I closed one eye and lined my arrowhead to my target.
“Drop the blade,” I whispered.
“Listen, princess, listen all around you. Your men lose. Die now or die at the noose. Our heads hold no affection for you as the prince had done. You will drop through the gallows,” he whispered back. “Your choice.”
He was wrong.
I had another choice.
And I took it.
I let my fingers loose and hit a bulls-eye, he fell back, dead instantly as my arrow shot through his eye socket and pierced his brain, his arms dropping and Lavinia fell forward to her hands and knees.
“Let’s go,” I commanded but suddenly Lavinia’s head snapped up then twisted like she was listening to something and Valentine whispered, “Oh my goddess,” at my back.
I opened my mouth to tell them to get a move on when it happened.
I heard it.
Flapping.
Loud, leathery flapping that accompanied an enormous shadow that was sweeping quickly over us, so vast, it blotted out the sun.
Lavinia pushed up so she was on her knees, her head tilting back to look at the sky, her lips parting in shock as I felt Valentine tense behind me and the noises of battle faded as men stopped to stare.
I looked up and that was when I saw them.
Dragons.
Dragons.
A delicate, delicious shiver slid over every inch of my skin as I watched the huge beasts fly through the air, webbed wing to webbed wing, hundreds of them, big as houses, their barbed tails snapping, their ferocious, horned heads tilted down, their beady eyes sweeping the landscape then it started.
They spewed fire.
Streams of it shafting out of their mouths, screams of shock silenced in nanoseconds when the flames hit their targets one after another after another.
It was terrifying.
It was awe-inspiring.
“Run!” Lavinia shrieked, gaining her feet, grabbing my hand and Valentine’s, she tugged us and we took off as the dragons flew, raining fire, incinerating men leaving nothing but ashes and melted steel in their wake, trees burnt instantly to a cinder, snow melted straight to the earth, and through it, leaving a charred crater.
We all halted as one when a man combusted ten feet in front of us, we backed up several paces, shifted simultaneously and ran through the random shafts of flames, dodging this way and that, certain to get caught up in it as the fire streamed down all around us.
Then we reached a clearing, halted at the vision before us and instinctively huddled together, all of us staring at a line of standing dragons, wings rolling and curling, long necks arching and writhing, tails snapping and thrashing, claws scoring the snow and then, as one, we turned to run but halted dead in our tracks when the next thing happened.
What appeared to be a large, white, sparkling meteor fell to the earth one hundred yards away exploding in a burst of white light from which a misty ice blue ring shot out moving so fast, if I’d blinked, I would have missed it.
And it left in its wake two types of men. Those frozen completely in their tracks in whatever position the ice blue ring caught them in and those who still had the capacity to move and did, running for their lives.
“We must go, we must go,” Lavinia shouted, pulling at my hand and I felt Valentine grab my other one and tug.
But I couldn’t move.
“I can’t move,” I forced through immobile lips.
“Pick her up!” Valentine yelled, sounding panicked and when this didn’t work she screamed, “Drag her!”
They pulled, tugged, pushed and yanked but my body was rooted to the snow.
I was caught in the ice ring and I could tell by the frightful, restless sounds of the dragons behind me they were about to blow.
“Go!” I cried through my frozen lips.
“My princess –”
“Go, go, go!” I screamed but it came out weak for I couldn’t make it stronger.
“Seoafin –” Valentine whispered urgently, her body close, her mouth at my ear, her hand still tugging at mine.
“Take her, Valentine. You know the beasts are preparing and you know to look after your own neck. Take Lavinia, get her safe and the minute you can, go home,” I implored.
“My goddess of –”
“Take her!” I cried, the words strange coming through unmoving lips but the tone easily read.
“Goddess!” Valentine exclaimed then she whispered, “You must know, now, that I am sorry, my goddess of love, sorry for everything.”
“Go!”
She hesitated then I felt both of my hands squeezed by both of theirs and then they were gone.
I was alone.
I had thought when the dragons came…
Hoped…
But I was wrong.
I was alone.
Frozen but my blood was singing with adrenalin.
This was it.
My last adventure.
And I was ending it alone. At least Mom and Dad had each other.