Page 74 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
He couldn’t keep the emotions from bubbling up and overflowing onto his cheeks. It was impossible. He had lived the worst years of his life stalking the halls of the ancient Shackley estate. He’d hated this home and everything it had stood for. It held only wretched memories, hadn’t it?
His throat bobbed as he came around the corner and found himself at the top of the grand staircase. He and Ana used to stand at the top of the staircase when they were young and roll the cricket ball down to a waiting Jove and Zeke. The cricket ball would wiggle and jaggedly make its way to the waiting team, making a game of catching it.
Ana, for all her seven years, had always been crafty. She always came up with new ways to make their older brothers work for the catch. Kase, on the other hand, usually just wanted to make Jove fall.
The game always inevitably ended in an argument or their mother giving them a lecture about the priceless antiques they’d destroyed. Even the most uneventful rounds always produced at least one shattered vase.
Kase started down the stairs. Nobody waited at the bottom to catch him.
He was halfway down, trying not to think of anything else that would widen the hole in his chest, when something like a roar rattled the walls. He slipped and barely caught himself on the railing, his jacket falling and landing with an invisible thump as another roar ripped the air.
Fumbling to grab the Cerl pistol from the back of his pants, Kase retrieved his jacket and dashed down the rest of the stairs.
That sound.
Another roar. This one crackled like lightning. Familiar.
Hiding behind the ruined door, he peeked outside. The estate across the way was blackened with soot, as well. Kase could just see it beyond the Shackley gate and the ruined wall. The Cerl hover waited just a few feet away, the rolling sunset clouds reflecting off its wings.
He didn’t see whatever had made that unearthly sound, but he knew what it was.
Dragon.
There was no question. It sounded exactly like the two he had seen on Tasava last autumn. The question was how it had gottenhere—and where was it now?
He ventured a little further out the door, Stowe’s footsteps clomping behind him.
A distant tremor shook his bones. The rumble grew louder and more piercing, like the air itself crackled. That sound was even more familiar to him than the dragon’s roar.
Seconds later, hovers sped overhead, their blue bellies shining as they zoomed at top speed above the manor. The grass and trees that had survived the initial attack bowed to the speed of the Cerl hovers.
The city was destroyed. Surely they wouldn’t continue to…no, no, no.
They were headed straight for the airfields.
Kase sprinted from his childhood home, not caring if anyone saw him. He didn’t know what in the blazes had happened, but if they took out the airfields, there was no chance they’d recover. He scrambled up the wing, the metal cold and hard underneath his hands.
He had just thrown his pilot’s jacket into the cockpit when the first bomb fell.
His shout was buried by the next one. And the next. And the next.
Each one shook him to his core, to his bones, to his soul.
All he could do was gape at the plumes rising above the city wall.
Gone.
Gone.
The airfields were gone. Just like that.
He swayed on his feet. He couldn’t catch his breath. He wracked his brain for the words—but there were none. Despite the evidence staring him directly in the face, he had hoped to find someone at the airfields who would be willing to help. He’d known the electricity was out. He’d known thousands were dead. He’d known it was a lost cause, but he’d still had that stars-blasted hope.
Wind thrust him forward, nearly knocking him from the hover. Stowe, who’d climbed up the wing shortly after him, barely caught himself on the dash.
Kase looked up, his chest heavy, still breathing erratically—and found a sight he’d hoped he’d never see again.
The serpentine body was covered in glittering gold scales. Its maw was as big as a hover, and its body the length of at least three. The wings stretched wide as it soared above, its eyes searching for…for something. On his back sat a figure, a man with blond hair. Kase couldn’t make out details, but instinctively he knew the man’s features would be fox-like.
