“Now you’ve annoyed it,” Pharis said. “Stop firing.”
“I have to do something,” I shouted back at him. “Unlike you.”
He laughed out loud. Had he gone mad?
No one else around us was laughing. Mareth shrieked then seemed to snap out of her frozen stance and turned toward the stairs.
Father, being older than her, was faster. He ran past her, literally shoving my sister out of his way. Knocked off balance, she fell to the wooden platform.
Over his shoulder, Father shouted an order at us all.
“Protect your father. Protect the King. Do whatever you must so that I survive.”
Oddly, his command felt different. Weaker somehow than any he’d ever issued to me.
Devoid of Compelling glamour.
Pharis laughed again. What was happening?
Searing heat behind me caused me to whip back around toward the front of the platform where the dragon had just completed a fly-by and was now swooping down over the screeching spectators.
They were rushing the exits, climbing over each other in some cases. No doubt many would die from trampling, if not dragonfire.
Raewyn, for now, was still alive.
As the beast had passed, I’d caught a glimpse of her, still wearing the hood, squirming in its grasp.
Once more I loaded the crossbow.
“Stellon, stop,” Pharis ordered, and strangely, I did, though I’d had no intention to.
Wait. Had he gleaned—
A fireball licked the front edges of the platform, making everyone yelp and duck.
When the flames cleared, I saw the dragon flying toward us at high speed. In the back of its open mouth, an orange glow gathered as it prepared to fire again and this time, annihilate the platform.
There was no time to evacuate. One of the guards dove off, preferring to die of a broken neck rather than burn.
Like everyone else around me, I covered my head and hit the floor.
I heard the airy blast, felt the incendiary heat above and around me, and… nothing.
No pain. No heavenly music and ethereal lightness indicating I was in the afterlife either.
Opening my eyes, I raised my head and looked around then down at my hands and arms. My skin was unblistered, my clothing not even singed.
Smoke was everywhere. Crawling through it, I found Mareth lying on the floor with her hands still over her head. She was unburned as well.
The guards who’d chosen to remain with us were also unharmed, though the wood all around us was blackened and smoldering. In spots it burned outright, and the flames were spreading.
“We have to get down from this deathtrap,” I said to Mareth and helped her to her feet.
As we ran for the stairs, I searched for Pharis but could not see him through the smoke.
My father’s personal bodyguard yelled, “The King! Where is the King?”
I looked over the edge of the platform and spotted him.
