Treasured by the Dragon

Ch 27: Evidence

I tumble through the air like a rag doll, with my stomach somewhere in my chest. The world swirls in a cascade of colors. There is no up or down.

I recall the tumbling acrobats that visited our castle and wonder how they kept their stomachs from rebelling against such disorientation. Then I remember another set of performers.

Talented divers stood on a towering platform that led into a deep pool. They launched themselves from their stage with arms and legs stretched out long and tight like a needle. Their sleek forms pierced the air, sending them down into the water at a terrifying speed.

I need the exact opposite of that.

I throw my arms and legs out. The wind buffets my aching limbs, threatening to twist them back at angles my joints were never meant to make.

I tighten my muscles and focus my thoughts on finding the patch of green ground below me rather than on my panic.

My core aches with the tension, but I eventually stabilize, and my descent slows. For a moment, the world looks small and peaceful beneath me.

Then I'm knocked into delirium again as several large, scaled fingers take hold of me.

Cephias roars and I clasp my hands against my ears. Once he settles, I take a breath and listen to his own rumbling chest. It's hard to know what is appropriate for a dragon, but given how we bounce without rhythm with each of his gasping breaths, my guess is Cephias is faltering.

When a shot of water, thin and focused, lands straight into the wound on his shoulder and sends droplets of diluted blood into the air, I know there's no hope in Cephias outrunning the fearsome Waterheart.

My dragon's shriek of pain is ear-splitting and I can still hear the ringing even as we plummet toward the forest below.

Tops of trees crack with splintering snaps. Branches whip at our already battered skin. Pebbles fly forward and sprinkle the underbrush as Cephias's good shoulder collides with the ground.

His grip around me loosens and I tumble toward the rough forest floor. However, I don't even touch the ground before Cephias transforms back into his human form.

There's more blood than skin on him and the sheer tidal wave of emotions crashing into me clogs my throat, so only a squeak of despair exits.

I crawl to him, my eyes rigid upon his deep red chest.

Is the movement I see the rise of his breath or an illusion caused by my desperation?

Tears well and collect, but I can't feel them fall. Everything is numb.

Then a warbling cry above reminds me we are not alone.

I can't make out where Irving is with his scales blending in so well with the blue of the sky. I only know that he's still up there and he won't be satisfied until he finds our bodies.

My eyes dance around me, searching for an escape. There's a river near where we landed, but the sting of Irving's abilities still cuts at my flaking skin.

Water is not safe, no matter what form it takes or how fast it might send us cascading down the mountain.

Instead, I look at a slight slope to our right and recall how quickly I fell from my path when I tumbled toward the mountain bear's den. Despite also remembering how the blunt stab of rocks felt through my thick coat, I decide that pain will only be background noise at this point. There's simply too much already wracking our broken bodies.

I wrap my arms around Cephias's torso and try not to think about how his bones move beneath my grip in a way they probably shouldn't.

One of my hands braces the back of his skull and rests his chin upon my shoulder. The other presses into his spine so his abdomen is flush against me. I entangle my legs with his so they don't flop in our fall.