Page 32

Damian

T here was no shout, no cry to warn of what was coming.

One moment, everything was still and calm as I completed my walk around the perimeter. The night was silent and still. In the distance, a bird cawed. Insects buzzed. A warm wind swept up the hill through the grasses, causing them to rustle with sweet lullaby softness.

The next, a blackened claw was slashing for my throat, having erupted out of the darkness. There was no time to think, no time to plan. I let go and instinct took over. My arm came up, scales already bursting through the skin to cover it in a defensive layer.

I bellowed in anger and pain as the clawed hand dug deep anyway, tearing away scales and spraying blood. My throat was intact, though, and that was what mattered.

Now, I could go on the offensive.

Grabbing the wrist of my attacker with my other hand, I yanked him forward out of the dark, intercepting his nose with my head. Cartilage snapped, and the nameless shifter stumbled backward into the shadows as blood poured down his face.

Shouts of alarm were echoing from everywhere now, and I knew the other half of the guards would be roused and joining the fight.

“To the scepter room!” I bellowed, backing toward the temple door as I scanned the darkness for another attacker. “Protect the scepter!”

The cry was taken up by others.

Balls of fire shot high into the sky as we banished the darkness, robbing our attackers of any cover. Instead of retreating, they attacked harder. One came at me, bursting from a bush, going for my legs. I obliged him, introducing my knee to his temple. His entire body went limp, taking him face-first into the stone walkway that ran around the outer edge of the temple.

I landed on him, making sure he didn’t get back up to cause trouble later. Prisoners were wanted, but not until the fight was won.

Momentarily free from attack, I rolled the attacker over. An unfamiliar face stared up at me. It was unlikely that I would have recognized them, but knowing who was behind this all would have been nice.

The only warning I had was a giant whoosh of air. Flinging myself forward, tucking into a roll, I narrowly avoided the giant dragon claws that flashed through the spot I’d just occupied.

Coming around again, the beast tried to incinerate me, unleashing a giant stream of flame that turned stone to liquid and grass into blackened flecks that scattered on the wind. Red welts covered my exposed skin from the intense heat, but I otherwise avoided injury. Turning in the direction the winged monster had taken off in, I sent a white-hot ball of flame after it, chucking it like a ball.

I smiled humorlessly as it exploded on my attacker’s snout, melting scales and blinding it in one eye. It wasn’t nearly enough payback for the losses I was certain my guards were taking.

Eager to go to their aid, I rushed inside, where I immediately peeled a black-clothed attacker away from a struggling guard, leaving him to defend against only one enemy. My fingers lengthened into claws, and I did what my first attacker couldn’t and ripped the throat from my foe.

Turning to aid the guard, I saw him fall back, eyes open and sightless as the attacker pulled a dragon-scale dagger from his chest.

“You’re going to die for that,” I promised, watching closely for any signs of weakness.

Boots on stone came hurtling down the hallway behind me. There were no shouts to identify friend or foe, and I couldn’t risk turning away, else the dagger-wielder would make his move.

Knowing my initial foe would expect me to react anyway, I feinted turning but kept my attention on his hips and shoulder. The blade came forward, but I was already reversing. I slammed my shoulders into the stone wall and used the impact to fling myself forward, chopping violently at the outstretched knife arm. My aim was true, and the blade fell from suddenly numbed fingers.

I snatched it out of mid-air, reversed my grip, and drove backward and up, impaling the second attacker on the eight-inch blade as he couldn’t stop in time. He gasped as all the air was driven from his lungs from the impact. Then I twisted the blade and drove him sideways to the other wall.

Agonizing screams echoed off the walls as the man’s insides became outsides. I hit the far wall, yanking the dagger free just as a body hit me from behind.

My skull rang from the impact as it smashed off the wall. The dying attacker fell forward, collapsing onto my new attacker, buying me a moment to recover. Somehow, I kept a grip on the dagger through it all. Slashing out wildly before anyone had a chance to recover, I felt the tip hit bone as I dragged it along the forearm of the blade’s original wielder.

Blood-slickened stone betrayed him as he tried to back away, and I pounced as he flailed, driving the blade up through his jaw and into his brain.

“Told you,” I snarled, stumbling away from the dead body, weaving in a zig-zag path back and forth as I tried to get to the scepter chamber, where the sounds of more fighting could still be heard.

The shouts and cries grew more intense the nearer I got to the chamber. I tried to ignore them just as I was furiously ignoring the fact that Aurora was upstairs, completely unprotected. I couldn’t go to her, despite what my dragon bellowed in my mind. The sovereign had sent me there to protect the scepter. I was going to do my job.

I stepped into the main chamber just in time to see the last two of my guards go down under a wave of attackers. Where had they all come from? How could so many have turned on their sovereign? I didn’t understand it.

“Stop!” I bellowed, stepping forward. “In the name of the sovereign, I command you to cease your actions, under punishment of—”

Something slammed into the back of my head, pitching me forward, toward the floor and a blackness far darker than the shadows outside had ever been.

“ Death to the sovereign ,” was the last thing I heard.