Page 73 of Fae Tithe

She chuckled in her desert-dry throat and sent forth an image of an orange cat, fluffy and fat, curled up on a cushion. The feline was purring contentedly in the vision.

Then yes, I am a very magnificent, intelligent, scaly house cat, the Dragon agreed.

Helena could not help herself. She opened her cracked lips and laughed. The delight hurt. Her blistered skin stretched as she guffawed loudly into the hazy, scarlet air. She even felt a tear of joy trickle down her blistered cheek as she closed her eye.

Helena’s giggling slowed and finally stopped. She clutched her middle. Her core hurt from the laughter, as her muscles had lost their strength in her days riding on the back of the Dragon’s head. She opened her eye and wiped the tear away, before it widened in shock at the movement in her periphery.

Atlas! Look out! she cried down the bond.

The Dragon began to turn just as a colossal Surt slammed into his side, sending him sprawling. Helena clutched onto his horn for dear life.

Eleanor’s chest was in agony as her heart shattered. Her heaving sobs had ebbed to streams of unstoppable tears. What would she do without her mother’s guiding light? Who were any of them without Helena? Eleanor clung to Lance, to her father, soaking his shirt as more tears fell. She gripped her mother’s limp arm with her free hand.

Stay with us. Her fingernails dug into Helena’s blistered skin.

Then, a whisper-quiet thump.

Eleanor’s ears twitched. What she had heard was unmistakable. The fragile beat had returned, reminding her of a fledgling’s wings on its first flight. She dared to let hope bloom in her chest. The soft pulse was her mother’s struggling heart.

“Lance!” Eleanor pushed herself from the Merman’s hug. “Listen!”

Tears still falling down his face, Eleanor watched as he flung himself forward and pressed his ear to Helena’s chest. He looked awful, his eyes wild, and desperation laced into the fine lines around his lips and eyes. Eleanor knew he, too, did not know who he was without her mother.

“She can still come back to us,” Lance declared, his jaw set and eyes focused as he pressed his palms to her chest, his magic casting the whole room in a blue glow.

Hold on, Len! the Dragon roared as he righted himself.

Helena clung on to Atlas’s towering horn as he circled the colossal Surt that had knocked him over. She stood, still gripping the golden bone, and saw that Lance’s light was close.

The Dragon roared up at the behemoth fire giant, causing the ground to quake beneath his giant paws. His voice sent the other swarming Surts scattering, their fiery bodies disappearing into the haze of the air. Atlas spewed his flame onto one of his attacker’s front legs, melting the lowest boulder of the limb and making the creature hobble lopsided.

We are so close, Atlas, Helena said.

She eyed Lance’s magic, a welcoming blue amongst the inferno of red. She could see the rip in the fabric of the world properly now. The sapphire opening swirled in all the shades of the sea and smelt like salt, smelt like him. Her Merman was calling her home with his song, and she desperately wanted to heed him.

Atlas leapt, his wings spread. They launched the Dragon further through the air than his four legs could possibly manage on their own. He landed on the fire giant’s back. The force of his pounce sent Helena slamming to her knees. A deafening crack split the haze as his talons shattered the glowing red crystals on the Surt’s back. Gritting her teeth, Helena gripped the horn and rose just as Atlas lashed his tail forward. It whipped around the Surt’s front leg, ripping it off in one brutal heave. The giant toppled, Atlas still clinging to its back. The two titans crashed to the ground beneath them.

Atlas? she reached down the tie, panic clawing at her chest.

Helena realised she was worried about him, cared about him, as she would with any of those close to her. The Dragon shifted his head, his long neck lowering until the underside of his jaw made contact with the ground.

Run!

The compacted ash beneath the giant and the Dragon cracked like glass in thousands of lava-filled lines in all directions as they grappled, filling Helena’s gaze and widening it in shock. The Surt lurched forward. It trampled and trapped Atlas’s whipping tail beneath the weight of a ruined, rocky foreleg.

As Helena slipped from the side of Atlas’s head, he yanked it away. She fell flat on her back, knocking the wind out of her. The Dragon roared in agony from the crushing of his tail, the sound of cracking bones making Helena want to vomit.

Get up Len. You must get up, he hissed in agony, panic and pain racing up the link between them.

She forced herself upright as the Dragon rounded on fire giant. More of the finer bones in his tail shattered as he tried to free it from the crush of the Surt’s foreleg. Atlas opened his maw and spewed his flame onto his behemoth opponent, while Helena pushed herself to her booted feet, limping towards her Merman’s beacon. Everything hurt. The Dragon’s agony mingled with her own through the bond, yet Helena forced herself forward.

Her matted hair finally loosened from its ruined bun as the swirling water magic pulled her towards it. Helena stood at the opening, clenching and unclenching her fists. She could smell the sea salt and hear his velvet voice calling from within.

How does it work? she asked the struggling Dragon, not daring to look behind her. What do I do?

The way out is through! he roared.

Helena placed her hand on her frantic heart, willing it to calm. She took a deep breath and leapt. Everything paused for the briefest of moments, as though she were floating in Lance’s magic.