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HERE’S OUR DISTRACTION
Ifeel Varitan’s approach before I see him, like a strange, cold ripple in the magic of the illusion surrounding us. Then the birds fall silent. I scramble to my feet as my legs tremble under me.
“He’s coming,” I whisper.
The words catch in my throat. Phaedron nods, then bends down to shake Rowan’s shoulder. Rowan’s eyelid is so pale I see his eye moving beneath the skin before it flutters open. When his lips pull back in a smile, fresh blood leaks from his split lip in a smear across his teeth. I exhale in a low hiss, then step away.
It’s a simple plan, really. Dead simple. There’s no reason I should be trembling. I back into the trees, finding as much cover as I can while remaining as close to the silver wire as I dare to get. Phaedron moves to the front of the grove, with Rowan behind him. My heartbeat thuds in my ears. Behind us, dragon’s voices scrape the air. As the day wore on, the cirque cradling this grove slowly filled with dragons who’ve shown no signs of recognizing our presence, or the presence of the human army just over the ridge.
Stars help me, the massive illusion hiding all of this is impressive magic. King Grathgore would kill for magic like this, and I can see why Phaedron’s father wanted his magic to look like it came from a dragon. Any elf with this kind of power would be too much of a target.
There’s the scrape of a boot against stone, and then a sort of huff. I twist, peering through the branches. Phaedron’s father walks down the path, magic wafting off of him like smoke rising from a fire. Phaedron steps back and spreads his arm, like he’s trying to keep his body between Rowan and his father Varitan.
My fingers close around the gold coin through the cloth of my waistband, and the stolen magic locked in that hunk of metal buzzes like a hornet inside my bones. Just a few steps closer, and Phaedron will distract his father. I’ll have a clear shot at the back of Varitan’s head. Just a few more steps.
The magic in the air shivers. Phaedron’s father raises his hand. Faint blue light sparks between his fingers. Phaedron lunges forward as something like a growl escapes from his lips, and I have enough time to realize just how badly we’ve underestimated his father before Varitan’s sleep magic hits me in the chest and drags me under.
* * *
I wakewith a scream in my throat and a hand over my mouth.
“Not a sound,” Phaedron’s father hisses in my ear.
I nod against the cold press of his palm on my lips, then squeeze my eyes shut against the rush of tears. Heat burns across my skin, dragging magic out of me. I curl forward. Phaedron’s father takes his hand off my mouth as I gasp for air. When I force my eyes to open, I’m expecting blood; I feel like I’ve just been sliced to ribbons.
But all I see are my own arms, wrapped tight around my stomach, and the distant silver glimmer of stars winking behind a thin screen of pine boughs. I breathe slowly as pain leaks out of my body. It shouldn’t hurt like that, removing sleep magic. I witnessed the sleep magic that kept Princess Elanerill unconscious for decades, and it never hurt her.
I twist on the ground, gasping as something deep inside of me pulls tight with the memory of pain. Phaedron’s father Varitan watches me with an expression that makes the night feel cold. I’m suddenly very certain that he knows removing sleep magic doesn’t need to hurt. He makes it hurt anyway. He presses one thin finger to his lips, a gesture that somehow manages to look ominous.
There’s a noise behind me, a rustling sort of whisper, and I turn to see Phaedron offering me his hand. His face is pulled tight, like a mask; his expression doesn’t change at all when I place my fingers in his and let him help me to my feet. The ground sways beneath me as I take another gasping breath. Sleep magic is serious, and it can leave the victim disoriented for hours. As I’m sure Phaedron’s father knows, and I doubt he cares. I’m just another tool to him. We all are.
I pull away from Phaedron. The world spins around me, and then, just as I’m afraid I’ll need to reach for him again, I see Rowan.
He’s standing under the tallest tree in the grove, the man Phaedron risked everything to rescue, and thick loops of chain wrapped around his body make him almost invisible against the shadows beneath the trees. My vision swims, and the back of my throat turns bitter. Chains cover Rowan’s entire chest and fall to the ground in a messy pile around his feet. Stars above, how Phaedron’s father must fear him.
A growl rips through the night air, and I turn. Above the feathery crowns of the pine trees that hide us, several dragons pace the rise behind the dark lake. Their angry voices fill the night air, and my fingers drop to the waistband of my pants, to the golden coin hidden in the folds of fabric. If the dragons start fighting, that would make an excellent distraction.
But the sound changes to something else, something that sounds almost like laughter, and my heart sags as my eyes adjust to the dark. There are many, many more dragons here than just the few pacing on the grass. I turn toward the ridge with horror. The entire stony cirque is crawling with dragons.
My breath catches in the back of my throat. Sure, I’ve seen dragons before. I met a few in their human guises when they passed through the Kingdom of the Fall with arrogant expressions and the unmistakable prickle of draconic shape-shifting magic. But I never saw them in their dragon forms, and I’ve never seen so many of them.
I take a step back, pressing myself into the shadows. I try to tell myself I’m pulling away from Phaedron’s father and his piercing gaze, trying to look inconspicuous, although my mind keeps whispering his words.Elves used to hunt dragons,Phaedron’s father said.The dragons have never forgotten.
It seems more true, somehow, now that the light is gone and a thin veil of illusion magic is all that separates us from more dragons than I even knew the world could hold. My fingers trail along the edge of the pocket that holds Varitan’s trapped sleep magic, and my skin sings with the tug of that spell.
A gasp rises from the crowd of dragons. I turn toward the ridge to see if the attack has started. But no, the ridgeline is nothing but bare stones and black shadows beneath the starlight. Dragons’ voices slide through the trees, a low, hissing murmur, like the rattle of their scales. I catch snatches of their rumbling conversation, but none of it makes sense. What in the nine hells are they doing? Why are they here? What could that many dragons possibly be talking about?
I glance toward Phaedron. His eyes slide over to his father, then back to me, and the mask of his expression shifts somewhat. I tap my waistband, then nod. Yes, I’m ready. If I could just get his father to look away from us for one damned heartbeat, I’d have him. All I have to do is touch his skin with this gold coin, and he’ll be trapped in his own sleep magic. Hopefully long enough for Rowan to open a portal and get us all out of here.
There’s another roar from one of the dragons on the grass. “Spoken like someone who’s never gone hungry,” the dragon on the grass rumbles.
The clatter of voices drowns out his next words. Phaedron’s father stares at me with a thin smile that makes me feel utterly naked, like he can see straight through every lie I’ve ever told, and I feel cold, frozen to the spot. I try to hold his gaze, anything to keep from drawing attention to the way my hand presses against the secret pocket in my waistband.
“The elves used to murder us,” that dragon growls from the patch of grass just beyond the bubble of illusion magic sheltering us.
I shiver so violently that the horizon trembles. Phaedron’s father grins at me, a wide,I told you sosort of smile. And then he raises his hand. I flinch, pulling farther into the cover of the trees, our stupid, futile plan utterly forgotten as blue light begins to spark between his fingers. My muscles pull tight, already clenched against pain.
But pain doesn’t come. Instead, Varitan’s magic floats away from his fingers and toward the ridge. As dragons thunder behind us, arguing about treaties and the Iron Mountains, Varitan’s magic flashes a bright, brilliant light directly at the ridgeline. Once, then twice, and then it fades in a dim flutter of blue sparks.
