Out in the darkness, over the sea, a ball of flame exploded into being. The three guards moved well back from her, still in dragon form.
A shiver coursed through Fiera. Bartheleme meant to burn her alive.
* * * *
Bartheleme reveled in the smell of the brimstone mixed with the cool sea air. He swooped low in the night, sheering the plane of water, briefly skimming just below the surface, the liquid rolling over his reptilian skin like satin.
Lifting above the sea, he curled toward shore, water sheeting off him as rain. He speculatively eyed the cliffside and its stoic captive. This was Fiera’s last chance. If she begged for mercy, said even one word that might lead to an agreement of the king’s terms, he would let her live.
Otherwise, he would burn her alive.
He again curved away from her, showing his profile, so she would get a full view of what was coming.
Then he sent a long curl of flame into the night.
* * * *
Efar smelled the sea long before he reached it. That worried him more than anything. What did Bartheleme have planned? Was he going to take Fiera far out to sea and drown her? He didn’t know if she could swim, but he doubted it.
Putting on the speed, he fanned his wings wide to push harder, coming up out of the trees. The time for hiding was over.
He crested the ridge just as Bartheleme sent a plume of fire over the water. Even from this distance, though, Efar could see that the dragon’s claws were empty. He’d dropped her into the water already.
Like an arrow, he swooped low over the cliffside, heading out to sea to confront the dragon. Then he saw her below him, chained to the cliff between the three guard dragons.
He almost turned back to help her, to kill the guards and pull her from the chains. But that wouldn’t stop what Bartheleme had planned, which had become abundantly clear. He meant to burn her. Besides, those chains were too thick for him to bite through. It would be up to Fiera to use her magic.
So, he continued his course, straight to the mouth of the dragon.
* * * *
Fiera stared after the flash of feathers that had been Efar, even as her guards launched into the night sky in pursuit. Between them and Bartheleme, they would kill her griffin. She had to do something.
Reaching deep inside her, she searched for any whiff of magic, but found only a tiny spark that would not coax to life, no matter how hard she bit her lip.
In desperation, she reached out with her mind, not bothering to block the dragons this time. The drought wouldn’t have affected the creatures of the sea as much as those inland. Her call for help brought a chorus of answers.
There was little the fish could do, but the birds came en masse: sea hawks, gulls, kites, terns, falcons, and osprey. She drove them after the dragons.
Fiera couldn’t see the battle except for the flames thrown from the dragons. She knew the birds attacked from above, based on the constant cacophony of voices in her head. Efar, she could only assume, was engaged with Bartheleme.
The fight raged far out to sea, so that the balls of fire were mere dots of light sparking in the darkness. Then suddenly, the fight turned and moved closer, so much so that when the fires lit, she could see the combatants. The three guards were nearly finished; one was already gone and the blood streamed from the eyes of the other two as birds clustered around their heads, pecking away.
An exceptionally long burst of flame came and Fiera saw a host of burning birds fall from near Bartheleme. She also saw that he had Efar clasped tightly in his claws, his teeth snapping for the griffin’s neck. For his part, Efar was raking against the dragon’s gullet with sharp lion feet and eagle talons, but seemed to have little effect.
It was just a matter of seconds before the dragon prince killed her griffin!
What felt like a lightning bolt of love and fear for Efar jolted through Fiera. The tiny spark of magic within her exploded into an inferno. With a crack, the chains that bound her shattered.
She crouched and placed both hands on the rock beneath her.
* * * *
Efar struggled in the grip of the giant dragon. His claws did little damage to the thick reptilian hide and there was only so far he could squirm to evade the snapping jaws that sought his throat. At least there was one good thing: if Bartheleme tried to burn him, he’d burn himself too.
He barked an awkward griffin chirp as a wry laugh. After all the years of searching, he’d finally found his true mate just in time to die. A heavy, ominous sorrow settled over him.
As the thick feeling increased, the air around him sparked with something unseen. He dodged a score of teeth reaching for his neck even as a shadow darker than the night rose behind the dragon, curving overhead and raining seawater down on them.
Efar didn’t understand what it was, but he knew it was magic. Fiera had done something to save him. He also knew he had to get away from Bartheleme…right now.
In a sudden gut-wrenching shift, he changed his top half to human, now much smaller, and slid out of the dragon’s clutches. The giant beast roared in frustration and fumbled to recapture his prey. At the same time, Efar used his powerful griffin’s legs and pushed off Bartheleme’s gullet as hard as he could, arcing away.
As the dragon prince reared up to throw flames, Efar snapped back to griffin and fought to push himself out of range with his damaged wing, watching over his shoulder. The shadow that was above Bartheleme crashed down, with fingers eerily like a hand, in an avalanche of rock and sea grime, taking the royal prince into the sea with it.
Within seconds, the water leveled out as if nothing untoward had happened, as if there weren’t a giant dragon crushed beneath its rocks. Waves in ripples were the only reminder and they would be gone soon.
On the ledge ahead of him, Fiera waited with her feet planted wide and her hands on her hips. As he landed, she lifted her head and jutted out her chin as if daring him to reproach her about what she’d done. But, when he lowered and spread his good wing for her to climb on, concern filled her eyes and her face softened. She pointed to his injured wing and the burn that twisted down his side. “You’re injured. You won’t be able to carry me.”
He waited, wing still outstretched.
Slowly, she settled onto his back. As he lifted into the air, trying to correct for the unaccustomed weight with his faulty wing, she said, “You did all that for me. It’s my fault you were injured.”
She shifted her seat, leaning over his bad side, sending them into a crazy dip as he struggled to get back under control. “I can partly fix these feathers. The quill is living, but the individual plumes aren’t. I can grow the ones near the gaps bigger and sturdier to help make up for those that are missing.” She placed gentle hands on him.
He felt no electric tingles, no coursing of magic, but his wing strengthened, holding the air beneath it better, and his flight stabilized.
Efar flew on a direct southeast line while the sky lightened into dawn. The ground beneath them stayed dry and barren, tree spikes pointing up toward them, as they passed through the northern corner of the drought, out of the dragon’s lands, and into the main region affected by the lack of water.
Eventually, he spied an abandoned farm near the road where they were to meet up with Gwen, Captain, and company. He landed and shifted to human while Fiera looked around. She returned with a moth-eaten blanket and handed it to him. “I couldn’t find any clothes.”
He smiled. Fiera certainly wasn’t the same naïve little girl he’d first met. She hadn’t even batted an eye at his nakedness.
She’d saved his life.
As if reading his mind, she said, “I don’t regret killing Bartheleme. But it will have started a war.”
“That’s something to worry about tomorrow. Today, it’s just us.”
Later, they’d join the rest of the group and travel with them. But right now, there was something else he wanted, something he’d wanted for a long tim
e. He took Fiera’s hand and pulled her to him.
Inside, the griffin roared.
The End
Publisher’s Note
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About Wendy L. Koenig
Wendy is a published author living in New Brunswick, Canada, with her husband, Vince, and two cats named after the Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood. Her first piece to be printed was a short children's fiction, Jet's Stormy Adventure, serialized in The Illinois Horse Network. She attended University of Iowa, honing her craft in their famed summer workshops and writing programs. Since that time, she has published and co-authored numerous books. Several of her manuscripts and short stories have won international awards and have appeared in multiple venues.
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