29. Chapter 29
29
Zara
“ I vy!” I shouted across the hall as I spilled down the stone steps that emptied into the cramped hallway outside the small kitchen reserved for mortals to use in daylight hours, when fae were scarce. We’d agreed to eat in here before our trial instead of in the main dining cavern, with the bloodthirsty fae. Tins of dates and roasted nuts called to me, as did the smell of hot tea in Ivy’s mug, brewed with the eternally hot water emptying from a small hole in the rock into a carved basin.
My friend looked up from her tea and a half-wrapped pastry. “Mm,” she muttered, standing up from a small wooden table, her mouth full. “I waited for you,” she explained, “but—”
“Dragons,” I said, breathless from running through the halls. “We have to face dragons.”
A crumb fell from the side of her mouth as she stared with wide eyes.
“And the dragons are angry because someone’s been stealing from them.” I closed my eyes to try to settle my whirling thoughts. But every time I did so, Casimiro’s face flooded my mind’s eye. His name echoed in the back of my mind like a drumbeat.
“Zara?”
I opened my eyes.
“How did you find out?” asked Ivy.
My cheeks instantly heated. “I—Casimiro told me. I found Ariana—she was poisoned—and he healed her.”
Now Ivy’s eyes widened so far that white shone around her dark irises.
“But forget that. Do you have anything magical on you?”
“Magical?”
I withdrew the ruby. “Like this. A stone. Or a geas. Or a spell of some sort?”
As she stared at the stone, her expression fell. “So you do have one of those. The others were wondering about it after the last trial. Did he give that to you too?”
“I’m not taking it into the arena tonight. Dragons hate the smell of fae magic. I’ve already secured servants’ attire for all of us for the trial. I’m not going to risk wearing these enchanted clothes.”
Ivy’s head bobbed as she stared off to the left. “Not long after I arrived, a woman approached me offering me protection if I simply remained silent about the—about—” But Ivy’s tongue couldn’t seem to form the words. The muscles in her neck strained, and her cheeks reddened, so she quickly gave up, exhaling loudly as her shoulders drooped. “And I guess I can’t wash the enchantment off.”
“No. I suppose not.” We stared at each other for a long moment. “We’ll make it through this,” I said, grasping her shoulders. “We made it through the last one.” With the fae’s protection . This time, anyone with a fae’s magical protection would make us the dragons’ target. Casimiro had better return with a stone before the trial began, but even if he did, he was only bringing one stone. And there were five of us.
We were led out into the cold night an hour before dawn would break. The fae clearly didn’t think this trial would last long. Samuel had to assist Eudoria up the steep outdoor steps, her ankle still causing her pain. Each of us wore a servant’s white tunic, which had initially put a frown on Erik’s glamoured face as he’d assembled us, but then he merely laughed and said it would make us all the more visible to the dragons.
Great.
Even though Ivy and I had raced to the bathing chambers to attempt to dull the smell of magic on our skin—and, hopefully, so that I could wash off any lingering scents of Ariana—I didn’t know if scented soaps would do the trick.
The lattice of crisscrossing stairwells, balconies, and narrow paths on the side of the mountain led us upward until we reached a set of stairs so narrow and coated with ice that they appeared forgotten. These impossibly narrow steps lacked a railing, and my fingertips grew numb as I braced my weight against the stone wall to my left. Behind me, Ivy whimpered quietly as she climbed. Eudoria managed to climb on Samuel’s back, but I couldn’t watch as he carried her up the treacherous path.
Eventually, the stairs became so steep that I had to use my hands to climb, like I did as a child in my father’s house. Sadness pricked at my insides as I thought of what my father must be going through, thinking I would never return to him. I’m coming, Papá. Just a little longer.
At the top of the stairs, a flat terrace opened before us, banked on two sides by a low rock wall that drew my eye upward. The foundations of an ancient castle were perched atop the highest point on the mountain. This area must have once served as a courtyard. As my eyes scanned the moonlit space, I detected black statues gleaming faintly in the night, some with missing limbs and others toppled onto the wide space like downed soldiers. From this close, I could see that the windows in the castle were empty holes, dark sockets in a once grand fa?ade.
A wave of nausea rocked my body as I looked around—there was nowhere to hide unless we could put our backs against the stone wall and somehow fend off the angry dragons. The rocks glistened from a thin layer of snow.
“Stand over there,” Erik commanded us, forcing us past him on the stair. My stomach dropped as I maneuvered around him. “There are weapons waiting for you at the base of the wall. If you can make it that far.”
He didn’t accompany us onto the platform. As soon as all five of us stood on the exposed flat rock, Erik slipped into shadow and shot straight into the air. I quickly lost sight of his form against the star-studded backdrop, but I noted a wisp of black slither into one of the castle’s open windows. Perhaps that was where the fae would watch this trial, safely in the comfort of their stone fortress.
I walked slowly, carefully, cautious of any movements or unusual sounds. After a few steps, the entrance to a massive cave came into view. It had been hidden by the outcropping of rock that formed the castle’s foundation. A step later, I heard the sound of wingbeats.
“Ivy,” I hissed, drawing her toward me. She was shaking so hard, I feared we might both fall on the slick rock. Samuel, who had already set Eudoria down, quickly took her elderly frame in his arms and attempted to run back toward the stairs that had led us here.
Tomas took a defensive stance beside Ivy and me. My heart soared at the sight.
“Know anything else about these beasts?” Tomas asked over his shoulder as a dragon’s massive head came into view over the edge of the cliff.
For a moment, I couldn’t respond as I stared at the enormous creature.
The glint of steel beckoned me toward the rock wall, but the sight of the dragon’s yellowed eyes anchored my feet to the slick courtyard.
“They think I stole from them,” I admitted. I’d already told the entertainers everything else I knew about the dragons, save this one detail.
Tomas shot me a concerned look, and Ivy’s nails dug into my skin briefly before she dropped my arm and stepped back.
“Probably best,” I said, pushing her behind me so that I stood between her and the dragon. Samuel had paused on the platform, his gaze cast back at the dragon.
The beast hovered in the air, sniffing with loud breaths.
For a moment, all five of us stood paralyzed.
Then Samuel cursed as he took another step and slipped on a slick patch of stone. He and Eudoria went down hard.
The dragon’s head cocked to the side and its nostrils flared as it followed the sound and the movement. A strange rattling noise preceded the dragon opening his large jaws. Ivy gasped and dropped to the ground. Tomas and I lunged for the weapons.
Claws clattered on stone, and a strong breeze blasted my long white tunic up around my knees. I grabbed the hilt of a sword, its comforting weight offset by the blinding light of the flames that flared against the rock wall and reflected off the steel.
Instinctively, I lifted my hands to my face. Heat rushed over the terrace and knocked the air from my lungs. Ivy whimpered, and Samuel’s deep voice bellowed in agony.
Tomas locked eyes with me.
Then I spun. The dragon perched on an old statue, one taloned foot wrapped around the shoulders of a stately figure, the other gripping its crowned head. Its wings were half-extended over the courtyard, and smoke curled from its snout. Its nose was lowered in the direction of the stairwell, where a few flames still licked a few stray spots of lichen on the rocks.
My chest knotted and I thought vomit might spew from my mouth. I couldn’t see Samuel or Eudoria anymore. Samuel’s screams told me he’d not moved fast enough.
Cas, hurry .
He thought I could survive this. He’d thought wrong.
If he didn’t arrive with a stone, and soon, we would all be ashes and teeth.
“Ivy!” I whispered, trying not to draw the creature’s attention.
From her crouched position, she pulled her hands from over her head and peeked up at me. She was a body length from the animal’s wingtip. I waved her toward the wall, but as soon as she moved, the dragon turned.
A choked scream leaped from my throat.
“Together,” Tomas muttered, his deep voice cracking a little.
I nodded.
He jerked his head forward, and we raced toward Ivy.
There were no cheers or taunts this time. The fae didn’t want to draw the eye of this mad dragon.
I slipped on the slick stone and crashed to my hip, careful to hold the sword over my head. Tomas reached Ivy first and yanked her to her feet. The dragon stood tall, its wings cupping wind and flinging it back against us as it inhaled as loudly as a rushing river.
“It’s going to flame again!” Tomas shouted at me, his eyes clearly panicked about whether to help Ivy or me.
“Go!” I shouted, clambering to my unstable feet. The dragon opened its mouth. Tomas shouted at me to run.
I glanced at the ice, and it gave me an idea.
Taking only a breath to decide, I hurled myself forward in the same move I’d used on my first night in this wretched place. I crashed to my knees, a little less gracefully than I’d hoped, then tipped backward onto my side, letting my momentum carry me across the slick surface.
The jet of flames behind me melted the ice in a single second, and then I was scraping across wet stones. The white tunic bunched, and my leg sliced on a broken paver.
“That did not go the way I planned,” I groaned as I rocked onto my elbows. The sword in my hand scraped noisily over the stones as I drew myself to my feet.
Tomas and Ivy had reached the wall, where Tomas was attempting to shove one of the remaining swords into her hands. But she shook her head, her hands still cupped against her mouth.
The scorch marks from the flames darkened the pavement only a step away.
The dragon turned its attention toward me, stepping off the statue and bringing down the carved head with a loud crash.
Licking my chapped lips, I squared my shoulders and lifted the sword in both hands.
“Any time now, Cas.”
I nervously began to tap my heel against the pavers. Clack clack clack. With this motion came the memorized pattern of a dance, so engrained in me that I didn’t even realize I’d made another click-tap with my foot until the dragon snorted and I froze.
The dragon’s honey-colored face cocked to the side, so much like a dog that I almost laughed.
“You like dancing?” I asked, my voice shaking. I stomped backward, flourishing the sword with a dramatic lift of my arm. At the sound of my heel clacking, the dragon’s head tilted to the other side. I grabbed my tunic and tossed it as I spun, creating a flash of white against the endless black. I felt like a lunatic, but I figured I might as well try madness, since there was little else I could do against this beast.
The enormous animal watched me for a moment. Then the sound of wingbeats preceded the scraping of claws raking across stone as another dragon landed on the platform behind me.
A whooshing sound was the last thing I heard before pain lanced against my calf and ankle. I whirled and lunged.
The second dragon’s flames had ricocheted off the stone and licked my leg. But the blade in my hands sank into dragon flesh.
The animal leaped into the air, and my blade ripped free. I scrambled backward, toward the wall. Tomas jumped in front of me as my back hit the stones.
With a jab at the larger dragon, he gave me and Ivy a single moment to decide which way to dive to avoid the next round of flames.
I shoved Ivy to the left as I flung myself right, hoping to draw the dragon’s flames away from my friend. The creature huffed in annoyance as its targets diverged. I shielded my head with one arm as the dragon breathed flames once more, but this time, the flames didn’t even reach my feet. They sputtered in smaller and smaller tongues of fire until the light winked out.
Tomas whooped and backed against the wall. “Must be running out!”
My back slumped against the wall, and I slid down, unable to bear the agonizing pain spreading up my leg. My vision started to fuzz at the edges.
“Cas,” I whispered, sinking down onto the paved courtyard. I shook my head, angered that I was helplessly waiting for a fae to save me from a trial he designed. There had to be another way to survive. He’d said the trial was meant to be simple. That the dragons would have left me alone if I didn’t have Ariana’s scent on me. So much for the bath I’d taken, the salts I’d scoured my skin with.
Tomas shot me a worried look as I pushed myself to my feet. I was no warrior. I’d been trained to defend myself from other people but not dragons. The night I’d ridden toward danger with Talia, all to save a racehorse, had been the closest I’d come to needing my weaponry, but that night I hadn’t even used a blade.
The pale-yellow dragon snorted and tossed its head, its wings spreading farther out as it balanced on its back legs. The second dragon, this one a dark color indistinguishable in the dim night, was howling as it circled above the platform, eager to repay me for its wound.
Ivy wept. At least she finally clutched a sword to her chest. She’d improved in her weapons training, but she wasn’t prepared for this. None of us was.
I stepped forward, sword at the ready, but my injured leg wouldn’t cooperate, so I shuffled out from the wall with a step-slide, step-slide. My heel clacked against the stones once more. The pale dragon turned one glassy eye down at me.
“I think it likes the sound,” I muttered to Tomas. Three quick times, I lifted and lowered my heel, grunting as my injured leg bore my weight briefly.
The dragon snuffled, then shifted its weight. It almost appeared excited. Or agitated. I was no expert in dragon body language. For two breaths, the one circling in the sky stopped howling.
I tried to clack both heels, but my burned leg buckled beneath me.
To keep from slicing myself, I dropped the sword. It clattered like a trumpet announcing my surrender.
From my hands and knees, I stared up at the beast, determined to keep from gagging on the spit I couldn’t swallow. My throat had stopped working.
“Not tonight,” I begged through clenched teeth. I’m going home. I’m leaving this place.
Casimiro’s husky voice as he’d commanded me not to get burned flitted through my mind, and I tried again to swallow. He wasn’t here. He hadn’t come.
“I didn’t steal from you,” I shouted at the dragon. My voice came out scratchy and weaker than I’d hoped.
The dragon dropped its snout closer to me and tucked its wings. I reached for my sword, but the animal trapped it with a massive, clawed foot. I clutched my hand back to my chest and attempted to scramble away from the enormous creature.
“What do you want?” I screamed. “I don’t have the stone. I don’t have anything!”
But the dragon wasn’t listening. It was filling its lungs with frigid air. I assumed by the depth of its inhale that its fire had replenished. I was too close. There was nowhere to go.
As it opened its mouth, Tomas hurled his sword, drawing the beast’s attention at the last second.
Flames burst from its mouth, and a scream tore from my throat. The fire blasted against the wall and arced over my head. The heat was so intense that I was thrown backward. My ribs ached from slapping the rock, but I tucked my hands over my head and curled my body into a ball where I’d fallen. The fire sputtered out and wingbeats signaled the animal was in flight. The smell of singed hair filled my nostrils, and the backs of my hands burned violently.
My mind slipped. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t hold on.
The world eased out of my grip.