“Fight this.” It’s too late. I know it is. But if I don’t try, I will regret this day even more than I already will. “You’re strong enough. If anyone can beat the curse, it’s you.”
Her head lowers, scaled chin almost touching the ground. This is the closest I’ve ever been to a dragon’s face before—even closer than the attack weeks ago. Closer than the beast that tried to carve out my heart.
But the one similarity she has with those other two encounters is her gaze. She looks at me with the same quizzical eyes that those dragons had. As if it’s the first time they’ve ever even allowed themselves to consider that, maybe, we don’t have to fight and kill each other.
I extend my palm with more confidence than I did on that night. I allow more Etherlight to collect. I don’t consciously draw it from the Font—I draw it from within myself.
“It’s all right,” I murmur. “You don’t have to do this.” I try to make my words as soothing as possible.
The dragon slowly blinks. And I blink back. Its eyes shut once more, and for a heartbeat when they open, they’re no longer blue. A familiar shade of green, a stare of recognition.
Saipha. My heart flutters. My palm nearly meets the tip of her nose. Etherlight swells within me, reaching its maximum. I feel it rising like a current. Light begins to glow.Maybe… Maybe I could reverse the curse.
There’s a flash of light, and a resoundingboomfollows on a second’s delay.
The beam of Etherlight is indeed smaller than a cannon’s,but it fires straight through Saipha’s neck like a lance made of pure light. Then a shock wave shoots out from it as it explodes, decapitating her.
She doesn’t even have a chance to make a dying gasp. The dragon’s head falls to the ground, followed by its body. Completely limp.
My hand hangs midair. Part of me still wants to touch her. To pry open those giant eyes just to see if I had imagined the flash of green.She was in there. My friend was in there. And theymurderedher…
I stagger back, trembling. The meager contents of my stomach upturn and splatter across the ground not far from her head. I grip my knees, heaving and gasping for air.
It’s me. She told me as much last night. That quiet confession… She knew it. She’d felt the curse overtaking her for who knows how long. Weeks, likely. I see her paranoia in a new light, her snappishness, her exhaustion, her trembling. What I thought was fear and the Tribunal getting the better of her was really the curse ravaging her body.
She fought it for so long.
“You were so strong,” I choke out, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.You were the strong one, believing in me until the very end, and I let you down. I want to throw my arms around her massive face and apologize for all the ways I failed her. To mourn for the friend that was far better than I deserved.
But there’s no time. At least not for me.
“Apprehend her!” The prelate’s voice echoes across the stadium.
Figures race toward me in my periphery. I don’t move. There’s a second where a rogue instinct tells me to run. But I continue staring at Saipha.
“I’m sorry.” My fingers finally land on the tip of her scaled nose. They linger there, only for a second, but long enough tofeel nothing left within her—no power, no spark of life.
Then I’m tackled to the ground.
60
My cheek meets the packed earth of the stadium floor—thank goodness it’s not where I got sick. I still stare at Saipha through the eye that isn’t being forced shut by the weight of bodies and boots upon me. Mercy Knights surround me, followed by the clicking of crossbow bolts being engaged.
Marius staggers to his daughter. He collapses to his knees by the dragon, hanging his head and gripping his thighs. Sobs he does not unleash rack his shoulders. He is allowed to mourn for his daughter now that the Mercy kill has been completed.
He made sure they could take the shot.
Whereas I reached for her as she breathed. I told them all to stop. I committed a cardinal sin of Vinguard: sympathy for a dragon.
“Let her up,” the vicar commands, and bile rises in my throat. I’d rather be at the hands of Mercy Knights than accept help from him. “Get her to a room for questioning.”
“This way.” The high curate from Mercy leads the way.
I’m peeled off the ground by at least three people. Two hands in my armpits, a person grabbing each arm. The hoisting is so violent that my toes leave the ground. There are ten crossbows all pointed at my face.
The vicar looks at me with thinly veiled disdain as we follow the high curate of Mercy. I’ve never seen the vicar regard me with such contempt so openly. Even if his expression could be mistaken for worry by anyone else, I know better. I know him.
I barely hide my own rage in reply.
