He doesn’t wait for an answer. Heat billows from him in a distorting wave as bone cracks and flesh reshapes. In the space of three heartbeats, the man is gone, and a king of black scale and golden fire stands in his place. With a roar that shakes the very flagstones beneath my feet, he launches himself into the sky, like a living meteor of righteous fury.
He intercepts the rust-colored dragon first, his sheer size andmomentum sending the smaller creature tumbling through the air. He tries to herd them, to drive them away with basso roars and displays of his massive wings, but they are like rabid dogs, nipping and spitting gouts of flame that sizzle against his ancient scales. They insist.
My eyes are fixed on the aerial melee, my hand instinctively gripping my sword hilt. I track the gray one as it banks hard, its movements jerky but fast. It sees an opening. It folds its wings and dives, a streak of stone-gray plummeting directly toward us.
“Esme!” Brynn shrieks.
I don’t need the warning. I draw my blade and my will in the same motion. Shadows, thick and cold, leap from the courtyard stones, coalescing at my command. They form a writhing shield above us, a net of pure darkness meant to catch the falling beast.
The dragon hits my shield with a shriek of rage. The impact jars me to my teeth, the feedback of raw power nearly buckling my knees. My shadows hold, but they strain, sizzling and fraying where the dragon’s claws tear at them.
It is at that precise moment that the sky flashes white. A series of concussive blasts rip through the air from the direction of the southern wall, far away. The sound is a deep, gut-punchingwhump-whump-whumpof high explosives. The three dragons in the air flinch, their heads snapping toward the sound, their attack faltering for a single, crucial second.
That is all Chad needs.
He moves past me, a low growl tearing from a throat that is, once more, no longer entirely human. His form swells, darkens, his features sharpening into something brutal and predatory. Crimson light bleeds from his eyes as he leaps, his powerful legs launching him impossibly high. He slams into the gray dragon’s underbelly, his claws, now long and black, sinking deep into its softer scales.
The dragon screams, thrashing, and my shadow-net shatters. Before it can recover, Brynn shoves her hand onto my shoulder. A wave of ancient, glacial power floods through me.
Now, child,a voice that is not my sister’s echoes in my soul. Ezekiel’s grim resolve surges through me, braided with Angus’s cold fury, their strength folding into mine. I gather it—all of it—with my shadows, pleasantly surprised by the way the magics latch onto each other, hungry, almost seamless.
I lash out with a spear of shadow laced with ancestral cold. It slams into the gray dragon’s neck. The young beast convulses, its fire choking out in its throat before it crashes to the ground, trapped in a prison of shadow, frost, and demonic force.
Above, Dayn uses the opening with brutal efficiency. He catches the green dragon by the wing, tearing it with a sound of ripping canvas, then unleashes a torrent of golden fire that sends the rust-colored one reeling back into the night. The green one follows, wounded and screaming. They are overwhelmed. They flee, flying off into the darkening sky.
Silence descends, broken only by the panting of the captured gray dragon and the wail of the alarms. Dayn lands with an earth-shaking thud and, still in his draconic form, stalks toward the downed creature, his eyes gleaming with anger.
The main doors of the academy burst open and more darkbloods rush out, including my uncle and aunt, flanked by Ridge and Nyv. They stop short, taking in the scene: the captured dragon, Chad’s still-fading demonic aura, Brynn pale but steady at my side, and Dayn’s still-giant form radiating murder.
“What happened?” Ridge demands, his eyes wide.
“An escalation,” I say, my voice flat. My gaze drifts from the struggling dragonling, to the distant smoke rising from beyond the southern wall.
Our enemies are reaching beyond the point of probing.They’re pushing dangerously close, advancing with weapons we don’t understand, with creatures we cannot fight alone.
And I know, with a certainty that settles deep into my bones, that this is why I must succeed: become the kind of weapon they have no counter for.
25
DAYN
The dungeon air is spiked with the fresh, sharp scent of a cornered dragon. The boy—and he is just a boy, barely a man—sits chained to the wall of the cell. In his human form, he is lean and wiry, with a shock of sandy hair and eyes the color of a stormy sea. But the defiance in them is pure dragon.
A brand, a ceremonial burn in the shape of a snarling dragon head, marks the skin of his shoulder. The crest of House Braynor.
Corvin stands with his arms crossed, his face a mask of military impatience. Reinhardt watches from the shadows near the stairs, his expression unreadable.
“Your name,” Corvin says, his voice flat.
The boy spits on the stone floor. “Go choke on a curse.”
I have no time for this. I step forward, my shadow falling over the boy. He flinches, his bravado faltering as the temperature in the cell drops and the air thickens with my presence.
“He is of House Braynor,” I say, my voice a low rumble thatalmost makes the iron links of his chains vibrate. “A lesser house, in my view: once known for producing fast fliers, still known for foolish sons.” I reach through the bars, my hand moving too quickly for the boy to react, and seize him by the jaw. My thumb presses into the soft flesh beneath his chin, my fingers digging into his cheek. His eyes widen with pain and a primal, instinctual fear. “I knew your great-grandfather. He was a coward who died begging for his life in the Blood Wars. Do not follow in his footsteps.”
I release him with a shove that cracks his head against the stone wall. He slumps, dazed.
“Your name,” I repeat.
