Then we’re sprinting through the gardens, cutting right through flowering bushes, thorns and branches grabbing at my skirts. Behind us, soldiers are shouting, screaming, dying. The screeches overhead are deafening, and it takes everything I have to keep from dropping to the ground and covering my ears.
—Send us the magesmiths!
I can’t run fast enough. Sparks and stars are flaring in my vision, but I try to shove it away.
Instead, it seems to make me a target. The screeches in the sky are getting closer. Nearby, glass shatters overhead, shards tinkling to the ground, and I skid to a stop. A man is shouting, but only for a moment before a scraver jerks him through the window, and he falls. Nora shrieks, and I pull Sinna’s face back against my shoulder. The thud of his body hitting the stone walkway is a sound Ineverwant to hear again.
But we can’t stop. “Run!” I say to Nora. “Go for the guards! We have to get inside!”
But when we reach the door to the palace, there are no guards waiting. When I grab the handle, the door holds fast. I suck in a breath.
They’ve locked the doors.
Nora starts pounding. “Let us in!Let us in!”
Little Sinna is crying, her fingers clutching at my shoulder so hard that her tiny fingernails must be drawing blood.
“We have the princess!” I shout, slamming my fist against the wood surface beside my sister. “Open the door!”
“Mama!” Sinna cries. “Da!”
A scraver shrieks behind us, and I shove Sinna into my sister’s arms, turning to block both of them, my weight pressing them into the door. I’d give anything for a sword or a crossbow. Magic flickers in my veins, but I have no idea what todowith it. Scraver wings obscure the sun, feathers glittering in the sunlight. Claws are outstretched, fangs bared as it descends.
Nora is screaming. Maybe I am, too.
But then the door opens. We spill through the opening to go sprawling on the floor. Someone slams it closed so quickly that my skirts are caught. A crossbeam drops into place, locking it securely. A second later, the scraver crashes into the wood outside. The screeches are so loud that I scramble back, my skirts tearing free.
“Sinna.” The queen’s voice comes in a low rush from our right, and the crying toddler scrambles off the floor to fly into her mother’s arms.
Nora and I climb to our feet to realize that we’re surrounded by guards and advisers and a few other soldiers. The continued sound of screeches still carries through the walls, making me shiver. We can hear soldiers shouting outside, along with the clear sounds of people dying. Somewhere in the palace, glass shatters again.
Nora is clutching my arm. I press a hand over my pendant, then jerk it away.
“Is she all right?” a man is saying, and I realize the king is here, too.
But of course he is. The king and queen were meetingtogether. I didn’t notice him because he’s standing alone, off to our left.
All the guards and soldiers and servants are behind the queen.
“Yes.” Her voice is hushed, and she draws back a little to look at her daughter’s tearstained face before looking up at the king. “Yes, she’s fine.”
Glass shatters from the other direction, closer this time, and the queen gasps, clutching her daughter more tightly. Everyone looks at her, including me and my sister.
But Queen Lia Mara is staring past us all, her eyes fixed on the king.
His dark eyes are locked on her.
One of the soldiers says, “Your Majesty. They could be breaching the palace.”
Nora grips my arm more tightly. The queen doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even move.
Neither does the king.
“Those creatures are demanding the magesmith,” says one of the advisers, her tone full of disdain—though it’s undercut by fear.
“That’s what will stop this,” says another. “That’s why they’re here.”
More glass shatters. There are shouts from inside the palace, and I shiver. That pendant feels like it’s vibrating against my chest.
