Chapter 27

We plummeted out of the sky, Max clinging to my back with all his strength as we fell towards the endless expanse of my father's army, wispy clouds blown apart as we crashed through them. My teeth sank into the bony ridge of my attacker's wing just as his claws raked a line of agony across my stomach.

A roar escaped me, Dragon fire blooming and forcing him back, giving me the room I needed to kick out and send him careening away from us.

I flipped over as the ground sped closer, blazing campfires and endless rows of tents coming into sharp focus beneath us. The warriors on watch bellowed cries of warning to those who slept.

My wings snapped out and I banked hard, beating them through the pain of the gashes which had been torn through them, blood spraying from the wounds to decorate the campsite below.

Earth-powered archers took aim at me as I scrambled to stop our fall, their arrows forming in their fists, tipped with stone and spiked with thorns, designed to sink deep into flesh and do even more damage on the way out.

I bellowed fire at them, raising screams while we fell, my bleeding wings unable to counter the fall fast enough.

Air magic swelled beneath me moments before I could collide with the ground, wrapping around us and catapulting us back towards the moody sky. It was Max's power that engulfed us, launching us upwards despite the odds.

I flipped in the air, rolling aside as a volley of arrows were released our way then beating my wings hard against the agony of the wounds caused by those which struck me.

Max cried out in challenge as his air magic propelled us higher, lifting us out of range as fast as he could.

Still, I felt the bite of an arrow as one struck me in the hind leg, another piercing my wing a moment later.

But that pain was nothing, utterly irrelevant in the face of the Dragon who I had lost sight of in our fall.

I whipped around, finding shadows dancing in the air, hiding him from view even as his unearthly shriek shattered the peace of the sky.

Tharix.

The son my father had sired with that shadow bitch was hunting us, and between my injuries and his ability to hide in the depths of the night itself, I knew we wouldn't outpace him.

A flash of movement came from our left and I tucked my wings, diving for the sheer, rocky slope of the second largest mountain in the cursed range, where the campsite of traitors and monsters couldn't easily climb. Where it would be just us and him alone in the dark.

I lashed my tail as I felt him closing in on us, the savage blow driving the spines lining it deep into his flesh and coating my scales with blood while he screamed in fury to the stars.

I flipped over in the air, pressing my advantage while he was still reeling from the blow, crashing into him, claws drawn and sinking deep.

Tharix thrashed in my hold, his claws raking across my side, splitting scales and drawing more of my blood.

Max fought to wield the air as we fell again, but a swipe of Tharix's claws forced him to shield instead and we collided with the mountainside at speed.

Max was thrown free of me and my heart lurched with fear, but I couldn't spare a moment to look for him. Tharix's claws ripped down my side, the shadows which lived in him sinking deep into my flesh and scoring lines of agony through me.

I blocked out the pain, slamming my weight into him and driving him towards the sheer drop that loomed at his back, the mountain falling away to nothing as though a slice had been carved clean from its side.

He reared up as he fought to dig his claws into the rock and stop our progress towards that fall, and I lunged at him, my jaws snapping shut around this throat, the acidic taste of his tainted blood rolling over my tongue. He bellowed loud enough to wake the heavens.

One of my wings was dragging pitifully along the ground at my side, the pain of my own wounds almost overwhelming me, but I refused to let them slow me down.

My claws bit into the stone and I pushed against his bulk, inching him towards that drop and the death which had to be waiting at the foot of it.

I forced a step, then another, the world quaking as he fought and thrashed, my jaws tightening around his throat and slicing through muscle and sinew.

But just as the edge loomed, his rear legs kicking out over open space, a shattering cry cleaved the world in two. The thing which had lured us here screamed somewhere in the depths of the world and the power of it stole the breath from my lungs, the magic from my bones and the Dragon from my flesh.

I fell as I shifted unexpectedly, my back slamming into stone and tearing on the rough rocks before I tumbled over and over again, rolling and careering towards that drop and the edge which beckoned me so desperately towards death once again.

I threw myself onto my front, my fingers biting into the unforgiving ground, my nails splitting as I fought to find a grip, my magic failing me entirely as the power of that scream held me at its mercy.

My gut lurched as I hit the edge, my fingers raking over the stone, unable to find anything to grab hold of before I began to fall.

I roared in defiance of that fate, my gut plummeting as gravity snatched me into its grasp, but before I could tumble into the abyss, a hand latched tight around my forearm, jerking me to a halt.

My breath stuttered out of my lungs as I looked up, a wild grin on my face, my lips parting on thanks for Max which fell utterly still on my lips as I beheld the unearthly beauty of Tharix's face.

His lips stretched into a smile too, his all threats and wicked deeds which sparked in the depths of his onyx eyes.

"Hello, brother," he purred as he began to heave me back up onto the ledge. "I was told that you were dead."