She is smart enough to freeze.
Gently, I slide one arm beneath Esme’s shoulders and the other under her knees, lifting her from the cold floor. She is a weightless thing in my arms, all sharp angles and fragile strength, her head lolling against my shoulder. I cradle her closer, the scent of her a desperate anchor in the chaos.
I sit in the Warden’s empty chair and bring my bleeding thumb to Esme’s lips. They are parted slightly, pale.“Drink, my Esme,”I whisper, the words for her soul, wherever it is trapped. I brush the bead of blood against her lower lip, smearing a golden-black line across the skin.
For a moment, nothing. Then her brows draw together, a slight, disturbed frown creasing her forehead. A flicker ofstruggle from within. Her lips part further, and on pure instinct, she latches onto my thumb.
The sensation is a lightning strike to the base of my spine. A soft, wet pulling that is both innocent and devastatingly intimate. It is the most exquisite torture I have ever known. She has wanted this, craved it, and now I give it to her while her mind is a battlefield I cannot reach. I can feel the soft scrape of her teeth, the gentle, rhythmic suction that speaks of a need deeper than consciousness. The innocent reflex nearly undoes me. I want her awake for this. I want to see the desperate hunger in her eyes, to feel her hands in my hair as she takes what is hers.
But this is not for pleasure. This is a weapon. A tether. An anchor of my fire in the heart of her grandmother’s ice. I let her drink until the small frown on her face smooths, until I feel the hum of my own power begin to circulate within her, a quiet counter-melody to the trial’s discordant song.
I hope it’s enough. I pray to all the gods that it will be the difference between her soul returning whole or in pieces.
Carefully, I stand and lower her into the chair in my place. My thumb still bleeds, the edges of her lips still faintly marked from it. I look at her one last time, a warrior asleep on the eve of the apocalypse, then turn and walk out of the tomb without a backward glance.
The hell above is waiting. And I am going to give it a king’s welcome.
39
DAYN
Imove liquidly through the academy’s corridors, barely registering the chaos around me, until I reach the center of the main courtyard, a space blasted open by dragonfire. The sky above churns with scales and flame. A section of the library tower is already burning, books and history turning to ash.
I close my eyes for a single, fleeting second, then let go.
The change is a violence I welcome, a breaking that makes me whole. My bones scream as they lengthen and twist, snapping and reforming into a framework built for slaughter. My skin gives way to the obsidian armor beneath, each scale locking into place with an audible click. My spine elongates, a whip of serrated bone and muscle. Wings, vast and leathery, tear from my back, unfurling to their full, magnificent span, catching the firelight from the burning sky. My jaw cracks and extends, teeth lengthening into daggers. Fire, hotter than any forge, builds at the base of my throat, a liquid sun begging for release.
The world shrinks, then expands, senses sharpening to an unbearable degree. I smell their blood, their fear, the scent of myown kin’s rage. I am no longer a man pretending to be a king. I am a dragon. And my fury is absolute.
I launch myself into the sky with a roar that challenges the thunder of the invasion, a declaration of war against my own blood. The air whips past me, a cool balm on my super-heated scales. Below, I see Ariella, hurriedly assisting darkblood medics to drag the injured behind a fallen statue. She does not look up. She appears terrified of this sky, of the war her king has brought. A part of me pities the younger dragon. The rest of me discards the thought as irrelevant.
I am a black comet in a sky of bronze. I slam into the first dragon, a younger male from House Meraxis, his surprise evident in his wide, panicked eyes. I do not give him time to recover. My jaws clamp down on the base of his wing, and I tear, the sound of sinew and bone ripping apart a wet, satisfying scream in the air. He plummets, spiraling and shrieking, a broken toy.
They wanted a war; they will get one.
Another comes at me, breathing a torrent of fire. I don’t have time to register his identity. It doesn’t matter. I bank hard, letting the flames wash over my back, the heat barely registering. I whip my tail, the bladed tip catching him across the throat, just above his reinforced armor. His head snaps back at an agonizing angle, and he drops from the sky like a stone.
I don’t slow. I tear straight through their formation—breaking wings, shattering bone, driving them apart by force alone. For a brief, brutal moment, the air empties around me. They see the obsidian and gold of the royal line. And they scatter.
Then I see him.
Arrynth, my youngest brother.
His dark scales, streaked with burnished gold, gleam in the firelight as he hovers near the burning library tower. He looksmagnificent. He looks lost. Our eyes meet across the chaos, and the battle around us seems to fall away. The roars of dragons become a muted hum. It is only us now, two brothers suspended in a hell not of their own making.
I fly toward him, slow, deliberate. I will not give him the excuse of an attack.
Brother,I project, my voice a rumble in his mind.This is madness. Anees has lied to you.
Pain flashes in his amber eyes—eyes that mirror my own—followed by a wave of furious betrayal.Liar! Kinslayer! You dare speak his name after what you did?
I did nothing!I roar back, a sound ripping from my throat.Father’s death was Anees’ work! He framed me! He has been playing us all!
You will not poison me with your treason!Arrynth bellows, and dives.
He strikes first, the young fool, a blur of obsidian and righteous fury. His claws rake across my shoulder, seeking a gap in my scales. The blow is glancing, but the intent behind it is a physical pain sharper than any talon. He truly believes it. He believes I murdered our father. The hit lands deeper than his claws ever could—and for a fraction of a second, it threatens to slow me.
But I cannot afford to grieve now. I meet his next charge, not with my teeth, but with my body, using my greater mass to slam him sideways. We tumble through the air, a locked, spinning knot of rage and regret. He bites at my throat; I twist away, my wing clipping the edge of a battlement, sending stone raining down into the courtyard below. This is not a fight for dominance; it is a clumsy, desperate brawl between two siblings who do not want to land a killing blow.
