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“Careful now, cousin.” He chuckled, his tongue shifting the ax from his mouth, and it landed on the sandy ground with a thud. “Without a weapon even those fancy shadows of yours won’t do you much-”

The shadows exploded from my hands, and I sent those inky tendrils towards the dragon's snout, where they wound around twice, then three times. He protested with a guttural grunt as his mouth was tied shut, and with a jerk of my hand, his head was pulled to the ground.

I advanced on him, holding the darkness steady. His claws scratched crevasses into the sand as he tried to back away from me, but I kept my grip on him.

“Now, cousin,” I said, putting a foot on his smoking nose. “You will tell me what this plan is that you spoke of.”

His enormous yellow eyes narrowed, and he growled. I pulled harder on his snout.

“Tell me what the plan is.”

A shadow passed overhead, and then another. The dragon’s eyes lifted to the sky, and he made a noise as though he wanted to speak.

I carefully loosened the grip on his mouth, so he could open just enough to talk.

“I would run now if I were you.”

“What do you -” I broke off as something began to cross the stormy skies above us, one shadow after another flitting across the ground. I looked up at Elara, whose eyes were fixed on the skies. Everyone was looking upwards now.

I looked back down at the dragon, who chuckled. “I told you cousin, run. Now. It’s about to get rather hot in Veles.”

There was a shattering roar overhead, and a dragon swooped down low over the Pit. I stumbled away from the dragon, my shadows releasing him, and he took off without a second’s hesitation.

Then everything exploded, into screams and flames.

Chapter42

Rook

Dragons rained from the sky in a swirl of flames. The Velesians screamed in the stands, climbing over each other in waves of burgundy and black, trying to escape. I grabbed my ax and broke into a run towards the royal box, where Theron stood, staring wide-eyed at the scene unfolding before him.

Elara was fighting furiously against the golden bindings.

Rook!Her voice was filled with panic as it rang through my head.Rook! I can’t get free!

“I’m coming!” I said the words out loud, my feet pounding into the dry sand. “I’m coming.”

Theron’s gaze landed on me as I ran towards them, and his eyes flashed down to Elara. Even from this distance I could see him considering his next move. Even in the midst of an attack, even with fire raining down on him, he was still thinking how to hurt, how to torture, how to cause more pain.

Elara seemed to notice too, and she looked up at him, her struggle stopping for a moment. Theron slowly turned back towards me.

Why wasn’t I running faster? Why wasn’t I as swift on my feet as she was?

Elara’s eyes stayed locked on Theron, and then dropped to his hand at his waist. I saw the flash of gold as lightning crackled through the sky.

It was that fucking dagger again.

“No!” I roared. I was close. I was almost there. “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

Elara’s face twisted with terror and she looked back at me as Theron seized her hair.

“No! Don’t you touch her!”

Just as Theron raised the dagger, a dragon crashed onto the roof above the royal box. One moment Elara was there, terrified, and then she was gone, in a ball of flames and debris. The dragon’s weight crushed the stands, and it breathed fire above it all, sending a red wall of heat across the surface of the wreckage.

I launched myself at the dragon’s neck, and it wasn’t expecting me, it didn’t even turn its head towards me. The ax sliced through the thick scales easily, and the dragon’s body collapsed as its head rolled away into the sands.

“Elara!” I threw the ax down and began to dig, plunging my hands into the burning wood. “Elara! Where are you?”