Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“Cut it off!” Tairn demands, and something else snaps beneath him. “You’ll burn out!”
“But Theophanie—”
Ice pierces through my shields like they aren’t even there. “Violet!”
Not ice. Xaden.
“I’m fine. Stay in control and don’t get distracted. Theophanie is here.” I slam the Archives door shut in my mind and breathe in the cold night air, extinguishing the flames licking the inside of my lungs. It was too much, too fast, but I’m not burned out, just a little singed.
“Get Tairn back to the wards as soon as you can.” The ice slides away.
“On it.”
“That wasn’t fine,” Tairn snarls and walks off the corpse of the wyvern, favoring his left hind leg.
“Says the one who’s wounded!” I counter as Feirge flies back toward us. “How serious is it?” Thunder booms to the east, and it’s not mine.
Oh shit, the storm. That’s how they got this far undetected.
“Its wingspur broke off in my leg. I will live. It does not.” He swivels his head toward Andarna and stalks her way, limping slightly. “Your inability to follow simple orders will get her killed, and I will not lose her as I did the one who came before!”
“I’m fine!” My temperature lowers with every breath, and high, intricately carved marble pillars come into view. “I didn’t burn out. I wasn’t even as close as I was the day—” The words die as Tairn stops, then lowers his head, clearing my field of vision.
Andarna stands in front of the steps of Dunne’s temple, flanked by a half dozen sword-brandishing attendants who look between us as if they’re not sure who to be more wary of—the reckless dragon beside them, the massive one in front of them, or the snarling Green Daggertail arriving to my left.
“What could you possibly be doing here?” I shout at Andarna, finally ripping my buckle free. I have to get that wingspur out of Tairn’s leg before Theophanie returns.
“The prince said to protect Dunne’s temple!” she argues, flicking her tail and knocking over a vat of burning coals that hiss as they hit the wet marble. The embers narrowly miss the twenty-foot-tall statue of the goddess, which looks almost exactly like the one in Unnbriel.
“Aaric said that to me,” I counter, moving to Tairn’s shoulder, but he doesn’t lower it. “Not you. And I denied his suggestion!”
“How are you angry? Princes do not make suggestions, and I am an extension of you.” Andarna marches forward, lowering her head in threat. “Am I not everything you wanted me to be? Am I not as fierce and courageous as he is? Is this not what I am supposed to do? Sharpen my claws on the scales of the enemy?”
The wind picks up, and something in my chest cracks.
“Your tantrum is ill-timed, Golden One,” Tairn growls.
“Do not call me a child.” Andarna’s scales shimmer but remain black.
“Do not act like one!” he snarls.
“What was that all about?” Rhiannon shouts from Feirge’s back. “We could have caught them!”
And died. “That was Theophanie,” I call back.
“And?” Rhi throws her arms up.
“And I couldn’t fly with you—Tairn’s wounded,” I reply. Does she have a death wish? “Let me down so I can get that thing out of your leg. Or I’ll just jump.” Tairn dips his shoulder with a grumble, and I dismount a few feet in front of Andarna. “I don’t need you to be anything but who you are.” I yank my flight goggles to the top of my head and look straight into her golden eyes. “Clearly we need to have a conversation when we’re not in the middle of a battlefield. You always say that you chose me, but I stood in front of you on that Threshing field. And I would do it again.”
She huffs a breath and we head for Tairn’s hind leg, keeping one eye on the sky.
I will never understand what goes on in an adolescent brain.
My stomach lurches as the wound comes into view. Holy shit, the wingspur is easily half my size and embedded in his thigh. There’s no way he can launch with it in, and even out, the wound might cause too much pain. Moonlight catches on his blood as it drips down his scales. How in Dunne’s name am I supposed to get that thing out? “I’m so sorry.”
“It looks worse than it is. Merely the tip is embedded.”
“How much pain are you in?”
“Mentally or physically?” he growls.
“Your sarcasm is ill-timed.” I reach to the full extent of my height but can’t come close to the wingspur.
“Where is he hurt?” Rhiannon asks, jogging over. Mercifully, she looks unharmed.
“There.” I point up at his thigh, and she gasps. “You should get back to the others. We’re vulnerable out here.”
“I’m not leaving. You don’t always have to do everything on your own.” She backs up a handful of steps and lifts her arms.