Page 76 of Ties of Frost

“Ready to end this.”

Kane laughed. “And if you wouldn’t die the moment you shifted, I might believe you.”

I smiled darkly. “Why do you think we needed Rouven?”

The false archon’s cocky expression faltered. “No one has ever survived being struck by an ice curse. Even Rouven couldn’t remove it.”

“Not by himself, no. But once again, you’ve underestimated Kyrmaris. You won’t again.”

My neck grew, my horns and tail sprouted, my thumbs elongated into thick, sharp claws, and my body expanded as my arms and fingers transformed to massive claw-tipped wings. Within moments, the transformation was complete. I rested the bend of my wings on the ground and looked down on Kane’s slack face from my fifteen-foot height. Then I stretched my head forward until my mouth full of long, razor-sharp teeth was scarcely more than a foot from his face and released a bellowing, screeching roar that reverberated in my throat and made the ground vibrate beneath my feet.

Above us, Sajen and the enemy gryphoni disengaged and turned toward me. The shadows and ice thinned, and I caught a glimpse of Kyrundar and the night elf gaping at me.

Kane scrambled backward. Between his hands, he conjured a fireball the size of his torso. With a yell, he threw the white-hot ball of flame. I closed my maw and turnedmy head. The fireball exploded against the side of my scaly face, and I didn’t feel a thing.

My laugh sounded like a low, hiccuping growl.

After over a week of being caged, my dragon fire burned with vengeful, animalistic intensity. My wyvern nature prodded me to eat Kane, but I would regret such an inhuman action later.

“Phasta!” Kane shrieked.

The gryphoni dove toward Kane. Sajen started to follow, but as I raised my head and opened my mouth, he wheeled aside and out of my way.

I breathed out a jet of fire that made Kane’s human magecraft fire look like a child’s firecracker. Flames enveloped the gryphon. The rumble of my dragon fire mostly drowned out the gryphoni’s screams. I tracked the shifter’s fall until my fire breath gave out. The charred remains of the gryphoni crashed to the ground, lifeless.

While Kane stared in horror at the remains of his soldier, an icicle a handsbreadth in diameter speared through his chest. Rouven lowered his outstretched hand and watched as Kane dropped to his knees and then fell flat on his face. The icicle turned to a whirl of tiny snowflakes and vanished, leaving Kane’s still form bleeding out on the stones.

“Zidra!” Kyrundar’s shout sent my heart racing.

When I looked over, he was standing beside the cabin alone, bleeding from a few shallow cuts, including one on his cheek, but he appeared to be all right. He pointed up toward the oddly dark shadows covering the entirety of the cliff face.

“I can’t see the night elf, and he’s fleeing!”

Even with my wyvern eyes, I couldn’t penetrate the unnaturally dark and solid shadows churning on the rocky cliff. I spread my wings and took to the air, stirring up little clouds of dust along the beach. Rouven raised his arm to shield his eyes and hunched against the wind.

I unleashed a wyvern screech and moved closer to the cliff. As expected, the loud, high-pitched sound made the night elf flinch. His shadows wavered, and I focused on a darker spot near where the walls of the inlet met and where bits of loose pebbles rained down from the elf’s ascent. A deep breath through my nostrils confirmed the night elf’s location.

I beat my wings to rise higher, then swung my legs forward and reached with claws as long as a human’s forearm into the darkness. The wind generated by my wings dispelled some of the shadows like mist. Solid shadows tried to fight my feet, but between the strength of my muscular, scale-covered legs and the elf’s split focus as he tried to cling to the rock wall and fend off my attack, I pushed through. The pungent scent of terror filled my nostrils, and then my right foot found his body. My talons wrapped around the night elf, and I pulled him, screaming, from the cliff.

The corner of the inlet was too tight for me to turn around in, so I flew upward and circled around before I dropped the struggling elf onto the beach. Cushioned by his magic, he landed on the white stones without injury and stumbled to his feet—but too late.

Kyrundar threw a barrage of icicles that tore through the night elf. The writhing shadows vanished, and he sprawled across the ground, never to rise or assassinate another person again.

With a triumphant bellow, I flew a little ways down the beach, safely away from Rouven, Kyrundar, and Sajen, who had shifted back to his di’ora. It felt so good to be back in my wyvern di’yar, I was tempted to do a few laps around the inlet to properly stretch my wings, but there would be plenty of time for that later.

I landed in a spray of white gravel. The moment I finished shifting, I ran to meet Kyrundar.

Twenty-Eight

Kyrundar

As Zidra landed, I broke into a run. I raced past Sajen, Rouven, and the corpses without a glance, although I held my breath for a moment as I passed the smoldering remains of the gryphon shifter. Zidra shrank from a towering creature of heart-stopping awe down to her usual beautiful self with tan skin and a gorgeous halo of frizzy brown curls.

Remembering her reticence to kiss me, I started to slow. But the moment Zidra finished shifting, she sprinted toward me. My soaring emotions lent speed to my legs, and I wished the skittering pebbles weren’t slowing my progress.

We collided, our arms going around each other, and she squeezed me just as tightly as I embraced her.

“Zee—”

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