It hadn’t had time to aim. It hadn’t been able to spit the volley of acid on Fayden and Stef.
I didn’t have time to check on them, though. I’d taken only two steps to the side of the growing pool of acid when I hit the ground, jarring my shoulder and elbow. My head struck a rock and the world blurred.
Thunder ripped as the dragon took to the sky.
I rolled and clambered to my feet, my whole body shaking with adrenaline. I’d done it. I’d saved them and sent the dragon away.
“Fayden! Stef!” The names ripped from my throat, lost beneath the rush and wind of the dragon’s wings flapping. Droplets of acid sprayed from the pool, stinging where they touched my face.
Desperately, I swiped my sleeves over my skin, but the burning only spread. My eyes and face itched as I shucked off my jacket; the reek or burned wool seared my nose.
“Fayden?” I blinked through the tears that obscured my vision.
There, beyond the pool of glowing green. Stef was pushing himself up to sit. Behind him, Fayden was on the ground, motionless. Acid covered his legs, and had splashed all across his back. It was too shadowy to see what kind of damage the acid had done already, but he wasn’t moving.
My head spun as I rushed for them. The reek of the acid made my thoughts reel and forced me to breathe shallowly.
Groaning, Stef scooted away from the acid, dragging his broken foot behind him. Over and over, he swore as he grabbed for his boot and began untying it.
Stef was alive.
But Fayden? His legs were covered in green.
I dropped next to my brother’s head, just shy of the pool of acid. He didn’t move—didn’t even seem to realize I was there. “Fayden?” Panic leeched through me as I grabbed his shoulders and dragged him away from the green goo.
His legs did not come with him.
I gagged and wanted to look away, but even as I started to turn my head, the whites of his eyes flashed in the wan light.
“Sam.” His voice was nothing more than a breath; I had to lean close to hear him. “Help Stef. Be brave.”
“I—”
But the life faded from his eyes, and I didn’t know what I’d been about to say anyway. My chest ached and I couldn’t breathe. Dimly, over the roaring in my ears, I heard Stef screaming for me to look up.
A thunderclap overhead drew my gaze. It was the dragon, circling around to attack again.
Blind with tears and horror, I released my brother’s shoulders and grabbed Stef.
I hauled him up and dragged him several steps, him gasping and sobbing every second of it. A glob of acid exploded behind us, and pinpricks of burning dotted the back of my head and neck. With my bleeding hands and still-shaking arms, I adjusted my grip on Stef and dragged him toward the forest.
“Where’s Fayden?” His voice was rough with pain and fear as we entered the shelter of the forest and fell into his aunts’ arms. “What happened to Fayden?”
The words choked me. “My brother is dead.”
12
MY MOTHER.
My father.
And now my brother.
Everyone was gone.
Numb. That was what I was.
I could hardly feel the hands that grabbed me, or hear the voices that shouted my name. I was limp as people tugged off my shirt and dragged me toward the lake to dunk me underwater and wash away the acid. My bleeding hand was cleaned and bound, but I didn’t remember by whom.
Stef was there, his broken leg set and braced, and he was given a smooth branch to use as a crutch. Together we approached the decimated camp as firelight exposed the true horror of the battle.
Smoke drifted over the ruins of our camp. Everything was blackened, almost unrecognizable. Fire and acid had burned through the wagons completely; there would be nothing useful scavenged from the wreckage.
Slowly, acid ate away at everything. There’d be nothing left of this battle by morning.
I stood at the edge of the forest, near where Stef’s aunts had found us, and watched as people emerged from the woods, just a few at a time. They wore dazed expressions, looking as lost as I felt.
People formed small groups, huddled together with the same desperation our ancestors must have felt after the Cataclysm. This was our Cataclysm, wrought by dragons.
We’d brought everything we owned here, and the Council had burned everything we’d left behind. That left us here in a strange, cold land, with fewer people, and defenseless against our enemies.
There were more of us than I expected, though. Thousands—tens and hundreds of thousands—had escaped what should have been a massacre.
Maybe the dragons hadn’t intended to destroy us at all. Maybe they’d simply meant to trap us—as their food?
“We’re trapped here forever,” I muttered. “Until we die, too.”
Stef was uncharacteristically still next to me. “I don’t think that will be very long. For me, at least.”