Starrlings 1: House of Fire

chapter 93

A R I

Ari had a plan.

It was reckless. It was stupid. It was insane.

It was something Bell would have done.

And it was the only plan she had.

Ari, Lumi and Sanna were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, with their backs to the wolves. Katja and Raphael were both being held, struggling, against two men each, while Tom was barely sitting up on his wolf, who snapped angrily at anyone who got to close.

It seemed that Tai wanted Lumi to return to his side, once and for all. And Lumi was concentrating hard - too hard - on quelling the fire.

So Ari had to act.

"The dragon," she whispered to Sanna. "I need a distraction."

Sanna followed Ari's gaze, glancing past Tai, to the water dragon which was chained against the cavern wall.

If she could release that dragon, then maybe in the resulting chaos, they could get out of here.

Sanna nodded tightly.

Lumi was still quelling, but Ari needed a moment of fire power as cover. She grabbed Lumi's arm. "Let go," she murmured.

It was as if Lumi couldn't hear her. With a start, Ari noticed how hot Lumi's arm was. She saw the charred blackness of her hands.

"Let go!" Ari said. "You can't keep it up! Let go!"

Finally, Lumi seemed to release her grasp on the quelling, and almost as soon as she did, every fire in the cavern burned intensely bright.

Lumi and Tai were talking - in the Kaio language now - so while they were distracted, Ari inched around Helvig. Two of the men nearest to the dragon didn't seem to notice Ari. It was like she was invisible, creeping around the grey wolf.

Then Sanna let out a blast of ice, and everything turned to madness.

Tai and Lumi were locked in a strange battle of strength, burning fire against fire. Meanwhile a man had jumped at Sanna but she'd weaved out of his way effortlessly, and smoothly slid over the ground, which was suddenly icy all around her. One man slipped and slammed onto the floor, and another followed his partner, while Sanna danced away, weaving between the wolves and towards another two men, who were now trying to battle her.

Ari turned back to the dragon, which was glaring at her.

Eyes of creamy silver stared up at her. Its body was shackled with iron.

There was no way to unlock the chains, and they were too strong for Ari to break. She glanced around, knowing the only option she had to free this dragon was to use her magic.

She would need to break the chains like she had broken the metal lock in Tai's room.

Ari glanced up, to see Sanna weaving between fire starrlings as if she was a dancer, while Katja had managed to escape from her captors and was now battling a third, but this time she was able to match his fire with ice.

Sigrún and Helvig fought against tigers, while Kobuk could only defend Tom, who was still too injured to fight. And then there was Lumi, fighting Tai's fire with her own in a dance of two burning fire balls. Two suns. Twin fire stars.

Ari gritted her teeth and looked at the dragon.

"We're kin," she whispered in Old Vastien. "I'll free you. And you'll save us."

The dragon blinked, and Ari hoped it had understood.

She took a breath, aiming to pull at the power of winter from the air around her. As she did, she felt a further force of power.

The winter magic filled her, and Ari could make no mistake of where it was coming from. Kobuk, Sigrún and Helvig, the three wolves, were imparting their magic onto her. They gave her the power of winter, even though they weren't her kinnwolves. They pressed it into her and she felt it in her heart, an icy coldness that flowed through her and made her shiver.

Ari slashed down at the iron chains around the dragon's front leg, and the metal shattered easily, with a terrifying crack. Ari glanced up, hoping that none of the fire starrlings would realise what she was doing, but they were all distracted, and none of them seemed to notice.

Quietly, she moved to the dragon's three other legs and unshackled it. She winced in pain to see the raw and bleeding wounds on the dragon's scales, where the iron had cut into scales and flesh.

She had never been able to perform ice magic so well. She felt the wolves power through her and she felt strong. Strong and powerful, like she had never felt before. She had always subconsciously dismissed the idea of a kinnwolf for herself. Firstly, she knew it would cost too much, so she hadn't ever let herself hope she could get one. And secondly, she'd been terrified of the wolf's power. But now that she felt it flowing through her, she completely changed her mind.

This was everything.

This was what it felt like to be powerful.

"Katja!"

While Ari had been unchaining the dragon, Tai seemed to have fought past Lumi, who was now being held back by two men, as Tai grabbed the ice princess.

Ari watched in horror as Tai pulled Katja effortlessly onto the back of his tiger. Katja struggled against the fire prince, but he held her tightly, and before anyone could stop him, Tai's tiger galloped towards the mouth of the cave.

Tai's men seemed to stop, frozen, watching their leader abandoning them, with the princess.

Ari didn't have time to think. She didn't have time to fight past the four men who stood between her and the wolves.

She grabbed onto the neck of the dragon and pulled herself onto its back.

Her body was flooded with ice magic, but the power of the dragon seemed to beckon to her too, and she listened to it. She squeezed her knees against the dragon's shoulders and the dragon heaved itself to its feet, and ran after Tai's tiger.

Suddenly Ari was past Tai's men, through the mouth of the cave, and then she was flying. She clutched onto the scales of the dragon's back for dear life as the ground beneath her disappeared, replaced by the crashing waves. Tai was flying low to the ocean now, gripping onto Katja.

The wind whipped at Ari from behind.

Suddenly there was Raphael, a huge burn across his shoulder, his coat torn to shreds, but he was on the back of Kala, flashing past Ari faster than the dragon could fly. And then there was Helvig, Katja's wolf, chasing valiantly after her rider.

The three kinnlings shot off after the tiger, and Ari was reminded of the extreme charging games played in Vastier, where contenders fought in the skies, high above the water.

There was nowhere to go but sky.

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