Infinity by Andria Buchanan Read Free Book Online

their snow-white coverings, their shields with my aunt’s silver crest—a broken crown—worked into the center. If it weren’t for the sunlight reflecting off the metal, they would have blended in perfectly with their surroundings. Completely disguised as they scurried over the mountains like cockroaches, trying to get away from the fire they’d set. To get away before someone realized that they’d murdered an entire race.
    “Look at them.” I balled up one of my fists and hit Winston in the back of his shoulder. “Just look at them.”
    Winston snorted as he dipped into a sharp dive. We swooped over them, and Winston let out a long, steady stream of fire, scoring a long line of flame into the earth in front of them, blocking off their retreat. Then he climbed again and dropped into another dive-bomb, blowing more fire into the path behind them. He went high again, and this time circled twice before lining himself up parallel to the column full of screaming men and made for them, his mouth closed this time as he dived low enough that he could touch the tops of their heads with his claws but not cause damage.
    “Enough.” I beat on his shoulder as I searched the group of soldiers, looking for a green young woman among them. The flames had forced all of the soldiers to clump together as the snow crackled and hissed around them. If she was with the soldiers, we’d have seen her when they huddled together.
    She wasn’t there, though. There was no dark brown hair, no green skin. No sign that my best friend had ever been with them, which meant she hadn’t been taken prisoner. “Winston, enough.”
    He roared angrily as he jerked himself back up, still beating his wings in a furious display.
    “She’s not here. Mercedes isn’t here,” I yelled. Which meant, while we were harassing my aunt’s troops, our friend was still out there, possibly still fighting her way out of that fire.
    “They didn’t take her prisoner. Forget about my aunt’s soldiers for now—we have to find Mercedes. Let’s go back to the forest and search toward Neris. If she wasn’t captured, she’d have tried to get herself back to the forest road. That’s the fastest way for her to get help. Settlements, people who would take her in.”
    Winston snorted and then turned left, back toward Neris, gliding as close as he could to the trees without the two of us getting burned. Once we reached the now-burning clearing where Darinda and the rest of the dryads had been, he looped north for the city.
    I craned forward, looking over his shoulder as he dropped closer to the road, staying just above the flames. I scanned the surrounding forest, searching for my best friend. I couldn’t imagine that she would risk the forest fire when the road was mostly clear, but maybe she was trying to hide from any soldiers that might still be in the forest.
    But, for whatever reason, Mercedes wasn’t on the road. Or in the flaming forest. There was nothing there—no dryad, no spot where she could have gone to ground, no funny bit of residual magic floating in the breeze that told us if she’d managed to find a portal tree or whether or not she’d had the chance to use it before the fire had reached her. All I could see was smoldering trees, smoke, and an empty road.
    My heart started to pound, and my palms were covered in sweat. My best friend was inside a forest fire, and there was nothing I could do to save her. Queen of a stupid country and all I could do was fly around on a dragon’s back, trying to play the dryad version of Where’s Waldo. The problem was my Waldo was refusing to be found. It was like she wasn’t really…
    “Where is she?” I asked as I looked around. “Where did she go?”
    Please let her be all right , I thought to myself . Please. Please don’t let her still be inside those flames, trying to save a bunch of trees all on her own.
    When I get back to my palace…
    I tightened my grip on Winston’s scales in rage. When I got