“The king will want this one, Night General,” the guard who held me said with a dark laugh. He shook me like a doll to prove his point. “Look at her! That hair is gold, even if it does have ash in it. She’s obviously Aurora Court. And he won’t care if we have fun with her first. He hasn’t cared about anything except conquest for decades. He said we're supposed to bring any possible Aurora Fae in.”
“On the battlefield, you are under my command,” the Night General growled, his hand on his sword. “We will take her with us, but you will not touch her. None of you will. Now take her to the steeds. She rides with me.”
My body lurched forward, and as I tried to yank myself free, I stumbled and lost my footing. Holy crap. Maybe I should’ve listened to Kai after all.
CHAPTER 15
Kai
Heat poured off the wyvern in punishing waves, rolling over my face and making the skin of my cheekbones sting. Having to restrain this wyvern on such a narrow street and prevent it from doing more damage had nearly drained me, especially when I couldn’t move much myself to maneuver when it kept pushing back and forth.
It didn’t help thatshehad been reckless and become the hood herself. Damn woman. It’d worked, but I still wasn’t convinced she hadn’t knocked her head on something when she dropped through the portal.
Smoke coated my tongue, oily and bitter, and every inhale scraped my lungs as if the air had turned to grit. But that wasn’t as debilitating as knowing Hannah was running toward the Night Court battle. They would spot her and probably jump to the conclusion she was Aurora Fae since her golden hair was still obvious despite the light dusting of ash. And if they spotted her, they’d probably want to take her to the Night King for testing. I had to get to her.
Seven houses had caught fire, and the flames continued to spread. I held my stance, boots planted wide on the uneven stone, knees bent deep enough that my thighs ached with astrain I tried not to show. With the wyvern blocking my view, I couldn’t see how far Hannah had gotten. All I could do was get this beast unconscious so I could follow Hannah and not have to rely on Gavriel to catch her.
Fuck.
I’d sent him after her, and they weren’t back. I could barely stomach the thought, even though I had made the right call. Gavriel was fast, disciplined, and…well, available, but that knowledge did nothing to ease my concern. Nausea twisted in my gut as if I'd eaten bad venison and pickled eggs, and the damn urge to run after her had me distracted from the task at hand.
Hannah had been swallowed by the chaos of the city, but her presence still grated along my nerves. The memory of her on the wyvern’s head flashed unbidden—legs shaking, strange pink and white shoes grinding down on its eyelids, and manner bristling with defiance, as if fear were an inconvenience she could shrug off. And that mouth of hers… Oh, that fucking mouth.
As soon as this wyvern was settled, I’d go after her myself, catch her, and then… Well, putting her back in a cell wasn’t going to work. I didn’t know whether to punish her, reward her, or both.
My wing-claws remained buried in the cobblestones behind me and hooked through cracks between stones, anchoring me like iron spikes. The wyvern wasn’t struggling as much as before, but a line of fissures had spiderwebbed outward from where its claws had punched into the street, and each time the wyvern surged, those cracks shivered wider under the pressure.
Every twitch of its joints sent showers of sparks into the air, many landing where flames already crawled greedily through spilled oil. The cloth Gavriel had dropped over the beast’s head bulged and shifted with each huff of its breath, darkening thecloth at the snout, where foam and spit soaked through. Even blind and bound, it kept trying to lunge forward.
Ashren stood at my left, his shoulder brushing mine as the beast thrashed. His mouth was set in that familiar way that meant he’d already determined his next three steps. “We’re keeping it from sleeping?” He pursed his lips. “We brought a strong enough sedative to put it out for at least twelve hours. There’s room for it to recover in the lower stable near the western gate.”
“Good,” I rasped and cast my gaze to the sky. The wards had almost reformed. The battle sounded as if the Night Forces hadn’t gotten beyond the Market Square, and it appeared as if the towers had repelled the wyvern attack. There were no stirrings of additional attacks to be seen from this vantage point. Surely they weren’t leaving when they’d already breached the eastern gate?
Why wasn’t Hannah back? Gavriel should've already returned with her.
Ashren kept his hands raised and his shadows braided seamlessly into mine along the creature’s neck and shoulders, reinforcing the points under the most strain. He didn’t need instruction. We’d known each other’s fighting styles before we’d even been brought back to the kingdom after our banishment.
“So…she rode the wyvern into submission. That seems promising. I’m guessing that was her idea, not yours.” His voice pitched low enough to carry only to me. “I don’t imagine you objected to the view.”
I shot him a glare, but before I could say anything, the wyvern surged again. Its claws gouged deeper into the stone, and its wings shuddered against broken walls. Firelight rippled across its scales in harsh flashes, and the cloth over its eyes rubbed the cobblestones as its head dipped under the force of the bindings.
I tightened my fingers, keeping the cords at its jaw cinched. “Sleep.”
Anger surged through me as the massive beast lowered its head to the ground and then fell asleep. Overriding the will of a living creature and forcing it to become a berserker, then sending it to its death in such a senseless fashion, was abominable. Had I been inside the castle when it attacked, a sizable chunk of the castle would have been blown apart, possibly killing me and dozens—perhaps hundreds—of others, crippling our court. The Night King had managed to break down the wards long enough to get this beast and several others through them, and nearly driven it mad.
Bram was nothing like he’d once been. My uncle’s face flashed back into my mind, and I remembered him saying,This isn’t Bram. Bram would never act this way. Something must have happened. He was right. This kind of magic was reprehensible and cruel. My former friend was nothing like he had once been.
The cloth over the wyvern’s head rose and fell slowly, its breathing deep and slow.
The fire sent waves of heat against my back. Sweat pooled under my armor, then evaporated as another gust of hot air rolled through. Smoke snagged on the edges of my wings and curled around my shoulders. I recalled my wings, allowing them to dissipate. I pressed a hand to my coat pocket to check the gem. The enchantment had been successfully detached from it and the wyvern, but it could be used again. When I fished it out, my fingertips brushed the ridiculous little pig charm on a sparkling ball that Hannah had kept on a ring.
Now that I was no longer restraining the wyvern, my magic began to restore itself. I thrust the gem into Ashren’s hands. “Take this somewhere safe. Make sure the wyvern is brought indoors. The fire attendants are on their way?”
Ashren tucked the gem in his coat’s inner pocket. “They are. Folge is leading the Dusk Forces. Response teams have moved out already, and based on the sounds, they still control the towers and have fought off the other wyverns. We’re fortunate this wyvern didn’t attack while you were in your study.”
The wind cut sideways through the street, strong enough that my eyes watered. It came fast and hard and shoved at the bones instead of sliding past them with the biting ache of the wild north winds. Hard pellets of snow stung where they struck exposed skin and hissed when they hit hot stone.
My chest tightened as my tug toward Hannah grew into something hot and insistent. It pulled forward in the direction she had run, toward Market Square, where the noise thickened and thinned in uneven pulses. Then it yanked at me so hard, I could barely stand here anymore.
