“You saved her once from the Old One’s machinations,” said the king. “If the Old One seeks to manipulate her now, I want you there, at her side.”
Asha stared at her father. Their shared secret hung in his eyes. He wanted her to kill Kozu in front of Jarek. Jarek, who thought Kozu’s heart was a pledge, not a severing.
Was this his way of bolstering her? Of saying he knew she could do it?
And then, for the second time in the span of mere days, the king reached out and touched his daughter, gripping her shoulder tight.
He didn’t even hesitate.
“I wish I could be there when you strike the final blow,” he said. “The moment you do, you will free us all.”
Thirty
At midday, the Iskari and the commandant rode into the Rift.
Asha took the lead, atop Oleander, whose hooves thudded the earth in a rhythmic tattoo. Jarek rode on Asha’s left; and in their wake a dozen soldats galloped, armed with spears and halberds and armored with shields. Warblers and bush chats chirped out warnings from the trees as they thundered by.
The air felt heavy and charged. As if a storm were rolling in.
Asha raced down hunting paths, taking every shortcut she knew through woods and streams and more treacherous rocky terrain.
Jarek kept pace.
“Something doesn’t make sense,” he said as their horses waded through a wide creek, splashing cold water. “Why would Dax blackmail you? What does he care about my slave? Or the sacred flame?”
Oleander reached the bank first, clambering up and trying to put distance between herself and Jarek’s black stallion. Jarek grabbed Asha’s arm. She pulled hard on Oleander’s reins before he yanked her backward.
The sunlight sifting through the cedar and argan trees dimmed as the sky darkened above them.
“What is he up to, Asha? What secret are the two of you keeping?” Jarek loomed over her, his grip tightening. “Tell me the real reason you threw yourself into that pit.”
Asha thought of Torwin’s bruised face and bloody back. She thought of Shadow’s belly, glowing red with fire.
There had never been a choice. Asha could never have watched them die.
“How about a trade?” she said, narrowing her eyes. “My secret for the one you’re keeping for my father.”
Asha didn’t expect him to let go of her.
Nor did she expect the fearful look in his eye.
When the soldats galloped into the stream, Asha tore away from Jarek, through the pines, then burst into the meadow beyond. The clouds hung low. Swollen and dark, like a purple-black bruise.
Jarek came through behind her, followed by his soldats, the pine boughs rustling in their wake.
“Stay where you are,” Asha told them as she dismounted, then waded into the esparto grass. The storm clouds turned the meadow silver and gray.
This was where everything started.
At the edges, a familiar presence lurked. She smelled the faint scent of smoke and ash. But Elorma couldn’t stop her now. It had been eight years since Kozu burned her. Eight years since the city went up in flames and people lost their lives—because of her.
Asha was here to set things right.
“Well?” called Jarek. “Where is he?”
“He’ll come,” she said, reaching deep inside for the story buried in the darkness. “Tell the soldats to hide themselves.”
The soldats took up their positions in the trees, keeping out of sight. A memory flickered in Asha’s mind. One from eight years ago. The last time she’d stood in this meadow.
She shut it out.
“Asha?” Jarek sounded uneasy.
There was no way around it. She was going to have to tell the story right in front of her father’s commandant, and in doing so, reveal the truth: she’d never succeeded in overcoming her nature. She’d only succeeded at hiding it.
But it wouldn’t matter in the end. Not once Kozu was dead.
Staring up at the clouded sky, Asha threw her voice out as far as it could go. It wasn’t an old story she told—not exactly.
“Once there was a girl who was drawn to wicked things!” The wind snatched up her voice and threw it across the field. The grass rattled and hissed all around her.
“It didn’t matter that the old stories killed her mother. It didn’t matter that they’d killed many more before her. The girl let the stories in. Let them eat away at her heart and turn her wicked. The girl didn’t care.”
The air crackled around Asha. In the distance, she saw a black shape launch itself from a jagged, mountainous ridge into the dark clouds.
“Under the cloak of night, she crept over rooftops and snaked through abandoned streets. She sneaked out of the city and into the Rift, where she told the dragons story after story. She told so many stories, she woke the deadliest dragon of all: one as dark as a moonless night. One as old as time itself. Kozu, the First Dragon.”
“Asha . . .” Jarek’s voice sounded strange. Frightened.
She walked farther into the tall grass. The sound of wingbeats reverberated on the air. The wind rose, howling. It tugged her hair out of its braid and whipped it across her face.
“Kozu wanted the girl for himself! Wanted to hoard the deadly power spilling from her lips! Wanted her to tell stories for him and him alone. Forever!”
A shadow fell across her. She looked up to see a dragon circling. Black as ink. Black as a still pool on a moonless night. Black as Asha’s eyes.
She drew the axe at her hip.
Kozu landed with a thud. The earth trembled beneath him. His shadow shot over her, cloaking her in darkness. His scales gleamed and his slitted yellow eye drank her in. Asha’s eyes did the same, fixing on his scar. A mirror image of hers, it ran down his serpentine face, cutting through his eye, marring those inky scales. Two horns twisted out of his head, perfect for goring prey; and on each foot were five talons, sharp as knives. As wide as a courtyard, his wings remained outspread—a show of just how large he was, how easily he could crush her.
Like a story himself, Kozu was formidable and fierce, beautiful and powerful.
The thought of him dead suddenly struck Asha with a piercing sadness.
She gripped her axe harder.
Someone moved behind her. Kozu’s gaze darted to him, slitted nostrils flaring. But whoever it was, the First Dragon hadn’t come for him. He’d come for Asha.
Like the predator he was, he circled her, the grass rustling as he moved.
Asha raised her axe. Her eyes fixed on the place where his heart beat out its ancient song. It was her or that song; they couldn’t coexist. If Asha didn’t silence it, she would be forced to go to Jarek tonight.
Kozu’s chest glowed like a simmering coal in the center of a fire. Her fingers tightened around her axe, waiting for the perfect moment.
She waited too long.
Kozu’s tail lashed, hitting her in the stomach—not with the spiked end this time, but with the strength of the middle. The force of the blow knocked the axe from Asha’s hand. It landed in the grass as she staggered back.