The dragon is the one who answers, turning its oily black eyes in my direction. Its silver-black scales are so shiny they reflect the flames building around it, making it look like it burns with some internal, hell-attained fire.
With a roar, it lunges toward me.
Malachi pushes me out of the way at the last instant.
I'm spared from the dragon's attack, but I trip over one of the many dead bodies scattered on the ground, tumblingface-first into the burning ruins of the place I once called home. A smoldering, jagged piece of wood impales my eye. The pain is so agonizing I lose myself for several moments, the world tilting up and out of reach as I stagger and fall onto my back.
My awareness eventually returns.
My strength doesn't.
I try, but I can't make myself get up, even when I hear people stampeding toward me, shouting and pointing. Even when I realize it's Malachi they're pointing at, Malachi that's been snatched into the claws of the same dragon that tried to kill me.
In my mind, here in the middle of the Mouren camp, I still hear him being torn apart. I still hear my name—the last thing he says before choking out an agonized cry, then a gasp, then…silence.
Through spinning smoke and blurring vision, I watch the murderous beast carry away his broken body. I choke down a sob as another dragon collides with the killer, trying to claw my fiancé from its grasp; they're known to play with and fight over their kills.
The nightmares about Malachi’s body being tossed between them started when I closed my eyes in the middle of that burning city, and they haven't stopped ever since.
Finally, I shake myself free of the memory.
I tilt my face to the sky, trying not to look at the campfire anymore. Every flicker of its light tightens the knot in my stomach and brings me a little closer to vomiting. To screaming. To sobbing out a confession about what I saw, what I felt, what I failed to tell anyone. In every sizzle of the smoking fire I hear a whisper of the question that has haunted me for five years.
Could I have saved them all?
Another hour passes.
I drift in and out of awareness, still trying to formulate a plan, but battling with exhaustion, too, all while trying to keep the traumatic echoes of my past at bay. Then a frantic shout pulls my attention fully back to the camp?—
A severed head rolls to a stop in front of us. Eyes still open. Still staring.
A shadow races past, cloak snapping behind him.
“Fucking hell,” Briar curses, turning her face from the gruesome sight. “This day just keeps getting better and better.”
I start to point out that at least it's the head of a Mouren soldier—one who'd been guarding us, no less—but a bloodcurdling scream makes the words collapse in my throat.
Turning toward the noise, I see that the center of the camp has erupted with violence. Masked figures pour through it, cutting down Mouren soldiers, hurling torches into tents and supply stacks.
And now I’m cursing as well—because regardless of whose heads are flying, being bound up and defenseless in the middle of a massacre is not exactlyideal.
We struggle once more with our bindings, hearts pounding and more colorful curses flying between us.
A soldier staggers into our view. Two arrows are lodged deep between her shoulder blades. Blood trickles from her mouth, and her eyes turn glassy as she circles around and around and then finally collapses. Her sword flies from her hand as she hits the ground, landing near Briar's foot. A potential tool—and not a moment too soon, as there are now several tents catching fire alarmingly close to us.
“This is what I get for wishing their camp would burndown last night,” I say. “I didn't say I wanted to beinsideof it when that happened.”
“You have to be more specific about what you're praying for,” Briar replies, stretching her leg toward the fallen sword, “or the gods will fuck you over every time.”
“You'd think I would have learned that by now,” I mutter, twisting so I can reach the sword as well, helping her guide it closer. The pain radiating from my knee is still dizzying, but I grit my teeth and push through it.
Together, we manage to shove the blade against the post we're bound to, and then to force it to slide upright. After a few failed attempts, we angle it between the wood and the ropes binding my hands.
Briar presses her body against the sword, holding it relatively steady as I work my arms up and down along the blade, sawing myself free. Once I escape, I take a knife from the fallen soldier and cut Briar free as well.
We steal hooded cloaks and more weapons from both that soldier and the one who was recently relieved of his head.
As I pull the hood up to hide my face, trying not to gag at the stench of the blood splattered across the thick wool, I squint toward the growing battle. “Who are these invaders?”
