Ethereal Entanglements Read Free

in slow motion, taking his time to position himself for a stealthy charge from behind.
    This thing was not her father. Claire hung her head, ashamed of herself for letting it torture her. She knew better and Caius still got to her. “The Palace is the worst place ever. It’s supposed to be a sanctuary.”
    Her father stared at her, his brow furrowed. Enion sprang. Claire threw herself to the side. Dragon and man crashed to the ground, throwing dirt into the air. Enion’s wings and tail thrashed as he wrestled with the feisty spirit. The dragon thumped the spirit into the ground and held him there, roaring at his face.
    To get through this, Claire had to kill her father. She averted her eyes from his face. “It’s not him,” she muttered to herself, over and over, while Enion held him down. Dropping to her knees beside them, she held her dagger with one hand and blocked his face out of her sight with the other. “Screw you, Caius,” she spat. Then she stabbed the spirit in the leg.
    Her dagger slammed through white mist and into the ground. The spirit crumbled and dissipated. For a moment, Claire stared at the ground, too confused and raw to feel the relief of being right. Then Enion wrapped his wings and neck around her, holding her close while she struggled to force all the pain of the past away. She wiped her nose and tugged half-heartedly at her dagger to free it from the dirt.
    “You’re tired,” Enion said. “Need sleep.”
    “Yeah.” Her dagger remained stuck. “This place plays dirty. And mean.” She scooped a handful of dirt and threw it, watching the dust fill the air and drift to the ground. “Can’t get much worse than having my dead father look at me like he wants to beat me with a baseball bat, though. Right?”
    Enion rubbed his nose against her cheek. “Right.”
    “How does that even have anything to do with being a Knight anyway?” Claire wiped her face one more time and gripped her dagger. This time, she wanted it free, so the ground released it. She wiped the blade on her leg and stuck it into its sheath.
    “Yeah!”
    She rubbed Enion’s nose. For some reason, she’d gotten a chipper cheerleader for a sprite. At the moment, she needed that. “Now what? We’re still here, so there must be more.”
    Enion looked around. “More wall smashing?”
    “Maybe.” Claire checked the dragon’s leg and found no sign of his injury, proving he also healed normally here. With a slow scan of the room, she noticed a shadowed alcove at the other end. “Is that a way out?”
    She climbed onto Enion’s back, and he trotted to the shadow. Claire saw nothing but pitch black. The structure around it seemed like it could have a hallway beyond the darkness, or it could be a recessed wall.
    “I guess courage would be plunging into it? Or maybe this is about strength of will. If I want it to be an exit hard enough, it will be.” She shrugged. “Let’s try that. Want it to be an exit, okay?”
    Enion narrowed his eyes at the darkness and growled. “Out,” he growled at it.
    Claire smiled. “Yeah, you stupid place. Take us out of here.” She patted Enion’s neck as he strode in. Complete darkness enveloped them. She saw nothing of the dragon’s metallic skin, not even a vague shimmer.
    “Scary.”
    “Yeah.” Claire shivered. This place wanted her off-balance and it succeeded, again and again. “Keep going.”
    Enion sped to a trot, then a run. Claire felt his back muscles flex, then their bounding rhythm changed to the smooth soaring of flight. A light breeze ruffled her hair, letting her know they moved at high speed.
    Claire flinched away from sudden, bright sunlight and screwed her eyes shut. Enion hissed and flipped in a wingover. Though Claire could tell she ought to fall off his back from the tug of gravity, she didn’t. She opened her eyes. If she stretched out her arms, she could almost touch the gray, stone cliff face they’d narrowly avoided crashing into.
    Her dragon pushed off