If Kozu were truly her enemy, she wouldn’t be alive.
“Dragonfire is deadly.” This was one truth she knew. “Even the smallest of burns must be tended immediately, to draw out the toxins.”
“I’m the one who discovered your treachery.” Jarek’s gaze darted to the soldats moving closer in, checking their positions as he kept her distracted. “Eight years ago, I followed you. I saw you telling the old stories aloud. I saw the First Dragon come to you.”
Asha lowered her slayers. “You followed me?”
“I told your father,” he said. “And he put a stop to it.”
Asha felt light-headed.
She thought back to the sickroom after the burning. When she couldn’t remember what happened, her father filled in the gaps. It was all her fault, he said. Together they would make it right, he said. He would use her scar to show the world how dangerous the old ways were.
While everyone else looked away from her scar in revulsion or fear, her father looked on with pride. As if it were his crowning achievement. His magnificent creation.
His creation . . .
Asha wanted to shut off her thoughts, to stop herself from following them to their most logical conclusion. But they were like a scroll unraveling. She had to read to the end.
Asha’s father had always wanted to rid the realm of the old ways. He used Asha to hunt down Kozu. And when she was burned, he turned her into a tool—a cautionary tale. A living piece of propaganda.
A monster.
Asha didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to believe Kozu’s story was the wicked, twisted thing. But there was the burn, and here she was—still alive.
Her father had been there when it happened, along with his soldats and—she realized now—his healers.
Asha looked to her betrothed. This was the secret Jarek kept for the king. All those years ago, her father stepped aside and let Asha burn. And Jarek knew. This was why Asha had been promised to him—in exchange for compliance and secrecy.
All her life, she’d thought of herself as wicked, corrupted, in need of redemption.
A shocking thought occurred to her. What if I’m not any of those things?
A low growl shook the earth at her feet. Asha turned to find the soldats advancing on Kozu’s back.
“Kill it now!” Jarek shouted, looking over Asha’s shoulder. “Strike! Before it flies!”
Asha lifted her slayers. But Kozu’s tail came around her, stopping her from charging, pulling her back against the searing-hot scales of his chest.
Asha felt his acid lungs filling up with air. Felt the beat of his ancient heart.
Jarek ducked behind the soldat’s shield.
Kozu breathed, streaming flames in an arc. Red and orange filled Asha’s vision, swallowing the advancing soldats. The air shimmered with heat.
When the fire stopped streaming, the whole field was ablaze. And it wasn’t the only thing on fire.
In the distance, beyond the trees, beyond the lower Rift and the wall, the city rooftops were going up in flames.
“Firgaard!” she screamed, pointing.
Jarek—unburned behind his shield—turned to see.
“The city is under attack!”
Asha’s hands clenched as the smoke billowed into the sky. Dax and Safire were in there.
When darkness falls, little sister, the Old One lights a flame.
It was the last thing her brother said to her.
Asha’s hands unclenched as she remembered the look on his face as they hauled him away to the dungeon. Like it was all a part of his plan.
No, she thought. Dax wouldn’t destroy his own home.
“The skral are revolting!” called one of the soldats. “We need to go back!”
Every skral in the city would have heard of what happened in the pit. That the Iskari saved a doomed slave. It would have bolstered their courage. And with half the army on its way to Darmoor, and the commandant here in the field . . .
It was the perfect opportunity.
While the soldats around her paused, caught between their burning city, their homes and families, and their loyalty to their commandant, Asha turned to Kozu.
She thought of the pit and Torwin’s arrow pointed at her chest. Thought of what he’d say if he were here right now.
It was the same thing her heart said.
Get on the dragon, Asha.
Kozu looked at her. If she sealed the link, it would mean they were allies. And allying herself to her oldest enemy made Asha hesitate.
No, she thought, staring into his slitted yellow eye. You and I were never enemies.
Asha reached for his wing bone the way Torwin had reached for Shadow’s that day. Stepping into the crook of Kozu’s knee, she hoisted herself up onto the First Dragon’s back.
From this high up, Asha felt invincible. Lightning flashed above her. The blazing field sprawled out before her. And in the midst of the chaos, Jarek stared up at her, his eyes wide and afraid.
“Fly,” she told Kozu. “Fly far away from here.”
Jarek shouted orders to stop them, to kill the dragon. Kozu stretched out his wings the way night stretches over the desert. But just as he leaped into the air, there came a sickening thud. Kozu roared and swooped sideways.
Asha slid but clung on. She looked down to find Jarek’s spear lodged in Kozu’s side.
No. . . .
Thunder cracked as Asha reached for it, her hands gripping the smooth wood of the shaft. As she pulled, the pain of it made Kozu lurch. The earth surged toward them. The spear came out at the same time Kozu staggered, then lost his balance. They hit the ground and the force of Kozu’s momentum made him roll, pitching Asha from his back.
She heard a loud crack! Smelled the earthy scent of esparto grass. And then: pain, bleeding through her.
The world went ink black.
Thirty-Two
Asha woke in a cell deep below her father’s palace.
She didn’t know how much time had passed. Didn’t know how much of the city had burned in the revolt.
Didn’t know if Kozu was dead or alive.
He can’t be dead, she told herself, or the stories would be too.
Chains streamed from her wrists and food came only occasionally. She gleaned information from her guards’ whispered conversations.
The revolt started in the furrow, they said. The furrow burned and the fire caught and spread through a quarter of the city. Hundreds of slaves escaped. Hundreds more draksors were missing too. The most notable among them were Dax and Safire. Witnesses said the heir and his cousin led both skral and draksors through the streets. Together, they overtook the gate, which allowed for so many to escape.
Days passed before the soldats came for her, unlocking her shackles and marching her up through the palace. By now, the new moon had come and gone. Three slaves waited in her room, their ankles chained together. The soldats stood at the door while the slaves washed away the dirt and grime from Asha’s body. She stared straight into the mirror, wondering how she’d ever been proud of the scar marring her skin.
The oldest slave stepped in front of her, severing the sight of her reflection and holding out the first layer of her dress. The gold piece. Asha didn’t step into it.