The scrape of scales on stone was nearly beside her now, and her mind constructed an image of the beast creeping past the cart at her back. She moved slowly, silently, easing out of concealment—she imagined the head was there, just before her, weaving back and forth as it sought her in the pitch blackness.

A faint glow blossomed to her right, and a wave of dread slid down Gwen’s spine to rest like lead in her belly. She turned and saw twin orbs of sullen red emerge from the darkness, a low, rumbling growl cutting through the quiet. The glow brightened and became two trickles of molten flame that spilled forth, dripping from the beast’s flared nostrils inches from where she stood before the tip of its snout. The flames slid onto the floor of the cave, creating puddles of fire that illuminated the dragon’s head as it turned, the light pooling in its one good eye as it fixed on Gwen.

Gwen knew that this was her last chance, that the dragon’s fire had given her exactly what she needed, enough light to find her target. She raised her sword, shifted her weight, and struck—

Except she didn’t. She hadn’t moved. She was still standing there, motionless, helpless, so close to the dragon she could have put a hand on its scaled lip if she could move. Its arms were curled on either side of her, the wings folded so she was very nearly encased by the creature. She could not so much as tear her gaze from the seething gold of its one furious eye, now fully awake. It held her, even as the pupil scanned side to side, trying to see past the slit in her visor.

Unbidden, old Bertin’s story swept through her mind, his tales of being frozen by the dragon’s gaze. She remembered the traditional target of practicing knights everywhere: a suspended ring called a dragonseye. The fact that the knights of old, centuries ago, who had died fighting this creature, had taken out the monster’s right eye before succumbing.

She should have known not to look into its eye.

Despair swept through Gwen, but she found she could not so much as tremble, her paralysis was so complete. Her own eyes began to water from lack of blinking, and even her ribs refused to shift, her lungs becoming as still as stone.

The dragon’s eye narrowed a touch, and from its throat came a hideous, growling rumble. The frequency was so low and the sound so raspy that it rippled, a shuddering sound that hit Gwen’s ears like some terrible, mocking chuckle of laughter.

She knew, in that moment, that she was going to die.

But through the despair, rising like a breath of soft, cool air in the parched heat of the tunnels, came a single thought: Isobelle.