I'm going to miss the Games.

The dark dragon was in hot pursuit of Vinet. Black arcs of lightning threatened to strike her skiff out of the sky, the fireworks fuses still wouldn't light, and that was the one thought blaring through her head. Not that she should've stayed in bed and gotten a good night's sleep. Not that she should've just ignored the Wasteland's distress signal and headed back home. And not that this was a really stupid way to die.

Nope. Looking death right in the face, Vinet Aramis Dorojume, Flight Squad Leader, First Class, was thinking one thing, and one thing only.

I'm going to miss the damn Games.

Vinet spared a look down at the Wasteland sentry lying unconscious at the other end of the boat. He had snow-white hair like hers and pale indigo skin made even paler from the monochrome of the Wind Paths. His expression was the kind of blissful you'd only see on infants or the dead.

Vinet wondered what his name was.

She wondered what he'd say if he knew he was about to get Vinet killed.

Vinet shook her head, muttering over the deafening howls of the Path's currents and the dragon's roars as the ship around her began to tear itself into a million pieces.

He'd better be worth it, Vinet.

Another arc of lightning ripped the ship's hull, just a few meters shy of Vinet's head. There were too many sounds at once and her eardrums were certainly ruptured by now anyway, so she couldn't hear the heavy stone vaporizing. But her gut flipped, and her mouth began to taste like bile. The sentry was still sleeping, but his lips seemed to move, so slightly Vinet barely saw it, but then a sudden turbulence threw Vinet into the side of the boat hard enough to knock the wind out of her. The unmistakable blue glow of the dragon's singular eye trailed dangerously closer, and Vinet knew she had to act fast.

Without her protective eye gear, the gale-force winds made Vinet's eyes water uncontrollably. She squinted through the blur, held the sentry close, and kicked against the ship's railing. They were both weightless, but between the strong winds and tears nearly blinding her, it was almost impossible to control their trajectory. They crashed into an alcove of a watchtower, full of corpses freshly dead.

Vinet wondered how many of them the sentry knew.

As soon as Vinet was sure they wouldn't be swept away, she scrambled through the pouch securely latched onto her right side until she pulled out the item she was searching for: a tiny vial of hellfire.

With shaking hands, she loaded the vial into the only crossbow in the tower that wasn't damaged and took aim to the skiff careening aimlessly through the winds. The dragon's blue glare turned red as it finally caught sight of the abandoned ship. Its long body rose like a serpent preparing to strike, and without a second thought, Vinet squeezed the trigger.