The gobli who had untied me flees, but I approach the dragon-like creature who saved me.

"Alvar," I state his name, my eyes cannot leave him.

"Lucy," Alvar's monster form says my name with a voice deep and thunderous.

"How did you know?" I ask.

"When you didn't return after ten minutes," Alvar growls, and snorts, an orange blaze escapes his nostrils during the act. "I knew something was off. Remora tried to distract us, she brought in human dancers and entertainers. She kept talking, but never about you nor ask why you hadn't come back."

"She was in on it?" I close my eyes to shut out his image. My skin crawls. Wow. I didn't expect to be this utterly frightened by his appearance, I also didn't expect to hear what those powerful jaws of his could do. The snap of Maggort's body breaking still stings my memories.

"Why d-did you kill him?" I finally say it, but my eyes are still closed, and I hold my breath.

"He's killed many others," Alvar snarls out the words.

"He could have stood trial, and-"

"Lucy, he was going to stab you," Alvar interrupts. "The second he saw me he pulled a knife. Don't believe me? Look to his corpse."

Oh, just as I'd feared originally, but I hadn't the ability to see during the attack so I couldn't have known.

Suddenly, I feel guilty. I don't need to look at Maggort's remains to know Alvar speaks the truth. From what I've seen of him, he wouldn't kill someone lightly.

A loud horn blares over the mountains. My eyes open. "What was that?"

Alvar's neck stretches high and surveys the landscape. "Get on my back."

"What?" My eyes widen.

His right wing extends down toward me and he rests his chest on the ground, giving me less height to climb.

"Get on my back before they see us," he orders.

I swallow and run up to his extended wing and crawl up its length until I reach the center of his shoulders. I find at the base of his neck is a silver metal collar with red gems embedded in it.

"Hold on to the collar and don't let go," Alvar growls.

"The Fe collar?" I ask, part of me has no desire to touch the thing.

"Yes, the cloaking of it is not active when I'm in Cursed form," Alvar states.

I grasp hold of the collar.

His wings move, shaking the bones in his shoulders and my body. Whoa. I steady myself.

He runs faster than I thought a creature of his size would be able to travel. Snaking up the mountain until he comes to a cliff where there are hundreds of feet of empty space below.

Oh... he's going to jump off the cliff! I close my eyes as he leaps from the cliff. I grip his collar as tightly as I can and my knees squeeze the sides of his shoulders.

We don't plummet to our deaths, instead we soar. My eyes open and I see the beauty of mountains. Snow caps the tops of the black peaks. The wind is cold, but Alvar's body is hot underneath me. He's the temperature of a sauna and mist from his heat clouds the air around us, like when you place a hot piece of food in a freezer.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask him.

"Somewhere safe," Alvar answers me. "There is a secret gobli encampment just south of here. These gobli are of the same variety as Fletch. They desire peace, and freedom from the old oppressive ways. They desire a new ruler. This-what Remora did-is the perfect storm for me to help see them to a new ruler in Ferar. I do not want Ferar for the human race, it should be ruled by the gobli as it always has been. It belongs to them."

"What will you do though? You can't use your Cursed form to establish this," I think aloud.

"I have armies and allies among the gobli, I also am too powerful for Remora to refuse. It would be an unwise move to go against me, she'll be lucky to get out of Goblia with her life after her attempt on my queen. Everyone else in Axus believes I'm the savior of our world," Alvar explains. "If I were to rally the hidden gobli and to return with accusations, I'd have enough to dethrone Remora. She was foolish in how she set up her people, her men are not as loyal to her as you may think. Many are her sons, many are born deformed because of her. They are used and abused by her. Just as you would have seen in the vision of King Saul exploiting Triss, that is how many of her male gobli feel about her."

I shudder and nod, but I know he can't see me because I'm behind his head. There is a moment in our flight where silence falls between us and I gaze down at the tiny trees and snaking rivers below.

"Lucy," Alvar interupts me from my viewing.

"Yes, Alvar?" I ask.

"I'm sorry about what happened," Alvar apologizes. "And I'm sorry I couldn't realize the ruse sooner."

"It's alright, I'm okay," I assure. Wow. Am I really though? How can I be okay after being blindfolded and tied up? I'm okay because I'm no longer the same Lucy who first arrived here. I'm not the Lucy who did whatever my peers asked of me because I was too embarrassed about my upbringing. I'm not the Lucy whose mother is crazy. I'm Queen Lucy of Underlund, a woman who knows what she wants. I release a hand from the Fe collar and press my palm against Alvar's muscular scaly neck. "Thank you for finding me, you're much more heroic than I thought you'd be."

A sigh escapes him, I can feel it as his chest rises and exhales. "I'll never be a normal human, Lucy. This is what I am. This lies inside me waiting for its next chance to surface. You don't deserve this and my people don't deserve it. It would destroy them to see me like this. Maybe-Maybe the plan needs to change."

"What do you mean?" I blink. I don't like his tone. He's thinking about something dark and resolved.

"After everything is established... after Remora is overthrown making the last region of Axus stable, I may have to-to disappear... forever."

The rest of this book, and the next two books in this series are available on Amazon.