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)
“It isn’t mine,” he says a second before he pulls me against his chest. I drop my forehead, breathing deeply to steady my heartbeat, and he presses a hard kiss to the top of my head. “And it is always you.”
There’s no benefit to arguing given the circumstances. “How did you get here so quickly?”
“You let this happen to him?” Sgaeyl snaps.
I step out of Xaden’s arms and find Sgaeyl’s narrowed eyes and sharp teeth unsettlingly close. “I’m sorry—”
“She bears no responsibility,” Tairn argues. Sgaeyl’s head whips in his direction, and a thick wall of shields immediately blocks our connection. Cue fight.
“She refused to hold her position once she felt the wound,” Xaden replies, surveying the temple. “And I’m glad, or it looks like we’d both be dead. We were almost here when the wards went up.”
The wards? My eyebrows rise. That explains the ripple of magic, the wyvern falling from the sky, Theophanie’s fear. “But how?”
The sound of a slide whistle screeches through my head, and both Xaden and I pivot, putting our backs to the temple.
To the left of the wyvern’s body, behind Tairn and Sgaeyl, darkness transforms. Scales the color of night ripple into a shade that’s not quite black or purple, forming the dragon whose horns carry the same swirling pattern as Andarna’s.
“It seemed necessary to fire your wardstone,” Leothan says.
My stomach bottoms out.
The irids have come.
Asher returned today. Gods help us if anyone finds out. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive him for what he’s done to her.
—Journal of Captain Lilith Sorrengail
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
If the irids fired the wardstone as the seventh breed, then Aretia is safe. Most of Tyrrendor is.
It’s too surreal, too easy. Emotions beyond names hit me from every side, but fear replaces them all when Feirge swings her body to confront the irid, lowering her head and baring her teeth.
“No!” Andarna bounds from Tairn’s side, leaping over the wyvern to put herself in front of Feirge. “He’s of my line!”
The Green Daggertail retreats a single step but leaves her head near the ground as Rhiannon dismounts, jumping straight to the platform of the temple.
Xaden tenses at the sight of the irid, even though there’s no sign of red in his eyes. “You handle that, and I will see what needs to be done…here.”
Considering what happened the last time he met with an irid, I nod.
“Give him my gratitude,” Xaden says quietly as Rhi races our way.
“I will,” I promise, locking eyes with Rhi.
She bobs her head in acknowledgment, and then we walk down the stairs.
“No weapons,” I tell Rhi as we walk between Tairn and Sgaeyl. “They’re pacifists.”
“Got it,” she notes, keeping pace at my side. “So he shouldn’t burn us to death, right? I refuse to tell Feirge that she was right. She’ll never let me live it down, even if I’m dead. And I really want to know what just happened with those dark wielders.”
“I’ll fill you in,” I reply as we approach Leothan and Andarna. “Just be prepared for—”
Rhi gasps and covers her ears.
“That,” I finish with a wince.
Leothan glances at Rhi, then turns his back to the corpse of the wyvern with a look of what can only be called disdain.
Andarna moves to my left when we reach them, flooding the bond with a mix of apprehension and excitement.
“I would expect a warmer greeting from a green,” Leothan lectures Rhi, then turns his golden gaze on me.
“Thank you,” I blurt awkwardly, craning my neck to look at him. “You’ve saved everyone in this province.”
“I did not do it for you,” he says, peering down at Andarna.
“Harsh,” Rhi whispers.
“I give my thanks,” Andarna replies, her head high.
“Your human is as dangerous as we feared.” He studies her with a tilted head, and my stomach sinks. Whatever he’s seen has only confirmed the reasons they denied Andarna in the first place.
“She defends her people,” Andarna retorts, her claws flexing in the rain-soaked grass. At least the weather has eased to a drizzle. “And ours.”
“As do you.” Leothan’s voice softens. “I have been watching you since my arrival.”
And no one knew. Tairn bristles, and my throat grows tight.
“And what have you seen?” Andarna’s tail flicks overhead. “What judgment have you passed?”
Her caustic tone certainly isn’t going to help, and neither is the growl rumbling in Sgaeyl’s throat.
The irid narrows his eyes. “Your behavior is abhorrent and your actions misguided—”
“She is a credit to our riot,” Sgaeyl hisses.
“As we hoped she would be.” He swivels his head toward Sgaeyl, and Tairn angles into a striking position. “Yet in none of the ways we value.”
Rhi steps closer to my side.
“None of which is her fault,” I interject, and he looks my way. “You set her up for what you consider failure when you left her here to be raised in the ways of the Empyrean.”