Soon we were on the trail once again, and I did my best to keep my thoughts off Kull, even though my mind seemed to be at war with itself. On the one hand, I wished we’d never spent time together at Grandamere’s cottage. On the other hand, I wished we could have a little more time together—even five minutes.
I realized now that I lived a half-life without him. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but he’d become part of me—part of my thoughts, my desires, my hopes—and without him, I wasn’t whole. I wished it wasn’t that way but felt I had no control over it. I’d tried to live without him and had done so for nearly a year, but still, it wasn’t a life I cared to go back to. Yet, I knew that when this quest was over, that was exactly what would happen.
The path grew steeper and choked with weeds, making it harder to navigate, though Kull seemed to have no problem deciding which way to go. At some points, I had to climb rather than walk. Fan’twar cheated and flew from one hilltop to another.
The weather inexplicably changed again, the dark, ominous clouds allowing bits of sunlight to peek through until they burned away altogether. When we reached the top of the cliff, the noonday sun shone high overhead.
I shielded my eyes as I scanned the gorge that dropped abruptly before us. Jagged rocks cut downward to a river that, from this vantage point, was only a narrow ribbon snaking along the gorge’s bottom. The canyon spanned for miles in either direction, circling the mountain, the division of our land and the dragon’s domain.
Not far from where we stood, we found a narrow rope-and-wood-planked bridge connecting our edge of the cliff to the mountain on the other side. We walked toward the bridge, watching as it swayed in the canyon’s updraft. Wooden planks bounced against one another, clanking and echoing through the empty canyon.
“Who wants to cross first?” Brodnik said with a chuckle, his red beard whipping back and forth in the wind.
No one offered. I eyed the bridge, feeling its magic make my skin tingle. It wasn’t a dark power, but it was strong—a force that made my stomach feel queasy.
“Look there!” one of the elves shouted, pointing into the sky.
We followed his line of sight. A tiny silver speck glinted in the sunlight, then grew bigger as it approached us, until we were able to make out the long, elegant wings and thin neck of a dragon.
“Silvestra,” Fan’twar growled.
The dragon circled us, then made her descent, landing on the opposite side of the bridge. Her body morphed, skin replacing scales. Arms, legs, and torso replaced a dragon’s body until she no longer resembled a dragon, but had the body of a woman. She crossed the bridge slowly, seeming to take us all in.
From this distance, I couldn’t get a good look at her, but as she drew closer, I gasped. To describe her was a difficult process, and I suspected magic had something do with that. There was only one way for the witch to achieve this sort of perfection—magic. She’d discovered the word for beauty. She was the first creature I’d ever known to do so, and the only one who had actually achieved it.
Her skin was the rich, deep color of teak wood, which contrasted with her odd, completely white eyes. Her silver dress sparkled in the sunlight, tight around her neck, bodice, and arms, a second skin that then flowed loose around her legs and ankles, swishing as she walked. She was thin, but not so thin that she’d lost her shape.
When she crossed the bridge’s centermost point, I felt the magic fluctuate. She’d crossed the barrier from her own lands into ours.
Something about her hands looked odd, and I couldn’t decide why until she got a bit closer. Her head, torso, and arms, were covered in silver scales, and her hands ended in claws instead of fingers. Oddly, I still couldn’t find a single trait unattractive, and I knew the spell must be at work. I also noted that her eyes were actually a light teal green, almost indistinguishable from the whites of her eyes.
She approached until she was just shy of the ground and then stopped, still on the bridge.
“Fan’twar,” she said with a smile that revealed her white teeth, contrasting with her dark, scarlet lips.
“Silvestra,” the sky king said with a deep bow of his head.
“I am surprised to see you here. I had supposed I would never see you again. What brings you to my mountain?”
“You do not know?”
“Humor me,” she said.
“The fugitive from the undiscovered land hides in your kingdom. Are you not aware of his presence?”
“I am aware of him. Yet, because of his nature, I am unable to touch him. Mortals, however,” her shrewd eyes scanned each of us, “are not welcome in my land.”
“Even to stop the fugitive?” Prince Terminus asked.
She stared at the prince before answering. “I allow none of your kind into my kingdom. This is the way it has always been.”
“But he has taken our stone,” the princess said. “Will you not allow us inside?”
“I will not. My kingdom is forbidden to outsiders.”
“Perhaps a bargain?” Fan’twar asked.
“No. You have nothing I desire. Go.”
She turned to leave when Fan’twar spoke up.
“I find it hard to believe we have nothing you desire. We are elves, Wults, dragons, and fairies. We bring treasures from many lands. You have lived many years and collected many treasures, but you do not have them all.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Are you sure you desire to ask such a thing of me, Sky King? You know
