Dragon of Frost and Flame: Chapter Two

Those white-blue flames danced over Stormfyre’s purplish scales that now blazed almost fuchsia, and Stormfyre gave the Beloved Breath a dragon’s wide smile. Pointy teeth, some as long as Snow’s pinky, reflected the orange-red flickering light of the Breath.

Dragon and rider loved being in the Breath. It was about a hundred times better than relaxing in a sauna.

And Snow loved relaxing in a sauna. 

Into both Snow and Stormfyre, the Breath’s joyful flames sank.

Snow welcomed them with her usual joyful pose, with her arms spread wide, her eyes closed, and her chin tilted up, exposing her vulnerable throat. From head to toe, flame-filled breezes tickled and caressed her. Sparks flitted over her. Through her Guard-issued winter clothes—clothes that the Breath could never set aflame—they seared her. The Breath’s scalding heat wormed through her, all the way to her core where her own blazing-hot magical fire spun and burned like the center of the earth itself.

Within her, an inferno built, wild and intoxicating. It radiated all the way out to her fingers and toes. Like with winter’s gusts before, the occasional fiery gale struck her, and like with winter’s gusts before, no matter how it pushed and shoved or how she tipped backward or to the side, she could never fall off her dragon.

Between Snow’s thighs, Stormfyre’s ribs swelled. With a great exhale, the dragon added her own yellowish fire to that magical barrier that killed the ice wyverns of Wyndaerya, forever their enemy. Wyverns could never cross the Beloved Breath. The Breath could be even hot enough to threaten the lives of the fire-breathing dragons and fire-wielding riders of Pyrembri.

Well, the lives of most fire-breathing dragons and fire-wielding riders of Pyrembri.

Stormfyre and Snow weren’t most dragons and riders.

Something detonated within Snow.

She gasped and peeled her eyes open, but she could see nothing through the waves of heat and pain. On Stormfyre’s back, she pressed her palm against her throbbing, fiery chest.

The white-hot flames of her banned magic had broken free from their prison deep within her. They sprinted through her veins. They all but melted her flesh. They pounded at her fingertips.

They begged to erupt out of her.

If she didn’t release them, they’d burn her alive.

Or try to.

Something was wrong.

That forbidden, superheated fire tugged her to the left. Her vision cleared.

Through the Breath, a whitish ball of death careened toward Snow and Stormfyre.

Snow’s brows dropped. She removed a glove, extended her bare hand, and allowed a trickle of that outlawed molten magic to escape.

In a pure, blinding-white gust, twisting and twirling flames as hot as any the sun could produce exploded out of her fingertips. They collided with the Kiss.

The Kiss—the Pyriebral’s Kiss to be exact—whirled sideways and careered away from them. Her flames cooled to a whitish, bluish color and merged with those of the Beloved Breath. Her forbidden magic retreated back to its prison, back to its home.

It was strange. Ice magic attracted Pyriebral’s Kisses, and fire magic should repel them. The Kiss, a time-delayed fire bomb that stuck to its victim, should have swerved away from her and Stormfyre long before she’d had to deflect it.

If not for her illicit magic, the Kiss could have killed her. The fire of the royal Pyriebral line who’d long ago created both the Beloved Breath and the Pyriebral’s Kisses that patrolled it was far stronger than that of normal dragons and riders of Pyrembri.

I suppose it’s good I’m not normal.

Thank the blazes there was nothing close to a mirror up here, though. If Stepmother saw her use that banned magic even to save her own life and that of her dragon, Stepmother would find some new awful way to torture Snow.

It was better to be cast out, to be forgotten.

Frigid cold slammed into Snow. All those lovely little scorching flames of the Beloved Breath playing over her and Stormfyre winked out.

As always, the Breath vanished all at once with no fading or gentle decline, and Snow and Stormfyre plunged into that perfect cerulean sky of late winter again.

Good thing her magic protected her fur-lined clothes as much as her skin. Otherwise, she’d be naked and freezing up here, no matter how she didn’t mind the cold and how she often even liked it.

Stormfyre dived into the only cloud in the bright blue sky.

Chill, wet air hanging on the edge of freezing stung Snow’s throat and lungs, and she slid her glove back on. With the fiery welcome of the Breath beneath her, she tipped her chin up once more. This time, she embraced the cold instead of the heat and inhaled the cloud’s fresh, water-heavy air. As ever, it cleansed her, rejuvenated her, reminded her that she could hope. 

For what, who knew?

In the cloud, Stormfyre bobbed up and down, sending Snow weightless again and again. Snow closed her eyes and rode her dragon with a smile on her lips.

Only here, with her dragon and without the Guard, was she free.

A small, forced-insignificant part of her murmured that this was not enough, even if she could have this sweet freedom every day, which she couldn’t.

It wished for more.

Snow stamped it out. She could have no more than this, and she was lucky to have this much. The moment Father died five years ago sealed her fate. There was no use wishing for what could not be. Stepmother had made that clear long ago.

Quuu-euwww! 

Snow’s eyes snapped open, and her entire body tensed. It’d sounded like a redwing hawk’s cry, but it’d come from her dragon.

It meant that Stormfyre had found an enemy wyvern somewhere on the snowy plain stretching out below them.

Sure enough, the dragon straightened her flight, and her muscles hardened beneath Snow. The soothing scents of cinnamon and nutmeg vanished from Stormfyre’s burning metal scent. A hint of sulfur joined it.

The dragon prepared to fight.

Snow squeezed her legs around Stormfyre’s ribs. “What is it?”

She knew what it was, but she needed the dragon to say it. Even with their close bond, Stormfyre didn’t love using words, and they needed to work on it. Now was as good a time as any, regardless of the danger rising up beneath them.

Perhaps because of the danger rising up beneath them.

“There’s a wyvern on the ground.” Despite the dragon’s reticence to use human words to communicate, her voice in Snow’s head was silky smooth.

And vicious.

The ease and freedom of an afternoon’s ride through beautiful cerulean skies whispering of spring but still with winter’s bite and crisp air cleansing her of all that doubt and worry and feeling of being caged evaporated.

For all of twenty minutes, she’d been a girl on her dragon relishing this final winter’s day.

Now she was a ruthless member of the Dragon Guard of the Queen of Pyrembri, death and destruction from above.

Snow crouched over her dragon’s neck, Stormfyre’s deep purple scales smooth beneath her gloved fingers. “Out of the cloud, Storm.”

It was safer in the cloud, with only Stormfyre’s triangular face peeking out now and then, but Snow needed to see what the dragon had seen. If that meant an airborne battle with her sworn enemy, so be it.

A glacial wind rushed past Snow’s rosy cheeks, and both her cloak and her raven-black waves streamed out behind her as they exited the cloud and entered the clear sky once more. Again, the dragon’s purplish scales sparkled almost blue in the afternoon sun. Stormfyre’s heat buffeted Snow and sank into her. Dragon’s and rider’s fire magic melded. It was ready to attack their enemies, the wyverns and riders of Wyndaerya, those Wyndaerian vipers.

So was Snow.

There it is. Maybe five hundred yards away—maybe the length of the Pyrewing Proving Grounds away—a tornado of ice and snow swirled.

It was the “frostnado” of an ice wyvern and its rider.

This frostnado was all of a dragon’s length from the snow-encrusted pines marking the edge of the enchanted, treacherous Shadowmist Woods. The fiery winds of the most intense part of the Beloved Breath gushed above their needles. Because of the Breath, ice and snow never collected on those uppermost branches. They melted first.

The wyvern and its rider had trespassed into her kingdom of Pyrembri.

They would pay for it.

Although, only the most powerful wyvern riders of Wyndaerya could forge frostnadoes.

Then again, this icy tornado was on the smaller side, around half the height of the tallest pines. She’d seen Wyndaerian frostnadoes come close to tickling the bottom of the Breath.

Or she had that one time, when she’d battled Prince Daen of Wyndaerya.

Even if it is small, I’ll have to be careful.

This was her chance to prove herself to the Guard. If she brought back the wyvern’s head, they’d have to stop sticking her in the back, never to attack, never to protect her kingdom and her people.

She was supposed to stay in the back though.

No. Snow was sick of being the misfit girl who liked winter too much, who helped innocent animals too much, who couldn’t be trusted to kill anything but the occasional mosquito.

It might be true that she’d never killed anything but a mosquito and its like, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t. She could be like the rest of her country.

I have to be.

On Stormfyre’s back, Snow twisted around. Her two dogs were specks cavorting along the edge of Shadowmist Woods. Playful Spark darted in and out of the forest, her brindle-and-white fur blending in with the snow and dappled shadows. Ever cautious, Shade wound between the pines. Her ebony fur transformed her into another ghost in that magical, deadly woodland.

Neither noticed the frostnado protecting the grounded wyvern and rider.

Neither had to notice it, not yet. The dogs were far enough away from their enemies to be safe.

That could change in an instant.

It wouldn’t, not on Snow’s watch. The wyvern would be dead before it could hurt her dogs. The rider too, if needed.

Pulling on the magic of Stormfyre’s dragon roar, Snow called, “Spark, Shade, with me!” Her voice rode the wind straight down to her two dogs. Thanks to the magic of that roar—and perhaps thanks to the roars of the frostnado itself—neither the wyvern nor its rider would hear her.

When her dogs turned to follow Stormfyre’s shadow on that snow-dusted prairie, Snow whispered into Stormfyre’s ear, her dark blue eyes glued to that tornado of frigid death, “Now.”

***

All right, Snow and Stormfyre are about to attack that enemy wyvern and its rider!

If you were riding Stormfyre right now, what would your battle plan be? Would you:

• Dive straight in and attack the frostnado's ice and snow with your magical fire?
• Circle around from above to assess and find a weakness first?
• Do something completely different?

Comment below and let me (Betsy) know your dragon-riding battle strategy! I read every comment and can't wait to see what you would do in Snow's boots. 😊