Page 73 of Heart of Fire
“Andri...?”She could almost feel him struggle to lift himself. He was protecting her from most of the pain he felt, but the searing edge of it made her headache.
“I’m not sure where heis.”
The dust began to clear. Freyja glanced around her. The shale had settled, but who knew what would set it offagain?
You rode it last time.She wondered if she could do that again, and as she lost her connection to Rurik for the second time, she knew she didn’t have the time to worry about herselfanymore.
Freyja’s gaze settled on a flat piece of shale and she hauled herself up, examined the distance between her and Rurik’s crushed form, and then stepped onto it. Steering the earth beneath her feet, she whizzed down the slope again. Her passage set off another minor rockfall, but she managed to reach the bottom in one piece and jumped off, staggering at the sudden loss ofvelocity.
“Rurik!”
The enormousdrekilay crushed and broken. He struggled to lift his head and she simply couldn’t look at that wing. One section of it was completelyshredded.
“Rurik, you have to get up! Why did you take my wave of force upon yourself?” Her skirt tore, and her palms were grazed as she slipped and skidded on the uneven surface. “Damn you, I hurtyou!”
“Andri is my... kin. I swore an oath to protect him when he was a boy, and a dreki’s oath is binding, or he may no longer call himself dreki.”Rurik’s golden flanks heaved. The bone in his left wing sheered straight through the skin, making her feelsick.
“He was trying to kill you!” She finally reached his side and hesitated there, not quite certain where to begin. Bloodied gashes marked his flanks, and he wasn’t moving very much, his wings curled in against his sides as though something hurt. Tears heated her eyes, turning her vision to ablur.
“If he’d truly wanted me dead, then he had at least three chances at my wings,”Rurik gasped. The link between them seemed thin and faded, almost like a knot that was unraveling.“He’s as caught in this as I am. Freyja, get out ofhere.”
“No! I won’t leave you.” She put her hands against his golden scales, trying desperately to hold on to the link betweenthem.
“Freyja.”He managed to haul himself up onto his belly and she saw the wing wasn’t the worst of his hurt. Mottled dark veins bruised his left shoulder, and bloodied muscle protruded through his scales.“This is... not done. Get out of here before Magnus hurtsyou.”
As if he knew that they spoke of him, adreki’sscream pierced the skies above them, and wind whipped as the blackdrekisailed abovethem.
A fire began to burn in her heart. Her nostrils flared with anger. That treacherous snake had lured Rurik into an unfair fight. And it wouldn’t endhere.
“Will he try to kill you?” shewhispered.
“He’ll not stop... until this is done.”Her Rurik sounded absolutelyexhausted.
And the logical part of her brain said Rurik had no more fight left in him. He couldn’t handle a twenty-tondrekilike Magnus, not in thiscondition.
There was no one who could stop the fiercebeast.
No one buther.
Cold slid down her spine and sweat broke out on her temples. She had some defenses, but not enough to take on a creature a thousand times the size ofher.
But the alternative was to walk away as Magnus assassinated her lover, and that was something Freyja couldn’t do. Something she wouldn’tdo.
Shale slid down the harsh slope. Magnus appeared at the top of the ravine, his dark wings spread in a victoriousfashion.
“Freyja,”Rurik pleaded, finally moving. But not to flee. No, instead he tried to shield her with his own ruinedbody.
“You should know better than to argue with me,” she told him, stepping over his tail and facing the blackdreki.Her heart pounded in her chest, but she’d felt the earth rouse to her call and she’d wielded lightning before. She was not helpless, and she wouldn’t abandon Rurik. “Don’t come any closer, you mangy cur, or I’ll shred yourwings!”
A wave of psychic force lashed down upon her, like a fist slamming into her mind. Freyja screamed and clenched her fists against her temples, but it wouldn’t stop. Her vision blurred and something warm wet her top lip. Just as she thought that she could no longer withstand the onslaught, it suddenlyvanished.
She came to pressed against Rurik’s flank. Her nose was bleeding and he was shockingly still, but she could sense the warm cocoon of his own mind shieldinghers.
“Run, Freyja,”came the whisper, and that link between them seemed so thin now she feared it would snap.“I can shield your mind, but... not much more thanthat.”
He was dying. She could feel the heat of Magnus’s psychic attack slamming against Rurik’s shields, and knew he was too weak to withstandthem.
Too weak because he’d risked everything in order to heal herfather.
