Page 132 of Destined Dawn

I haul her to the side of the path, propping her up into a seated position against a tree stump, and magic twine around her ankles and then her wrists, tying them behind her back.

“Nice chatting,” I tell her. “Talk more later. Bye.”

Then I continue on to the meadow, sprinting with all my might. I’ve already wasted precious time.

I find the dragons pacing, snorting and throwing their heads as if they’re impatient to get up into the sky.

I beckon Gwenhwyfar my way, and scrabble up on her neck. If this goes to plan, the battle could be over in a couple of minutes. Kennedy’s men will be like rats up a drainpipe, trapped, stuck in a bottleneck with nowhere to go, vulnerable to our counterattack, vulnerable to me and my fire power.

Excitement bubbles in my belly, that dark magic reinvigorated. I lean into it this time. Torching men alive is not what I want to do, but it’s for the greater good. We’re doing this to prevent further bloodshed and heartache.

I nudge Gwenhwyfar with my heel and she kicks off, her wings stretching wide, her school of dragons following her lead. She lifts me up into the sky, the other dragons trailing after her and we swoop over the campus and down to the front of the mansion – just where the trapped army of Christopher Kennedy’s fighters should be.

Gwenhwyfar rumbles, her scales warming beneath me. She’s ready to obliterate everything with her fire.

But then I realize, it’s not that simple.

48

Spencer

As the academy’sprotective spells crumble to the ground around us, Kennedy’s troops come charging up the slope towards the mansion, just as we planned.

I keep my arms outstretched, signaling to the others to wait, to hold back, to be patient. It’s hard when I can feel the thrum of magic all around me, that and anticipation too. It presses against my back and my shoulders and it takes every ounce of my strength and my determination to hold it back.

We can’t strike, not yet. We have to wait. Wait until they’re right where we want them.

“Ellie,” I say.

Azlan’s sister steps forward and places a bottle on the ground. Inside, a green mist swirls like angry storm clouds. She yanks off the stopper and with the help of the otherresistance fighters casts a wind that sends the mist hurtling down the hill towards the incoming troops.

As the mist curls around them, they falter, coughing and waving their hands in front of their faces.

I smile to myself. It worked. This is our moment. But just as I’m about to give the command to strike, the mist is whisked away by some other magic, and the soldiers reform their ranks.

They surge forward, the first of their soldiers reaching the crown of the hill and sprinting forward, roaring as they do.

I let my vision scan over them, across their angry faces and their armored forms, wondering why the hell they’re fighting for a mad man like Kennedy, wondering how they’ve fallen for his lies and his deceptions, wondering if they had a choice or not.

Then my gaze falters on one face, one face I recognize – that woman from the barracks, the one who showed me around the very first day. I read the fear in her eyes and the terror on her face.

And fuck, I’m not sure I can do this anymore.

The fighting is all I’ve ever been good at. All anyone has ever admired about me. And fuck, it sparked something inside me too, made me feel alive, unstoppable, like a hero.

What do I feel now? Nothing, nothing at all. I think of all the hits I took in that cell, all the punches and kicks, the stamps and the slaps.

I remember watching them beat Jacob until he lay unmoving. I remember them killing him, striking him down outside the prison.

I remember my brother, the scent of his blood still vivid out there in no-man's-land.

My arms fall by their sides. My knees buckle.

Everyone behind me storms forward.

For a brief moment in time, nothing changes. Both sides rush at each other, but the space between them remains.

Peace. Quiet.