Page 134 of The Queens and the Kings
Sailors scattered, racing for the door. The wyvern swung a wing, catching a sailor in the belly, and sent him flying across the hold. As the ship pitched with the storm, a lantern fell over. Oil and fire spread across the wooden floor in one fell swoop.
Britt turned to the second manacle with a silent,I’m sorry, and dumped.
The wyvern raged.
Water eroded the metal clasping his legs. Giant, bloody bubbles expanded in the light of the growing fire. Sailors swarmed the oil stain, forgetting their stowaway entirely. Liquid fire spread back and forth with the rocking ship.
The storm had arrived.
Denerfen winged over, colliding with the column of her neck in his haste. Britt ripped part of her maid’s dress off, and using the cloth, grasped the closest link that didn’t have acidic bubbles, and tugged. Water ate the responsive metal, but notenough to break it in half yet. Wyvern blood pooled in brighter stains as it seeped to the ground, forming a puddle. The wyvern continued to roar, swinging wings, neck, and wild teeth. Flames built, choking the air. Sailors vanished.
She tugged, pulled, and willed the metal to shatter, but it didn’t work.
“Snap them!” she shouted at the wyvern, using her weight to pull against the chain. “This isn’t enough.”
Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her nose burned, eyes watered. Acrid torch oil filled her sinuses and burned like the growing fire. Panicked shouts worsened when one sailor tossed water on the oil.
The inferno blazed.
“You’re stronger than me!” she shouted. “Stomp on them, already!”
The wyvern jerked a leg up and thrust it forward. The crumbling metal gave way beneath, falling to the ground. The second manacle disintegrated following a lethal stomp. In the light of the raging inferno, Denerfen’s head pointed to the wyvern.
Climb,the wyvern insisted.
She obeyed.
Heat built in the air, turning her skin tacky with sweat. Smoke clogged the close space, which was taller than she thought. They’d shoved the wyvern into the belly of this massive ship, which pitched starboard. Flames licked up the far wall, pooling at the corner as oiled water ballooned.
She launched herself onto his back, where the narrow seam between wings had just enough space. She lay down, gripping the edges of the wings, as he stomped forward. One wing joint impaled a fallen sailor, blood squirting from his chest.
Only walls awaited.
Sailors petaled to the side. Britt’s stomach lurched as she stared at the flames, the determined glint in the wyvern’s eye as he cast one glance over his shoulder, and then the wall.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
Denerfen, squealing with something she could only call joy, burrowed close. His tail wrapped her neck. His wings dug into her skin as he clutched her with his claws. The wyvern spun in a half circle, positioned himself just in front of the stairs. With a wild hiss, he shoved a long, powerful leg into the wall.
The stairs collapsed.
The wall bent.
Heaving groans issued from the ship, which faltered. Britt held tighter, head tucked into her bent elbow, as the reaching flames tickled the underside of the wyvern’s wings. Smoke and flame and wildfire filled the ship. She squeezed her eyes shut when the wyvern reared again.
Slam.
Thud.
Slam.
Splintering wood and sloshing water met her ears. The ship rolled in another gigantic swell. Weather poured into the room with wind and waves and tempest. Gusts whipped by, sousing the flames.
A final pound from the wyvern’s leg and the sidewall gave away. The wyvern whipped around, hissing. Ten more seconds and the choking smoke would permanently sear their lungs. Sailors had long since scattered far and wide.
Britt held on—to what she didn’t even know—as the wyvern threw them desperately into the half fractured wall. Boards scraped her cheeks, her neck, scouring the skin down her face and drawing blood. It bruised, sliced, splintered the wyvern, who grunted and bore the pain. Only Denerfen escaped without a wound because Britt shoved him in the hollow under her chin.
Blood oozed down her temple.
