Asha reached to draw her slayers, but Kozu’s tail came again, wrapping around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides and squeezing the breath from her lungs. She gasped for air as Kozu lifted her off her feet and drew her to him.
His breath was hot on her face. His teeth were hundreds of yellowed spikes.
No. . . .
How could she have come this close, only to fail?
Death’s gate rose up in her mind. In a moment, she’d be walking the path to those gates. The same path Willa walked all those years ago. . . .
Suddenly, a story flickered through Asha’s mind, like a flame in the darkness. It brought her back to the meadow and the dragon and the soldats surrounding them. But the story wasn’t hers.
Another flicker.
This story belonged to Kozu.
She’d told him one. And now, just like they used to do, he would tell her one in return.
Right before he killed her.
Kozu’s Story
He was waiting in the trees, waiting for the girl to come out of the rock. It was dark and he was waiting. Craving the voice thrumming with ancient power. Wanting the girl speaking the stories aloud.
The sun rose, and still, she didn’t come. He thrashed his tail. His wings ached to fly. His hunger needed slaking.
But he wanted the stories more than his wings wanted air and his belly wanted meat, so he stayed. She would come. She always came.
When he heard her voice, it was in the wrong place.
He launched himself out of the trees and into the air. The heat of the sun coursed through him. The strength of the wind bore him up. He saw her alone, far from the wretched city, far from the eyes and teeth on the wall.
He didn’t think why. Why here, when it was always there—at the rock, higher up on the mountainside. Kozu needed, so Kozu went.
She was all he saw. He watched her face turn up to him, the story of Elorma pouring out of her mouth. He circled, landed, sending up red dust. When it settled, he started toward her, needing to tell her a tale of his own, needing her to put a voice to all the stories inside him so the Old One could live on.
Fixated on his dark jewel, he didn’t see the glint of sun on metal. Didn’t see until all of them were stepping out of the trees with blades that stopped the hearts of dragons.
He looked from the girl to her kin swarming out of the woods. They smelled like iron and hate. Their gazes devoured him, hungry for his hide.
With her story finished, she reached for him. It was his turn to tell.
But Kozu stepped back. She had brought her kin, armored and afraid. She had tricked him into flying to this unsheltered place. There was nowhere to hide.
Fire sizzled in his veins. Thunder rumbled in his blood.
He lashed his tail as the circle of metal tightened around him. He roared a warning to keep back.
They didn’t heed him. They followed the orders of one man only: a king with power in him. It was this king who Kozu would destroy.
The fire in his chest grew, big and bright and hot.
The circle tightened, its teeth sharp and ravenous.
The king called the name of Kozu’s jewel. She went, scared now, crying for Kozu to stop. But the fire was too big and too bright inside him.
The armored men stepped closer, metal raised, ready to pierce Kozu’s heart. A heart that beat too fast and loud.
Kozu lunged. His tail and claws came down on metal. A claw-sharp point ripped down his face. Bright burning pain exploded in his eye, followed by darkness.
Kozu screamed as hot blood spilled out.
The fire in him rushed across the armored men whose blades were tearing down his face. It rushed across those beyond, stopping their ascent.
It rushed toward his dark jewel.
Kozu couldn’t stop it. Kozu could only watch.
He watched the king raise his shield. Watched him step away from his daughter, leaving her to face the fire alone.
Her scream pierced the sky.
That scream.
It chased him as he leaped into the air. Lived inside him as he spilled his rage over the king’s city. With the city burning behind him, Kozu flew fast and hard and far. Out of the Rift, across the endless desert, to the other side of the world, half blind and aching for the girl with the ancient voice.
The girl who betrayed him.
Thirty-One
“Liar!”
Kozu dropped her into the grass. The moment she touched the ground, she drew her slayers.
Lies. Wasn’t that what all stories were? Wasn’t that what made them so dangerous?
Suddenly, a familiar voice rose up in her.
Dragon burns are deadly, Iskari, and a burn like that?
Asha tried to shake Torwin’s voice loose. But it lodged inside her.
You were just a little girl.
If the story she believed was true—that she was alone when Kozu burned her—how had the toxins been drawn out in time?
Asha remembered the burn Torwin helped treat. Her hands shook so hard. The poison set in so fast. . . .
Kozu stood stone still, watching her. The glow of his belly dimmed.
“What are you waiting for!” Jarek yelled. “Strike!”
Asha stared at the commandant. The one who found her that day and raced her back to the city.
Have I not done everything you’ve ever asked of me, my king?
Jarek drew his saber—which shimmered against the angry sky. He motioned to his soldats, who swarmed the field like cockroaches.
Have I not defended your walls? Put down your revolts?
Kept your secrets?
Kozu stood at Asha’s back. Those great wings spread wide as he eyed the armored men around them. Asha could have turned and plunged her sacred blades into his breast. It would have been easy. It would have ended everything right here.
Instead, she fixed her gaze on Jarek, like a hunter on its prey. “Tell me: how long did it take you to find me, the day Kozu burned me?”
Jarek turned to face her. There it was again: the fear in his eyes.
Kozu’s story blazed inside her, weaving with her own memories of a fire burning away her skin and the screams trapped inside her throat.
“How long!” she demanded.
She watched him bury his fear the way she buried her shame. Watched him look to the dragon at her back, then change his mind about the saber. He called out to a soldat behind him and the man tossed him a spear.
“Truly, you’re as foolish as your brother,” he said, his grip tightening on the shaft as he waded into the tall, rattling grass. “The enemy stands behind you, Asha. Everything you’ve ever wanted lies at the edge of your blade, and yet you hesitate.”
A soldat holding a body-length shield waded out with him.
Everything I’ve ever wanted . . .
She wanted deliverance from Jarek. She wanted redemption for her crimes. She wanted revenge on the one who’d burned her and brought destruction to Firgaard.
But what if the crime was never hers?
What if the enemy was not the one she’d always thought?
Jarek crept closer. At her back, Kozu growled again, louder this time. The commandant stopped short, fifteen steps away. The soldat at his side trembled.
Asha stepped closer to Kozu’s beating heart. Kozu, who could have killed her mere moments ago if he’d wanted to. Kozu, who didn’t take to the skies even as the soldats closed in around him.