Page 118 of Devil's Doom

A dragon. A burning one.

Another one falls, and the remaining seven dragons resume their flight, but their aim is off. They aren’t going toward us but… But toward the cloud of twelve dragons coming in from Wyraj.

“What’s happening?” I whisper to Lech, who pounds his fist in the air with a raw cheer.

“He’s controlling them!” he says with delight, the maniacal glint in his eyes bright. “Dragons aren’t immune to dragon fire, nothing is. They burned those two, and now they fly to meet their forces from Wyraj. It’s genius!”

“You’ll still have to fight,” Woland says.

I look up. His face is tense, sweat wetting his temples. His eyes are ablaze, wide open and gold, and his jaw is clenched tight. Maintaining control over those seven dragons is an incredible, powerful feat, but it costs him.

“How long can you hold them?” I ask quietly.

“Long enough.”

There’s a strain in his voice, and his hand gripping my shoulder spasms once, right until the point of pain when his claws dig into my skin. A thrill runs up my spine. This, then, is one of Woland’s limits. It’s insurmountable—holding the will of seven dragons at once is something I wouldn’t even know how to approach, let alone perform with any sort of success—but it’s a limit, nonetheless. Now I know he can hold seven, but not more. Soon, I’ll know how long he can hold them.

Somehow, delineating the boundaries of Woland’s massive power makes me feel like I know him better. It makes him seem more real. This is just like when I saw him eat for the first time. The devil struggling, stretched to his limit, is a new facet of him, and I greedily take it in. He’s utterly breathtaking.

He pants, his face tightening, but the snarl of effort turns into a vicious, sharp laugh.

“Watch,” he grunts out, his entire body shaking from the strain.

The dragons coming from Wyraj see what happened and try to evade their controlled brethren, but Woland pushes the dragons in his command faster, gaining higher ground.

Fire razes the sky.

The Wyraj dragons scatter and roar, but I count three—no, four—catching fire. They plummet to the ground, not yet dead, but burning. The other dragons pivot and attack the controlled ones, and Woland relaxes, exhaling as he wobbles next to me. For a moment, my shoulder becomes his support before he gains his balance.

In the sky, the Wyraj dragons chase and burn the other ones, even though Woland no longer controls them. Our enemies kill each other, meanwhile, Woland’s diggers work undisturbed, and somewhere else, where no one sees, Nienad performs the actual goal of this mission.

“Amazing,” I whisper. “How come you haven’t triumphed until now?”

He releases a long, weary breath. “This is but a battle. We can’t do any lasting damage to the fence. And I am not limitless. Once my power dwindles, the tide will turn. For now, though, we can have some fun.”

Another cloud of scales glitters on the horizon, and Woland takes a deep breath, squeezing my shoulder. “I’ll let them land. Get ready.”

“Yes,” Lech bites out through his teeth bared in a rabid grin.

Among the warrior ranks below, Draga’s head of braids flashes in the moonlight. I turn to look for Lutowa, locating her in the group of biedas. They all eat eggs, swallowing them whole without chewing. Their thin necks stretch and work in a way that makes my gorge rise.

The fresh wave of dragons is almost close enough to send streams of fire at the fence. Woland straightens, raising both arms high. A cloud of shadow stretches like a canopy above us, hiding the sky.

“They will be forced to land,” he grits out, his bare arms gleaming with sweat as he holds them high, his clawed fingers stretched, palms upward. He looks like a warrior holding up the weight of the world.

A muffled roar comes from the darkness, then another. Wera shouts at the diggers, and the shovels work fast, the holes under the fence so big, some of the digging chochols completely disappear from view. Lutowa jogs around us, heading for the fence. She doesn’t spare me a glance. Lech laughs under his breath, dark and reckless.

With a sudden jolt, I realize almost all my friends are here. Rada and Dar stayed behind, but all the other people I hold dear in Slawa are on this field. Dragons will fall from the sky any moment.

Woland grunts with effort, and when the cover of smoke above us blazes red for a moment, he hisses, as if from pain. The fire doesn’t penetrate the shadows.

“Are you all right?” I ask, casting a worried look at his straining face.

“Fine,” he bites out. “Just… a bit… longer.”

“Can I do anything?”

His bark of laughter is loud and harsh as his tail lashes the backs of my thighs.

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