Page 24 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“I’ve seen cruelty of both human and divine. Out of all, I ought to be the first one to think so.”

Jayre’s growls made the cave walls shake, pebbles and dust raining over us, and Nilsa took a gentle step toward me. “Why must we cause more destruction when we know the consequences?”

“Why must I endure when I can end it? Ruin what wants to ruin me first.”

Her eyes widened, dropping to the sceptre. “You want to try to kill the guardian. But she is blameless.”

Few had left me speechless in this lifetime. “On second thought, stay here actually. I’ll sort your kingdom out myself.”

She stepped forward. “You will anger the gods!”

I spread dirt all over the portal before leaving. “I guess you’ve never seen me angry.”

I held my breath in the silence.

Then I heard it.

Screams of agony ringing so loud that they echoed like a pure symphony under the hollow cave walls.

There, there.

Clutching the sceptre piece, I turned to Nilsa one last time. “Hide here, ashamed, or fight out there with your people that have to bow even lower beyond the shame of their last king only so they could kiss the feet of my father.”

My eyes burned from the heat when I emerged from the cave. Chaos like no other surrounded me. Blistering fire crawled up to the skies, stretching for miles ahead, emerging over the Isjordian camps that had turned into a hot hearth. Demir stood amongst piles of burned bodies, heaving, eyes red and wide and half mad, tracing the dragon disappearing in the distance.

His nostrils flared and he spun to me, growling with fury up until I lifted the sceptre between us, making him halt his unnecessarily dramatic attack.

“Got it.”

He lifted clawed hand to my face, trailing a sharp finger down my cheek. “You are unscathed. How is that so?”

“The dragon was protecting it. I couldn’t get to the sceptre unless it left the cave. Took me a bit to trick it around and out.”

“Trick it? It had your scent all over,” he snarled.

I stepped forward. “Do you think I did it with the power of my thoughts?” I snarled right back, throwing him the sceptre piece with all the strength I could mutter. “Got you the fucking thing. What more do you want?”

He gripped the rod tightly, glowered and growled at me one last time, and tugged hard on my chains to follow after him. “This will have consequences,” he spat.

The smell of burnt flesh and cloth lingering in the already musky air was plenty of consequence if you asked me. The soot stained with blood and gore and echoing screams was…cathartic. If he wasn’t going to kill me, my heart would stop from excitement. I skipped along after him. “I’m so, so very scared.”

Nissa’s mother had done exactly what I had told her to do after my return from Seraphim. And so efficiently, she had spread word far and wide, within the walls of the castle and outside. From the other maids to the kitchen servants, to the cooks, to the traders, to the markets, to the folk of Tenebrose. It had barely taken days for them all to think I’d fought off a dragon and survived trying to protect Isjordian camps all while getting my father’s weapon to his holy war.

Soldiers and servants alike murmured to each other when I made my way to the training courts, feigning a small limp. I’d not even let the Medi Healer touch the bruise from my father’s slap. My consequences were looking a lot like trophies.

Along with sympathy, they offered something else. Something looking a lot like respect.

Melanthe, as usual, had narrowed her eyes on me from the balcony where she always overlooked my training. But this time, her attention slipped to my surroundings. To everyone who was looking at me. The way her face began to fall, the alarming confusion dropping along with her brows, so satisfying.

“Shall we?” I asked, shedding my jacket.

Chapter seven

White Bishop to A5

Snowlin

It was the middle of August and they had just finally managed to arrange a safe trip through Eldmoor. Whatever Kilian was doing to delay them, it was working.