The beach scene dissolved around her.
And that was when she heard the screams.
Everyone turned toward the windows and doors, their awed murmurs turning to confused gasps and shocked calls.Something is wrong, Faron thought inanely.
The Queenshield who weren’t closing around Aveline streamed toward the exit. Faron raced after them before anyone could stop her. Something waswrong, and where was Elara? Her sister wouldhave forced her way through this crowd to be at her side right now, but she wasn’t, and there was screaming somewhere outside. She knew that if her sister wasn’t with her, then she would be running toward the danger in her eagerness to help. And she would never let Elara run into danger alone.
Faron’s shoes slapped against the marble floor of the palace as she pushed her body as fast as it would go. But it didn’t take long to find the source of the shouts. It took her longer to believe what she was seeing.
The Victory Garden had descended into chaos. There was a green dragon soaring low above the trees, a Rider clinging to its back. On the ground beneath them, her eyes ablaze, was Elara. Faron watched in open-mouthed horror as Elara threw a palm-size ball of fire at an approaching Queenshield soldier, knocking his scalestone sword from his hand and blasting him backward off his feet. The soldier’s uniform, like many of the clothes made in San Irie in the wake of the war, was flame-resistant, but as he hit a nearby palm tree hard enough to crack the trunk, Faron winced in sympathy.
Being flame-resistant didn’t save you from the threat of a broken back.
“What’s going on?” Reeve gasped from behind her. The queen appeared seconds later, her fingers gripping her skirts so that she could run faster. Only Faron’s battle-honed reflexes kept her from jumping at the unexpected sight of them, her mind already counting them as tools in her arsenal. “Is that—?”
“That Rider’s clearly done something to her,” Faron said. It didn’t matter what she was seeing. It wasimpossiblethat Elara would do this if she were feeling like herself. “We need to contain the situation before it gets any bigger.”
Aveline blinked. “The Queenshield are—”
“Making it worse.” Faron turned to face them. She could see the rise in Reeve’s button-down where his dragon relic was concealed, and she reached out to place a hand over it. She couldn’t feel any of the Langlish magic it supposedly held, but it was warm beneath her fingers from its constant contact with his body. “Help me, and I won’t complain about you for a week.”
“That’s a lie,” he said, catching her wrist. There was a smile on his face as he drew her hand away. “But you don’t need to convince me to save my best friend. What should I do?”
“I’m right here,” said Aveline, and that was Aveline the soldier Faron had fought alongside. Gone were her pretension and her queenly mask. Here was her fear and determination on display, ready to act. “I’ll help. What shouldwedo?”
“Stop Elara. I’ll take the dragon.”
Reeve and Aveline disappeared into the garden without another word.
Faron’s eyes locked on the beast, watching it bank over the ocean beyond the garden wall and turn to fly toward them. Suddenly, she was back on the battlefield, wearing armor that was too large for her small frame. She’d seen enough dragons spewing flame across the land to know what it looked like right before a storm of fire rained down. This dragon, a dark green that nearly blended in with the darker sky, had drawn itself upright in the air, its wings spread as wide as they could go, its head thrown back. Its stomach glowed a dull red, like an ember in a dying fireplace.
If Faron didn’t bring it down, it was going to raze the palace grounds, and they would be back at war again. Faron couldn’t deal with another war.
She needed a god. She needed Obie.
When the twelve-foot dark-skinned man with faintly glowing white eye sockets flickered into view, Faron paused to take him in since she called him so rarely. He was dressed in a milk-white suit under a matching robe, the hood drawn so that only his bearded jaw was visible. His trousers and the lapels of his robe were embroidered with gold, each phase of the moon set vertically on the fabric in silver thread. Against the darkness, Obie, the god of the moon and the lord of the night, shimmered like the pale face of his celestial body above. A king as beatific as his realm.
He merged with her, his power becoming her power, his strength becoming her strength. She stretched a hand toward the dragon, and magic raced through her body, radiating outward in an invisible wave. Irie was perfect for displays of raw power and burning flame. Mala could fool the senses, could consolidate the power of nearby astrals for stronger spells. But Obie’s powers allowed her to manipulate the shadows.
Faron’s will directed Obie’s energy, and, as one, they sank into the broad shadow of the dragon; it surged up from the surface of the water and transformed into midnight chain links. These restraints looped around the dragon’s body, and, as Faron closed her fist, they began to constrict. She saw the dragon twist its head in confusion for a second before her power yanked it downward, burying it in a watery grave. Her hand shook as she held onto it, and she could feel it fighting the grip of her chains. Would the queen be angry if she actually killed this dragon? Would that paint San Irie as the aggressor, or would it be considered self-defense? What if—
“FARON!”
She blinked out of the prison of her own thoughts, searchingthe garden until she found Reeve. The top buttons of his crisp white shirt were undone, and dangling from a black leather rope around his neck was a silver wire-wrapped dragon’s-eye suspended in glass. A bulbous sapphire iris with a catlike pupil seemed to stare right at her, glowing like a beacon against the darkness as Reeve used the magic in his dragon relic to make a cloud of water hover in the air. His raised hand trembled as if the liquid was fighting him.
She was holding adragondown with her powers, and his stupid relic couldn’t even keep water in the air? No wonder she’d never seen him use it.
More details swirled into focus the longer she stared at him. He was kneeling on the ground, his free hand wrapped around a struggling figure—a figure she now realized was Elara. Her sister was wide-eyed and open-mouthed, coughing up water that rose in bubbles to join the rest over her head. Her sweat-soaked skin was losing color, and her hands were clenched around her own throat. Kneeling next to her was Aveline, her hands bright with summoning magic, ropes of pure energy keeping Elara from thrashing around and hurting herself or others.
“Faron, she’s drowning,” Reeve shouted. “Whatever you’re doing to the dragon, you have to stop. It’s happening to Elara, too!”
Faron released her spell immediately. The dragon burst out of the ocean, avoiding the orbs of summoned energy that the Queenshield threw toward it. Elara coughed up one more spurt of water before her eyes caught fire again. She blasted Reeve off his feet with a wave of flame that poured from between her lips. Aveline caught Faron’s eye and nodded, a silent acknowledgment that they would switch roles. Her ropes of energy releasedElara, merged, and expanded until the queen had a glowing shield before her, taller than the castle. She pointed her fingers toward the dragon and jagged pieces of the shield broke off, slapping the creature back and forth like a toy.
With her last shard of magic, Aveline drew a trail of blood across its face—and it was Elara who Faron saw bleed. A scar wept crimson down her cheek as she threw fireball after fireball at Reeve’s weaker shield. Elara brought a hand up to touch the blood and roared.
Like a dragon.
Likethedragon.
