Except instead of just a simple glob of saliva left on the street, streams of white spew from his mouth. The substance sticks to the building on his right and starts to stretch, like underwater tentacles reaching for prey.
People in the crowd gasp and move away.
In a blink, he turns to the left and spits again, sticking another clump to the other building with a wet smack. The two globs grasp for each other in frothing strings that remind me of the left-behinds of spittlebugs, their clots of bubbly refuse sticking to grass and twigs.
The boy’s strange magic lengthens and drops down, until the entire width of the street is blocked with his foaming webs of saliva that act as a barrier against the oncoming soldiers.
Hare and I get knocked back against the brick wall as a group of fae race down the alley to get away from the scene, putting distance between themselves and this show-down on the street.
A holler tears down from the rooftops. “Baz!” I look up to see an older fae screaming at the boy. There’s fear in his face as he reaches toward him as if he can yank him up from the street. “No!”
Worry starts to twist my insides, and I push myself away from the wall. I have to physically pry open spaces for me to move forward in the crowd.
“Lord Rot?” Hare calls behind me, but I ignore him.
When I shove my way past a few more fae, I spot the boy again, just as the magical cyclone slams into his sticky barrier.
The spinning air magic rips it from the walls, clearing the path with ease. But then it suddenly heads right for the boy.
Shit.
I hurry forward again, but the twister slams into his body, picking him up like he weighs nothing. I see his shocked, terrified face just before his body is sucked further into the spin. Then the tornado pivots, sending him flying out with incredible force.
I watch in shock as his body crashes against a building with a sickening hit that seems to stun the entire street. He falls, landing in a broken heap and covered in dust, his bones bent and eyes unseeing.
What the fuck?
The male on the rooftop lets out a bloodcurdling wail that flays my insides.
“You didn’t have to kill him!” someone else screams from the street, a male with a deep blue robe and bare feet. “He didn’t hurt anyone!”
“He was obstructing the crown’s justice,” the cyclone soldier yells. “Now move aside or face the same fate!”
The soldiers start to step toward the robed fae with threat, just as fresh screams rip from the city square. Coming from the same direction where Auren’s aura blooms.
A surge of anxiety rushes through me, making the spikes beneath my spine pulse.
I need to deal with these fucking soldiers and get to Aurennow.
I shove aside more people, tossing them behind me, and finally manage to wrench forward. Dark intent fills my whole body as I make it to the front of the pack, and the cyclone fae swivels his attention toward me. Our eyes lock.
He’s fucking done, but he doesn’t know it yet.
My magic pulses through the ground and grips him so that when he starts to say something to me, he finds he can’t. His eyes widen as his tongue starts to rot inside his mouth. “Not so tough when you’re up against someone your own size, are you?” I snarl into the dying wind. “You had no right to kill him.”
The power of the cyclone goes petering out as the fae’s tongue turns black, shriveling inside his jaw. I look behind him to all the other gaping soldiers, just as the male who was on the rooftop races out onto the street and collapses over the boy’s dead body. His wails soak my ears.
Rot spreads out from my feet, slithering like snakes, and the bricks start to buckle with decay as it reaches the Stone Swords.
I’m going to break them just like they broke that boy.
Their screams of panic start catching on right as the black veins along the ground reach their clustered feet. The soldiers begin to topple, bones decaying within the confines of their moldering skin.
And then I let my dragon tear free.
Like billowing smoke and streaking shadows, it swarms out of my skin, collecting, building, feeding off my emotions. When it lands hard at my side, its chest gleams with gilded scales, and its body is completelysolid.
For the first time, I’ve just manifested a fully physical dragon.
