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A sense of anxiety jolted through me because I was inside the cell, with Kessily bleeding out at my feet. Her hair was soaked with her blood now, her eyes staring up sightlessly.
The mist sank down and flooded into Kessily.
I straightened my spine, raised my chin, and shadow-shifted outside the cell, to stand with my back to the bars. It was unnecessary; I could fly through shadows. Nothing could trap me.
But that didn’t change the way my heart beat faster when I was behind the bars.
“Calm, Honor,”Zehr whispered in my mind.“You beat Ebba before. You’re stronger than he is.”
“Am I? Are we sure?”
The mist rose again out of Kessily’s body. It formed into a tower, swirling and swirling until it became opaque, and then it shifted into the figure of a man. A man with too many eyes, and too many mouths, all of which opened in smiles.
“Honor, we meet again.” His voice was as eerie as before. “Little queen of chaos.”
“You sent your assassin after someone I love.” I told Ebba. “And you can see what I do to anyone who threatens those I love.”
Zehr, amazingly, was silent. Somehow that made me even more nervous.
Ebba let out a laugh. “I’m far more powerful than your little sacrifice. But it didn’t work. She might be of distant royal blood, but she doesn’t carry enough magic to house me.”
My heart hammered in my throat. The sense of malevolent evil rolling off this creature was strong; in the temple when we were fighting for our lives, I had barely sensed it because I was focused on the fight.
“My parents made a deal with you once. What did they offer for your help?” It was a question I had to ask, but I didn’t want the answer.
“I’m only interested in discussing what you can offer me. You want me to break a deal.”
“The people who made the deal are all dead now.”
“Are they all dead?” he said. “There’s still one noble alive, one firstborn on the table. Another chance for me, since you failed.”
I glanced at Kessily’s fallen form. I’d killed her for nothing. “Leave Feleen’s baby alone.”
“Not hers. Already, that babe forms memories, loves its mother.” Ebba sounded disgusted. “Those nobles promised me a firstborn for Caldren’s corpse. Are you going to better their offer?”
“How would I better it?”
“Two babies,” he said cheerfully. “One for a body. One for eating.”
I didn’t allow myself to shudder. “Just leave Caldren alone. I’ll make a deal with you.”
“Why? To buy you time while you try to cheat me?”
“I just tried to give you what you wanted.” Bile rose in my throat every time I glimpsed Kessily’s corpse beyond Ebba.
He shook his head, all his eyes opening wide at once. “There’s no stopping chaos. I’m the ultimate power in the universe.”
“We’ll see,” I said, thinking of Branok’s and Lynx’s plans.
I needed that noble dead.
Or I needed to strike a different bargain.
CHAPTER13
Branok
Hanna,Lynx and I had packed up hastily after Honor left, and now we trekked across the frozen landscape. It was our home, and being dragons meant we stayed warm under all the but the most brutal assaults of cold, but Hanna shivered even in her thick coat. I unhooked my royal blue cloak and draped it around her shoulders wordlessly.
