Guard.
He had commanded Dari with his mind-talents that day, and stopped her from changing. It had been an accident born of fear and worry—but if he had done it once, perhaps he could do it again. He had to take some sort of action, or both he and Blath would pay with their lives, and who knew what would become of Dari.
Aron closed his own eyes, took a deep breath of hot air and Sabor sweat and ash, and forced himself through the Veil. Almost as fast, he separated his awareness from the body Blath protected with her own, and let his essence drift upward, slowly, controlled, until he guessed he was at the same level as the dragon’s open mouth. The pound of his heart sounded like wild drums to his enhanced awareness, and the stench of smoke and the most acrid scale-oil he had ever experienced nearly overwhelmed him.
He forced his eyes open, and found himself face-to-face with an enormous white dragon that seemed even more fearsome on the other side of the Veil.
Now he could see that the dark patterns on its legs and neck were deep green swirls almost identical to the benedets of a Stone High Master. Aron could sense the fire inside the beast, feel it like a crackling pain flowing across his essence, and he understood that Stone must have modeled the marks given to its most deadly members after the appearance of these unbelievably powerful creatures.
The intelligence in the dragon’s eyes was animalistic and heartless. Aron could tell it cared nothing for anything outside itself and its own kind. It could strike at him in the real world, or on this side of the Veil. Somehow, it lived in both places.
Stregan, Aron thought, not bothering to shield the word and keep it private.
The force and loudness of his own mental voice surprised him, and he was suddenly concerned that anyone in Eyrie possessed of any legacy might have heard him.
The creature paused in its fire-roaring attack and gazed at him with something like menace mixed with respect, because it had heard him. And on some fundamental level, it understood that he was brash enough to address it as an equal.
He centered himself as quickly as he could, focused his mental energy, and projected the full weight of his own graal into his next word.
“Dari.”
As he spoke the syllables aloud and in his mind, as he heard his call reverberate around them, he focused on an image of Dari as he knew her, and willed that image to be reality.
The Stregan didn’t change, except to pull its fearsome mouth wider. Hooked teeth flashed, and more smoke and flames tumbled forth. On this side of the Veil, the flames seemed to crackle in slow motion, with a sound like dozens of trees being bashed in half at the trunks.
Aron shoved back his own fears, lest he make them as real as the dragon he faced. “Dari.”
This time, he spoke with even more force.
The Stregan still didn’t react to his command, and when the flames struck him, he felt a wicked, terrifying heat that didn’t kill him only because Blath had hold of his physical body. On some level, Aron could sense that the color in the Sabor’s skin was more than just pigment, but something like a repelling force or charge, dissipating the effects of Stregan fire.
For now. The shield was definitely waning.
Panic competed with determination as Aron once more gathered his essence for counterattack. He let instinct guide him and threw his awareness forward, much as Tia Snakekiller had struck at him with her dangerous hood snake illusion. A harsh, hot jolt told Aron his energy had made contact with that of the Stregan before him—an instant before a crushing pressure on his essence nearly exploded his mind like an egg beneath a massive, falling stone.
He hurled his will against the multicolored pressure with the entire force of his being, and his whole mind insisted, “Dari!”
At the same instant, he imagined himself reaching inside the great dragon, finding the soul of the girl he wanted, the girl he knew, seizing hold of her shoulders, and hauling her straight out of the scales and teeth and wings and flames threatening to consume him.
He touched something—what, he couldn’t say—
And his mind blasted outward in fragments of light and bright color and terrible, hissing fire—
And there was nothing now, nothing but flying, so high Aron knew he would never touch the ground again.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
ARON
Cool water trickled