Marina. Marina. Marina.
An image of Marina screaming as Fallon and her guard drag her away flashes through my mind. Wynter, Ariel and I dragged away, too, and jailed for thievery.
And Diana—what if Diana’s there? She’ll kill both Fallon and her guard before she’ll let them take any of us.
I take a threatening step toward Fallon and jab my finger at the ice-coated base of the North Tower. “What have you done to my lodging?”
“Just playing,” she says, thrusting her lower lip out in mock apology. Eyes on me, she raises her wand, murmurs a spell and sends a thin stream of ice coursing through the air. It lands at the North Tower’s base in a glimmering rope.
“Stop it,” I demand, outraged. I lunge forward and push her wand arm roughly away. The rope of ice lassoes outward and falls to the field in a crystalline shatter.
Fallon is quick as a snake. Her hand comes around my arm, hard as a vise, her wand at my throat. I gasp and shrink back from the madness in her eyes.
“Or you’ll do what, exactly, Mage Elloren Gardner?” She gives me a hard shove, sending me falling backward to the icy ground. Then she steps back, circles her wand toward my chest and hisses out a spell through gritted teeth.
Ice shoots from her wand and collides with the invisible shield just above my clothing, my tunic rubbed with Professor Hawkkyn’s metal powder.
Metal to block ice.
Fallon’s eyes fly open then narrow tightly with understanding. Her eyes dart toward the North Tower, then back to me with a knowing gleam. “Is the beast up there, too?”
“What beast?” I ask casually, my heart thumping. Marina Marina Marina Marina.
Fallon’s mouth twists into a lascivious grin. “You know exactly who I mean. The Snake Elf.” Her eyes widen. “You’ve got him up there, don’t you? Along with all the other creatures you’re collecting.”
My mind reels with confusion.
Of course, I realize. The metal shield. She actually thinks I could be hiding Professor Hawkkyn.
I spit out a stupefied laugh and glare at her, my anger spiking. “No, no Elves. Just my Icaral roommates.” I flash a hard, taunting grin. “And my new violin.”
I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips.
Ice blasts from her wand, and I cry out as my boots freeze to the ground, the cold searing my toes.
“Forgot to shield your boots, did you?” she crows, her eyes bright with hate. She circles around me, a hard gleam in her eyes as I frantically try to tug my boots free. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Elloren Gardner,” she says with a sneer, as I manage to crack one boot off the icy ground. “Icarals. Lupines. The big Amaz. Elves. Maybe even a Snake Elf who’s slipped by my watch.” Her eyes flick toward the tower like a cat who’s caught her mouse. “All coming and going. At odd hours, too.” She stops, shakes her head and tsk-tsks at me. “Why, I wonder. And then I think...” She glances up at the tower thoughtfully. “What could you possibly have up there that’s so interesting?” She smiles wide with manic glee. “Let’s find out!”
She makes for the North Tower, and I cry out, desperately trying to grab her.
Just as my fingers grasp the silk of her tunic, her uniform bursts into illumination. Strange runes glow a fierce white all over her tunic and cloak, sending their light out onto the field like small searchlights.
Confusion barrels through me. Where did those come from?
Fallon looks down at the clothing, then to me with rising horror.
One of her guards yells out an oath, and each man sets off at a fast clip up the field. A silver streak whistles through the air to my right and slams straight into Fallon.
It’s a huge knife, now impaling the side of her chest.
The moment slows and stretches out as Fallon’s head jerks up and she sucks in a loud, whistling gasp of air. She falls backward to the ground with a sickening thud.
I take it all in, my eyes and mouth opening wide in stunned disbelief.
Terror, like a hot iron, sears into my chest, and the nightmare snaps back to vivid life with bracing speed.
Fallon grasps at her chest, her breath labored and wheezing. She lifts her wand, grits her teeth and sends up a bright, crystalline dome of ice over us, thin lines of blue light coursing over the translucent shield like small, crackling lightning, the air chilling to frigid. I’m awed by her skill as well as her fierce tenacity, even when seriously wounded.
I flinch back as another knife collides against the shield in a shower of ice crystals, its terrifying point piercing the ice.
Two men burst from the wilds. They’re large men, all in shadows, black-garbed with dark fabric wrapped around their heads and faces. They raise curved swords marked with glowing gold runes as they run toward us. Two large shapes explode from the woods on either side of them and take flight with compact wings that send air currents down with powerful, rhythmic whooshes.
Dragons!
But like no dragons I’ve ever seen before—they’re the size of large dogs, boxy and muscular, one black, one red.
The runic light from Fallon’s clothing reflects off the collective riot of weapons, teeth, claws and wild eyes all hurtling straight for us.
A black terror swamps over me, and I frantically pull at the laces of my frozen boot with shaking hands.
Everything descends into chaos.
Fallon’s guards frantically yell to each other as streaks of their wand fire spear through the air with staccato bursts of golden light. Fallon hurls out javelins of ice toward the assassins and the dragons, the spears scything straight through her ice shield as if it were mere air.
Breathless, I cower near the ground.
Fallon’s guard runs toward the men and the dragons, wands raised as they continue to throw lines of fire out that are easily deflected by the assassins’ curved swords. The black dragon swoops down and collides with one of our soldiers. I gasp in horror as the beast latches onto his throat and the soldier sends up a gurgling scream. Another soldier thrusts his sword into the beast’s neck, the creature sending up a jagged shriek before slumping to the ground.
The red dragon crashes into our shield with an earsplitting shatter, the dome cracking apart. Ice rains down on us in a shower of frigid, clinking shards as the beast thumps down beside us, red-scaled belly up, eyes rolled back.
I pull hard at my foot, dizzy with fear. My boot lace is hopelessly knotted, the boot solidly frozen to the ground. The dragon’s warmth courses over me in a wave and melts the ice near my toes, but it’s not enough to free me.
Clutching her chest and propped up on her side, Fallon breathlessly grinds out a spell and points her wand at the dragon with a shaking hand, just as the creature begins to snarl and right itself. A line of ice knifes out from the tip of Fallon’s wand and into the dragon.
The dragon freezes then wobbles, Fallon’s spear of ice stabbed right between its eyes. The beast falls to the ground with a dull thump.
It’s impossible not to be wildly impressed—she just killed a dragon with a huge knife sticking out of her side.
I duck as a glowing red orb whirs by overhead, along with stray wand fire, the orb exploding behind me into a circle of red flame that briefly turns everything in the world crimson.
Fallon lets out a harsh growl as she throws out a series of ice spears that collide with the assassins in a harmless spray of snow.
“They’re shielded,” she says more to herself than to me, her eyes latched on to the assassins as her guard relentlessly attacks them now with swords. One assassin fights with two guards at once.
Fallon cries out and rolls onto her back as she sends forth a ceiling of ice over the fighting men. She flicks her wand repeatedly, and ice spears rain down from the ice ceiling and impale the assassins’ skulls.
The assassins slump to the ground.
The runes on her clothing still glowing a bright white, Fallon sets her fierce eyes on me, then promptly passes out.