Page 122 of A World of Ruins

Venators run at it with their swords but are swiftly slammed against the walls as the dragon’s ferocious roar reverberates through the chamber.

Darius tightens his grip on my hand, his eyes set on the dragon ahead. When the dragon leaps towards us, Darius rallies his power, startling the creature as fire descends upon it.

‘We need to find Freya!’ I shout before the dragon can regain vision. Darius immediately abandons his jacket and shifts. Seeing that I can’t do anything other than rip my dress as I climb atop him, I reach for a sword right as Darius takes off.

We weave through the chaos, aiming for the balcony. But the dragon is now hot on our trail, trying to scorch Darius with a green mist that emerges from its mouth. The scent is suffocating as the air fills with that same smell of decay I noticed before.

I glance back to see a group of Venators, including Niamh, aiming their weapons at the dragon again, their faces set with a determination that reminds me they’re still hunters –dragonhunters – at heart.

Stretching my palm out, I unleash a blast of light, sending the dragon sliding against the ground with a painful cry. This gives us enough time for Darius to break through walls and stone, destroying the entire balcony in his wake. I clutch on to him, gazing at the expanse of Emberwell and the fields below us.

When I look up at the skies, dragons – both ours and Aurum’s – paint each other with streaks of fire and rotting shadows. I glance back at the ground, making out figures of people battling against these creatures. Amidst them, I catch a glimpse of orange fur moving quickly through the crowd.

Relieved, I say to Darius, ‘They’re down there—’

Without warning, one of Aurum’s dragons collides with Darius. The impact is so sudden and brutal that it knocks thesword from my hand and tears me away from Darius as I’m flung off his back. I shout his name in panic as I twist in the air, desperately reaching out for something, anything, but all I can see is the blur of green and brown beneath me.

I can only catch glimpses of Darius and the dragon, locked in a deadly embrace, as they claw at each other and spiral away from me. Their roars fade into the distance of forests just as I plummet and crash through the canopy of dense branches and leaves, and finally land on thick grass.

For a moment, the world stops screaming.

I lie there, staring up at the sky, my body aching and my head throbbing.

‘Darius,’ I croak out as if he can hear me from wherever he is, and as I try to sit up with effort, a sharp pain shoots up my leg, almost blinding me, a wave of nausea following afterwards. I grimace in agony, glancing at the skirt of my dress, shredded and dirty now, and I hike it up to assess the damage.

Horror twists my gut, and I bend over to the side, dry heaving. Nothing comes up, not even when I want it to.

Peering down at my leg again, I wince, seeing it twisted in a way limbs should never be.

I grit my teeth and reach down with trembling hands. I can already feel my body trying to repair itself, but the pain coursing through me is like no other. I can’t wait for it to heal, there’s no time.

With a deep breath that feels like drawing daggers into my lungs, I grasp my leg just below the knee with one hand, placing the other hand above the broken bones.

‘One, two, three—’ A cry mingled with what sounds like a howl, tears from my throat as I pull at my leg. The pain I feel right now is a white-hot explosion, obliterating my senses. I can hear the grind of bone echoing throughout the fields as I breathe harshly through my teeth. For a second, all I see is dark spotsswirling in my vision before the pain slowly ebbs away, and I push myself to my feet.

My body protests at every movement, but I will myself to limp forwards and out of the trees.

There, where the fields seem to stretch on for ever, stands Aurum, waiting for me.

I freeze.

‘Nara.’ He dares to smile. ‘There you are. You didn’t think I was going to miss your big day, did you?’ His ruined face sends a shiver down my spine before he notices what I am wearing. ‘That dress,’ he murmurs, studying it with hatred in his eye. He quickly douses that flame of rage with a cruel grin. ‘Pity it’s ruined.’

‘How?’ I swallow. ‘How did you get out?’

‘I already told you, Nara.’ He takes a step towards me, and I glower. ‘You freed me. It turns out that when you healed that tree, a rift opened in the Isle.’

My heart drops, and as if he can feel it himself, he stares at me with a cruel vengeance in his working eye.

The nightmare I had. It was real . . . and the silhouette I saw between the volcanoes . . . it washim. All of it.

‘Andnow,’ he whispers with a chuckle, ‘thanks to you and my nephew, I’m finally out.’

I shake my head and charge at him, healing leg be damned. ‘You bastard—’ I hiss, but he raises his hand, and somehow, I stop.

He grins and cups his ear. ‘Do you hear that?’

Through what I thought was silence, I soon start hearing the screams of others coming from the city, the castle, the castle gardens . . .

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