Saipha pushes past me, taking the lead, as she always does. Just like a Mercy Knight would.
As soon as she’s two steps ahead, I rub my palm on my thigh and stop suppressing a shiver. It rips through me with a wave of hot nausea that’s gone as quickly as it came.It’s getting worse. Gritting my teeth, I shake my head and start up before she notices me falling behind. But I can’t stop myself from massaging the scar on my chest, where it feels like my heart is trying to beat through bone and skin.
“So how’d you manage to get out of training today? I’d think the vicar would be having you run every drill one more time before the Tribunal,” Saipha says once we’re about one floor up and it’s clear we haven’t been followed. “Don’t tell me you tried to barter with Lucan again?”
“Of course not. He can go suck a dragon talon.” I more than learned my lesson with that. Just thinking of that day has my hands balling into fists. But I force myself to relax.It doesn’t matter now. At least that’s the lie I tell myself. “I said I was sick.”
“And Vicar Darius bought that?”
“Clearly not completely, since he sent Lucan after me. But Callon is at work. As is Marie. And I’m sure Father is still locked in his workshop.” As he has been for weeks.“So it’s not like anyone is home to rat me out.”
“How’s your father handling you leaving tomorrow?”
“Fine.” I shrug. “Seemed a bit emotional earlier when I brought up going to Mum’s tonight.”
“I can’t imagine master artificer, architect of dragon-slaying weapons,theman who knows how to draw Etherlight, Kassin Thaz being ‘a bit emotional.’”
“My father would be flattered you’ve paid such attention to his accolades.” I’m not sure if it’s the mention of Etherlight that has my scar itching…or the mention of dragon-slaying weapons.Will one of those soon be pointed at me?
I change the subject before Saipha picks up on my dark thoughts. Or asks about Mum. “What about your parents?”
“Mom’s been fine, overall. Though I’m convinced she’s trying to fatten me up. I’ve been getting an extra portion every night.” Saipha pauses on a landing, catching her breath and glancing down another dark passage. Without consultation, she continues heading up. “Dad’s a weepy mess.”
Laughter distracts me from the itching. “The Marius Celest? The man with five confirmed kills under his crossbow?Weepy?”
“Now who’s keeping track of the accolades?” Saipha grins over her shoulder. I roll my eyes. “And you know, Dad’s all soft inside. He’s scary for dragons, not people.”
And for dragon cursed, I stop myself from saying. But any Mercy Knight would kill a dragon cursed on sight.Will it behim?I stare at Saipha’s back, stomach churning, throat so tight I can barely draw labored breaths. The question that’s kept me up every night for weeks returns. The one that’s usually gone with the dawn, but today, I can’t seem to banish it. Not when there’s so little time left.
Will it beyouwho kills me, Saipha?
“Pause.” Saipha holds out a hand and passes the lantern back to me. “Listen.”
There’s a softwhooshingsound coming from above. “Too irregular to be dragon wings,” I whisper.
“We’d hear the bells if it was a dragon. Snuff the light.”
I do.
The worn stone steps ahead are outlined in a cold light. Faint but undeniable. I can barely see the look of excitement Saipha shoots me in the near-total darkness. But I know it’s there, because I return it.
She begins taking the steps two at a time, and I follow. Heart pounding. Hoping,hopingthis is what I think it is. I can get what I need, then get to Mum’s. Tonight’s the night I’ll ask the question I’ve been wanting to for months yet have been too afraid to voice. Too afraid for years to even let myself think about. And then—
“Talon and fang, Isola!” Saipha calls to me right as I round the bend, harsh light nearly blinding me after our dark ascent.
I skid to a stop, Saipha’s arm like an iron bar bracing me, keeping me from careening off the ledge and tumbling down the sheer wall to my death. Wind batters my face, carrying a putrid yet sweet zing of the scourge that’s slowly ending our world.
I’ve found what I came here for.
2
Something big—a yellow dragon would be my guess, based on the size and depth of the gouge—has torn a chunk out of the wall. Rubble is littered across the stone landing at our feet, spilling from the collapsed stairwell above us. But all I can focus on is the opening.
It’s as if one of the Creed’s scrolls has tumbled off its shelf and unfurled before me, painstaking drawings now rendered in living color.
To my left, the Nightgale Mountains loom larger than ever against a gray sky already beginning to darken with night. I can see them in full—down to the foothills at their base—when all I’ve ever beheld before has been their snow-capped spires carving the sky like a jagged saw from over the wall. Barren earth stretches between them and a distant forest of blackened, skeletal trees, rising from a red haze tangling around their corpses.
“Is that what I think it is?” Saipha’s words are tight with horror.
