“Not just a half-breed, and not just a fae.” My chest heaved with the effort of talking, and I clenched my fists until my talons dug into the familiar scars. “Dragon, I am here as your heir.”
The flames receded, but didn’t disappear. Instead, they crawled along the top of the cave, bathing the vast space in shadows that were darker and more corporeal than they should have been, moving with a life unto themselves.
I blinked through the smoke and the haze, watching as the shadows converged into an enormous winged serpent that stretched across the ceiling. It glided to the ground, where I could just barely make out the edges of a rough opening that I assumed led deeper into the caverns.
Oh. Does the massive shadow dragon who keeps hurling fire at me want me to follow it even deeper into the cave of torture? Wonderful.
But I sure as shards hadn’t come this far to turn around now.
I took a single step forward before the shadows stilled. My breath caught in my throat as they shattered, coming back together in a form that was smaller but no less intimidating. The form stepped forward into the light of the flames, and I froze.
It wasn’t a shadow or a silhouette. It was a male fae. Or at least, it appeared to be.
The power that spilled from each measured footstep felt wrong for a mortal form, like something ancient and colossal wearing a body it could split at any moment.
Amethyst eyes locked on mine, gleaming against tawny skin that almost rippled at the edges with shadows. His hair nearly blended with the darkness, the strands falling along his brow curling slightly at the edges.
Every inch of him felt out of time. From his sharp cheekbones and ethereal stare, down to the pristine yet completely foreign clothes he wore. Like he had stepped through a painting of some faraway land.
He tilted his head, looking me up and down like I was a particularly bothersome pest that had dared to enter his majestic space. His gaze lingered on the lightly singed locks of navy hair flying around my face, then on my features, which I could only assume were as haggard as I felt.
Was he judging me for the state his shards-damned cave had left me in?
I lifted my chin, and he scoffed.
“Insolent, just like your mother was.” His tone was mocking, his voice cultured and edged with the barest trace of an accent that felt older than time itself.
Though this voice wasalmostcasual compared to the thundering one that had spoken in my mind before, each word still echoed with a wave of power. The air froze in my lungs, my tongue going still with the raw force of the Dragon’s presence.
I wanted to ask him about my mother, wanted to demand the power I had come here for, to argue with his assessment of me, to do anything at all but accept the fate that I was beginning to suspect I had resigned myself to.
But it was all I could do to stay standing as his eyes narrowed and another shards-blasted firestorm swept through the cave.
Chapter 4
Draven
“Hold,” Nevara ordered, her voice farther away than the distance should allow. Her milky eyes were unfocused. Paler than usual and distant—locked on a point in time that none of us could see.
Frost clung to her lashes, her narrow frame rigid and gleaming with starlight as if she were somehow caught between this moment and the next.
The Korythid hissed, its tail whipping through the air and sending a line of soldiers flying. Eryx’s snarl cut through the chaos as more ironfrost flared to life around his gauntleted fists.
“Visionary—” Eryx began.
“I said not yet!” Nevara’s answering voice was a crack of thunder. “If we want even a chance of saving the rest of our armies, you will wait. Everyone will wait.”
The Lord General stiffened, but obeyed her nonetheless.
Though my mana itched to be released, I leashed my power as well, muttering a curse to the Shard Mother as I waited for some celestial sign that might just give us the upper hand.
Then, the Korythid slammed one clawed limb into the ground, scattering a spray of ice and stone, and Nevara’s head snapped upward.
“Now!” she yelled.
Eryx moved first, slamming his palm into the frozen ground. His mana rippled outward in precise, geometric patterns, trapping two of the creature’s legs in jagged pillars of iron-forged ice. I called on the frost and wind, using every ounce of my mana to form a cyclone of ice.
Rain and snow hardened into more hailstones before sharpening into spears. Then, one after another, they slammed down into the narrow opening between the monster’s plated armor.
