Page 63 of Rurik
“Eyes and torso!” he ordered his team. “Watchfire!”
He raised his AR-15 rifle, taking careful aim for the Brazilian dragon’s head, and fired again and again with marksman-like precision. The rest of the team did likewise, firing pure iron rounds into itsabdomen.
The dragon roared, letting go of Piper, blinded in one eye and furious. Piper used the distraction to take the other by the neck and, with a violent thrash, break it. The body of the dragon fell, crashing down toward Damien’s team, only to become human before it even hit theground.
Something in Damien’s head clicked. Of course. Nobody ever found a dragon body, because when they died they didn’t stay dragons. Thatmeant…
“Grigori!” Damien shouted to the sky, where the leader of the Barinovs hovered, wounded but victorious. “We need to get down there!” He pointed over the edge. The blue dragon nodded and dropped to the platform, letting Damien climb onto his shoulders. If Rurik was still alive, then there was a chance Charlotte was as well. Grigori leapt off the building and glided down to theground.
Damien jumped off the dragon’s shoulders and stumbled to his knees beside the body of the black dragon, which still lay motionless. Curled in its wings lay Charlotte, her hand splattered with blood, but not moving. Not breathing. Tears stung his eyes as he cupped herface.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “I failed you. I—” The rest of his words died upon his lips. They would never reach her, not where she hadgone.
Damien stared at the face of the dragon who had dared to love his sister. All he saw there now was the proud, wise, noble heart of a dragon, not anenemy.
He saw Grigori’s snout nudge one of Rurik’s clawed feet. A shaky breath broke from Rurik’s body, but it wasn’t one that filled either of them with hope. Grigori made a low, rumbling sound that turned to a keening cry. The dragon bent his head, as if resigning itself to the inevitable. Silver tears like liquid mercury poured from Grigori eyes, splashing onto Rurik’s scaledbody.
Damien placed a hand on the grieving dragon’s leg, feeling the heat of the scales beneath his palm. There were no words to be spoken, none that could ease the pain of their shared loss. Damien felt he understood what the dragons meant when they said they suffered grief so strongly that it could kill them. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to wipe the tearsaway.
And that’s when he saw flames rise up around Charlotte’sbody.
* * *
Snow…
Snow was falling. Charlotte could feel it on her skin before she opened her eyes. She was there in that realmbetween, feeling Rurik’s beating heart. The warm glow was so close, but as she sat up and blinked, she saw the flames flicker and sputter, threatening to goout.
She surged to her feet and pushed through the thick snowfall as the storm became fiercer, wind whipping at her. She had to reach his heart this time, or else the wall of shadows creeping in at the edges of her vision would overtakeher.
Charlotte braced her arms in front of her face, shielding it from the icy wind. Shapes moved ahead of her, but they weren’t shadows. These shapes were…dragons. Hundreds of them, lined on either side of her path to the dwindling glow of Rurik’s heart. Their massive, long-snouted heads bowed, their frills fanning up as they watched her pass by beneath them like giantstatues.
“Another comes to the doorstep. Come, brother. Come home. There is so much for us to show you. So much you have never seen…”The words were clear like church bells, sung by unseenvoices.
“Keep going, little one. Go!”a lone female voice said from somewhere beside her.“Go to him before it’s toolate!”
Charlotte turned and saw an emerald-green dragon with green-gold eyes urging herforward.
“Who are you?” Charlotte shivered as a new wind funneled down the path the dragons had made forher.
“We are the Barinovs, the souls of the ones long gone, returned to our true home, ready to welcome another,”they answered, though their mouths didn’tmove.
Charlotte somehow knew what they meant by that. They were ghosts…sort of. This was death…maybe. Yet it was like nothing she’d ever expected to see. And somewhere in this snowy world, Rurik’s soul was here, his dragon half. The part that needed to besaved.
“I can’t lose him. Notnow!”
The dragons saidnothing.
“Did you hear me? You can’t havehim!”
The female from before whispered beside her.“There is a way, but it will not beeasy.”
“What must I do?” she asked. “Anything.Please.”
“You must give of yourself. Your life must become his, and his heart must becomeyours.”
Charlotte believed she knew what the dragoness meant, so she nodded. “I’ll doit.”
“Take his heart, hold it close, and don’t let go, no matter what. You might yet save him. Go…time is waning, and the shadows are uponus.”
