Rania saw the fight from a different view, as if she was hanging onto Olaf’s tail. The dragons swept into a cloud and she felt as if she was flying himself. It was thrilling. The mist and the falling snow diminished visibility to almost nil, and she heard the tinkle of ice falling against the dragon scales. She felt Olaf’s fury and his confusion, then Notus suddenly appeared ahead of him, those feathers glistening with drops of rainwater. Notus glanced back, apparently in fear, then lunged onward and disappeared into the clouds again.
Olaf gave a roar and raced in pursuit, only to slam into the side of the hill that had been veiled by the clouds. His head hit the rock hard and he slid down the face of the stone, unconscious. A trail of black blood from his temple followed his descent, sizzling on the surface of the stone. Notus swooped down and attacked the fallen Slayer. Rania winced as Notus cut away Olaf’s genitals, then tossed them into the air and burned them with his dragonfire, deaf to Olaf’s screams. The black blood flowed from Olaf’s wound, staining the snow that was accumulating on the ground, and he shifted between forms before passing out as a dark-haired man. Notus surveyed him for a long moment, then took flight, disappearing into the swirl of snow. It was quiet then and Rania could only see the steady trickle of black blood into the snow.
So Notus had eliminated the Slayer who threatened his cousin’s firestorm. He had risked death for his cousin, just as Alasdair offered to die in Hadrian’s stead. The Pyr, clearly, had stronger bonds than Rania had realized.
No one would have offered his or her life in exchange for Rania’s. The realization chilled her.
“Notus abandoned the Slayer to die,” Alasdair said. “He believed that Olaf could not survive such an injury. But fury is a powerful force, and a thirst for revenge can provide a burning desire to survive.”
Rania knew that well enough. She watched the snow fall, covering Olaf’s fallen body as time passed. The Slayer stirred finally and sat up with a grimace, then brushed the snow from his shoulders. She saw Olaf’s horror when he examined his own injury, then watched as the Slayer dragged his broken body toward what might have been a path or road. He managed to rise to his feet, bind his wound roughly with a length of cloth torn from his own garments, and cut a staff from a broken tree. He staggered onward, and eventually the opening of a cave came into view.
Rania guessed that Olaf had sensed the presence of the man there, the one who emerged from the darkness and surveyed him with concern. She shivered, remembering the trapper who had healed her injuries all those years ago when she’d hunted the polar bear shifter, and wondered whether this one had an agenda of his own as well.
“Olaf was lucky,” Alasdair said. “He always had been, and on this occasion, his luck held. He reached the refuge of a hermit renowned for his healing abilities, and without revealing his nature, received care. His body healed, but his need for vengeance only grew stronger with each passing day. His fury was distilled into a dark and potent force, one he could not ignore.”
The scene spun and it was clearly spring when Olaf left the cave. He looked healthy again. He embraced the hermit from the cave and walked away, continuing in human form until he was out of view. His eyes glittered when he glanced back, then he shimmered blue, shifting into his powerful dragon form and taking flight. He flew high over the hills, soaring through the clouds, then swooped down on the hermit’s refuge. He returned from the opposite direction and roared on his approach. The hermit came out of the cave, wary but curious, and Olaf roasted him with dragonfire. The hermit screamed as he tried to retreat to the safety of the cave but Olaf was relentless. He landed outside the door, shoved his head as far as possible into the cave, and breathed dragonfire with such force that smoke came out the cracks in the stone.
“No one would ever know that Olaf had found sanctuary in this place, or that the hermit had healed him. No one would be able to challenge Notus’ conviction that the Slayer was dead,” Alasdair said.
Rania was shocked by Olaf’s savagery even though it was strategic and defensive.