Rindek had used his icefire whip on Ash.
If Rindek had stood before Tyrez at that moment, the Dragon shifter would have ripped him to tiny pieces.
The silver eyes blinked, and the lips moved. “What is your name?”
The voice surprised him. Even hoarse and uncertain, it was deeper than expected. “Tyrez,” he answered.
“I dreamed of you.” Barely audible, this time.
“Yes. I wass there.”
His arched brows drew down, and his eyes swirled with confusion. “How is that possible?”
“I wills explain. But nots now. I haves tos go back. Ares yous okays tos stay here?” Tyrez had to return to the ocean realm. To Dani. And to search the house he’d seen for whatever answers it could offer, so he could find the Archmage. But Ash looked so lost—and no one here had the time to look after him. What if he wandered off into the forest? Tyrez didn’t want to risk losing him again.
Ash looked away and then back to him. He grabbed the rough bark beside him to haul himself up. “I will come with you.”
Take him back to that place? No sharding way.
His opinion must have shown in his face. Ash straightened with a clink of chain. “I need to come with you.” His voice was much stronger, and his jaw jutted forward.
Tyrez debated. Leaving Ash here had its risks too. “Alls right,” he said. “Comes withs me.”
Ash followed Tyrez to the gate. Tyrez offered him his wingtip.
Ash hesitated, then reached up to touch it.
The moment his long fingers closed around Tyrez’s flesh, was like being hit by lightning. A surge of raw energy that robbed him of breath, and the way Ash stiffened, the other Dragon experienced it as well. The fingers trembled and then clutched tight.
Tyrez took a deep breath and stepped through the gate.
They emerged at the top of the cliffs. Devoid of activity, now that everything was centralized on the beach below.
Ash stood, frozen, staring down at the gravel littered with Dragon bodies.
“I can carry you down. Unless you’d rather stay up here.”
“No. I will go with you.”
Tyrez crouched and offered Ash his foreleg as a step. He wasn’t full-sized, but it was still a good jump. Ash had a death grip on his wingtip, and he used it to help pull the slim Dragonshifter up.
As the thin legs wrapped around Tyrez’s neck just ahead of his shoulders, he was seized with a sense ofrightness. Just as it had been with Dani, but this was far more powerful, because Dragons were creatures of energy. Weak as he was, Ash’s energy reached for, and synced with, Tyrez’s.
And it lit his entire world on fire.
The colors brightened, the sun’s rays radiating through a kaleidoscope of new intensity; Tyrez detected every twitter and chirp and chatter of the creatures living above and around them; and his sense of smell—he smelled Ash, that unique Dragon combination of musk and metal. His heart accelerated and he found it difficult to breathe.
Then the fingers released the wingtip and grabbed the spikes instead. The sensations abated, but only enough to permit Tyrez to beat his wings twice to lift off. His mind and body spun as he glided down toward the beach.
An abrupt exhalation and the slight tightening of legs were the only signs of a reaction from his passenger. In seconds, Tyrez backwinged to land. Such a short, smooth flight, but his heart continued to race. Ash was no ordinary passenger.
It took the Oracle a moment to slide off, and he clung to Tyrez’s forelimb a little longer than strictly necessary. When he finally let go, Tyrez wasted no time in shifting to human. He longed for Ash to see the human side of the beast.
The silver eyes drank him in. Then they moved, looking beyond Tyrez.
Tyrez turned and saw Dani. She was applying a compress of what looked like seaweed to a seeping wound in a Dragon’s body.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Ash asked, his voice hushed. “The Mover.”
