“I got a measly half hour with my mum, and in exchange he made my training hell for six weeks.”
“How do you think he punished me?”
That silences me. I’ve gone from too hot to cold all over. I hadn’t thought about it at all. Hadn’t seen him as anything more than…a cog.
I’m about to reply when the lights in the hall extinguish at once, like they do in all of Vinguard an hour after the sun sets. Lucan disappears before my eyes as we’re plunged into near-total darkness, though I can feel the heat rolling off him in small waves that crash against the chill realizations I’ve just been having.
“Are you all right?” he breathes.
Did he move closer in the dark?Sounds like he’s only a few inches from me now. “I’m fine,” I lie. I am not fine with that massive silhouette looming in the dark. The dragon sculpture seems even more real now that my imagination is filling in the details… “Why?”
“Your breathing changed.” His fingertips land on my cheek, and I gasp. It’s a clumsy movement. I know he was likely searching for the statue or my shoulder. He withdraws his fingers as quickly as they landed. “Isola?”
His warmth. The sound of his breath. Knowing he isright thereand I can’t see him. It’s all so distracting…enough that I nearly miss the movement to our right: the brief flicker of light before we both dive in opposite directions and a ball of flame tears through the air, exploding half a scale’s width from where I was just standing.
12
I dodge the attack, throwing my body weight into a few extra tumbles in case the flames caught on my clothing. A glowing trail streaks across the floor where Lucan and I were standing. Tiny flames dance over the tile, giving off barely enough light to see the ominous shadows of the dragon statue looming over us. I inhale deeply, an unnatural, metallic, ozone-like scent filling my nose. It’s followed by a soft, rhythmic clicking sound overhead.
“Move!” I scramble to my feet, jumping over the line of flames. There’s nothing more I can do to help Lucan without endangering myself even more. He’ll have to manage on his own.
Another ball of flame lights up the darkness as I skid to a halt in front of the blue dragon tapestry, chest heaving. Movement to my right and a series of curses tells me Lucan heeded my warning, but barely.
“What the—” Lucan is cut off by his own shock.
There’s not just one dragon statue in the room with us any longer. The flames might as well be a beacon in the near-perfect darkness. They glitter off the copper sheen of a second metal dragon. The tapestry that depicted the copper dragon has rolled up on the wall, and the dragon stands proudly in the room, as if emerging from its roost.
“It’s an automaton. Not real.” I pant softly. My heart is galloping inside my ribs, wild and erratic. Even if I know it’s not real, my body sure thinks it is, including my scar, which is itching unbearably.
Another burst of flame from the copper dragon finally illuminates Lucan’s face enough for me to see the exasperated look he’s giving me. “Obviouslyit’s not real.”
“Well, I—” I don’t get to finish. Cold has sunk through theleather of my jerkin, and I realize that it’s not just the copper dragon that was waiting for us. My breath frosts in the air.
He seems to realize the chill haze slipping under the blue tapestry at our side at the same time I do.
But where Lucan dashes away, I freeze in place, eyes closed, panting.
“Isola?” he calls back.
I can’t reply.Move, I command my muscles as the churning of gears and rattling of metal fill my ears.Move! They’re not real.
“Isola!”
The tapestry rolls up like the curtain of the worst stage play I could ever imagine. A massive statue of a blue dragon rumbles out at my side, and all I can do is stare wide-eyed and utterly terrified. My whole body is locked up.
“I seriously thought you were better than this!”
Spite is apparently the motivator I needed.
I push away from the automaton before the frost creeps over my shoulders. Lucan has sprinted to the silver dragon that’s materialized from behind its tapestry. I follow his lead. Not because I want to team up with him, but because he has the right idea. The silver dragon might be bloodthirsty, but it doesn’t spit fire or acid or freeze the ground it’s standing on. And for as long as we stay in its blind spot by its haunches, its scales should shield against the other three…at least until the green dragon emerges next to us.
“Thanks for finally following my lead,” he says dryly.
“Shut up,” I snap back, breathless from the run.
“Wish you showed the dragons that same ferocity. Some hero you are.” He and Cindel will get along amazingly in here. Maybe she can have him after all.Not that it’s any of my business.
“Weren’t you the one to say I’m ‘stronger than any of them could ever imagine’? Or was that just to make me think I could trust you?” I jerk my face in his direction with a glare,repeating his words from the one day we had one-on-one training together. The day he was in charge and I thought I could convince him to let me skip.
