Page 93 of Glass Wings
Amis walked into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. His body tensed up in preparation for the conflict ahead of him. It was always the middleman who took the brunt of things. It was an overrated role. He wouldn’t recommend it.
He thought of the girl’s friend, the tall, blond human boy that accompanied her. Now, there was someone who piqued his interest. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but Amis knew he wanted to get to know Hector better.
The torch lights lining the hall were not lit, and it took Amis a few seconds to realize that it was quite dark in the temple, not simply the contrast from the exterior to the interior playing tricks on his eyes.
“Is anyone here? It’s Amis,” he announced as he continued to walk forward, the end of the hall just feet from him.
What time was it? Could Arryn be sleeping?
A low, rumbling, breathy sound filled the shallow walls surrounding Amis. His arm hair stood on end, recognizing that the sound was soft, but the creature that made it was big.
Amis gulped, taking a few more steps forward, and wondered if the temple had been infiltrated by Vrae. Had he been set up, told to come here so he, too, could be attacked privately? Was Arryn bleeding out, unconscious in the great room?
As much as he didn’t want to know the answers to these questions, he knew very well he couldn’t turn around now. He stepped into the room. The space felt dusty as if no one had been there for weeks. Dim light hit the floor from the high windows that were not entirely covered by snow. Amis did not immediately notice anything horrific. He did not notice any life.
The Kinnari stood in the middle of the room, his wings tucking in and moving back inside his skin. The sound of his bones cracking filled the deafening silence. It was the type of silence that confirmed that something was wrong. The kind of silence that made your heart skip beats at a time. A silence that was broken by the deep exhale of a beast.
Amis turned his head towards the stove and noticed an empty plate and bowl flipped upside down on the floor. His eyes flickered up, a shift in movement in the deeper shadows of the room pulling his focus.
Once his eyes adjusted, he saw the outline of scales. The creature sitting in the dark opened its eyes, large and filled with rage, filled with hunger, as it noticed Amis for the first time.
Amis jumped back as the creature shook its head and lifted a large clawed foot, propping itself up off the floor and giving Amis a view of how big it was.
The animal stood over fourteen feet off of the floor while on all four legs. It seemed like it had difficulty moving its even longer body as it slammed into walls, the stove, and furniture. Its wings, even tucked, brushed the ceiling.
It opened its mouth and chuffed at him.
“Good little dragon,” Amis said as calmly as possible, hoping the creature couldn’t hear how loud his heart was beating.
Amis took a few small steps back towards the hallway, not seeing a Kinnari anywhere in the temple.
“Well, it looks like Arryn isn’t here. Please tell him I stopped by.” He tried to smile at the dragon, hoping his voice was gentle enough to soothe it.
The dragon chuffed again before it turned into a growl.
No, his voice would not do, Amis thought as he dove toward the hallway. A blast of fire nearly missed him, incinerating the furniture behind him.
This dragon probably wouldn’t kill him, he hoped, but it would still hurt to be caught in those flames.
A roar erupted that was so loud that Amis clapped his hands over his ears, rolling ungracefully from his dive and bending his left wing back too far, hearing an unfamiliar snap. Throbbing overcame that side of his body while adrenaline kept him moving toward the front door, the creature on his tail.
Amis threw open the door as the dragon struggled to get through the hallway, its cry of frustration reminding him of all the songs sailors attributed to sirens all those years ago.
He reached the door just as a long fire trail burst from the dragon’s open mouth, engulfing the hallway with nowhere else to go. He yelled out from the embers eating away at his back, his wings and legs jumping into the snow outside, his skin sizzling.
The dragon let out a thunderous roar as more flames followed out the door. Amis watched in disbelief. There was a dragon in the temple. Judging by its size, it is a neglected, pissed-off teenage dragon.
Just his luck.
Stone started to crumble, making the very ground underneathAmis’s body feel like it was shaking. Amis looked up to see the pile of mountainous snow on the temple’s exterior begin to shake off, white clouds billowing into the air.
Of course. Of course, this would happen.
Following the snow, the newly revealed temple walls, which Amis admittedly had never seen uncovered, began to dislodge. Solid slabs of stone cracked and violently shot out five or six feet, followed by a thrashing dragon body trying to escape its confines.
The dragon let out a cry, loud and high-pitched, splitting Amis’ ears. It backed its rear out of the exposed stone slab, jerking and looking for its best option. With another cry, it kicked at the stone slabs again, dislodging enough material so that it could emerge into the snow, its wings stretching wide to reveal their true length of thirty or forty feet.
Looking up to the sky, the dragon opened its mouth and let out another cry as Amis backed up on his hands and knees, hoping not to be noticed. A large burst of fire was shot into the sky as it stood on its hind legs, the earth trembling as it came back down.
