Suddenly, a familiar voice rose up in her.
Dragon burns are deadly, Iskari, and a burn like that?
Asha tried to shake Torwin’s voice loose. But it lodged inside her.
You were just a little girl.
If the story she believed was true—that she was alone when Kozu burned her—how had the toxins been drawn out in time?
Asha remembered the burn Torwin helped treat. Her hands shook so hard. The poison set in so fast....
Kozu stood stone still, watching her. The glow of his belly dimmed.
“What are you waiting for!” Jarek yelled. “Strike!”
Asha stared at the commandant. The one who found her that day and raced her back to the city.
Have I not done everything you’ve ever asked of me, my king?
Jarek drew his saber—which shimmered against the angry sky. He motioned to his soldats, who swarmed the field like cockroaches.
Have I not defended your walls? Put down your revolts?
Kept your secrets?
Kozu stood at Asha’s back. Those great wings spread wide as he eyed the armored men around them. Asha could have turned and plunged her sacred blades into his breast. It would have been easy. It would have ended everything right here.
Instead, she fixed her gaze on Jarek, like a hunter on its prey. “Tell me: how long did it take you to find me, the day Kozu burned me?”
Jarek turned to face her. There it was again: the fear in his eyes.
Kozu’s story blazed inside her, weaving with her own memories of a fire burning away her skin and the screams trapped inside her throat.
“How long!” she demanded.
She watched him bury his fear the way she buried her shame. Watched him look to the dragon at her back, then change his mind about the saber. He called out to a soldat behind him and the man tossed him a spear.
“Truly, you’re as foolish as your brother,” he said, his grip tightening on the shaft as he waded into the tall, rattling grass. “The enemy stands behind you, Asha. Everything you’ve everwanted lies at the edge of your blade, and yet youhesitate.”
A soldat holding a body-length shield waded out with him.
Everything I’ve ever wanted...
She wanted deliverance from Jarek. She wanted redemption for her crimes. She wanted revenge on the one who’d burned her and brought destruction to Firgaard.
But what if the crime was never hers?
What if the enemy was not the one she’d always thought?
Jarek crept closer. At her back, Kozu growled again, louder this time. The commandant stopped short, fifteen steps away. The soldat at his side trembled.
Asha stepped closer to Kozu’s beating heart. Kozu, who could have killed her mere moments ago if he’d wanted to. Kozu, who didn’t take to the skies even as the soldats closed in around him.
If Kozu were truly her enemy, she wouldn’t be alive.
“Dragonfire is deadly.” This was one truth she knew. “Even the smallest of burns must be tended immediately, to draw out the toxins.”
“I’m the one who discovered your treachery.” Jarek’s gaze darted to the soldats moving closer in, checking their positions as he kept her distracted. “Eight years ago,Ifollowed you. I saw you telling the old stories aloud. I saw the First Dragon come to you.”
