Which confirms, doesn’t it, that there is a secret to know. But—I’m not a rider.
Yes, you are. I would not have protected you if you were not. You need to remember what I said. There is a dragon out there whose soul sings to yours. You only need to find it.
I didn’t feel anything like that on the island.
Then maybe, Death Bringer, you were looking in the wrong place.
She feels Mjolnir’s mind pull away as Axel gets to his feet next to her. He holds out a hand for her to take. She hesitates for a beat before taking it. His long fingers entwine with hers, and he pulls her up with a strength she already knows he has. For a moment, he doesn’t let go, and she looks down at their joined hands, wondering why she doesn’t recoil at his touch, knowing what he does, who he serves. Wondering why, instead, her skin prickles at the contact.
There’s the sound of footsteps behind them and Axel looks over her shoulder, dropping her hand and raising his own in greeting. Skylar glances back to see Zryan heading toward them—no doubt to offer some thoughts on her training. She can see Astrid, too, on a training run with her friend/bodyguard, and coming this way.
“We should go,” Axel says, jerking his head in the direction of the training grounds. She nods and goes to follow him. Then she pauses.
She can still feel it, she realizes. The pulsing from the temple. But she doesn’t think that’s the wards she can feel.
Find the one who calls to you.
Trapped. Just like her. Taken. Just like her.
She steps toward the temple.
“Skylar, what are you…?”
But she ignores Axel. Because her skin is prickling and there is a distant ringing in her ears as she moves toward the stone steps that lead to Arach’s house. No, she realizes. Not ringing.Roaring.The roaring of fire.
She can hear another voice calling her now—Zryan, maybe. Awarning, not to go through the wards. Axel reaches out a hand to stop her, but she slips away from him easily.
She feels the wards as she steps through the door—of course she does. Like a scorching under her skin. But she can feel more than just their burning. She can feel theirpower—their energy. And without really understanding it, she is pulling. Drawing the magic in, faster and faster, the scorching within her subsiding, as energy thrums. Because magic is life, isn’t it? And if she can drain life, she can drain magic.
She feels the static in the air that lets her know Zryan is there, in the temple with her, but she doesn’t look at him. She can’t; something too powerful is urging her on, toward the center of the room, where it sits on the dais—waiting for her.
Her gaze settles on the egg, bright and bronze and beautiful, sunset-red tip seeming to flicker. She feels it like always, that pulse of life from it.
“I’m here,” she murmurs quietly as she crosses to it. “I don’t want you to be trapped anymore.” Her hands are shaking as she places both of them on the shell. She can feel its power humming, but she doesn’t try to draw it in—she doesn’t want to steal it. Instead she tries to push the energy from the wards back out. Tries to let the egg know that it is safe, that she understands. That she’s sorry it’s taken her so long to figure it out.
She can hear heavy footsteps behind her, can hear voices nearby, Vatran and Arturean mixed.
There is a collective intake of breath.
Then, the sound of cracking, a line appearing down the egg, spiderwebbing outward. Skylar brings her hands back toward her.
And flame erupts.
31Astrid
The heat from the flames blasts into her.
She flings an arm over her head before she’s shoved back, a lithe body covering hers. As quickly as the eruption comes, it retreats, and Astrid opens her eyes to find Jessa shielding her from the fire. The fire that consumes Skylar. The fire that burst from that fossilized dragon egg.
She pushes Jessa out of the way, but Quincy barges in front of her instead. Fear and anger war on his face; he’s furious with Astrid for running into the temple after Skylar. Axel and Zryan are as close to the blaze as they can get without setting themselves on fire, Axel shouting for Skylar, his panicked tone an echo of what Astrid feels bubbling up inside her. Skylar is in that fire, Skylar isburning, and Astrid wants to go to her, to save her and save herself, but she stands by helplessly. She picks Bastet up and clings to him.
Jessa rushes forward, summoning water, but she can only draw on what’s near—she can’t create water, no witch can—and there’s not enough to tackle the flames. The water spits as it hits the wall of heat and transforms to steam. She wheels around helplessly to Astrid, face stricken, but Astrid has realized something. She doesn’t feel the burning, not like she felt being stabbed with Skylar’s pin or the ice when Skylar was on the island. And if she’s not in pain, if she’s not dying, then Skylar can’t be, either.
Behind her she hears the king’s voice boom and she turns as he strides into the temple, the queen close behind with her guards. His mate commands him to call Bruma, but he’s distracted by Skylar, and how could he not be: she’s an inferno.
There’s a sucking sensation as all the oxygen is drawn from theroom, Astrid’s lungs constricting in protest, and then an implosion. Her hair whips across her face, Fionn yells out, then silence envelops the temple as the fire wanes. Snuffs out. Skylar stands before them, almost naked but for a few scraps of clothing that haven’t burned away. Her skin is untouched but for some soot and ash. Her amber eyes are molten, otherworldly, and she looks anything but human in that moment.
The queen gasps, not at Skylar but at the small bronze dragon that’s wrapped around her shoulders, its barbed golden tail twined possessively around her throat, while it puffs plumes of smoke out of its blackened snout.
