Page 76 of FoolSilver
Somehow, I could read him, the want in him passing to me without a word. His beast and I ran more in sync than the man and I ever had, which I tried not to think about too hard.
The dragon wanted me on his back, the way it had gone at Greyhold, where we’d cut through the mutants together and made a good team.
I stripped off my skate shoes, pressed them into Bryn’s hands, and told her to shadow the Spartans. She’d never stood in a real fight, however many drills she’d logged. Today she’d get her first taste of one, but not on the front line. I wouldn’t have it, and the Spartans wouldn’t either.
Then I ran, leaping higher than I had any right to, startling myself, and came down cleanly on the dragon’s back.
Maybe my demon passenger had a point about me. Despite all I’d mastered with Coldiron, I’d never reached for the rest of what lived in me. Fear had its grip on whatever else I could do.
I shoved the thought aside and locked onto the coming fight. The specks were close now and closing in, near enough to resolve into shapes—leathery wings, lashing tails, jaws cranked wide around deafening shrieks. Their numbers had blotted out the sun.
A howl tore up from the ground, all rage and battle lust, and dragged my eyes down. A gray wolf ripped into view, larger than a warhorse—Caspian, in his beast form. I gave him a nod from the dragon’s back, then swept my wary gaze to the coming wyverns.
Blood pounded in my ears, and a war drum beat in my veins.
All three heirs were here. Though I had a feeling Aelindor wouldn’t join us aloft. He’d hold the front and center of the fortress, even with the worst of the battle back here, in case the mutants wheeled around or their reinforcements struck somewhere else.
The wolf bunched his muscles and sprang for the dragon’s back. The mighty dragon grunted a warning, smoke and sparks spitting from his snout. He didn’t want a wolf’s claws up there.
But Caspian was already shifting mid-leap, a feat barely any shifter could manage, and came down on two feet, square in the middle of the dragon’s spine.
I couldn’t balance up there the way he could. The wolf shifter stood tall, gloriously naked and not giving two shits about it, and flashed me a grin. My pulse tripped. I fought to keep my eyes on his face, which took more effort than I’d ever admit.
He had no business distracting me like that with a fight bearing down on us. Then again, I couldn’t fully blame myself. I liked to think I was hard to rattle, or at least I looked it, but I was still a red-blooded woman, and only the dead could look at Caspian like that and feel nothing.
The dragon was already climbing. I dropped low and wedged my feet under the broad scales at his shoulders, anchoring against a fall. His heat soaked into my legs, and the great roll of muscle beneath me shifted with every beat of his wings.
“Back-to-back, Max.” Caspian’s grin widened; he knew exactly what he did to me. “Don’t worry. I won’t let a hair on your head come to harm. Just follow my lead.”
I looked back over my shoulder and worked to keep my eyes nailed to his.
“You can’t promise that, prince,” I said. “The wind alone will take a few hairs, whether you like it or not. And we’re flying into a battle—nobody comes out of one without losing something. Last of all, I can’t just follow your lead. We fight back-to-back. We cover each other’s blind side. I’d be a sorry excuse for a soldier if I spent the whole fight watching you instead of holding my own.”
Caspian blinked. The dragon huffed, and it sounded like a laugh.
“Well said, Max,” Caspian said. “I knew you had it in you.”
“You forgot your weapon.” When he shifted back and forth, nothing survived the change but the Coldiron armguard I’d made him, still locked to his forearm. “Toss me the armguard.” I set my chakrams on my lap. “I’ll shape you a sword.”
“No need, sweetheart.” He winked and snapped his fingers.
Dark armor unfurled out of the air and sealed over him like a second skin, fitting like it had been poured on. He hadn’t had it the last time. And it came armed—a sword hilt jutting up over one shoulder.
“The mages built it for me, after watching you shape metal,” he said. “Blood magic. They made you a set too. Still testing it.”
“Then you should’ve put it on the second you landed,” I said.
He opened his hand, and a stack of death cards flicked into his palm.
“And rob you of the view? Cruel.”
Was he serious? In the middle of a fight?
At least he hadn’t called himself a ten again, or I’d have left my post to go strangle him for making me live that down thrice over.
“I can’t believe—” I started, my face going hot.
The dragon came to my rescue. He swung his head and blew a thick stream of smoke at Caspian—just smoke; the beast knew better than to scorch his own battle partner. He wasn’t pleased that the wolf was flirting with me.
