I raise my hand, and Nova and her allies, who seem to be smaller versions of dragons but with only two legs and four sets of wings, roar into the sky, their bellies already filled with fire and catching the dragons and the humans on their back entirely off guard.

I touch her neck, sending her an image I hope she can communicate with the others. She trills, a vibration that I feel through her entire body and the feathers along her neck bristle like ocean waves.

She sends a vibrating call through the air I can feel more than hear. It’s a cry of hope and wish of help to those wyverns around her and the leonoavis soaring above our heads.

Then they dive, streaming past Nova as she finds an updraft and spreads her wings, stalling in the air with the whole of the battle below us as she arches her neck and roars.

The dragons along the wall throw flame and bite at the wyverns, but they are unfazed by the flame and undulate and flow like water around attacks.

They attack the soft underbellies and wings, forcing the dragons to give up their perches and take to the skies.

The leonoavis target the humans while the wyverns distract the dragons. As soon as the humans are dead or falling from the dragon, the legendary creatures retreat, allowing the dragon to fly away, no longer under human control.

The four-winged wyverns might be small, but they are terrifying as they work like a pack to bring down dragon after dragon.

Nova releases her payload of fire, and four other smaller streams emerge from beside her, as the snake-like dragons who have stayed with us like an honour guard release with her. The dragons roar as the fire sears through their bodies, and despite dragons being mostly fire proof, the extra heat makes the humans on their backs scream in horror and pain as it burns them from their backs.

As soon as the humans are gone from their backs, they seem to come alive, shaking and shivering and then darting off as fast as their wings carry them.

But there are too many to Nova’s few still with humans, even the smaller creatures are not enough. They swamp us, and Nova dives, right where Flash lay in wait, just in case this very thing happened. We all hoped Nova would return… in fact, we counted on it.

Hah. You counted on it? More like you spent hours worrying over her and look… here she is.

Shut up.

We learned from the previous battle with Nova’s mate that dragons are near impervious to most things... but their wings are not.

Nova snaps out her wings, her tail trailing the treetops and making birds squawk in warning and fear as the odd beats of four wings trail right behind us.

A groan of wood and the sharp snap of a slinging object is all the warning the Empire’s dragons receive. Large arrows long as I am tall and tipped with barbed steel rips through the wings of three dragons.

They screech into the sky, flapping with torn and damaged wings. They stay in the air, but they cannot continue the chase after Nova.

They circle back to the army, landing to get the bolts pulled from their wings.

I turn Nova to the city.

Ballasts on the wall groan as they are pulled taught, firing one after the other at dragons seeking to take the city with more and more desperation as the battle turns in our favor.

The chests of many dragons glow molten fire. It shines through their scales all along their chest and neck, slowly crawling further toward their jaws.

One dragon cries out and plummets from the sky, ramming into tilled dirt just outside Videlia with the crunch of bones and the ripping of flesh as one of Nova’s creatures took it down. They dive bomb from the sky, ripping at the humans and the dragon’s head and wings.

Tim walks among the burning wall, his black, bald head gleaming with sweat. His tattoos almost make him even more intimidating, and boosts the soldiers' courage as they stand with him. His hand is still bandaged, but he holds his broadsword with his other, pointing it at the dragons and releasing a bellow I can hear over the roars.

The people along the wall scurry like ants, throwing salt and sand buckets over the fire and dragging bodies, alive and dead, to create room on the palisade that still stands. Arrows stream from the soldiers, aimed at the dragon’s eyes and the humans on their backs.

They aren’t more than a nuisance… but it is a distracting nuisance. And sometimes that’s all you need.

I look back. The Empire’s army is creating a bridge over the acidic water that gleams a muddy red in the fading light. The mage with the plant skill, seemingly recovered from my attack, has created a purple and pink vine for the army to stomp over, but that is the only place the army will be able to get through. They cannot flank the city because of the marshy, acidic pools surrounding her.

And judging by the ladders sticking up like stakes from the acidic water and left to sizzle there, their siege engines and ladders are hard to cross the bridge with. Their straightforward slaughter is turning right on its head. I couldn't be more pleased. But I am not pleased by their back-up plan.

The mindless slaves cross the bridge, I imagine they will be used as a human shield to create an opening for the main army. A thousand men and woman and hundreds of wolves stream across the purple bridge, their movements jerky and off.

I growl low in my throat, about to ask Nova to head to the main army to kill the mage and prevent the needless killing of innocents.

Wait.

I have waited!

Wait.

“Fine,” I bite out, clenching my thighs around Nova and pushing her higher to bring more dragons our way.

Nova screeches in anger when a dragon snaps at her tail. I grin when she flips around and the much smaller dragon bounces off her chest.

The dragon falls fifty feet before it recovers.

She’s doing well, but she can’t hold them all. More turn to the city, some flanking it from directions without ballista.

Where do all these dragons keep coming from? I thought there were only thirty. But I have lost track of how many have lived and died and escaped.

A few dragons bat and roar at Nova’s creatures, and I look back.

I send an image to Nova. If a dragon could smile, she’d be grinning.

She tucks her wings close to her sides and I hang on for dear life, my legs trailing behind me as I hang on by the skin of my claws. If she loses me at these speeds… let’s just say I’d prefer to avoid that.

The smaller creatures dart to the sides and I glance back.

Wait… wait… NOW!

Nova barrel rolls to the side, and the dragons intent on our backs collide with the four dragons who were fighting the leonoavis, one about to breathe fire at the golden leonoavis who flies with another about half his size held in his claws, unresponsive. But he couldn’t have avoided the fire, not with the burden he held.

I crash back into Nova’s back as the force of her wings catching the air slams me into her. I try to ignore the shooting pain up my hips and stomach as I hit something soft and unmentionable.

A moment later, I sit upright, seeing the golden leonoavis landing on the ground within the walls of Videlia, safe.

I whoop, pounding my fist in the air. Nova trills, a vibration I can feel through her entire body.

We skim the ground as Nova flares her wings, pulling up abruptly from her dive.

Something collides into us.

Next thing I know, I am sent tumbling from her back, hitting the blood-soaked dirt before coming to rest against a dead dragon’s hide.

I stumble to my feet, my back cracking as a few bones creak and send shooting pains up my spine. My shoulder spasms and I about drop to a knee. I feel a large lump where my shoulder blade is dislocated. Great.

I ram it into the dragon's hide, but the hide is too soft and squishy. I need something hard to push it back into place.

A hiss at my back makes me turn. A landed dragon snarls, its eyes oddly unfocused.

Both wings are broken, and its neck lay at an odd angle. Both the riders from its back lay broken some distance from the dragon. Dead.

All around are dead and dying dragons and even the smaller creatures who came with Nova and some human from both the dragon’s backs and those who were thrown from the wall. So much death. The smells are the worst. Death has a scent I am unlikely to forget. Nor do I wish to. It’s a reminder. A reminder to be better. To fight for peace so this doesn’t happen again.

The dragon before me tries to snap at me, but its jaw will barely move. It moans, pain making the eyes glaze over and shimmer.

I get right beneath its jaw and shove my sword into the underside beneath its neck and head.

It gurgles, choking on its own blood, then goes still when I twist the blade.

I shove my sword through both the riders, just in case, then move to the next dragon while men move beyond the forest borders and the acid swamplands.

I would dare say hundreds were killed in the trap, but there are thousands more to kill if we wish to win this battle.

I harden my heart. I knew there would be death. But something inside me had hoped it wouldn’t be to this scale.

Nova swoops down, her wings scraping the ground, and her eyes meet mine.

I nod, racing up the tail of the dragon I just killed, the scales giving beneath my feet. With each step I leap feet, my body honed for war despite the beating I’ve forced it into.

I do a backflip off the side of the dragon when I hear the whisper of wind at my back, and Nova grasps me with a paw. I scream when her claw puts pressure against my shoulder, and light and darkness presses against the back of my eyes until the joint pops back into place with a snap.

I take a moment to breathe past the lingering pain. Nova does a barrel roll, which is earsier to stick in her claws since she holds me close to her chest and covers me with her wings. But that also means she cannot protect herself with her claws. I need to get back on her back.

I scramble up her paw and use her scales as ladders. One rips off, leaving me handing on by a thread and seeing the ground flash by far beneath us. Nova roars in anger as a dragon behind her singes her tail with fire.

I finally reorient myself and make it to her back, breathing deeply to calm the pounding of my heart.

She flips upside down, almost throwing me. I hang on by the strength of my aching and bleached knuckles intertwined in her mane, praying the feathers don’t snap off and send me into the sky and the hundreds of feet below us. When she comes back around, she throws her own fire into the sky, and the screams of the men on their dragons rise into the sky.

I take the moment to reestablish myself on her back, clenching my legs tighter on her neck.

The three dragons retreat, flapping into the distance. But six more take their place.

Nova sends me an image, and I internally groan.

Cynic laughs. At least she warned you this time.

I never should’ve bonded a dragon. She’s going to be my death.

Death of your heirs, you mean.

I growl low in my throat at his teasing, trying to ignore the beating I’m getting down there.

He laughs with wild abandon as I plaster myself against Nova’s neck when she brings her wings in and twists into a barrel roll.

My stomach rises into my throat and I hang on by the skin of my teeth.

By the time I’m done shoving down the bile from the latest landing against my crotch, we’re past the first two dragons with one spiraling to the ground.

But when Nova connects to me, I feel a stinging pain in my side. I put a hand to my ribs, expecting blood… but it’s not mine.

“Easy. Easy, girl,” I say, trying to ease into her mind.

She dives, narrowly avoiding a swipe from a red dragon. Her movements are growing sluggish.

A glance at the battlefield below shows the wall holding and the archers on top making good with their arrows. A large whoosh brings my attention back to my current battle, and a dragon latches onto Nova’s wing. She screams, the feathers along her neck bristling.

We twist in the air. She uses her tail to bash the dragon in the head. It lets go, but not before I hear a snap and a tear.

Nova shivers, and I feel it deep in my bones that she cannot continue in the air for long.

I look around. I count fifteen dragons left. But I seem to remember many more than a mere fifteen being released or killed. Were there more than thirty dragons?

Three come at Nova and the rest are being distracted by Nova’s creatures, and they are holding their own well, but not well enough. Many are dropping to the ground, either injured or dead, the battle turning against us once more as the smaller creatures, despite their tenacity and greater numbers, slowly fall to the dragon’s greater sizes and fire.

The glint of a mirror shows in the woods. I send the image to Nova, and she wheels around, bungling a call to her creatures.

All go into an immediate dive as Nova does what I ask.

Nova throws herself into a twist, and the whirlwind of sky and dark earth spins around us in a kaleidoscope of colors.

She straightens, having sent one last dragon to the ground. She narrows her wings like a hawk, spearing down to the ground.

A golden dragon cuts her off, and we slam into the dragon in a mishmash of wings and flailing limbs, almost jarring me from her back. I need to do something.

I’m feeling more out of my depth by the minute.

I let the wolf come to the forefront, and I feel the fur tingling through my skin and my fingers curl into claws. Thank goodness my strength has returned and the coldness has receded. Nova bought me time. Now it's time to use it well.

Nova screams, the dragon biting at her neck, and I leap.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Cynic screams.

I reach for the head of the golden, but it sees me at the last second and ducks.

I am now up the stream without a paddle.

Or in thin air without wings.

WHAT DID YOU DO?

I have no idea.