“Ivy!” Zach roared, throwing a dagger into the goblin’s head, just as it had been about to rip into my stomach with its claws. “Pay attention!”
I gasped and blinked, whirling to face the battle. Focus, Ivy. It could’ve been a mistake. A trick of shadows. A coincidence, even.
Not thirty paces away, a tight tunnel of wind surrounded Millennia. Captured in the tunnel were three more goblins, screeching and howling. She jerked her arms upward, and the tornado arched into the sky and opened, spitting them out to the ground with a sickening crunch.
Still on the rock, Zach engaged in a heated battle with five new foes. He would’ve killed them all within a minute, maybe two, if not for their curses. Zach was able to lash out only when he wasn’t busy dodging the curses that arced out of their fingers like lightning.
Brom and Millennia battled the last few goblins on the ground as I scrambled up the rocks to help Zach with the remaining five. Reaching the edge of their battle circle, I struck at a goblin with my sword. It managed to dance away from my blade and then turned on me, raising long fingers and licking its shapeless, shriveled lips with its forked tongue.
When my gaze landed on its reptilian face, I choked.
It was the same. The same face as the other one. The same face as Kellian’s goblin.
I saw the green lightning shake Kellian’s body all over again—his scream filling my head. How could I forget this last memory of Kellian and his fate? Through Minnow’s memories I had watched him kill it. With the power of a Kiss, his body pulsing with blue battle magic, Kellian had driven his blade into the goblin’s chest. It had dissipated into smoke. It had died.
Yet here it was. Alive. Miles away from the place he had killed it, only three weeks later. And there seemed to be…copies of it?
I turned to look at the goblins Zach was battling. The ones Brom had shot with his arrows. The ones Millennia had in her wind tunnel.
So I hadn’t been imagining it. How could there be so many of the same goblin?
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
The goblin lunged for me.
Thankfully, Millennia saved me, hurling a rock into the side of its bald head and knocking it down. I darted around the rocks to where the goblin had fallen.
The beast was barely conscious, but I waited until Millennia and Brom joined me.
“Hold it down,” I told the mage.
Casting me a sideways glance, Millennia raised her hand and curled her fingers. The rocks on either side of the goblin crumbled and reformed around its hands and feet, pinning it to the ground. Its body twitched and struggled against its stone bounds.
I knelt down, ignoring the ache in my knees as the rocks dug into them, and pulled out my dagger. “Kellian killed you.” I lifted the blade over its chest. “I know he did.”
The goblin hissed, “Galleek okk ak yawk.”
Enraged, I drove the dagger into its chest all the way to the hilt. The goblin didn’t even have time to scream before it crumbled. The dust flew in my face, sticking to my wet cheeks, catching in my eyelashes, and flying into my hair.
“What did it say?” Brom whispered behind me.
It was Millennia’s voice that answered. “Yet I live again.”
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Hatching a New Plan
We plunged on into the mountains, regardless of the darkness. If there were more creatures coming, we had to put distance between them and us. I was thankful for the travel, though. It allowed at least part of my mind to stay sane. The other part of it pounded with the same horrid thoughts, and no matter what look anyone gave me or what anyone tried to say, nothing penetrated my outer shell.
I had shut them all out.
I wished to curl into a ball and disappear, then reappear in my bed back in Myria, with Colette and Robin begging me to tell tales of my adventure.
But this wasn’t an adventure. This was a nightmare.
How many creatures had my Kisses helped slay, to later be brought back to life?
And somehow then multiplied?
Had everything I had done, everything my comrades had sacrificed—I thought of Minnow, Tulia, and their princes, and Telek and Kellian—all been for nothing?
I spent a long time staring at Zach’s mark on my hand, realizing with horror that it could mean nothing. That my own mark perhaps was only a mark of death.
When dawn crested over the peaks, I led us to a stream.
My companions left me alone, having seen the toll this awful truth had taken on me. They said nothing when I went to sit by myself and pick at an orange with my fingernails. I was thankful for it, because they had no idea what I was going through.
My very existence was questioned. My own birth was unnecessary. The Royal’s Kiss seemed to only make things worse—or it wasn’t helping at all. So what was the point in breeding more Royals? What was the point in creating a powerful descendant of Myriana?
But more than that…what did it mean for the Legion’s future? Did it mean the Romantica’s theory was correct?
Was the secret actually Love?
I dug my fingernails into the orange, and juice dribbled down my hand. All I knew was the Royal’s Kiss wasn’t working. I couldn’t think of alternatives anymore.
No more magic. No more solutions that I didn’t fully understand.
Chucking the rest of the fruit across the stream, I stood and walked back to Zach, Millennia, and Brom, who were toasting bread, elk meat, and cheese over a small fire.
I dug into my pocket for the worn, crumpled sheet of paper with the Sable Dragon spell on it, and then I tossed it into the flames.
All three of them stared up at me.
I sat to join their circle. “All right. No Kisses. Now what’s the new plan?”
It took them only a couple of moments to process what I said.
Zach gave me the biggest, dopiest grin I’d seen on him yet.
“Does the egg have any weaknesses?” Millennia asked, her fingers over the flames, encouraging it to rise a little higher.
“The shell itself is made of a substance stronger than iron. It’s said there’s not a blade—or person—strong enough to break it.” I sighed. “That’s where the Kiss came in. Unfortunately, as long as the dragon is in its shell, it’s safe.”
“So what could break it?” Zach asked.
“That’s the thing…we can’t. But…” I hesitated, because now they were going to think I had truly lost it. “We could accelerate the hatching.”
Millennia blinked. “Um, correct me if I’m wrong, princess, but wasn’t your whole mission to defeat the Sable Dragon before it hatched?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but think about it—if we can’t destroy the egg, then we have to destroy the actual monster,” I said. “We accelerate the hatching by using fire magic to heat it, then we kill it. Don’t get me wrong, even right out of the egg, the dragon will be more powerful than all the creatures we’ve ever faced combined, but it’s our only shot at killing it without using the Kiss.”
Millennia and Zach shared a look, then they glanced back at me. Brom shivered and moved closer to the fire.
Millennia shrugged. “Doesn’t look like there’s any other option.”
Zach’s lips twitched into a tiny smile. “Sounds like the challenge I’ve been waiting for.”
I glanced up at the mountains and placed a hand on my chest. I could feel the darkness welling inside me. “Then let’s go hatch an egg.”
…
We moved through the mountains at a breakneck pace, and I was glad to be too tired to think about how this new plan was practically suicide. The sick feeling on my shoulders and at the bottom of my ribcage was growing exponentially stronger. We were close. Perhaps only a day’s travel.
But by afternoon I was mentally and physically exhausted. Bromley, who had been traveling next to me, caught me under the arms when I slipped on some rocks and lowered me to the ground. “Milady, are you all right?”
I nodded and tried to stand, but then swayed dangerously to the side. In an instant, I was swept up into Zach’s arms.
“I’m fine,” I said meekly. It was pathetic, really.