She opened it and began to read.
* * *
And he dreamed:
Ash soared.
He wished Dani had agreed to come with him. Her touch had given him strength to embrace his Dragon. To fly.
But then, she still thought this was just an ordinary dream.
He hadn’t been sure, himself, until she touched him. The moment she did so, the future had lit up in his brain.
That touch had been real. No one had ever touched him like that before.
She’d come very close to not doing it at all. He’d sensed how hard it had been for her to reach for him. He was ashamed that his first instinct had been to run.
Dani would understand that, though. She knew about vulnerability.
He hadn’t thanked her. And that bothered him now, as the moonlight danced across wisps of clouds, painting them as silver as his wingtips. The air whistled over his triangular face and through his long, golden mane.
It hadn’t changed what was happening to him, even now, as he surfed his dreams. Rindek was using him to create a weapon, and he’d use it against the Dragons.
Ash had asked Dani the question that seared through his soul. And she’d answered that one individual wasn’t that important.
But Ash knew she was wrong. He’d foreseen it play out time and again. One person could change the world.
Should he end it? Kill himself, and take the experiment with him? Could Rindek find himself another Dragon guinea pig to develop the parasite?
The timelines weren’t clear on that. They seldom were when Ash was desperate for answers.
He banked, reveling in the wind beneath his wings. Here, in this dream, he was free. Free from pain. Free from Rindek.
A huge shadow passed between Ash and the moon. His first reaction was pure fear. Had the Archmage found some new, twisted way to invade his dreams?
Without the escape of his dreams, he was lost.
His next reaction was rage. He opened his heart, and welcomed it. This was his dream. He had the power here.
He banked hard and swept across the ocean toward the shore. Focusing on the rocky cliffs that rose high above the water, he pushed with his mind and fractured the reality. Pillars of stone shot from beneath the waves, creating a labyrinth along the shore.
He tucked his wings tight to his body, and let gravity take him, plummeting like a stone toward them.
The shadow followed.
Ash ground his Dragon teeth as he plunged among the pillars. The white-capped waves thrashed against their bases as he ducked and dove between them. But his control over the dream was slipping—the wind turned against him. It rose, swirling through his labyrinth, forming vortices that buffeted him and shoved him dangerously close to the craggy stone.
If it dashed him against the rock, could it kill him in reality, as well as in his dream?
He might ask the questions, but he didn’t have the answers.
Ash’s heart thundered, but the shadow still pursued. His anger was giving way to fear. To the prey’s blind panic and determination to escape.
He braked, and banked, heading for a narrow opening. What chased him was much larger than himself. No way it could follow him there.
The wind laughed at his efforts. A powerful downdraft caught him, shoved him down, and then wrenched him sideways.
Ash fought it with everything he had. But the gale caught his wings, and twisted them, tearing the major flight muscles across his chest. Ash gasped at the lancing pain, but he was helpless in its grip as it shunted him closer to the jagged cliffs.
