I see my opening. As he comes at me again, fire building in his gullet, I fold my wings and drop, letting his momentum carryhim over me. I whip around, my claws finding purchase on his back, my weight driving him down. We crash onto the flat roof of the main hall with a sound like the world cracking in two. Stone dust and shattered tiles explode around us. I pin him, one massive claw on his chest, my face inches from his.
Listen to me,I snarl, my exterior voice a low, wordless growl that vibrates through his bones.Think, Arrynth! When have I ever been a coward? If I had killed our father, I would have taken the throne and dared anyone to challenge me. I would not have fled like a thief!
I see the flicker of doubt in his eyes, a hairline crack in the certainty Anees has tried to build.
Anees did it,I press.He set it all up and bribed the witnesses. He wanted the throne, and he wanted me gone.
Arrynth stares up at me, his breath coming in ragged pants. The fury in his eyes is draining, replaced by something more akin to horror.No… He wouldn’t…
He would. He did.
His body slackens beneath my claw; whether he believes me or not, he knows there’s no use in continuing to fight me like this.
But it’s too late, in any case,he sends, his gaze going unfocused, as if seeing something beyond the burning sky.Even if… even if I believe you… it’s too late.
What do you mean?I demand, a coldness seeping into my veins.
Byzu,Arrynth chokes, the name a confession.Byzu contacted me. He wanted peace. He believed you. He wanted to broker a meeting between you and Anees, to find another way.
My heart seizes in my chest. The damn fool. Why didn’t he tell me?
But Anees…Arrynth continues.He’s been watching me. Watching all of us. He trusts no one. He commanded me tolure Byzu out. I… I had no choice, Dayn. He is the king.The weight on his chest is like nothing compared to the guilt crushing his soul.Anees took him.Arrynth’s bright eyes turn glassy. He… He tortured him. Used compulsion magic, ripped Byzu’s mind apart for every scrap of intelligence he could find. He knows everything, Dayn. He knows about the witch. He knows about the Ides Trials. That’s why he’s attacking now in full force.
The world narrows to a single point of white-hot rage. The Ides. Of course. Anees sees the threat for what it is—and he’s trying to destroy it before it can take root. And he’s just turned on his own blood, again, to do it.
And it’s not just these,Arrynth adds, a tremor running through his dark scales.More are already here.
I follow his gaze, lifting my head to look past the burning tower, past the chaos of the initial assault. Through the thick, acrid columns of smoke, I see them. A second wave. These are definitely no disorganized rabble of youth. These are silhouettes of war: larger, heavier, their wingbeats synchronized into a thunderous rhythm. And at their head is a large dragon in gold-plated armor over his dark scales, his amber eyes scanning the battlefield through the haze.
Anees. Flanked by the hardened scales and jagged horns of his generals—the ones who stand with him while he steals my throne.
I release Arrynth, my focus shifted entirely above. This is about to get bloodier.
40
BRYNN
Theworld is screaming: the people, the air, the stone, the wards themselves. The eastern shield, our weakest point, has been torn open by a concentrated maelstrom of draconic magic, and the sky is bleeding dragons.
Fire turns the night into a strobing, hellish dawn. A gout of flame vaporizes a section of the upper parapet, and the library—our pride, our inheritance, the largest and best preserved in the entire darkblood world—is burning.
No!
Tears prick my eyes as I stumble for cover. Corvin’s face flashes in my mind, his jaw tight as he practically shoved Chad toward the worst breach point. “Eastern boundary, now! Donotdisengage until I give the order. Move!” Of course. Leaving me here in the middle of the cemetery, which is now apparently a new front line.
To my left, near the mausoleums, Ridge and Nyv are a blur of shadow and steel, locked with a brute of a dragon whose scales gleam copper. It’s a desperate, ugly dance—lunging claws, weapon strikes, and bursts of spellfire that shatter againstits armor. Darkbirch’s spirits are stronger now, but still not fully healed. Not enough for the kind of mass force it would take to drive back all these monsters. The final Ide trial is still not complete.
My attention is snatched by another beast. A dragon larger than most, but with a strange, supple grace. Her scales are silver, catching the firelight in a way that would be beautiful were it not for the carnage she’s carving through our defenders. Her eyes are a vibrant, luminous amethyst, and they snag on a memory I can’t quite place, an itch at the back of my brain.
She lands with a ground-shaking thud… far too close to Jax’s resting spot. He’s still underground. Mom—now scrambling with the other medics to stabilize the wounded—can’t move him until his recovery is complete, which has been taking an agonizingly long time thanks to our stretched spirit reserves.
He’s deep, but not that deep. I can’t risk any of these dragons going near him.
The silver dragon’s tail whips out in a careless arc, shattering the headstone of a long-dead warden with a single flick. But before I can formulate a suicidal plan, a wall of blue fire erupts from the ground between the dragon and my brother’s spot.
Uncle Edwin steps through it, his face a mask of cold fury, his hands already weaving a complex spell that makes the very air warp around him. “Back away, dragon,” he snarls, and the blue flames lash out, licking at the dragon’s forelegs.
A roar rumbles from her throat as she sidesteps the attack, moving with a grace that belies her size. She counters his magic with raw, physical power. Her tail, a blur of silver scales and bladed bone, whips around and shatters a line of ancient mausoleums. Granite shrapnel, the size of my head, explodes through the air. Edwin throws up one hand, and the stone fragments halt mid-flight, suspended in the air before dropping, harmlessly, to the churned-up earth.
