Say no.
There was no future here. No way she could ever be with this boy. She needed to cut off whatever feeling was growing inside of her. Kill it at the root. He was leaving and she was staying, and even if things were different . . .
She thought about Safire’s parents, one draksor, one skral—how they burned her mother alive, how they forced her father to watch.
The thought of Torwin dead made something crack inside her. But it had the opposite effect. She didn’t say no. Instead, she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him.
Torwin smiled a rare smile. One that involved his whole mouth instead of just half of it.
“Is that a yes?” he whispered, breaking away.
She nodded.
He walked backward, out of the smithy, like he was memorizing the sight of her and taking it with him. “Then I’ll see you tonight, fierce one.”
Forty-Three
Asha lay in her tent long after the music stopped and the voices died down. Long after New Haven grew silent and still. Her body was on fire, screaming for her to get up and go. Now, while everyone slept. Now, while there was no one to see.
But she had to be sure. So Asha waited longer.
She waited too long.
A shout broke the silence of the camp. It was followed by two more. Warning shouts, frantic and wild. Several heartbeats later, screams broke out as the clang of steel on steel erupted like the first crack of thunder in a storm.
Asha and Safire flew out of their bedrolls at the same time. Safire passed Asha a knife. Together, they stepped out of the tent and into chaos.
Her father’s emblem was everywhere, adorning the shields of soldats barreling down on New Haven. Safire threw her knives. Asha shouted old stories into the sky, one after another, calling all the dragons she’d summoned in the past five days. Most of them were already on their way, the links that had formed between them and their riders telling them something was wrong.
At the sight of the dark shapes circling above, the soldats faltered. More Haveners woke and armed themselves. Roa was at the forefront of the fighting. Her half-moon blade hacked and bit while her white hawk, Essie, flew at the enemy, screeching and diving. With every advance, Roa shouted a command, and a heartbeat later, fiery arrows flew from somewhere behind her, catching the soldats by surprise.
By the time Asha reached the edge of the camp, the soldats were retreating into the trees, chased by Safire and Jas, who were flanked by hundreds of Haveners.
Asha looked around her at the fallen, of which there were only a few. She saw Dax crouch to help a man who was bleeding badly from a wound in his leg. Asha ducked under the man’s other arm and together they walked him to his tent, where his friend waited to cut the leg of his trousers and check the wound.
Asha heard Safire shout in the distance, organizing a search of the woods.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know.” Dax halted when he saw Jas moving toward them. He sheathed his knives.
“He knows everything now,” said Jas. “Our numbers. Our location. He probably has a weapon count.” He pointed at the shadows perched on the precipices high above them. “Not to mention a dragon count.”
Dax frowned. “Call a meeting. We’ll assess the damage, then decide what to do.”
Jas nodded. Before he left, Asha grabbed his arm. “Have you seen Torwin?”
He shook his head. “He sleeps away from New Haven,” he said before leaving to do as her brother commanded. “He’s safer than anyone.”
“I’ll send him a message with Essie,” Dax said, seeing the worry etched into her face. “Go to the meeting tent. I won’t be long.”
As the bell clanged, Haveners made their way to the meeting tent. Asha was one of the first to arrive. One after another, people trickled in. Safire and Jas. The blacksmith. A scrublander girl with five gold earrings in one ear. Dax and Roa were the second to last to arrive.
The only one missing was Torwin.
The moment her brother stepped into the tent, the questions rose up like birdcalls at sunrise, loud and all at once. As Dax started taking one at a time, Asha stared at the canvas tent flaps, willing Torwin to walk through. It would take him longer than everyone else. He not only had to get the message, he had to fly to the woods’ edge and walk down to the camp.
That’s why he isn’t here yet.
“We should strike quickly,” Safire said. “The dragon king won’t expect an immediate attack, he’ll expect us to hesitate. We should chase them down and attack now.”
The tent flaps rustled and Asha’s heart leaped—but it was only Essie, flying in and settling on Roa’s shoulder. Asha watched the hawk nip at the girl’s ear.
“Did she find him?” Asha asked.
Roa untied Dax’s message from the bird’s leg. “It doesn’t seem so.”
The bird flew off Roa’s shoulder to land on Dax’s, where she squawked loudly, interrupting his response to Safire. Rising, Roa called Essie away from the heir and took her out of the tent.
Asha should have fetched Torwin herself.
“We still have the tunnel,” Dax said. “We’ll just have to take extra care.”
The tent flaps rustled again and were shoved aside. But it was only Jas who stepped through, flanked by two scrublander soldiers, one of whom held out a roll of parchment, sealed with wax.
“For the Iskari.”
All the eyes in the tent settled on Asha, who rose to her feet. She took the parchment and broke the seal. A seal she recognized as the commandant’s. Her fingers shook as she unrolled it and read:
If you want him alive, you’ll hand yourself over tonight.
It was signed: Your beloved husband.
The parchment fell to the dirt at her feet.
“Asha?”
She moved for the tent opening. Dax stopped her, forcing her to look into his eyes. “What is it?”
“Let go of me.”
From behind her, Safire picked up the message and read it. “He has Torwin. . . .”
The words rocked her. Asha knew, better than anyone, what they meant.
She pushed past Dax and ran. Jas reached, trying to stop her, but she was too fast. Asha ran hard to the edge of the camp and up through the woods. Safire was behind her; she knew the steady thump of those footsteps by heart. But Asha ran faster, calling Kozu to her as she did.
She knew her way through the woods now. And by the time she reached the other side of the trees, the First Dragon waited, glimmering in the starlight. Asha launched herself onto his back.
Safire stumbled out of the woods behind her.
“Asha!”
Asha paused.
“Please. Don’t go down there alone.”
Asha looked back. Safire’s face tilted upward. The starlight gleamed on her skin and her eyebrows knit together with worry.
At a movement in the trees, both their heads turned. Reaching down, Asha grabbed her cousin’s arm and pulled her up.
“Hold on tight.”
Safire’s arms came around Asha’s waist just as Kozu leaped into the air.
Forty-Four