My entrancement with my improved night-vision dissipates when Astralux suddenly banks to the left to avoid a hissing blast of sand that pelts through the air. Pesokvglazu and Vladykar Lochan aren’t far behind. But at least this time they don’t seem to be gaining on us. Or rather, not as quickly.
“I wish I had a saddle,” Astralux pants. “Holding you like this slows me down.”
I curl my arms around her shimmering pale blue-tipped claws holding me, to help secure myself to her. Astralux’s brilliant white wings beat heavier as she climbs in the air. I look back in time to see Pesokvglazu inhaling.
“He’s…he’s…!” I still can’t get my words out.
Sand blasts out from Pesokvglazu’s mouth again, aimed at Astralux’s head. Tucking in her wings, Astralux dives and then banks to the right so hard I slide in her claws and scrape my hands on the scales of her paws. Astralux flinches and secures me again in her claws.
“You must use your magic on them,” Astralux says.
I stare up at her.
“What do you do?” Astralux asks. “Do I need to get you close?”
I swallow. “I summon fire.”
“Amazing!” Astralux sounds ecstatic, and she does a quick little rise in the air, as if she were “jumping” for joy midflight. “Is it close or ranged?”
I really don’t want to do this again. It was hard enough the first time. “Why can’t you use your ability on them?”
“I can’t,” Astralux says. “Now how close?”
“Why not?” I ask, confused.
“Stop asking questions.” Astralux growls. “Use your magic!”
The words spill out before I can stop them: “If you’re so eager to hurt them, why don’t you do like what Pesokvglazu does?”
“I told you, I can’t because it’s pointless, otherwise I would,” Astralux says. “Now use your magic!”
“But I don’t want to hurt anyone!” I shout.
“What?!” Astralux exclaims. “Are you in—”
A blast of sand hits Astralux on her right wing. She gives a roar of agony, and I cry out too, feeling a pain on my upper right back, as if someone had scraped stone into my back. No, I realize—it’s as if someone had ground sand into my skin. But all of Pesokvglazu’s sand-blast struck Astralux, not me.
Is this part of the bond? Do we share pain too?
I can’t think about this anymore—Astralux is struggling, “limping” along with her left wing and using her right wing to glide more than fly. My heart is in my throat when I look back and see Pesokvglazu coming closer. Vladykar Lochan smirks from his saddle, a crossbow in his hands, aimed at Astralux.
“Dive!” I shout.
Astralux doesn’t even hesitate—she drops, just as I ordered, and the bolt skims harmlessly across one of her spines. However, Astralux struggles to keep her balance with the pressure of the wind put on her right wing. I can feel her pain increase against the wind resistance.
The pain has become unbearable when at last, with a groan, Astralux pulls her right wing in. I scream as we start to spin in the air. The momentum of our spin pulls at my legs, and I slide in her claws again. My feet point at the sky, then the forests below us, then the sky, and then the forest again, until I am too dizzy to make sense of anything. But I do feel the looming presence of the ground coming up on us.
“Astralux!” I cry.
At the last moment Astralux pulls me in, wrapping me with all of her legs and holding me tight against her underside, until I can see nothing.
I cry out again as I share in Astralux’s pain when her shoulder strikes something. We roll, and still she clings to me, even as I feel her back ache when she slams into something else. At last Astralux slows to a stop, and she drops me to the grassy ground, where I hold my head, trying not to throw up.
I don’t have to look up to know that Pesokvglazu has landed, feeling the thud of his weight through the ground. “You are newly bonded,” Pesokvglazu says, “while we’ve been bonded for years! You can’t run from us.”
Holding back my stomach’s desire to throw up, everything continuing to swim around me, I look up as Vladykar Lochan slides to the grass from his saddle. The left side of his face is still charred from the last time I’d cast fire at him, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing him in the least bit. If anything, he seems more energized, as if the pain were pushing him on.
Vladykar Lochan flicks aside a lock of his sandy brown hair—the part that’s not burnt—and pulls out a waterskin tied to his belt. I saw him turn water into sand moments ago, but I don’t know what else he can do with his magic. “Estelle Brand,” he says, “I presume you lack full knowledge of what Astralux has done to you. Step aside. We shall deal with the dragon properly, and then I will explain everything to you.”
A strength rises inside me, and I stand, gritting my teeth against the lingering dizziness. “You hurt my mom,” I say. “You attacked Inizion!”
Vladykar Lochan chuckles. “You surprise me, Estelle. You seem like such a meek thing, but when backed into a corner, you fight. Malyncor will enjoy your presence.”
“What have we done to you?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” Vladykar Lochan asks.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why?!” Pesokvglazu laughs, his deep voice echoing through the plains and trees around us. “You have no idea what we’re about, do you?”
Astralux has finally gotten her feet under her, and she growls at the other dragon and rider. “I will see you both destroyed!”
Pesokvglazu sniffs. “I doubt a weakling like you could—”
Astralux lunges for Pesokvglazu’s throat. She’s fast, and even as the light bronze dragon back-peddles, Astralux’s sharp teeth grab a hold of Pesokvglazu right where his front right leg connects to his body. She brings her front paws up and claws at him, shedding scales, until copper-tinted blood drips down, and Pesokvglazu roars in pain.
Vladykar Lochan lifts his right hand. Sand pours out of the waterskin he holds in his left, and he uses his right to form the sand into a triangle shape, like the tip of an arrow, which he points at Astralux.
“Watch out!” I shout.
Astralux, too busy wrestling with Pesokvglazu, bellows as the sand arrow embeds itself into her back, just under her right wing. I cry out too as it bores through her scales, and I stagger at the pain.
“Estelle!” Astralux says breathlessly. “I need you!”
My name on Astralux’s lips sparks the magic coursing through my being. I lift my hands just as Vladykar Lochan turns to me. I send a blast of fire, the core of which flickers red, at Vladykar Lochan, and it explodes in front of him.
But when the fire dies down, I stare at Vladykar Lochan, standing there completely unharmed. He summoned sand right in front of him, and it had blocked all of my attack, now lingering like a shield of glass in front of him for a moment before he grabs a hold of it.
Smirking, Vladykar Lochan draws out his thin sword. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, Estelle. Now be a good girl and lie down with your hands on your head.”
Pesokvglazu claws Astralux along her back left leg, and I whimper, trembling on my own feet. I don’t know why she won’t use her power, but I’m quickly realizing that we can’t take these two on. We need to get out of here.
I sprint toward the dragons. I’m moving faster than I’ve ever moved in my life, and I nearly trip over my feet as a result. Vladykar Lochan is just as quick, if not faster, and he runs to cut me off from Astralux. I lift my hand and watch Vladykar Lochan hold his glass shield toward me, prepared for my attack. Perhaps if my fire were hotter, I could melt it. But as it is, I’m not sure I can.
So I send a blast of fire into Pesokvglazu’s face just as he lunges for Astralux.
The dragon roars in agony, shaking his head. It’s the distraction Astralux needs, and her tail comes swinging around. When she strikes Pesokvglazu, the spines on her tail cut through some of the scales along his neck, and he staggers back from her.
Vladykar Lochan flinches but keeps moving, sprinting straight for me. Frightened, I turn and flee from him into the trees beyond, abashed as Vladykar Lochan laughs.
“Where are you going, my little silver fox?” Vladykar Lochan asks. “You can’t outrun me.”
The many heavy footsteps on the ground make my heart jump into my throat. I feel a pain that’s not my own—Astralux has been injured again. I start to turn, and then squeal in surprise when Astralux sweeps me with one paw and throws me onto her back.
“Try to stay at the top, in-between my spines,” Astralux says. Then she takes off with a bound around a tree, just as Pesokvglazu sends a line of sand at her from his mouth once more.
I topple off, catching myself by Astralux’s spines, and hang against her left side. As she runs her scales scrape against my cloth shirt and pants, and quickly begin to shred the material. I pull myself up just as I feel her scales start to cut into my skin, especially at my knees, and I prop myself up on her top spines, wrapping my arms around one and my legs around the one just behind me. It’s awkward, but it’s more comfortable than resting against her scales as they shift back and forth. I can see that I’ve already bled on Astralux a little bit.
Behind, Pesokvglazu and Vladykar Lochan are coming our way, the dragon’s wings slightly outstretched, as if he were debating flying.
Astralux glances back at me. “Hang on!”
Clinging with all of my remaining strength, I yelp as Astralux jumps down a small drop in the landscape. She lands with ease, although it jars me a little and I slide to the side again, scraping my elbow on her spines. I clamber back to the top as she takes off with a sprint, racing along the edge of this drop, around a bend of trees—
—And straight into a cave.
I keep my head lower than her spines as Astralux scrambles inside the dark entrance. I get the sense that she’s been here before when we reach an intersection and she takes the right-most path without hesitation. Then the left. Then a center path. Then the right. She’s crawling along so fast I can barely make sense of our direction, although I realize that the path is widening a little, enough so that Astralux is able to run more than crawl. She takes another left path, then another left.
Then my heart jumps into my throat as she plunges straight into a black hole.
Tamara Rivers 
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