“Wait!” Skylar’s shout joins with a protest from the witch queen. From the way her eyes have turned frantic, she wasn’t expecting it to go down like this. Skylar backs away from the Dreki but glares up at the king. “You can’t just kill me! I haven’t done anything wrong!” But she can feel panic flooding her system—because she knows he won’t care. And she knows, doesn’t she, how those guards are trained to kill.
Her mother’s voice that night, pleading with her through tears.
Run, Skylar!
“If she dies, then we take control of the Heart!” The witch queen’s voice is loud and clear, as she positions herself in front of Skylar. Skylar remembers the way she floored the people throwing rocks at her daughter. Would she use that magic on the king? The entire royal family and their guards? “Your firstborn heir would be dead—you’d forfeit!”
Skylar is halfway back through the ballroom now, underneath a gaping hole in the roof, but Dreki are closing in around her. She triesto grab her pin, but her bound hands get caught in the tangle of her hair.
“Only if you can prove she is mine. And that will be harder to do if she’s dead. Which you must know, Gwen—otherwise you would have killed her yourself, wouldn’t you?”
“This isn’t—” It’s the princess’s voice, but it is stifled by an animal growl.
The Dreki’s sword is raised. She’ll avoid it. She won’t let him touch her. She thinks of her lessons with Torin, how he’d hit her over and over until she learned to dodge. But even as she’s thinking it, she knows it’s futile—the Dreki might be Blooded, and, if not, someone else here will be.
To the left of the dais the blond man is eyeing her up, as the Vatran queen whispers something to her mate. The prince steps forward, and for a second she thinks he’s going to intervene. Then he cocks his head, his eyes sliding out of focus. Just as the sound of thunder ripples through the air.
The whole room stills. Tommen stops, his sword held in front of him. There’s a shimmer of something dark under her skin—fighting the last effects of whatever potion the witches gave her. She feels herself sharpen, like she can finally control all of herself.
And she will not let them kill her.
But before she can test that theory, there’s a blast of wind. She sees the prince’s gaze snap toward the opening in the ceiling.
The whole castle shudders as a dragon lands.
That’s what the gaping hole is for, Skylar realizes. The dragons.
A thunderous roar sounds and Tommen winces, though he doesn’t lower his sword. This is it, isn’t it? This is how she dies. Zryan has summoned his dragon to kill her, wanting to show the witches that a slight on his family honor won’t be tolerated.
She doesn’t know what to do as that head—that fucking enormous head, spikes protruding from the skull—comes in through the ceiling. Neck stretching, pupils constricting in the flickering light. She should run. But there’s nowheretorun. It’s either death by dragon—or impaled by a sword. And actually, she’d rather be eaten by a dragon than give a Dreki the satisfaction. So she wills her body to stop tremblingas Mjolnir—she should at least call him by his name, given he’s about to eat her—pushes farther into the room. Some of the roof crumbles away, and she hears a sharp intake of breath, a mutter in a language she doesn’t understand.
A sob catches in the back of her throat despite herself. She won’t see Cam again, will never find out what happened to him.
I’m still here, Lar.A whisper in her mind—one she clings on to.
An enormous violet eye blinks at her, almost level with her head now. She can see her entire reflection in that eye.
No one in the hall dares move.
Lethal teeth flash as the dragon opens its jaw, and Skylar closes her eyes, even as every muscle in her body urges her to flee. Then she feels the whoosh of wind past her, nearly uprooting her. Her eyes snap open and she spins to see Tommen’s sword trembling in his hands as Mjolnir turns the weight of his focus on him, that scaly neck extending toward him.
There is the edge of a high, piercing screech just on the outside of her senses. Zryan is staring at his dragon, Skylar notes. Staring, and shaking his head, like he doesn’t understand something. He stills at a combined shriek and growl, an angry hiss from somewhere in the hall. The witches’ animals reacting to something.
There is no angry roar of thunder. No snap of teeth, closing on the guard. There is nothing—until the guard is blown apart. Obliterated by a sound wave too high for human ears.
The pieces of him splatter everywhere, blood and flesh spraying onto nearby faces.
Then silence. The sound of multiple heartbeats, frantic and uneven.
A fragment of what was once the guard’s sword skids toward Skylar on the marble. She can see the glint of a reflection in the once-gleaming metal, the edge of one violet eye. She looks up into that eye, which stares back at her. She swears she can still hear the heartbeats, like drums skittering on wind, but hers is now steady. She bends slowly, picking up the metal fragment with the tips of her fingers. The dragon’s head inclines, ever so slightly.
And without thinking about it, without questioning what the fuckshe’s doing, Skylar moves. Not toward the circle of Dreki who have backed away, their faces smeared with the blood of their comrade. But toward Mjolnir. His neck stretches over her and he bares his teeth at the hall. Skylar’s breath comes out on a shake.
Every single person stares at her. The prince’s face is tight, drained of color. The king’s upper lip is curled into a would-be snarl—but it’s like the expression has gotten stuck halfway. Next to the dais, the blond man is looking at her like she’s something that does not make sense.
Even though Skylar is trembling, she cocks her head very deliberately as if to sayAnd what?
Then there is a voice in her mind, thunder embodied.
