Twin Suns of Arterra

14

"You knew about this?" Even at a whisper, my tone was accusatory.

How could she have kept this a secret?

"Only since a few days ago," Blade admitted without turning to look at me.

Her eyes were locked on the black wings below us. They widened as the creature flexed, muscles rippling beneath glossy scaled skin. There was a beat of silence, and then the ground shuddered. The brush and tree branches started to dance and a blast of air swirled around us. I looked away from Blade's face, but there was no need to search the sky for the dragon. Wings covered every visible inch of blue sky. Not just one set, but hundreds. Thousands. There wasn't only black, either. Blue, green, brown, red, yellow, bronze, silver, even gold shimmered in the light. A rainbow of rippling, soaring colors filled the heavens.

"Impossible," D'hana breathed, and my head echoed her exhalation.

As a group they turned, curving through the air like a flock of birds as they soared down the valley between the enclosing mountain walls. A strand of light split the valley floor, reflecting the myriad of colors. A river, I realized. Perhaps they were following the water, headed for some spot downcurrent.

"I think," Thoris said, his voice still hushed though now with awe, "that you may need to fill us in on some things, Blade Rillingate."

"Yes," Blade agreed, "but perhaps a bit later might be better."

Four sets of indignant eyes turned to her, but she was still not looking at any of us. Her eyes remained focused downhill. Her face, I thought, looked oddly pale.

The air fractured with sound.

Like metal against rock, it set teeth on edge and bones vibrating. I fell to my knees, clutching my head. Never had sound had such... enormity. It was everywhere. I could almost see the air rippling with it, invisible waves pounding against every living thing, leaving torn and broken refuse in its wake.

A dark shadow fell over our hiding spot.

Something pushed at me, sending me tumbling down, the ground sloping away so that I could get no purchase. Rocks and branches tore at me, but I could not slow my momentum. There was a grunt next to me, and I realized the sound had stopped, although my ears still rang with the echo of it. My hip slammed against something unyielding, bringing my tumble to an abrupt halt.

Two sets of legs flew past me.

A hand grabbed my shirt, hauling me upward. Sea storm eyes, wide with fear, compelled me.

"RUN!"

It was more than a command. More than a word yelled so that it could be heard over other more enormous noise.

It was a scream.

If I'd thought I had heard a scream before, I'd been wrong. Shouts of anger, cries of pain or fear, none of it compared to the raw, primal sound of that word. My body responded to it without waiting for my brain to comply.

I ran.

I could feel her somewhere next to me, but I didn't stop to look. Behind us, the shadow and the rippling air exploded. Heat scored the skin along my back, my legs, my arms. My hair lifted, and I felt the singe against my scalp. Black mingled with red and orange, filling the space around us like gaseous clouds.

This was the fire planet I had expected.

Smoke and fumes choked me, searing my lungs and burning my nose and throat. I couldn't breathe. This was infinitely worse than my swim earlier today.

Had it really been only a few hours ago?

Then, I had struggled to find the air, kept away from it by the pressure of the water. Now, I had the air, but it had become something foreign and unfriendly. It had become my enemy. The air I needed to live would be my death.

A hand shoved at me again, and once again I felt myself tumble forward.

If we made it through this, I was really going to need to talk with Blade about her habit for sending me sprawling.

I tried to tuck my body and go with it this time, to avoid more cuts and bruises, but when I tucked I failed to land. The ground disappeared. There was a moment of free fall, and then blessed cool enveloped me.

Water!

I let it take me for a moment, the current moving me swiftly to my right. I let my body relax and go with it, turning into it. The cold water caressed my seared skin. Even the inside of me cooled, the worst of the roasting warmth abating.

My head bobbed to the surface and I exhaled, letting out the last of the overheated air and smoke. Cool, clean air filled my scorched lungs. This simple action stung and made them ache, but at least I was breathing.

A red-tinged light burned against my eyelids, and at last I opened my eyes to see what it was that had befallen us. A pulse weapon, perhaps, or an incendiary bomb.

My mind felt sluggish. I could not comprehend the burning trees and brush, already becoming ash beneath flames so hot they burned white and blue. The air, devoid of the oxygen it needed, whipped into ferocious burning vortices, like demon's toys. They danced along the ground, devouring the living plants and anything that might live in or among them. The spot on the top of the hillside where we'd stood only moments before, hidden in dense green foliage, now held only burnt brown spikes and blackened rock.

Above it, a massive shadow.

The dragon!

The black beast we'd first seen below us, his enormous wings spread wide. He must have circled back instead of moving with the others. He spiraled now, so high up in the sky that I could barely discern his shape but for the shadow he threw against the desolate landscape he'd created.

The realization seeped into me.

He'd done this.

That creature, not a pulse weapon or bomb, had done this damage. His cry was the sound that had pummeled our ears and bodies, and he had created the fire that scorched the ground, devouring the air that we needed to breathe.

Alone, he had created the very environment I had always thought embodied the Fire Planet.

My eyes rounded.

Him.

This creature.

His kind.

This was what the Benterra had been named for. Not because its atmosphere was made of gas and flame, but because the creatures that inhabited it could harness such burning destruction.

The Fire Planet.

It had been named for the Dragons.