by Julie Kagawa
I shuddered, remembering the skin, tacked onto the wall in plain sight, and for a moment, my resolve wavered. Was I making a mistake? Was it really possible for someone to change his entire perspective? Garret had grown up in St. George, where these awful tokens of death and murder were considered trophies. Decorations to hang in someone’s office, like a stag head or a tiger pelt. Because to St. George, we were monsters. Animals. What if Garret still thought like that?
What if he doesn’t?
I swallowed hard. Regardless of what Garret believed, I couldn’t leave him. If I didn’t get him out tonight, he would die. Even if he saw me as a monster, I wouldn’t abandon him now.
“No,” I told Riley, turning from the office door and the horrible trophy hanging within. “We don’t stop. We keep looking. I’m not leaving him to die.”
Riley shook his head. “Stubborn idiot hatchling,” he muttered, though one corner of his mouth curled up. “All right, we keep going. Wes, you there?” A pause, and Riley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she did. Of course not, have you met her? How far are we from the stairs?”
We crept through several more hallways, passing more darkened rooms and offices that I was careful not to peek into, until we came to a door that opened onto a stairwell. Here, Riley stopped us, saying there was a camera on the other side, and we had to wait until Wes shut it down. Once he did, I darted through the frame and started down the cement stairs, feeling Riley close at my back. The steps didn’t take us far; just one loop around to an identical metal door, which we pushed through and stepped into yet another hallway.
At the end of the hall stood a door, lonely and unguarded. There were no cameras or humans around, but Riley grabbed my arm when I started forward, pulling us to a stop a few feet from the end of the corridor.
“Got it,” he muttered, speaking to Wes, I figured, and turned to me, his face grave.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered. “Is Garret not here?”
“Oh, he’s here, Firebrand,” Riley said, his voice matching the look on his face. “Wes confirmed it on the security feed. But he’s not the only one.” He nodded to the door. “That’s a guard room. You need to pass through it to get to the jail block beyond. One problem, though. Guard rooms tend to be guarded.”
My skin prickled. “How many?” I asked.
“Two.” His expression darkened. “Both armed. They won’t be expecting us, but we’re going to have to be fast if we want to take them out before they sound the alarm. Think you can pull off another crazy ninja Viper attack? We’re not going to get another shot at this. Once I open that door, there’s really no going back.”
My stomach dropped. After a moment, I took a deep breath, steeling myself. Whatever it took, I would find Garret. Even though these new instincts freaked me out. Even though I wanted nothing more than to be done with this place, with its armed humans and dead dragons hanging on the walls. We were almost to the soldier; his life depended on us reaching him, and I wouldn’t let anything stop me now.
I glanced at Riley and nodded. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
Garret
One hundred and twenty minutes till dawn and counting.
The hardest thing about waiting to die is being torn between wanting more time and wishing they would just get it over with already. You can’t sleep, of course. You can’t focus on anything else. Your mind keeps tormenting you with questions and memories and what-ifs, until you wish they’d just do you a favor and knock you senseless until it was time. Maybe that was a coward’s way out, but I didn’t want to show up to my execution looking beaten down and exhausted. I would not beg, or cry or plead for mercy. If this was my last day on Earth, I wanted to end it well, facing Death on my feet with my head held high. That was all a soldier of St. George could hope for.
As I lay on the cot, unable to sleep, unable to stop the relentless countdown in my head, my nerves suddenly prickled, making my breath catch. It was faint, but I recognized it instantly. The same feeling I got when I was about to kick down the door to a target’s residence, or when I suspected an ambush lay just ahead and we were about to walk right into it. A soldier’s instincts, telling me that something was about to happen.
Carefully, I swung my legs off the mattress and walked to the front of my cell. The room on the other side of the bars remained empty and dark, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Were they coming for me early? No, that wasn’t right. The Order was nothing if not punctual. I still had another hour and fifty minutes before I was scheduled to die. Maybe the pressure was finally getting to me. Maybe I was having a nervous breakdown.
A sudden boom in the absolute stillness made me jump, the familiar crash of a door being flung open or kicked down, and I instinctively went for the gun at my belt, though of course I was unarmed. Shouts and cries of alarm rang out from the guard room beyond the cell block. Helpless, I clenched my fists around the bars, listening as a battle raged just a few yards away, muffled through the wall. There was a short scuffle, the scrape of chairs and the thud of bodies hitting the floor…and then silence.
I waited, holding my breath, my whole body coiled and ready for a fight. I didn’t know what to expect, but whatever was coming, I was ready.
And then the door to the guard room opened, and I met a pair of vivid green eyes across the hall. Turns out, I wasn’t ready at all.
The breath caught in my throat, and for a moment, I could only stare. Not only a nervous breakdown, I’m also hallucinating. Because there was no way she could be here. No sane reason she would show up in the middle of a St. George base, minutes from my execution. My mind had snapped; I was seeing things that weren’t there. The Perfect Soldier, unable to face his own death, goes crazy at age seventeen.
Numb, I gaped at her, unable to look away. Bracing for the girl silhouetted against the light to writhe into shadows and moonlight and disappear. She didn’t vanish but smiled, in a way that made my heart twist, and hurried to the door of my cell.
“Ember?” Still incredulous, I couldn’t move as the figure drew close, gazing up at me. A hand reached through the bars, pressing against my jaw, and I drew in a shuddering breath. It was warm, and solid, and real. Impossible as it was, this was real.
My hand closed on her wrist, and I felt her pulse, rapid and steady, under my fingers. “What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“I came to get you out, of course,” Ember whispered back, her breath fanning across my cheek, further proof that she wasn’t a ghost or a figment of my imagination. Her gaze met mine through the bars, flashing defiantly. “I wasn’t going to leave you, Garret. Not after you saved us. I’m not going to let them kill you.”
“You came here for me?”
“Ember,” growled a new, impatient voice, one that was vaguely familiar. I gazed past her shoulder and saw a second figure, dark haired and dressed in black, scowl at me from the open door of the guard room. With a start, I realized it was the other dragon, the one Ember had fled with when she left Crescent Beach.
“No time for this, Firebrand,” he snapped, and tossed something to her, something that glittered as she caught it. “Come on. Those guards won’t stay down forever. Open the door and let’s get the hell out of here.”
I was still reeling from the fact that Ember was here, that two dragons had shown up in the middle of the night to save me, but the second dragon’s words jolted me out of my trance. As Ember shoved the key into the lock and wrenched the door open with a rusty creak, I suddenly realized what this meant, what was really happening.
“Garret,” Ember said as I paused, staring at the open door. “Come on, before someone sees us. What are you doing?”
At the edge of the hall, the other dragon gave a snort of disgust.
“I told you, Firebrand.” He gestured sharply in my direction. “You can open the monkey’s cage, but you can’t
force it to leave. He’s not moving because we’re the enemy, and he’d rather stay and let them put a bullet through his skull than escape with a pair of dragons. Isn’t that right, St. George?” The figure turned to me, mouth curled in a sneer. “Never mind that they sold you down the river without a second thought. But you know, I don’t care one way or another about your loyalty hang-ups. You have three seconds to choose before I say the hell with it and leave you here. So what’s it gonna be? Come with us, or stay here and die?”
Escape. Leave St. George with two dragons. With the enemy. I’d been fully prepared to die a moment ago, but now freedom was staring me in the face. If I did this, if I stepped through that door, there was no turning back.
For just a moment, the Perfect Soldier recoiled at the idea of accepting the help of our greatest enemies, even now. But I knew the truth, and it cast an ominous shadow over my thoughts. There was something wrong within the Order, something I’d never seen before I met Ember. It was treason to speak against St. George doctrine, treason to consider that the Order could be mistaken. No one in St. George was willing to hear the other side of the story, that a dragon, a creature whose race they had hunted and killed for hundreds of years, could be more than just a monster. No one was willing to accept the idea that the Order of St. George had slaughtered those who did not deserve it.
Regardless, the Order was no longer home. I’d already been sentenced to die, at the hands of the very people who had raised me. I wouldn’t be any more of a traitor if I left this place in the company of two dragons who’d risked their lives to get me out. That made a pretty good argument, right there.
“I’m with you,” I said quietly, and stepped through the door. The other dragon was still watching me, gold eyes assessing, but my gaze sought Ember’s, and I saw relief spread across her face as I left the cell. I heard another disgusted snort from her companion, but I ignored it. I was a soldier of St. George no longer. I had no idea how Ember and her companion were going to get us out but, at least for now, I was free. If I was going to die today, I would go down fighting.
“Come on,” growled the second dragon, gesturing impatiently. “It’s almost dawn.”
We hurried from the cell block, passing through the guard station, where two soldiers lay in crumpled heaps on the floor, out cold. One of them had what looked like a broken nose and the other’s forehead was a mess of blood where, I suspected, he’d been bashed against the edge of the desk. I paused, kneeling down to grab the 9 mm from one of their side holsters, trying not to look at them as I checked the chamber for rounds. I might be with the enemy now, but they were still my former brothers, men I had trained with and fought beside. That couldn’t be forgotten in a single night, or even in a single act of betrayal. The male dragon glared at me as I rose with the gun, obviously not pleased with the idea that I was armed, but didn’t challenge me as we continued down the hall and up the stairs to the main floor.
The building was quiet as we exited the stairwell; it was still too early for most soldiers to be up and about, though I could see the sky had turned a disquieting navy blue, no longer the pitch-black of true night. Morning formations began at oh five hundred, which was less than an hour and a half away. The base would be stirring soon. Not to mention, we still had to get past security and the patrols around the perimeter fence. I didn’t know how Ember and the other dragon had managed to get this far without being seen, but I was less than optimistic that we could waltz out again without trouble. Everything was quiet. This seemed way too easy.
The other dragon—Riley, I remembered his name was—stopped us at the back door and spoke quietly into what I presumed was a wire. A moment later, he nodded and pushed open the door, confirming what I suspected; they had an outsider hacked into the security cams. He had to be good; Order security was tight. He also had to be fairly close to pick up the signal.
Outside, it was still dark. We skirted the light and stayed to the shadows, moving low and silent across the barren yard. Once, a patrol passed us, talking in low voices, and we flattened ourselves against a wall until they disappeared. The buildings provided some cover, though we had to be wary of windows and doorways where someone could spot us. But what worried me the most was the last stretch to the fence line; flat and open, with little to no cover. If we were spotted and they opened fire on us then, we’d be gunned down in seconds.
I imagined the uproar this would cause. If the Order realized two dragons had been able to walk in, free a prisoner, and walk merrily out again, there would probably be several weeks of chaos as chapterhouses around the globe scrambled to tighten security, double patrols and lock down networks. Training would intensify. I imagined heads would roll higher up the chain of command. Dragons making a mockery of the Order? Sneaking in right under their noses? A few months ago, the idea would’ve angered and horrified me; right now I was severely disinclined to care. St. George was done with me. I didn’t know where I would go from here; the Order had been my whole life. I didn’t know what else was out there. But one thing I was sure of: dawn would not find me standing in front of the firing wall, about to be executed for saving a dragon.
But we weren’t out of here yet.
Four hundred yards to the perimeter fence…and everything exploded.
As we huddled by a wall, ready to make that final dash over open ground toward the fence line, a siren blared, shattering the quiet. Ember jumped, and the other dragon cursed, pressing back into the wall as lights erupted all around us. Spotlights flashed to life, huge white circles gliding over the ground and scouring the sky. Doors opened, and soldiers began pouring from everywhere, looking confused but alert as they gathered in loose squads, gazing around warily.
“What’s going on?” Ember whispered.
“They know we’re here,” the other dragon spat. “Probably found the empty cell and the guards.” He swore again and peered around the corner, narrowing his eyes. “Wes, we’ve been discovered. Can you kill the lights?” A moment passed, and he shook his head. “Fine, then get out of here! Don’t worry about us—we’ll catch up at the rendezvous point.” He paused a moment, then snarled, “I don’t care, Wes, just go!”
Soldiers were everywhere now. I raised my gun, though I cringed at the thought of firing on my former brothers. “We’re not going to make it,” I told the other two quietly. And for a second, I felt a stab of regret that Ember had come. I’d wanted her to be free of St. George, to not live in fear of dragonslayers trying to kill her. Now, she would die here with me.
“It’s too far,” I told them as they glanced back. “There are too many between us and the fence line. We’ll never reach it without being seen. Ember…” I looked into her wide green eyes. She stared back without fear or regret, making my heart twist. “I’ll lead them away. They’ll be looking for me. You and Riley get out of here, any way you can.”
Her eyes flashed defiance. “Don’t you dare, Garret,” she almost snarled. “I didn’t come all this way to free you just to leave you behind again. That’s the most pointless thing I’ve ever heard.” She stepped away from the wall, and her eyes were glowing now, a luminous emerald green. “We’re getting out of here, all of us, right now!”
A searing white light swung around, pinning us in its glare. I winced and raised my arm to shield my face, just as the girl in front of me disappeared and a fiery crimson dragon reared up to take her place. Shouts rang out over the base, as the red dragon landed on all fours, dark wings outstretched, and roared a challenge that made the air shiver.
“Shit!” There was another ripple of energy as Ember’s companion shed his human form, becoming a sleek blue dragon with a fin down his neck and back. My pulse spiked as the two inhuman creatures turned on me, eyes glowing. Even now, instinct was telling me to run, that they were the enemy and I had to gun them down before they attacked and tore me to shreds.
Shots rang out behind me, sparking off the wall. E
mber snarled, flinching back, and I spun, raising my weapon. A patrol of two was rushing at us, guns drawn and firing on the dragons pinned in the spotlight. They hadn’t seen me, or rather, their attention was riveted to the creatures behind me. I raised my gun, silently asking forgiveness, and fired at their legs. The soldiers cried out and pitched forward, crashing to the ground, but I could see more running toward us. The whole base was alerted now and knew dragons were inside the compound.
“Garret!”
A metallic red body lunged to my side, and I had to force myself not to leap away as a narrow, reptilian face peered at me. “Get on,” the dragon said, lowering her wings. “Hurry! We have to fly.”
Get on? Ride a dragon? For a split second, I balked. Talking with dragons was one thing. Accepting their help was another. But riding one? Especially if I knew the dragon was also a slender, green-eyed girl I had kissed on more than one occasion?
With a roar, the blue dragon reared up and blasted a cone of fire at a patrol that came around the corner, guns raised. The soldiers fell back with cries and screams, and Ember snarled, baring her fangs at me.
“Garret, come on!”
I shook myself and vaulted onto her back. Her spines poked at me as I wrapped my arms around her neck and settled between the leathery wings. I could feel heat radiating from the scales, the muscles shifting and coiling beneath me, and I repressed a shiver. This was not the Ember I knew. The girl had vanished, any hints of humanity disappearing as the dragon moved, savage, majestic and terrifying at the same time. She craned her neck to look back at me, long muzzle close enough to show rows of fangs, the scent of ash and smoke curling from her jaws.
