Page 448 of Kingdoms of Night

“Tanis,” he said, his voice little more than a croak. Rowan cleared his throat and said again, “Tanis, there’s a dragon up there.”

She suddenly came alive underneath his arm. Tanis tore herself away from his shoulder and sprinted forward with more energy than he’d thought possible.

“Hora?” she shouted, hands scrabbling at the rocks. “Hora, is that you?”

The dragon let out a little moan, but that was all the sound it could muster. Blood trickled at its sides from a grave injury.

He glanced over at Aster, who lifted her hands as though she had no idea what was going on. The dragon wasn’t one she recognized, otherwise his sister would sprint up that mountain as well. But he knew they couldn’t let Tanis climb on her own, sothey had to go up.

“Tanis!” he shouted, trying very hard not to sound exasperated. “You can’t go rushing off like that! We’re only half a day’s walk away from the town.”

“I don’t care!” She’d already climbed an impressive distance from them.

“There she goes again,” he grumbled. “The damn woman wouldn’t know how to stay safe if I tattooed it on her palms.”

“Careful brother,” Aster said as she grabbed onto the first stone they needed to climb. “Keep talking like that and I’ll think you like her.”

He watched the two remaining women in his life clamber up the stones as though they’d been climbing them their entire lives. And he wondered what the problem was if he did like Tanis? She was a very intelligent, well spoken woman who had a heart of gold. She was a terrible friend, but an excellent teacher and he enjoyed her company. Most of the time. When she wasn’t running head first into danger and forcing him to murder strange bearded men.

Unless...

Ah. His sister was suggesting he might be falling in love with the dragon and he wasn’t all that certain she was too far off. He was fond of Tanis.

Shaking his head, he started up after them. Rowan was quicker than they were. It was easier for him to leap from stone to stone as years of practice moved his muscles for him. Plus, he was afraid that he would watch Tanis flip over backward and land wrong on that damned belly of hers.

“Tanis,” he snarled as he reached her side. “Don’t be foolish.”

“Don’t try to stop me, Rowan. She very well could be one of the last. And if we can save her, then there will still be two of us.” Tanis reached the ledge where the dragon laid and pulled herself over it.

She crawled toward her brethren, but he already knew this would not end well. Where she saw hope, he saw the terrible wounds inflicted upon the gold dragon. He saw how labored her breathing had become and the wide-eyed stare she gave them with too much white around her eyes.

The dragon was in unimaginable pain. There was no saving a creature who suffered like this.

“Hora?” Tanis asked, crawling up to the dragon’s head. “Can you hear me?”

The golden dragon wheezed in a long breath, but the sound was wet and bubbling with blood. “Tanis? So you made it out.”

“I told you all to run.”

“And we did not listen.” Hora choked. “We never listened to you.”

It broke his heart to see the tears streaming down Tanis’s cheeks. She curled herself up against the golden dragon’s cheek, as though her presence might ease the pain. He wanted to give her this moment, but he also didn’t want her too close to the acid eating through Hora’s shoulder.

He bent down beside her and braced his hand against the golden dragon’s jaw. “Careful, Tanis. The acid.”

She looked up at him and he realized she knew. She’d seen the wounds on her dear friend’s sides, and she recognized what that meant. Her fingers touched his belt and pulled his sword out from its sheath. Quietly. Not even the sound of metal against leather would reach the dragon’s ears.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, Hora,” she said as she laid the sword across her lap.

“We all knew it was only a matter of time.” Hora coughed, then wheezed, then her whole body seized as air seemed to stick in her lungs before she could breathe again. “We should have heeded the Memory Keeper. We forgot our history.”

“And so we repeated the past,” she replied. “I know, dear friend. I wish I could go back in time and change what happened.”

“I wish I had listened.” The golden dragon tried to lift her wing, but couldn’t. She let the great appendage drop. “And that the pain would end.”

He could see that it would take a very long time for her to die. Or worse, their attackers would find her like this and torture her in unimaginable ways.

Tanis slowly stood and patted Hora’s noble head. “I will help. Your death will be recorded in the crystals as the greatest of the gold dragons, and the last of your line. You are mountain kissed. The true treasure hidden within the depth of this great peak’s heart.”

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