Page 153 of Ashborne Phoenix

Please.

Save her. Don’t let it be too late.

Please… I can’t do this without her.

As we slowed, I heard shouts below and leaned to the other side, half-thrilled, half-terrified at the sight of another dragon hunched against the wall to give us space to land, and the small figures of people lined against the castle wall.

The sight of Gil, watching with a grim face, and Terra, expressionless, but clutching a large satchel, made my heart rise.

Then we landed, and it all happened too quickly.

I unclipped us, held Grace to my chest with one hand, and slid down the mounting strap with her so quickly my palm was blistered. But I barely felt it.

Terra and two other women rushed us.

“Put her down. Lay her down—Voski! We need to assess!”

It barely made sense.

“Brother. We’ve got this. Let go—hear me? Vos?”

Fingers snapped in front of my face and I blinked.

I stood on the grass with Grace still curled into my chest like a child.

My shoulders creaked when I tried to lower her, but the moment I stopped clutching, three sets of arms reached for her, and my chest was cold, and she disappeared, and they couldn’t take her, I wouldn’t let them take her—

“Vos!”

Thick palms planted at my chest. Dark eyes under hair shorn so short, it was barely more than stubble, filled my view. A thick jaw and arms that could crush. And enough pressure to break a rib if I kept fighting.

Wait… I was fighting?

“Vos, snap out of it!”

Gil.

I went still. Trembling like a newborn foal. Sucking at the air, blinking and blinking and blinking.

Gil stood in front of me, one hand on each of my shoulders, and a red mark on his cheek. He stared intently, jaw jutting forward. As if he had to resist me.

I blinked again. “She’s—”

“They’re helping her, brother. Just breathe.” It was so close to what Kham had said, I turned to look for my dragon. But Gil stopped me from moving.

Just a few feet away, a cluster of people hunched on the ground—I saw a single, small, booted foot extending from between them.

Grace. They were hunched over Grace. And alongside them, a massive, green, female dragon.

“That’s Bich. She’s very skilled—especially good with bleeding injuries.”

“She’s not bleeding. She hasn’t been, but it’s because—”

“She’s bleeding, Voski. I’m sorry, but… she’s bleeding.”

My breath rushed out of me as I followed Gil’s gaze down to the front of my leathers and stared with horror at a red smear across my leathers.

The magik was wearing off.