A LEGACY OF LIGHT

RUNE

RUNE

They ran through the forest as the sky burned.

Smoke blazed in Rune's lungs. His chest ached from where Kaelyn's claws had clutched him. Branches slapped him and roots snagged at his feet. A green dragon, Kaelyn had crashed through the treetops a mile back; they had been running in human forms since, side by side.

A hundred dragons screamed above, soaring and swooping and tearing at trees. Their flames blazed across the sky in crisscrossing lines. Rain fell and smoke blew above the forest.

"Find them!" rose a shriek above. The blue dragon soared--Shari Cadigus blowing fire. "Bring them to me alive, or bring me their charred corpses, but find them!"

Rune snarled and kept running. His lungs blazed, his knees throbbed, and his chest felt ready to collapse. He looked at Kaelyn, who ran at his side. Sweat dampened her mane of golden hair, and mud covered her clothes. She ran with bared teeth, her eyes narrowed. Her sword clanked at her side, and her bow bounced across her back.

Rune looked up. The forest canopy was thick; he could barely glimpse the dragons between the branches. For now they were hidden, but how long would that last?

"Kaelyn, they will burn down the forest," he said. "You can't possibly outrun a hundred dragons, they--"

She glared at him. "They will not burn their empire. This is Shari Cadigus, and these are her lands; she still loves Requiem in her twisted way." She panted and wiped sweat off her brow, but kept running. "Keep your voice low."

She scuttled over a boulder, climbing as deftly as a squirrel. Rune cursed and scrambled after her; she had to grab his wrist and pull him over. They ran down a hillside bumpy with roots. Vines tangled around Rune's feet, and a dragon swooped so low that he cursed and fell into the mud.
The dragon shrieked and roared fire skyward. Claws uprooted a tree. Rune cursed and ran aside, scurrying under the cover of an oak. Kaelyn ran at his side, and they raced between more trees. Fallen leaves and moss flew from under their boots.

"Tear down the trees!" Shari screamed above. Rune could not see her, but he heard her wings thud, and the trees bent as in a storm. "I can smell them. They cower below."

Rune cursed and panted. Sweat drenched him. He had been running for so long. He could run no longer. Perhaps he should surrender, should explain to Princess Shari that this was all a mistake; surely she was mistaking him for somebody else. He had nothing to do with Kaelyn or the Resistance. He was just Rune Brewer, and Kaelyn had tried to kidnap him, and he just wanted to go home.

Only there is no home anymore, he remembered, and his eyes stung. Shari burned it down. And she killed my father. And like it or not, I'm stuck with Kaelyn now.

"Kaelyn," he whispered between pants. "Kaelyn, where are--"

Her eyes lit up and she flashed a grin. "Here!"

She darted toward a mossy, twisting oak. Rune paused from running, and as soon as his legs stilled, pain bolted up them. His head spun and his chest felt full of fire.

Had Kaelyn gone mad? Rune had expected a camp full of warriors, or a hidden castle, or... not just a tree.

"Kaelyn!" he said and glanced skyward. Dragons streamed above the branches, dipping down to uproot trees. One beast grabbed a pine so close, Rune cursed and ducked. The roots yanked up, raining dirt and moss, less than a hundred feet away.

He looked back at Kaelyn. The young woman was scrambling around the tree, muttering curses and kicking the earth. She got down on her knees and began rummaging through the leaves.