Page 142 of To Fight and To Fold

Executions hadn't been done in such a manner in… well, certainly not in Aaryn's lifetime. Long ago, they'd been outlawed by a king as inhumane. She'd only read about such things in history books.

For them to go to such drastic measures now?

They never made it to Vaelen.

A low rumble rocked beneath their feet, the barriers shimmering in waves as the magic steadied the platforms in the sky. Fear shot through Aaryn, her first instinct that somehow they were being attacked.

But it wasn't an attack. An anguished cry rang out, haunting and piercing all at once.

A flash of light, a shout, the gathering of a crowd. Aaryn and Thea pushed their way to the front.

Stormstrike roared, wings flapping, air battering at their clothes, blowing the branches of nearby trees back, scattering leaves as if to ward everyone away. He glowed, a ball of magic in his throat, and the swarm of people began to run. Thea grabbed her hand and pulled her, but Aaryn's instinct was to run toward him, toward the small figure on her knees beneath him. Blood dripped down Carissa's wrist and Aaryn gasped.

Magic was heavy in the air, like a thick fog or a humid day in the midst of the worst summer. It made her skin prickle, and she couldn't tear her gaze away even as Thea hid them behind a set of trees.

As the crowd dispersed, the perceived threat gone, the magic in the dragon's throat subsided. He dropped to the ground, curling around Carissa. The last Aaryn saw of her was her head thrown back, glowing just like her dragon was.

Vaelen made it to them with a soft whisper of grass, and she carefully approached the tense dragon protecting his… Awakened.

Even in the midst of such chaos and worry, something twisted through Aaryn's chest.

The dragon's eyes were narrowed, ever intelligent, as Vaelen drew closer.

Vaelen placed herself between the dragon and the remaining crowd and lifted her hands. "Please give her some space. Carissa is safe, and Stormstrike will feel more at ease."

Her tone was kind to appease the worried and firm to mitigate the curious.

"You too," she said, nodding in Aaryn and Thea's direction.

"Will she be okay?" Aaryn asked Vaelen, daring to step closer despite the dragon's glare.

"The Hoard is a powerful, unpredictable beast of its own. This isn't quite ideal, I'll admit. But all the more reason for Carissa to retain her privacy. She will be fine," she declared.

The flash of blood, the soft glow slightly reminiscent of the orange flowers, her dragon's roar… Carissa had broken her brand. She was… Awakened.

"So she was… desperate. To save him. To do something," Thea explained, once she had met with Vaelen.

"Because Rolim is set to be executed," Aaryn repeated, a little dazed. "With a dead punishment resurrected by the new king. Who is now… Jarrick."

Reportedly, the King succumbed to the illness that had secretly been keeping him from the public eye for so long. His empty seat in the Dining Hall certainly made more sense now, if that was certainly the case.

Which Thea wasn’t convinced of in the slightest.

“He killed him,” Thea said, throwing her hands up. “Had to. Destroying a city, using magic so grossly, reinstating inhumane executions, what’s helping dad into the grave a little early?”

Aaryn winced. The prince, someone Aaryn had once thought of as a protector, had gone… mad. And they weren’t the only ones to think so. Reports from staff within the castle, a visiting diplomat, all described Jarrick as quick to anger and paranoid. Anyone smart was afraid of setting him off.

"We’re gonna save him,” Thea declared. “Rolim. A week from now. A quick extraction. In and out."

Aaryn's stomach turned with worry, but Thea was confident, if not serene in her determination.

"We need to save the Tethered, too,” Aaryn said. “If the reports you have of Jarrick’s descent into madness are true, then they’re not safe with him."

“I know. We can only do so much, and there’s so much to do. How’s Carissa?”

“The Awakened are looking after her.”

Carissa, who had been awaiting Rolim to tap into her magic, and now didn't have him. Everything Aaryn had heard made the process of awakening one's magic seem so… romantic. So fun and personal and intimate and freeing. But Carissa had seemed like she'd been in such… pain. The unnatural arch to her neck, the glow to her eyes, the… the magic around her had felt…