The portal convulsed, light fracturing into jagged shards. Shadows poured through like smoke, cold and biting. Estiell’s voice roared inside my skull.
He comes. The hunter. Javier.
Lou’s claws tightened around me, his body coiling as if he would meet the darkness head-on. But then, with a furious snarl, his wings snapped open. Fire licked the edges of the portal, and instead of charging through—he spun, dragging me back into the dragon realm with brutal force.
The world cracked around us as we burst through. Stone, fire, sky. Safe ground beneath us at last. I clung to Lou’s scales, my arms wrapped tight around the glowing orb pressed to my chest.
“Cowardice?” Liam’s voice echoed faintly through the collapsing portal. “Or wisdom, Dragon King?”
Lou ignored him, landing hard enough to ra
