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“We’re taking on water,” someone yells.

My stomach drops.

“Arlo,” I gasp, turning toward the stairwell, because he was sleeping below, and I pray he’s okay.

Kylian grabs my arm before I can run blindly into the carnage.

“Eagan,” he barks. “Find him.”

But Arlo appears before Eagan can move. I see him emerge from the stairwell, and for one impossible second, the battle fades. He’s half-dressed, vulnerable, human in a way that makes my chest ache with terror. He stumbles onto the deck with his shirt partly buttoned, hair mussed from sleep, bare feet shoved into boots he has not laced properly. There’s a cut on his cheek from where he must have hit something in the dark below, blood welling in a thin line.

The moment he sees me, his face changes—fear, relief, determination, all in the span of a heartbeat. He rushes forward without hesitation, catching my shoulders and looking me over with wild eyes that search every inch of me for injury before he even registers the burning sky.

“Ali,” he says, his hands moving down my arms, over my waist, back to my face, checking for injuries. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” I say quickly, gripping his wrists. “I’m fine.”

The ship rocks again, and he looks over my shoulder as another cannon fires, lighting the deck in a burst of orange.

“What’s going on?”

I turn with him, my chest tight, my hand still gripping his sleeve as the dragon circles back above us. Before I can answer Arlo, Kylian is climbing the mast, his movements so quick, even with my new advanced sight, that I barely see more than his outline until he launches off the top at the dragon with a blade drawn.

His knife slices through the dragon’s hide as he hangs on, sliding down its side, the blade cutting the huge beast open and spraying us below in its blood. The dragon makes a strangled shriek, diving sharply and tossing him off. My scream is deafening as he plummets toward the deck, only to land on his feet, and I realize then how foolish my fear was.

“Ali!”

“Draven found us,” I say, watching Kylian and his men move about the ship.

“The ship is under attack.”

Arlo’s hands tighten on my arms, his face pale, his eyes moving past me to the dragon ship cutting across our left side, then to the second vessel trying to close the distance on our right. Whatever anger still lives between us disappears beneath the sharp, clean fear that crosses his face.

“Kylian,” Eagan calls from the rail, his voice nearly swallowed by another cannon blast. “They’re trying to box us in.”

Kylian turns sharply, his eyes burning red in the smoke, one hand raised toward the dragon overhead while the other points toward the far side of the deck where men are fighting to release one of the smaller lifeboats from its ropes.

“Get Alessia and Arlo off this ship,” he orders, his voice carrying over the crash of fire and wood. “Take a lifeboat, cut wide through the smoke, and stay low until the fighting moves past you.”

My body goes cold.

“No,” I say at once, stepping away from Arlo and toward him, my magic already rising at the thought of being dragged away while he stays here beneath dragon fire. “I am not leaving you.”

Kylian’s gaze snaps to mine. “If Draven captures you,” he says, crossing the deck in two strides and gripping my shoulders hard enough to make me still. “Every king alive will start tearing the world apart to get to you because he would love nothing more than to brag about taking my mage and bond.”

“Then do not let him capture me,” I answer, though my voice shakes because another blast hits near the bow and sends a sheet of broken wood flying across the deck.

Kylian’s jaw tightens, and for one moment, I worry he will pick me up and toss me into the lifeboat himself.

The dragon dives again. The heat arrives before the flames. My skin prickles, my hair lifts from the static charge in the air, and then the world turns orange-white. The sound is deafening, a roar that vibrates through my teeth and into my bones.

I throw my hands up instinctively, screaming as the fire hits my shield with enough force that the flames are forced upward in a column of sparks and smoke. The barrier ripples under the impact, visible now as a dome of gold-green light that strains and cracks like ice under a boot. Heat bleeds through anyway, scorching my cheeks, drying my eyes, making me gasp for air that tastes like ash.

The whole sky above us turns crimson, reflecting fire off clouds that weren’t there moments ago. Through the haze, I can see the dragon’s silhouette, wings beating slowly, confidently, like it knows we can’t run.

The shield bends under the force of another wave of fire, my magic cracking in long, bright lines, but my shield holds. The dragon above stops circling higher.

“Get to the lifeboat,” Kylian growls through clenched teeth without looking at me.