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“Are you okay?” she asked, but he was just staring at her. “Rowen?”

“I thought you were dead,” he rasped. His body trembled slightly. “I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Wren soothed, making sure to keep her voice low. “A blow to the head and bruises. Nothing more.”

“You’re covered in blood,” he whispered.

“Head wounds always bleed more.” She swallowed hard. “My family? Your family?”

“They all made it out.”

She nodded, her head aching with the motion. “Who attacked? The Verlantians?”

“Yes.” Rowen’s expression darkened. “They broke the treaty. We’ve paid the tithe all these years, and yet, they still stabbed us in the back.”

“We can talk about this later,” Wren said, her own gaze straying back toward the ruined dais. “The blockade?”

“It’s gone up. My father is down with the navy now.” His jaw tightened. “They never should have been able to get this close.”

Wren froze. Not unless someone led the enemy through the coral reefs. “A traitor,” she breathed.

“It seems logical.”

She’d deal with that bit of information later. “Is Britta safe?” she asked. Her younger sister was the only heir to the throne.

“Near your parents,” Rowen said, pushing back to pull a bow and quiver from his shoulder. He held it out to her. “Can you run and shoot?”

“I have to.” Wren knelt and sliced off the bottom of her dress so it wouldn’t slow her down. “How bad is it?”

“Much of the battle has moved to the keep already. We need to get out while we still can.”

“Rot it.” No one had ever breached the Lorne Keep before.

“You ready?” Rowen asked gruffly.

“Where you go, I go,” she said resolutely, standing.

He swooped down and gave her a quick bruising kiss before pulling away. “I’ve got your back.”

A dark smile lifted Wren’s lips. “Let’s go hunting.”

5

Wren

Grim determination strengthened Wren as she ran through the wreckage, cutting down anyone that got in her way as she rushed toward her family. She stumbled only once as her comrades fell beneath the enemy’s swords.

The Verlantian soldiers, with their pointed ears and black, gilded helmets which obscured much of their faces, fought anonymously and constantly, never seeming to expend much effort in their slaughter. It was as if they were inhuman. Perhaps they were. The dark elves were always the monsters no one wanted to speak about.

She had never seen a Verlantian before, and it struck her as odd how beautiful they were. Even covered in the enemy’s regalia and the gore of her people, somehow they were ethereal and alluring.

Wren hated them.

Pretty monsters were all they were.

They were ruthlessly, hopelessly efficient. They were entirely impersonal. The crowd in the chapel were merely victims to be conquered.

She blocked out the cries of her people and focused on the weapons in her hands. Wren was not useless, nor were her father’s outnumbered warriors as they fought with everything they had to combat the pointed eared monsters invading. The people of the Dragon Isles had always been accused of being savages. Today they accepted the title with relish. They screamed as they landed blow after blow, fighting despite the wounds they sustained. Their war calls spurred Wren on, her blood boiling as she began loosing arrows left, right, and center with Rowen at her back.