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Plus, there were plenty of gobbelins still lurking in the city.
All I could do was pray to the Goddess that Merden wouldn’t put everyone in more danger with a ridiculous celebration that would attract every gobbelin within ten miles. Sheathing a sword across my back, I sighed. Who was I kidding?
She was definitely planning a ridiculous celebration.
“I’m coming,” Cade said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. His eyes were bright, but just this motion had heightened his breathing. He pressed his lips together in a straight line, trying to hide it from me.
“Please, Cade. Merden will probably be there, and I can’t... I can’t lose you again,” I begged, rushing around the bed to grab his hands. I’d chain him to the bed if I had to. “I promise I’ll send word, or come back here if I’m allowed.”
“You have to let me be your weapon,” he insisted, frustration pinching his forehead. “I’m better, Special K.”
“Not better enough. Please, Cade. Just rest a little longer?” I lowered my mouth to his and gave him a soft kiss, which he immediately deepened, drawing me between his thighs. Then he sighed, slumping against me and holding me tight to his chest.
“Only because you asked so nice, pretty girl. But remember - the mist gave me a job.”
“And I’ll let you know when it starts. Hell, maybe just helping us figure out the blood thing was your job,” I added hopefully.
Cade quirked an eyebrow. “I may not be a trained warrior, but I am a vampire, Kana. I can hold my own.”
“Soon,” I promised him, trying not to show him I was already planning multiple ways to keep him far, far away from anything Merden might do.
Clamping down on the fear that rose in me even for leaving him behind, I strode out of the room, Rush meeting me just outside the door, glamored as my sponsor, Saint Laurent, for caution. We crossed paths with Kas and Blaise in the halls, and I saw Jillian flouncing ahead, evidently having been freed from her cell in time to bathe.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. It was really beginning. The fourth Trial was finally here, and in less than four weeks, Merden would be dead by my hand.
I refused to believe any other reality would exist. This was my time. I’d waited, and I’d trained. I’d suffered. And I was ready for this next step.
I’d never asked for it before, but I was ready to be Queen, if it meant I was saving all the people I cared about, and the once-beautiful city we lived in.
I was ready to be Queen, if it meant that Merden could no longer claim that title, ever again.
We all made our way to the city center, where the statue of the Original Sisters stood tall in the sunlight. My daggers were still embedded deep in their bellies, and I imagined the women were both smiling down at me with the sort of grim determination I was feeling.
The triple moons might be hidden for now, but I could feel their power shining down on me. I could feel Khione stirring, sharpening her icy daggers and whipping a cold wind in my soul. We were all ready for battle.
The crowd swelled as vampires poured out from the palace. Many more crept in from the streets, and I tried not to think about how vulnerable they’d been. How little they trusted their royals, that they would risk facing the gobbelins in their own homes rather than retreat to a guarded, thick-walled building.
“Don’t think about it, K,” Kas said, leaning in close as he watched the people trickle in. “We’ll make the changes we all want to see. We’ll save Saori Sang.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed it, grateful for a man like him who was as observant and tender as he was fierce and cocky. No matter what happened, he would make a perfect King.
We hadn’t been waiting long when a great clap of wind and something like rolling thunder sounded from the mountainside, and all the faces in the crowd turned to find the source.
I froze as my eyes tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
“Is that...” Kas trailed away as we all fastened our eyes to the clear blue sky above us.
“A goddamn dragon. Yes,” I answered him shortly, waiting for the usual hatred for my aunt to flood my body like adrenaline. Instead, I just felt tired. Merden was like a child who had been given a light saber. A vicious child, at that.
“I really hate her,” Blaise remarked, her voice as resigned as I felt.
“So much,” I agreed as the crowd gasped and cowered as the dragon swooped low enough for me to see the spiked chains digging into its neck, which was glistening with fresh blood.
I might be wearing dragon-scale armor, but it had been a gift, harvested from live dragons as they shed naturally over time. In Haret, dragons were one of the most powerful and venerated shifter races, and here was Merden, somehow able to exploit them just like all the rest of her conquests.
“Wonder if Queen Carlyle knows about this,” Rush murmured, and I winced. Carlyle’s first mate was a dragon. And once she heard what Merden was doing, we’d be lucky if the whole sky city didn’t come raining fire down on us. She’d been holding back and letting this be my fight - the vampires’ fight - but I knew if I didn’t clean up Merden’s mess well enough, there would be consequences.
The dragon chariot skidded to a stop on the cobblestones, its huge claws dragging deep ruts in the street as vampires darted out of the way of its enormous, leathery wings.
