Page 9 of Court of Dragons and Ashes

“I would disagree about it being my enemy,” I grumble, making him laugh. I grin as the creature shoots through the sky, any warmth from the sun departing in the icy wind. A piercing noise, like a musical trill echoes out of its throat as it flies high. I miss the sweet turtle singing. We fly around for a bit, and I shiver, leaning back into the warmth of Lysander. I’m not sure we have a destination in mind, but suddenly the creature dives through the clouds, my stomach swirling from the drop. Lightning flashes near us, and I can barely hold on as the creature moves faster. As we break out of the storm clouds, I see a small island with nothing but sand and two windswept trees. Lysander lands the creature on the beach, and it waits for him in the water after we have climbed off.

I sit on the sand, pulling my knees up, my wet clothes sticking to me. Lysander chooses to stand, watching the seas. “There’s got to be a test here. Can’t just be survival.”

“Agreed,” I answer, but I’m clueless what to suggest the answer is. Eventually Lysander sits with me, and I build a sand castle. He kicks it with his foot. “You’re mean.”

“Never claimed not to be,” he answers, but he is smiling. It’s weird to see him smile so much. For a while, we sit on the beach together and just watch the giant ocean storms, the waves bigger than houses, swallowing up everything in their way. I want to ask about his father, but I know now’s not the time. I feel like him admitting any of that to me is enough. It’s a step in the right direction.

When dawn starts to break around the horizon, light crashes through the storms of clouds like beacons. But it’s not the light that makes my blood run cold. An overly sweet female voice fills my mind. “Save the seven betrayers. If any are lost, so will you be.”

I rush to my feet, right before I see a whirlpool in the sea and hear a monster roar that makes me clamp my hands over my ears. I spot flashing red lights in several places around the seas. Lysander isn’t looking at me, but he is pale. Where the red flashes were, small boats are floating, being sucked into the pull of a whirlpool. “It isn’t a whirlpool, but it’s the Charybdis.”

“What is a Charybdis?” I quietly ask.

Lysander finally looks at me, and I don’t like the fear in his eyes. “It’s like a worm with a lot of teeth that lives in water, and it eats everything. It can’t be reasoned with, and it’s told as horror stories in my court. I wasn’t aware it was even real. I won’t take you out there.”

“No.” I touch his arm. “We go together. I know it’s risky, but what she said? Seven betrayers? That’s people out there on those boats, and we need to get to them. Don’t leave me behind again.”

He tenses, but his shoulders drop. “Fine, but will you do everything I tell you?”

I smile. “Just this once.”

Lysander kisses me quickly. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

I climb up onto the golden creature after Lysander, and he takes off straight into the skies. The first boat is nearest, with a dark-haired woman trying to wiggle out of rope tied around her arms. Lysander growls. “She’s from my court, a good friend of my mother’s. These are all high nobles of my court. What’s left of them.”

Aphrodite called them betrayers. They betrayed her and Ares’s rule, not Lysander. This is what is left of the high nobles of the Water Court. Lysander swoops the creature low enough before I jump off. I pull at the rope binding her until it’s off her, and she meets my eyes. “Thank you to you both, the true rulers of water.”

“Climb on,” I gently instruct her, noticing how she looks weak, too weak to even stand. Lysander pulls her behind him before helping me back on. One down, six to go. Thankfully, the boats are spread out and pretty far from the Charybdis. The whirlpool it is creating is pulling them in, bit by bit, and we don’t have long.

The woman is silent as we go from boat to boat, untying and helping them onto the back of the creature. A young teenage boy and two elderly women are the next we rescue. Lysander flies them back to the island, leaving them there to wait before we take off for the other three. My heart races when I realise they’re far closer to the Charybdis. A child’s cry reaches my ears over the storm. “That’s a child!”

“What? Where?” Lysander demands, his voice furious. My hand shakes as I point to the boat nearest the monster, slowly being pulled into the current. Lysander turns the creaturetowards the boat I pointed to, but I see the others. “What about those two over there on the other side? We can’t get them both.”

Lysander stops the creature near the child’s boat. A little girl, no more than three, is crying in a corner, her blonde hair hiding her face. “I’m going to stay with the child,” I tell him. “You get the other two on that side. We can’t lose any of them, and I’m not leaving that little girl.”

“Fucking hell, no.” Lysander grits his teeth, looking down at me. “I can’t leave you here.”

I cup his cheek, speaking into his mind. “I trust you, my enemy. Come back for me.” Before he can stop me, I push out of his arms and fling myself off the creature. The wind whips past my face before I hit the water, right next to the boat. I gasp, feeling the current pulling me under as I grab the ropes around the edge of the boat. Lysander’s emerald eyes find mine before he speeds off towards the other two. I pull myself into the boat, tripping over a wooden step and landing right in front of the child. She shakes from head to toe in the corner of the boat, and I know this will haunt her for years to come. I’m not so good with children, and I have no idea what to do, but I crawl over to her. Sitting up, I open my arms. “I promise you’re safe with me. I’m going to get you out of here.”

She lifts her head, her eyes so wide and a bright shade of blue. She throws herself at me, clinging to my neck, and I blow out a breath. The boat rocks and shakes and I pull myself to the edge, looking down at the monster and wishing I didn’t. Teeth, millions of yellow, decaying teeth, in a whirlpool of sea water is all I can see for miles. I search the skies for Lysander, finding him by the other boats. Lysander is grabbing the other two as the water starts to speed up around our boat, and we begin to spin. I scream, pulling the girl to me and climbing to the middle of the boat so I don’t get thrown out. The girl screams with me, her cries terrible to hear, and I can’t do anything.

“I’m here and I’m not letting you get hurt.” Lysander’s voice roughly fills my mind with a vow from the king of the Water Court to his mate. I look up as Lysander leaves the creature in the air, and he dives straight into the water around the horrifying creature.

“Lysander! What are you—” I pause as water shoots into the air, shaped like a throne, with Lysander sitting right on it. The boat goes still, and I look down to see a cushion of water floating us up into the air. The waters go still around the monster, and it feels like the storms themselves pause for their king.

Lysander stops the sea, stops the waves and the Charybdis. The Charybdis roars, shaking the water with ripples before diving under and leaving the sea still like a lake. Suddenly, Lysander drops down, the golden creature catching him and flying him to us. The boat drops too and crashes into the water. The girl cries, but she is silent as I stand, watching the creature land. Two men help Lysander into the boat, and I put the girl down, handing her to the nobles she must know, and cup his face. He is pale, like he used too much magic, but he is okay. I drop my forehead onto his. “How did you do that?”

“No one has tried to stop him before. To tame these seas. I just did,” he answers. I grin just before a portal opens right below the boat, and we crash through it, the boat landing right in front of the empty thrones. Ares and Aphrodite stand in the middle of the empty throne room, with Arden, Emrys and Grayson behind them. I look at them first, wishing they could see me.

Aphrodite looks pleased, and Ares looks murderous. “We will meet you at the Fire Court in three days. Well done, princess. Don’t worry, your other loves will be kept close to me.”

They leave through a portal, and I reach out for them like there is anything I can do to stop her from taking the rest ofmy heart with her. Hope clears her throat from the back of the throne room. “We have a problem.”

CHAPTER 5

When I was a little girl, I believed that dreams were stories. Stories that you tell yourself in your mind when you’re sleeping, and you had complete and utter control over them. I used to dream of pretty unicorns in fields of flowers and fierce dragons burning down castles. I used to dream of seeing my mother smile in the morning, and of times with my father training me in the shadows. I dreamt of the cosy nights in their bedroom, where we’d watch the stars outside the balcony, and they’d tell me about all the constellations while I drank hot chocolate and ate marshmallows that had been roasted over the fires.

But control slips as you age, especially when your life gets drowned in darkness and your dreams turn into nightmares. When the dreams become real things that you can’t wake from, no matter how much you try, how much you beg yourself to wake up. But you can’t. You’re lost, astray within the dream, within the nightmare so real it makes you sweat. It doesn’t stop because I want it to; it doesn’t disappear even when I beg. I see the commander now, leaning over me, inside his tent that’s so dark. His haunting smile, his hands choking me and ripping at my clothes.

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