23. I Know What Must Be Done, So I Will Do It

23. I KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE, SO I WILL DO IT

~ ELOWYN ~

I kept my head inclined toward the blue dragon and waited. For what, I wasn’t entirely sure. But that same intuition that had led me to also bow to the dragon in the Wilds directed my actions now. Somehow I understood the blue dragon commanded the others.

However, unlike with the dragon in the Sorumbra, my instincts were at war within me. Though he was several feet behind me, I felt Rush as acutely as if every one of the hard planes of his body pressed against mine.

A part of me wanted to whirl around and stab him straight in the heart as he’d done me—see how he fucking liked that! Another part clenched in apprehension at leaving my back exposed to the man who’d so easily hurt me. Yet another urged me to run to him, to burrow into his embrace, and to kiss him until he found his way inside me. Only then would I feel at ease, like I could breathe properly.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d yearned for him until I laid eyes on him. Given how we’d parted, it was a frightening amount. I needed to see if he was all right after he’d run through dragon’s breath to get to me. His clothing had appeared to burn, though he hadn’t paused to so much as check on himself. Those moonlit eyes of his that had haunted my dreams, both awake and asleep, were wild with desperation, vibrating with his need to reach me.

I still couldn’t believe I was at the palace. Even more so, I couldn’t believe I was so tempted to forgive him.

The greater part of me, however, realized there was nothing more important than connecting with these dragons, getting them to stand down. After all, I couldn’t kiss the fuck out of Rush if we were both burned beyond recognition.

“Elowyn, please.” It was a strangled plea. Again, for what, I didn’t know. Surely he didn’t expect me to back off when there were half a dozen adult dragons in this room.

Ignoring Rush for now, I ran a gentle hand along Saffron’s back, hoping to soothe his trembling. No dragonling should be this frightened of his own kind.

“It’s okay,” I cooed. “It’s gonna be all right.”

Finally, I dared peek up toward the queen’s throne, noticing for the first time that my father’s was demolished. Shocking . The man probably hadn’t even voiced a peep of complaint, fully cowed by the woman who was supposed to be an equal partner in Embermere’s rule.

The blue dragon peered up at me then too, its eyes dark and sparking with intelligence. Its head was covered in a smooth patch of scales, their edges demarcated by a thick coating of dust. But through it I could see: the dragon lacked a crest atop its head.

A female, then, and a fierce one at that.

“What’s she doing?” I heard one of the guys hiss—maybe West. “It’s gonna eat her!”

At that, the blue dragon’s eyes flashed, and she chuffed ... as if she understood. My brows climbed my forehead. Could she have?

In my two-plus decades in Nightguard, dealing mostly with the younglings, I hadn’t once seen evidence they comprehended spoken conversation like people did.

Then again, these dragons appeared to have come up through the very-solid-looking floor. The impossible didn’t seem to limit them.

With my head still pointed carefully down, I peeked around me. The other dragons also dipped their heads in my direction—a freaking marvel , that’s what that was. They’d climbed through gaping holes in the floor as well.

I frowned. Dragons were supposed to be extinct in the mirror world. Where were all these dragons suddenly coming from? And why was I here to witness them instead of in the Sorumbra where I’d been minutes before?

“El,” Rush called to me again.

I scowled and pinned my attention on the blue she-dragon, forcing my body to stand down. If it was indeed a mate bond that strove to drag us together, certainly even a connection of that magnitude would prioritize basic survival.

“Hello,” I said to the dragon, feeling utterly ridiculous. But what exactly did one say to a creature that could bite off your head in a single chomp?

Slowly, I drew up my head to stare directly into those large eyes of hers. “I, uh, admire and respect you. Really, I think you’re absolutely incredible. Um ... could we, ah ... I’d like to work together.”

I shrugged at how lame that had been, but stopped speaking before adding an obvious, Will you please not eat us or burn us alive? I hoped that went without saying, even for a dragon.

She, too, lifted her head, but her stare upon mine was so intense, so ferocious, I couldn’t help but fear I’d made a misstep and we were all moments away from our deaths. If that was the case, I wouldn’t hold grudges. I wanted to die in Rush’s arms.

The she-dragon looked from me to Saffron, before studying everyone else in the room. A quick look over my shoulders provided glimpses of the other dragons scattered around the hall, also raising their heads to watch us.

“Oh, by the holy Ethers,” Azariah mumbled from where he still hid behind one of the few pillars to remain entirely upright. “I can’t take this much longer. Are we going to die or not?”

“Not, I should hope,” Hiroshi answered, drawing a glance from the she-dragon.

I took a few steps forward and, just out of sight, Rush’s breath strangled into a wheeze.

Ignoring him as best I could when my body itched with the need to touch him, I met the dragon’s stare head-on. “I—we—mean you no harm. In fact, we want only to help you.”

I wasn’t convinced I could speak for the guys, mostly since I didn’t actually know any of them all that well—not even my supposed mate—but if they weren’t willing to protect the dragons, then I’d just have to set them on fire myself.

Anyone who wanted to hurt one of these magnificent creatures would have to go through me first.

The dragon only canted her head to one side but otherwise didn’t answer—duh, she was a dragon , after all.

“I don’t know how you came to be here.” I scoffed. “I don’t even know how I came to be here. But I can guess that we both probably have a common enemy. The queen’s no friend of mine.”

The blue dragon hissed.

Azariah squeaked from the other side of the room. “Oh my. Oh my. We’re going to die. I’m not ready. I should have gotten my hair done already if this is how I’m to walk the Etherlands forevermore.”

“I thought you couldn’t die,” Ryder whisper-shouted in his direction. “Aren’t you immortal?”

“Uh, yeah. Yes. Of course I am. But these are dragons . I haven’t seen a live one before. Maybe they can kill me.”

“Not now, Azariah,” I told him gently. I couldn’t imagine his panic was helping anything.

After guiding Saffron around to cling to my back instead of my chest, I took several more steps toward the throne, doing my best to ignore that just over there, to the left, leaning against the wall that had once been lined with glass, and now was dotted with empty windows, I’d gazed into Rush’s mesmerizing eyes when he’d stabbed me.

I shook my head to clear the memory and sucked in a deep inhale. I had to focus. I could do this, whatever the hell this was.

“Can we be allies?” I asked the she-dragon.

She dragged a stare across me and the little dragon at my back yet another time. It felt as if it sliced through my body to examine my insides. Finally, she angled her head in the opposite direction, as if that were some kind of response.

“What am I supposed to do here?” I called out to the guys and Azariah, mindful to keep my mounting alarm from being too obvious.

“How the fuck should we know?” West answered right away, and this time I was sure it was him, with his usual thick sarcasm that flirted with open disdain. “Up until today, we thought all the dragons were long dead.”

At that, the blue dragon whipped her head up to glare at him, her breath coming in loud pants through her wide nostrils.

I heard West gulp all the way back by the double doors.

“We didn’t kill any dragons,” he hurried to clarify. “We never would’ve. We even tried to save the ones down beneath the palace earlier today but couldn’t get them out.”

My hand pressed to Saffron’s arms as they wrapped across my chest, I spun to look at him. “What dragons beneath the palace? What are you talking about? I thought there weren’t any live ones left in Embermere, what with King Erasmus and all that bloodshed.”

Rush, on his feet, apparently unscathed beyond some singed locks of his long silver hair and a few burn holes in his clothing, approached me with his hands up, his surrender directed at the dragon who tracked his every step. He stopped a few feet from me, and I had to actually clamp my fingers into fists to keep from reaching for him.

After flicking to the dragon, his stare settled on mine. His tattoos flared to life, illuminated vines twisting and spreading across the bare skin of his neck, face, and hands. I wanted to trace my fingers along them, to follow their path beneath his tunic and breeches.

“El.”

It was a gentle whisper I experienced like a caress across my heated flesh.

He seemed to say so much in so little. My still injured heart leapt at the unspoken promises that danced across the nickname he’d given me.

Too soon, though, he sighed in a lament I acutely shared, then said, “Earlier today, the queen summoned us all here. I asked for help...” He shook his head. “Never mind. What matters is that we heard some really loud roaring and the entire palace was shaking. Or maybe not the whole place since the throne room seems to have gotten the worst of the damage, but it felt that way. As soon as the queen evacuated, the guys and I headed downstairs to investigate.”

“What we found was awful,” Hiroshi added, cautiously weaving his way between the other dragons to eventually reach us. He also held his hands up to communicate he meant them no harm. “So horribly awful.”

Rush frowned, his beautiful face sagging at whatever truth they were about to reveal. “What we found...” He shook his head, dragging his teeth across his bottom lip. Though it was a gesture of anguish, desire to follow their path with my tongue bloomed inside me.

“Deep beneath the palace,” Rush continued, “beyond even the fae dungeon, in a dark pit that feels like the end of the world…”

“It absolutely does,” Hiroshi interjected.

“…the queen’s been holding dragons captive,” Rush said. “And it gets worse. Not only does she have them chained and caged”—my breath stuttered in my chest as I waited for what could possibly be worse than that—“but she’s been torturing them. Maybe even experimenting on them.”

“It looked likely,” Hiroshi said.

My breathing resumed, but my next inhale was leaden as it filled my lungs, like I might drown under the weight of such cruelty.

“I’m going to murder her.” The promise slipped from my lips without my conscious decision. But I would. Already, I was going to. For this, I’d see her killed a hundred times over. Whatever I had to do to manage it, whatever it took...

She was as good as dead. She and her unjustified arrogance just didn’t know it yet.

“You’ll have to fight me for the chance,” Hiroshi said. “I’m going to make her pay.”

I’d never heard such violence from the drake.

“We all will,” Rush echoed with such vehemence that I recognized it for the oath it was.

With a glance at the blue she-dragon, I told him, “We have to set them free.”

Rush nodded. “Yeah, we do. But it’s not gonna be easy. At least some of them are too injured to fly, and none of us are healers. And flying’s the only way they’re going to get out of there. They won’t fit up the stairs.”

“She had to’ve gotten them in there somehow,” I said. “And I doubt they obeyed her and flew in there under their own will.”

Rush and Hiroshi exchanged a look.

“What?”

Rush sighed and ran a hand along his hair, his fingers coming away blackened and covered in soot and dust. He didn’t even seem to notice. “I think it’s likely she raised them down there.”

I gasped and heard the sound mirrored by Azariah, who muttered an appalled, “By the Etherlands...”

“It looked like she’d been breeding them.”

“Then we have to get them out, and we have to do it right now,” I said, urgency thrumming through my veins.

“We’d love to, trust me,” Rush said, then winced, as if recalling I’d probably never trust him again, casting eyes heavy with regret my way. “But not only do we not know how we’ll be able to get them out, but you can’t forget where we stand. When the queen finds out you’re alive?—”

“She already knows.”

All the color drained from Rush’s face. “What?”

With my chin, I pointed toward the ceiling, where several eyes, ears, and even a mouth bobbed, no doubt relaying everything that went down in the throne room. “She’s watching and listening.”

I tilted a feral, vicious grin up at the nearest eye, the one that used to be Sandor’s with its dark gray iris, void of its former lively, stormy nature. The veins that hung from the eyeball were now blackened and entirely dead. “I’m coming for you, bitch . There’s nowhere you can hide from me. I’m taking you down.”

Rush drew closer, so near I could touch him if I wanted, and did I ever. I caressed Saffron’s arms instead.

Under his breath, and with his hands still pointed harmlessly in the direction of the blue dragon, he whispered, “There’s more. Beyond you just showing up here, and these dragons coming up out of the floor when it shouldn’t be possible, there’s something different about her . I think she was drinking blood. Then, when she ran, she moved faster than is possible. We have to be prepared for her having even more power than before.”

Rage clenched my muscles, and I had to soften my touch of the dragonling. “I’ll admit to you right now that I have no plan, no idea how I’ll succeed, only that I will. The queen will not survive me .”

If she endured, then at least I wouldn’t be around to suffer at her hands, or worse, to witness the torment of so many others.

Azariah gasped yet another time. But Rush didn’t so much as twitch as those eyes of his swirled with a light as bright as any moon, delving into mine. His tattoos grew impossibly brighter, weaving along his cheekbones to inch across the bridge of his nose, then crawl up his forehead. The man literally took my breath away, and to prevent myself from rushing to him, I had to remind myself I was standing in the middle of a bunch of dragons, in the queen’s literal lair.

The same anguish seemed to writhe within his own stare.

“I believe you can do it,” he said. “And I’ll be at your side every step of the way till you succeed. I’ll never let you down again.”

“Then we’d better move,” Ryder said, and I blinked foggily as I realized that he and West had also moved closer. That even Azariah had emerged from his hiding place to become part of the conversation.

“Time isn’t on our side,” Ryder added. “Wherever she went to, she’ll be back before we’re ready.”

“We have to figure out what magic’s at play first,” West said. “Why did Elowyn and Azariah show up here?”

Saffron whipped his head up as if to say, Hey, what about me?

I peered at him from over my shoulder with a fresh perspective. Had the mischievous little dragon understood me all along, even when he’d pretended not to? The rascal...

West was quick to amend, “And Saffron too. Was it the magic of the Fae Heir Trials? Was it her ? And can she do it again? Pull them away without warning?”

Rush growled as if he were more beast than man, his hand landing possessively on my hip.

At that faintest of touches, my skin erupted in heat so all-consuming that I felt my face flush. I dared not step away, experiencing the need for his touch with every thrum of my heart. My skin pulsed beneath his hand as if stretching to be closer to him.

Azariah clip-clopped a bit nearer. “I can confirm it’s the magic of the Fae Heir Trials. I’m assuming Her Majesty attempted to kill Drake Rush?”

Azariah looked at Rush.

“She did,” he said.

“Then that would have activated the magic of the trials, since she’s prevented from harming anyone still protected by the trials.”

“Then what about me?” I asked. “She tried to kill me plenty of times.”

Azariah dipped his head to one side in consideration much as the blue dragon had. His mane slid down his neck, catching the light streaming through the gaping windows. “Yes, that shouldn’t have been able to happen. But then again, I’m starting to realize how very much about you there is to learn, Lady Elowyn. You are not as you seem.”

Rush’s hand pressed harder into me, his fingers kneading my flesh with need. “Will she be able to yank Elowyn away?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then we get the dragons out,” I urged. “Now. Before she shows up.”

“We can’t go down there,” West said. “She can trap us all.”

“Then we don’t all go down there. But first, we get these guys out.”

Satisfied the others responded to her guidance, I fully faced the blue dragon, a mere dozen feet from her now. “Whether or not it makes any sense how you came to be here, you need to get out while you still can.”

“And go where?” Hiroshi asked. “There’s nowhere safe from her for them, not within the mirror world.”

“Within the Wilds,” I said. “Maybe.”

“The Wilds?” Rush asked with a sharp arch of his brows. “How?”

“Not the Wilds,” Azariah interjected. “They can come home with me.”

“Um...” I trailed off.

With high, cautious steps, the unisus stepped over debris while his large eyes continuously roved from dragon to dragon.

I went on, “No offense, Azariah. You’re absolutely magnificent in your own right. But you seem ... scared of them.”

His head jerked in my direction, air whistling through his nostrils. “Of course I’m scared of them! I have a healthy respect for any creature that can nibble on me as a snack and still be hungry for more.”

“Exactly, my man,” West said, obviously as confused as I was to have full conversations with magical creatures who acted like people but still weren’t.

Azariah stopped before drawing too near a rust-colored dragon. “But just because I’m scared doesn’t mean I’m going to let that fear affect my behavior. I know what must be done, so I will do it. The land of the fae requires it of me, and I answer to the magic of Faerie that still lives in the mirror world.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then, thank you. We’ll find you at your home when we can get free of here.”

“You won’t find my home unless I want you to. Not even Her Majesty will.”

“Excellent.”

Prepared to convince the she-dragon to follow Azariah out of the palace, I turned back to her.

She lunged forward so quickly I only managed to emit a rush of stunned breath?—

For Rush to begin to angle his body in front of mine?—

When the dragon lowered her head ... and pressed her forehead to mine.

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