Free A Wizard's Wings by T. A. Barron

whole world is at stake! If Rhita Gawr’s forces overrun Fincayra, even the giants won’t be safe for long.”
    Shim scowled, twisting his prominent nose. “That’s impossibly,” he grumbled. “Lots of giants won’t even speak to mens and womenses, let alonely fight alongsides them.”
    “Try to win them over,” I insisted.
    “And worsely, some of thems won’t even listens to me. They thinks I is a traitorly spy for the dwarves, or really ones of them, since I lived with dwarves when I is small.”
    I nodded, peering up into his massive eyes. “You’re not small now, my friend.”
    “No,” he replied with an emphatic shake of his head. Lowering his face almost to my own, he spoke in his version of a whisper, which sounded like a thrashing windstorm. “I is big now, as big as the highlyest tree. But Merlin . . . I is still afraid.”
    I bit my lip. “So am I.”
    Shim straightened up. “I will try, my verily hardest.” He added under his breath, “But I thinks somelyhow I won’t succeed.”
    “Remember now, no one thought the Dance of the Giants would succeed either. And today all that remains of Stangmar’s castle is the circle of stones your people call Estonahenj. Let us meet there, on the day before the longest night.”
    “Meets there we will,” promised Shim. “Even if I is all alonely.” He lifted a huge foot and started off, slamming the ground with every step.
    Turning to Hallia, I tried to keep my voice from cracking. “You, I don’t want to leave.”
    “You don’t have to,” she answered, her voice as gentle as the breath of a fawn. “You never have to.”
    “But I do. You, too, have a task—one even more important than staying by my side.”
    She stared at me, unconvinced. “I’m going with you and Rhia.”
    “No.” I took her hand, feeling the slender fingers that had so recently been a hoof bounding next to my own. “You must go to the dragon lands, far in the north. Find Gwynnia, convince her however you can. She’ll only listen to you, Hallia. And we’ll need her to prevail! Fincayra’s last dragon must help us.”
    Shadows darkened her eyes. “She’s not a fighter, young hawk. You know that! Why, she hasn’t even learned how to breathe fire. She’s a peaceful dragon.”
    “And I am a peaceful wizard. Yet even above peace, I cherish life.”
    Hallia stamped her bare foot on the muddy soil. “I won’t leave you.”
    I moved closer, gazing at her. “If Fincayra is lost, then our future together is also lost.”
    She swallowed. “I might not find her at all. What if I get all the way to her lair and discover she’s gone off somewhere? It could take me longer than the two weeks we have left just to locate her.”
    Softly, I said, “Do your best.”
    She frowned, and her hand shook inside my own. “That I will, but I’ll feel no joy until we’re running with each other again.”
    I opened my mouth, but no words came.
    She kissed my cheek. “May green meadows find you, young hawk. Remember always . . . I am with you.”
    I tapped the charred bracelet, tied with a wizard’s knot around her wrist. “Like honey on a leaf,” I said hoarsely.
    Briefly, she embraced Rhia, then spun around to go. In a blur of tan, a magnificent deer sprang from the clearing. I watched her depart, wondering how her journey would end. And how swiftly our lives, our futures, had pulled apart.
    “Rhia,” I said at last. Then the two of us began an uncertain journey of our own.

7: C AER A RANON
    All the rest of that day, Rhia and I ran eastward through the forest. A frigid wind blew in our faces, rattling the trees and stinging our cheeks. The hand clasping my staff felt stiff with cold. Yet for both of us, a colder wind blew upon our thoughts, rasping like the breath of Rhita Gawr himself.
    As usual, my vine-clad sister outdistanced me, hurtling over tumbled trees and racing up hillsides slick with frost. Atop each hill, she would wait for me to catch up, her face