by Jordan Rivet
It was too much. She couldn’t hold it.
Siv stared at her, his mouth open.
“Run!” she gasped.
She had to do something with all this Fire. She couldn’t hold it much longer, couldn’t release it all through the blade. But the only enemy in the room was her father. And she couldn’t hurt him. Even after all he had done, she couldn’t bring herself to unleash his own power against him.
So Dara blazed with all the Fire of the mountain, and it threatened to consume her.
Then her father pulled back. He recovered from his surprise enough to try to regain control of the Fire raging through the room. Siv had begun to move toward the door, but he wasn’t going fast enough.
Dara fought her father for control. She had to give Siv time to get away.
Now that Rafe was recovering from his surprise, Dara began to see how powerful he truly was. He seized more Fire and broke off molten threads that he sent snaking back toward the king. Dara could barely keep from burning to a cinder, much less carry out any other Work at the same time. She couldn’t stop the fiery darts streaking toward Siv. He ducked, and the volley of darts barely missed him.
The Savven blade began to burn in her palm, truly burn, and she smelled the sickly sweet of scorching skin, mixed with the scent of lightning.
“Let go, Dara,” Rafe said. “It’s too much.”
“You can’t kill him,” Dara said. Her teeth and jaw ached as she clenched them tight. Pain shot upward through the blade in her hand.
She met her father’s eyes and once again tried to draw the power from him. Fire welled up in her, like water boiling in a kettle. She was going to explode, she couldn’t hold anymore, but she had to keep trying.
Then a streak of silver-gold blurred through the air, and something clunked into the back of Rafe’s head. He released some of the Fire as he grunted in surprise. A ring of metal hit the ground and rolled away. Siv had thrown his crown at her father.
“Now, Dara, we have to run!” Siv shouted.
“I can’t . . . let . . . go.” Dara’s bones shuddered and crackled. If she let go now the Fire would destroy her.
“Give it to me,” came a dry, papery voice behind her. Then there was a hand on her shoulder, a ring glittering with obsidian. Zage Lorrid gripped her shoulders and pulled some of the raging Fire she held into his own body. Dara couldn’t let go, but Zage managed to drain some of the Fire from her, slowly enough that it wouldn’t hurt her. The pressure began to ease. She let her teacher take more of the Fire, knowing she had gone far behind the limits of her abilities. She gasped as the power bled out of her.
But then her father raised a hand and pulled the rest of the Fire to himself. It left Dara’s body like water bursting through a dam. She dropped to her knees, wrapping both hands around the scorching hot Savven blade. Her vision wavered, nearly going black.
Zage had been concentrating on drawing slowly so he wouldn’t hurt Dara. So he was unprepared when Rafe formed a spike of metal from the melted remnants of a sword on the floor and hurled it at him over Dara’s head.
She didn’t look up, but she heard the thud as the steel rammed through the Fire Warden’s body. She crawled forward on hands and knees, dragging her still-hot blade with her. But the Fire Warden didn’t fall. He called on the metal, on the Fire, and wielded them against the Lantern Maker.
The air burned as Rafe uttered a guttural sound, full of rage and defiance. Dara looked back. Pure fury twisted her father’s face, rendering it unrecognizable. Zage remained utterly silent, face pale and pained. Then both men raised their hands and fought for control of the Fire at last.
The Lantern Maker and the Fire Warden dueled. They wielded the Fire in its raw form. They used its heat to form weapons from the molten steel, silver, and gold coating the floor and hurled them at each other. Thunder boomed around them. They Wielded like the sorcerers of old, and Fire, metal, and stone flew through the air.
The light and power of the Fire were blinding, brilliant. The two master Workers glowed bright with the magic whirling around them. Neither one spoke. Dara couldn’t move as the duel raged.
Then Siv’s hands were on her arms, and he was pulling her up, dragging her toward the doors.
“We need to go now,” he said. “Move.”
“I can’t leave—”
“He will kill us, Dara.” Siv hauled her forward. She could barely stand. Her bones felt like glass.
As they stumbled through the doors, she looked back to see Zage slumping to his knees. Her father sent daggers of molten metal toward him once more, a fierce grimace of victory on his face. As a dozen daggers pierced Zage’s thin body, Rafe looked up and met his daughter’s eyes for one terrible moment. There was wrath and betrayal and Fire in his gaze.
Dara fled.
33.
Flight
SIV held Dara up as they staggered across the entrance hall. He didn’t understand everything that had happened back there, but he knew Rafe Ruminor would burn them away to nothing if they didn’t get out of the castle. After that furious torrent of rage and power, he wouldn’t count on the man’s affection for his daughter to save them now.
Dara appeared on the verge of losing consciousness. Fear that she was seriously injured cut through Siv, adding to the piles of dread he’d already felt that day. He knew the Fire could hurt Firesparked people if they lost control of it, but he had no idea how to care for that kind of damage.
“We have to get Sora, then we’ll get out of here,” he said.
“I can’t,” Dara gasped.
“Yes, you can.” Siv held Dara around the waist so she wouldn’t fall. He had to get her and his sister to safety before he could worry about anything else. “Come on, girl, we have to keep moving.”
But as they rushed toward the stairwell to the princess’s tower, footsteps thundered down it. Siv pulled Dara into an alcove as three masked swordsmen hurried out of the tower. Blood marked the tips of their blades.
The sight of the blood made him recoil. “No.”
A fourth man slowed at the entrance to the stairwell and stalked back and forth in front of it, lethal as a panviper. He guarded the only way up to Sora’s room. And Siv had no weapon.
“Give me your Savven.” He reached for the hilt and hissed as the metal scorched his skin. It was so hot he couldn’t even touch it, but Dara held onto it with her bare hands.
“It’s too late,” Dara said. She leaned against the wall, staving off collapse.
“No, it’s not.”
“Siv, it’s too late for her. I can’t fight, and there will be more men upstairs. You’re right: we have to get out of the castle.”
Siv shook his head and tried to take her blade again, biting back a curse as the metal singed his fingers. He would be useless in a fight if his sword melted the flesh off his bones.
More masked swordsmen darted through the castle toward the main entrance hall. The surviving Castle Guards had wisely hidden when the Lantern Maker and the Warden started slinging Fire, but they’d have their hands full now.
“Is there another way out?” Dara asked. “The kitchen tunnel is too far away.”
Siv looked at the swordsman guarding the entrance to his sister’s tower once more. He didn’t want to leave her. Blood glistened on the swordsman’s blade, as it had on those of the other men leaving her tower, too much blood. Grief reared within Siv, ugly and savage as a cullmoran. Sora. Poor wise Sora. He would add her to his list of people to mourn—later. They weren’t out of this yet.
“I have an idea,” Siv said. He slung Dara’s arm over his shoulder, waiting until the corridor cleared. At the first opportunity, he ran toward the entrance to the cur-dragon cave.
“We’ll be trapped down there,” Dara said when she realized where they were going. But she didn’t resist as he hauled her down the tunnel. She must truly be hurt. She normally told him straightaway when he had really stupid ideas.
None of the dragon keepers were in sight. Siv ho
ped they had taken refuge in the Guard barracks with the servants. The cur-dragons paced across the cavern, snorting restlessly, as if they could sense that something was amiss upstairs. They huffed and sneezed, and smoke drifted above their heads.
Rumy loped straight up to Siv when he opened the gate to the cave.
“Hey, little guy,” Siv said. “I need you to prove you’re as strong as I think you are.”
He helped Dara toward the opening looking out over the mountain, and Rumy trundled along at his side. He was the biggest cur-dragon in the cave now, bigger than he was supposed to be. The creature reared on his hind legs, putting his clawed feet on Siv’s shoulder, and stood almost as tall as Siv. Rumy sniffed at the blood on his face. Siv wasn’t even sure if it was his own blood or someone else’s at this point.
Outside, the night sky sparkled with ice. The blizzard had lessened in intensity, but crystals still swirled through the air. A thick blanket of snow, gray in the darkness, covered every surface. Far off to the right, Square Peak was still trapped behind the glowing wall of Fire. Siv only hoped Rafe Ruminor would take it down and spare the people on Square now that he’d won.
A steep cliff dropped away beneath the cave opening, designed to keep enemies from getting into the castle through the back. A road at the bottom of the cliff wound among quiet greathouses far from the hustle and bustle of the main slope of King’s Peak. It would be a steep dive, exposed against the cliff face, but with any luck no one would be looking this way.
“I need you, boy,” Siv said to his cur-dragon. “Carry her to the bottom of the cliff, then come back up for me.”
Dara stiffened. “Are you sure about this?”
“It’s not far,” Siv said. “Rumy can handle it.” He sincerely hoped that was true. He’d felt how strong Rumy was when he pulled against his lead, felt the power in his wings. He hoped it would be enough to carry Dara to safety.
“I won’t leave you,” Dara said.
“He’ll come right back for me. Won’t you, boy?”
Rumy snorted, his breath steaming in the air. A normal cur-dragon wouldn’t be able to carry a fully-grown woman, but Siv was pretty sure Rumy wasn’t a normal cur-dragon. He had to be part true dragon. It seemed impossible, but then a lot of things he thought were impossible had happened tonight.
“Siv.” Dara clutched his hand. “I’m sorry my father—”
“We don’t have time for that,” Siv said. “Hold on tight.”
He lifted Dara onto Rumy’s back and wrapped her arms around the creature’s neck, being careful not to touch the blistering Savven blade she still carried. He kissed her forehead, smelling lightning and metal in her hair, and stepped back.
He would have preferred to test out this escape method himself first, but there was a chance Rumy would be able to carry Dara but not Siv, and he had to make sure she got to safety. He led Rumy forward a few steps along the edge of the cliff. The cur-dragon walked easily enough with Dara on his back. Here’s hoping he could fly.
Siv checked once more that Dara’s grip was secure and gave Rumy a pat.
“Take it slow,” he said. “And don’t forget to come back for me!”
Rumy sneezed out a jet of flame and plummeted over the cliff. Siv nearly dove after him, fear sending an icicle through his chest, but Rumy’s wings opened, and he soared like a kite caught on the wind. Dara’s golden hair flew out behind them as Rumy glided away, carrying her into the darkness.
For a moment, all was still. Siv sat on the edge of the cliff. The other cur-dragons shuffled about in the darkness. He had locked the gate behind him, even though Rafe or one of his Fireworker allies could melt it away easily. And the masked swordsmen could very well have brought bows and arrows to the castle. Steel or Fire could pierce his body any second. But for now, Siv remained utterly still.
As he sat there, savoring these brief minutes of silence, he realized he was bleeding from a dozen different wounds. His black coat hid the worst of it, but he probably looked like a finely scored cut of meat underneath. And he was in all kinds of pain. Siv grimaced and shifted his position, poking gingerly at his wounds. None of the punctures seemed to open directly into any of his vital organs, but he couldn’t be entirely sure. He’d need someone to sew him up soon, though, if he had any allies at all left on his mountain.
Siv sighed, trying to ignore the stabs of agony when he moved, his breath clouding the air. He didn’t think he could call it his mountain anymore. Vertigon was lost to him.
Siv started to worry something had gone wrong with Dara’s escape. But then a squawk broke the silence, and Rumy soared through the darkness toward him.
“You made it! Is Dara okay?” Siv wrapped his arms around the creature’s scaly neck as Rumy landed beside him on the cliff’s edge.
Rumy huffed and growled as if he were offended that Siv had doubted him. He strutted back and forth along the edge of the cliff, preening.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re very strong. Think you can carry me too?”
Rumy fixed a bright, disapproving eye on him, not unlike the look Dara sometimes gave him.
Footsteps pounded down the tunnel, accompanied by loud voices. Someone was coming.
“Nothing for it, right?” Siv said. He climbed onto the cur-dragon’s back, his long legs dragging on the floor, and held on tight. “Please don’t drop me.”
Rumy coughed out a jet of flame and ambled forward. The brief bunching of his muscles was Siv’s only warning, then Rumy hurled himself out over the cliff.
Icy wind ripped through Siv’s hair, and his eyes watered from the cold. His position astride the cur-dragon pulled at every one of his many injuries. Rumy didn’t show off this time. He kept his wings outstretched, and with something between a glide and a plummet they left the castle behind. They fell faster than Siv would have liked. Rumy wouldn’t be able to carry him far.
The cur-dragon swerved, and for a moment Siv had a perfect view of all the peaks of Vertigon. The Village was cloaked in snow, the houses nestled cozily in its drifts. The Fissure was a dark smudge beneath him, occasionally interrupted by the lantern-lit bridges. King’s Peak, where he had spent most of his life, looked smaller from the air. And the wall of Fire burning around Square Peak illuminated it all.
They drifted lower, and Rumy beat his wings hard, straining to turn again. Siv held on tight, exhilaration and fear dueling through him. Finally they thumped to the ground and slid to an ungainly stop in a snowdrift. They’d made it.
Siv left smudges of blood behind as he crawled out of the drift.
“Good boy, Rumy,” he said, patting his cur-dragon on top of the head. Rumy snorted and flapped his wings like a thunderbird ruffling its feathers. “Now, where did you leave my Dara?”
“Over here,” Dara called. She hid in the shadow of a nearby dwelling. The windows were dark, and it didn’t look as if anyone had seen their arrival from the air.
Siv hurried over to join her, wincing as each step aggravated his wounds.
“Are you okay?”
“A little shaky,” Dara said. “I’m never doing that again.”
“Yeah? I think cur-dragon gliding could be the next big thing. Now, let me get my bearings. We’re going to need shelter, and soon.” Siv shivered. The icy wind wasn’t much milder here than it had been in the air.
“You’re bleeding,” Dara said, resting her hand on his chest above one of the many cuts he now sported.
“That’s the understatement of the year,” Siv said. The cold really wasn’t helping things in that department. His limbs had started to shake, jostling his wounds with each shudder. “Let’s see. That’s Pen Bridge, which means we’re probably at the far end of Eastwind Street.”
“Wait,” Dara said. “I know someone who lives here.”
“Trustworthy?”
For some reason, Dara snorted. “I guess she is at that. Follow me.”
Siv and Dara put their arms around each other and trudged through the snowy street. It was unclear at this poi
nt who was holding whom up. Siv wasn’t sure it mattered. Rumy followed along behind them, occasionally blasting holes in snowdrifts with jets of flame until Siv told him to cut it out.
He was beginning to think about lying down in one of those nice-looking drifts and going to sleep, when Dara slowed.
“This is it.” She nodded toward an older-looking greathouse with a wide terrace jutting out from the second floor. Siv was surprised, as he wouldn’t have expected her to deem a noble house worthy of trust.
Then Dara sighed heavily and said, “Welcome to House Silltine.”
34.
Daybreak
DARA used her last shred of energy to pound on the door of Vine Silltine’s greathouse. An unnatural stillness settled over her. It might be shock. She had faced her father. She had taken his power from him to protect Siv, finally revealing her ability, finally standing against him. She’d managed to stop her father from killing Siv with that fiery cage, but she knew she would have lost if the Fire Warden hadn’t shown up.
Poor Zage. She was surprised how much his death saddened her. There had been little warmth between them, despite all the time they’d spent training with the Fire. But he was a good man at his core. His desire for a peaceful Vertigon had been at the heart of everything he did—that and his need to atone for Renna’s death. And he had saved Dara’s life.
At the same time, Dara understood why her father hated having his power restricted. At the moment when the Fire filled her completely, though she thought her bones would turn to ash, Dara had felt invincible. It was a feeling she never achieved in the duels, no matter how hard she practiced. A new opponent could always come along and defeat her, or she could get injured and never step onto the dueling strip again. But when she held the Fire, the magic in her blood had whispered that no one could stop her. It was a lie, though. It would whisper of indestructibility right up until it killed her.
Still, she could see why her father craved unrestrained power. But he had destroyed the Peace of Vertigon to get it, and in doing so he had compromised his very soul.
