Bloodlines: Dragon Rider Book 2

Chapter 44: Body and Souls

Happy 4th of July, I hope you all had an amazing holiday weekend and had some delicious food. I just wanted to say that I love you all and hope you have a happy Sunday. 

P.S. We never reached 70 votes so there will not be a book 3 sneak-peek, but that's okay because you'll get to read it in book 3 : )

Enjoy.

Dagen

I've never seen snow before.

Raider City was never cold enough for even a trickle of flakes, though some nights, in the dead of winter, an annoying coat of frost laced the windows, blotting out faces and bodies just enough to make me stop and squint before sneaking in and leaving with jingling pockets. In Olkrith, the common city had snow-capped mountains, the closest I had been to snow that hadn't been manifested by mages. And still, I hadn't cared to go near it, to goggle at it. Snow is only frozen water, nothing special about it, and in only a few days I would be surrounded in the stuff.

I knew beforehand that I would hate it. Snow leaves tracks for people to follow. Your breath clouds in smoke that are easy to spot even at night. Your movements slow, weakening you so other low-lifes can cut you.

But now, after hours of nothing but sitting here, forced to endure below-freezing weather, of seeing nothing but a flat and unmoving ocean of white...

I don't care why someone would look at this barren wasteland and make it a city to call home, but why?

Flakes cling to my lashes, the only piece of flesh not wrapped in layers upon layers of the thickest clothes I could steal and get Norah to rune. Adam kept the air warm and the winds away while we traveled. The sisters maneuvered the snow over and around us, and hardened the ice beneath the dragons so they could walk easier.

They worked in increments, spending energy and taking breaks while the cold buried bone-deep within me, and then the shield would rise again. Over time, they grew tired and the gaps between barriers became longer until it was only the sisters keeping everyone warm. Then it was Norah, until it wasn't.

Galeur hisses, the ice beneath him cracking. He stumbles, almost throwing off Holland and I as his legs sink knee-deep into the snow. The other's don't stop, their bodies blurring into the dark blizzard, but they watch as Galeur forces himself back onto the ice--

A scream cuts through the blistering winds as the green dragon continues his trudge. The arms of wind pull at us in every direction, trying to throw us off.

I sigh, the only outward sign of my annoyance, and pin my gaze to Holland's hood and hat. The woman follows like a moth drawn to flames. Mansiah does nothing to help necromancers help hide from spirits--it only pours gasoline to the fire. But a part of me eases because she is not a hound who is relentless, she does not sting like a bee with pointless jibes. She is just a moth following the flames necromancers can't help but emit and it's easy to tune her out.

Miles turns to miles and the blizzard never relents. The group around me is more like ghosts the fairytales give, crude outlines of people and dragons mostly erased in the storm. No one talks, too busy wishing to be in a warm building with hot food and drinks. Only the sisters look fine in their armor, hair braided tightly out of their faces.

Then I felt it, a cold so deep it burned my senses and made my hair stand. My eyes flick to the man standing a few feet ahead with a chunk of missing flesh in his thigh, his blue robes and dark hair utterly unmoving in the blizzard. Unlike the living, his edges are solid and he watches the group pass him unknowingly. I start to look away before its too late but our gazes lock. His eyes widen, seeing me as I see him and I suddenly wish to be anywhere but here.