Page 26 of Dragons & Dumplings
The two white dragons launched into the air, the downdraft from their wings causing a windstorm below. Yuri roared his defiance as Mikhail swung his tail at him and missed. Claws and fangs gleamed in the moonlight as the battle raged, and I saw a handful of windows in the houses below light up—including the one near which I was hiding.
When Mrs. Morelli, Clove’s mother and the local hedgewitch, scurried out of her house in her bathrobe, she gaped up at the two battling dragons. I couldn’t blame her—I’d never seen two dragons fighting so fiercely before, either.
A roar of pain ripped through the air, followed by another. I bit my lip as I watched. Yuri was not winning. Crimson streaked his flanks, his wings. But the marks he’d managed to leave on Mikhail hardly seemed to slow him down, if he noticed them at all.
At this rate, I was afraid that Mikhail might actually kill him.
Even if I didn’t agree with his methods, Yuri had tried to protect me, in his own way. And here his older brother, the person who was supposed to protect him, was tearing into Yuri instead.
The way he treated Yuri made my blood boil with righteous fury. It drowned out my hesitation and my fear in a fireball of certainty. I wasnotabout to sit back and watch the one person who could cool me down and light me up at the same time, ancient enemy or not, fall.
“Mrs. Morelli!” I stood up from my hiding place and walked to her wrought-iron fence. “I need your help!”
“Mei-Mei, dearie, what on earth is going on?” She clutched her purple robe closed against the fierce and sudden gales eddying around us.
“Yuri’s being attacked by his older brother for running away from home,” I explained.
She tutted disapprovingly. “I can see why he’d want to leave!”
“I have a plan to chase the brother away, but I can’t do it without your help. I need you to cast a spell on me!”
The hedgewitch’s violet eyes lit up with mischief. “I would be delighted! What did you have in mind?”
It was the work of only a minute for her to cast the spell on me, but in that time, dark patches of frostbite began to bloom on the scales of both dragons. I took a steeling breath, and for once, let my fiery fury loose.
I transformed into a ruby dragon with a flaming spine and wings that rained sparks down below. With a mighty roar, I launched into the sky, and seven mirror copies of me did the same, thanks to the spell.
Both ice dragons whipped their heads around, shock widening their glacial eyes. Before they could react, my chest scales glowed like magma, and I exhaled a powerful stream of flame directly at Mikhail’s chest. He couldn’t defend against all eight streams of fire at once, which quickly shattered the flimsy ice wall he threw up defensively. The larger dragon screeched in pain as the fire licked at his scales, blackening them.
Mikhail flailed wildly, striking Yuri in the process. Yuri’s eyes rolled back in his head and he plummeted like a stone. Without a second thought, I dove after him, catching him in my claws and flaring my wings wide to slow our descent. The heat from my claws charred his scales where I held him, and I grunted with the effort of keeping another dragon aloft.
Thanks to a sudden updraft from Mrs. Morelli, I was able to set him safely down on the cobblestones. Immediately, I released him, wincing at the twin marks of frostbite and the burns that marred his pearlescent scales.
Returning my gaze to the skies, I could see a smoking Mikhail glaring down at me and Yuri. But his angry eyes flicked between us and the various fire drake clones that hovered in between us, and he balked.
He wouldn’t think twice about ganging up on a lone dragon, but he was too much of a coward to take on what he thought was an entire fleet of fire drakes. With an angry, pained roar, he turned tail and flew away, leaving a trail of snowflakes and ash in his wake.
Chapter twelve
Hearth & Healing
Yuri
Everythinghurt.
My entire body felt like one big bruise, and I almost wanted to laugh at myself for ever entertaining the idea that fire and ice could make a good combination. I was fairly certain I had been both burned and frostbitten at the same time, and it made for one excruciating combination.
Mei's worried face hovered over me, but my throat was too sore from roaring for me to call out to her. To rage at her for putting herself in danger like that. To thank her for standing up to my brother on my behalf.
To beg her forgiveness for lying.
When she carefully lifted me into her scale-covered arms, I cried out in pain as darkness licked at the edges of my vision, before the shadows swallowed the light completely.
I groaned as I blinked open my eyes.
The first thing I noticed was that I felt indescribably better. Instead of sharp pain, only a dull ache remained. I could still feel the effects of the burns and the frostbite, but it was manageable—nothing compared to before.
The second thing I noticed was that I was in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, and wrapped in bandages that smelled faintly of herbs and magic. The room itself was tidy, and themed in red and white. A few pictures and posters were taped to the walls, and there was a desk beneath the window across from me. The first hints of dawn were just beginning to turn the sky a dusty pink, with a handful of golden clouds scattered along the horizon.
