The blue dragon looks like a juvenile in comparison, and while it snaps its jaws to assert its dominance, the silver dragon barely spares it a glance, continuing toward the dock, its mouth open wide as if it might swallow the sun.
Astrid cannot move; none of them can. It’s doing something to render them immobile, creating a pressure too great for them to stand.Even Bjorn is bent into submission, growling in defiance, but Astrid can see the whites of his eyes and knows he’s as afraid as any of them. Breathing is getting harder and she’s starting to wheeze, her chest constricting. She takes slow, even breaths.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
The blue dragon swoops low over the docks, claws almost grazing the crowd, and she finally sees the man riding it. He wears the Vatran colors of bloodred and metallic gold, a cape billowing behind him and a crown in his gray-streaked dark blond hair. The king.
She whips her head around as the world seems to get darker still, and flying so close now is the thunder dragon and its rider: Prince Zryan. He sits atop his dragon like he was born there, his powerfully built frame relaxed in his seat. He’s dressed differently from his father, no royal regalia in sight, instead wearing a granite-gray leather jacket and matching pants that make it hard to distinguish where the beast ends and the man begins.
The rider terrifies her nearly as much as the dragon does.
The prince soars over them, and finally the dragon releases the crowd from its crippling magic. The larger dragon seems to direct the smaller dragon away, back toward the water, and she has the ridiculous notion that it’s trying to protect those below from the falling ice.
People rise to their feet, climbing over one another to get away, some running from the embankment while others—madly—remain. The ire aimed at the guards only minutes before is redirected at her, the open animosity toward their monarch dissipated by the arrival of the dragons and the reminder of their supremacy. They start to throw what look like small dragon eggs at the boat. Stones, she realizes, though they bounce harmlessly off the magical barrier surrounding them.
“Astrid!” Jessa shouts. “Astrid, can you hear me?”
Astrid tries to answer but nothing comes out, only a soft wheezing noise, like the sound of a dying fire.
“So this is what they meant when they said they’d be down to greet us.” Her mother is white with fury as she approaches them. “Astrid?” Her mother grasps her chin. “Jessa, get her back inside; she’s going to have a panic attack.”
Jessa nods and links her arm with Astrid, who’s shaking her head. She’s not going to have a panic attack, she just can’t get her breath back. Just needs everyone to stop crying and shrieking and jeering.
“What are you going to do?” Jessa asks.
Gwen raises her hands toward the braying crowd. “I’m going to teach these Vatran rats what happens when they attack my daughter.”
6Skylar
This. This is what Cam wanted to see. This destruction, this chaos. She wonders if he had any idea just what a dragon would look like up close.
The thunder dragon has released his hold on the city, but Skylar is still rooted to the spot, the echo of its magic pulsing through her bloodstream. People have broken out of line, running in various directions. There are screams, mixed with cheers, as the witches retreat inside the boat. And too fucking right. Only it’s not all of them retreating. She can’t help watching as the white-haired queen steps toward the edge of the dock, the bear—because, yes, that is a fuck-off massive bear—on all fours beside her. There are people running at the boat, throwing stones, taking advantage of the army leaving their posts. They are jeering, an oddly proud noise, like it’s the crowds’ prowess and not two enormous dragons that is causing the retreat.
Even through the chaos, Skylar can see the queen’s expression, the hard lines of her face, the flash in her hazel eyes. Power.
The people throwing rocks shriek, like crows fighting over rancid meat. The stones fall to the ground as they collapse on their knees. “No, no, no!” Skylar stares transfixed as the stone throwers plead. Their voices tumble over one another. “Not again.” “It wasn’t me.” “I told you no.” One man, curled into a ball on the ground with his arms wrapped around himself, simply sobs.
What in Vaar’s name is she doing to them? She’s seen powers at work before, but she’s never seen anything like this. Then the blue dragon lurches toward the docks, and when it lands, a crack splits the ground. Its head swivels from side to side as the crowd scatters. Butnot fast enough. The dragon picks up a man in its jaws, shaking him, then throwing the body aside, the torso falling away from the legs, blood and intestines leaking onto the clay earth.
Skylar feels numb. Bad idea. It was such a bad idea to come here. She didn’t think the dragons would attack—not in front of everyone.
She finally moves, fighting her way through the crowds. She stumbles over her own feet as a man nearby drops something—a leather pouch, grubby ribbon tying it closed. The man stumbles to a stop, cries out as someone runs over it. And before the bag can get trodden further into the clay ground, he holds out a hand. The pouch disappears, reappearing in his outstretched hand.
A Porter. Using his power, out in the open.
A Dreki whips his head toward the man. The action is so quick, it’s like he’s somehow scented the power. Maybe he has. Maybe he’s a Discerner. She’s heard of them: Blooded who can sense other Blooded when they’re nearby. Dread settles in her stomach and she backs away a few paces, stumbling into someone behind her, who gives her a hard shove.
The Dreki marches toward the Porter. It’s obvious he’s one of the king’s elite guard, not just from the uniform of finest leather but from the brand burned into his upper arm. A dragon, wreathed in fire. She remembers that brand. She can hear the voice of the Dreki, just like this one, who cornered her in an alley fifteen years ago.
Nowhere left to run, girl.
A boom-roar fills the sky and she hears the dragon’s name, like a whisper on the wind.Mjolnir.
Run, Skylar urges the Porter. The Dreki nods to an ordinary city guard, and together they close in on the man, who might be able to move a purse a few feet but—from the panic in his eyes as his gaze darts one way, then the other—is clearly nowhere near powerful enough to jump through space himself. Only a Prime could do that. And Skylar sees Cam’s face now instead, imagines his terror as guards closed in on him—his power useless in a fight. Is that what happened to him while she was home sleeping with Izzo?
Without thinking, she’s running—not to safety but toward the Porter. Her pin is in her hand and she’s wishing she’d swiped one ofthe daggers from earlier as the Dreki looks at her, his expression cold. The city guard has the man in a choke hold, ignoring his pleading. But she’s ready. She will not let them take this man like they took Cam. She will not let them kill him, like they killed her mother.
There’s a swish of a tail whipping through air, light glinting off silver scales. She dodges, narrowly avoiding getting hit, her breath catching at the back of her throat as the silver dragon lands.
