Shadow planted himself on all fours and reared back his head. His chest heaved. His belly glowed.
“No!” Asha screamed.
Soldats arrived at the edge of the pit. Asha stumbled out across the crisscrossed bars, losing her balance, then gaining it, out of their reach, into the middle. The crowd quieted as Asha clutched the bars beneath her, feet slipping more than once, and finally found a space wide enough to fit herself through.
She lowered herself, dangling above the pit as she realized how far the fall was. It wouldn’t break her, but it would hurt.
Shadow’s belly turned ember red.
Asha let go.
The air whooshed past her ears as she fell. Pain—bright and stark—rushed up her ankles and legs. She’d landed directly between the dragon and the slave. The crowd above her gasped.
Asha threw up her arms—one shielded with armor, the other bare. She saw her helmeted reflection glistening in those slitted eyes. The reflection of a hunter. An enemy.
The fire was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Asha turned and ran for Torwin. Dropping to her knees before him, she covered his body with her own, protecting him with her armor. Taking his head in her hands, she pushed it down, shielding his face with her shoulder.
“Stay low.” Her voice echoed inside her helmet.
Torwin cried out as the fire rushed past them, the heat searing his skin. He grabbed the lower edge of her breastplate, holding her to him.
Bits of flame flickered and died in the sand.
Asha turned back to the dragon. It crouched low and hissed.
They’d turned her playful Shadow into a predator.
“Shadow,” she said, pushing off her helmet. It fell to the sand with aclunk. “It’s me.”
He growled and thrashed his tail.
Asha began stripping off her armor, throwing piece after piece away from her.
“You know me.”
Above them sat the hushed crowd, their disbelieving eyes fixed on the Iskari. Their startled murmurs rang in her ears, and above it all came a shout: a command for the soldats to open the gates. To get the Iskari out.
It was her father’s command. And worse than the ferocious roar of the dragon king’s voice was the chilling gaze he fixed on her. One she could feel even here.
With trembling fingers, Asha worked at the laces of her dragonskin boots, needing to get them off, to convince Shadow she wasn’t the enemy.
“He sees you,” Torwin said from behind her.
Asha’s eyes lifted. Shadow stopped circling. His tail no longer thrashed. He took a hesitant step toward her, cocked his flat and scaly head, and made a small sound. Like a whimper.
Asha had the strangest urge to throw her arms around his neck.
She kicked off both loosened boots and slowly approached, barefoot, with her hands outstretched. Shadow nudged her palm with his snout. He trembled all over.
Asha needed to get him out of here.
Heavy footsteps thudded toward the pit entrance. Both Asha and the dragon looked to find soldats lining the other side of the gate. They were trapped. She may have stopped Shadow and Torwin from killing each other, but she couldn’t protect them from her father’s army.
“Asha!” Safire’s voice rang out. “Fly!”
The sound of metal scraping against metal, the turning of gears, filled Asha’s ears. She looked up. The iron bars above started to rise toward the sky.
