Chapter 12 Hannah
Hannah
Iflattened my body against the shelf and turned my face so I could breathe without giving myself away.
Wood dug into my ribs, and dust coated my tongue.
My fingers locked around the knife until my knuckles burned.
There was nowhere left to retreat, and if he climbed up here, I would have to strike because he’d want to kill me.
Maybe if I injured his eyes, it would debilitate him enough that I could get the fuck away.
The thought of harming him horribly twisted into greasy nausea in my stomach. Shit. Now wasn’t the time to get indigestion.
“Hannah.” His deep voice landed low and thick. “This ends here.”
For a heartbeat, the urge to answer coursed through me, but I clamped my lips together. What the hell was going on with me? The echo of my name lingered in the dark like something unfinished demanding completion.
I had to be losing my mind.
The door below me opened, and the faint tug in my chest strengthened. The space below me filled with his undeniable presence. I imagined him tilting his head back as he scanned the shelves, searching for me. My grip on the knife tightened. Please don’t make me hurt you.
Time stretched thin, and I tracked the smallest sounds—the shift of his boots, the faint brush of leather as he moved, and the way he paused as if listening.
My muscles burned from holding still, and my ribs screamed as I pressed farther back, counting breaths and waiting for the moment I would have to move.
BAHROOOOM! BAHROOOOM!
The sound ripped through the house, vibrating through the shelf and straight into my bones. My entire body went rigid. Did another prisoner escape?
Boots scraped against the floor, and the pressure of Kai’s presence vanished. The door was still wide open, and I heard his footsteps quicken into a run.
I stayed frozen, the knife still clutched tight, and my heart hammering so hard it hurt.
His footsteps rushed back down the hall. I twisted my head toward the crack in time to see him race out the front door and into the street.
Wood scraped the floor at the bottom of the larder. I tensed and turned back toward the door, and then Olen appeared.
His blanched face and narrowed eyes made him look worse than when he’d faced King Grouchy Butt. “We have to go.” He gestured for me to come down. “The Night Court breached the wards, and the city’s under attack. It’ll become a tomb if they can’t get the defenses back up.”
My thoughts scattered. I hoped I’d heard him wrong, but the screams and chaos outside backed his statement.
He extended a hand. “I know a way out of the city, but we have to go now. I’ll try to help you get in contact with my friend if he survives this attack, but it won’t do you any good if you’re dead.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic. The air crackled with tension as I accepted his hand and slid forward. He helped me to the floor and pulled me into the kitchen. Then his hand wrapped tight around my wrist. “We have to hurry.”
Still gripping the knife in my right hand, I adjusted my coat and followed him.
But the tugging in my chest pulled me toward the open front door where Kai had gone, and a random pang of worry twisted in my chest. I half expected that if I stepped into that hall and looked down it into the main room, I would see him standing there, framed by torchlight with his hands braced on his broad belt.
I shook my head. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
“We’re going out the back window. We’ll cut down the alley until we’re clear of Provisioner’s Row and go past Market Square to the overhang at the bridge near the Eastern Wall Gate.” Olen started toward the hall.
KRAAAM! KRAAAM! BAHROOOOM!
The first horn calls had been resonant, but the shrillness of the second horn sliced through my nerves like fingers on a chalkboard.
Olen gasped, and I jerked back to look at him and asked, “What?”
“They must have breached the wards already. Come on!” He shoved the back parlor door open and ran to the window, then shoved the shutter open and started to climb through.
“RRAAAAAAH—”
A deep reptilian roar like a giant gator tore through the night, crushing my eardrums. My stomach dropped hard, and my breath punched out of me as the vibration shuddered through my sneakers and into my spine. The glass in the farthest back window rattled in its frame. What the fuck was that?
“Get to the shelters!” Kai’s raw, furious voice rang out from the front, stretched tight as if he were straining to speak. “Get out of your houses now!"
CRRACK—CRRACK—CRRACK.
The whole house shook, and I stumbled back and to the side. My shoulder slammed into the wooden frame of the kitchen doorway. Pain flared along my ribs, but the doorway held, solid beneath my grip as the floor bucked again.
Air rushed through the house in a surge of vicious cold, dust, and billowing smoke. My eyes and lungs burned as another wrenching, long, and brutal scraping noise followed and the floor pitched again. Shelves burst open, dishes shattered, and wooden doors banged against the walls.
Another roar resembling the sound of an oncoming freight train ripped through the night. The sound rolled through my ribs until it hurt. I sucked in a breath and lifted my head, forcing my eyes open.
My chest locked, and I froze. The front of the house wasn’t there. It was just gone. Had the sound been an actual fucking tornado?
Cold night air poured through the jagged opening, carrying smoke, ash, and the stink of burning oil.
Broken stone and splintered wood lay in piles, glowing faintly where fallen lamps had shattered.
Small flames licked along spilled oil, crawling fast over the debris, but not yet close enough for me to feel the heat.
But beyond the rubble, a massive black-scaled form filled the street.
An honest-to-goodness dragon stood less than fifty feet away.
Its chest rose and fell, slow and deep, breath huffing out in hot bursts that steamed in the cold air.
Red-orange eyes burned in its skull, bright and molten, fixed on something in front of it with a focus that made my stomach twist. The tugging in my chest urged me forward. Kai was out there.
Wait. Why did I care about that?
A low growl rolled out of its throat, not loud, just deep enough to resonate through my bones.
At the base of its neck, set between thick overlapping scales, something pulsed faintly, light blooming and fading in a steady rhythm that made my skin crawl.
It looked like a dark gem. Silver light and oily smoke wrapped around its throat as if pulling it back.
Something else circled its jaws and stretched beyond my line of sight.
“Your Majesty!” a shrill voice shouted from farther up the street as screams rang out. “The Dusk Forces are in defense positions at the towers. We—”
“Do not let the forces gather here! Get someone to bring the hood.” Kai’s voice cut the panicked person off, coming from somewhere up the street.
“Let our Dusk Forces focus on the towers and getting the wards back up. Repel the wyverns, or the Night Forces…will take the keep while…this beast is…focused on me.” His voice sounded more strained with each word he spoke.
Here was another what-the-hell question. What the hell did he mean by a hood and wyverns?
The person yelped. “But if you fall, then all our defenses will be weakened beyond what—”
“I said, go! This wyvern is a berserker.” Kai’s voice rumbled lower.
“Fate no! Everyone out!” The shrill voice might have shattered everyone’s ears. “Out of the buildings now! There's a berserker wyvern in the streets, destroying everything. Leave the fires! Leave your belongings!”
“Hannah!” Olen gestured at me to come to the window.
“Move your ass! That wyvern is set on killing the king, and if it’s successful, it’ll explode if someone doesn’t remove that gem the right way.
Every building in this city is at risk, even the castle.
This place is dry as straw, and it will burn fast.”
Children's cries cut through. A lump formed in my throat, and I took a hurried step away from Olen and toward the wyvern.
The wyvern shook its head, snarling through closed jaws, though its movement was limited. Its claws gouged the stone path as more screams rippled to me. Overlapping voices called out.
“Clear Weavers’ Lane, Smiths’ Way, and Provisioners’ Row.”
“They’re still in the house!”
“Halver! Where are you?”
“Has anyone seen Tebb?”
“He’s trapped!”
The pull in my chest tightened with insistence that made my feet shift before I’d decided to move them.
Heat from the burning rubble brushed my calves as I hurried out the wrecked opening of the house.
Ash drifted past my face, stinging my eyes.
My pulse thudded so loud it blurred the noise around me, but the pull didn’t ease.
It dragged me forward and straight down the street.
The wyvern’s body heaved as it fought whatever was holding it.
Its scales scraped stone with a shriek that made my jaw clench.
Smoke streamed from between its teeth in thick ropes, curling and drifting away.
Silver light flared again at its throat, with streaks stretching upward into the sky where more pale lines tried to stitch themselves into shapes that wouldn’t hold.
Pale light flickered overhead, drawing my gaze up despite everything pulling me forward.
High above the street, thin strands of silver burned against the smoke, bending and snapping as they tried to weave themselves into wide, broken arcs.
The shapes shuddered and tore apart, then dragged themselves back together again, while lines stuttered into place before unraveling under another distant impact.