Chapter 19
I manage to get my hands beneath Kaan’s head before it strikes the ground.
Time stretches as Pyrok shakes him, hollering at a pale-faced Roan, who looks like he’s void of blood. As I take in Kaan’s hauntingly lax face …
That icy rage inside me shifts with such force I jolt.
“We have to go,” I hear myself say, though barely feel my mouth move. Barely feel anything other than ice threading through my veins, slicing me down to the sturdy bones of something much bigger than me.
Something brutal and … bloodthirsty.
“PICK HIM UP AND RUN,” I roar at the others. “NOW!”
Pyrok belts orders at Roan before Kaan is lifted, his big arms bound around their necks. His head flops forward in a way that makes me want to shred the sky.
They clamber for the hole in the wall, too slow; Roan’s steps staggered and strained, Kaan’s feet dragging across the ground—
The hairs on the back of my neck lift.
I turn to see a group of white-caped soldiers charging across the courtyard toward us, the front four peeling apart to reveal a Runi; his eyes milky, skin pale and eerily smooth, some sort of diadem latched to his brow.
He flicks back his hood, revealing sleek white hair and a trio of beads dangling from his ear.
A Tri-Councilor.
I shudder from the inside out. Like something within me just released a sawing snarl.
His lips move. Wind churns, gathering snow off the ground. The toiling vortex whirls toward me—
“Glei ooh ah lah nei voilash shunth!” I hiss, and Clode blasts in their direction, obliterating the churn.
My gusty slap assaults them. Tosses them backward like white sheets ripping off a line, caught in a hurl of wind.
But not the Tri-Councilor, standing strong against the might. His robe flails in the violent gale, spittle bursting past his teeth as he sings with blustering force, trying to wrestle Clode into ripping control from my lips.
I feel the tug, I’ll give him that—the words a swallowed rope being lurched free with a fisted pull. Something I’ve never experienced before. I’ve always been the one pulling, and often with a bit too much oomph.
Nothing quite like watching someone’s lung herniate past their lips to make you realize Clode absolutely has favorites, like hand-delivering me a gory bouquet. Lovely when you’re on the receiving end. But now—
The fact that I’m feeling the tug suggests I might’ve met a formidable opponent. Could be a fun training exercise, were the timing not literally the worst.
I put more effort in, asking Clode to prove exactly how strong we are. With a pretty please tacked on the end.
The timbre of her song lilts, like she’s smiling. Ever thankful for my manners; a secret weapon tucked in my back pocket.
She shoves again.
His feet slide back across the stone, pale eyes widening. Innately, I know that he’s seeing me. Seeing that I’m not one of them, but female.
That I wear no diadem.
“Clode. Lui lah moá liriní shooth,” I ask, akin to turning a blade poised at my chest, ripping the weapon free, molding it into a fist that punches past the Tri-Councilor’s teeth and plugs his mouth, making it impossible for him to sing anymore. “Lui lah veirie te ah. Healah!”
His face turns purple as his eyes threaten to pop from his head, the tips of my fingers itching with my rabid desire to call for more. Push further.
End him—
The heavy thump of dragon wings snaps me from my trance, militant commands and shouts brought straight to my ears.
A gusty gift. Clode’s foreboding alarm that I’m running out of time.
That I need to go.
I snarl, begging her to keep plugging the Tri-Councilor’s mouth before I turn and run, leaping over gleaming puddles of ore, through the gaping hole in the wall. Passing into a tight alleyway beyond, I note the others not far ahead, glancing back to make sure nobody’s following.
A scatter of converging Moltenmaws dot the pallid sky with color and flaming wrath, no longer appearing to defend the Citadel’s walls. But looking for something.
Probably us.
I break into a sprint, easily catching Pyrok, Roan, and Kaan as dragons tear through the clouds, pounding the air into wild winds that slap us from all angles, snatching more of my hair from its bind.
Three times, we’re forced to duck out of sight to avoid being spotted, finally dipping down a less conspicuous alleyway—the city surprisingly desolate, aside from the flocked hunt taking place overhead.
Not even a fluttering parchment lark to dodge on our awkward clamber through the labyrinth of stone.
We’re in sight of the distillery’s chimneys when Roan’s feet falter, almost leading him to drop Kaan. I jolt forward, about to take his half of the load, but the bluster of beating wings has me stilling.
Turning.
The same red Moltenmaw we saw earlier soars above the alleyway, so close it could stuff its head down between the walls and etch a deeper ditch with its honed beak. Except its beak is open, chest blown, orange flames churning in the back of its cavernous throat.
My heart stops, panic rising like an avalanche—my next breath a cold blast that frosts my teeth.
The rider perched between its spread wings bellows at the beast to cast us in flames. To kill. As if this dae hasn’t already chewed us to the bone.
“Get down!” I scream, spinning to face the dragon head-on.
Pyrok belts out something I don’t hear over my lilting beg for Clode to harden the air. To be bold and strong.
To blow me away with her fucking brilliance.
Above all, I challenge her to keep
Kaan
alive.
She releases a giddy shriek, whipping around like she’s shaping the bars of a cage I beg her to fortify with all her might, flipping up my hood as I remind her of her beauty. Her fierceness. Her strength.
Flame bludgeons past the Moltenmaw’s piercing sabers, erupting toward us—
For a moment, I’m not here … but imprisoned beneath a mountain, heart in my throat, muscles tight. Preparing to be painted in flames by a male whose fingers are itched raw.
My hands thrust forward on instinct. Something I always wanted to do but never could—chained to a table while fire forged me into a monster. Something that claps me back to reality.
The dragonflame hits.
I’m quietly aware of the runes all over my hands and forearms illuminating; a patchwork of radiant scars. A visceral ode to the many burns my flesh has swallowed over the phases. But only the cocoon of flames bear witness to my shame.
She’s doing it.
She’s holding back the dragonfire …
I stand strong against the eviscerating flood ricocheting off Clode’s sturdy barrier, singing impenetrable notes despite my frozen shock. Heat batters my face, sweat dripping from my skin, the taste of blood tainting every word that gusts off my tongue.
Clode releases a pained cry that slits into my soul—
The flames ease in unison with the dragon’s gusty overtake. Clode’s cage gives way, crushing me with a swell of smoke.
I choke breath, eyes burning. Turn to see Roan and Pyrok still crouched over Kaan’s limp body, coughing, looking at me with expressions akin to horror. Something that was bound to happen sooner or later.
“How did—” Roan swallows, straightening his spectacles. “How did you do that?”
“Told Clode how spectacular she is,” I rasp, then wobble, batting the air. “Never underestimate”—cough-cough—“the power of a good compliment.”
The distant thunder of boots thumping stone is the only warning I get before something pings in the distance. There’s a painful pinch in my right thigh, silencing Clode’s pissed-off, pained melody.
Iron pin.
You asshole.
Snarling, I turn to see a contingent of Bothaimian guards charging through the alleyway toward us, sprinting past peels of mist and smoke.
Weapons drawn.
Teeth bared.
Necks tensed with the promise of songs I won’t be able to combat. Fuck it.
“Get him out!” I roar to the others behind me, stalking forward as I rip twin daggers from my sheaths. Toss them so fast my motions blur.
One impales a guard’s eye. The second thunks through another’s trachea.
They drop like stones.
I pull more daggers free, a savage scream ripping up my throat—
More pings pluck the air.
Something hard and heavy strikes me from the side, catching the pins. At the same time, the alleyway walls ahead of me shift, clapping together with such force blood glugs from the thin cleft now wedged down the middle, oozing the gory remnants of everyone who just got crushed.
I’m shoved to the still-rolling ground, back first. Kaan’s hot weight lands upon me, emptying my lungs.
His elbows pin the ground on either side of my head as he looks at me through bloodred eyes of Sabersythe flame—pupils slit. The surrounding skin cracks open, molten luminescence shining through, as though whatever’s brimming within has nowhere near enough space to fill.
His upper lip pulls back, canines bared, savage fury radiating. The smoke above us gathers and splays like dragon wings, making me immediately aware that I’m not just looking at Kaan.
I’m looking at Rygun, too. Nailed beneath his monstrous might.
Perhaps I should be intimidated. Scared, even. I’m too distracted by the smell of Kaan’s blood. By the fact that he took the pins intended for me.
An ancient rage unfurls beneath my ribs.
He obviously doesn’t realize how important he is. Not only to his kingdom, but to this bloodlusting assassin with no crown and no folk to serve. And he just knocked me out of the way and took the fucking pins.
FOR ME.
There’s an internal shift. A smashing sound I’m certain the entire world can hear before my body goes ice cold.
My exhale mists.
I feel … her. Just beneath. Watching through me as my lips peel back, a snarl sawing past my clenched teeth.
Though his eyes widen a little, he growls, his timbre so guttural I feel it in my bones. Feel it running through my muscles and across my pebbling flesh.
I’m about to attempt to flip him—unable to fight the primal urge to put my mouth against his neck, press my teeth against his skin until his body softens beneath me—when the sound of beating wings has us both looking skyward.
A smear of feathered red circles like a predator chasing the smell of blood.
Glimpsing us, the mercenary bellows a single word:
“ATTACK!”
I groan.
Kaan releases a muttered curse that’s far too tame, given we’re both iron-pinned, cornered, and about to be fried to a crisp.
The Moltenmaw dives, beak splitting to reveal a bloom of dragonflame toiling in the back of its throat.
“Shouldn’t we—”
A dense roar shakes the ground, wind whisking, thumping hard and heavy. Like something big is moving through it. The only warning I get before Rygun bludgeons across the sky—maw wide, teeth bared. Close enough it feels as though a mountain was just tossed through the air not thirty feet above us.
He clamps down on the assaulting Moltenmaw’s neck with such primal ferocity my guts turn.
A pained screech and they’re gone, wrestling into the fast-approaching mist and from our line of sight, my pulse pounding in unison with the turbulent thump of their wings.
Kaan swears beneath his breath. Rips me up with far too much strength for someone who just got sapped into slumber, then pierced with iron pins still lodged in his body.
“New plan,” he growls, gaze speared in the direction of his dragon.
Who—as far as I’m aware—is not supposed to be here.
“We need to find a way to mount Rygun before the rest of the battalion flock.”
His volcanic energy makes my skin prickle, like there’s something erupting inside him, his next words chilling me to the bone.
“He doesn’t step away from a fight, even if it’s futile. And I’m not leaving here without him.”