Page 79 of A Matter of Destiny

Purple light swelling out of the hole in reality fills my vision. My front claws leap forward and find nothing, no stone, no grass, no mountain.

“Wait!” someone screams, and a small, distant part of my mind identifies the voice as Wendolyn.

That’s nice, I think to myself. Wendolyn still cares.

And then I pull my wings in tight and dive through the hole in the world.

Chapter35

Doshir

Heat rolls over my scales in waves as I dive.

I wasn’t expecting it to be hot, whatever mysteries lie on the other side of the jagged hole that magic just ripped in the soft grass behind the Tarn of the Maiden. Still, heat drags scorching fingers across my scales as I drop, and pain pulses out of the hole in my wing to throb through the rest of my body. When I pull a breath into my lungs, it’s hot and heavy, like the air in a sauna. This new world is a mess of heat and amethyst haze, and suddenly I’m not sure if I’m falling or if I’m dragging myself forward through air as thick as warm butter.

And then, very suddenly, I’m falling. Wind rushes against my face and curls around my claws. I force my eyes open, searching for a flash of crimson. For any sign of Rayne.

The world comes at me in jagged flashes, glimpsed through lavender pillars of rising steam or fog. I see the uneven stutter of treetops and, far in the distance, what looks almost like water. But it’s black. To my left, light glints and flashes off a twisting river.

A rustling, panting sound rolls up to me. I unfurl my wings and make a clumsy attempt to spin. Pain stabs through me like Rensivar’s dragonsbane-coated dagger, so hot and sharp that the world goes white. I grit my teeth against the spreading agony of my wounded wing and dive toward the sound.

The flashes of light off the river vanish behind the forest as I drop. Now I’m flying low over a tangle of strange, sinuous trees with disturbingly pale trucks, and some part of my mind that I absolutely cannot turn off is rifling through options for where in the nine hells I might actually be. Is this some secret dwarven-forged refuge? No, the trees look too natural. Is it an elven boundary garden? No, this place is too big. Could it be the Lands Below? No, it can’t; it’s too damn hot.

The forest yawns open just ahead, revealing a meadow of grass the color of cobalt. A huge divot rips a path through the meadow and leads toward the pale, swaying trees. I tuck my wings in, sending another bolt of agony through my body, and dive toward the meadow.

Red. Mothers above. Scarlet scales litter the blue grass. My heart catches in my throat as something crimson flashes in the shadows on the far end of the meadow. The tiny flare of red is then swallowed by something dark, a wave as black as the strange water I’d seen on the horizon, and then I’m dropping into the meadow.

I land hard, going much faster than is prudent. Impact slams my teeth together; my vision goes white when the shock hits my injured wing, and I’m running before it has time to clear. The world comes at me in patches and flashes. White trees, blue grass. Purple sky. The twisted metal of the Throne of Claws, half buried in the dirt at the base of a towering white-trunked tree. Black scales, flashing under the strange purple light, writhe around the throne like snakes. And beneath them, a winking hint of crimson.

Rensivar. I can’t hope to defeat Rensivar the Wicked, the dragon who locked the of the Fall in the Lands Below and then tricked the Council of the Iron Mountains into thinking he’d died. But my legs still push me forward, and I leap over the fallen Throne of Claws before my brain has time to realize what my body has done. Nightmare steel winks below my claws, the sharp points of the bottom of the throne pointing at the sky that just swallowed us.

My shoulder slams into Rensivar’s chest. He roars, a sound like an explosion, and throws me off as easily as a dragon shaking a flea from its back. My injured wing hits the ground first. The back of my throat fills with blood; someone screams as my vision goes white, then floods with crimson.

Agony howls through every part of my body. Voices hiss through my skull.What kind of a dragon are you? Greimbyss growls in my memory.Pathetic. Jeers and laughter ride the pain, turning my thoughts into knives, tearing into what’s left of me.

Laughter. I clamp my jaw tight as the world spins and clatters around me. Someone is laughing right now, not just in the messy tangle of my memories. And there’s a rustling sort of sound, the clatter of scales, the scratching of claws against metal.

Rayne. I force my eyes to open; the pale trees sway drunkenly before me, their tops swirling around what appears to be a great, black hole in the center of the sky. It’s the hole we fell through, I realize numbly. It’s still open. The Iron Mountains are right there, just a few wingbeats away.

But beneath that hole, beneath the dancing trees, a chaos of black scales and white, serrated teeth rises before me. Rensivar growls as smoke rises from his nostrils.

“You idiot,” he snarls.

I drag my gaze down his body. His back legs are still clenching the Throne of Claws. No, they’re pinned beneath the Throne of Claws, which is jutting out of the strange blue grass at a bizarre angle. And his front claws—

Rayne lies pinned beneath Rensivar’s front claws, her scarlet scales writhing against the cobalt-colored grass. Blood spatters the ground where her tattered wing hangs useless, but still, her lips are pulled back in a fierce growl and her claws dig at the scales of Rensivar’s forearms.

The world snaps into focus. There’s blood on Rensivar’s muzzle from a fresh gash between his nostrils, and some of the scales on his chest are bent or missing. Perhaps Rayne injured him, or perhaps he was injured when the throne crashed into the ground. Still, it’s perfectly, painfully clear that Rayne has no hope of winning this battle. Even together, we stand no chance of beating Rensivar the Wicked in a fair fight.

Fair. My claws twist in the strange blue grass at my feet. I know all about fair dragon fights and how the Champion takes all challengers for the Queen. I know all the rules regarding mercy and surrender, forbidding stepping outside of the Circle of Battle, how to win honorably, and the specific moves that would disqualify any contenders.

But we aren’t in the Circle of Battle, are we? My lips pull back in a snarl. I sink my claws into the grass and into the thick, dark soil beneath the grass, the deep heart of this strange world. Then I spread my wings wide, biting my jaw against the pain radiating through my wound and throbbing in every part of my body. My wings beat, stirring the air.

Rensivar turns to me. His lips pull back in an easy grin, the look of someone who is utterly unafraid. Someone who has already won.

“Doshir, was it?” Rensivar purrs. “I’ll make you a deal, you Mothers-damned idiot. You help me bring this throne back to where it belongs, and I’ll—”

I don’t wait for him to finish. With a growl, I leap forward, dirt clenched between my claws. I fling myself directly at his gleaming ebony eyes, then open my claws.

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