Page 74 of Starside

The sun is almost setting.

My dragon takes off into the sky, and I grip her scales. We glide like that through the pinks and oranges, flying through the sunset. Tears prick my eyes. I’m not alone. Not anymore. She is going to take care of me.

We are going to take care of each other.

My chest is flush against her back. I can hear her heartbeat somewhere deep inside. It’s in sync with mine.

“Thank you,” I say, because I’m not sure I did before. “For giving me a second chance.”

Her chest rumbles beneath me, a response.

“I never thought I would do anything like this,” I tell her, my words being swallowed by the wind. I huff a cruel laugh as I think of all the impossible things I’ve done in the last few days. “I was never brave, not really. I would run into my parents’ room almost every night, as a child. Every creak of the wood of the house scared me. But then … my sister came, and I realized I needed to be brave for her. So, I was. I tried, and—”

Sometimes trying isn’t enough.

I go quiet, wondering if the dragon heard me at all, but then her chest rumbles again. She hears me. She’s listening.

So, I keep going. “What I’m trying to say is I never thought I would leap from a mountainous tree. Or wield a sword. Or race toward certain death.” I smile, a little. “I never thought I would fly through a sunset.”

I reach down to brush her scales—

And jolt back as she shudders.

She screams, and the sound doesn’t just pierce the sky. It lances through me. I look down to see if I’ve been struck, but no. Just her.

There’s an arrow through her side. It’s long, sparkling metal. Starside steel. Strong enough to go through her scales.

A roar rattles the skies.

Then a monstrous dragon like a barbed shadow blocks out the rest of the sinking sun. He’s twice as large as mine. He parts his jaws in another bone-rattling shriek, then dips, revealing his rider, holding a bow.

Cadoc.

Fury flames through my bones. He killed Stellan. Now, he’s wounded my dragon.

How was he able to claim such a creature? Did he kill its original rider? If dragons are anything like swords, the connection must be accepted both ways.

Which means this beast is just as wicked as Cadoc.

Everything in me wants to kill him. But I can feel my dragon’s panic as if it’s my own. We won’t survive this fight. I grip her scales. “Go,” I say, and she rushes down, fast as lightning, but it’s useless.

The creature is beside us in a moment. Wind howls in my ears as I turn to see Cadoc, grinning.

“First, I’ll take your sword. Then I’ll take your dragon,” he yells through the wind. “I’m going to feed it to mine.” His dragon turns his head. Through the beast’s dark scales, red rises. Orange. Like a sunset spreading through his stomach. Fire.

I gasp just before a column of flames shoots right at me.

My dragon lifts her wing at the last moment, blocking the flames like a magnificent shield.

I can feel her pulse quickening—the move has cost her. Some of the fire goes through the thick shreds of her wings, setting them ablaze.

“Down!” I scream. “Go down! We can’t win up here.”

He’s larger, and faster. Perhaps lower, in the cover of the trees, we have a chance at escaping him.

At first, I think my dragon either doesn’t hear me or isn’t going to listen. Then, just as Cadoc’s beast opens his maw again, fire rising, she nose-dives like a shooting star, right into the forest.

Fire paints the sky like a second bleeding sun. We crash through the trees, branches snapping, dirt ballooning all around us, and land with a bone-splintering thud.