“What I have to.”
Even as he holds that knife against Alderin’s throat, he stretches out his other hand. To my gut-plunging horror, green hellfire gathers at his fingertips. I have just enough wherewithal to cast myself to one side, throwing my arms over my head, before ablast streaks through the air and hits the boy straight in the chest. Rhyo screams as fire engulfs him. I twist where I land, staring at that pillar of green flame.
It’s true.The thought pounds against my skull.It’s true, it’s true. Valtar is dracori. He didn’t renounce it; he couldn’t.
Somehow I’m not surprised. I wish I were, but I’m not. I’ve known all along that he wasn’t who he claimed to be, I just…I just didn’twantto believe it.
There’s no ignoring the truth now. He is dracori—one of the damned, his blood replaced with the blood of a dragon, a monster shaped by Mhoryga’s foul craft.
The boy’s scream cuts through my horror, dragging my attention back to him. His pain and terror ring in my head so hard, I cannot block them out. There’s a terrible bursting sensation, so intense, I feel as though my skin is opening and my body turning inside out. But it is not I who changes—it is Rhyo.
The boy thrashes and writhes, his spine lengthening, his flesh thickening, his skin bursting as horns and spikes protrude. Two great wings erupt from his shoulders, and when the blast of hellfire at last dies back, he stands there on the paving stones, revealed in his true form, a grotesque beast of scale and talon and flame. He shakes his head, as though horrified by his own being, and a roar bursts from his belly, rising to the sky in a gout of flame.
For a moment, I can do nothing but stare at that creature. His shame and his pain rack my soul. I want to reach for him, to wrap him in my arms and protect him from everything he is, from everything cruel fate has made him.
Before I can, however, Valtar appears beside me, scooping me up in his arms. Part of me wants to protest, to fight to get myself free. But he feels so safe and solid and warm, and suddenly I don’tcare if he’s here to kill me. I just want him to hold me. Nothing else.
“Roselle!” Alderin’s voice calls across the paving stones. “You’re making a mistake! You cannot trust this man. He’s Mhoryga’s servant. He will betray you into her hands!”
I look back over Valtar’s shoulder to where the king stands, clutching his bleeding neck. Hellfire light gleams in his eyes. Should I heed him? Even now, even after everything, the impulse to trust him implicitly is stronger than I want to admit.
I tuck my head into the curve of Valtar’s shoulder, clinging to his neck, and shutting my mind against that influence.
“Stand to!” Valtar barks at Rhyo. The next thing I know, he’s setting me on the dragon’s back, and it’s so hot I scream. Valtar leaps up behind me and pulls me into his lap. “I know. I’m sorry,” he says. “If there was any other way out, we would take it.” He then wraps me in his cloak, and instantly there’s some relief, protection against the heat. It’s still hot, almost unbearably so. But I grit my teeth, determined to bear it.
“Fly,” Valtar commands. I feel the sting in my mind as his voice affects the dragon boy. Immediately, Rhyo spreads his wings and leaps from the platform. A stomach-plunging weightlessness, followed by a breathless rush—then we are soaring out across the cold, star-strewn sky.
Behind me, Alderin’s voice reaches out like grasping hands. “I will find you, Roselle! I swear by all the gods, I will find you! I will not rest until your destiny is fulfilled!” But within moments, his words are nothing but a faint echo as we leave the mountain behind.
36
Rosie
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
Even now, even after everything we’ve just been through, I’m a bit surprised to hear the words cross my lips. They’re so cold. So bloodthirsty. So nothing like anything the me of two weeks ago would utter.
But I turn now and shout them into Valtar’s ear, trying to be heard over the rush of wind in our faces. “Why didn’t you kill Alderin? He was at your mercy!”
Valtar doesn’t answer at first. The dragon’s wings beat ten times before he finally shouts back, “Mhoryga does not want him dead. He is under her protection…for the time being.”
And apparently Mhoryga’s wishes are enough to stay Valtar’s hand. Interesting. Not at all comforting, but interesting for sure.
I grind my teeth, more questions bubbling on my tongue. But at this altitude, with the pulse of dragon wings beating the air on either side of us, conversation is nigh unto impossible. I’m left to sink into my own thoughts and speculations.
Mhoryga…and my father.
My father, the High King.
It’s all so much, too much.
And how does Valtar fit into any of this? Am I even now cradled in the arms of my enemy? Wrapped in his cloak, leaning back against his chest, accepting whatever shelter he has to offer? Am I really such a fool?
I suppose I am. For the moment, at least. It’s not as though I can overpower him and toss him from the dragon’s back into the forest below. I could try it, but I doubt it would go well for me, and it might make things difficult for Rhyo. The dragon boy is struggling as it is. Though he’s much larger in dragon form, he’s still just a child attempting to carry two fully grown adults on his back. I hate to put him through this, both the pain and the indignity.
But the wild landscape over which we fly stretches on for mile upon moonlit mile. Occasionally a gust of wind ripples the treetops, creating an eerie, wavelike affect. We can’t land down there. We must get as far from the mountain and immediate pursuit as possible. Better still if we could land somewhere close to civilization, where I might at least attempt to gather supplies, figure out where we are, and make some sort of plan.
And what sort of plan will that be? The question throbs in my head, an incessant ache. Where am I to go, what am I to do?
