Free Phoenix by Finley Aaron

scattering the steaming coals with my taloned toes, stomping out every hint of red glow, making sure the embers are dead. We’re not going to play into the old cliché about dragons burning things down. Not today.
    Ram bundles the last of our things in the bearskin, wraps it into a tight burrito, and grabs the improvised parcel with his talons as he rises into the air, tugging Nia along beside him.
    Nia beats her wings this time.
    As I rise to meet them, I watch Ram give Nia a warning look that says he’ll let go of her arm so long as she doesn’t try to escape. I can’t see the look Nia gives him in return, be he releases his hold on her wrist and we fly, with Nia unfettered between us, to the south.
    We’ve got to stay ahead of the yagi, but I’m flying on the fumes of adrenaline now.
    I was tired before.
    I got very little sleep, and now I’ve had panic and exertion and I’m getting hungry. Also cranky, since Ram’s being a selfish jerk and Nia didn’t even care enough for me to give me a longing look before she flew off to sacrifice herself to the yagi, and she only made me think she was listening to me so she could get my guard down enough to make her escape.
    She may be beautiful, but she’s really not all that nice, not unless she wants to be. And she obviously doesn’t care about being nice to me.
    We’re soaring through the sky at top speed, since for all our watchfulness yesterday we saw almost no sign of human life, and now there are yagi close on our heels, and the fear of what they’ll do if they catch up to us outweighs our worries about being seen, especially since that risk is minimal in Siberia.
    But truly, we don’t dare fly too far, because the coast is somewhere up ahead and there are bound to be some people there. Not many, but some.
    And besides that, there’s the simple fact that I. Am. Exhausted.
    I could probably sleep for three days straight at this point, if it wasn’t nearly guaranteed the yagi would kill us in our sleep within the first few hours of our slumber. They emit a bone-chilling wailing noise that can literally paralyze a person (or dragon) who stops moving long enough for their bones to lock up.
    Which means, if they sneak up on us while we’re asleep, we could awaken, already paralyzed, with no way to defend ourselves as they close in and finish us off.
    That’s not the way I want to die.
    Although if I don’t sleep soon, I might fall right out of the sky, crash into a tree in my sleep, and be gone before the yagi catch up to me. Also not a great way to die, but preferable to yagi paralysis.
    Ultimately, though, I’d prefer to live.
    So I’m glad when Ram steers us toward a plateau near the top of a mountain. We land on a fairly-flat ridge, about thirty feet long by twenty feet wide, tapering to nothing at the sides, with a superb view of the western valley and more mountain at our backs.
    We’re not completely safe from the yagi here. They’ll eventually catch up to us, but we’ll at least be able to see them coming long before they arrive.
    Ram returns to human form and tells me to go catch us some supper. I bound away in search of food, goaded by my growling stomach, before I realize what he did.
    First of all, he ordered me around like I’m his inferior—and right in front of Nia, too. But worse than that, he finagled it so that he’s alone with Nia for however long it takes me to hunt up a meal.
    On top of everything else, the bear he caught last night was impressive and delicious, and Nia was so grateful for the bear skin, so I feel like I need to come back with an even bigger bear, or maybe two big bears, just to top him.
    But when I see a herd of elk I remember I’m hungry. And anyway, isn’t there an old saying about losing a battle to win a war? Not that we’re at war. Not at all.
    It’s just that, in this battle, I think the best possible current strategy is for me to eat elk right now.
    I grab two of the biggest elk I can catch and bring them