3. Chapter 3
AMARIA
Umbra hit the earth behind the dais like a falling god. The hill shuddered. Marble cracked. The pile of dragon bones scattered across the platform like leaves in a hurricane.
Then she rose to her full height. Wings spread so wide they eclipsed the sun. Scales black as void-iron, veined with molten orange that pulsed like magma beneath stone.
And on her back—Dreadscale. Still as death.
The crowd didn't scream. They didn't run. They just... stopped. A thousand people holding their breath at the same time.
Vivienne turned.
Slow. So slow. Her body already knew what her mind refused to accept.
The dragon's head lowered until that single burning eye—larger than Vivienne's entire body—hung level with the dais. Level with the princess who had just called her kind unpredictable beasts.
Vivienne's composure didn't crack.
It shattered.
Her face went white. Her hands flew up—light sparking at her fingertips, desperate, grasping for power that suddenly seemed very, very small. Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Just a girl in a pretty dress, standing in front of a predator that had been hunting the skies since before her bloodline learned to crawl.
Dreadscale's gaze dropped to the bones at her feet.
He looked at them for a long moment.
Then he looked at her.
Movement—Eryndor, diving off the edge of the dais, hitting the ground hard and rolling clear.
He knew what was coming.
Dreadscale's chin dipped. One inch.
Umbra's jaws unhinged.
The air screamed—a sound like a furnace tearing itself open—
And then there was light.
Orange. Blinding. A pillar of dragonfire so hot it didn't burn—it erased. The dais. The flowers. The bones. The golden filigree and the white marble and the princess who thought herself divine.
One second she was there.
The next—nothing.
Just heat-shimmer and a blackened crater where a false god used to stand.
The silence lasted one heartbeat. Then the crowd broke.
Then the screaming broke. A blind, violent stampede. People trampling each other into the mud to escape. Enforcers scattering like roaches in sudden light. The entire field dissolving into utter chaos.
And me?
I threw my head back and laughed.
Wild and vicious and free. Serenya was also laughing beside me, but trying to cheer at the same time—fists in the air, tears streaming, hiccuping between sobs and shrieks. We were a mess. Maxx whooped like a madman, glamour forgotten. Even Caden smiled faintly.
Umbra lifted her head and roared.
My wrath will not be denied.
It shook the earth for leagues. I felt it in my teeth, my chest, the soles of my feet. Distant cries rose from the districts above—people who couldn't see what had happened, only heard the sky scream its revenge.
Dreadscale looked down at us across the field of fleeing bodies.
He caught my eye and nodded, then slid down Umbra's back.
The crowd scattered—a tide of bodies surging away from the hill, trampling flowers and each other in their desperation to flee. But not everyone ran.
I noticed them in the gaps. The ones who stayed. Thin and glassy-eyed, dressed in the grays and browns of the southern quarter. Shadowmarked. The ones who had watched their children sicken and their crops wither while Vivienne's "miracles" drained them dry.
They came forward. Slowly. Timidly. Clutching wildflowers in trembling hands—simple things, plucked from the field they'd been standing in. Daisies. Clover. Weeds that had somehow survived the rot.
Some didn't make it far. Fear of Umbra stopped them ten paces out, twenty. But they dipped their heads in a bow and laid their offerings on the ground anyway. Small splashes of color against the trampled mud.
A few braver ones climbed the ruined slope. Picked their way through the rubble to where the dragon bones lay scattered—no longer a trophy, just remains. They knelt and placed their flowers among the broken ribs and shattered skulls.
Tears pricked my eyes. I blinked them back. Didn't have time for that.
Dreadscale was walking toward us now, his stride unhurried, his face as inscrutable as ever.
I ran.
Crossed the distance between us in seconds and flung my arms around him before he could react. He went rigid—the bastard—but I didn't care. I buried my face against his chest and held on.
After a moment, one heavy hand settled on my back.
“The other ceremonies were held in buildings, squares, and villages.” He exhaled slowly. "Today she finally stood somewhere I could kill only her."
"You let me think you were gone."
"I was busy."
I pulled back and punched him in the chest. It was like hitting a wall.
"Busy."
"Patience is a weapon." He looked down at me with amusement. "You should try it sometime."
"I'm going to kill you," I huffed.
"Later." He nodded toward the chaos. "We have work to do first."
I wiped my face and lifted my chin.
"Fine. But I'm still mad at you."
"I know," he stated.
For one strange, blazing heartbeat, I let myself revel in it. The absence where Vivienne had been. The rupture she’d left behind in the field, in the crowd, in the shape of the day itself. She was gone. Not defeated. Not outmaneuvered. Gone.
The air still tasted of ash and scorched silk. Around us, the holy little spectacle she’d built was collapsing into mud and smoke and screaming, and for the first time since this nightmare began, the world felt briefly, violently possible.
Then I looked up at Dreadscale’s face. His eyes were tracking something moving rapidly across the field.
I turned.
The Crown's carriage—black and gold, drawn by four white steeds—tore down the dirt path toward the castle. The wheels skidded and kicked up dust, driving the horses with a frantic, terrified speed.
I slowly turned back to Dreadscale.
"Did they stuff Eryndor in there?"
Dreadscale nodded. Then his eyes flicked to Umbra and back to me. A smile curled his lips—small and dangerous. A wicked glint shone in his eye.
I arched a brow and gestured toward the dragon. "May I?"
He spread his hands in a welcoming gesture toward the monstrous beast.
"Be my guest. Just let me speak to her first."
He strode back to Umbra and I jogged to keep up. Behind me, I could hear Maxx and Serenya calling out, asking what the hell I was doing. I gestured for them to wait without looking back.
We reached Umbra. Dreadscale leaned close to her massive head and whispered in a language I didn't recognize. The dragon turned unhurriedly and fixed one burning eye on me.
She blinked.
Then she swung her head away, shot twin plumes of steam from her nostrils, and snapped her teeth with a sound like a bear trap closing.
"She said yes." Dreadscale stepped back. "Up."
I raised my eyebrows at him. "Are you sure that was a yes?"
"You're wasting time. Catch him before they enter the kingdom proper."
I scrambled up Umbra's side, fingers finding holds between her scales, boots scraping against ridges of bone and muscle.
Every inhale shifted the surface beneath me—a slow tectonic roll, like the whole body was deciding whether to let me stay.
I swung my leg over the ridge of her spine and grabbed onto the base of a spine-spike, heart hammering.
"Hold tight," Dreadscale called from below. "She doesn't slow down for passengers."
Before I could respond, Umbra launched.
The ground dropped away. Wind slammed into my face, ripped the air from my lungs. I flattened myself against her neck and held on with everything I had as the world tilted and blurred beneath us.
The carriage was a speck on the road below. Growing larger. Fast.
Umbra tucked her wings and dove.
I screamed—half terror, half exhilaration—as we plummeted toward the path. The horses saw us coming. They shrieked and reared, trying to bolt, but there was nowhere to go.
Umbra's claws extended.
She caught the carriage like a hawk snatching a rabbit. Wood splintered. Metal shrieked. The whole thing lifted off the road in a shower of debris and thrashing horses—Umbra severed the harness lines with one casual swipe, letting the animals flee.
The carriage dangled from her grip, swinging wildly.
I heard shouting from inside. Enforcers. Maybe a driver. Definitely someone who had just realized they were no longer on the ground.
Umbra banked hard, carrying her prize away from the road, away from the city, toward a stretch of rocky hills I didn't recognize. She found a clearing—a flat expanse of stone and scrub grass, hidden from the main roads by a ridge of pointed rock—and dropped the carriage.
It hit the ground with a crash. One wheel snapped off and rolled away. The door hung crooked on its hinges.
Umbra landed beside it, the impact shaking the earth. She folded her wings and settled back on her haunches, watching the wreckage with smug satisfaction.
I slid down her side on shaking legs.
The carriage door burst open.
Bodies spilled out—two Enforcers, tangled in their cloaks, swords half-drawn. And behind them—Eryndor.
He didn't step down. He emerged. The guards scrambled backward, their weapons dropping as they realized the monster had finally slipped its leash.
He hit the ground rolling. Came up with a blade—their blade, stolen mid-fall—and opened the first guard's throat before the man remembered how his legs worked. The second swung wild. Eryndor stepped into the arc. Elbow to the temple. Blade through the chest. Economy in motion.
Three seconds. Maybe four.
The bodies dropped. Eryndor didn't look at them. They'd stopped being relevant the moment they stopped breathing.
Neither of us moved.
"They knocked me out." He reported roughly. "Threw me in there before I could—"
I sprinted, arms already reaching, ready to crash into him, to hold on and never let go—
His hand shot out—palm flat, arm rigid, a barrier slamming into place between us.
I bounced off it like a rag doll. Stumbled back a step, stunned.
"Don't."
The word hit like a slap. I stared at him.
"Eryndor—"
"You can't touch me." His jaw was tight. But his eyes—gods, his eyes were wet, and that was worse than the hand holding me back. "Amaria, you can't. Not anymore."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.