Page 24

Fennor thought I was secured before he left. I let him believe it. The mage shackles should have forced my compliance, but what I felt was a low-level vibration; the longer I wore them, the more immune I became to the magic.

My excuse to Fennor was exhaustion. It was also the truth; fitting my chaotic emotions into some order was exhausting.

I’d never paid attention to the Faded Lands.

They were a place on a dried-out map, and now I was trapped in the realm.

Faced with the reality of dragons, what my father claimed was a myth people wanted to believe.

I understood my father more now, the dangerous secrets he kept, and I forgave him for the many times he moved us around the Southern Lands before settling in Thales.

If Bogo had matured like a normal fledgling…

if the king had captured him…the knot in my throat ached, but I refused to cry.

Crying somehow called dragons, and I’d seen enough of them.

My knees were still shaking, although I’d concealed the weakness well enough.

A woman came with food. I thanked her, took the tray, pleading the same exhaustion, which she was happy to accept.

The guilt didn’t bother me when I slipped into her mind and convinced her she’d locked the doors when they were wide open.

She had no bonded dragon, no magic. No different from most people in the Southern Lands who had no defense against Silk.

The king’s justice speaker. Like the wyrd of old.

I ate lightly, drank the water. Folded the hard cheese and apples into a cloth and slipped the package inside the vest. I’d memorized each bend in the road during the ride, certain I’d find the way back to the Wall.

The plan was nebulous, but it focused on my brother.

Getting back to Nikias. Smuggling him out of Thales and away from Tarian Ardalez.

If the red priests didn’t already have him.

I pushed the fear away. Time was not on my side and I refused to indulge in self-pity or inaction. Dangira slept and expected me to do the same because—who wouldn’t obey the dragon who ordered them to stay?

Certainly, the threat of dragon fire was enough to ensure obedience if the mage shackles didn’t. But I’d been in enough dark, twisted minds to learn about the Law of the Unexpected: strike fast and hard, from an unimagined direction. Put yourself at risk but gain the upper hand.

There was another law—the Law of Loyalty. Nothing came between a man and what he was most loyal to, not what he swore or promised. Because loyalty lived in a man’s heart, not his mind, and what was true could not be avoided.

The Draakon’s house was silent when I slipped outside.

Night had fallen and the first bright stars glittered between the churning clouds.

In the square, the horses still waited for a stableboy to fetch them—one bit of luck.

I rubbed the mare’s nose. Bribed her with an apple.

When she quieted, I climbed into the saddle and kicked her ribs.

As we passed Fennor’s gelding, I grabbed his reins and hoped if anyone saw me, they’d think I was the stableboy.

Once we reached the road, I released the gelding and urged the mare into a gallop. The mage chain hummed, and I used the annoyance to focus. To shut out the memory of a dragon’s voice booming his commands.

But after the first half hour, I turned the mare into the trees.

I’d be easy prey on the road, and I’d rather not face an angry Kion Abaddon, once he realized I had disappeared.

Every part of me reacted to his arrogance, the detached command that made me want to scream.

Looking at him was like looking into a mirror and seeing myself staring back.

We had the same magic. Fire on fire and ready to explode.

The mare stumbled. I tightened the reins.

She swung her head, faltering, circling with her ears folded back.

When she leapt forward, I was unprepared, and once again, she unseated me.

I tumbled into the leaves and broken branches, but as the frantic thudding of the mare’s hooves faded, every nerve in my body came alive.

I strained to hear what had startled her; forced myself to stand and peer into the dark. To not run.

Something was out there, chilling the night. I clutched the mage chain, watching as my fingers brightened with a faint glow.

Was I absorbing the magic? Giving my location away?

No time. Foreboding prickled along my spine and I pressed against a rough tree, blending with the shadows.

Above my head, the branches wavered in the fretted breeze, and between the dark pine needles, the surrounding sky seemed lighter.

Stars peeked through, and then a looming shape circled into view, blotting out the stars.

Gliding as a second creature joined the first. Narrow bodies, long muscled tails.

Two legs, and jagged, taloned wings that spread like tattered sails, sweeping through the air with the same sickening energy of the mage falcons.

The wyverns were man-size, but small compared to Sarnorinth—although everything was small compared to that black dragon.

These were the wyverns Fennor warned about, night flyers created by red priests. Mindless beasts, hunters driven by magic to find me.

When the creatures disappeared from view, I sprinted between the pines, weaving deeper into the forest and away from the open road, knocking aside the branches whipping at my face.

While I couldn’t see them, the whoosh of wings told me the hunters were close, driving the instinctive terror that kept me running through the thickest grove of trees.

My hands glowed, and I hid them with my sleeves.

My boots caught on exposed roots and fallen branches. I’d lost all sense of the stars.

The sharp, alien shrieks unnerved me, along with the answering calls. Were the wyverns coordinating? Hunting as a pack?

Tactics from Silk’s interrogations swam through my mind. Keep moving, change directions, challenge, take advantage of an enemy’s mistakes.

The moon brightened, emerging from the clouds and glowing whitely.

The meadow in front of me took on a ghostly hue.

If I crossed the open space, I’d be visible, so I skirted the worst of it, weaving through thick brush…

digging my heels into the soft ground and halting when a wyvern dropped from the sky.

The creature landed a short distance away. Had it seen me? Or only sensed my frantic movement as I slid behind a tree?

I watched, waited as the wyvern braced with those black, webbed wings.

The long neck swung, and the head angled down as it searched the shadows.

Talons tested the fallen pine needles with a spider’s stealth.

Soulless calculation glittered in the gold reptilian eyes—how best to find the prey?

Then all movement stopped as the creature stared at the tree where I hid.

When the wyvern tipped its head and barked three times, the sound stopped the air in my throat.

I fingered link after link of the mage chain, gathering the length until I held it in both hands like a whipping chain. My pulse hammered. My eyes ached as I stared, watching for movement…then I was stepping to the side, swinging the makeshift weapon toward the wyvern as it lunged.

The thwapping impact of heavy links against the creature’s rubbery flesh raced up my arms. My magic sputtered.

The blood, and the ease in slicing through the reptile’s neck with the shackle chain, should have shocked me.

Instead, I stared at the ghastly head in the pine needles while the body floundered about as if it still had a functioning brain.

I ran. My skin dampened. Sharp sounds echoed above my head. In my chest, adrenaline pulsed through my heart and fueled one tactic: get away .

Not enough time.

Two more creatures dropped from the sky, colliding with wings, talons, and snaking tails. They rolled in a tangled mess before screaming and righting themselves.

Shrubs became bits of leaf and stem, mashed into the ground, while dirt clods and tiny rocks pelted my skin.

I dodged to the side, scrambled, grasped a tree branch and swung my body upward, reaching, climbing. One creature attacked the trunk below me. With two clawed feet and hooked wings, the wyvern could not climb easily, but it could leap with terrifying power.

I scrambled higher, then lost my footing as the branch beneath my foot broke.

The bark was rough; splinters tore my palms when I slipped.

But my foot found the elbow of a thicker branch, wedged in until I was stable.

The mage chain swung low as I shifted my hands, and as the wyvern leapt wildly, its wing talon hooked a chain link.

The weight nearly dragged me from the tree before the chain caught on a protruding branch. The wyvern floundered with claws gripping and wings caught in the spiky pine needles. I forced heated magic through the chain until both the chain and my fingers glowed.

A bitter smoke curled from the hooked talon that turned cherry red.

Ancient, nightmare screams echoed from the creature’s throat. It thrashed…the mage shackles bruised my wrists before, mercifully, the mage chain snapped. The force nearly tore my hands from the tree trunk, but I held on as the wyvern fell .

His screech was shrill, rapid, a communication or a warning to the others that ended abruptly as something large and dark snapped him up—a dragon with a spiked head.

And as the dragon dragged the wyvern from the tree, my heart jolted, flipped as the dragon tossed the wyvern into the air…catching the body the way sea predators did with the seals before eating them.

I didn’t think during that instant, as the wyvern disappeared down the monstrous throat, but then instinct kicked in and I scrabbled higher, fighting the pine needles stabbing my face, bracing on a narrow branch that dipped and swayed beneath my weight.