to climb up a relatively straight surface, where I could stop to rest and catch my breath for a second.

Fuck, that was hard. Every inch of my body hurt. It was a damn miracle I hadn't frozen to death yet, but I wouldn't. Because I was burning on the inside—from that magic that seemed to turn up the heat on itself the colder the wind that blew against my face.

How much higher would I have to climb to get to the top? How much?—

My thoughts came to a halt when I straightened up and thought to take a look around, assess my surroundings.

High. I was so high up the vertigo hit me like a fist to the face, and I moved back on instinct, away from the edge which I'd climbed just a minute ago. The Whispering Woods stretched around me, dark and mysterious like it had come straight out of a horror movie. Lights and trees and darkness—that's all I was able to make out because of the snow that kept falling on me, and the wind blowing from my side that almost kicked the coat off my shoulders. Holding onto its leather ties, I turned around to see that the rock I was on was wide, at least fifty feet before the rest of the mountain continued, the snow-covered tip of it disappearing into the dark clouds in the sky. I'd gone farther up than I'd realized. I was almost at the top, but the problem was, there was nowhere to climb to get there. No more sharp edges or trees or anything, just an impossibly steep surface covered in snow.

My heart fell all the way to my heels. Even if I had wings, I wouldn't be able to get all the way to the top. I'd made it this far, yet I couldn't get all the way to the top.

Closing my eyes, I forced myself to take in a deep breath. It wasn't over yet. I was still alive. Grey was still alive.

And hopefully, Storm was, too.

Either way, I was about to find out.

"STORM!" I called at the top of my voice with every ounce of energy in my body.

The book that Valentine had written for me talked about how to use magic to amplify any sound, but to get that book out of my bag right now was impossible. Too cold. Too much snow. Too much wind.

All I could do was call out Storm's name.

I called him over and over again until my throat was raw, and I risked breaking from the cold. I called him, sure that he would hear me, sure that he would come to me as soon as he heard my voice.

I was right—someone heard my voice, and they came.

Unfortunately for me, it wasn't Storm.

The mountain groaned when something heavy fell on it—or rather, hung on the side of it behind me, one foot on the landing I stood on, the other in the air as his wings remained spread and his arm hugged the side of the mountain tightly.

A red dragon. A dark red dragon with large horns and teeth so big they could have been the size of my arm. Curved claws and a thin long tail with rows and rows of sharp spikes all around it.

I moved back toward the edge again—forget vertigo and the fear of falling down the mountain. I was about to be eaten by a fucking dragon instead.

The scream that tore from my throat when he roared and jumped for me could probably be heard by the entire Woods. The red dragon was coming for me with his jaws wide open.

Regret filled me, making my limbs heavy. God, I shouldn't have called for Storm like that. I should have just figured out another way to get up to the damn top.

Too late now.

My legs gave two seconds in, so I dragged myself back with my hands, trying to reach the edge, to jump off the mountain so I could die like that instead—because I really didn't want my remains in a dragon's fucking belly.

Except I wasn't fast enough. The dragon was too big and he was right there, red horns and claws and scales and eyes and tongue, coming to devour me. Even my magic didn't rush to burst out of me because it knew it couldn't do anything against that creature. No, the best I could do was close my eyes and put my hands in front of my face as if that was somehow going to stop him.

It didn't.

But another roar did.

It was so loud, so close that the snow clinging to the mountain's steep top fell off in big chunks at the sound of it. So loud that the very foundation of it shook, and the red dragon that had been about to eat me whole stopped and looked up.

He looked up, then spread those wings wide and beat them once, twice, taking himself up in the air.

Throwing me off the goddamn cliff.

No more voice left in me to scream with. The shock had paralyzed me completely—limbs and muscles and vocal cords and magic. My eyes refused to close so I saw exactly how fast I was falling right to the ground, just as I'd hoped for a second ago. I saw exactly how fast death was coming for me, and there wasn't even time to regret a single thing.

But then I also saw the grey belly of the creature that suddenly appeared right over me.

Talons around my waist and neck. My body moved at such a strange angle that if those talons had grabbed me just a bit lower, my backbone would have snapped in two, and so would my neck. Another loud roar filled my ears. I saw nothing but darkness and my hair that the wind moved in all directions, but I wasn't falling anymore. I was climbing higher and higher up in the sky, and I had yet to take in a single breath.

Thankfully, it didn't last long.

Thankfully, a loud noise later, and I stopped moving. My hair fell away from my face and I blinked my eyes fast, desperate to see my surroundings, to know if what I thought had happened was true—that Storm was there, that he'd grabbed me before I hit the ground as I fell off the mountain, that he'd brought me to safety.

And I was.

The talons were still around my body and they moved me about like I weighed nothing. The darkness deepened and I was pushed back, my feet dangling in the air still as I didn't dare make a single sound—until my back pressed against a hard surface, and another roar filled my head.

Except now, we were inside, it seemed, and so the sound was twice as powerful, and my ears were whistling seconds after he'd stopped.

Storm's face was in front of me, just as big as my body, his left eye missing, completely shut off, his right one bloodshot, so red it looked filled with blood. Thin lines zigzagged across the scales of his jaws and he looked so fucking massive from so close up, so mad that I couldn't remember to even try to move away if I could. On the contrary—if he wasn't holding me up with his talons, I'd have fallen to the floor of the cave long ago.

Then he opened those jaws lined with sharp teeth, and once again, he roared right at my face, loud and hard and for a long time.

I couldn't breathe. My ears rang and I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't keep my eyes open either. All that roaring could have lasted hours, and when he was done, I was shaking, crying, basically seeing my whole life flashing me by because I knew my end had come. Storm was going to eat me any second now. He didn't care about who I was, just like I knew he wouldn't. He was mad. He wasn't himself. He'd lost it, and he didn't care about anything because Grey was gone.

But…Grey was alive, wasn't he?

That was the reason why I'd made it all this fucking way. That was the reason why I'd gone on this suicide mission—because death would be worth it. I'd known it since the beginning, and that still hadn't changed.

That thought finally gave me a bit of strength, just a tiny bit so I could speak.

"H-h-he's alive," I said, stuttering so badly I would be surprised if Storm understood. "H-he's alive, Storm. He's…he is…I saw him." God, it was so much harder than I thought it would be—and I really needed to stop shaking and crying.

So, I closed my eyes and I bit my tongue hard for a second, just to get my body under control.

"I saw him. I saw Grey," I tried again, and the words came out clearer, and I could have sworn that Storm opened those jaws to roar at me again. "I swear it—I saw him. He's on the Eighth Isle—I saw him! He's alive, and-and-and you?—"

The roar came, taking my breath away, nearly suffocating me. Screaming or moving or doing anything at all but take it was impossible. My ears were bleeding by the time he was done, and as much as I wanted to get angry, the fear was too strong. Knowing that I was about to die took all the bite out of it.

Storm growled as he brought the tip of his jaws closer and closer, and his scales touched my cheek.

Grey's face was in front of my mind's eye still, and I kept mine closed, squeezed tightly, so that I didn't accidentally see it when he opened his mouth and swallowed me. So that I didn't accidentally see the inside of a dragon—no, thank you. I'd rather just die in blissful ignorance.

Except…Storm sniffed.

He sniffed my cheek so hard, and it was so powerful it felt like he tore the skin of my face completely. A cry escaped me out of surprise, and then he moved lower, moved those large nostrils to my neck and he sniffed that same way.

Before I knew it, I wasn't about to die anymore. I was instead being sniffed by a mad dragon, and his talons were slowly moving away from my body, letting me go. My feet touched the ground and my legs held me. They actually held me as Storm knocked the coat from my shoulders next and continued to my chest.

He's alive, he's alive, he's alive, I chanted over and over again in my head, and eventually I began to whisper it out loud, too. I whispered it when I realized that Storm was sniffing the tooth of his mother, the one hanging by a leather cordaround my neck that the dragon riders had given me.

He'd smelled his mother's tooth, and now he was going even lower, to my hips and legs and all the way to my feet, sniffing until he smelled every fucking scent of my body.

Then Storm stepped back.

Impossible not to open my eyes just to see him on all fours—a mad, one-eyed dragon who looked at me like he couldn't believe his remaining eye at all.

"He's alive," I said, my voice a scratchy whisper. "He's alive and you can get him back. I can take you through the mirror. You can?—"

Once again, he roared, except this time he was a bit farther away and so I didn't close my eyes. I saw his open mouth in detail, his tongue and teeth and the roof of his `mouth, even his fucking throat that would fit me without trouble if he decided to skip the chewing and just swallow me whole.

But Storm wasn't planning to eat me. Instead, as soon as he was done roaring—a mad roar, by the sound of it—he moved farther and farther back, and out of the cave he'd put me in.

Then he flew away and disappeared into the darkness, leaving me all alone.

Tears slid down my cheeks again and my legs finally let go. I sat on the floor with my arms around my knees, not really sure what to make of anything yet, just thankful that I'd taken that dragon tooth with me. It had saved my life—if Storm didn't come back later to eat me.

For now, I closed my eyes, rested my forehead on my knees, and I let go.

Storm didn't come back.

I waited for what could have been hours, and I went all the way to the edge of the cave he'd put me in, only to realize that there was a ledge in front of it, much narrower than the one I'd climbed first. The one where that red dragon had been about to eat me—then threw me off the cliff with his wings.

Shivers ran down my body every time I was reminded of it. Every time my brain insisted on replaying the feeling of falling—which was way too many times within the minute.

Eventually, I walked out of the cave, thinking maybe Storm was waiting for me somewhere. And if he wasn't, maybe if that red dragon threatened to eat me again, he'd come flying back.

"There is no time," I told the darkness as I argued with myself, against the fear that wanted me to stay in that cave indefinitely. I couldn't do that no matter how many dragons lived on this mountaintop—there really was no time. Who knew how much longer Grey had?

Storm wasn't by the entrance of that cave, though. No wings beating and no roars around me right now, but that ledge seemed to go around the curve of the mountain behind which I couldn't see. Despite the fear whispering in my ear, I was determined to make it to the other side until I found him, so that's where I went.

I could have sworn Shadow was flying somewhere close by, but every time I tried to focus on the shape of him it would escape me, or my hair or a snowflake would get in my eyes. The wind made it impossible to walk without holding onto the rocks of the mountain, and I took small steps because the ledge was narrow. One uncontrolled move and I would fall off again.

After about a hundred feet around the mountain, I reached a wider space with big rocks all over the semi-flat ledge, like someone had carved it out the side of the mountaintop.

There in the middle, behind the biggest rock that was over fifty feet tall sat Storm on his hind legs with his black tail wrapped around him, looking out into the darkness without making a single sound. He was so still that a layer of snow had covered parts of him, and despite the fear, I had never seen a more majestic view in my life. If I ever made it back, if I somehow survived this and I got my hands on a canvas and some colors, this was the first image I was going to attempt to recreate.

A black dragon surrounded by snow among pieces of rock on the side of a mountain, looking out at the dark clouds in the sky.

And then his head slowly turned toward me.

My eyes locked with his and my heart stopped beating altogether, but Storm didn't move at all. For a good minute, he just looked at me—then he turned back to the sky like I wasn't worth his attention anymore. Now that he'd screamed his guts out at me and he'd sniffed me thoroughly, he couldn't care less that I was there.

Gathering courage to go talk to a dragon like him took a bit more time than I liked to admit, but I forced myself to move forward eventually. I went all the way to the rocks, and my hands shook as I reached for the container with faerie-bee honey in my bag. Dragons were supposed to love that stuff—the guy in the Faerie Bazaar had said so—and I'd thought it would be a good idea to bring it to Storm. Maybe it would change his mind about eating me—though right now I didn't think he cared enough to do that, either.

But I pulled out the container, and when I was about ten feet away from Storm, I put it on the ground, then pushed it closer to him with my foot. Just a little bit.

The snow began to cover it instantly, and Storm didn't look at it at all. His nostrils just flared up as he sniffed like that again, hard, and then he went back to breathing normally.

"Storm," I whispered, both terrified and desperate to get his attention. Right now, no other dragon was flying around us or roaring. It was just the two of us—and possibly Shadow hiding somewhere, watching.

"It's, uh…" I cleared my throat, holding up a hand to the side of my face to stop the wind and the snowflakes from falling in my eyes. "It's faerie-bee honey. I brought it for you. Really tasty. I think you'll like it."

Storm barely threw a glance my way and to see such a massive creature moving with such ease was incredible to me still.

"C'mon, Storm," I breathed, taking in the rest of his body, the wings folded on his back, the edges torn, his scales crisscrossed with thin lines like they were scars from older wounds.

I'd only really seen him from closer up in the duel, but he seemed smaller, now that I thought about it. He seemed…slimmer. Like he'd lost weight. His neck wasn't nearly as thick as it had been, and those wings…I could have sworn his wings had been whole once.

They go to Mount Agva to starve themselves.

"You haven't eaten anything, have you," I whispered, eyes full of tears as I reached for the dried meat I had left in my bag, and I threw it at him. "Eat, Storm. C'mon, eat a little!"

The piece of meat rolled in the snow near his tail. Storm didn't move a single inch.

I don't know why that hurt so much, but it was like knives stabbing at my chest repeatedly.

"I saw him, Storm," I tried again, moving closer, slowly. That wind and snow made it so hard, but at least I wasn't cold anymore. My magic and the fear had the blood rushing in my veins faster by the minute. "Grey is alive, and I saw him in the eighth mirror in the mirror room back at the castle. And I heard Romin and Emil talking. They said it showed the Eighth Isle, and Grey was there. I recognized him. I'd recognize his wings anywhere—it was him."

Nothing.

I was two feet away from him now, pushing the honey closer, hoping he'd smell it and give in.

It didn't work.

"I can't get off this Isle, Storm, but you can. You can go find him, bring him back. I can take you there if you come with me. I'll shrink you with my magic, and-and-and I'll put you in my p-p-pocket…"

Fuck, I was a mess. I was crying before I realized it, shoulders shaking, my face a mess of tears as well as snow.

Grabbing my head in my hands, I sat down on the ground right there because I couldn't make it back to the cave. I didn't really want to. Right here was perfectly fine.

"I can't do it," I said as I cried. "I can't just be here without him, not like this. I am not going back. I'm never going back."

And if Romin came flying to get me, I'd jump off this mountain myself.

"I miss him so much…" The words kept slipping from me, and I hardly even noticed I was saying them out loud.

I never got the time to realize it before he got banished, but the little time I spent with Grey was the only time in my life when I'd felt whole—and now I was expected to live like this again?

No. It was different when I didn't know what I was missing. It was different when I had no clue what it was like.

"I'll just perish together with you on this mountaintop—how about that?" I asked, and when I looked up, I was surprised to find Storm had turned his eye toward me. He was looking at me. "We can starve together right here." Or I'd die of the cold if I just threw that coat down the mountain and suffocated the heat of my magic until it no longer warmed me. It would be quicker.

A low growl came from Storm's throat—like he was complaining.

"Well, you refuse to come with me, even though all you have to do is sit in my pocket," I forced myself to say, and I didn't back away, even though my instincts wanted me to. I didn't move away because logic said if Storm wanted to kill me, he'd have done it in that cave. That I was still alive meant he wanted me alive, so I kept going.

"That's all you have to do, just sit in my pocket, shrunk into a tiny dragon—if I can even manage to do that with you—because let's be honest, you're not a pen." I laughed at myself. "But assuming I can shrink you, and we make it back to the castle, you can go through the mirror. I've seen Shadow do it. All the brothers confirmed it, too. Dragons can go through mirrors. You can go to Grey, and you can bring him back."

Slowly, Storm lowered himself closer to me, and my heart all but left my body.

"Wha…what?" I barely managed to whisper, and at the sound of my voice, he froze in place again, one big eye blinking, his body perfectly still. He wasn't even breathing at all.

"Storm?" I whispered again, and I pushed myself to my feet. "What is it?"

He turned toward the darkness of the sky all of a sudden, and he spread his wings to the side so fast his left one knocked me down on my ass again. I didn't even get to scream before he took off flying just a few feet off the uneven ground, shaking all the snow off him, and half of it fell on me.

Then Storm roared at the sky.

At first, I thought it was another dragon. I thought that red one who'd been about to eat me first had come back, and Storm was telling them to back off or something.

But even when I stood up and looked at where he was looking, and even when Storm stopped roaring, I saw nothing but darkness. Not a hint of anything in the dark clouds.

"What is it?!" I asked, and his answer was to spit fucking fire at nothing.

I screamed, falling back a few steps, and then my foot caught on something and I fell once more. The honey container. I'd tripped over the honey container, and Storm was still spitting fire at the sky.

My hands shook as I grabbed the container and the dried meat and put them back in my bag. I was going to need them for later because I was about to go hide in that cave again until Storm calmed down. Whatever he'd heard or seen that was invisible to me, he was mad right now—and back to roaring that powerful, awful sound. I needed to run back to that cave and hide before he incinerated me.

And I was going to, but…

Two more dragons seemed to have appearedout of nowhere. They came from either side of the mountaintop, but they weren't even looking at me. They, too, were roaring at the sky and spitting fire at it, as if they could see something coming or something moving when there was nothing there.

No way did I dare to move away from Storm now. Instead, I inched closer to his back, as far away from the other dragons as I could. One was red—that same red one I'd met before, and the other a deep green, just as big as Storm.

"What is it?" I kept asking, my heart hammering in my chest. "What the hell, Storm—what is it?! Is someone coming? Is it…is it Balthazar?"

Because to me, that was the only thing that made sense. Romin was riding his dragon Balthazar to come for me, to take me back to the castle and punish me, chain me to his bedroom, force me to be his fucking bride.

To me, that was the most terrifying thing I could imagine, and as I looked at the darkness the dragons were roaring at, I almost saw the silhouette of Balthazar flying toward me.

But that was just my imagination and the dark clouds playing tricks on me because minutes later, nobody came. Minutes later, Storm finally tore his eye from the sky.

He landed on the edge of the mountain again, and he turned to me.

I knew in that very second that I was screwed. I should have gone back to that cave and hidden in the darkness, found a really narrow space where he or these other dragons couldn't get to me.

I should have run.

Too late now.

I screamed at the top of my voice when Storm's talons wrapped around my arms. He picked me up from the ground and took me flying into the sky within a second. I screamed, but it made no difference, and I couldn't even hear my own voice from how loudly those twoother dragons were still roaring.

Something was happening, something they could see that I didn't—but whatever it was, I was as good as dead now. Because Storm was no longer roaring or spitting fire but flying toward the darkness of the sky.

The farther he went, the faster his wings moved.

"Storm, stop!" I shouted at the top of my voice because we were already into the dark clouds that surrounded the Woods, and he wasn't slowing down. That meant he was planning to fly outside of them.

That meant he was planning to fly off the fucking Isle.

"Stop it, Storm! Please, let me go!"I shouted over and over again, even though I couldn't see him anymore. I could see nothing but darkness.

But no matter how much I begged and pleaded, Storm didn't let go of me.

He kept going and his wings didn't falter, and what felt like barely a minute later, I saw light. Warm blue light coming from not too far ahead, and Storm was moving us toward it with all his speed.

God, he was really going to fly out of the Whispering Woods—of course he was! He was a fucking dragon, and the curse didn't bind him to this Isle the way it did me. The curse wouldn't kill him, shred him to pieces as soon as he went through the barrier the way it would me.

I called out his name one more time, hoping he'd become sane enough momentarily just to remember that I was a bride and that he'd be carrying the pieces of me as soon as he forced me through the barrier.

One more time…

It didn't work. I felt the magic of the Isle hidden in those black clouds, going right over me, burning my skin. I closed my eyes, and I wanted to scream, but no more voice came out of me.

Storm pulled me outside the barrier of the Whispering Woods.