A dragon flew less than half a mile from me. It circled once, and then settled out of my view. Fotab had described the creatures in detail, but I’d never seen—or heard—one in real life before.
I ran forward. I didn’t want to confront the thing, but I had to see it. Surely I could find a way to spy on the beast.
The answer presented itself within minutes. A boulder with easy handholds and scores rose up above the bare winter trees.
As I scrambled up the giant rock, a thundering voice rumbled through the forest. “What. Are. You. Doing?”
I climbed faster. A sinking dread filled my stomach. It would be just like Alastor to do something offensive to a dragon in an elven kingdom.
The stone blocked the answer of whoever the dragon spoke to, but his rumbling voice filled the forest again. “YOU ATTACKED MY ROSES!”
I finally reached the top of the boulder and peered down. A frozen meadow sprawled away in front of the other side of the boulder. A hundred feet from me, Alastor planted his hands on his hips. “I did not,” he bellowed back. Apparently, he felt the need to compete with the dragon’s volume.
Smoke rose from the dragon’s black back, as if the beast could shoot fire from his scales. “You attacked my roses,” he hissed, “you put a hole in my protective barrier,andyou lied.”
Alastor started to say something, but I couldn’t understand it because the dragon lifted a scaled arm and shot fireout of his palm.
Not a dragon, then. A drekkan. Dragons breathed fire. Drekkans breathed fire… and released it from their hands and tail.
Alastor raised his own arms and met the beast’s fire with his own. I groaned. Just because my brother had magic didn’t mean he needed to use it all the time. The opposing flames clashed between the two of them, growing into an inferno hot enough that I felt it.
I wanted to shake my brother. He should know better than to argue with a giant flame-throwing reptile!
But he didn’t stop. “Is that all you’ve got?” he yelled over the blaze. “So much for a legendary monster!”
Seriously?! What was wrong with him?
The drekkan did not say anything, but his tail snaked around his wings until it had a clear shot at Alastor. A new stream of fire from the drekkan’s tail blasted Alastor’s left side, throwing him to the ground.
My heart nearly stopped. I could not watch my brother die. Not here. Not like this. Not after I’d spent the last thirteen years keeping us both alive.
I rushed to climb down the boulder. I nearly fell trying to watch the drekkan while moving at the same time.
The beast blew another wall of fire at my brother while he was already down. Would the monster kill Alastor while he was incapacitated? I panicked at the thought, lost my grip on the boulder, and slipped the final ten feet to the ground.
I landed on the edge of my foot, which rolled under my weight. I lunged to the side with all the grace of a cave bear balancing on an ice pick. I hoped to take the weight off my ankle before I injured it, but instead I knocked the breath out of my chest.
I didn’t dare take the time to recover—I had to stop the drekkan from destroying my brother.
I ran, gasping and half-limping across the meadow. A wall of magic burned around the edges of the meadow, but my ability to see magic led me safely through a jagged opening. The fire-melted, muddy landscape clung to my boots, but my mind focused on how Alastor was about to die… and I had to save him.
My clumsy fall and blundering run caught the drekkan’s attention. His great head followed my movements and a hairless brow raised higher over one eye.
I ignored the curious look and kept running until I was directly between him and my brother.
My heart raced. I’d never seen a legendary monster before, and now one towered over me. Legs thicker than my entire body balanced his reptilian body with arms, wings, and a tail. His head lowered to focus on me as I planted my body in front of him.
I raised my arms as if I could block him from attacking Alastor. “Stop!” I cried, still panting.
What was I thinking, ordering a creature twenty times my size around?
“Please!” I corrected. “Please spare my brother.”
The drekkan’s eyes narrowed. “He trespassed, broke my barrier, attacked my flowers, and lied. He deserves a swift justice.”
“But if you kill him, he will learn nothing!” I panted, still catching my breath after my fall and run. The drekkan seemed to be considering my words, so I risked a glance at Alastor. His blackened clothes highlighted the burns on every bit of his exposed skin, but he still breathed… which meant hecould still heal himself.
But Fotab had made drekkans sound like angry, unreasonable monsters. What if this one killed both of us just for crossing his invisible barrier?
