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Fresh fighters. That’s all we can ask for.
In the far distance, a large swath of forest coats the land. That must be Eldred Wood, where we met the Legion after escaping Cirilea. Those days feel like an eternity ago.
Caindra banks right and turns back the way we came. A part of me wants to prod her to continue to Cirilea, so I can see the state it’s in, but we don’t have time for that now. She only brought me here to show me help was coming.
“Thank you!” I shout, though I doubt she can hear me. I settle into her grip and admire the view—of rolling hills and snowcapped mountains, of the two full moons. Despite the chaos that is coming, no one can claim that Islor isn’t breathtaking.
Suddenly, Caindra dives to land in an open field, setting me down gently.
I find my footing in the grass. “Why are we here?” There’s no one and nothing around. Not a single house.
Her head tips back and I brace myself for one of her terrifying roars, but it doesn’t come. Instead, she curls her wings around her body, almost like a shield.
I watch with my mouth gaping wide as her massive form shrinks, turning and folding into itself much like Lucretia did when she morphed from her serpent form to the human female body she uses now.
In moments, Caindra is gone and a familiar face stands before me.
Oh my God. “Bexley?”
“I told you I could be your greatest ally, did I not?” She strolls toward me, her gown shimmering in hues of indigo and rose gold like her scales in sunlight, the neckline plunging as per usual. “I all but handed you a second throne today.”
But … “Bexley?”
“Oh come, you cannot be that surprised, can you?” Her violet eyes flash with mischief.
“That you’re a dragon? Yes, I am exactly that surprised.”
“I will confess, I was startled to discover what you were too. I love this form, but I cannot sense caster abilities while I’m in it.”
Lucretia’s words stir in my mind. “You were hiding where everyone saw you but no one knew.” As the owner of a seedy brothel, selling blood and flesh. And an Islorian immortal. “But you fed on mortals.”
“It is the form I chose to take.” She flashes a smile, just long enough to show her elongated incisors before they tuck back in. “I must say, I will miss it.”
“You can’t stay as her?”
She shakes her head, her expression growing serious. “With the return of the nymphs, I become what I am again. It is more difficult to change each time. Even now, my bones ache terribly and will until I return to my primary body. But I needed to take this opportunity to speak to you before I no longer can, about what is to come.”
“You mean what’s about to crawl out of the Nulling.”
“Crawl, fly …” She winces as she steps closer. “Long before Aminadav’s fury split the earth, when the nymphs were here and the door to the in-between world was open, creatures would pass through and appear as if out of thin air, in random places. One here, one there. It was annoying, but it was manageable. They did not all come out of the rift in a flood, like cockroaches running from the light. That only happened with Farren’s meddling. It seems as though the veil between the worlds is thinner in there, easier to emerge from.”
It dawns on me. “You were alive when King Ailill was here.”
“I have been alive for it all, watching these fools make the same mistakes over and over again.” She sneers. “I will be at the rift tonight at the height of Hudem’s full moon, and I will steer away the worst of them for the time being.”
But not forever. “How?”
“By being me.” There’s an air of haughtiness in her tone. “You and the king and all your casters must take care of the rest.”
I nod. “And what about Malachi?”
“What about him? Malachi is a fate. He will come, one way or another, but he will not crawl out like a common fiend. He will find a different path.” She looks up at the Hudem moon. “We should return.”
“Wait!” This is the last chance I’ll ever have to talk to Bexley.
Her eyebrow arches.
“Did Atticus know what you are?”
“That is what you wish to know?” Her lips curl. “If your nemesis knew he was fornicating with an ancient creature?”
I guess that’s not a worthwhile question when my time for answers is limited. “Will you still be my ally after tonight?”
“You are the Queen for All,” she says simply, as if that answers my question, before stepping backward, into the open ground where she has room to morph back to her dragon form. The long grass is still flattened. “As far as Atticus is concerned, he had no idea.”
