In her arms, Loren stirred. The princess groaned softly, but Kae did not hear. She felt the familiar rough scales of the family’s dragon under her skin. But it was cold, windy, and the dragon kept moving. She opened her eyes and realized she was not a young girl, sleeping in the arms of the dragon as he rested in the caverns beneath the castle. They were flying, and a voice frantically called for help.
Loren found her footing and grabbed onto the dragon’s spikes. Kae looked back, and the two locked eyes; one dark, the other gold. The princess crawled up the dragon’s back, forcing herself against the wind, and managed to straddle Lind’s neck with a good grip on his spikes. Far beneath her was the kingdom of the Red Sisters, rapidly nearing extinction. Her friends, men loyal to her and her family, and innocent civilians ran for their lives, pushing and trampling each other as the crowd made its way through the streets of Sagna. Loren saw, and patted the dragon’s neck. Lind nodded.
“Loren!” Kae screamed against the wind. The huntress braced herself as the dragon pitched forward, diving down towards the city at a rapid pace, his wings folded close to his body. The wind stung Kae’s eyes, and she did not dare risk letting go of the dragon’s spikes to shield her eyes. The princess looked back at Kae and smiled reassuringly. The dive continued.
As the ground rose to meet them with ever increasing speed, Kae shut her eyes and screamed. The colors of the ground, sand, trees, and buildings of the city began to blur together, screaming towards them. Just as Kae’s heart threatened to stop, Lind threw open his wings, the air filling them and stopping their descent abruptly. Kae heard Loren inhale in time with the dragon taking a deep breath.
A jet of golden dragonfire burst from Lind’s mouth, moving in a slow line through the center of the town. The flames cut through the stone of the earth, several houses, and a large firestone statue of the queen, melting it just as surely as the lava would.
The dragonfire scored a long, deep line into the earth, leaving the melted rock still glowing from the heat. From the newly formed trench, a high wall of the gold fire rose, shimmering and casting a warm light. The rolling wave of lava approached it, gaining speed as the road down from the Firestone Keep was downhill.
When the lava reached the wall of dragonfire, it stopped. Some of the glowing, melted rock spilled into the deep trench, pooling inside it and filling it up. But even as it filled the trench, it did not overflow. Instead, the lava piled higher, held in place as if the wall of dragonfire was a solid thing. The lava that touched the dragonfire rapidly began to cool and emit a thick mist that spread into a cloud that stretched the entire length of the trench. The wrath of the mountain was stopped.
“Loren.” Kae breathed, peeking out over the side of the dragon to watch what was happening. “Loren, you and Lind are amazing. You’re amazing.” She stammered.
The princess turned back to Kae, smiling sheepishly. “Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I just think something and, well…” Loren patted Lind’s neck, and received a low rumble deep in the dragon’s chest. Lind was laughing. “He just knows! He has his own ideas, and I can feel it. I don’t know Kae, it just happens.”
“You are amazing.” Kae said again, staring at Loren with wide eyes.
The princess chuckled awkwardly. “What?”
“Do you understand what you just did, princess?” Kae gestured down at the partially destroyed city of Sagna and the rapidly cooling lava from Mount Volknar. The wind caught her arm and threatened to throw her off balance, so the huntress pulled back and clung tightly to Lind’s spikes. “You just saved a city. You save our friends, your soldiers, and the people of Sagna. Gods above, Loren! You saved the people of Sagna from their queen!”
“I…What?” The princess’s eyes were wide, uncomprehending. The weight of the situation only began to dawn on her once Kae had put it into words. “All I wanted was the cure for my mother.”
“You got that!” Kae quickly patted her pocket and darted her hand back to its handhold. “And you’ve done so much more!”
“I killed a queen…”
“Yes you did, but honestly everyone is better off without her.”
A roar of noise from the ground made both girls look over the side of the dragon. An enormous crowd of several thousand people were cheering and clapping at them. They were well into the fields outside of the wall surrounding the city. Loren and Kae saw men and women of all walks of life, children clutching their toys and the hands of their parents, even soldiers bearing the sigil of the Red Sisters on their chests. Their upturned faces bore expressions of pure joy, some with tears running down their faces.
Kae turned back to Loren and smiled. “Princess, they’re cheering for you. For you and Lind.”
Loren looked over Lind’s side again.
All who were able to evacuate the city in time were gathered on the fields, staring up at the blue and gold dragon hovering in the air above their ruined city. They cheered for the woman who had killed their queen and were…happy.
“We should land, princess.” Kae said, breaking Loren out of her reverie. “The Warmaster and Spymaster are down there, I think. I saw them running out with the Aldoran soldiers.” Kae paused, then gasped, pointing down at a spot on the fields. By the edge of a crop of corn was a man waving at them with a glowing blue arm, a wolf,
