I reached the summit and Sedge pulled me the rest of the way up. The moment his hands grabbed mine, I felt a surge of familiar warmth and the brush of words against the silent reaches of my mind.
Nuaga.
I turned, trying to find Forest, but I saw only more dark shapes climbing the knoll. How had so many of them spotted us?
Sedge grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him. His expression was grim. Determined.
“All night,” he breathed. “All night, I ran in my dreams to the top of this knoll. And all I could understand was five words—‘T’Gonnen,’ ‘High King’s Hold,’ and ‘Rain.’ And the vision, over and over, of having my flesh burned with dragonbreath.”
“Nuaga’s mark.”
“I could never do that. I don’t have that kind of courage.”
Like a man possessed, he tore off his breastplate and shirt, tossing them to the ground. For only a second, an expression like revulsion crossed his face. Then he wrapped his arms around me and pressed me to his chest.
My first instinct was to scream. But the heavy scent of the oil, and the slipperiness of it against my cheek, brought me to my senses. Desperate for Nuaga’s help, I willed my arms around Sedge and pressed myself into his body.
Rain!
My heart did an ecstatic leap. Nuaga! Show me where to go!
Sedge cried out as if in pain. “Your words are in my head!”
I shushed him.
Climb the rest of the hill and veer to your left, along a narrow outcropping too small for a dragon’s claws. Follow it until you reach a slope that leads to a flat area concealed from view. The entrance to the catacombs will be under your feet.
“The sacrifice…”
Is complete.
Her words pierced my soul. I thought of Forest fighting alone on the hillside against three enemy soldiers, and how I had left him to die so that others would live. My heart threatened to shatter within me, and I remembered words from the Lament that hadn’t struck me before: She who knows the pain of parting knows its power.
T’Gonnen’s sacrifice wasn’t merely his own life—it was forever parting from his beloved mate. He had chosen Ylanda over Nuaga.
I dug my nails into Sedge’s back. “You’re in chains. Can you not free yourself?”
I cannot.
“Is there no hope?”
You are a she-king in your own right, Rain L’nahn.
Her words rang in my breast—words she had spoken to me before. And I knew what was to be.
We were dragon-sisters, Nuaga and I.
I would lead the dragons into battle in her stead.
“I’m coming,” I said.
I extricated myself from Sedge and faced the highest point of the rounded peak, where the hefty stone wall of the hold seemed to grow from the very earth. I picked up the dagger I had dropped and handed it to Sedge.
“Watch my back,” I said.
He nodded and took the dagger. I climbed the hill, my breaths coming in short gasps, my body strangely numb. Sedge was a few steps behind me struggling into his breastplate as we walked, his breathing loud in my ears. The outcropping was obscured by tangled brush, and I almost missed it. I followed it to the left, its length never-ending, its width so narrow that my boots felt too big. When I reached the slope, I was engulfed by the fear that I had come to the wrong place.
“There’s a doorway here somewhere,” I said. “In the ground.”
“There,” Sedge said, gesturing toward a tangle of half-dead vines that stretched across the expanse of earth as though they’d climbed there.
I fell to my knees and began to pull at the vines. Sedge knelt beside me, slashing the curling stems with his dagger so that I could pull them up more easily, faster. Every second felt like a day as we worked at the vines, but soon our efforts were rewarded. Beneath the remaining bits of stick and leaf, a slab of marble lay fitted into the earth.
A door.
Sounds of horns and shouting from the army below increased, carried on the wind. Was it the noise of attack? Between the wind and the pounding of my heart, I couldn’t be sure. I only knew I needed to open that door.
The surface was smooth, untouched by the ravages of time and weather. On one side, two great brass hinges were affixed, so I dug my fingers beneath the opposite side and lifted.
It opened easily. Of course it did. There was no need for a lock or other barrier—who in their right mind would willingly walk into the catacombs where mighty dragons slept?
“As soon as I’m inside, close the door,” I said.
I lowered myself through the trapdoor. Cut into the inner wall of the stone were deep slats—a steep ladder that would not in any way be easy to climb down. Darkness closed around me as I fitted one foot, then the other, into slat after slat, hand under hand, foot after foot.
At first, the stone was cold beneath my fingers. But after a minute or two, the air and the stone and everything around me was wrapped in a warmth that felt as though it had a life of its own.
The warmth of dragons.
The darkness was so complete that I could see nothing—not my hands in front of me, not the passage above me through which I’d already climbed. Looking down wasn’t an option; the only way I could keep my nerve was not to think about the distance beneath me.
Only step after step. Hand under hand.
The air became thicker, infused with the stillness of a dream and the buzz of vibrant, powerful life. The dark became less so with each step, until finally the tunnel was lit with a faint, almost-not-there, orangey-red glow. Enough to see by, but barely.
Then, suddenly, my foot couldn’t find another slot. After a few panic-filled moments, I braced myself and let go. The fall was short, and I landed on my feet in a chamber so large it felt like a world in itself. Around me, the faintly orange darkness swirled like living mist.
Same as the dream.
Creeping forward, I stepped into a large, oval depression, where tendrils of the swirling mist wrapped around my ankles and caressed my legs. The sensation was warm and familiar, like a hint of something I knew. My boots sank softly in shallow muck that, when I stood still, seemed to breathe.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the ruddy light, I could see a large archway that opened into a chamber beyond. I walked through it into what seemed to be a sort of honeycomb, branching out in three directions like a maze, with walls low enough for me to see over. Within each enclosure lay a dark, hulking shape, the orangey-red light emanating weakly from each one and the dark tendrils swirling, swirling around them.
I stared at the hulking masses sleeping before me. The salvation of Ylanda. The promised army.
All along, I’d worried I wouldn’t be able to wake them. That I would somehow stand mute and powerless in their presence, unable to do anything. But as I stood there, the thickness of their power curled into me with every breath, a familiar feeling that I recognized from every dream, every conversation, with Nuaga.
I’d been forever marked by her—a clanmate of the dragons. They would know me, because the mate of T’Gonnen had left her mark on me. Fear faded like a dying storm.
A deep, bone-jarring thud echoed through the catacombs. I tensed, thinking at first that it was the dragons and wondering if I might be trampled to death. A second thud rang out, and a wave of dread tore through me.
It was the sound of boulders slamming into the hold. The enemy had unleashed its catapults.
I had to wake the dragons now.
I moved toward the closest one. It was at least a third bigger than Nuaga, its scales a deep red, the mane around its face long and majestic. A male dragon.
Another thud reverberated through the catacombs. And another. Tiny stones and debris rained from the ceiling. I stepped toward the dragon and placed my hand, fingers splayed, on his neck.
Everything inside me went utterly still. Like a blanket of snow over the heat of summer.
Another thud rocked the catacombs. I stared at the dragon’s eye, willing it to open, and terrified of what it would look like when it did.
The thudding increased, and so did the swirling vapor, rolling into a frenzy around the dragons, around me.
I took a great breath. “S’danta lo ylanda.”
The dragon’s eye opened.
I met its gaze, willing myself to keep my hand where it was and not to shrink. He blinked once, twice. Then, slowly, he lifted his head and turned it directly toward me. I stepped backward. The swirling mist rose higher, thinner.
Dragon-waker.
His words knifed into my brain with palpable presence, and I winced at their force. Then I raised my chin, confident.
“Yes.”
Across the catacombs, in competition with the thudding of the stones from the catapults, the dragons stirred. Great heads rose on sleek necks, and hundreds of eyes caught the light of the mist as it dissipated.
The dragon I had laid my hand on still stared at me. He arched his neck so that his face was directly before mine. This time, when he spoke, it wasn’t inside my head.
“Show me the mark of Nuaga,” he said.
I removed my breastplate and laid it beside me, then turned around and lifted my shirt. When I felt he had gazed long enough at my ruined back, I let the shirt fall and turned to face him.
“The hold is under attack. The nomads seek to kill the high king and claim the dragons.”
His face brightened into what looked very much like a smile. “But we are awake now.”
All at once, the words of the dragons coursed through my head and through the catacombs as they called to one another, relaying the message and preparing to move forth.
But how? I felt suddenly vulnerable, unable to withstand a dragon stampede. I retrieved my breastplate and pulled it on, the power of T’Gonnen pulsing through me, rising with every breath.
Then I grabbed the red dragon’s mane and pulled myself onto his neck—an immense neck, harder to navigate than Nuaga’s. With all the strength still in me, I swung up and mounted, holding fast.
“Where is the mighty Nuaga?” the dragon asked.
“I am Nuaga’s dragon-sister. I will lead you into battle.”
A rumbling of wordless exclamation cascaded through the chamber, rising in intensity. I tightened my grip and sat tall.
“We rise!” the red dragon cried. “We rise!”
In a tumult greater than that of any storm, the dragons arose as one, moving forward through the catacombs, breaking down the walls that once separated their sleeping areas, trampling the abandoned beds and broken pieces of stone in their headlong rush through the caverns.
The noise was so thunderous, so deafening, that my ears ached and I couldn’t hear the sound of my own scream. The dragons surged forward as support posts cracked and chunks of ceiling fell. I pressed my cheek to the dragon’s pelt and wrapped my arms around him, breathing in centuries-old dust and the heady scent of dragon as we lumbered forward through the dark. All around me was chaos and heat and the newly woken power of the dragons, which coursed through me like a living thing, calling my heart to their purpose. Moments before it happened, I knew we were going to break free—and I didn’t know if I would survive it. The very earth cracked open above us, breaking into a million pieces as the dragons tore up from the catacombs, bellowing with arched necks and open maws, majestic and terrible as they trampled up and over the crumbling ground toward the enemy.
I raised my head as daylight momentarily blinded me. All around me, a sea of dragons surged forward toward rows of nomad soldiers that seemed, in comparison, minuscule. Inconsequential.
Screams of terror rose above the cacophony of the dragons as they bore down upon the army, trampling the catapults and the men as though they were mere dust and breathing their heated breath toward those who tried to flee. I rode at the right flank, passing Nuaga in her chains and veering toward a wave of soldiers who had broken formation and were running out of the path of the oncoming dragons. I tightened my legs around my dragon’s neck and sat tall, the fierceness of the clan raging in my veins. Rain L’nahn, sister-dragon to Nuaga, she-king in her own right.
My dragon slowed as it cut a path of heated breath before it, felling the soldiers seeking to escape. I closed my eyes, unwilling to watch them melt and burn before my eyes. We trampled them underfoot as we turned, then, to join the surge of dragons that closed in on the bulk of Tan Vey’s army, allowing them no escape.
The prisoners! I mind-spoke.
Without hesitation, my dragon turned and headed toward the rows of terrified Ylanda soldiers, shackled together and tripping over each other as they tried to escape. We swung around them, cutting them off from the advancing dragons.
“Retreat to the west!” I called. “The dragons are for Ylanda!”
They stared as though I were a dragon myself. Then, as if of one mind, they gathered their wits and began to move. My dragon and I held our ground until they were well on their way. As we turned to rejoin the throng, I looked up and saw Tan Vey’s pavilion in flames.
A roar of satisfaction left my throat as my dragon reared his neck and we returned to the heat of battle. By now, Tan Vey’s army was a cowering mass of nomads who had dropped their weapons, desperate to outrun Nuaga’s army. Jasper’s words burned in my memory: If the enemy turns from you and runs away, you must attack … he must become nothing.
“In the name of Nuaga!” I cried. “Onward, for Ylanda!”
The triumph of the dragons was almost complete. We were slowing now, crushing already-dead nomads and searching the perimeter for any who had found a way to break through. The stench of scorched flesh was acrid in my nostrils as we headed toward a small band of nomads seeking to escape. My dragon’s breath burst forth as he slowed to a near-stop for better aim. I sat tall, and this time I didn’t close my eyes.
Sharply and suddenly, something grabbed my leg, and I fell, landing forcefully on the dirt.
I rolled quickly and drew my sword. Two enemy soldiers were upon me almost before I’d jumped to my feet. I moved quickly from the second to the third stance and kicked the first soldier’s sword from his hand before swinging to engage the second. Our swords met with a clash that sent a shock up my arm. He was swift and deadly, and I danced away from the sweep of his blade while keeping the other soldier in my view.
If death came now, it wouldn’t matter. The dragons were free. The kingdom would be saved.
And yet I wanted to live.
I cried out and came at my attacker with renewed vigor, dragon power hot in my blood. We were evenly matched strike for strike, until I feinted and turned on him with Neshu footwork, gaining an advantage and striking a killing blow. I turned before he hit the ground to engage the other soldier, who had regained his weapon and was bearing down on me, a guttural roar in his throat. Immediately, I sensed his prowess with the sword and knew I was outmatched. Each move I made was defensive; each step I took was backward. My breaths came in raw gasps as I tried to gain the upper hand.
The dragons continued to clamor and rumble forth, the sound muffled and distant in the heat of my own battle. I’d lost my focus, intent on the panicked countermoves that kept me alive.
Papa, help.
I reached deep inside for my centeredness, past the thudding of my heart and the fear of death. I found the second stance, parried my enemy’s next blow, and then shifted my weight, twisting in a perfect arc and kicking him in the chest. He staggered, and I disarmed him with a move Papa would have been proud of. I kicked the sword out of our path as the soldier unsheathed his dagger. I dropped my own sword and pulled the dagger from its sheath on the back of my breastplate.
This was a fight I could win.
My opponent matched my Neshu stance, and we circled twice before engaging, our daggers poised. He was good, and his knife arm deadly—but I was better. It didn’t take long for him to make a misstep, and when he hesitated, I did not.
My Great Cry was almost lost amid the tumult of the dragons, and as my enemy landed hard on his back, I lunged toward him, finishing him quickly with my dagger. Breaths ragged, vision dotty, I raised my dagger and spun, scanning to see if anyone else was coming at me.
But I stood alone among the dead.
Rain. Nuaga’s voice, strong inside my head now that the dragons were awake, drew me, and I turned and ran toward the pit where she was chained. Around her lay the charred remains of those who had guarded her earlier. As the dragons thundered over the remaining catapults, I jumped onto Nuaga’s back, surveying the seven chains around her neck, thicker than any chain I’d seen.
The passion of T’Gonnen rose within my breast, and my hands burned with a heat that couldn’t be contained. From the first chain, I took a link in each hand and pulled, a Great Cry ushering from my throat unlike any I’d ever given. The metal gave way as though it were fresh cream, the chains falling to the sides of the pit with a dull clatter. I did the same for the remaining chains, pulling them apart as if they were grass necklaces, until the last one fell from Nuaga’s neck and she stepped out.
“My wounds have healed, dragon-sister,” she said. “My breath is hot again.”
I slid from her back so that she could take her place with the others, her glorious bellows joining theirs. The last catapult toppled before my eyes as Nuaga raced across the death-strewn field toward the mighty dragon army, taking her place as their she-king in command.
For several heartbeats, I watched her. Then I turned my gaze to the hold, to survey its damage. A dark shape moved up the left side, clambering over a broken area where the stones were jagged and torn. Heavy boots, braided armor, a thick cluster of coiled hair hanging down his back.
Tan Vey.
I stared, disbelieving. Then, the weight of dragon power still heavy upon me, I ran to the hold and climbed as though I were a spider, the strength of my hands to grasp the stone beyond what I could comprehend. I bypassed the balcony to avoid being seen by anyone inside who might think me the enemy and continued climbing until I’d reached the roof.
I drew my dagger and waited.
He appeared moments later over the broken edge of the hold, hoisting himself up and over and rising quickly to his feet—he was no taller than Sedge. I assumed the second stance and met his gaze as he looked up. A flash of surprise flickered across his face before it hardened into an unfeeling mask.
“Are you the dragon-waker?” His words were clipped. Gruff.
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m the dragon-sister of Nuaga.”
A slow smile grew across his mouth. “You’re a boy.”
“No,” I said. “I’m a girl.”
I raised my dagger and moved fluidly into the third stance. He matched me, his own dagger almost twice the length of mine. We circled each other, and he eyed me as though I were of little consequence.
“The high king’s life belongs to me,” he said. “You’re a minor distraction.”
“It’s over,” I said.
“It’s only begun.”
His first move was swift as lightning; I matched him and countered. Three more times he came at me, measured and precise, his dagger swiping close. And three times I blocked him. I switched to the offensive, dancing to his left and incorporating a series of moves I had perfected under Jasper’s training. Tan Vey was fast, though, and he matched and outsmarted me, nearly knocking the dagger from my grasp.
I recovered and came at him again, this time thrusting my knife arm sharply upward against his wrist, so that his dagger clattered to the stone. Without missing a beat, he pulled something from his belt and tore it open with his teeth. He tipped whatever was inside it into his mouth and chewed as though it were made of leather. He grimaced and swallowed noisily, his gaze never leaving mine.
Within seconds, his eyes bulged, glowing fiery orange and gold, and his lips grew deep red, stretching and curling into an inhuman snarl. I stepped back, too stunned to react. He took a great, rattling breath and exhaled. Dragonbreath exploded from his mouth toward my face. I ducked and rolled away, barely avoiding the stream of deadly heat.
He threw back his head and bellowed, his voice a strange mixture of dragon and man. “I am Ylanda’s high king!”
Whatever dragon magic he’d swallowed would give him the advantage he needed to enter the hold and kill everyone inside it. And I was the only one who could stop him.
The power of T’Gonnen still raged within me. I drew myself up and gave it free rein; it coursed through me like a second stream of blood, and I felt my own breath grow hot, deep in my lungs.
Tan Vey lunged toward me, dragonbreath streaming from his mouth. I leaped higher than I should have been able to and landed safely out of his aim. I turned on him and breathed my own heated breath; it tore from my lungs and savaged the air before me. Tan Vey twisted out of its path, lithe and limber as a dragon.
I assumed the third stance and came at him again, my breath coiled within me, ready to strike. Tan Vey rose up, his head thrown back, blood trickling from the corners of his eyes. He roared, a mixture of anger and anguish, and then he threw his breath at me again.
Its heat singed my hair as I danced out of the way, sending my own breath toward him. He rolled to the side, bellowing as my breath swept over his left flank. When he rose, his face was livid, striped with blood and misshapen by a mouth that was too big. Driven by power that was greater than he could bear, he attacked with a series of Neshu moves so rapid that my responses flagged, and he caught me in the chest with a kick so powerful that I flew backward and landed hard. He inhaled noisily, ready to finish me with a final breath, but I jumped to my feet and roared my own breath at him, causing him to leap and twist out of the way, his dragonbreath shooting harmlessly upward.
He landed near the edge of the roof, his entire body visibly trembling. I drew another breath, but before I could exhale, he threw back his head and screamed, blood gushing from his eyes and nose. He staggered, then fell backward off the roof, his scream slicing the air until, suddenly, it stopped.
I walked to the edge of the roof. Tan Vey’s body lay among the rubble where the dragons and I had arisen through the catacombs. I stared at the broken form of the man who had been undone by his lust for the dragons’ power. Then I drank in the scene of the dragons’ triumph, pressing my hands over my mouth as I stared at the carnage, the utter destruction of the enemy who had sought to destroy our kingdom.
For several crowded heartbeats, I remained one with the spirit of T’Gonnen, high king of dragons, as he exulted over the victory of his clan, the faithfulness of his mate … the return of the dragons to Ylanda. The heat of my breath, the length of my fangs, the flowing beauty of my mane—I felt it all, breathed it all, as though my flesh and bones were dragon-shaped. I bellowed, and it was a deep and resonant sound, imbued with the strength of the dragon who had sacrificed himself for this very moment.
The voice of T’Gonnen.
In a rush, the power faded, and I felt suddenly small and spent. I fell to my knees, arms dropping to my sides. And I closed my eyes.
From across the field came Nuaga’s answering cry. Then the entire clan joined in, keening and bellowing in a glorious tumult. I opened my eyes and gazed at their magnificence … their utter beauty.
We will bring news of the victory to Ylanda City, dragon-sister!
I smiled, Nuaga’s voice sweet and familiar inside my head. As one, the dragons turned toward our capital to the north, moving with such grace and majesty that my throat ached.
An unearthly silence fell. Below me, stretched across the plain, lay the broken remains of what had been a mighty army from the north. Nothing moved; no hint of life rose from the battlefield.
I breathed in, long and deep, and let out a shuddering sigh.
“Rain.”
Battle-ready, I leaped to my feet and turned around, landing in the second stance. Jasper stood at the other end of the rooftop, blood trailing down his face from a gash across his brow. He extended his hands, palms up.
“Jasper.” I stared at him, not moving.
“Who … what … was that?”
“Tan Vey.”
He approached me cautiously, as though I might suddenly leap from the hold. When he reached the edge, he gazed blank-faced at the devastation below.
“Dragons…?”
I nodded. “I woke them.”
He stared at the carnage, his face contorting with emotion I couldn’t name. Slowly, he turned to me. “I’m sorry. I—” He pressed his lips together.
“You were angry.”
“I let anger cloud my judgment,” he said. “Everything you accomplished—it had nothing to do with being a man or not. I’m … sorry.”
A weight, hard and unyielding, lifted from my heart. “I forgive you.”
“The bindings you offered,” he continued. “They made a difference. It’s hard to explain, but my bones started to heal more quickly than they should have. The pain is nothing more than a dull ache now.”
“Dragon magic,” I whispered.
“I believe you.” He smiled. “Thank you.”
It was the moment I’d dreamed of for weeks—Jasper’s complete acceptance of me as a girl-warrior. But my heart was black with the loss of the man who had loved me best, and the knowledge that I had chosen Ylanda’s survival over his.
“Jasper!”
I turned to see River, and then Briar, leap onto the rooftop.
“How did you find me?” I asked Jasper, overwhelmed to see the living, breathing faces of my friends.
“We set off shortly after Sedge,” Jasper said. “We were right behind him when he went to your aid, and right behind the nomads that meant to stop you.”
“But how—”
Words froze in my throat as Forest stepped onto the roof.
