He returned to the Oughtnoch, paying no attention to me, a similarly dressed, much shorter, thinner version of himself, following after, scooping my hammer along the way. With soldiers searching the Bottom, and the others dealing with the draignoch in the tournament, the pound was empty except for the two of us, for the moment. He spun, arms stretched, probably to lock the gate. His sight above my head, he failed to see my hammer until it hit him in the stomach. He crumpled to his knees, bent over, gasping, but unable to speak. He reached for me. I whacked him over the head with the butt.
He dropped, still breathing.
The rope in my hair was long enough to bind his wrists. Days of rain left the ground soft enough for me to drag him into an open empty cell. I tried to pick up the chains used for the draignochs on the ground to wrap around his legs, but they were much too heavy. Twelve of me couldn’t lift them.
I stuffed the drawing of my mark the boy made for me into his mouth to dampen his cries if he woke. “Let Sir Raleigh find that.”
I searched him but couldn’t find a set of keys on him. Not that I expected it to be that easy.
Cell after cell housed draignochs. With daylight, I could see their extravagant colors. Lavender, amber, azure, emerald green, and a dark shade of red. They were smaller than Rendicryss. Their wings would never give them flight. For them to be free, the wall would have to come down.
As I passed their prisons, my heart ached for them. Their strong hind legs chained together so they couldn’t move. Their necks anchored to the ground so they couldn’t stand tall. They crouched against the very back of the cells, as far from their human jailers as possible. What kind of monster did this? Where was the challenge in killing beasts tortured this way? I would choose death over a life like this. I had to imagine these draignochs would too. How could Griffin not see that?
Cheering exploded out of the arena. I was running out of time.
She cooed.
The relief was palpable. Explanation of why this creature meant so much to me escaped me, a creature I couldn’t even remember, but she did. She was everything.
“Rendicryss . . . I’m here!”
Arms wrapped around me, hoisting me off the ground. “Let go of me!” I struggled, my heel striking calf bone, eliciting a familiar growl.
Griffin.
“You smell terrible.”
“Put me down, then!”
“Have you lost your mind? We have to get out of here.”
“No! If you carry me out, I’ll come back tonight. I blasted that wall. Another go or two and it would come down!”
“You missed the gate badly and you nearly killed yourself in the process. I saw the whole thing!” He set me down, and I ran. His footsteps were steadfast behind me.
Her gilded cell was where it had been, on the end. This time I could see inside. Anger choked me. The Phantombronze chains binding her neck and ankles to the bars left raised bloody welts. Her red eyes were hooded. She was muzzled. That was why I couldn’t hear her.
Griffin grabbed my waist, but I got hold of the bars.
“You cannot free her. She is a wild beast, Maggie! She will kill—”
“No. No!” I strained against his hold. Rendicryss’s tail slipped through the bars, wrapping around us both.
My ears buzzed. My hands heated.
“Maggie, what’s happening to me?”
Wind howled.
Then, we were flying.
Fourteen
Griffin
Griffin fell through hot wind, dark clouds, then carved through sheets of rain. Lightning cracked. Thunder roared. He no longer felt. The only logical explanation: Rendicryss had killed him. And yet he didn’t feel dead, at least not entirely, more fighting to wake from a nightmare. Trapped in a downward spiral, a diving bird, only much, much faster. Griffin tried to scream but whimpered instead.
His vision clouded from pain that wasn’t his. A hill far below grew in size and scope until it was a mountain. Wings spread right and left, not much larger than draignochs’, yet more than long enough and wide enough to carry the small body they were attached to. Too many arrows stuck in webbed flesh, making it impossible to stay aloft. Shaking hind legs stretched, landing first, scratching to a stop on a rocky barren spot. Griffin wasn’t here at all. This was the dragon’s doing, like she’d done with Maggie the last time they entered the Oughtnoch. Rendicryss wished him to see something, he hoped. Death would be so disappointing.
Rendicryss tried to tuck her wings but stopped, mewing in great agony. She couldn’t pull the arrows out. Griffin would’ve helped her, if he could, wouldn’t he? All at once, Griffin’s chest tightened. No. This was a monster. She would kill him, and probably had already.
The rain poured down. With it came a comforting light carried on wind, the kind that Maggie captured with her hands in her room last night, as if the moon were riding an ocean wave. It bathed the dragon’s head in a warm glow.
Let them burn. The voice, feminine, was entirely unfamiliar to Griffin, but not to Rendicryss.
Fire ignited inside the dragon’s veins. The heavy rain was no match for it. The arrows lit, melting to ash in seconds. But the holes in her wings remained, and there were many.
Rendicryss whined. It sounded as if she was crying.
It was not your doing she left the forest too soon. The banshee and her son will pay for what they did to my daughter. Their story has already been written.
As has yours. She will need you. She cannot be a light in darkness for the world if she’s blind to her existence. The curse the shrew threw at her holds. You are the only one who can break it.
Rendicryss strained, trying to flap her wings, but she could not fly.
You are unfinished, little one. You must wait until you are strong enough. You must heal and grow, as must she. For now, her heart beats for us all in the world of humankind. The first of us in their lands, the bearer of great gifts that will rain down on them in the form of hope or destruction. That part is up to them. As was told to the man who would be king, only with magic by his side can he keep his kingdom.
Rendicryss craned her neck, mewing at the bloody holes in her wings, arrows shot by humankind. Her clutched jaw opened wide. She let out a rattling howl, a wolf summoning its pack.
They’re gone. The draignochs left the forest some time ago. Much too soon, unevolved, and sadly are now too far away for that to change, I fear. Perhaps one day, you, Rendicryss can help them too.
The light on the wind darted skyward, slicing through dark clouds.
Find my daughter and break the bonds of the curse so that she can use all that I have given her to fulfill her destiny.
Griffin woke with a start, crushed against Maggie, snared by the dragon’s tail. Maggie gasped in his arms. Rain poured from the skies in sheets, washing away everything except the stench coming from Maggie’s cloak.
Griffin wasn’t dead. Not yet. He hugged Maggie. “That was . . .”
“You saw?” she whispered against his chest.
“Yes.”
Rendicryss’s tail slid off, curling around their feet protectively.
“I have to free her, Griffin.” Maggie drew a tiny drop of moonlight out of thin air, making her palm glow, then slammed her hand down on the Phantombronze bars. The light grew brighter, then snuffed out. “Why won’t it work?” But the bar was left changed. The orange darkened to rust, losing integrity. Eventually, Maggie would be able to free her.