Chapter [Number] - Continued (Final Version)
He was quiet for a moment, finishing his meal in a way that involved far too much crunching of bones. "They are what happens when wild beasts are exposed to corrupted magic. The Feral Lands are saturated with it—old, wild magic from before the dragon clans established order. It seeps into creatures, twists them, makes them wrong."
"Wrong how?"
"Extra limbs. Extra heads. Extra hunger." He stood, stretching in a way that made Michelle focus very intently on the glowing crystals. "They feel nothing but the need to feed and spread the corruption. Even dragons avoid the deep Feral Lands. The corruption can affect us too, if we are not careful."
Michelle immediately started cataloging questions. What kind of magic? What was the mechanism of corruption? Could it be measured, quantified, reversed? But before she could start her interrogation, Kael turned to face her.
"We need to move. Your scent is strong—more corrupted will come."
"I showered before my hike," Michelle protested. "I don't smell that bad."
"You smell like human. Like prey. Like something that does not belong." He tilted his head. "And yes, also like Mountain Fresh, which is very strange and makes me want to sneeze."
"Sorry my deodorant offends your dragon sensibilities."
"Can you walk?"
Michelle leveraged herself up using the cave wall, testing her weight on her bad knee. It hurt like hell, but it held. Barely. "I can walk. Maybe not quickly, but I can move."
Kael studied her critically, then sighed—a very human gesture that seemed odd coming from someone who'd been a dragon yesterday. "This will slow us considerably."
"Feel free to leave me behind," Michelle said, more sharply than she intended. "I'm sure I'll be fine."
"You would die within an hour."
"Then I guess you're stuck with fragile cargo a little longer."
His expression shifted into something that might have been respect. Or indigestion. It was hard to tell. "You are not as weak as I thought, Michelle."
"Thanks. That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in months."
She limped toward the cave entrance, each step sending fresh jolts of pain up her leg. The protein bar had barely made a dent in her hunger, and her water bottle was already half-empty. She had no shelter, no supplies, no idea how to survive in this place. But she'd be damned if she'd just lie down and die because a rift had inconveniently ruined her Tuesday.
The world outside the cave looked different in the daytime—or whatever this violet-tinted twilight counted as. The bioluminescent fungi had dimmed, and the sky visible through the canopy was a pale lavender streaked with pink. The trees still looked wrong, their spiral trunks and blood-red fractal leaves creating an alien landscape that her brain kept trying to rationalize as Earth-like and failing.
"Stay close," Kael said, moving past her into the forest. "And try to be quiet. Your footsteps sound like thunder."
"I'm injured and wearing hiking boots, not ballet slippers," Michelle grumbled, following him into the undergrowth. "Cut me some slack."
They walked in silence for what felt like hours. Michelle's knee screamed with every step, but she gritted her teeth and kept moving. Stopping meant dying, her brain helpfully reminded her. Dying meant she'd never finish her thesis, never prove her advisor wrong, never see home again.
One foot in front of the other. That's all you have to do.
The forest was eerily quiet. No birds, no insects—just that low, bone-deep humming she'd noticed yesterday. Occasionally something would rustle in the undergrowth, and Kael would tense, his hand moving to where a weapon should be. But nothing attacked.
"Why aren't you wearing clothes?" Michelle asked finally, because the silence was driving her crazy and her brain apparently coped with trauma through inappropriate questions.
"I told you. Scales when needed."
"But you're not in scale form now."
"Clothes would burn when I shift. Or tear. Replacing them is expensive and pointless."
"So all dragons just... walk around naked?"
"In civilized areas, we wear clothes to avoid offending other-kin and elves." He glanced back at her. "In the Feral Lands, survival matters more than modesty."
"Practical," Michelle admitted. "Weird, but practical."
"Your people are very concerned with covering yourselves."
"We're concerned with not getting arrested for public indecency, yes."
He made that almost-laugh sound again. Michelle was starting to recognize it as his version of actual amusement, which felt like a small victory. If she was going to be stuck with a dragon escort through a death forest, she might as well make him like her enough not to abandon her at the first opportunity.
They walked for another hour before Michelle had to stop, leaning heavily against a tree trunk. Her knee was on fire, and her vision was starting to spot at the edges.
"I need a break," she gasped.
Kael turned back, frowning. "We have barely covered any distance."
"Well, I'm sorry my fragile human body isn't built for multi-day death marches through monster-infested forests." She slid down the trunk until she was sitting, breathing hard. "Give me five minutes."
He studied her for a long moment, then sighed. "Five minutes. Then we must continue. The longer we stay in one place, the more likely—"
A roar split the air.
Not the corrupted pack from last night. This was deeper, louder, more intelligent. It echoed through the trees, making the ground vibrate. Kael's entire body went rigid.
"No."
"No what?" Michelle struggled to stand. "What was that?"
"Corrupted drake. Large one, from the sound." He was already moving toward her, his expression grim. "This is very bad, Michelle."
"How bad?"
"The kind of bad where I tell you that if I say run, you run and do not look back."
Another roar, closer this time. Trees crashed in the distance. Whatever was coming, it was big.
"Can you fight it?" Michelle asked.
"Perhaps. But not while protecting you." Kael grabbed her arm, pulling her forward. "Move. Now."
Michelle moved.
Pain exploded through her knee with every step, but she pushed through it, stumbling after Kael as he led them deeper into the forest. Behind them, the crashing was getting closer. She could hear it now—massive footfalls that shook the earth, the sound of trees being knocked aside like toothpicks.
"There!" Kael pointed ahead to where the ground dropped away into a ravine. "We can lose it in the canyon system."
"I can't jump that!"
"You won't have to." He grabbed her around the waist and jumped.
They fell.
Michelle's scream echoed off the canyon walls as they plummeted into the ravine. Wind whipped past her face. The ground rushed up to meet them. At the last possible second, Kael's body began to shimmer, scales erupting across his skin, wings unfurling—and then they hit the ground hard, but not fatally. Kael had shifted just enough to cushion their landing, his partially-transformed body absorbing the impact. Michelle rolled away, gasping, her knee a symphony of agony.
Above them, the corrupted drake appeared at the ravine's edge.
Michelle got her first good look at it and wished she hadn't.
It looked like someone had taken a dragon—a beautiful, majestic dragon—and then systematically destroyed it from the inside out. Its scales were patchy and oozing black ichor. It had too many eyes, all of them glowing that horrible corrupted red. Its wings were tattered membranes stretched over too many bones. When it opened its mouth to roar, she could see straight through its throat to the landscape beyond.
"It's rotting," Michelle breathed. "It's rotting while still alive."
"That is what the corruption does," Kael said quietly, fully human again. "It feeds and grows and destroys. That drake was probably magnificent once. Now it is only hunger and rage."
The corrupted drake stared down at them, intelligence flickering in its too-many eyes. Then it began to climb down the ravine wall.
"Run," Kael said.
For once, Michelle didn't argue.
Michelle ran.
Her engineer's brain cataloged the absurdity even as her body moved on pure survival instinct. The ravine floor was treacherous—loose rocks, hidden crevices, and what looked suspiciously like bones scattered among the stones. Her knee screamed with every jarring step, threatening to give out completely. Behind them, the corrupted drake crashed down the ravine wall, its movements wrong and jerky, like a puppet with half its strings cut.
"There!" Kael pointed ahead to where the ravine narrowed into a crack barely wide enough for a person. "Go, go!"
Michelle didn't waste breath arguing. She threw herself toward the opening, wedging her body into the narrow space. Rock scraped her shoulders. Her pack caught on a protrusion and she had to wrench it free, losing precious seconds.
The corrupted drake roared—a sound that was equal parts rage and agony.
Michelle risked a glance back. Kael had shifted partially, scales erupting across his skin, claws extending from his fingers. He stood between Michelle and the corrupted drake, every line of his body radiating lethal intent. But even she could see the problem: the drake was massive, and this was a confined space. In a battle where neither could shift fully into dragon form, even a dragon had limits.
"Michelle," Kael said, his voice rough with partial transformation, "when I tell you to run, you run and don't stop. Understand?"
"I'm not leaving you to—"
"UNDERSTAND?"
The drake lunged.
Kael met it head-on with a roar that shook loose stones from the ravine walls. Black fire erupted from his throat, engulfing the corrupted drake's face. The creature shrieked, stumbling back, but the corruption made it feel no pain—only hunger. It lunged again, mandibles snapping where Kael's head had been a second before.
Michelle wedged herself deeper into the crack, her hands scrambling for purchase on the slick rock. Her fingers closed around something—a loose stone the size of her fist. Useless against a dragon, her rationality screamed. Better than nothing, her survival instinct replied.
The fight was brutal and fast. Kael's claws raked across the drake's face, black ichor spraying across the ravine floor. The drake's tail whipped around, catching Kael in the ribs and sending him crashing into the rock wall. He rolled with the impact, came up spitting blood, and launched himself back into the fray.
Michelle watched, helpless and furious. This was her fault. She was slowing him down, limiting his options. If he were alone, he could shift fully and fight properly. Instead, he was stuck in this awkward half-form, trying to protect her while fighting a monster that should have been dead.
Think, Michelle. What can you do?
She looked up. The ravine walls were steep but not smooth—plenty of handholds and ledges. The corrupted drake was focused entirely on Kael, its too-many eyes tracking his every movement. And there, about twenty feet above where they fought, was a massive boulder perched precariously on a narrow ledge.
It was stupid. It was dangerous. It probably wouldn't even work.
She started climbing.
Her knee protested immediately, but Michelle gritted her teeth and kept moving. Hand over hand, finding footholds in the rock face, using her upper body strength to compensate for her injured leg. Below, the fight continued—the sounds of impact, Kael's growls, the drake's awful screaming roars.
Don't look down. Don't think about falling. Just climb.
She reached the ledge, pulling herself up with trembling arms. The boulder was bigger than she'd thought, easily the size of a compact car. But the ledge it sat on was cracked, weathered by time and the elements. Unstable.
Michelle braced her good leg against the rock face and pushed.
Nothing happened.
"Come on," she hissed, pushing harder. Her muscles screamed. "Physics, don't fail me now. Force equals mass times—"
The boulder shifted. Just an inch, but it moved.
Below, the corrupted drake had Kael pinned against the ravine wall, its jaws open impossibly wide, black ichor and foam dripping from its teeth. Kael's hands were braced against its mandibles, holding it back through sheer strength, but even from here Michelle could see he was tiring.
She planted both feet—injured knee be damned—and shoved with everything she had.
The boulder tipped over the edge.
For one perfect moment, it seemed to hang in the air. Then gravity remembered its job. The boulder plummeted, dislodging several smaller rocks on its way down and one massive stone beside it. The massive boulder hit the corrupted drake directly on its spine with a crack that echoed through the ravine like a gunshot. The creature's roar cut off mid-sound. It collapsed, legs splaying, its body pinned under tons of rock.
Michelle sagged against the cliff face, breathing hard, her entire body shaking with adrenaline.
Below, Kael stared up at her, his expression caught somewhere between shock and something that might have been admiration. He was covered in blood—his own and the drake's—scales still visible across his skin, claws still extended.
"Did you just..." he started.
"Drop a rock on it? Yes." Michelle's voice came out shaky. "Is it dead?"