My hands twitched at my sides as I pushed the green and gold through the metal around my chest and arms. I didn’t even try to speak any ancient earth words. I didn’t have to.

The chains collapsed around me.

I stretched and popped my neck.

Flexed my hands.

“You fucked with the wrong wizard,” I growled, feeling smug with how badass that sounded.

I felt less smug when I took a step, tripped over my feet, and fell off the altar and belly-flopped onto the ground.

“Not okay,” I wheezed, trying to get more air in my lungs as I rolled on my side and curled up into a ball. “I am not okay. Everything hurts. Everything hurts so bad. Just gonna stay here for a while and die. No need to worry about—”

A loud roar echoed across the valley.

“Well fuck me sideways,” I said succinctly and looked north.

Sitting on the rim looking down into the valley was a familiar black dragon. It’d only been a few weeks since I’d seen it last, but I was absolutely positive it’d gotten bigger. And angrier. And maybe it had more teeth with which to eat me.

As I watched, it pushed out its wings, the span of them great and awe-inspiring. Well, it would have been awe-inspiring had I not been the subject of its rapt attention. Now it was just terrifying, and all the bravado I’d built up when the chains fell from me fled rather quickly.

My eyes bulged when it brought down its wings in a harsh push, the grass around its feet flailing in the forced wind. The wings went up and then down again, and the dragon lifted up and off the ground.

And I will admit, though it pains me to do so, that instead of having an awesome one-liner that people would quote for decades to come (You think you can handle me? Fine! Come at me, bro!), I squeaked, “Holy fucking balls of shit,” and tried to stand.

Of course, I tripped again and hit my head against the stone altar and wondered where all those really bright flashing lights had come from.

The ground shook around me as I opened my eyes.

The dragon’s massive head peered down at me. Its nostrils flared as it scented what I was now positive was yak anal gland pheromones because that’s just how things went for me. Its tongue extended, a great forked thing that rubbed against my face, leaving a thick sticky trail in its wake.

“I’ll admit,” I said. “This is not one of the top-ten experiences of my life.”

“Wizard,” the dragon rumbled. “I despise wizards.”

“Yes, yes,” I said. “You don’t like wizards because of my sparkles and my whizbangs.”

The dragon reared its head back. “You can understand me?” he said, voice rough and deep.

I rolled my eyes. “Clearly.”

He shot forward again, snapping his jaws near my face. His breath was hot and wet. Somehow, I managed to keep the squeaking to a minimum. “You’re a pretty thing,” he growled. “But I won’t hesitate to eat you up. Little tasty boy cake you’d be. I’d let you rest on my tongue before I swallowed you whole.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun for anyone,” I managed to say. “I’m all skin and bones. No meat. It’d be a waste of your time. Honestly.”

“How is it you can understand me?” the dragon asked, scraping a giant claw near my side. The grass tore up from the earth, leaving a long dirt gash. “Your kind has never been able to do so before. Tell me, pretty. Tell me before I grow tired of you and start by eating your feet.”

“I don’t know,” I said, and that must have been the wrong answer because his teeth scraped against my dusty boots. “No one knows! I’m just an apprentice.”

“Apprentice,” the dragon scoffed. “Weak little human.”

“Stopped your fire, didn’t I?”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed. “Now I remember you. Your little ice sparkle. You thought yourself so clever. The last time I saw you, you were under a pile of rubble. How is it you survived?”

I shrugged. “It was a weak hit. Maybe don’t forget leg day when you’re working out.”

The dragon hissed. “Shall we find out how weak the hits can be?”

Tags: T.J. Klune Tales From Verania Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net