Page 104 of Magick and Lead
It was like seeing the fall of Issastar all over again.
Though they were my enemies, my heart ached for everyone suffering down there, everyone fighting against terrible creatures that must have seemed to come from nowhere.
They were all in terrible danger, but there was only one of them I’d come to save.
Charlie?
I probed for him using the simnal, opening my mind as much as I could. No response came back. I shut my eyes and tried harder, not just opening myself but straining towards Charlie, groping for his presence. I felt Othura with me, too, using her considerable dragon simnal to search and receive. But she, too, came up empty.
Head for those fires, I told her, but she was already banking that way.
We descended, dodging among winged golenae, jogging away from a knot of soldiers and their thundering guns. Several buildings were burning, but Othura made for one in particular, a low, beige structure near the runways that was completely engulfed in flames. It was the building my dragon intuition drew me to as well. I unsheathed my sword, and the instant Othura’s talons touched the ground, I was sliding down her wing, then sprinting toward the building.
A wave of heat stopped me in my tracks, its intensity so powerful that it struck me like a fist.
No. Gods, no.
If Charlie was in there…
Move!Othura told me, and I turned to find her drawing a massive breath. I jumped aside just as she released a blast of wind so powerful it shivered the entire building. The flames nearest us wisped out, leaving nothing but charred beams. Othura leapt forward, drew another breath, stuck her head through the burned-out wall of the building, and blew. More flames snuffed out. She continued that way, advancing through the structure, until nearly all the flames were extinguished. The last remaining area was a rear corner of the building. There, flames still licked and gyrated, and I saw, in their midst, a door made of steel bars.
The walls around it had burned away, leaving the door alone like some strange, surreal monolith. I couldn’t see what lay beyond it; the flames and smoke were too much. Still, my heart stuttered in my chest as I strode up beside Othura. She took one more great breath and exhaled. The whirlwind she breathed blasted the fire to nothing, whisked away the smoke, sent up a swirling plume of ember and ash. I strode through it, past the bars, into the burned-out room.
There, at its center, lay Charlie.
Given the state of the building around him, he should have been burned to ash. Instead, he was intact, and hope bloomed in my belly as I rushed to him, dropping my sword and kneeling beside him.
The skin on his face and the back of his hands looked red, as if he’d fallen asleep on a beach and gotten sunburned. As if he were merely napping and not—not?—
I couldn’t even think the word.
“Charlie…?”
Right away, I saw how he was intact. His hand still clutched his dragon stone. It was well known that the stone of a fire-breathing dragon could protect its rider from fire. My heartleaped at the realization and I leaned in, brushing his hair from his forehead.
“Charlie?” I whispered.
But even amidst all this lingering heat, his forehead was cold.
No.
“Charlie!” I said louder. I took his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake, then a harder one. “Charlie!”
No response. No movement. No breath.
Essa, Othura’s voice came gently in my mind.
I ignored her, leaning in to Charlie, my ear against his lips, my eyes on his chest. No breath. No movement.
No.
I pressed my mouth to his cold lips, breathed into him. Once, twice, three times.
His lips tasted of woodsmoke. They were cold. Lifeless. I pulled back and watched him. Nothing. Nothing.
Essa,Othura nuzzled me with her nose.
“Get off me!” I screamed, shoving her away.
