The moment the lake came into view, shimmering beneath the pale light of the moon, Asha saw the scorched rock. There’d been a fire. Torwin’s tent was in tatters.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Kozu landed and Asha dropped to the rock, with Safire following her, both of them staring at the hump in the darkness.
“Shadow?” Asha called softly. The hump didn’t move.
Safire stayed back while Asha moved closer. She stepped in blood. It glistened on the rock all around her, pooling from some deep gash. The dust-red dragon curled tightly around himself. His eyes were closed.
“Shadow?” Asha’s voice sounded tinny in her ears.
Those pale eyes opened slowly and only halfway.
Asha let out a shuddering breath. “Oh Shadow . . .”
She sank to her knees, reaching for his snout. His eyes closed again.
“No,” she said. She needed to figure out how deep the wound was. Where the wound was. So she could tend it. “Come on. Get up.”
Pale eyes flickered open. He didn’t raise his head, just looked at her. Like he was too tired. Like his playful spark had gone out. His stare made her think of Torwin, walking away, trying to soak up the sight of her before he was gone.
“Get up!” Her voice shook. Her hands trembled. She got to her feet and walked around him. His chest rose and fell slowly. Hardly at all.
“Asha . . . ,” Safire said softly from behind her.
Ignoring her cousin, Asha pushed on his haunches. She sharpened her voice. “Get up, Shadow.”
This time, he tried. He raised his head and several heartbeats later, he pushed up on his front legs, but his claws slipped in blood and he fell with a terrible thud.
Asha saw the gash in his chest then. It was so deep. Right next to his heart, which slowed with each thump.
Asha’s eyes blurred with tears.
She could feel him straining, feel him trying—because she wanted him to. Because he loved her and it was the very last thing he could do for her.
“Good, Shadow,” Asha whispered, pressing her hand over his heart. It beat so faintly now. Like a dying echo across the Rift. “That’s so good, Shadow. You can lie down now. Just lie back down. . . .”
Shadow collapsed. Asha sank to her knees. The dragon’s black blood soaked her dress.
Safire came to sit beside her.
As the star in him faded, Asha pulled Shadow’s warm snout into her lap. As his eyes closed, she told him one last story. The story of a girl who hunted dragons to soothe the hurt in her heart. The story of the dragon who changed her.
By the time she finished telling it, there was no rise and fall of his chest. No flicker of pale eyes trying to open.
Shadow had stopped breathing.
He was gone.
“Oh, Asha,” whispered Safire.
While Asha sobbed out her rage and grief, Safire’s arm came around her, pulling her in, cradling her while she cried.
Kozu came out of the shadows then. He nudged the younger dragon with his snout. He nudged twice. When Shadow didn’t respond, a sound split the night in two, joining with Asha’s sobs. A low, keening wail.
A dragon song for the dead.
Forty-Five
“I’m going to kill him.”
Safire dragged Asha out of the pool of dragon blood and brought her to the lake edge, trying to wash it from her knees and legs.
“I’m going to gut him with my bare hands and use his entrails for dragon bait.”
Her dress was ruined. Soaked in blood. When Safire finished washing her, Asha headed for Kozu. She would fly to the city this very night and carve out Jarek’s heart.
“Asha.” Safire caught her hard. “No.”
Asha struggled against her cousin. “Let me go.”
“You need to be calm.” Safire held on. Safire had always been stronger. “You need to outthink them, not play right into their hands.”
Two dragons flew above them. Asha stopped struggling to watch them circle the lake. Kozu watched them too. When they landed, the First Dragon melted into the darkness.
Both of these dragons were young. Half the size of Kozu. The one on the left had earth-brown scales and black horns. The one on the right had pale horns—one of them, broken—and was charcoal gray in color. Their wings folded back like crumpled leaves as they waited for their riders to dismount.
“If I don’t go, Jarek will kill him.”
Four riders dismounted. Two stayed with the dragons. The other two—Dax and Jas—moved toward them.
“Jarek needs Torwin alive to lure you in,” Safire said, resting her head against Asha’s as Dax approached. “He expects you to come. He wants you angry and reckless. Don’t give him what he wants.”
Illuminated by the lamp in Jas’s hand, Dax looked like he’d aged ten years in a single night. His words echoed Safire’s.
“As soon as you set foot inside the city walls,” Dax told her, “he’ll have no reason to keep Torwin alive. The longer you stay away, the longer Torwin lives.”
Asha shook her head, remembering the sound of the shaxa on his back. She thought of the one god Torwin believed in.
Death, the Merciful.
“There are worse things than death,” she whispered.
Safire’s arms loosened around her. Asha looked to Shadow’s form.
If Torwin had left for Darmoor when he first wanted to, he’d be on a ship right now, sailing far away. He would be safe.
To stop the floodgate inside her from breaking, Asha curled her hands into vicious fists.
“If I had just been here!”
“If you’d been here, Jarek would have cut Torwin down before your eyes and taken you instead,” Dax said gently, carefully. “They were outnumbered. There’s nothing you could have done.”
“No. There’s nothing you could have done. I am the Iskari.” She glared at her brother, daring him to contradict her. He didn’t.
Instead, he took her shoulders in his hands. “We are going to get him out. I’ll think of something, Asha. Just don’t do anything rash. Promise me you won’t.”
Asha couldn’t promise that. She knew Dax was right—Jarek would expect her to come. He would set a trap for her. But if she didn’t go . . .
Asha scanned the darkness for Kozu. She could sense him in her mind, restless in the presence of enemies. If he wouldn’t come to her, she’d go to him.
Asha moved to step around her brother. He blocked her.
“Get out of my way.”
“If I get out of your way, you’ll fly to Firgaard and put everyone here at risk,” said Dax. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”