Page 122 of Court of Secrets and Flames

Focusing on my fury, I push to my feet. In the brief time I sat with Leesa, Sterling has had a couple of the guards start a ring of fire around our group which seems to be working. For now.

Heading toward Sterling, I stop when I hear his and Jasper’s hushed conversation.

“I can tell you love her, brother, but I must marry her.” Jasper’s voice holds no malice or threat. “It’s more than just the betrothal. I have to legitimize my claim to the throne. Long ago, a Barda usurped the throne from the Aero bloodline amidst chaos wrought by the drachen.”

Anger flares within me, hotter than any fire I could conjure. What the hell is he saying? That the crown belongs to me? And I’ll marry him just to?—

A guard’s agonized cry slices through the turmoil, wrenching my attention from Jasper’s scheming.

“Drag him back!” My warning comes too late.

A drachen rips through the man’s throat before pulling him to the ground. Blood spills forth, swallowed by the same shadow that lured him away.

That almost happened to Leesa. If I hadn’t intervened…

I refuse to let the fear crawling up my spine take hold.

Stay. Focused.

Sterling pushes the king into the middle of the circle, farther into the protection of the flames. Squinting, I try to concentrate on the area outside our fiery shields. The shadows twist and writhe, spilling over each other in their attempt to reach us. The drachen is not a single entity, but a collage of shadows toppling over each other.

There are at least a dozen of them.

And they’re gathering around us, just outside the firelight.

The hairs on my arms stand up, and my lips pull back with a snarl. I seethe with anger, my breath so hot it dries my tongue.

Only one thing has ever made me feel this way.

These emotions are not entirely my own.

The dragons…they’re coming.

I peer up at the night sky, which is lit with the silhouettes of descending dragons. They open their jaws, flames rushing toward the drachen hiding in the shadows.

These magnificent beasts are the echo of my wrath…the source of my feelings about protecting my ancestral lands.

For now, there is no king, no throne, no politics. Only the fight for life itself.

And I will lead that fight.

But what lies ahead of me stops my heart from beating.

As the dying fires behind me cast long shadows over the chaos, the drachen close in.

Soldiers and guards scramble to keep the light alive around us, but it flickers weakly against the encroaching darkness, like an unseen force is snuffing it out.

More bodies litter the ground.

Among the fray, Bastian stands over a woozy Leesa, holding off a drachen with fiery blasts. Tendrils of oozing black shadows pulse and writhe. I edge closer, but a strangled choke stops me.

I spin around.

A soldier I don’t recognize stands frozen in fear, his sword quivering in his grasp.

I start to rush toward them when Agnar appears at my right. On the far side of the group, Sterling stands alone as the last soldier falls, his body rigid and his gaze fixed on the dragon-sized drachen hovering before him.

Dread unspools in my gut as he abandons the dwindling flames of protection and prowls closer to the darkness.

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