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The woman’s body shudders, but she moves forward anyway. I’m suddenly very certain that I don’t want to see whatever it is the dragons are going to do to this poor woman. I turn away, but Rowan leans forward.
“Hey!” Rowan hisses. “Dragon lady!”
The woman turns to Rowan. He winks, then tilts his head toward Rensivar’s towering black scales. The woman follows his gaze, and I stare too, following the line of his tilted head through the interlaced pine branches, across the meadow and the little lake, to the enormous tangle of metal that now holds Rensivar’s body. Rensivar the Wicked grins like the fox who stole the moon as the spikes of his tail twist through the pile of metal beneath him.
And of course he’s smiling; all of his plans worked. Just like last time. My father defeated an army, just like he said he would. And Rensivar takes all of the credit, while Varitan takes all of the gold.
So that pile of metal on the other side of the lake isn’t a torture device, then. It’s some sort of seat of honor, like a draconic throne. Rensivar must be claiming the dragons’ throne for himself after his successful victory over the human army.
But why would Rowan care? Since when has my brother shown any deference to a throne, no matter who’s sitting on it?
I turn back to Rowan, but something snags in the corner of my eye. I freeze. Just beyond the twists and loops of dark metal, just past the rippling ebony scales of Rensivar’s tail, something is moving. The dragon woman gasps, and I see it too. It’s hidden in shadows, and writhing with tentacles to keep the violet glow concealed, but it’s unmistakable.
Rowan opened another hole in the mountain. And it’s just behind the throne Rensivar just claimed.
The dragon with the bright red hair stares at the throne like she’s about to stab it. I frown as Rowan sags against my arm. A portal to the void behind Rensivar isn’t a whole hell of a lot of help, unfortunately. Why not open a portal directly beneath the asshole? I open my mouth to whisper to Rowan, but a soft ripping sound fills the grove, drowning out whatever brilliant arguments I might have been able to scrape together.
The woman shifts into a dragon. I’ve never seen it happen before, that draconic magic, and for a heartbeat, fear pulls every muscle in my body tight. The woman’s clothes explode as the air shimmers around her, dancing like smoke rising from a fire, then settling around a mountain of shimmering red scales. Black claws sink into the pine duff. A massive jaw turns toward the ground, and the crimson dragon slinks out from under the pine trees like a dog returning to the master who’s beaten it.
Rensivar’s voice booms across the mountain as the dragon woman walks toward him, and the back of my mouth turns bitter. Rowan’s breath rasps against my shoulder. Even through the chains, his body feels hot. Too hot.
Magic always has a price, my father used to say, mostly as a prelude to his negotiations. But I’d seen that price myself, no matter how much he tried to hide it. His exhaustion, the closed and locked door to his chambers, and my terrible, secret hope that perhaps he would finally die behind those locked doors.
I’ve never seen anything like what Rowan just did. The magic that just swallowed that human army was bigger and more terrifying than the portal to the Lands Below. Screaming voids, what price will my brother pay for what he’s just done?
Alindra said Rowan could open a portal to the Lands Below, that we’d escape the dragons and the humans that way. But, voids below, Rowan can’t even stand up right now, and his body is so hot some part of me wonders if it’s going to melt the chains wrapped around his chest.
Is this why Varitan wouldn’t cast this magic himself? Is this why he needed Rowan, because his own life was one price my father would never be willing to pay? I feel like I’m sinking into the mountain. How in the stars many names are we going to survive this? Dragon voices rise all around me as panic tugs at the edges of my mind. How long until they decide to look under these trees? How long until they discover us?
There’s a noise like an explosion of slate tiles behind me. Someone screams. I yank backward, dragging Rowan with me, and I see red wings spread against the sky. It’s the dragon woman, the one who served as our distraction. She’s flung herself against the wall of Rensivar’s chest, scratching and hissing as her wings beat the sky. My heart catches in the back of my throat. Pale starlight shimmers against the twisted dark metal beneath Rensivar.
The throne. It’s tilting.
Rensivar snarls. His claws shoot forward. Black hooks rake the red dragon’s wing, and blood spurts across the sky. There’s a scream, but I can’t tell if it came from the dragon woman or someone else. The red dragon’s one remaining wing flutters frantically against the stars. And the throne keeps tipping.
Very slowly, almost as though time itself has thickened, Rensivar falls. Rowan’s tentacles part, revealing the hungry amethyst glow of the void. The portal swallows the twisted metal throne, and then it swallows Rensivar’s head, the violet light of the void winking off his jagged teeth. The red dragon’s wings beat across the night, raining blood across the meadow and the dark little pond as she tips Rensivar and his throne through the hole in the world.
Rensivar’s wings stretch, spreading darkness across the violet light, and voids damn it, this isn’t going to work. There’s no way this will work. But his wings fall, even as they spread, and some part of me dares to take a breath as Rensivar vanishes into the portal.
The red dragon stretches her one functional wing and raises her head toward the sky. Her wing pulses once, dragging her upward. But Rensivar’s black claws shoot out of the portal, wrap around her neck, and pull her under.
The crowd of dragons falls silent. Rowan pants against my shoulder. The heat pouring off his body ripples across my face. Someone screams something, and a moment later, a golden dragon shoots across the meadow and dives into Rowan’s portal.
“Shit,” Rowan groans. “I was gonna close that.”
He shivers, making the chains chatter.
“Shhhhh,” I whisper. “It’s okay. You did great.”
Rowan shakes his head. There’s a low, rattling rasp deep in Rowan’s chest that I can’t quite pretend is just the clink of chains. I try to help him to the ground, but still, he lands hard on his knees.
“No,” he whispers as flames leak out of his eye. “Not great. But…he was gonna kill you, Phae.”
Rowan’s chin sinks to his chest, and he shivers again, this time so violently his chains murmur like the rush of dragon voices behind us. The flames leaking from his eye sputter and twist; he must still be using his magic to keep that portal open, although the stars only know why. I run my fingers through his tangled white hair, just like I used to do when we were kids, when this was one of the only comforts I could offer my wild little brother.
There’s a rustle of cloth beside me as Alindra sits down next to Rowan with her lips pressed together and that deep line etched between her eyes. She holds her hand out to me, her palm up.
“Magic?” she whispers.
