Kinyi stepped back to give Tane room to shift. She wished the other Draqons, especially Zayd and his precious Queen, weren’t out on the deck too. She wanted Tane to have privacy. He needed the extra moment to get his fire and madness under control. She worried about what to say if she had to coax him down like when he’d shifted in the jungle. Those words were too personal to be spoken so freely in front of their people.

Most importantly, she didn’t want anyone to see Tane’s weaknesses.

But Tane didn’t need the space she’d given him. He made his own by stepping off the edge of the deck.

She watched him drop out of sight for a horrible, wrenching moment. Her gut flipped up her throat, and a scream bubbled up in her mouth when a massive, black- and silver-scaled Draqon rose in the air in front of the flight deck.

Behind her, the other Draqons gasped in surprise. None of them had ever seen a shifted Draqon as big as Tane. He filled up the entire night, stealing darkness from the skies.

Tane’s white horn shone in the moonlight. His midnight-black wings, like thin velvet, flapped in the air as he hovered just a few feet in front of her. Reaching forward with his taloned feet, he grasped the deck’s edge and set down, his wing sweeping out along the smooth rock like a personal runway just for her.

She tried to control the manic smile on her face, but she couldn’t. She had a better chance at kissing Queen Niva’s feet than she did at stuffing her delirious grin away.

“Show off,” she mumbled just so Tane could hear as she climbed up his wing.

The massive Draqon chuckled and let out a plume of smoke from his nostrils.

She settled astride his broad back, the leathers she’d oiled early that morning gripping his scales perfectly. She slid her hands along his shoulders to his neck and gripped the raised ridges of his hide.

He twisted his long neck around to look back at her. His nostrils flared, and his black eyes blinked at her. At the end of his snout, a long forked tongue slithered out and tasted the air.

“I know,” she said, still grinning. “I can’t help it. You’re so fucking sexy. It makes me hot to ride you like this. Just take off before all the other males smell me.”

With a rumbling growl, he lifted off from the edge, his great wings beating on either side of them. The other Draqons shrank away as he and Kinyi lifted higher into the air above the Vilkas’ mountain. She watched as they drifted toward the center of the flight deck and peered up to gawk as they flew away.

They couldn’t help their marvel. Tane would always be a legend.

Kinyi pressed herself tighter to his neck and stroked her his neck.

Tane flew through the cloud cover, the moon casting silver-strewn shadows around them. Below them, Kinyi caught flashes of the dense jungle and the sparkling river threading through it. The Katu waited somewhere down there with their wooden boats, ready to ferry innocent Hylas and the Hylan servants from the destruction.

The jungle ended with a dash of sandy beach, and then the ocean began. Darkness with white-capped waves stretched out beneath them. They were close already. Within a few moments, they would arrive at the Vydal, and their aerial assault would begin.

Kinyi glanced behind her. Through the clouds, she spotted Zayd’s golden-hued Draqon and Niva on his back, the purple scales of Maxsym and his mate, and then farther back, the glint of the Vilkas’ ships, which were carrying Rayner, Gerrit, and Nestan into the fray.

Between the nine of them, they could only hope someone lived long enough to kill Gideon.

Tane slowed.

Kinyi faced forward, her hand flat against his scales. Before them, the shimmering Vydal towered over the ocean, waves crashing against its stilted base, the night sky reflected in the glass walls. All around it, like a glowing candle perched atop a birthday cake, the humans flew their ships.

Their numbers had been staggering in the battleship, but seeing them out in the open, flying around with their guns and gleaming black metal, Kinyi’s heart dipped. There were thousands. The low drone of engines sounded like a storm rolling in from the sea.

For the first time, Kinyi felt a flutter of doubt.

Before it could travel down their connection, she stuffed it away. Tane didn’t need her fear. He needed her support.

The moons fell behind the heavy cloud cover, bathing the ocean and Hylan city in darkness. Now was as good a time as any.

“Let’s go drop a bomb on these assholes,” Kinyi whispered to Tane.

She felt nothing but steely resolve in their connection. Tane was focused and unwavering. His eyes were unflinching as he tracked the ships.

Tane broke through the cloud cover, flying above the ships. He angled toward the most direct route through the fleet to the heart of the Vydal and dove.

Kinyi’s stomach rushed into her throat at the sudden drop. She pressed herself tighter against Tane’s neck and readied an arrow, her legs clenching his sides to hold herself steady.

A siren built from the Vydal. Kinyi glanced back. Zayd and the others were following down after them, giving Tane plenty of space to unleash his fire. The siren’s pitch rose to a deafening screech. As one, the humans’ ships swung toward her and Tane.

Tane’s fire rose from his belly. Kinyi could trace its path as it broiled inside him and roared up through his chest and up his neck. When he opened his mouth, she braced herself.

The flames shot directly at the first ship in front of them. The orange fire struck the metal hull, and Kinyi leaned back from Tane’s neck to fire her explosive arrow. It struck the metal with a sharp ping, and Tane angled upright as the small shuttle exploded.

He was already aiming his fire at another ship. Then another. And another.

Ship after ship blazed around them, struggling to stay aloft or already falling from the sky. Guns shot around them, but Tane moved too quickly for the bullets to land true, twisting and diving through the inferno of his own creation.

The other Draqons and Vilkan ships kept the humans from closing in behind Tane and Kinyi as they tore through the humans’ defenses.

As Kinyi fired off arrows, she realized the orange flames of Tane’s fire were changing. Darkening. Deepening. The heat had changed as well, and there was a sound to the blaze, like thousands of tiny whispers.

The fire burned blue and pure from Tane’s mouth, and when it touched a ship or the air, it ignited into a small explosion that hissed and crackled. It spread, devouring the air. Kinyi watched the blue flames gallop across the fleet of ships without Tane having to open his mouth.

His fire, his madness, was a monster hungry to burn everything in its path.

Watching the bluish-white flames dance from one ship to another, licking through the air like they had lives of their own, Kinyi could easily imagine how everyone had died during the battle when Tane lost control. She only hoped Zayd and the others stayed far enough behind. But when she glanced back to check, the blue flames had surrounded them in a wall of impenetrable heat at their backs.

There was no more retreat, only going forward.

Tane jerked up, startling Kinyi so much that she slipped a bit off his side.

She grappled for purchase and managed to right herself as Tane’s wings beat upward, bringing them almost to a complete stop.

In front of them was a Falconer.

Kinyi heard the whine of guns as the mini-turrets built speed.

Before she could lift her bow, the Falconer fired.

Tane reared up, exposing his chest to the gunfire. They struck him deep, tearing vibrations that echoed in Kinyi’s ears. She screamed as she felt the bullets tear through the vulnerable scales of his chest.

He roared his furious blue fire at the Falconer, setting it ablaze.

For a second, Kinyi thought they’d made it. That the bullets hadn’t been as bad as they’d felt. But then Tane’s wings faltered, and her stomach swooped as they began to free-fall.

“Tane!” she shouted. The wind stole her voice as they fell faster toward the black wall of water beneath them.

The connection between them was dark.

Empty.

She felt nothing in the space where Tane should have been.

The Draqon beneath her was limp and twisting through the air, just as empty and dark as their bond.

They hit the water’s surface with a great smack that almost threw Kinyi from Tane’s back. A spray of water went up around them. All too soon, before Kinyi could draw in a breath, a wall of ice-cold water crushed her as she went under. Waves crashed overhead, but she didn’t release her grip on Tane’s scales.

She kicked him with her heels and pounded on his shoulders with the heel of her hand. She shouted with everything she had down their connection.

But they just sank. The light of the burning world above them disappeared as the ocean’s darkness surrounded them.

She held on.

Her lungs screamed in her chest, and her vision blurred with hazy lines as she tried to make out Tane’s black scales from the ocean’s void. His wings floated like a gossamer shroud.

Kinyi’s chest bucked. She fought to keep her mouth closed and hold back the instinct to suck in a breath that would surely kill her.

A flash of scales darted by her vision.

Her relief was instant. Zayd or Maxsym had seen them fall. They were coming to save them.

Sharp white teeth snapped out from the darkness right at her face.

Kinyi opened her mouth and screamed.

Water rushed in.

Her lungs heaved at the onslaught of salt water.

She choked.

Tight, bony fingers wrapped around her arms and tore her free from Tane. They rushed her up through the water as she flailed and kicked.

As her vision darkened, she saw Tane’s body hit the bottom of the ocean, his velvet wings settling beside him and stirring up a plume of silt that hid him from view.

Her vision had gone black when a fist struck her chest. Her insides lurched, and it felt like the ocean was pouring out of her mouth. She rolled onto her side and heaved out the last of the water, panting and gasping.

When she looked up, she saw the Vydal above her, glimmering beneath the moonlight. She lay on the city’s rampart, the massive doors open behind the Hylas who stood staring down at her.

The Hylas’ lead mage, Tavorn, grinned down at her, his teeth sharp and his legs scaled. “Look what we pulled from the sea.”

Behind him, a shadow loomed. Tavorn stepped aside, and a tall human with black hair stepped forward. He smiled, even though above him, high in the clouds, his people burned.

“Gideon,” Kinyi hissed, recognizing the evil human commander from the news reports of the space station. She coughed.

“So, this is the rider of the demon responsible for the blue fire.” Gideon rubbed his chin as if lost in thought. “She doesn’t look so big without her monster, does she?”

“What shall we do with her?” Tavorn asked, his forked tongue slithering over his lips as he considered Kinyi.

Gideon considered a moment before his smile hooked in the corners of his lips, turning evil. “Kill her. Leave her out here for her friends to see.”