Asha lowered her slayers. “Youfollowedme?”
“I told your father,” he said. “And he put a stop to it.”
Asha felt light-headed.
She thought back to the sickroom after the burning. When she couldn’t remember what happened, her father filled in thegaps. It was all her fault, he said. Together they would make it right, he said. He would use her scar to show the world how dangerous the old ways were.
While everyone else looked away from her scar in revulsion or fear, her father looked on with pride. As if it were his crowning achievement. His magnificent creation.
His creation...
Asha wanted to shut off her thoughts, to stop herself from following them to their most logical conclusion. But they were like a scroll unraveling. She had to read to the end.
Asha’s father had always wanted to rid the realm of the old ways. He used Asha to hunt down Kozu. And when she was burned, he turned her into a tool—a cautionary tale. A living piece of propaganda.
A monster.
Asha didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to believe Kozu’s story was the wicked, twisted thing. But there was the burn, and here she was—still alive.
Her father had been there when it happened, along with his soldats and—she realized now—his healers.
Asha looked to her betrothed.Thiswas the secret Jarek kept for the king. All those years ago, her father stepped aside and let Asha burn. And Jarek knew.Thiswas why Asha had been promised to him—in exchange for compliance and secrecy.
All her life, she’d thought of herself as wicked, corrupted, in need of redemption.
A shocking thought occurred to her.What if I’m not any of those things?
A low growl shook the earth at her feet. Asha turned to find the soldats advancing on Kozu’s back.
“Kill it now!” Jarek shouted, looking over Asha’s shoulder. “Strike! Before it flies!”
Asha lifted her slayers. But Kozu’s tail came around her, stopping her from charging, pulling her back against the searing-hot scales of his chest.
Asha felt his acid lungs filling up with air. Felt the beat of his ancient heart.
Jarek ducked behind the soldat’s shield.
Kozu breathed, streaming flames in an arc. Red and orange filled Asha’s vision, swallowing the advancing soldats. The air shimmered with heat.
When the fire stopped streaming, the whole field was ablaze. And it wasn’t the only thing on fire.
In the distance, beyond the trees, beyond the lower Rift and the wall, the city rooftops were going up in flames.
“Firgaard!” she screamed, pointing.
Jarek—unburned behind his shield—turned to see.
“The city is under attack!”
Asha’s hands clenched as the smoke billowed into the sky. Dax and Safire were in there.
When darkness falls, little sister, the Old One lights a flame.
It was the last thing her brother said to her.
Asha’s hands unclenched as she remembered the look on his face as they hauled him away to the dungeon. Like it was all a part of his plan.
No, she thought.Dax wouldn’t destroy his own home.
