About twenty feet away, Bromley stirred on the ground, groaning. I tried to call to him, but my words were drowned out by a gigantic crack as loud as thunder. The three of us looked up.
A single red eye stared down at us through a break in the shell.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Hatched
The rumbling had stopped. The booms were gone. The mountain was still once again. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t about to be torn apart by the dragon.
We were in no shape to fight. I was still coughing up blackness. Zach blinked hard and shook his head a few times, as if he was fighting to stay conscious from a concussion or worse. Brom had just woken up and likely also suffered a concussion. Millennia was out cold, and powerless at that. And here we were—the baby Sable Dragon about to break free of its shell.
Myriana was right—this would be our end.
Still gripping Millennia, I stared at the red eye. It blinked slowly as if it was trying to focus on us. Then the claw scraped down the side of the egg, and half the shell fell with an earth-shattering boom, forcing us to our knees. I swear all of the Wu-Hyll Mountains trembled. Half its scaly black body emerged, and a wing dripping with black ooze twitched. With that one twitch, the rest of the egg shattered, and pieces flew everywhere.
Zach pushed both Millennia and me flat, ducking as a shell fragment flew over our heads.
The Sable Dragon stretched toward the cavern’s ceiling. It was easily fifty feet tall, even as a hatchling. The scales on its face, neck, shoulders, and tail extended outward like flower petals, each one sharper than the last, glittering like the bones of a rowan deer. Its black wings spread out, still covered in slime, and its body shimmered obsidian. Just like the ancient text had said it would.
The ancient text… I struggled to remember what I had read in the library that day. The day I’d searched for the spell for a Kiss to destroy it.
Its only vulnerable spot is its mouth, where the very flames are produced.
The cave shook as the dragon gave a roar, revealing row upon row of glistening teeth sharper than a sword’s tip, stronger than steel.
“I’ve got an idea—do you trust me?” I said in Zach’s ear.
Zach met my gaze. “With my whole heart.”
Despite everything, I smiled. How he could still make me smile in a situation like this, I’d never understand.
Bromley was already limping to us. I pulled him down, hugging him, then drew back to admire my brave little brother…maybe one last time. What I saw on his face was love. And unconditional faith. “Brom, if this fails, if Zach and I…if we don’t make it, I need you to take a message back to Myria. Tell them about the Hydra Curse. About Myriana. Everything. Make them believe it. Do whatever you have to. Can you do that?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. He nodded.
I leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Find shelter and watch over Millennia. Zach and I have a dragon to slay.”
Brom grabbed my hand, kissed it, and whispered, “Milady.” Then he stooped and hoisted Millennia before limping behind a large shell fragment as big as a boulder.
Fighting back tears, I let Zach help me up, and together we faced the dragon, arm in arm.
“What’s the plan?” Zach said, as the dragon swished its neck from side to side, testing its jaw, smoke already curling from its nostrils.
I opened my mouth to tell him when the dragon decided it was done being ignored. The great beast jerked the rest of its body out of its shell, and the other half crashed to the cavern floor. Only this time, the floor didn’t hold its weight. The rock crumbled under the force of the marble shell, and the floor caved in, falling into what were probably dwarven mine shafts.
Zach grabbed my waist, and the two of us clung to a stalagmite that managed to stay upright as the rest of the floor tilted. Rocks and bits of marble rolled downward to the giant crater where the altar and egg had once been. The dragon was so massive that it barely noticed when the floor caved in. It shook its hideous body and got down on all fours, huffing smoke from its nostrils.
“We have to get closer,” I yelled over the sound of sliding rock.
Droplets of sweat and blood rolled down the side of Zach’s face as he quickly inspected the newly slanted floor. It was full of cracks opening to the caverns below and sharp rocks that could skewer us as easily as the dragon’s claws and teeth could.
“I see a path.” He pointed to a large slab of rock—what I realized was the destroyed altar—almost directly under the dragon’s chin.
It would be the best spot for what I had planned.
Zach gripped my hand tightly. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
As if the dragon heard us, it lifted its spiked tail and whirled it around—Zach and I dove, the tail slamming into ground where we’d just been. More rock crumbled away, falling into the black abyss.
Still holding hands, we slid down the stone, picking up speed as the incline grew steeper.
“Zach!” I screamed as we sped toward the altar—a giant outcrop of stone that jutted out of the floor. He’d seen it. Zach stabbed his dagger into one of the many cracks littering the stone floor. It sparked, and the blade snapped, but it had stalled our descent enough to help us get to our feet and jump onto the rock altar instead of smashing into it.
We stumbled onto the altar that was covered in the egg’s black ooze.
Steadying each other, we looked up to see the dragon’s head tilted toward us, watching our progress.
“Might be a good time to clue me in on that plan, princess,” Zach muttered, his eyes locked on the dragon.
How could I tell him what I had planned next for us? I swallowed. “The most vulnerable part of the dragon is inside its mouth.”
“Ivy, are you suggesting we get eaten?”
“If only,” I whispered, as the great beast arched its neck toward Zach and me. It seemed mildly impressed by two puny mortals standing in front of it without screaming.
I took his face in my hands, forcing his gaze away from the dragon. “The flames will burn slowly. If we can withstand the fire and get into the mouth…”
Zach detached my hands and gave my fingers a tight squeeze. “We can run it through.”
“It’s going to be excruciating. Every evil, dark emotion will eat away at us in physical pain.”
“Oh, is that all?” He pulled me close, wrapping one strong arm around my back.
“But we’ll…” I couldn’t make myself say the words. In the background I could hear the dragon draw breath, preparing its flames.
“I don’t care,” Zach whispered against my temple.
“Zach—” I gasped. I didn’t know what I wanted to say. But I didn’t want our lives to end this way. Just then, what I regretted the most was that I hadn’t been able to give him my answer.
“I never meant it,” Zach said over the rumbling within the dragon’s long neck.
“What?”
He drew his sword. I placed my hand over his on the hilt, covering Myriana’s mark, staring into his eyes.
“I lied when I said I’d try to stop loving you. I didn’t try once. And I doubt I’ll ever stop.”
Like everything else when it came to Zach, it was completely unexpected and unbelievably inappropriate, given the situation. Here we were, about to be burned alive, and I was…happy. Beyond happy. Beyond reason and logic happy.
Then the black flames engulfed us.
It wasn’t just being burned alive, it was every terrible emotion I could’ve ever thought of—anger, pain, hate, jealousy, loneliness, and suffering, so much suffering.
Suffering of a thousand tortured souls, writhing forever in eternal darkness.
But even that was nothing compared to the ugly emotions I felt and connected to. Real-life pain that I experienced and lived with every day.
Fear for going up against the Evil Queen and the Sable Dragon. Fear I wasn’t ready to defeat them and I’d doom the rest of the kingdoms…times ten.
Guilt for surviving while Kellian and my other partners had not…times a hundred.