The dragon’s roar was a crack of thunder in the high, thin air, shaking loose a scatter of pebbles from the cliffs. It was a sound of warning, of battle joined. Time, which had stretched and bent around the water’s vision, snapped back into a hard, shape.Cassian pulled Elidra to her feet. Her legs were water. The images from the lake were burned onto the inside of her eyelids, the slow, hopeless healing, the terrible, necessary cut.“We have to move,” he said, his voice rough, but his eyes were still locked on hers, holding the unasked question. Could they?Another roar, closer. A sharp, pained note in it this time. The dragon was not invincible. Witch-iron. It had to be.The immediate danger broke the spell. They turned from the lake, from the circle of stones, and ran for the far side of the valley where a narrow, scree-filled gully promised escape upward. They scrambled, stones skittering away under their hands and feet, the cold mountain air burning their lungs.They climbed unti
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