Dragon of Frost and Flame: Chapter Ten

“No. I’m not. We’re not. We’re not murderers. Not more than anyone else active in this war between us.” Nightsong’s mental voice fractured, ice under pressure. Desperation and pain now suffused it. Not one bell-like quality persisted. “You remember that day? You found me with your dog over there?” Still curled around her unconscious prince of a rider on what remained of that melting snow about half a dragon’s length away, the wyvern tipped her serpentine head toward the tall, shadowed pines defining the edge of Shadowmist. Their branches swayed in a late winter’s breeze whispering of spring. A few clumps of snow fell from the lower boughs. Due to the shimmering heat and steam of the soaring river of fire that was the Beloved Breath blazing above the trees, no snow so much as flecked their higher branches.

“Yes, I remember,” Snow growled. The words sliced through her like they were swallowed shards of glass coming back up. In her fists, her nails cut into her palms.

The crisp, spicy scent of those pines mixed with those of fresh spring and fresh spring snowmelt. They washed over the frost-dusted plain and dulled the sulfurous, fiery perfume of her and Stormfyre’s magic.

They could not dull the forbidden Pyriebral flames coating Snow. They seethed. No, they bucked and writhed like a wild dragon newly rescued. They tried to explode outward, all the way to the wyvern and her rider, to devour and destroy everything in their path, a cleansing fire that promised to free Snow.

Snow’s bones ached, her muscles ached, her skin ached, all of her ached with the effort of holding her banned magic back. Beneath her fur-lined clothing, sweat dripped down her limbs despite the wintry night descending upon them. Her clenched jaw spasmed.

Why did she battle to restrain her Pyriebral magic? Why did she restrain it at all?

Spark backed away, toward Shade a good distance behind her. Overhead, Stormfyre circled all of them with Snow in the center of the dragon’s orbit and the wyvern and her rider on one edge and Spark and Shade on the other.

“It wasn’t me. I didn’t hurt her. I found her wounded, and yes, most likely by a wild wyvern, but that wyvern wasn’t me. I’d planned to take her back to Daen through Shadowmist. Carefully.” The crimson blood that seeped from the cracks in the black patches of burns and from the shallower slices marring her body reddened her pale scales. Those droplets stood out, garish and gory.

Snow’s fire stuttered. “How? You can’t cross Shadowmist. No wyvern can.”

As if nearby Shadowmist Woods heard her—and perhaps that was possible given it was the most enchanted woodland Snow knew of—its evergreens seemed to stretch upward, to tower over them and their plain of purplish grass with its lumps of off-white old snow. The branches of the forest canopy interlaced more and more, and the shadows within deepened. Darkness and dark secrets alike pooled between the trees like interconnected ponds of spilled ink. The olive green needles of the boughs jabbed into both the darkness of the woodland and into the waning light of the prairie. They warned any who dared approach to turn around and run back to their lives far from the treacherous Shadowmist Woods.

“You are correct.” The wyvern’s voice steadied, strengthened, despite her trembling from her injuries. But its bell-like qualities did not return, and it sounded almost flat compared to earlier. “I cannot traverse it easily. I am too big for that.” Nightsong eased her wings, including the off-kilter one, to the ground. The claws on their tips dug through the wyvern and her rider’s lingering snow, and she lifted her body over the crumpled Prince Daen. With a grimace, she shifted her weight, then dropped back down, her body now between Snow and Prince Daen. Splinters of refrozen ice sprayed up around her. The wing and leg that hung and bent strangely shook far more than before.

Yes, I’m fairly certain that leg and that wing are broken. Snow’s chest tightened, but she banished the unwanted concern. There were larger items at stake than a wyvern’s broken bones. “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Shadowmist’s guardians, the creatures who live there. Only dragons can capture them with their fire.”

It was true, or at least what she’d been taught by the Guard, by Stepmother, and by Father before them.

The wyvern cocked her snakelike head. Those haunting, familiar violet eyes neared keen, even with the pain and weariness etched into them. “Is that how you find safety in Shadowmist?”

Snow sucked in a breath. How did the wyvern know Shadowmist was her sanctuary, her escape from the suffocating shrouds of the Guard, of Stepmother’s decrees, of the duty taught to her from birth? Its animals—all right, maybe more like its monsters but beauty was in the eye of the beholder and all that—knew Snow. They knew her scent, and they knew her heart. They knew she would never harm them nor would she harm their enchanted forest, their home. So they let her, her dogs, and her dragon be. They allowed her, Stormfyre, Spark, and Shade to exist among them in peace.

Over the months and years, she, Spark, and Shade had befriended some of them. 

The herds of purple- and indigo-hued beasts with leathery skin and tusks deadly as daggers who migrated south every fall and returned north every spring. 

The three-headed striped cat nearly the size of a pony with inches-long fangs that glittered no matter the dim light of the forest and with obsidian talons that could rip through the most stalwart tree.

The giant raccoons each with a set of three speckled horns and each who appeared as innocent as the smaller hornless ones who patrolled the bustling streets of the great city of Frlasyia, mischievous but far from life-threatening. In groups of three or more, Shadowmist’s could sweep anyone into their path and hurl their victim back out, bruised, battered, and in need of a healer. At best. 

When she visited Shadowmist, many creatures now sought her out, curious about the fire-wielder and her dogs, all of whom treated them with gentleness and curiosity instead of as danger to be defeated with brute force.

How could a wyvern do the same? Stormfyre herself disapproved of Snow’s friendships with the animals and other creatures of Shadowmist despite their strong bond rooted in equal parts love and magic. The dragon only tolerated Shadowmist’s guardians for Snow’s sake. In the bewitched woodland, the dragon grew twitchy, her predatory instincts on edge among so many threats.

The wyvern’s sharp gaze brightened with something that might have been pride, along with fondness. “Yes, Daen and I can navigate Shadowmist without a problem. Or without many problems, I should say.” Nightsong examined Snow. On the opposite side of the wyvern, Prince Daen of hostile kingdom Wyndaerya lay limp, the wyvern’s royal rider unconscious still. About the only part of him visible now, his slumbering face poked out a bit beyond the wyvern’s chest with its scales the shades of a muted milky rainbow. His full lips tipped up like he would give Snow a charming, disarming smile at any time, and those laugh lines softened the regal angles of his cheekbones and jaw. The golden medallion bearing Wyndaerya’s royal insignia that had condemned them both rested on the purple-brown grass punching through the last of their mound of melted snow. It caught the dying light of the dying afternoon. “Together, he and I have explored Shadowmist many a time.”

In the wake of the wyvern’s claims, Snow’s Pyriebral flames had calmed. They remained white-hot and they continued to smear the world around her, but now they only flickered over Snow and she no longer ached from the effort of restraining them. 

But why did she and they hesitate? Killing wyvern Nightsong and her rider Prince Daen was the only answer. Crossing Shadowmist Woods at will and unharmed was yet another reason they needed to die. They could cross into Pyrembri anytime they wished, whether through Shadowmist or the Breath.

They could bring an army into Pyrembri anytime they wished.

They could bypass the natural defenses Pyrembri relied upon.

If Wyndaerya attacked Pyrembri on Pyrembri’s own soil, many would die, with the Guard the first in a long line of those to fight and lose their lives defending Pyrembri.

They were her enemies, and they had to die. They were more dangerous than ever. Killing them would save countless lives.

Yes, her kingdom needed her to kill them. Her dead father and dead mother needed her to kill them. I need me to kill them.

How else to prove she was fit to Stepmother, to all of Pyrembri, to herself? How else to prove them all wrong?

One thing—one annoying, frustrating, stubborn thing—wriggled through her mind like a night crawler through wet earth. If only a robin were here to pluck it out and gobble it up, to eliminate it from her mind. “If you can navigate Shadowmist Woods without injury, why cross the Breath?”

“Why cross The Infernal Phoenix’s Breath of Ruinous Flame, you mean?” Despite those ruinous injuries, amusement colored the wyvern’s voice bouncing around Snow’s skull. It lightened the correction.

Nevertheless, Snow almost rolled her eyes at the overwrought Wyndaerian term for the Beloved Breath, that ridge of magical, fiery winds swirling above Shadowmist Woods and separating their kingdoms. Trust the Wyndaerians to twist four simple syllables into something verging on an epic poem. Wyndaerya loved their flowery words. Pyrembri spared no time for poetry. Pyrembri dealt in action, in results, in the brutal efficiency of surviving this cruel world. “Yes. The. Breath.”

The wyvern’s stare pierced her. “Why do you think? Do you think the reason might be similar as to why you’ve not brought anyone else into Shadowmist without a dragon to shield them from its creatures?”

Like a lightning bolt to the chest, realization struck. Her heart skipped a beat. Was that hope? Around her, the forbidden Pyriebral fire receded further, now a whitish blur flickering over her, and the freeze of this final day and night of winter pressed upon her, through both her illicit magic and her fur-lined, Guard-issued clothes. “You can’t convince anyone else to trust the guardians of Shadowmist, let alone to befriend them. Your allies won’t see the creatures of Shadowmist as anything more than monsters to be conquered or killed.”

“Ding ding ding.” That amusement in the wyvern’s voice grew, and some of those earlier bell-like tones tinkled within it. But Nightsong’s poor, wounded, tired body still quivered. “So ‘the Breath’ as you call it is our best chance.”

Snow snorted, and steam puffed up around her. It tickled the little that persisted of her Pyriebral flames in their gauzy outline of bluish white. “Clearly not. You’re grounded, defeated, at my mercy. If anyone but me had found you…” The truth sank in like a boulder in the quicksand of the bogs surrounding Ashdwyn Prison.

If anyone but Snow had found them—or at least anyone with the power to kill them—Nightsong and Prince Daen would be dead, killed on sight the moment the shield of their frostnado fell. 

That first reason, this being a wyvern with a Wyndaerian rider that had trespassed into Pyrembri, would have been enough for anyone else to execute them.

Why wasn’t it enough for me?

Stepmother’s cold, disappointed, cruel voice reverberated through her mind—no, through her entire body. She vibrated with the memory. She ached from it. You are unfit. A ruthless heart is needed to rule Pyrembri and you lack it. You’re too soft, too weak, too kind, too compassionate. You always will be. Our country will die if we are left with you. So we will never be left with you.

“We’d be dead, yes. And we yet will be unless you help us.” Nightsong’s amethyst flower gaze locked onto Snow. “So which will it be, Kyara, lost princess and true heir of the throne of Pyrembri? Do you deal death or do you gift life?”