Reaper’s coming.

  Herald’s words, and the tremble in her voice when she said them, resounded through my skull. I looked behind me, back to the entrance of the tall, narrow crack in the mountain, and a huge shape blocked out the light almost completely. It was barely two hundred feet away, and moving towards us

  Reaper was coming.

  “We have to move!” I echoed Herald’s words back to her, and she nodded. In a flash, she was gone, Shifted into the shadows, and I followed her. We slid deeper into the crevice, silent and invisible and as quickly as we could, two ghosts on the faint breeze. Behind us, moving slowly, carefully, sniffing the air, chuffing and growling softly, came Reaper.

  I looked at her with my shadowsight, and she shone like the morning sun.

  The massive dragon was hunting us. That much was clear. But what I didn’t understand was, why didn’t she — and I was sure, though I had no idea how, that Reaper was female — just fill the place with flame and end us? I thanked the stars that she didn’t, but if she wanted us enough to follow us into this crevice, why not? Herald had said that her flames were white-hot. One blast would have filled the place with enough heat to cook us alive.

  And, God, why was I tempting fate? I didn’t know what would happen if Herald or I were blasted with extreme heat while Shifted, but I wasn’t reckoning on us being immune. Especially not Herald, who could touch things.

  We fled deeper. In the tight confines of the crevice we were faster, but Reaper was persistent.

  And then we hit a dead end.

  The crack sloped sharply upward, near vertical and almost smooth, for hundreds of feet. High above us, a sliver of daylight seeped in through a narrow opening in the ceiling. I couldn’t have flown out, I could see that easily, but I might have been able to climb it. I might have tried, at least. I might have been able to squeeze through at the top. But Herald couldn’t. Her shadow form didn’t work like mine did, and we both knew it.

  We were trapped. And behind us, Reaper was coming.

  “Go.” Herald turned to me, putting her hands roughly where my head should be. Her voice was flat and distant, but strong and steady. “Please, Draka. You can get out. Go. I will…” She swallowed, hard, and the sound echoed through the shadowscape. “I’ll wait here, okay? Hidden. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine! I’ll just wait here until Reaper gives up, and— and— I’ll be fine. So go, okay? Don’t worry about me. Please, Draka. Please!”

  I didn’t move. Did she really think that I would leave her? That I would even chance leaving her alone with a monster that stood three Drakas tall at the shoulder, with jaws that looked like they could bite me in half? Did she really think that I’d abandon her?

  Didn’t she know that if she were to die, I’d be right there with her, clearing her a path to whatever lay beyond?

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell her how much I loved her, and how I’d do anything for her. All I could do was show her.

  As she pleaded with me to go, I bopped her with my snout best I could, then turned around to face our doom.

  Reaper had slowed down, about a hundred feet away. Mercies preserve us, she was terrifying. Her horns were three feet long, her exposed teeth at least half again the size of my father’s. All along her jaw and neck her scales tapered into wicked spikes that looked like they would tear flesh as easily as my claws did. And if that wasn’t enough, her whole being shone blindingly bright with magic.

  To say that she radiated power would be dishonest because of how insufficient that word was. If anything, she radiated death. She was Death, incarnate. She was a lesson in why humans had worshiped our kind as gods, and why some still did. She was everything Instinct wanted to be.

  I spread myself out, covering Herald completely on the off chance that it might do something. Perhaps Reaper didn’t have some way of seeing through us, but with the way her enormous head pointed directly our way, with the way she kept coming despite the supposedly empty dead end, I doubted it. She could see us, or smell us, or feel us somehow. I still made the effort, on the off chance that I was wrong.

  Inside me, Instinct prepared to fight, a black rage building that leaked into me. There was no suggestion of abandoning Herald. “The Herald is ours,” my companion growled silently. “We will not surrender her! If we lose everything, if it costs us everything, if our hoard is plundered and our servants slaughtered, we will not surrender her!”

  Like a kitten before a doberman, Instinct prepared to turn into a furious whirlwind of needles and razor blades. I was right there with her. Let Reaper come. Let her get close enough for me to have one good go at her. I’d take her damn eyes! I’d give her no choice but to chase me out of this crevice, and away from Herald. Let her try! Let her—

  Ten feet away, Reaper stopped. She was looking right at me. I expected a blast of flame, or the snap of those enormous jaws, but neither came. Instead, a long, low rumble filled the cramped space. It reminded me of… it was like the happy, unconscious rumble I sometimes gave off, except magnified a hundred times.

  Reaper was purring.

  Savoring your victory? I thought. Should have taken your damn chance!

  I Shifted, taking form only feet away from the giant dragon’s face. The pain in my chest, my abdomen, and all my limbs returned with a vengeance, but I ignored it. I didn’t have time for pain. Instead I channeled it into my rage and hissed, spraying my venom directly at Reaper’s eyes as I launched myself at her, claws out and fangs bared!

  What really galled me, as I covered those ten feet, was how entirely unconcerned she was. It was understandable, sure, with how much larger she was. She belonged to a completely different order of magnitude. But she could have at least had the decency to look wary when I appeared, or surprised when I leapt. Instead, she casually lifted her head away from me, closing her second eyelids and ignoring my venom completely. One forelimb came around in a blisteringly fast arc that, when it hit me, slowed down so it was almost gentle. Instead of smashing me into the rock wall and breaking my everything, it plucked me out of the air and pushed me to the ground, putting me groaning on my side and keeping me there.

  I tried to bite her, my teeth sliding off scales like roofing tiles. Then she growled.

  It was barely a sound. It was something that I felt in my bones more than heard, and I just… froze. Conscience had been gone for a while, but now Instinct went entirely silent as well, along with every other thought as I was filled with a mind blanking terror like nothing I’d ever felt. The dragon bone staffs, the Pit, the throne room, with all of those at least I’d been able, even compelled, to run. Now? Fighting was impossible. After the casual way that she’d stopped my desperate attack I knew that in my bones. What could I do against such a creature? And escape was impossible, too. She was faster than me, and had found me even when Shifted.

  For the first time in a long time I felt truly helpless. Her long neck came down, a head the size of my torso casually invading my space, and I prepared to die. I’d done it before… probably. No big deal. I’d had a second chance, and I’d had some good times. I only hoped that Herald could sneak out somehow and get back home. It was a big island, but she was a clever girl. She’d be fine. She had to be. Otherwise, what was the point of anything?

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  Reaper sniffed me. She took her giant paw off me, looking at me expectantly. Then, with a soft, gentle series of chirping sounds, she shoved her snout into my side, pushing me to my feet.

  I stood there before her, letting her rub her cheeks against my sides as she rumbled and chirped, and desperately tried to understand what was happening. I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t. I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I was still, for the moment, alive. I had no idea what to do with the overwhelming sense of safety that washed over me as Reaper, a creature out of nightmare, chirped and rumbled and, for lack of any other word, cuddled me.

  Then she sniffed the air again, and her head rose, eyes fixed on where I knew Herald was. She growled again, not the friendly warning that she’d given me, but a declaration of imminent violence.

  I couldn’t fight her. I couldn’t. It was pointless. I could barely move with how confused I was, and with the pain that was settling in from my crash landing. And despite that I still found it in me to scramble past her, to stand tall and spread my wings in front of Herald, and to hiss a warning and a threat at a creature that could kill me literally as easily as she breathed. Herald was mine. And if Reaper wanted her, she’d have to go through me.

  “It’s okay, Draka.”

  Herald spoke behind me, her voice eerily calm, relaxed, and without her normally careful diction. She must have understood that she couldn’t hide from Reaper, and Shifted back. Crouching behind me, her arms wrapped around my chest, and she pressed herself into me.

  “It’s okay. She doesn’t want to hurt you. She only wants me. Don’t you see that? I don’t know why, but maybe if she gets me, she’ll let you go.”

  I tried to match her calm, even though it absolutely freaked me out. “Herald, we’re not doing that. Stay behind me.”

  Reaper looked at me curiously then. I got the feeling that she was reevaluating me. But she and I were still in something of a standoff. It seemed that Herald was right: the huge dragon didn’t want to hurt me. She could have easily batted me aside, or bit down on me, or blasted us both with fire, but she didn’t. She came closer, head moving slowly side to side. I moved with her in little shuffles, always keeping myself directly between her teeth and Herald. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and she let out a series of growls and hisses, hard and clipped, and far too regular and measured to just be angry sounds.

  “Piss off,” I hissed back. “You can’t have her!”

  Reaper answered, and I damned near messed myself.

  “What has this human done to you, daughter?”

  Her voice shook the world. It was slow and halting, uncertain, perhaps, like she was speaking an unfamiliar language, or one she hadn’t used in a long time. It was the voice of a being of absolute power, one that could not fathom being ignored, denied, or deceived, yet it conveyed such distress that I barely caught her words above the emotion in her tone.

  But the last word, which echoed among the rock walls, that struck home, amplifying my confusion yet explaining so much of the last few minutes.

  “Daughter.” She had called me, “daughter.”

  Before I could rally, before I could think of a word to say to her, she brought up one hand and dropped my discarded harness on the floor between us, speaking again with a mounting anger. “Only years out of your egg, and your horn is broken. You are scarred. Dressed in this, ridden like a beast! You speak, despite your youth, but you do not understand your mother's tongue, nor your father’s! I stand before you, and your thread is so faint!”

  When I still didn't find any words her head swung minutely, her eyes fixing just past me. “Human! What have you done to my child?”

  Behind me, Herald shook. Her arms gripped me harder, and for a moment I wondered if her legs were giving out completely. Then she took a few deep, hard breaths, in through her nose, out through pursed lips, and I knew that she planned to do something reckless.

  “Herald—” I said, the beginning of a warning, maybe a plea, but it was too late. She stood up.

  Facing Reaper, my alleged mother, fifteen feet at the shoulder and wide enough to fill the crevice side to side, all muscle and scale and undiluted power, Herald’s breathing grew shallow. She shook so hard that I felt it through the palms still pressed to my shoulders. But she stood, showing herself, and she remained standing, and even though her voice trembled so that it was hard to understand her she still tried to speak. “Great Lady! I— I am Drakonum Herald, and— All I have done to Draka, who you call your daughter, is to love her. She is my sister in all but blood, and my friend.”

  From the moment Herald opened her mouth, Reaper’s growl grew sharper, and more displeased. She still powered through, though, when she’d finished, her knees really did give out and she had to throw her arms around my neck to keep from collapsing.

  “Your sister?” Reaper hissed. “How have you treated your ‘sister,’ that she has a scar beside her heart?”

  Herald’s voice became a choked-off squeak. “I—”

  Reaper leaned farther towards us. I would have said that she smiled if I didn’t know better; the corners of her mouth curved up, and her long, sharp teeth were on full display, but the expression sent ice racing up my spine. “Do not speak now. Consider your words well. I will hear you later, Drakonum Herald.”

  I wanted to defend Herald, but the weight of Reaper’s displeasure was so overbearing I couldn’t speak, and she wasn’t even looking at me. I could only understand a small part of what Herald was going through. She knew me. She was mine, and she was bound to me. Few humans could possibly be as used to dragons as she. But she was still human, and to stand and state her case at all, to do anything but cower and weep in the face of Reaper’s anger…

  She was amazing. Utterly amazing.

  “Draka.” Reaper said my name slowly, tasting it. Her eyes softened as they fixed on me, dismissing Herald for the moment. “Did you choose this name, daughter? Or did the humans give it to you?”

  “Me.” It was hard to speak, but it would have been harder to stay silent, to not answer her question. “I chose it.”

  And lying, even by omission, was out of the question. She kept her gaze on me, turning her head just slightly, inviting me to continue. “Together with a human child,” I blurted. “I told her to call me Dragon but she couldn’t, the sounds were hard for her, so— Draka.” I finished lamely.

  “Draka,” she said again, rolling the R in her throat and snapping the K. There was a tightening around her eyes that wasn’t anything like a human expression, but which I instinctively recognized as satisfaction, perhaps amusement. “It is a fine whelp name. Until you choose a true name, you are Draka. I, daughter, am Sower of Embers, Reaper of Flames. I am your mother. And I have come for you.”

  It was supposed to reassure me. I was sure of that. But those words filled me with a very different kind of dread than when I thought she wanted to kill me.

  “What do you mean, you've come for me?” I asked. All three feet or so of my throat were bone dry.

  “I will free you,” she said, and the pit in my stomach grew deeper. “I will take care of you. I will teach you to be a dragon. And then we will return home.”

  Her eyes were on me, but the whole time she moved side to side, like she was trying to get a line on Herald, and I still moved with her, keeping myself between them. Reaper had said that she would hear Herald out, but I had a terrible feeling that her patience or self control might run out before then. I couldn’t risk that.

  “Herald,” I said, and then I used some of the few words of English that she'd learned. “Hold on tight!”

  The moment I felt her arms clench around me I sent my shadows racing towards Reaper. My mother didn't so much flinch as lean back, looking down curiously, but it was all I needed. Her eyes were off me. What followed was more a wing-assisted leap than flight, climbing no more than twenty feet inside the small space, the tips of my wings scraping the stone as I launched myself over her. I landed on her tail — the thing was thicker than my torso — then half flew, half ran towards the exit, counting on two things: Reaper was too big to turn around easily; and she didn't want to hurt me.

  “Daughter! Do not be difficult!”

  Reaper's voice rattled my bones as it echoed behind us. It wasn't angry. It was barely even annoyed. If anything, it was amused. But it was behind us. That was the important part. The green of a neighboring mountain and the blue of the open sky beyond were ahead, and I launched myself into the air as we emerged into the sunlight, flying for home as fast as I dared with Herald still weak from fear, as fast as I could with the pain of my crash landing.

  Reaper caught up after half an hour; the old girl was fast. But, once she did, she slowed down, putting herself to our right. There she kept pace, seemingly content to see where we were going.

  Where were we going? I hadn't thought that far ahead. I knew that I needed to get out, to put any kind of distance between us, even if only a few dozen feet. I needed space to think.

  Reaper called herself my mother. She’d come here for me. She’d talked about my thread, suggesting that she could track me. She wanted to be in my life, which was nice in a terrible way, but she also wanted to take me away. And in my gut, I knew that she hated Herald.

  That was the most important thing. I had no doubt that no matter what Herald would have said, Reaper intended to kill her. That if I hadn't shielded Herald with my own body, she would not be alive right now.

  I didn’t know what to do, except for one thing: I had to keep Herald away from my mother. I had to put her somewhere Reaper couldn’t reach her, and then, when she was safe, I had to convince Reaper that I was in no danger. That I was thriving, safe, happy, and growing steadily. That Herald and the other humans were friends. That I did not need to be “freed.”

  In short, we needed to talk. And I could only do my best, and pray that she believed me.

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