Lightning dangers. Avoiding lightning strikes. [https://www.guidedolomiti.com/wp-content/uploads/temporali-e-fulmini-1.jpg]
Her vision blurred, and all sound dulled to just her heartbeat and the rush of wind as she plummeted groundward. There was no time to struggle. But as the canopy rushed up for her, her gut heaved as she lurched upward. Marrak’s talons tightened around her and heavy wingbeats filled her ears as he drew them skyward.
Her chest screamed as she writhed to breathe. Every muscle raged against his infernal grip that melted scale and flesh. Searing pain wrecked through her body and her claws dulled themselves on stone scales. But her muscles quickly lost their strength as the burning city grew smaller below them, and the air thinner.
As the valley came into full view, her body rebelled into a limp lump indiscernible from captured prey. Her resistance now quelled, Marrak loosened his grip and Syra wheezed back her breath.
“This is what I am fighting for,” he boomed over the mountains and valleys barely visible through the rain. “Beyond Altaira and beyond the Elder peaks…we must be ready for what’s coming. And for that, I need you.” He craned his head down at her, but any hint of sympathy was lost to the rain and her lightheadedness. “So, answer me again, little one. Will you help me?”
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She had just enough breath to snicker.
Help you do what? Burn cities across the continent?
She focused on his massive head looming over her, dripping with rain and blood. She searched his face, his eyes, for that quiet sincerity so familiar to them. But their shine was lost to the gleaming of the stones above them and her chest ached as much as her skin.
I don’t even know who I’m talking to right now. Valen, or the stones?
Then you have your answer.
Syra’s head tingled as a calm voice echoed deep in her mind.
Her eyes darted about, searching the haze for yet another imposing shadow. But all she saw were angry clouds.
The stones flickered, tiring of her hesitation, and Marrak turned a saddened eye to his ex-apprentice, “So be it.”
He dropped his head and heaved himself downward towards the splatter of lights below.
Panic filled Syra’s chest. But as gravity returned, the flicker of an evening bug clipped her vision, drawing her gaze upward.
A shrill whine filled her ears as her scales hummed a warning. The thread of lightning slithered across the belly of the thundercloud and buried itself in the plume above. Waiting. As if calling for her answer.
Panic focused itself at the base of her throat and every muscle buzzed.
So be it.
Squinting against the wind, she squirmed and stretched her snout out from under Marrak's broad chest. And then, with all the air left in her lungs, she sang light to the sky.