“Make yourself smaller!” she ordered him. “Tuck your hands around your head.”
More rocks fell.
A projectile slammed into Vivienne’s shoulder. Pain bloomed from the site. Another hit the fleshy part of her thigh.
She groaned, reaching inside herself and releasing her wings. The dark appendages unfurled from her back in awhoosh, and she curled them around her and the prince.
Death Mountain was no longer silent. Rocks smacked shale in a terrible, never-ending storm of destruction. Groans came from above, like a giant waking from sleep.
Shards fell, hitting the sides of the mountain like deadly needles on their descent into the chasm below.
The cacophony seemed never-ending.
Vivienne lifted her head as a massive rock careened past them. Itslammed into the side of the path with aboom, shaking the precarious ledge where they remained.
And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the wall in front of them shifted. Death Mounted was rearranging itself. Why not?
Marius moved, but she shoved him down. What was he thinking?
“No!” she yelled, her voice barely audible over the chaos. “It’s not safe.”
A rock sliced across her forehead, leaving a burning trail of pain.
She cursed, ducking her head and raising her arms behind her neck to protect it. Even vampires needed their heads to live.
The stone rain got worse.
A rock slammed into Vivienne’s back, and she grunted. Another hit her wing, slicing through membranes as though they were made of paper. She screamed, the delicate appendage one of the most sensitive parts of her body.
The prince tried to speak several times, but his words were lost to the mountain’s roar as a deluge of rocks came from above.
Minutes dragged on.
Vivienne’s heart raced, and her lungs ached as the deadly precipitation continued. Blood dripped from her wounds, her legs ached as stones slammed into her, and her muscles burned.
And yet, even as she lay in agony, her entire body hurting in a way that it hadn’t since her mortal days, she didn’t move. Every time a stone slammed into her, every time her skin broke and her wings tore, it meant she was protecting the prince.
Every rock, every bruise, and every cut was a payment against her life debt.
Theoretically, she could survive this. The prince, with his halfling body and mortalblood, could not.
And then there was the truth Vivienne had discovered while riding the dragon. This was more than a job. More than a blood vow. She refused to let the prince be harmed because he meant something to her.
Protecting him was her calling.
So, she curled herself and her wings around him and prayed for the rain to end. Even if the gods were too busy to hear her pleas, she was grateful to have something to distract her mind.
Vivienne begged the goddess of the moon to stop the deadly rain. She asked the god of blood to keep her body strong against this rocky assault. She even prayed to Kydona, the goddess commonly followed by Ipothans and Ithenmyrians, and requested that she keep the prince from harm.
Vivienne lost track of time.
Rocks sliced through her skin, and her blood soaked the ground beneath them.
Black spots danced in her vision, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She would not let her body’s aches pull her into darkness, no matter how much it hurt. Not until the rain stopped.
An eternity that was probably half an hour passed before the rain died down. Silence fell upon the mountain once again.
Only then, when she was certain the prince would be safe, did Vivienne finally listen to her body’s cries.