This was no hallucination. This was real, and it was undeniable, right in front of her, leaving her feeling awed and more than a little humbled.
She was face-to-face with a living, breathing dragon.
Chapter 3
In the Dark Night Sky
“There, now,” Korgad said as he stretched his muscular front legs, which were now the size of tree trunks, with claws the size of Nova’s arm digging deep into the dirt. “This is difficult without the link to my rider, you know, but…” He stretched his head up, shaking it again. “You seem to be helping.”
Nova stared, feeling breathless and unsure, as well as just…confused. She opened her mouth to ask what any of that meant but was interrupted by Zephyr suddenly running up behind her, panting as she slowed to a stop, her eyes widening in shock at the sight of Korgad. She let out a slow, anxious sort of breath, closing the distance between herself and Nova to stand a bit behind her again as she peered around her at the dragon.
“Zeph?” Nova blinked. “What—what are you doing here?”
Zephyr opened her mouth, closed it again, and let out a breathy sort of disbelieving laugh, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I…I go where you go, remember?” Zephyr told her. “You’re not leaving without me.”
That…was touching, actually. Nova couldn’t help but smile, though she tried to bite it back. Yet, she couldn’t ask Zephyr to run away with her, to believe in dragons for her; it wasn’t fair and she knew it. “Are you sure?”
Zephyr shook her head again, swallowing as she gave Korgad another wary, wide-eyed sort of look. “No,” she admitted. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
“Well, okay.” Nova nodded, turning back to Korgad. “You can…take us, to my mother?”
The dragon gave her an unreadable look, letting out a huff of hot air through his nostrils, and then he suddenly reared up, swiping quickly at Nova, his large claws grabbing at her, and she couldn’t help but let out a bit of a shriek, panic clouding her mind. After all, this was a real, honest-to-goodness dragon, and could very well kill her—but after a split second, she registered that he wasn’t hurting her, that his claws were holding her and nothing more—and then a second after that, she heard Zephyr scream, as well. Nova looking around for her and seeing the dragon grabbing Zephyr in his other claw, and then they were being lifted into the air as the dragon flew up, his wings beating so loudly against the wind that Nova stopped being able to hear much of anything else. She clutched tightly at the two talons that were securely clamped over her shoulders, getting the sudden impression of a rollercoaster as his back talons tightened around her waist, her legs dangling freely with nothing to ground them.
The ground careened away from them and Nova realized she was screaming again, the adrenaline rushing over her and her heart pounding as the wind rushed into her face, blowing her hair wildly out behind her. She choked on the air, no longer able to scream; instead, she gasped for breath as Korgad continued to fly, turning and soaring low over the treetops for no more than a few seconds. The world then disappeared into a flash of white light which dissipated almost as quickly as it had come, the woods and the nearby town just gone, replaced by dark waves and salty air. The wind in Nova’s ears started dying down as Korgad dropped towards a pale line of sand, his claws releasing her. She let out another yelp as she fell the last couple of feet, her knees and hands digging a bit into the warm, shifting sand, some of it flying up into her face and causing her to cough as the sound of crashing waves reached her before the loud, shaking boom of Korgad landing heavily distracted her.
She caught a few gasping breaths, coughing out sand again, and pushed herself up into a sitting position, her legs shaking too hard to do anything more just yet. Wow, that had been intense. She looked around for Zephyr and found her friend nearby, still half-collapsed into the sand herself, trembling violently and looking deathly pale. Oh gosh… Maybe she shouldn’t have let Zephyr come, after all.
Korgad grunted as he straightened, shaking sand off his scales. “I’m not as young as I used to be. Hmph.” He glanced over to Nova, tilting his head a touch and narrowing his eyes at her. “Jumps like that, they take an enormous amount of magic,” he told her, sounding defensive for some reason. “Any jump like that can take down a dragon, especially without a real rider bonded to them. Doesn’t help, I haven’t spent as much time out here. Don’t know the geography well.”
Nova didn’t answer, not knowing what he was talking about or why he was telling her all this. She turned back to Zephyr instead, sort of crawling over to her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “H-hey,” she panted. “Zeph? You—you okay?”
Zephyr let out a groan, sitting up a bit now and still looking white, and even a bit sick.
“Zeph, come on, sh-shake it off.” Nova bit her lip, the guilt coming back. “It’ll be okay, we’re fine. You’re—you’re fine, right? You didn’t get hurt?”
Zephyr let out a choked sort of laugh, shaking her head to say that no, she wasn’t hurt. But still, she was clearly not okay, and she shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. Nova stood up, her legs still wobbling a bit, but her heart finally starting to calm down, and turned back to Korgad. “We need to take her back. She can’t…this isn’t her thing. I have to get her home.”
“There’s no time for that, as the portal’s about to open,” Korgad said bluntly. “It took too long to get you to come here in the first place; if we wait any longer we’ll miss our chance. Get ready. We’re going to fly again.”
“What?! Why’d we stop in the first place, if…if you’re just going to grab us and rush off again?!” Nova demanded, but then the dragon grabbed at her anyway, Zephyr letting out another shriek beside her as she was grabbed again, too, and the beach fell away below them as they took off into the air once more. This time, though, instead of the flash of white light there’d been earlier, the dragon flew out over the sea, the mist spraying into Nova’s face as a sudden shimmer of crackling blue light flickered into view, sparking violently like lightning, the air around it warbling like a wave of heat and seeming to tear into the dark night sky itself. Nova felt another surge of fear, gripping more tightly at Korgad’s talons as he carried them towards the light. She closed her eyes, but could still see it behind her eyelids, too bright to be shut out. The wave of heat enveloped them, cracking and hissing like fireworks, and then…
It was over. Nova forced her eyes open again, and gasped as she realized—it was day. Bright, golden sunlight cascaded over them and flashed against Korgad’s scales, the shock of the change making Nova’s breath catch in her throat even more than it already had. What? But they’d been…Nova craned her neck to see behind them, the electric blue light they’d just passed through disappearing with another crackling sort of sound as Korgad lowered them to the ground, once again dropping them—this time in a field of tall, thick grass—before landing roughly himself, his large, beastly chest heaving with huffing gasps as he laid down, resting his chin in the grass and closing his eyes.