Page 98 of Fae Reckoning

I was still reeling from my almost-murder of Talisa—I’d come so close, dammit! My attention was being pulled in too many directions. It took me several beats of the surrounding chaos to absorb the news.

Careful not to expose Zafi’s presence, I mumbled back, “I’ll distract her and buy him time. But he’s got to move fast. We need all the help we can get.”

What an understatement.

At last, here was a bit of unexpected fortune. If Ivar would have had to still travel to the bowels of the palace to disengage the dragons Talisa was draining of their power, we’d be doomed.

Einar roared—it was unmistakably him this time, his bellow sparking with immeasurable fury. Though he wasn’t in the great hall with us, its walls, ceiling, and floor rattled. The cracks in the glass floor spread and widened. More plaster showered upon our heads and shoulders. I coughed again. Several more mirrors split in their gilt frames.

Snakes—big, massive, powerful snakes, and even smaller, lethal-looking ones—slithered across my boots, tasting the air with forked tongues. I held utterly still until they passed.

Heavy, lumbering footfalls reverberated frombeyond the open double doors. The shouts of a crowd grew close—friends or foes?I wondered in a surge of panic.

Dragons roared and hissed while they crouched onto their haunches, rooted to their upended points of entry. Every one of them was chained with identical links of shadow magic. They scanned the hall, before focusing on me. The sapphire-blue she-dragon once more hovered around the throne at the back of the room. I tried to make eye contact with the creature—she’d proven to be an ally before—but her attention swung back and forth—the only dragon to skip over me.

Half the snakes wound their way for the double doors; the other half lingered. I couldn’t tell if any of them might be changelings. As snakes escaped into the hallway beyond the exit, screams from the approaching crowd punctuated the mounting chaos.

“The king’s here,” Rush informed me.

I turned to watch my father, clad in a nightshirt even though it was mid-morning, storm through the doors. Dashiell stalked at his side, keeping close, the hand nearest the king splayed as if prepared to catch him if he were to stumble on the uneven surface. The cacophony masked the signature tinkling of Dashiell’s bells that capped his braids.

In their wake, dozens of aristos streamed through the entrance only to skid to a sudden stop when they spotted the dragons. Overcome by stark panic and morbid curiosity, they piled up along the walls to gawk.Plain faces I’d only ever seen concealed behind garish makeup made them difficult to identify. Many wore nightdresses as the king did, as if they too were only just waking.

Half a dozen guards garbed in my father’s forest-green parted a path between the bystanders and marched behind him as he advanced.

“What is the meaning of this?” the king demanded in an imperious tone only slightly undermined by the askance tilt to his crown. In silk bed slippers, he picked his way through snakes, dragons, warriors, and holes in the floor with no more than an initial wary glance. Dashiell, however, shadowed his steps with panicked glances that roved in all directions. His mouth was a line of grim determination, his mismatched eyes alight with pinpointed focus.

A snake that was as thick as my thigh reared to hiss at my father. While the king merely pointed a condemning glower at it, which caused his crown to tip farther, Dashiell stepped between them and sliced off the snake’s head in a clean arc of his blade. Neither male flinched as the snake’s head and body fell in opposite directions, gore spilling from both open ends to splatter on a dragon’s tail and the leg of Ivar’s breeches. The dragon and Ivar growled in affront.

My every muscle was vibrating with controlled tension. Did the dragons wait for Talisa’s command? Would I have the chance to connect with them before they attacked? Would Ivar have time to free them from their shackles? Would the snakes realize we’d standwith them against their jailor? Would Talisa close the distance between us more quickly than we could track and take out one of the many fae I could no longer live without? I inched farther in front of Rush and Xeno, hoping they’d remain behind me. They only moved to my either side with the same look of determination Dashiell wore.

Einar said into my mind, startling me.

Rush and Xeno, blades aloft, closed ranks around me, scanning the room for what had made me jump.

“I’m fine, guys,” I said quickly and quietly before Talisa could suspect. “Give me some space.”

They gave me only the slightest room, keeping their bodies between me and danger.

I asked Einar.

He didn’t respond.

Finally, he said,

May the Dragon Mother grant me patience…

Dragons and snakes sissed, the floor rumbled and shook, and plaster rained down. When again he didn’t answer right away—as if I were just sitting in a pretty meadow whittling away time—I pressed,

He snorted along our connection.

he replied in affront. That was reassurance enough, I supposed.

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