Page 56 of Kingdom of Flames & Flowers
This wasn’t an abandoned mine. It was a mass grave.
“Zariah. ZARIAH!”
I heard him before I saw him. The surrounding air turned into a wind tunnel and then he descended, skidding wildly on the piles of bones before nearly face-planting on the ground. He crashed into an old cart and a pile of tools, pushing it forward along the tracks until it smacked into a large metal frame. The resulting echo reverberated in my chest, pinging off the stone walls so loudly I had to cover my ears.
Zariah picked himself up, giving me a sheepish look. I sighed, picking up the skull and holding it out to him.
“These aren’t animal bones.… I think they’re all … What did you call them? Oh yeah.Notslaves.”
His head ducked onto the ground as if asking for forgiveness. I turned away, not yet ready to give it. It was one thing to be ignorant; it was another to willfully choose it. I studied the skull carefully, noting the fine layer of black dust covering it. In fact, everything had the same sheen. It covered the bones, the ground was, and even my boots now had a layer that rubbed off on my fingers when I bent down to swipe at it.
“You’ve never been here before, right?” I asked Zariah, my voice barely above a whisper.
His massive head shook back and forth even as his ears pricked, flattening against his head and turning to the right.
I was too busy imagining what could have possibly happened here to result in so much death and destruction.You already know, my traitorous brain thought.
Soot everywhere. Scorched bones. A dragon had done this.
“Zariah, this makes little sense—”
A scream permeated the air from far in the distance. It was high and twisted, and sounded nothing like any scream I’d ever heard before. It sounded like a rat in its death throes. Zariah went still, his body flattening to the ground as his ears stayed against his skull. His tail tensed, quivering.
A chorus of screeching joined the first scream until it got louder. And closer. Zariah leaped to his feet and pushed me back toward the tunnel with his nose, both of us panicky and not thinking clearly. I slipped on some bones and my ankle rolled under my body, sending me to the ground. I stifled my gasp of pain, but only just. Zariah made a frustrated, pained growl as I grabbed my ankle.
I tried to stand up and hobble, but white-hot agony raced down my leg. “I can’t walk,” I panted. “I can’t—”
The shrieking exploded into our cavern, and Zariah pushed me into the tunnel. I ignored the pain as I landed, ducking under his legs as he put his massive frame between the tunnel’s entrance and whatever was approaching. With a massive roar, he spread flame everywhere in the cavern, and I caught a quick glimpse of dark creatures pouring out of the opposite tunnel before the flames forced them back. Their screams modulated and kept going. In a burst of madness, I tried to crawl under Zariah’s legs and get a better glance as they came toward us—yellow, stained teeth, crazed eyes, and long black claws and fangs—black silhouettes of fear and death streaking toward us.
Zariah’s head swung down to me and he roared again. The message was clear: get out. “You’d better be right behind me!” I screamed back, then crawled frantically on my hands and knees down the tunnel.
Heat rolled around me, making it hard to breathe as Zariah blasted fire into the cavern over and over again. I coughed and choked, reaching the bottom of the black hole, but having no way to get up. Not without Zariah.
I pulled myself to standing by using the dirt walls and waited. Zariah roared again, and then a sickening feeling crept over me. It was nausea and fear all rolled into one: the pain in my ankle flared higher, making the pain almost unbearable. I couldn’t breathe from the tightness in my chest, and it felt like thousands of bugs were crawling all over my skin. I wanted Zariah to set me on fire to make it stop. I wanted the pain to end. I wanted todie.
I screamed as something jammed itself under me and tossed me up into the air. I landed and all the air was shoved out of my lungs. Large, leathery wings wrapped around me like a cocoon as the world rocked and tilted crazily. Dirt fell on my head and my mouth, and I spit it out.
Sunlight exploded into my world, and the wings released me. Hard claws caught me as I tumbled and air buffeted around me, whipping through my hair and making it impossible to open my eyes. The animalistic screaming faded into nothing.
The claws holding me opened, and I fell a few inches to the ground. I rolled onto my back and looked at the blue sky above me, then yelled as I realized I was at the edge of a cliff. No, make thatmountain.I crawled a safe distance away and collapsed.
Turning my head, Zariah crashed next to me. He was back to his human form as his knees hit the ground, panting like he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Are they …? Are they coming out?” I coughed out, reminding myself to breathe.
Zariah shook his head, his dark curls bouncing against his ears. “No … pushed the rocks back in with my back claws. Cave in.”
“What … was … that?” I asked in disbelief.
“C-creatures. Black creatures. White teeth. Screaming … so much screaming. And then …”
He fell silent, and I knew what he was remembering. That awful, horrible feeling that had invaded our senses and brought us to our knees.
“What was that?” I moaned, fighting the urge to vomit all over myself. Was it something the creatures had done?
“I know what it is. I’ve felt it before,” Zariah gasped out, on his hands and knees and visibly looking as nauseated as I felt. At least my ankle appeared only bruised, and not broken. I gave a few experimental steps, and found I could walk with only a little pain.
“What? What is it?” I demanded. I had no idea what that horrible feeling had been, but I knew without a doubt I never wanted to experience it ever again.
