Chapter 4
I lurch.
Saipha throws her arms around me, nearly deafening me when she shouts right in my ear, “You can’t!”
She thinks I’m going to run toward the dragon. My friend believes far too much in me. She has no idea that my knees have given out. That I’m pressing so hard against her arms because I can hardly hold myself upright.
The spinning in my head is threatening to turn the world upside down and my stomach inside out.
“Do you hear that?” Saipha points to Mercy Spire. It’s an ominous, thorny structure of a hundred vantages for ballistae and crossbows. But the distant clicking and grinding emanating from it is something Vinguard has never heard before. “Just wait. They’re going to fire it.”
We both watch. Saipha still has the shine of anticipation in her eyes. Somehow, she’s able to ignore all the risks—even the danger to her parents and older sister up on the wall. All she sees is the final kill. The thing that makes all the sacrifice worth it:
One less dragon in the world to spread Ethershade and suck up the Etherlight of our Font.
The dragon turns its head my way, emerald eyes luminescent in the waning light. Out of the whole city, for a breath, it feels as if it finds me.
In an instant, I’m no longer standing in a cage of Saipha’s arms. I’m on a rooftop six years ago.
It’s not a green dragon staring me down, but a copper one, and I’ve no idea if this is a hallucination from the haze drifting through the city or one of my mind’s favorite nightmares to torture me with.
Flames, hotter than I ever felt before. So hot the stone around me is starting to melt. Corpses. Destruction. Death. I’m surprised my eyes haven’t boiled in their sockets as its massive snout emerges from the thick smoke.
The beast crawls forward. Eyes locked with mine. It reaches out a clawed hand, straight for my chest, as though it wants to play with its food before it—
A bang so loud it rattles the ancient foundations of Vinguard jolts me back to the present.
A beam of light that could rival the sun shoots from Mercy Spire straight across Vinguard, striking the dragon where it’s perched.
The shot goes straight between its wings on its back and punches out through its chest, killing the monster instantly.
Saipha lets out a cheer with the rest of Vinguard, releasing me.
Forgotten for a second, I sag against the wall at my back, breathing hard as wave after wave of Etherlight strikes me.
The world suddenly seems too bright. Every color is blinding.
I swear the raindrops on my skin evaporate into steam as I burn from the inside out.
My best friend turns back to me, and a raw, sharp terror cuts through me as I half expect her to scream and tell me my pupils have turned to slits.
But she doesn’t. “Amazing, isn’t it? I didn’t believe it when my dad told me, but damn.”
She doesn’t notice. She doesn’t see what’s happening to me. Never has. Probably because she doesn’t want to. She can’t admit it to herself—that’s the only reason I’ve ever come up with.
I lock eyes with the point on Mercy Spire where the shot originated. A cannon, Father had called it. His greatest work.
Good job, Father. I’d say you succeeded, I think as I push away from the wall. “It used a lot of Etherlight,” I murmur.
“Worth it to kill the beasts.”
“I’m going to check on Mum.”
Saipha’s expression falls from excitement and wonder to stern concern. “You can’t.”
“Saipha—”
“You know no one but Mercy Knights can be around a dragon carcass.”
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. “I must know if she’s all right, Saipha.”
“Her building is still standing.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, and you know it,” I counter.
Saipha sighs and rakes her fingers through her shoulder-length red hair. “Fine, go on ahead. I’ll find my father and send him your way. He can help you search.”
“Thanks.” I take a step backward.
“Watch out for the acid,” Saipha says hastily. And, right as I’m about to turn, she adds, “And I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Time pauses, as if holding reverence for the heavy meaning behind her farewell. Tomorrow morning is the Convening—the start of the Tribunal. What could be my last day alive.
“See you in the morning,” I murmur with a nod and begin to run.
When Vinguard couldn’t build out, it built up.
When it became too risky to build higher than two stories because dragons like to perch on the tallest buildings, it built in.
The streets are mazelike, barely wide enough for one person in some places.
They switch back on themselves, forming tunnels where houses have been built around and over them and turning into short bridges where they span rooftops.
Lucky for me, during a dragon attack everyone hides inside, so I can sprint at full speed without fear of running into anyone. Which is why it’s almost insulting how unfair it is when out of this whole city of people, he emerges.
Lucan steps into view at the end of the street. I skid to a stop. His dragon-blood red curate robes are almost black when soaked with rain.
Why do you wear those? You’re not even a real curate, I want to jab.
He’s eighteen, like me, and about to go into the Tribunal.
He can’t really be a curate of the Creed until after he has his gilding.
I’m sure the robes are the vicar’s doing, like the collar on a dog.
A signal to everyone, making it clear who he belongs to.
I, of all people, know how much Vicar Darius loves dressing up his pets.
Lucan dips his chin, scowl deepening. “I knew you were slinking about.”