Brath and Gill were walking over to Alex. “How the hell did you know about that thing?” Brath asked. “You knew exactly where to go and what to do. How?”
Alex laughed at Brath’s accusatory tone. “I looked through Manny’s eyes earlier. He didn’t know what he was looking at, and neither did I, but I knew it was important. So, I guess you both were right. I took another stupid risk.”
Gill shook his head as he rested his hand on Alex’s shoulder, causing her heart to try to rip out of her chest. “No, I should apologize,” he said softly. “I was out of line earlier. You’ve been doing an amazing job. And that up there…you were like a moving work of art.”
Alex stared at Gill, fairly certain she was going to faint. Gill’s cheeks turned pitch black, and he started blinking rapidly and cleared his throat as he said, “I meant, force of nature. Like a force of nature.”
Brath gave Gill a sideways glance and shook his head. “Uh, I wasn’t going to say all that, but it was pretty badass. I mean, really badass.”
Jollies and Jim joined the team as the dragons lumbered off on their own. “Couldn’t have done it without you guys,” Alex exclaimed. “You all were amazing. Can you believe any of that? I mean, Holmorth and the dragon and… I mean, jeez, it’s kinda a lot, right? Is it just me? It can’t just be me.”
Jollies flew over and took a seat on Alex’s shoulder. “No, it’s not just you,” she agreed. “The last few days have been out of control. I could never have imagined I’d fight an undead dragon, let alone blow one to pieces.”
Alex gently nudged Jollies’ chin. “Well, now you can cross that off your bucket list.”
The ground suddenly shook, and Alex spun around to see what was causing the commotion.
A dozen mech riders had just landed. The largest one opened, and Roy jumped out of it. Next to the mech riders, the rest of the dragonriders landed. Toppinir didn’t even wait for his dragon to land before leaping off, landing next to Roy.
Roy stormed up to Team Boundless and shouted, “All right, which one of you brats is in charge of all of this?”
All of Team Boundless pointed their fingers at Alex, who, unsurprisingly, was pointing at herself. Roy knelt and got in Alex’s face. “What in the nine hells did you think you were doing up there?”
Alex fought against all her inclinations to give a smart answer. She swallowed her pride and remembered why she’d made up her mind to join the battle to begin with. “After we were done with our mission, it came to my attention that you and Toppinir were in a bad situation.”
“And?”
“And I disobeyed direct orders to provide you and your squads backup since there were no other dragonriders or mech riders available. Uh, sir.”
Toppinir stepped forward and pulled Roy away from Alex. “You do understand that you placed your team in an extremely dangerous position?”
Alex nodded, preparing to say something when Jim spoke up. “Alex didn’t put us in any situation. She presented us with a choice, and we all agreed it was the right thing to do.”
“And you assumed that neither Myrddin nor the other higher-ups had a backup plan? You assumed you were honestly the last resort?”
“Uh, well, we sort of hacked the system to see what the plan was.”
Toppinir’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Which one of you broke into our system?” he asked, bewildered and a little impressed.
Gill raised his hand as he lowered his head. “Me. I was watching the correspondence. There was no rescue planned.”
Roy and Toppinir exchanged glances. Alex couldn’t read their faces. Neither of them spoke until finally, Roy sighed and said, “That’s because we weren’t expecting backup. Everyone knew the risks when they took this mission.”
Alex couldn’t keep it in any longer. “But we helped! We took down Holmorth, and now everything’s cool!” she interrupted.
“By disobeying a direct order. There’s a reason—”
“It was a stupid order! We knew we could help, and we did. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal!”
Roy and Alex argued, each raising their voice and trying to talk over each other. Toppinir looked as if he had already become bored with the conversation. He had started to gaze skyward. Gill came up to his side and followed his gaze.
The meteor was still hanging in the sky, a green aura surrounding it. “I’m assuming that shouldn’t still be there,” Gill said softly.
Toppinir looked down at Gill. “There aren’t many drow dragonriders,” he said unemotionally.
“There is only one drow dragonrider. And one human rider, too.”
“Hmm.” Toppinir nodded, neither impressed nor offended by Gill’s directness or tone. “To answer your question, no, that should not still be in the sky. Holmorth was the pilot. We assumed that once he was destroyed, the meteor would be as well.”
Gill nodded as he sat down and crossed his legs. “Wouldn’t a meteor fall anyway once it’s entered the atmosphere?”
Toppinir took a seat beside Gill. “Yes. Yes, it would.”
Alex and Roy were still arguing. It was uncertain what it was about at this point. The tirade hadn’t descended into personal insults, but it was getting close.
Jollies squeaked loudly and pointed up at the meteor. “Hey! Do you guys see that? What’s going on with it?” Jollies asked.
Alex stared at Roy for a second before turning her attention to the meteor. Talk about being ungrateful, Alex thought as she looked up at the meteor. Then any thought of Roy or his opinions quickly vanished from her mind.
The meteor was opening. There was a door where Holmorth had detached from the meteor. The door was slowly creaking open, and what came forth was devastating.
Vrosks, giant bees, and bats came flooding out of the hole in the meteor—more than had been in the sky
