The silence that followed the impact was more deafening than the collision itself. They stared at one another for two agonizing seconds, a lifetime in the heat of a battlefield.
The dragon's eye, a massive, slitted orb of molten gold, was positioned at a height roughly level with Rex's chest, forcing him to tilt his head back. Rex didn't look up with fear or even the frantic adrenaline of a survivor; he looked up with the terrifying, calm patience of a man who had already written the final chapter of this encounter and was simply waiting for the beast to catch up to the conclusion.
"You are going to move now," Rex said.
The command wasn't directed at the trembling Iris or the breathless Aurelia. It was directed at the mountain of scales and fury.
