My heart swells even more than before.“I love you, Elizabeth Chadwick.I love you wildly, as much as a selfish dragon prince ever can.I hope you know that.I will help you keep your earth safe from the creatures.And I hope you can remember how much I care for you when I turn back into a beast.”
“Maybe you won’t change back this time,” she says.
“Maybe not.”I feel something odd happening to me.Something I’ve never experienced before.My eyes...are leaking.“But I fear I will forget you, and I fear I’ll forgetus.”I shake my head, “But I still love you, even then.I just don’t understand yet.Believe that.”
She kisses me again, and then she nods slowly.“Thank you.”
The walls around us disappear.
And so do I.
24
Liz
This time, when I’m expelled from Eyjafjallajökull, I have no trouble course correcting and flying, which is good, because Hyperion looksbad.Azar hurtles through just behind me, and that’s also good, because we aren’t the only ones shooting out—demon-encrusted vanir are shooting out like t-shirts from a cannon at a corny football game.
Only, these prizes won’t just give you a black eye or break your nail.
They’re literally ravening, and also, their charred, ragged bodies are smoking.They all look like they’re three-quarters baked...by a blow torch.
“Shield,” I say.“Azar!I need a shield!?Please?”I’m clutching my sword in one hand and the heartstone in the other, so when the closest vanir-beast stumbles toward me, his massive mouth open, drool hissing as it slides down his oversized chin, I slash at him, opening up a massive gash on his beefy arm.
Azar looks a little dazed at first, and then he frowns.A second later, he pops a giant red shield around Hyperion, Coral, and me.Thank you.
But there’s no one protecting Azar—at least, not until I see a lightning bolt strike the demon vanir that are closing in on him.All three of them go down like bowling pins to a strike.
Asteria’s in the corner, Jade unfortunately on her back, but she’s an absolute goddess, her eyes sparking, and lightning bolts arcing outward from her claws, from her head, and from her chest, striking vanir right and left.She’s not the only one fighting them, either.The blessed have come out in impressive numbers to help us, and I’ve never been more grateful in my life.
Grateful or not, Coral looks even worse than Hyperion.
Her skin’s a terrible shade of pale grey.
My hands are trembling as I drop the heartstone beside her and reach for her neck.Please, please, please let me find a pulse,I beg.Please let her be alive.Let this not all be useless.
There’s nothing.
I’m too late.
Her skin’s clammy, even in this hot, miserable place, with demon creatures rocketing past us, slamming into the red barrier, and fighting all the dragons on the other side of this shield.
I killed Freya, my friend, Azar’s mother, and I’m too late.
She’s already dead.
Tears roll freely down my cheeks, and I fall back on my knees, sobbing.“No,” I cry, my voice utterly broken.“No!No!!”I grab the stone, and I shove it up next to her tiny body.“Coral Whitney Chadwick, you cannot bedead!”
Her eyes flutter open.
I nearly drop the stone.“Coral!”
“I’m not dead,” she wheezes.“You justsuckat taking someone’s pulse.”
And now I’m crying harder, but there’s no time for that.“Okay, right, okay.Then I need to heal—well, not you.You’re not hurt.I need to heal Hyperion so he doesn’t drag you down with him.Right.”I spin around, regaining my grip on the stupid heartstone, and then I stumble toward Hyperion, dragging my sword along.With that awful liquid whatever inside, not to mention my other sword, he’s not going to get better until we eliminate it.
It takes me far too long to crawl up on top of his massive form.
“Oh Hyperion, why do you have to be so ghastly huge?”I’m puffing when I reach the top of his belly, and I realize that thanks to my wings, I may have let my other training slide just a hair.“Coral, plug your ears.If he’s awake, this is going to hurt, and he’s going to be a big old baby about it.”
