Page 139

26

T he shouts from the camp rose to a crescendo, mingling with wingbeats and a distant, ear-splitting screech. Cora rushed the rest of the way through the tent flap, just as a gust of wind slammed against her, blowing her braided hair back. She turned her face to the sky as an enormous silhouette passed overhead. Then another shape, at the other end of camp near the common area. There, the white dragon—Ferrah—began to descend. Her feathered wings beat the air, extinguishing the cookfires and sending startled diners scrambling back, dropping clay bowls in their haste.

Salinda had stopped several paces ahead. She abruptly whirled toward Cora with accusation in her eyes. It was a look devoid of malice. Only fact.

Cora had brought this upon them.

Her legs nearly gave out at the realization. Bernice had said the ward would last until morning, but it apparently hadn’t been strong enough to mask Mareleau’s magic from the dragons. Guilt struck her chest, and with her mental shields still down, she felt the fear of the commune. It blanketed her mind, drowning out her sense of self.

Ferrah descended fully to the ground. Archers and spearmen surrounded her. Cora wanted to shout that the weapons wouldn’t work against the dragon and would only make her angry, but she couldn’t form a word, not with so much secondhand fear clouding her senses. Besides, her voice would never carry over the cacophony. The screams. The wingbeats. A second dragon—the black dragon—began to descend. The archers fell back.

Aimed.

Shot their arrows.

The arrowheads glanced off scales.

A violet glow emanated from the base of Ferrah’s throat, illuminated behind her opalescent scales. Then a red glow from the creature still mid-descent.

Cora! Valorre’s voice shattered the noise, broke through the outside emotions, and gave her something to cling to. She breathed deeply, steadying her feet, regaining control. With an exhale, she forced the outer emotions away and slammed a makeshift ward in place. It was enough to sharpen her mind and remind her of the solution she carried.

She plunged her hand into her cloak pocket.

“Do it,” came Mareleau’s voice.

Cora spun around to find her friend outside the tent, Noah in her arms. The gauze was gone, exposing the inflamed wounds on her neck. Cora’s stomach churned but they had no other choice. Regardless of their efforts, they’d failed. The Forest People couldn’t help them. Not with Mareleau. Not with the prophecy, the dragons, or the threat of Darius.

They’d fully failed.

Gritting her teeth, she extracted the collar from her pocket and charged for Mareleau. “I’m so sorry,” she said as she prepared to clamp it around her neck?—

“Ferrah!” The female voice rang through the camp, rising above all the other sounds.

Cora was dumbstruck at hearing the dragon’s name. Who else would know it but her? She halted, the collar mere inches from Mareleau’s neck, and cast a look over her shoulder. Ferrah snapped her maw shut, closing her teeth over a flicker of purple flame, extinguishing it in a puff of smoke.

The voice called out again. “Hold your weapons! Fall back.”

The archers and spearmen hesitated.

Cora scanned the crowd, seeking the speaker, but it was too dark to make out a single figure amongst the chaos. Only one cookfire remained burning, the cauldron that had hung over it now toppled on its side, its contents spilling onto the soil.

The black dragon landed beside Ferrah, sending the ground rumbling.

“Fall back!” the voice repeated, and the fighters lowered their weapons and scrambled away from the two creatures.

Finally, Cora could make out the speaker. A tall, slender female strolled toward the clearing, hand outstretched toward the dragons. She made a shushing sound, and the dragons seemed to calm.

Ferrah folded her wings down her back and shuffled a few steps away, head low. The black dragon, however, took a step closer. But not to attack. Instead, it lowered its head, crouched down, and touched its massive snout to the woman’s outstretched palm. Its sinuous black neck trembled, and a soft rumbling emanated from its chest. A sound somewhere between a chirp and a cry left its mouth as it nuzzled the woman’s hand. The creature was so much larger than the figure, it could have knocked her over with a single breath. Yet all it did was gently nudge her hand, eyes closed.

Cora’s feet moved before she knew what she was doing, drawing her closer to the clearing. The dragons. The woman.

“I’m here,” the woman said. “I’m here, Uziel.”

Silence fell over the camp, though it was punctuated with whispers and muffled cries.

Cora stopped moving once she reached Salinda’s side. She was much closer to the clearing now, but she still didn’t recognize the woman from behind. Long black hair trailed down her back and her brown skin was unadorned with tattoos. The brown bodice and patchwork petticoats she wore seemed slightly too big in places and too small in others. Her bodice was loose and seemed to ride high on her midriff, while the hem of her skirt was well above her calves. A style inappropriate for winter.

“Who is she?” Cora asked, but Salinda only shook her head.

The woman stepped closer to the dragon and pressed her forehead to the creature’s snout. It let out another string of chirps. Then the woman spoke.

The words sent a chill down Cora’s spine. Not because she understood them, but because she couldn’t .

Couldn’t, yet she recognized their cadence. The way they rang with a strange sense of familiarity.

She was speaking the language of the ancient fae.

A language the Forest People rarely spoke, aside from sparse words and partial phrases. Yet this woman spoke with ease and clarity…like the Elvyn had in El’Ara. Though their words had been translated by magic, she’d heard them speak before Etrix had woven his translation enchantment.

The dragon named Uziel kept its head lowered and backed away from the woman’s hand. Then, extending its leathery wings, it beat the air. Once. Twice. The first gust of wind sent the woman’s long black hair blowing away from her face, revealing the pointed tip of an ear. The second gust rushed over the camp, and Cora had to shield her eyes as clouds of dirt funneled into her. By the time the wind subsided, the dragons were no longer on the ground but soaring high overhead.

Then they were gone.

Relief uncoiled inside her, and she realized much of it wasn’t her own. She hadn’t been able to make out Valorre’s voice since he’d called her name, but she felt his proximity, their mental link.

You’re all right? he asked, his voice finally cutting through the disorder in her mind.

I am , she said, but she couldn’t focus on herself right now, or even Valorre.

Her gaze locked on the woman, still facing away from her. Cora knew who she was. There was only one person she could be.

Finally, the woman turned around.

A pair of familiar eyes met hers, and Cora realized there wasn’t only one person this figure could be.

She extended her senses beyond the thin walls of her temporary shields. The energy that pulsed back was as familiar as those dark irises. Her body was unrecognizable aside from the shape of her eyes, the kind expression in them. Gone were the crow’s feet that once lined them, the wrinkles that had dug deep furrows in the woman’s face. Gone was her hunched posture, her aged frame.

Salinda seemed to realize the same thing. She took a step toward the woman. Her voice was strangled as she uttered the name. “Nalia?”

It shouldn’t have been possible. Nalia was supposed to be dying. She was supposed to be the oldest woman in the tribe, not the tall and youthful beauty who strode toward them now, drawing the eyes of the frightened and confused spectators. But this woman bore the High Elder’s energy. Despite outward appearances, this was her.

The woman stopped before Cora and Salinda. She gave the latter a sad smile, which revealed the ghost of the wrinkles that used to frame her eyes. “Yes,” Nalia said. “It’s me.”

But that wasn’t her only moniker. It struck Cora that the answer had been here all along. Hidden in the High Elder’s name itself. She spoke it out loud, reversing the letters, and marked this woman as the one she’d needed to find.

“Ailan.”

The woman with two names released a heavy sigh and met Cora’s eyes. “Yes. I am she.”