He was Notus! Notus seized Olaf by the wings before the couple realized the threat and parted. Boreus pushed his mate behind himself and shimmered blue on the cusp of change as the green and amber dragons fought overhead. Boreus didn’t change shape and Rania wondered why not. Shouldn’t he be defending his mate? The maiden looked astonished as she watched the fight overhead and Boreus steadily backed her toward the hut.
Meanwhile, the pending storm arrived. The trees bent beneath the assault of the wind and dark clouds glowered overhead. Rain began to fall and she saw Boreus’ mate shiver as the raindrops changed to ice and fell tinkling on the ground. Boreus cast a cloak over the maiden’s shoulders and pulled her against his side, the firestorm glowing as she slipped an arm around his waist.
Would he truly defend her against the Slayer, or was he just sheltering her until the firestorm was satisfied? Rania instinctively distrusted the idea of romance.
“Olaf and Notus fought over Boreus’ mate,” Alasdair said. “While Boreus was compelled to stand and watch, because he had not yet confided the truth of his nature in her. Miranda was already so frightened that he feared his shift would overwhelm her with terror. There was a conviction amongst our kind that a mortal could look upon the change without descending into madness, and Boreus was protective of his mate in every way.”
The dragon battle, meanwhile, was ferocious. The pair grappled for supremacy, tumbling end over end through the air, breathing fire and slashing at each other. Olaf was bigger but Notus was more clever. Olaf struck Notus with his tail and Notus raked his claws across Olaf’s belly, ripping open his guts. Rania watched as the Slayer’s black blood flowed and saw steam rise where it hit the ground. The snow fell faster and thicker, and there was a thin coating of ice over everything. The dragons kept fighting, their fury melting the ice and filling the air with mist. Notus breathed fire at the wound and Olaf cried out in anguish, his bellow echoing over the hills. His eyes glinted and he dove after Notus, who soared high in the sky, drawing him away. He disappeared in the clouds that wreathed the summits of the hills, Olaf fast behind him.
Alasdair made a gesture with one claw and Rania saw the fight from a different view, as if she was hanging onto Olaf’s tail. The dragons swept into a cloud and she felt as if she was flying himself. It was thrilling. The mist and the falling snow diminished visibility to almost nil, and she heard the tinkle of ice falling against the dragon scales. She felt Olaf’s fury and his confusion, then Notus suddenly appeared ahead of him, those feathers glistening with drops of rainwater. Notus glanced back, apparently in fear, then lunged onward and disappeared into the clouds again.
Olaf gave a roar and raced in pursuit, only to slam into the side of the hill that had been veiled by the clouds. His head hit the rock hard and he slid down the face of the stone, unconscious. A trail of black blood from his temple followed his descent, sizzling on the surface of the stone. Notus swooped down and attacked the fallen Slayer. Rania winced as Notus cut away Olaf’s genitals, then tossed them into the air and burned them with his dragonfire, deaf to Olaf’s screams. The black blood flowed from Olaf’s wound, staining the snow that was accumulating on the ground, and he shifted between forms before passing out as a dark-haired man. Notus surveyed him for a long moment, then took flight, disappearing into the swirl of snow. It was quiet then and Rania could only see the steady trickle of black blood into the snow.
So Notus had eliminated the Slayer who threatened his cousin’s firestorm. He had risked death for his cousin, just as Alasdair offered to die in Hadrian’s stead. The Pyr, clearly, had stronger bonds than Rania had realized.
No one would have offered his or her life in exchange for Rania’s. The realization chilled her.
“Notus abandoned the Slayer to die,” Alasdair said. “He believed that Olaf could not survive such an injury. But fury is a powerful force, and a thirst for revenge can provide a burning desire to survive.”
Rania knew that well enough. She watched the snow fall, covering Olaf’s fallen body as time passed. The Slayer stirred finally and sat up with a grimace, then brushed the snow from his shoulders. She saw Olaf’s horror when he examined his own injury, then watched as the Slayer dragged his broken body toward what might have been a path or road. He managed to rise to his feet, bind his wound roughly with a length of cloth torn from his own garments, and cut a staff from a broken tree. He staggered onward, and eventually the opening of a cave came into view.
Rania guessed that Olaf had sensed the presence of the man there, the one who emerged from the darkness and surveyed him with concern. She shivered, remembering the trapper who had healed her injuries all those years ago when she’d hunted the polar bear shifter, and wondered whether this one had an agenda of his own as well.
“Olaf was lucky,” Alasdair said. “He always had been, and on this occasion, his luck held. He reached the refuge of a hermit renowned for his healing abilities, and without revealing his nature, received care. His body healed, but his need for vengeance only grew stronger with each passing day. His fury was distilled into a dark and potent force, one he could not ignore.”
The scene spun and it was clearly spring when Olaf left the cave. He looked healthy again. He embraced the hermit from the cave and walked away, continuing in human form until he was out of view. His eyes glittered when he glanced back, then he shimmered blue, shifting into his powerful dragon form and taking flight. He flew high over the hills, soaring through the clouds, then swooped down on the hermit’s refuge. He returned from the opposite direction and roared on his approach. The hermit came out of the cave, wary but curious, and Olaf roasted him with dragonfire. The hermit screamed as he tried to retreat to the safety of the cave but Olaf was relentless. He landed outside the door, shoved his head as far as possible into the cave, and breathed dragonfire with such force that smoke came out the cracks in the stone.
“No one would ever know that Olaf had found sanctuary in this place, or that the hermit had healed him. No one would be able to challenge Notus’ conviction that the Slayer was dead,” Alasdair said.
Rania was shocked by Olaf’s savagery even though it was strategic and defensive. Clearly, dragons weren’t always the good guys.
Maybe her assignment from Maeve was justified.
“By the time Olaf abandoned the place where he had found refuge, it was burned and blackened, smoking with destruction. Nothing moved. Nothing uttered a sound.
Rania watched, fascinated, as Olaf took flight and disappeared into the blue.”
“Olaf returned to his own lair, abandoning Boreus and his mate,” Alasdair said. “Their firestorm was consummated and no longer of interest to him. He was determined to take vengeance upon Notus in retaliation for his injury. He waited for Notus to have his firestorm. He hid himself from both Pyr and Slayers, letting Notus believe he was dead.” The vision showed a dragon sleeping in the dark shadows of a cave, his breathing so slow and steady that he might have been made of stone. Only the faint glimmer of his eyes and the occasional wisp of smoke revealed that he was alive. Rania was struck by the similarity to Hadrian the night before, when she’d appeared in his studio. Olaf appeared to be soundly asleep or even dead, but she could see the telltale glimmer of his eyes. He was awake and watching. “He banked the fires, as my father would have said, and he waited more than a hundred and fifty years.”