Xaden #3
But at least it’s not the navy blue—
A shadow falls over the field, blocking out the sun for a heartbeat before another blue lands beside the clubtail. Its golden eyes narrow on us as it stands to its full height, and just when I think it can’t get any bigger, it does. Navy-blue scales. Flicking a daggertail.
Oh fuck.
Sgaeyl.
“Sgaeyl,” Alic whispers, awestruck.
Of every dragon Kaori projected for us, she is the one he told us not to approach under any circumstances.
She’s not just ruthless, she’s flat-out vicious.
She abandoned her first rider to his death for cowardice, is rumored to have killed her second, and hasn’t bothered with a rider since her last one died, more than forty years ago, before he even left the quadrant.
I’m not his direct descendant, but his last name also happened to be Riorson.
My heart starts to pound as she sits and tilts her head as if she’s ready for a show. The clubtail looks in her direction, and she whips her head toward it, snapping her teeth within inches of its snout. The Blue Clubtail swivels, giving her ample space before it settles a dozen feet away.
She turns those golden eyes back on us, and Malek forgive me for my stupidity, but I can’t look away.
“Godsdamn,” Eian mutters.
Exactly.
She’s not just majestic, she’s terrifying, and I am here for it.
“Mine,” Alic whispers, jarring me from the haze of my thoughts.
His? The fuck she is. Inexplicable rage climbs up my ribs and sits at the base of my throat, but I won’t let myself act on it. I breathe in deeply and welcome the frigid air into my lungs, letting it freeze out the anger and leave nothing but the cold, cruel calculation this situation demands.
“Shall we show her that I’m her match?” Alic says, earning every ounce of my attention. Blood trickles down Garrick’s throat from the same small cut as before.
Sgaeyl glances to the north before returning her gaze to us, and hope flickers to life again. Someone is coming.
“Show her how you greet royalty, Tavis.” Alic scrapes the dagger down the side of Garrick’s neck. “On your knees and clean the mud off my boots so I don’t get it on her scales when I mount.”
“Fuck you,” Garrick replies.
A corner of my mouth rises as I watch the bushes to the north start to move. “Do it,” I sign.
“Fuck you, too,” Garrick says in my direction.
“On your knees!” Alic shrieks.
The Blue Clubtail bares its teeth, and my eyebrows rise. There are too many ill tempers in this field for this to end well for any of us besides the blue ones.
“I would rather die—” Garrick starts.
“Get on your damned knees or Riorson dies,” Alic threatens, and the shadows on the ground move as something sharp presses into my cloak. I’m going to be fucking furious if I have to mend this thing when we’re done. “I am second in line for the crown of Navarre, and you are no one!”
Someone clearly has a birth-order complex.
“You’re the son of a dead traitor and you will obey!” Alic shouts. “Get. On. Your. Knees!”
The Blue Clubtail lets out another breath of steam, then retreats into the tall trees at the edge of the field, leaving only its head exposed.
That’s…unexpected.
“Do it,” I sign again.
The knife remains at the side of Garrick’s neck, and his sword scrapes the ground as he lowers himself slowly to his knees. The muscles in his jaw flex. He’s going to kill me for this, but at least he’ll be alive to do it.
Masen pops through the thicket and stumbles into the field. Finally. There are now three marked ones here and all bets are off.
“Let’s be clear about something,” I say slowly. “You don’t own anything of mine.”
“I’m sorry?” Alic sputters my way.
“Your father owns my father’s land. Your father owns my father’s title. Your father owns you.” I turn my head slowly to look Alic in the eye.
“I am a prince!” he shouts, blood flushing his cheeks as his eyes bulge.
It all happens pretty quickly from there.
I throw my left hand down, palm splayed open. Garrick shoves the pommel of his sword into my hand, then whips his away. The second steel touches my skin, I grip and spin to the left. I jerk the sword up in a backhand motion, cutting into Alic’s forearm and knocking the dagger out of his hand.
Alic shouts in pain, but I don’t bother checking the damage I’ve caused.
Lorne and Eian both lunge, spearing their swords for my chest, so I hit the snow-covered ground, and the two swords clash somewhere above me. Once Garrick moves, so do I.
Eian groans as I jump to my feet, and I find a blade lodged in the vicinity of his heart, with Garrick’s hand covering the jewel-encrusted hilt of Alic’s dagger.
I toss Garrick’s sword to him so he can deal with Lorne and turn my attention to Alic.
The prince staggers backward, and blood oozes through the fingers with which he holds his forearm.
Steel clashes behind me, but I don’t need to look. Garrick can handle his own. Dukes Lindell and Lewellen saw to it that we both could.
“You can’t get away with this,” Alic shouts, but his lower lip trembles.
“Draw your sword.” I unclip the button at my throat, and my cloak falls to the ground as I stalk forward. Anticipation sings in my veins.
“No.” His feet start to shuffle as he backs away from me. “You won’t kill an unarmed cadet.”
“I will,” I assure him as Lorne grunts, then screams in pain behind me. “You deserve to die for what you’ve put Garrick through since Parapet, and I won’t let him carry another single mark from you, and that includes the weight of responsibility for your death. It stops now. Pick. Up. Your. Sword.”
“You don’t want to do this!” His eyes are wider than fists as his backward pace picks up.
“I do.” My arms swing freely at my sides as I hunt him like the prey he’s treated us as.
I’m more than aware of a set of golden eyes watching every move I make, and I do it anyway.
If she’s here for me, then she already knows what I’m capable of, and if she’s here to kill me, then at least I’ll rid the world of Alic before I die.
“Draw your weapon. You won’t get another warning from me. ”
“I’m a prince of this kingdom!” He jerks his sword from its scabbard and stops retreating.
“Don’t conflate a title with power.” I shake my head and close the distance between us.
Fear dilates his eyes as he charges forward without the finesse I’m used to seeing him use on the mat. That fear will be the end of him.
I reach behind my head with both hands, grip the hilts of my swords, and draw, sidestepping his lunge in the same smooth motion. He recovers with grace, I’ll give him that, spinning to face my new angle.
But I’m faster.
My blades converge at his neck, giving him one second to meet my eyes, to realize what’s about to happen to him. I draw my arms back and slice his neck clean open. He drops his sword and falls to his knees, clutching his throat as blood spills over his hands, coloring the snow beneath him scarlet.
I watch silently as the life fades from his eyes.
He falls to the side unceremoniously, his stare vacant as blood pools in the snow beneath him.
“Godsdamn,” Masen says, his chest heaving from running across the field. “He’s definitely dead, then.”
“Yes.” I nod.
“No final words?” Garrick asks, sheathing his swords as he moves to my side. “Seemed a little anticlimactic without a hero speech.”
“I had nothing left to say to him.” I clean my blades on Alic’s cloak, then slip them into their scabbards on my back.
“You really couldn’t leave him for me?” Garrick folds his arms across his chest as Masen checks the other bodies that lie a few feet away.
“No.” A twinge of worry unsettles my stomach. “If anyone finds out what happened here, there will be executions, and I can’t let your neck be the one they come for.”
“You’d rather it be yours.” Garrick scoffs and shakes his head, shooting me a look that would wither a lesser man. “Of course. For fuck’s sake.” He takes a measured breath, then looks at the body. “If anyone sees him like this, they’ll know it was a cadet. An investigation will ensue.”
Fuck. I didn’t think that part through.
“We have to get rid of the bodies,” Masen agrees from somewhere behind me.
A low, menacing growl from the right reminds me that someone’s already seen.
I turn slowly toward the Blue Daggertail, and this time I remember to keep my gaze lowered. She’s been silently stalking closer this entire time, and when I look up, I find she’s less than a dozen feet away. I quickly focus on the gleaming talons of her claws.
If Alic was the rider she intended to bond, then she’s going to be rightfully pissed.
“Move.” A sharp, feminine voice resounds within me.
“What?” My head snaps up. Did she just talk to me? No fucking way.
Her tail flicks forward, and a second later, I’m flying backward. My ass hits the snow and pain erupts on the left side of my face, hotter than any welding fire.
“I do not enjoy repeating myself.”
“Xaden!” Garrick shouts and runs in my direction, turning his back on the blue without thought, but Masen shuffles backward, keeping his head bowed.
“She wants us to move.” I rise to my feet, and half my vision swims in red.
“You think?” Garrick puts his hands on my face and starts turning my head. “Fuck, she got you. You’re split clean open from above your eyebrow to the top of your cheek. I’m surprised you still have an eye.”
Heat blasts on our left, melting the snow at our boots, and we all pivot.
Fire surges from Sgaeyl’s mouth as she swivels her head in a snakelike motion over Eian’s, Lorne’s, and Alic’s bodies.
The scents of sulfur and ash singe my lungs, and my face starts to throb.
The bodies disappear into the molten stream, and when it ceases, they are nothing but burned scorch marks. Even their blades cease to exist.
All three of us stare in various states of shock at the charred patches of ground.
“Guess we don’t have to worry about anyone finding their bodies,” Garrick mutters.
Sgaeyl snaps her head in our direction, and the three of us take a giant step backward.