Saina bit her lip as they tore and flamed at each other, then ducked and took cover behind the fountain as the battle raged closer. Bastian just had to last a short while, but Keylor was stronger and faster now, Bastian’s advantage gone now that Keylor had the goldshot coursing through his system.
Keylor’s attacks grew stronger, and he pinned Bastian, striking dizzying blows at the side of his brother’s head. Bastian flamed and writhed, wrenching free just as Keylor moved to bite him in the already wounded shoulder. His actions became more and more defensive as Keylor stepped up his attacks, darting away at the last moment to slash as he leapt out of the way.
Saina’s nails cut crescents into her palms as she watched through the smoke-hazed courtyard. Each escape was narrower, each attack more enraged, and she had no idea how long Bastian would need to keep dodging.
She couldn’t sing her magic into Keylor, but she could into Bastian, she realized.
She planted her feet and opened her mouth to sing.
Stronger than you’ve ever known,
A king lacking only a throne.
You will always be
Royalty to me.
Saina couldn’t direct their battle, but she could remind Bastian of his strength. Your hoard is better, she whispered at him. Your heart is truer.
Bastian crashed with Keylor into another wall, and they were a snarling, tail-lashing, wing-beating ball of dragon together.
Did Bastian look stronger? Saina sang louder, desperate to help him, wincing at every blow and slash.
Then, just as Keylor turned to bite Bastian’s briefly exposed neck, he shifted, and for one ridiculous moment, was dangling as a human from Bastian’s scales, holding on only by wholly inadequate human teeth as his limbs flailed.
Chapter 38
Bastian knew he’d made an error of exhaustion, just as he turned too late to protect his neck and saw Keylor lunge for him, teeth bared.
Then, finally, the substance they’d put in the goldshot brick that Saina had scraped together from her sodden suitcase took hold and Keylor was an ineffective human, surprised and dismayed by his unplanned shift.
As Keylor fell from the height of a dragon, Bastian twisted to catch him in one clawed foot.
The temptation to squeeze the life from his brother was as painfully keen as his desire for the goldshot that he still reeked of. Keylor had tried to hurt his mate, and had held her dearest relative hostage. He deserved death. He deserved painful death.
But Bastian uncurled his claws and put Keylor on the ground, then shifted to face him.
“What are you doing, brother-not?”
As a human, Keylor was less impressive than he was as a dragon; a pasty, thin man with an unpleasant sneer and a tremor in his voice.
“I have no taste for your death,” Bastian said gently. “I know that goldshot can make you do vile things, and you have already been stripped of your hoard and your family. I know how that feels.”
Keylor gnashed his teeth, hunched himself over miserably, then lau
nched himself desperately at Bastian’s face with an incoherent cry of rage. His eyes were still red with the goldshot, even in human form.
Bastian, with the human muscles and reflexes of a swimmer, easily backhanded him away into a wall, where he crumpled into unconsciousness.
Saina’s voice had died to a cough; the courtyard was filled with acrid dragonsmoke.
Bastian turned to limp towards her, and glowing eyes appeared through the smoke above her curvy form.
Finish your bargaining, Bastian said to them. Saina’s Voice shall be returned to her safely and we will leave you in peace.
He wondered at the authority in his own mindvoice. His parents had always awed and intimidated him, but now he found that they occupied no place in his thoughts. Only Saina mattered, and he wanted nothing but to turn his back for the final time on the place that had taught him only his weaknesses.
What did you do to Keylor? his mother asked. Was there concern in her voice? Did she love her children, or were they only parts of her own glory, little more than an extension of their hoard, to be judged for their value and nobility?