Storm of Ash. Michelle Kenney

spine-tingling, a tale worthy of Grandpa’s book of mythology, beyond probable – and yet wholly believable too. I could sense her truth, as she could sense the difference in me. And that was my best hope, her instinct for our blood connection – and what it truly meant.

      ‘Lake?’ I called, watching tendrils of steam slowly float away in the early spring sunshine.

      I pressed my teeth together. My voice sounded surprisingly steady for a forest girl approaching a legendary chimera, who was probably hungry too. Momentarily inspired, I felt in my leather rations bag for whatever food I had remaining – some smoked cheese and a hunk of rye bread. It would have to do.

      I threw the meagre offering into the mouth of the cave, and backed off warily. There was a thick silence before a heavy dragging, then a savage burst of steam followed by silence again.

      I hesitated, as the shadows inside the mouth of the cave appeared to dance and cavort. Somehow I knew she was looking straight at me, while making short shrift of my meagre offering. Her double-lidded liquid amber eyes were narrowing, contracting and assessing – was I predator or prey? Or something else entirely.

      ‘Lake … it’s me, Talia,’ I offered steadily.

      My legs felt oddly weak, and there was a strange creeping cramp spreading out from the pit of my stomach. I forced myself to scramble up onto a large flat boulder anyway. I had to face her now, before I lost my nerve completely.

      It felt better being higher, although I knew Eli would say I was breaking cardinal rule number one: always present yourself lower than the animal you’re trying to pacify. Somehow though I knew it wasn’t the right way for me and Lake.

      ‘You have to remember me? Max and I? We came to find you from Arafel …? You were hiding with Atticus and the Prolet children beneath the Dead City? Remember? We were with you – in New Arfel – when you were taken – by … Cassius’s aquila?’

      Then there was another violent projection of steam, the colour of Bereg’s mulberry wine, and then a raking noise – the sound of heavy claws digging into a hard rock floor. Every cell of my body tightened. She recognized Cassius’s name. There was hope.

      ‘We followed you to Pantheon, to try and rescue you! Max and I were forced into Ludi Pantheonares to face the Minotaurus. And we only escaped with Unus – the Cyclops’ help … I was injured but we managed to escape through the tunnels beneath Pantheon only to be hijacked by Cassius and his guards at the cathedral. There was a fight, Lake. We lost … so many.’

      ‘… Tal!’

      Unus’s voice broke my concentration, and somehow the warning note in his tone told me exactly what to do. I dropped and flattened out on top of the boulder, just as a burst of searing red heat passed over my back with scarcely a gnat’s length to spare.

      Instinctively, I rolled away and slid down into a crevice as a second burst of her fury enveloped the entire side of the boulder. From my sheltered position, I could see only Unus and Eli’s incredulous expressions, but they were enough. I took hold of the stone edge, and pulled myself up until finally I had a clear view of the spiny-tailed mythological legend dwarfing the dark hole behind her. It was Lake.

       And she made the mountain look feeble.

      Clearly draco-chimera adolescence involved huge growth. Although her five metres had already seemed big at the research centre, now she had to reach at least twenty metres into the sky, and I couldn’t even see the tip of her tail, which disappeared into the darkness behind. She was still ash-grey with spiny titian scales, but they’d tapered into menacing arrow-points that stretched all the way down the back of her thick, muscular back and hind quarters.

      I swallowed the rock in my throat, mesmerized by her new adolescent appearance.

      New veins of regal purple traced a visible path from her neck, all the way down her torso and into the tops of her powerful forelegs. But it was her double-lidded honey eyes that stole all my attention. They were older, hungrier – angrier. But they were still eyes that didn’t belong on such a vast, serpentine creature. They were hers. Lake’s eyes. And they were eyeballing me intently.

      ‘We came to look for you, Lake!’ I entreated, as she opened her huge scaly jaws and spilled her rage into the chilled mountain air.

      ‘With Pan! We came with Pan!’ I added hoarsely, my eyes streaming.

      An eerie, smoky silence suddenly filled the air. Lake paused, lowering her great spiny head so it was level with the top of my boulder. And it could have been her proximity, or the late sun glinting off the shale, but I fancied there was a reddening to the underside of her amber eyes, almost as though she associated the name with pain.

      ‘He traded his life to save us … so we could come and find you,’ I whispered.

      Her purple scaly nostrils vibrated with barely contained aggression, and this time I could tell she was listening, that somewhere in her hybrid, mixed-up mind, she remembered.

      ‘Pan knew about our blood, he knew we shared a connection,’ I begged, my throat feeling like razor blades. ‘Lake?’

      I extended my hand, but a familiar rumble filled the air before I could finish, and as Lake swung her thick leathery head back to identify the source of the noise, my heart sank.

      Unus and Eli had caught up, and were clearly intent on distracting Lake from incinerating me. I scowled furiously, shaking my head, but it was already too late.

      Lake wasted no time in swinging her huge reptilian body around, her heavy thrashing tail sweeping across the top of the boulder and nearly taking my head off in the process. And as I bolted out from behind her, I was conscious of her titian spines flushing with deep scarlet blood, staining their dark jagged points cruel and hard.

      ‘Move!’ I bellowed, sprinting across the top of the rocks.

      She settled her gaze on Unus, her eyes narrowing to slits, and opened her brutal jaws to reveal violent canines, designed with one purpose in mind. In that split second I understood. She was the mother of all mythical creatures and here was one of her kind, actually daring to challenge her. And while Unus possessed the strength of ten hunters, he was still paltry defence against an adolescent Hominum chimera.

      ‘Get down … Unus, get down!’ I yelled, flying towards them as Lake closed in from the opposite side, the ground shaking with her every colossal step.

      Eli was trying, heroically, to force Unus to his knees, but I could see he was struggling.

      I scowled as a snippet of Aelia’s medical knowledge floated out of the whirlwind in my head.

       Cyclopean arteries and limbs are especially thick; they have low blood pressure and are pretty inflexible …’

      ‘He can’t … Lake, he can’t kneel!’ I yelled, just as she reached forward with one of her powerful, regal claws and knocked Unus flat onto his back.

      He landed with an almighty crash, his face swiftly staining purple as breath deserted his ill-designed body. He looked up in utter bewilderment as I ran out in front of his plate-feet, and spun to face Lake’s wide-open jaws.

      ‘No!’ I yelled furiously, throwing my arms wide as she teetered, before swinging her colossal weight back.

      And in that moment I don’t know who was more amazed. Lake, because I’d dared to defy her – or me, because she actually listened and reacted.

      Eli stepped in beside me, calm glued to his face, as Unus recovered enough to start slowly dragging himself backwards. But Lake’s surprise was short-lived. And as reality returned, her giant head sank once again towards the ground, jowls drawn back in ugly contemplation, haunches high and arched. The frenzied look was back in her double-lidded eyes, and even though Eli had begun to sign, they were locked on me alone.

      ‘We aren’t here to hurt you, Lake,’ I forced out, so conscious of our vulnerability, and yet determined to reach the little girl inside, wherever she was. ‘We’ve