The Valley of Lies (Lightkeepers #1)

Chapter FORTY-ONE: Ayer

Flying was glorious and terrible, like a dream she never wanted to wake from. The sky, which always seemed distant and unreachable from the ground, was Ayer's perfect domain as a dragon. The air itself tasted richer, expanding her powerful lungs and breathing lightness into her massive bones. She rode the wind currents south, soaring on updrafts to kiss the stars, then spiraling back down to glide over the treetops whenever Edril kicked her in warning.

It was a clear night, and she wondered if anyone noticed her.

If there were rumors of a dragon in Blackwater after tonight, well, she supposed that would be Edril's problem, not hers.

"Bear westward!" he shouted, digging the hard toe of his boot into her left flank, where her paws were curled to her chest. "Not long now! Just past the purple forest."

Ayer had not known there were purple forests outside Loradyn, and she might have cried to see the familiar jewel-toned leaves. But her eyes burned in the wind, and the few tears she produced were instantly carried away.

At least it was warmer here than in Blackwater, where it already felt more like autumn than midsummer. Edril pulled at her mane as the trees shifted to shades of chartreuse and green. A storm brewed in the distance, heat lightning dancing through gray clouds weeping over a quiet valley. Ayer gazed out across the sprawling landscape, nervous excitement rippling through her.

"Straight down!" Edril shouted, but she was already plunging. Fire exploded in her chest, sending liquid heat through her veins. The wind funneled into a swirling vortex around her, as if she'd sucked all the air out of the sky.

She aimed for a clearing in the dense forest, trees and hills rising to meet her. The cool grass sizzled under her paws as she landed lightly, her feathered tail fanning out behind her. Edril patted her back, whooping in satisfaction, but she hardly heard him. A Yansu elf and its dragon were supposed to be a unified identity, but Ayer's beast had a mind of its own tonight. She scented the grass and shivered, her scales rising with goosebumps along her spine. Edril issued relentless commands, but he might as well have uttered them in foreign tongues because Ayer did not heed them. His boots jabbing into her sides were another forgettable nuisance. She could have thrown him off, but it seemed like a waste of time.

She bolted into the trees before he could stop her, following an inexplicable compulsion. Notes of a deep, world-shattering sorrow whispered through her, pulling her forward, hinting at a pain so exquisite it bordered on pleasure. She didn't know its cause, or why she could feel it, but she knew where to find it. She had to find it.

She sniffed the ground again and a golden path formed, a winding trail through the underbrush that flared brighter when she breathed. Ayer followed the path, unsure if it was real or imagined, her lithe body slipping around the scattered trees, her long mane and tail lifting and twisting with each hairpin turn. The trail smelled of rain and moldering leaves; fire and stone; sweat and determination. The golden light grew more vivid, the path's aroma intensifying the farther she ran, stoking the wailing flames within her soul. Until the path abruptly ended.

All that light and magic centered in one place, shining out from the heart of someone standing just a few paces away. Their stoic, golden pain was a mirror of her own, the beacon which had guided her here. They swayed on unstable legs flickering in and out of view, and fell to their knees, scrambling backward through stunted scrub pines and shaded marsh.

A track of thick, sticky mud became the new path separating Ayer from whoever this was, this person whose aching spirit called to her dragon.

The bright aura slowly faded to a faint pulse glowing within their chest, a lingering reminder that what she'd seen–and felt–were real. This person was important. She felt connected to them. But how–?