They scattered, scrambling over broken ground to escape the ferocious jaws. The humongous head swept past Illara, then rounded on Zarae, who flattened herself so narrowly into a trench that the delyn scales scraped harshly on her armor. Clawed feet shook the earth in time to the dragon’s frustration, ripping fissures open and erupting jagged rock from the crimson dirt. The beast had come from nowhere, exactly in time with the elves’ deduction about the Forgotten One’s reasons.We are forgotten. This lightless forest will swallow us and leave no remains. In a year, no one will miss us. In five, it will be like we never were.
Illara rushed for the trees, only to be repelled by a wall of brambles and shattered trunks. The dragon lunged for her again, a mindless monstrosity, full of only hatred and hunger. She dashed and rolled, tumbling on the rocky ground, but found herself between the rapidly-closing teeth. Desperately, she lunged for the dim light.
GWOOM! The maw thundered shut, washing her with a wave of rancid breath. The elf came to her feet, bleeding profusely from a new wound on her cheek.
She didn’t feel it. Adrenaline told her to go up, that she’d be safer the higher she was. Before the creature could recoil for another strike, she leaped for its face, clinging tightly when it shook with the strength of a hundred horses. Beyond thought, instinct told her that if she was thrown, she was dead.
Respite came suddenly from Zarae, whose mere iron daggers scraped uselessly at the dragon's side. The Alerian danced and dodged, stabbing at the thick hide despite the futility. “There are no holes in the armor down here! I can’t get under the scales! Check its back!”
The beast turned to swat at its tiny attacker, oblivious to the ancient trees that splintered and flew beneath its girth. Illara had a split-second’s stability, and she bolted, fluidly dodging flying logs that weighed more than she did and huge chunks of wood that came within inches of taking off her head. Her bow came to hand, arrow fitted to the string, but though she ran along the beast’s back, searching for any weakness, she was met with only a glimmering sea of interlinked scale. She aimed her arrow anyway and let it fly for the back of the dragon’s head. It rattled when it hit, but wasn’t even worth the beast’s attention – its focus was directed entirely between its front feet.
“Will you do something fucking useful?” Zarae shouted. With Illara out of easy reach, she bore the brunt of the dragon’s fury. Though she was nimble as a mouse, the fragmented stumps and broken ground slowed her. The beast’s every movement drove her further into a cul-de-sac, and though she could see the trap, she couldn’t get around the man-sized claws or the house-sized jaws.
“What do you expect a shortbow to do to a dragon?!” the pale elf cried. Her body trembled; Zarae’s panic was sending shivers down her own spine and weakening her legs. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, but she didn’t know if that was her other half’s terror or her own.
Illara looked around desperately, seeking anything that might help. A way to distract the dragon or a hole in the barricade of brambles that she and her other half might vanish into. Something. Anything.
Instead, she locked eyes with a green-eyed redhead whose purple dress shimmered malevolently in the waning light of the moon. The cruel curve of Podë’s lips spoke of the demi-goddess’s intentions and pleasure in the half-breed’s plight.
This was what she wanted all along.
Illara’s lip curled. She nocked another arrow and sent it singing for Podë’s eye.
Zarae screamed.
Then the dragon’s head turned, snatching up the Raiaeran and swallowing her down into the same fetid darkness as the Alerian. Stillness fell upon the grove, leaving only the sounds of broken branches succumbing to their fates.
“Well done, my pet.” Podë snapped Illara's arrow in half and reached for the earth dragon, which bent its neck to submit to her affections. “The elves could have sent their most stalwart heroes, but instead they sent a stray puppy into my forest. They should not wonder that they are defeated.” Though her own daughter and her own pupil had turned on her like the ungrateful worms they were, part of her would live on.
She could rebuild.
She could revenge.
All because one woman was weak.
The dragon rumbled, almost a purr – but only for a second. Its head lifted and turned, its great teeth and claws ripped at its chest as the agony within overrode the irritation without.
Podë’s eyes widened. Her skin paled.
The entire grove washed in the light of a thousand nights.
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