Chapter 9: The Black Wing

"He saw us," Riko said. "That hawk. He saw everything."

"Yes," said Kagiro.

"What does he want from us?"

"He wants me to be afraid."

"Are you?"

"Not tonight." He took her hand. "Come with me. I want to show you what I would lose."

They went out onto the roof of the keep at dusk, with the first snow of the season starting to fall.

He stood at the edge, and he looked down at her, and he said, "You may want to hold on to something."

"Hold on to what?"

Then the air around him rippled.

He grew, and kept growing, until the roof tiles groaned.

Black scales flowed across his skin like water, with red along the underside, like coals under ash.

A long neck uncurled, and two great curved horns swept back from a head the size of a cart.

His eyes were still amber.

Riko stood on the roof with her mouth open and her breath smoking in the cold.

The dragon lowered his shoulder to the tiles, and turned one enormous eye on her, and waited.

"Oh," she said weakly. "Oh, you're beautiful."

A rumble came from deep in his chest.

She was fairly sure it was a laugh.

She climbed up his foreleg, the scales warm as a stove under her palms.

She settled in the hollow between his shoulders and wrapped her arms round the base of a horn.

He unfolded his wings.

They covered the whole roof, and then the sky.

The roof dropped away, and the night took them.

Riko screamed.

It was not a dignified scream.

Then she opened her eyes and saw the mountains.

They were everywhere, wrapped in snow and blue shadow and lit from below by the last orange line of the sun.

Nine peaks stood in a ring, like a crown set down on the world.

Kurosumi rose black and sharp behind them.

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