There’s no choice now. With no little amount of force, Snow grabbed handfuls of that forbidden magic from its boiling, churning prison and wrapped them in its warmth. Like liquid sunlight, it streamed over them, then formed a gossamer shield invisible to all but her. She held it a finger’s width away from white-hot flames dancing over them, visible to anyone.
If Stepmother somehow spied on her through that cursed mirror, the lack of flames should disguise Snow’s use of the forbidden Pyriebral magic.
I hope.
Cloaked in the thickened cushion of her banned white-hot fire, Snow and Stormfyre crashed into the half-frozen ground. The impact ripped through her bones, rattled her teeth, and jarred her sinews, and old snow exploded beneath them in puffs of pindrop crystals that sparkled like crushed diamonds. Its icy powder nipped her cheeks, and those crystals sharp as a baby dragon’s needlelike teeth buzzed her neck.
A booo-ooo-ooomsh billowed out from them. It washed over the prairie, empty except for the wild animals, herself, Stormfyre, and her dogs.
And of course the Wyndaerian wyvern and its rider.
Tangled together, she and Stormfyre skidded over the frost-dusted plain and tore furrows through its slumbering purple-brown grass. Around them, sprays of ice fractured the weak afternoon light into tiny rainbows. The crisp air of late winter tinged with the scent of spring snowmelt wafted around them.
If not for the danger, she might delight in late winter’s beauty enveloping her despite the pain.
But the danger was there.
At least her body didn’t break. Neither did Stormfyre’s.
On this eve of the sacred Spring Equinox, Snow’s outlawed fire magic had protected them better than the finest armor of the Queen of Pyrembri herself. It had absorbed the worst of the impact.
Snow’s battered muscles shrieked regardless. Her shoulder throbbed from slamming into the ground, her right hip twinged, and the left side of her ribs ached from smashing into the dragon’s withers. The metallic taste of blood from where she’d bitten her tongue mixed with the lingering sulfurous flavor of Stormfyre’s flames.
Tonight, all those pains would sharpen, and bruises would paint their skin and scales in shades of blue, pink, and violet. Every movement would remind Snow and Stormfyre of this struggle.
That was for tonight.
Right now, under the beautiful cerulean sky on this final day of winter with the sun hiding behind the cloud from earlier and each breath smelling of storms and lightning strikes, there was a Wyndaerian wyvern and its rider to kill.
All but panting, Snow rolled onto her side. Stormfyre lay belly-down on the gashed plain beside her. The dragon huffed, her rib cage expanding and contracting in a regular but rapid rhythm. Steam rose from Stormfyre’s nostrils in twin misty coils.
A dog’s wet tongue slathered Snow’s cheek, and Spark’s keen brown eyes met her. The dog’s entire back half wagged, chock-full of the enthusiasm that defined Spark. Her brindle-and-white fur almost blurred, so fast did the dog wiggle with joy.
Despite the danger, the doubt, and this death-dealing task that she must complete, Snow nearly smiled. She ruffled the short, velvety fur between the dog’s ears. “I’m happy to be with you too, Spark.” She shoved herself upright until she sat cross-legged on the jagged earth. Shade, ever silent, slipped beneath her bare hands, the dog’s sable coat as silky as the favorite ball gown of any princess and her rich aroma comforting—even with the fishy hound odor hopping through it that meant Shade needed a bath soon.
But the battle wasn’t over. That tornado of ice and death howled near Shadowmist Woods. Somewhere within its frigid heart lurked her enemies.
That forbidden magic flared beneath her skin like a second sun—albeit an unstable one—and Snow hauled herself to her feet. Her banned Pyriebral fire burned the pain away. Those aches and throbs would return in spades tonight but for now, she couldn’t feel them and neither could her dragon.
Stormfyre could yet burn out, though. The dragon’s scales had dulled from their usual lustrous bluish purple into something approaching a purplish gray, and her silver-blue eyes held a weariness that warned of exhaustion.
Snow pressed a palm to the dragon’s shoulder.
A relieved smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Stormfyre’s scales warmed her fingers, even with Snow’s outlawed magic heating her body. Her hand resting on those smooth scales—dragons and their riders required touch to communicate with human words—Snow thought at Stormfyre, gentle but uncompromising, “Recover your flames. I’ll let you know should I need you.”
Stormfyre dipped her pointy chin in an abbreviated nod. Her mane of flexible iridescent fleshy, scaly tendrils bobbed with the movement. Like an oversized dog of fire and scales, the dragon folded one foreleg over the other, lowered her head onto that bony pillow, and closed her eyes. Autumnal spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves laced the wintry air again. As did the perfume of burning metal.
The dragon would be fine.
Snow turned to her dogs. This time she spoke out loud, her voice rough with the flames of her forbidden magic still crawling up her throat, “Stay with Stormfyre. I’ll call you should I need you.”
Ever obedient, Shade curled up beside the dragon. The dog became nothing but an inky shadow against the lavender-gray scales of Stormfyre's belly. Spark stayed standing. The friendly, happy canine guarded them both. Spark could be fierce when needed, as she was every time they’d encountered the twisted, malevolent monsters of Shadowmist Woods. Most of the creatures in the enchanted forest at least tolerated strangers if a stranger respected their ways—not that it happened often, strangers treating the monsters of Shadowmist Woods well—but some creatures lashed out no matter how gently and carefully treated.
Behind the trio, both the silvery, snow-capped mountains and the silvery, snow-topped castle shone in what little sunlight escaped that cloud. Winter’s wind swished through the purple-brown grass tickling Snow’s kneecaps.
Snow squared her shoulders and faced her enemies and their whirling, roaring, raging frostnado, maybe two adult dragon’s lengths away. Her heart hammered like that of a caged redwing hawk. Her stomach clenched. Her nerves ignited up and down her arms and legs as if ants nibbled her skin from the inside.
This was it. Time for her first kill.
She could do this.
She would do this.
Against her fur-lined pants, she steadied her trembling, sweating palms. Her pulse thundered louder than the tornado’s bellows, and her fingers tingled with magical warmth.
With all the magic of the Dragon Guard afforded to her as an official dragon rider—and with those outlawed sun-hot flames locked down again—she whipped her hands back, then thrust them forward.
Flameless waves of heat burst out of her palms. The air between her and that icy tornado wavered, like she peered through the eddies edging Lake Pyre, at the wobbly versions of its emerald seaweed, its rainbow minnows, and its ebony pebbles of sand.
Her first attack slammed into the frostnado.
And rebounded. That shimmering hot air hissed over the prairie, and Snow snatched as much warmth out of it as she could. No need to scorch their plain because a wyvern and its rider had shown up.
The warmth she’d seized and the rebound of her magic smacked into her at the same time. Through her winter clothes, they singed her skin. Her blood boiled, and the little hairs over her limbs stood. She staggered back a step.
A heartbeat later, her body absorbed her magical heat like she was a basking dragon and it was the sweltering summer sun. What remained of her attack melted the crisp old snow it hurtled over, but it did no more damage to her world, thanks to Snow.
But the frostnado had reflected nearly all her magic.
And it ramped up its own. Now cold stung her lips despite the inferno within, and frost gathered in her lashes. It froze them in clumps that she blinked away.
This cold was different from earlier, when she’d relished the fresh, frosty air. An anger, a bitterness, suffused this cold along with a hint of desperation. It blanketed the prairie, and a heavy silence enshrouded her world.
Snow shivered.
No matter.
She drew a breath of that frigid air. It tried to douse the dragon rider’s flames searing her lungs and throat, but it failed. Gritting her teeth, she forced more fire into her palms. The Pyriebral magic lapped at the icy walls of its prison deep within, and she dodged its siren song. She would not use it, not if she could avoid doing so.
Using her forbidden magic could be dangerous, beyond even Stepmother witnessing it.
And Stepmother could witness it if a sheet of ice formed a mirror at the wrong angle and Stepmother happened to check on Snow through her magic mirror at the wrong time.
Hope luck is on my side this afternoon.
It so rarely was.
Another wave of heat without flame whooshed out from her hands, and her breath steamed in a ragged, irregular fog.
Her glittering rider magic pounced on the frostnado again.
This time, it didn’t rebound.
No, it curved up and around the swirling tornado as instructed.
It contained the swirling tornado.
It did not break the swirling tornado.
But that angry, bitter cold warmed to a mere arctic chill, and somewhere a crow cawed.
That’s progress.
Her magic flashed with heat but not one spark blazed within it. It coated the frostnado from the tornado’s top near those of the evergreens of Shadowmist Woods to its base on the snow now piled beneath it on the plain. Maybe a dragon’s length away from the edge of the forest, her magic pulsed and throbbed like a living thing as the frostnado battled its suffocating embrace. Nowhere did the hot haze of her magic thin.
Snow crushed still more fire into her palms and threw another wave. It rippled out from her fingertips, whistling like summer’s two-toothed puffbyrd. The air danced with it.
Her banned magic rocked and rolled and screamed for release.
She smothered it. As with vomit during the annual summer flu, she’d only be able to keep it down for so long.
Hope I kill them first. Pyriebral magic was for emergencies only, and this was not an emergency yet.
The latest assault of her regular, normal, dragon-rider magic joined that choking the frostnado.
For a breath.
Then it sliced through that winter’s tornado like an assassin’s blade through the silk of a ball gown. With twin resounding crrrr-acks, two human-sized fragments splintered off the frostnado. The stenches of cracked glacier and burnt ozone raced out.
The fragments shattered. Crystals of snow and ice plummeted to the prairie, falling stars glimmering in the afternoon’s dim sunlight. Some pinged off her head and shoulders. Now they didn’t nip or prick or sting.
Now they were harmless.
Her heat carved a path straight through the heart of the frostnado. Scales black as a starless midnight sky and auburn hair the color of a dying ember peeked out.
Of course a wyvern and its rider cowered in the middle of the magical tornado. She’d been wrong to doubt it earlier, as she’d expected.
Dismay swallowed that brief relief of knowing for certain what she was fighting.
She would have to kill. There was no doubt now.
The frostnado screeched. Or was that the wyvern?
Both halves of what remained of the frostnado shuddered.
From the inside out, it glued itself back together. Those scales and that hair disappeared again.
Not so fast. Snow surged forward, toward her enemies. Her boots crunched over the crystals of snow and ice sprinkled over the purplish grass, and her wild raven hair streamed out behind her. The cold intensified. It bit her cheeks and her eyes watered, but magical heat pounded through her. Winter’s kiss could hurt her no more.
One last blast.