“Tamsyn,” I breathed.
I did not know what Stig was about, but everything inside me tensed. This did not bode well. I watched with eyes aching in my head as Stig lifted the latch and hauled her out.
He withdrew his sword of dragon bone. I recognized it at once—had seen plenty of those weapons in my day. Most stored away, but a few on display in the keep at home.
His wild eyes looked between the two of us. “I will prove what she is.” He lifted his sword higher. “It didn’t work last time. Perhaps this time it shall.”
“It didn’t work last time because I am not a dragon,” she insisted.
I frowned, trying to follow their exchange and make sense of it.
“We shall see.”
He lifted the sword.
I broke free from the hands holding me with no difficulty and launched forward as Stig brought his sword down with both hands in a slash toward her face.
Tamsyn’s wide eyes tracked me as I got in the way—blocking the blow.
“No! Fell, don’t!” she shouted. “Let him!”
I felt the blade tear through my clothing, slice my skin, splitting the top of my shoulder where it struck.
My blood spurted.
Purple blood.
I slapped a hand over the wound, covering it.
Tamsyn screamed, her hand flying to her mouth in horror.
Everything slowed, ground to a halt.
I felt the eyes on me. Watching the rich purple blood flowing like a river between my fingers, dripping and pooling into the snow. Gasps rolled through the crowd, all gazes fixed on that evidence, on the telltale purple blood, and I realized this was what Stig had been after all along.
The soldiers were back, grabbing hold of me again, tearing my hand off my wound.
I’d fallen into Stig’s trap without a thought to the consequences. Not that I would undo it. The bone sword to the face would have killed her.
My secret was out.
There was no going back now.
With a bellow that shook the very branches of the trees, I flung off my attackers, launching them several feet from me. I stood with legs braced apart, arms wide and vibrating at my sides.
Still roaring, I burst into light, all of me gone, shredded in an instant, in a blinding flash … replaced with my dragon.
Stig’s face froze in horror as I flew forward, my great talonssinking into his shoulders. I lifted him as though he weighed nothing at all, carrying him up, up, and then, once airborne, I ripped his head from his body, flinging him down, throwing what was left of him onto the ground amid his soldiers with vicious force.
Then pandemonium. Chaos. Soldiers shrieking. Running. A few had the wherewithal to go for the weapons of dragon bone they carried, as well as weapons stashed in the wagon.
Several charged me with bone spears. I deflected and dodged. Great gusts of mist rolled out from me, radiating from every pore, adding to the confusion as I evaded and attacked, evaded and attacked. Another flash of light burst in the air, penetrating my fog, and Tamsyn was there in all her red-gold glory beside me.
We worked in unison, attacking those who attacked us until it was just the two of us, hovering over the ground, our great wings churning the mist-laden air. Several soldiers, some injured, some just cowed in defeat, shrank on the ground beneath us. Magnus was one of them, looking up at us in terrified wonder, a hand held over his face as though the sight of us was too bright, too fearsome.
Tamsyn and I looked to each other, slowly lowering to the ground.
We were done here. We would not take the lives of those who still lived. They offered no immediate threat. There was the long-term threat, of course. We gazed at each other in silent understanding. We had neither the will nor the desire to kill anymore … even if it would keep the secret of dragonkind, the secret of us, safe. We were not killers simply for the sake of killing. Not the monsters of lore.
