Page 26 of Draekora
“Abrassa?” Alex repeated, her nerves slightly hitching at the word. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Abrassa… Void.”
Alex shook her head, not understanding.
The dragon let out a frustrated, spark-free breath and Alex had to resist taking another step back. The last thing she wanted was to anger the creature.
“Abrassa… Void… Must return.”
His disjointed sentences made little sense to Alex.
“Just try to stay still,” she said, reaching forward to inspect the Moxyreel, figuring the best thing she could do was release him so he could return to wherever he came from. “I’ll try to get you out of this.”
“Pulled… between. Throughabrassa,” the dragon said, his words remaining nonsensical.
“Sounds painful,” Alex said, giving up on trying to understand his broken attempts at speaking her language. She hesitantly threaded her fingers underneath a strand of Moxyreel, surprised when they brushed up against the dragon’s black scales only to find his thick hide oddly soft to the touch.
“Painful…” the dragon said. “Golden One cause… much pain.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Alex said distractedly while tugging at the Moxyreel. She wished Zain hadn’t taken everything from her, since she would still be wearing her Myrox bow-and-arrow necklace. But then she remembered something hehadn’ttaken from her. Something hecouldn’ttake.
Raising her palm outwards was all it took for the ice-like blade to appear in her hand—a dagger that, not so long ago, she would have cringed away from. Now, however, she was oddly comforted by the weight of A’enara between her fingers.
The dragon stilled as he took in her weapon, his brilliant cerulean-coloured eyes growing wider than before.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Alex told him again, realising how it might look.
But for some reason, he didn’t seem afraid. He appeared… awed.
“This net is made of Meyarin steel,” Alex said, just for something to say but not sure how much he understood. “Supposedly only Myrox can cut through it, but I’m hoping…” She trailed off and gestured to her weapon with a shrug. “Just don’t freak out, okay? I need you to stay still so I can try and cut the net without hurting you.”
The dragon nodded his large head against his constraints. “Cut… Hurry.”
“Uh-huh,” Alex replied, carefully sliding A’enara between the dragon’s scales and the Moxyreel. “Thisabrassathing is closing, right? Don’t worry, I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“Abrassaclosing… But not why hurry,” the dragon said. “Golden One come… More pain come… Must hurry.”
Alex froze as an impending sense of dread settled over her. “Golden One? Do you mean… You’re not talking about Aven, are you? The banished Meyarin prince?”
“Golden One… Bad… Pull Xiraxus throughabrassa… Must return before…”
Every muscle seized in her body as she glanced anxiously around the clearing. “Before what?”
“Before.”
Shaking her head at her frustrating lack of comprehension, Alex tried not to panic at the idea of Aven coming their way. She could think of no one else who matched the description of ‘Golden One’. And if he was the one whose net ensnared the dragon, then he was surely en route to retrieving his prize; something Alex absolutely did not want to wait around for.
“I hope this works,” she said quietly, pressing the sharp edge of her blade against the netting. Relief flooded her body when it cut through as easily as if carving through water. Alex didn’t even care that A’enara wasn’t made of Myrox and therefore shouldn’t have been able to damage the Moxyreel. She’d long since come to understand that the weapon had its own secrets.
Slicing through strand after strand of the netting, Alex made short work of freeing the beast. When she managed to cut the final threads binding his taloned forearms to his torso, the dragon let out a roar of triumph and rose onto his hind legs, spreading his impressive wings out to the sides, making him seem even larger than he already was.
Daunted by his sheer size, Alex quickly scrambled backwards. But when his roar mellowed out into a whimpering sound, she halted her retreat.
“Are you—Are you hurt?” she asked as he hunched over, curling around himself protectively.
“Fly…” the dragon said. “Need… fly…”
Pushing the worry of Aven’s whereabouts from her mind, Alex took charge again. “Here, let me see.”
