Page 99

My gaze clashed with his. I had not meant to tell Fell. But now I had. Now he would know. They both would. Neither of them had quite grasped it yet. But they would.

Fell would, and then he would look at me with such hatred, with murder in his eyes.

I swallowed miserably against the scalding sob that was rising, threatening to burst from my mouth.

“Tamsyn.” He said my name tightly. “Tell. Me.”

My skin snapped. Too hot. It hissed like oil in a searing pan.

Steam wafted from my nose.

Stig’s gaze followed the tendrils of vapor. The color bled from his face. He was as pale as a ghost as he stared at me. “Tamsyn... what’s wrong with you?”

I glanced down at my arms. My flesh winked back at me, glistening fire gold. There was no mistaking it. The situation was too much. I was overwhelmed. The dragon stirred inside me. My dragon. It was starting to come out. I couldn’t stop it.

My shoulders twisted in a helpless shrug. “This is what I am.” I held my arms wide while inside I was crying, pleading, shouting:Please don’t hate me. Please. Please. Still love me.

Stig shook his head in hard denial. “No.” And then: “No!”

He was saying no, but he understood. He knew. He saw the truth with his own eyes.

He believed.

I sucked in a deep breath, drawing the smoke into my mouth. “It’s me. I’m the dragon.” I looked to Fell, regretting that he was here, too, but since he was, I had to try to explain. “It was me. I was the one in the woods that day. I was the one who killed Arkin.” I shook my head sorrowfully. “He was trying to kill me... and I just snapped and—and turned.”

A blade hissed through the air, unsheathed from its scabbard. I braced myself, dropping my gaze to Fell’s hands... knowing what I would see, knowing what I would find.

He would kill me now.

The smolder continued to build in my chest. I tasted the heat in my mouth, smelled the smoke in my nose. Even as I willed it away, even as I struggled to suppress it and commanded it to fade, my body was ready to defend, to attack, to smite.

Except Fell’s hands were empty.

I’d heard a blade sing... but he held nothing in his hands, merely clenched them into fists as he stared at me with those wide, frost-gray eyes.

Everything slowed then.

My eyes dragged over to Stig.

Stig, my dear friend, whom I trusted. Stig, whom I had chosen to tell because I loved him and he loved me.

But it was Stig who held the sword.

Stig who lifted his weapon in the air, the blade pointed directly at my heart. My heart that was breaking.

I had been wrong. Wrong about him. And now I would die for it.

He charged.

And I did it. Again. Like before.

My body burst in a flash of blinding light, as white and pure as the snow surrounding us. My clothes fell away, disintegrating. The only thing weighing on my skin was the necklace Fell gave me, the heavy jewels warm and electric against my flesh. They made me feel... stronger, more powerful.

Without deliberation, without willing it, my limbs dragged into place, lengthening and loosening, readying for flight. The ridges broke out over my nose, contracting and quivering with my thick, ragged breaths.

My back strained, pulled, and my wings cracked free, unfurling, snapping wide behind me, lifting me inches off the ground. I stretched out my arms, the skin flickering like firelight.

But I didn’t fly away. I couldn’t move. This I could seem to control. I willed myself to face Stig and that sword of his aimed directly at me.