His tongue glides along his bottom lip before hysterically laughing. “She’s coming for us all.” He rubs his nose, blood smearing along his upper lip. I didn’t see the blood that was dripping from his arm. “But if I can kill you, she will free me from what is to come. I’d rather live a life cursed, than live through what she has planned for the Realms.”
He points the blade towards me, scanning the arena as if he searches for her.
“Why does she want me dead?” I follow his eye path. “Why am I so important?”
His brows narrow in, gripping the blade tighter in his hands. “She wants your stones.” His lips curl into a crazed sneer. “She wantsyour blood. She needs the dragons.”
My head slightly shakes, the pebbles digging into my palms as I try to scurry backwards. “I feel you have the wrong girl.”
“The woman with midnight-black hair.” He swiftly lunges and hovers over me, his knees digging into the gravel as he straddles me. Within seconds, he drags his dagger along my cheekbone, right under my eye. “And the woman with the five birthmarks, marking the Realms of our world.”
His blade pricks my skin, and warm blood oozes down my cheek. “Do you see me, my Queen? Do you?” He scans the arena, his eyes searching frantically for her. “This is for you!”
He takes his blade, holding it high to pierce it through my body. His curls dance across his face with the wind, fire embers flickering wildly behind him. But then I see Kaine, sprinting full force, coming behind him and ripping off his eye patch before throwing him to the ground.
“Agh,” Kaine spits. “I always hated you.”
Skydance hollers out in agony, covering his eyes with a trembling hand—but within a mere second, rips his gaze towards me as I scurry up to my feet, grabbing my blades out of my sheaths. One of his eyes is the piercing crimson with golden flakes that I remember, but his other, the eye that is always covered with his eyepatch,is ice white. He uncomfortably shifts his neck side to side, showing more of the healed, jagged claw marks that mark his body.
“I hope you completely lose your eye this time, that patch won’t protect you from the fire.” Kaine cracks his shoulders, tilting his head side to side. “How were you chosen a few years back to be a part of the eight? It still doesn't sit right with me. How could Pyre let you in?”
“Really, Kaine?” He cocks his head to the side, letting his eyes drift over to Kaine who stands by himself, daggers in both hands. “You have the nerve to fight me? When you knowwhat I am capable of?”
Theon casually walks in, twisting his dagger in hand with a cocky grin. “Are you sure you want to do this now? While we try to stay alive from the dragons?”
He lunges forward, screeching through clenched teeth. “I have to do it now!” His voice growls. “She must see me kill her, or she will never believe it!”
Theon hurls himself forward, their dagger blades hitting against each other as fire spreads across the air. Skydance takes a powerful blow to the face, knocking him backward, but it doesn’t stop him. Their bodies collide with brutal intensity as they fend off each other's dagger swings.
“Go!” Kaine pushes me. I stumble, catching my balance against the wall. “Hide!”
His eyes widen, silently ordering me to run. I release a deep grunt of frustration, despising the fact that they are sacrificing themselves to protect me. I sprint forward, my breath ragged and my heart pounding like a drum, refusing to glance back at the chaos I'm leaving behind.My friends I am leaving behind.
But I should be more careful to look where I am running to. My body slams into something thick and hard, almost taking the breath out of me. It isn’t one of the massive stones I have been hiding behind, and my eyes widen as I glare at the enormous claws.
My cheeks fill with air before I deeply exhale.Shit.
A hot, powerful breath beats against my head. The strands of my loose braid dance wildly around my face as I gaze upward, first seeing the scaly chest, then the towering neck and the large, flaring nostrils.
“Serene!” A voice trembles in the distance, but I don’t dare move.I don’t dare look.My fingers tremble to the side of me as I calm my racing heart beat. When my eyes lock onto the beast, my shoulders tense and my body freezes.
Being up close to one is scarier than anything I have ever done before.
The gray one swivels its neck and drops its enormous head to where it's right in front of me. Hot steam singes my face with each exhale from the dragon. Its golden eyes are mixed with a piercing scarlet red, staring into my soul. Wounds—some fresh, some healed—are marked all over its scaly body.
“Don’t move!” I hear his voice again. Unsure if it’s Theon or Kaine who is screaming out to me, or if Koen has finally come to his senses that I am not who they say I am.But I know Koen’s voice.It isn’t him. The dragon deeply exhales again, and scorching, wet air slams into my face as the crowd goes silent. Despite a few who scream at the dragon to swallow me whole, or some who beg it to burn me to ash—dying to see my bones.
How lovely.
I side-eye the dragon from the Darkland who watches us closely. Its teeth are sharp as its mouth is wide, ready to blow fire at any moment. But it doesn't, it just…watches.
It feels as if the gray dragon's eyes shift to the stones in my arm, tilting its head to the side with curiosity as an arrow soars in the sky, bouncing off of a scale on its neck. It snaps its mouth, blaring a blazing fire at the man with a red long mohawk that reaches to the bottom of his back. Within a blink of an eye, all that is left…is bones. The dragon whips its attention back towards me as I tremble, stumbling backwards over my own feet. I can’t escape. If I dare to run, I’ll be burned alive.
If I stay, I'll be burned alive.
The only option—death.
Only a few men remain it seems as I glance side to side, catching sight of Kaine and Theon. Theon holds a blade to Skydance’s throat as Kaine holds one to his ribs, daring Skydance to even move a muscle. But Koen is out of sight.I know he isn’t dead.
