Chapter 56
56
T risten stopped a few paces in front of us, the arena holding its breath as Tristen appraised us.
I lowered my sword, taking a step toward him.
“I know everything,” I said, and I couldn’t chase the quiver of my voice. “I?—”
“Not here,” Tristen said, his stony expression unreadable. His eyes flickered to Callum. “We need to fight our way out.”
Callum stepped in front of me, pointing his blade at Tristen. “She’s not going with you.”
Tristen turned to me. “Will you?”
I stepped out from behind Callum, pushing his sword away from me. “I am.”
Callum watched me, his eyes helpless. I felt a twinge of guilt—but it disappeared as he refocused on Tristen. “Then you will die, Assassin.”
Callum lunged at Tristen, and I screamed.
But Tristen had regenerated his magic, and his shadows lashed out, batting away Callum’s sword as the two men circled. The arena was swelling with noise once more, the spectators finally getting the fight they had been promised.
“This is your problem, Callum. You’re fighting a losing battle. There is no prize for you at the end of this,” Tristen said.
Callum spun, landing a hard blow on one of Tristen’s shadows, another one spearing out to parry his next slice as he went to cut Tristen down again and again with a flash of steel. “She is not your prize.”
“You’re right. She is no prize. She is the tempest at the eye of the most vicious storm. She is the precious last breath a soldier takes before he dies. She is the giver and taker of life. And she is mine .”
His words struck something deep and primal within me. My body reverberated as if his words had pulled the cord of a forgotten bell that was finally rung.
Tristen sent a wall of shadows at Callum, throwing him back. Callum tumbled, throwing his shield up.
The King was yelling something, and then I saw the guards flooding the arena.
Tristen turned to see them, and locked eyes with me.
“You need to call your dragon. And I’m not talking about Pepper.”
“I can’t.”
Tristen stalked to me, taking my face in his hands. “You can, and you will.”
He crouched down, placing my hands on the dusty ground of the coliseum. “Don’t let your fear distract you.”
Callum was barreling toward Tristen again, and Tristen rose to his feet, his shadows lashing out and shadowfire growing at his hands as Callum assaulted him with impressive blows—blows he still fought back with ease.
But the guards had hit the floor of the coliseum now, running toward us. No doubt here to kill Callum and Tristen so I could be declared the winner and fulfill the duty that the King and Cassandra had set out for me.
I reached into the ground, picturing the sleeping creature in that graveyard at Dragon’s Tail. I called for it, begging the island to be my conduit. Begging that the slivers of supernatural energy that slumbered at our feet would hear my call. I pulled any drop of magic I could from the soil below me, calling out for that thing I knew could give us our shot. Could allow us to walk away from all of this.
A rumbling answered my call, and the earth began to shake beneath my hands, the ground underneath our feet cracking and splintering.
“ Come to me !” I cried out.
The rumbling froze. Nothing happened. I looked up, seeing Callum and Tristen still fighting. The guards were running now, so close as they unsheathed their swords, ready for slaughter.
I had failed. My heart pounded in my chest, and I tried to hide my disappointment. If I couldn’t use my power, I would use a blade to cut down those who would see us dead.
I got to my feet, picking up the sword as I did, ready to fight to the death for them.
For Tristen.
For us .
The soldiers had reached us when I heard it.
That scraping sound of bone wings flapping in the air. And the humbling roar of a dragon’s cry.
I felt the heat and smelled the stink of singed flesh as the dragon fire dipped down low enough to light up some of the guards behind us.
Every head in the coliseum swiveled up as the bone dragon arrived, answering my call. I laughed, relief washing over me as the dragon opened its bony maw, fire blazing in the sky as the screams began.
Callum realized what was happening, and he swiveled to fight off some of the distracted guards, culling their ranks—and giving Tristen and I a chance to escape.
“Now,” Tristen said, grabbing my arm, and we ran. Chaos emerged as we sprinted to the gate I had entered on the southernmost end of the coliseum.
“Faster!” Tristen called, and I sprinted to keep up with him as we reached the gate. Tristen didn’t hesitate, sending a massive blast of shadows and shadowfire from his hands. It ripped through the stone, leaving a gaping hole where the gates had stood. On the other side, guards were fleeing into the woods.
Tristen grabbed my hand and we ran through the hole in the coliseum’s walls, and sprinted across the dirt road that encircled the building. Behind us, I saw Callum fighting off guards as he followed. He was overwhelmed, blasting his shield again and again to keep the massive number of guards at bay.
“They’re going to kill him—” I started.
“Don’t worry, Callum’s strong enough to hold them back and make it out,” Tristen said, and as if on cue, Callum let out an even more massive blast of his shield that tossed the guards around him away like they were toy soldiers.
He turned, starting to run to us, and we continued to make our escape once more. As we put more distance between us and the Stone Coliseum, I tossed another glance back, and saw as another line of guards stopped Callum, and he began fighting them off just as Tristen and I disappeared into the heart of the forest.
The screams continued to echo behind us as we slid through paths in the forest, dodging trees as we ran. I felt my lungs burning with the exertion, but I forced myself on, trailing just slightly behind Tristen.
We finally broke through the treeline, stumbling on a beach just south of the Saltspire Palace.
Several men were readying two small rowboats as we arrived.
One of them with a mop of ivory hair and a big grin who I recognized as Aldric turned to us. “Heard the screaming. Thought it was time go.”
“Good timing,” Tristen muttered.
I stumbled on the beach beside Tristen, and Aldric grinned. “Glad you made it out alive, Your Highness.”
I looked behind me—had Melisandre somehow showed up?—but there was no one there. I turned back to Aldric, and he tracked my confusion. He cast a sideways glance at Tristen, an eyebrow raised. “She doesn’t know…?”
“You know I still can’t say anything about fuck all,” Tristen growled, stalking to the rowboat and turning to me after taking a few steps into the surf. “Get in, we have to go before the island starts to ignore the fact that I stole this from Callum.” Tristen held out the Illumia Crystal that Callum had used to help us break free of the island’s clutches before.
“You have a way out of here?” I asked.
“Yes, we have a ship glamored off the coast, ready to take us back to Stormgard,” Tristen said, motioning again for me to get into the rowboat that Aldric had just jumped into, bobbing on the current.
“Okay,” I said, shelving my questions for later as I started wading into the ocean.
“Going on a little trip?” The female voice had us all frozen and turning to where Cassandra and her hooded priestesses approached from the treeline.
Tristen took a few steps toward me. The men from the second rowboat disembarked immediately, one of them charging at her with a gleaming sword.
He swung for her, and she stepped out of his way. She placed a hand on his bare arm where his armor didn’t cover him. From where she touched, his skin began aging rapidly. He let out a pained cry, crumpling to the ground as her power took hold of him, spreading quickly to the rest of his body, undulating as her magic aged him so fast he was crumbling to dust before her in a blink.
She dusted her hands off on her skirts, turning to the rest of Tristen’s men. “Would you like to be next?”
They shrank away, but Tristen stepped forward. “Leave us, Cassandra.”
She clucked her tongue, swaying her hips as she approached him. “You stupid, stupid boy. You could have had your rebellion and your kingdom. Yet you risked it all just because you couldn’t let your princess go.”
Tristen stared her down. “She’s not my princess. She’s to be my Queen .” Tristen began to cough, and spat out blood on the sand next to him.
Cassandra watched him wipe the blood from his mouth, and flickered to my expression. “I see my silencing spell is breaking down. Tell me, Saffron, do you remember what you traded for his life?”
I looked at Tristen, and he glanced at me, his gaze heavy.
“Show me,” I begged, needing to know what she was talking about.
“Go ahead,” Cassandra motioned. “I’ll even lift the spell so he can show you the truth. All of it.” She unclipped a small dagger and made a small cut on her wrist, murmuring a language I didn’t understand as her blood hit the sand before us. A small blast of power hit Tristen, something invisible, but I could still taste the metallic aftertaste of magic as he rocked back slightly on his heels.
Tristen kept his eyes on Cassandra until the last moment, flickering them to me. He slipped his hand in mine. “My memory. Of the last time I saw you.”
My hand grew warm, and suddenly I was
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