Nearing the top of the wall, I begin rolling onto my tiptoes every few steps, craning my neck, determined to steal a peek of the moon I love so much … one last time.
Just a little higher, and I might be able to—
I scan the low, snow-spewing clouds that blanket the sky in all directions, obscuring the moons.
Every moon.
My heart drops, something sharp pricking the backs of my eyes.
I’m shoved into a tunnel lined with flaming sconces, and I snarl, the cloudy view blocked by stone and flame. The beat of stomping boots echoes off the walls, and I’m certain those boots are stomping my chest with the weight of my disappointment, fracturing my ribs. Crushing my lungs.
Brush it off.
Stuff it away.
I lift my chin as we turn down another tunnel before I’m led up a swirling staircase that spits me out upon the central stage of the coliseum—so vast it makes me feel like a speck of dirt at the bottom of a basin.
Tiny.
Insignificant.
The thick stone awning shelters a single layer of seating that crowns the building, protecting the vibrant elementals who’ve come to watch me die, willing to risk their lives to witness the grisly spectacle.
They laugh, gasp, and murmur, pointing in my direction as I’m backed against a wooden stake, my feet lost within crusted layers of snow.
I give them a shackled wave, flashing them a smile. “Thanks for coming to send me off!” I yell, followed by a murmured “assholes.”
The guards jostle my hands to my sides, binding coils of fibrous rope around me until I’m secured so tight it’s hard to pull a full breath. They thread back down the stairs while my lungs wrestle against the constricting bind.
A burst of panic explodes behind my ribs.
I’m trapped. Powerless.
So fucking alone.
The realization stabs me in the heart, fear seeping through my veins in a rush of boiling blood. My breaths come short, sharp, and fast, that terrible tremble that shook me in the cell resurging with a vengeance.
Perhaps noticing my sudden discomfort, some of the elementals laugh, cackles pelting me like thrown rocks.
Cheeks blazing, I refuse to look at them again. Instead, I throw my stare skyward, eyes widening on the vibrant beasts circling above, cutting through the clouds, whisking the pretty colors into a churning iris focused on …
Me.
Flakes of snow pepper my hair and face as I try to halt my chattering teeth and slow my shallow, frantic breaths.
This is a slumber-terror I’m going to wake from. As with every slumber-terror, you don’t wake until it breaks you enough you jolt free.
That’s it …
I just have to break. Then I’ll be free.
A swirl of action within the imperial box snags my attention, and I see a female move through a crew of parting soldiers, her pale complexion such a stark contrast to the red crown that garnishes a river of ruddy hair.
The Queen …
I didn’t think she attended these. Guess I’m high profile enough to earn the privilege.
The feeding bell tolls, and my next breath is a punch to the back of my throat, each gong ratcheting through my bones as her Imperial Highness reaches the balustrade. Her gaze falls upon me, and she stills, eyes widening with a flash of … something.
Shock?
Disbelief?
Recognition?
I fail to pin it down. Lacking the heartbeats to care, I let my attention drift to the swarm of beasts flocking the sky …
Creators.
A massive Moltenmaw lands on the stone awning, yellow and orange plumage making it look like an angry flame come to devour me. I jolt as it tips its long tapered beak and squalls to the sky, scattering some of the smaller beasts that had begun to descend before weaving its head into the bowl.
So close.
Its slit pupils expand, and it snaps its solid beak at the air right before my face. Like a practice bite.
I hold the dragon’s scarlet stare—
A blow of air gusts against me.
The Moltenmaw swings its head to the left, trilling at a second beast almost the same monstrous size now clinging to the awning across the other side of the building. It cranks its beak and releases its own chaotic screech, spraying a haze of spittle and smoke.
I turn my head, trying to shield myself from the blast, my stare delving straight into the imperial box.
The Queen is clutching the balustrade with white-knuckled hands, screaming at the soldiers behind her—soldiers that look from her to me, their faces parchment pale.
Her wide, manic eyes lock with mine, and there’s something in those mossy eyes that disturbs my internal lake. Tears flow down her cheeks, and she begins shaping words I can’t hear … though I can see.
Can recognize.
She’s singing to Clode, begging her to gust.
To spin.
The air around me becomes a cyclonic churn of snow and ice almost impossible to glimpse through. The stake I’m tethered to wobbles like it’s about to untether from the stage, my hair threatening to pull from its roots, stringy ends reaching for the toiling vortex.
The two Moltenmaws screech and shove from the roof, wings beating against the stir of air that rips vibrant feathers from their underbellies, scattering them into the swirl that herds the creatures back toward the clouds.
Through the ferocious whisk of snow slicing past my face, I lock eyes with the Queen again—her chest racking with sobs, a warm smile filling her cheeks.
Understanding drops into my belly like a heavy meal after a long stint of starvation, and I frown …
She’s trying to scare the dragons off.
She’s …
She’s saving me—
A deep, guttural pulse shakes the air, thumping from every angle.
Thud-ump.
Thud-ump.
Thud-ump.
All the light leaches from the coliseum, eclipsed by a terrible darkness that almost swallows me whole.
Screams erupt from the crowd now scrambling from their seats, running for the exits—some tripping over each other in their panicked haste. The Queen breaks my stare and looks up past the building’s crown, eyes bulging. Confusion punches through me, and I do the same.
My heart stops, breath fleeing as the largest Sabersythe I’ve ever seen drops toward the coliseum with a till of its billowy wings. It extends its mammoth claws and grips hold of the curved awning, settling its weight on the structure that no longer looks strong and sturdy. Not compared to this beast—the color of an old puddle of blood, appearing black in the places where scraps of filtered light don’t touch its plate-sized scales.
The entire world seems to tremble, cracks weaving through the stone, bits of it breaking away and plummeting around me, crushing some of the Nobles who failed to get away fast enough.
Violent howls of panic and pain rattle the atmosphere.
The dragon extends its wings to an impossible width, splayed membranes drumming from the force of the Queen’s cyclonic song, its clawed tips reaching so far I picture them able to bind around the coliseum more than once.
“Shit,” I mutter, wondering why a beast so large would bother with such a tiny speck of nourishment— Unless …
It wants me for its young.
My stomach drops.
Not only am I going to die, but I’m going to do it slowly, and in the hottest place in the world.
Gondragh … the Sabersythe spawning grounds.
The King was right, I am haunted. All the angry spirits of folk I failed to behead lured this beast to my execution and are now having the final laugh.
Good for them.
Shit for me.
All the breath whooshes from my lungs as the dragon shoves its head down into the bowl with a boisterous swoop, its boxy face barbed in horns and tusks that curl and slash it into something monstrous. It blows a searing breath upon me, peering at me through inky globes crammed within a nest of embers.
Something blasts up from the depths of my shattering internal lake like a net that swallows my solid heart. Claws gore into the stony flesh, injecting me with a song that wrestles up my throat and sits on my tongue like a ball of icy flame, prying my jaw wide.
It spills in rhythm with my galloping heartbeat, my serrated voice cutting through the din. A language not of the common tongue, but something … different.