such desperate relief that I almost release my grip and fall to my death. Catching myself, I haul myself higher and higher up the banister until I finally reach the top. My arms and legs shake as I pull myself back onto the slippery ice.
Part of me just wants to die from exhaustion.
An enormous, strong hand grabs me by the throat.
A wave of shock pounds into me as I’m lifted right off my feet, gasping for air. My back hits the wall hard, my feet dangling as instinct makes me claw at the Neverseen King’s grip with my fingernails.
I can’t even gasp as my vision starts to go black.
Then, just as fast as it came, the hand opens. I fall to my feet, then my knees. The uneven ice bruises hard against my tender skin—until it’s not ice anymore. It shifts, melting away into a soft rug. The normal rug that lines this hallway. Did he manage to close a portal, and thus deactivate the House’s defenses?
“Nadira?” the Neverseen King hisses, his voice almost frantic as he drops next to me. He curses—a sharp, angry sound. “What are you doing? Great Kings, I almost killed you! Where did the other—” He whips his head around, his shoulders rising and falling with panting breaths.
“I killed it,” I gasp, leaning against the wall.
My vision is suddenly blocked by his shadow looming over me, bending down close to my face. Eyes widening and throat going dry, I can almost forget the ragged pain of each swallow as the Neverseen King’s fingers—now so gentle—brush against my neck. The callused thumb he runs across the fresh bruises scrapes against tender flesh, but not unpleasantly. I shiver, whether from the constant pounding of adrenaline or the rush of blood from his proximity. From his severe mouth hovering so close.
“Does this hurt?” he asks.
Another roar from below us sends dust crumbling from the ceiling and my bones rattling. The Neverseen King throws his arms against the wall, bowing his head over mine, his body a shield against raining debris. I keep one hand on the wall, while the other has somehow found its way to his tunic and clenched hard in the fabric. I can almost feel the pounding of his heart beneath my fingers once the rumbling stops.
He tilts his head so we’re looking at each other. Only separated by a hand’s breadth. It’s strange to stare into a face lost to shadows, and yet . . . it’s like I can see him anyway. The part of him that matters.
One of his hands lets go of the wall, lands gently on my neck. My instinct is to stiffen, my breath coming faster, but I try to not react.
“It’ll just take a second,” he says. The strain hasn’t left his voice.
Eshe. Safya. Are they alright? Did they hide—or did the dragon find them and crush them in his jaws like he did to that other creature? And what about the mist? Is it reaching for us even now?
I grab his wrist. It’s so wide my hand can’t wrap around it. His gaze sharpens, and I look away. “Don’t.” The word is a little raspy, but I clear my throat and continue. “You need your strength.”
“What?” He frowns.
As much as I want to stay here, sheltered in his arms, I’m desperately aware of the danger around every corner. Now that I can breathe, I push his wrist away, shooting him an arch look. “I don’t want you fainting again.”
“I knew I wasn’t going to live that down,” he growls, but makes no move to fight me. Instead, he pushes up to his feet, then offers me his hand while glancing over his shoulder down the hallway. I grasp his forearm, and he hauls me up. “Where are the others? Why aren’t you in your room?” He sniffs, and almost stumbles back a step, cursing sharply. “Do I smell Crenfyre up here?”
“There’s a mist,” I say. I haven’t let go of his arm yet. “It came in through the window.”
He hasn’t let go of mine either. But he does curse again. “Then you did freeze my poor octalthi. Where are the rest of the women?”
“Downstairs. And . . .” My stomach turns.
“And what?”
“Gaya’s dead.”
Silence falls. A silence in which I think he closes his eyes, flexes his jaw. Then he’s in motion, dragging me toward the stairwell. The stairs are back. Such a relief.
“The dragon!” I gasp, stumbling down the steps after him.
Right then, an alarmingly close screech echoes down the hallway from below. The Neverseen King ducks below the rail, plants a square hand on my head, and shoves me to my knees beside him. With each quiet pant, his shoulders brush mine, his cloak half falling over me as we hide.
“I closed two of the portals so far,” whispers the Neverseen King. “There’s two more left. The dragon’s, and Crenfyre.”
I shoot a look at him. “Already?”
Teeth glimmer back at me—a grin. “I told you I’ve managed quite well on my own.”
Before I can help myself, a small smile twitches the edge of my lips. I have the almost overwhelming urge to tuck in closer against his side. The brush of his shoulder against mine is nearly torture. I want to lean into him.
But we’re trying not to die.
I need to keep my stupid brain clear.
“What do we do?” I whisper, getting my knees up into a crouch and planting my hand squarely on the floor. My other hand rests on the hilt of a knife in my belt.
“I need to close those portals. Especially Crenfyre. Then it’s just taking down the dragon . . .”
Just taking down the dragon. Of course. He says it as if he’s done it a hundred times before.
“The sun will set soon,” he continues, his deep voice nothing but a rumble, “and the House’s defenses will activate again. If you and the others can stay safe until then, the House might manage to kill the dragon while I’m . . . busy.”
“If the House doesn’t kill it?”
“Then I’ll have to hunt it down when I’m free.”
“Can it leave the palace? Escape into the city?”
The shadow of his jaw flexes. “Yes.”
“Then we can’t wait until you’re done closing the portals to deal with the dragon.” I glance back over my shoulders up the staircase, just checking to be sure the mist hasn’t started creeping down the stairs after us. So far, so good.
The Neverseen King is silent. He knows I’m right but doesn’t want to admit it.
A harsh roar makes both of us flinch and duck lower. It sounds like the dragon is pacing the hallway. Looking for a way out of the palace? Or more people to eat?
“Let Safya, Eshe, and I take care of the dragon,” I whisper, almost not believing the words escaping my mouth. A week ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of voluntarily going after a monster.
A week ago, things were very different.
“And let you three be killed?” he hisses. “No.”
“Seems slightly hypocritical, coming from the man who forced us into lethal competitions in the first place,” I hiss back.
“Do you take sport in purposefully misunderstanding me?”
“Do you take sport in coddling me? I’m an assassin, Sultani.”
“You remind me of that so constantly I’m beginning to think you believe me incapable of remembering. If I intended to coddle you, I’d tie you up and lock you in a vault until this was all over.”
I shoot him a glare. “We are clearly operating on two different definitions of coddle.”
He wipes a hand down his face, sighing. “We’re acting like idiots. Listen, Mourner, you can go after that Kings-cursed dragon if you are thus determined. But if Eshe dies because you three are humans facing a dragon, then don’t blame me.”
As if on cue, a scream bursts into my awareness.
Panic floods my body. The Neverseen King curses. I’m in motion before I can even think, flying down the stairs. He runs at my heels, already abandoning his portals.
Orange glows at the end of the hallway, like embers between the cracks of dragon scales. But the scream came . . . from the other direction? The dragon’s head swivels toward us at the same time I swivel mine toward the other end of the hallway.
“Get out of the way, idiot!” Eshe hisses. “I’m distracting it!”
I sag in relief.
“I’m going to close the portals,” says the Neverseen King—and vanishes. But not before one of his hands finds mine and squeezes.
It’s so discombobulating that I barely remember to duck beneath the railing before a volley of fire shoots through the hallway, straight toward Eshe. She scrambles out of the way, slipping into some hiding spot I cannot see.
My heart pounds as heat waves blast my face. Kill a dragon? What do I know—what do any of us know about killing a dragon? The creature marches down the hallway on its four legs, making the foundation shudder with each step as it swings its head from side to side.
An arrow whizzes through the air from the opposite end of the hallway, where the dragon just was. Safya. It bounces harmlessly off scales, clattering to the floor. The dragon doesn’t even turn.
I stay in my hiding spot, not daring to breathe as the dragon lumbers past me. Smoke clogs my nostrils anyway, until my eyes burn and I can barely keep from choking.
Get out of the way, Eshe! I want to scream.
If arrows cannot pierce its scales, then knives will be equally useless. Unless I can somehow get close enough without it sensing me to slide my knife between them? Or maybe we ought to focus our efforts on its eyes, nose, mouth?
Both sound like expedient ways to die.
My eyes snag on something in front of me.
My rope.
I snatch it up quickly, winding it around my hand, feeling the frayed edge where the moon-eyed creature had cut it. Can we choke the dragon? Is such a thing even possible? Are we strong enough? Perhaps if we had leverage . . .
It hits me just as Safya screeches and releases a volley of arrows at the dragon, making its head swing back toward her. Dangerously close to me.
I know exactly how to kill it.
It’s so obvious, I feel stupid.
But how can I do this without killing myself? That remains the question.
Working furiously, I pull my small, pronged anchor from my belt and securely knot the rope to it. I tie new knots along the rope, a foot or so apart. I rip my askew headscarf from around my neck and dodge the whipping dragon tail that smashes into the banister, breaking wood into kindling.
Then I release my own shout.
The dragon’s golden eyes swivel toward me, angry fire puffing from its nostrils. Two slit pupils narrow at the sight of me, then dilate.
Oh sands.
I turn on my heel and race up the stairs, abandoning the headscarf to flutter to the ground. Apparently I didn’t need to coax it into chasing me as much as I expected. It’s riled up and furious after the games Safya and Eshe had played with it.
Tucking its wings in close, its claws catch hold of the stairs and banister railing, wood breaking and moaning as the enormous creature launches itself at me. I run as fast as I can, cursing with each pounding beat of my frantic heart.
Sorry, banister, I think as I lead the dragon around the curve of the stairs. It gives me just the slight advantage I need, slowing down the dragon so I can reach the top before its jaws snap me in half.
The moment I’m at the top, however, my skin almost burning from the heat close behind me, I have a new danger. My eyes don’t have time to adjust to the darkness after seeing fire, so I don’t know where the mist—Crenfyre—is exactly.
This could go so wrong, so quickly.
Gritting my teeth, I launch myself at one of the wall sconces. It immediately shifts under my weight, but doesn’t give out as I pull myself, panting, up the wall and balance one foot precariously on the sconce, the other on the slight lip of the door frame’s lintel. Crenfyre seemed to generally stick to the floor.
But being this high puts me almost at eye-level for the dragon that has torn its way to the top of the stairs. Perfect for being roasted to a crisp.
“Why is this my life?” I mutter under my breath as I yank out my rope and squint up at the chandeliers hanging in between the expansive glass panes on the ceiling. These chandeliers aren’t the multifaceted crystal wonders that hang from the ceilings of other rooms in the palace. They’re much simpler, made of polished brass, and hanging from a chain.
The dragon roars.
Everything shakes. I fall into a crouch, gripping the underside of the door lintel with my fingernails in one hand, and the curved underside of the sconce in the other hand. The sconce gives, pulling away from the wall a fraction more. I curse again, bracing myself as I stare wide-eyed at those furious, slitted pupils as they burst onto the second floor.
Crimson scales glow orange with the fire ready to burst from the dragon’s throat.
No time to catch my balance, I shove up on my feet and throw the rope and anchor up toward the chandelier. Please, please, please, please—
It catches.
I leap. Please hold. Please hold. Please hold!
The chandelier swings wildly. I fly through the air, away from the dragon, trying to pull myself up the knots I tied. Then the trajectory of my swing changes, heading right toward the dragon’s gaping jaw that extends to me.
There’s no time to think, breathe, curse.
I desperately pull myself up one more knot, grab hold of the chandelier, and barely manage to swing my legs up just as teeth snap empty air beneath me.
“Oh sands,” I whimper, clinging to the underbelly of the chandelier like a fly. If I wasn’t so terrified, I’d be throwing up from this gyrating motion.
“Nadira!” screams Eshe from the staircase.
“Go away!” I scream back. “Don’t distract it! I’ve got a plan!”
The dragon moves directly beneath me. I try to pull myself up on top of the chandelier, but my fingers grow slicker with sweat by the second. My muscles quiver with strain. Maybe my sweat will drip into its eyes and sting them.
I’m going to die.
This is it.
And in such a stupid way.
The dragon lifts itself up on its hind legs, its elongated neck bringing its head closer to me. Closer, closer, closer. Apparently it doesn’t want to roast me—but eat me raw.
“Oh sands,” I breathe again.
The dragon freezes.
I try to peer over my shoulder without losing my grip. Something white swirls around the dragon’s feet, leeching the color from its glistening red scales, crawling over its magnificent body. The sight is almost . . . sad.
I look away, clinging to the chandelier and staring my unfocused eyes at the sunset stained sky, visible through the glass ceiling. Blood rushes to my head. I almost died. Now is not the time to be mourning the loss of a beautiful creature that would have snapped me in half with its powerful jaws.
Now is time to figure out how to get down without facing the same fate as the dragon.
The palace shakes when the enormous body hits the ground. The chandelier shakes too, and another whimper escapes my lips as I fight to keep my grip. If only I was certain enough of my hands that I could swing my legs free, find the rope, and balance my feet on a knot. Alas, if I move one inch, I’m going to fall. Right into the swirling mist.
“Nadira?” calls Eshe.
“Don’t come any closer,” I call, my voice trembling with my limbs as I cling to the chandelier. “The mist is below me!”
“Nadira!” She must be at the top of the stairs, craning her neck to look up at me. “How did you get up there?”
“Go away!” I shout again, and I barely restrain a whimper as my grip starts to slip. “The mist will kill you!”
“It’s still occupied with the dragon,” she says flippantly, then whistles low under her breath.
“Eshe. Please.”
“You should worry more about yourself than me.”
“I am worried about myself,” I grit out.
There’s silence for a long moment. I breathe in and out through my teeth, sweat dripping into my eyes as I stare up at the window ceiling. At the last light of day leaking away into night. What if the Neverseen King cannot close Crenfyre’s portal before night falls and the House’s defenses activate again? I assume this hallway will turn back into a river, and it seems too much to hope it would still be frozen.
My nails scrape polished brass as they slowly slide, losing their grip. I curse, tightening my fingers. The strain brings tears to my eyes.
“Safya!” calls Eshe. “I need a second opinion here!”
“Don’t call her!” I cry. “She’ll shoot me down!”
Eshe doesn’t respond. Perhaps she glares at me for my jaded opinion of people. But Safya has already threatened to kill me, and now is the perfect opportunity.
When Safya comes up the stairs, she’s so quiet I don’t know she’s come until Eshe says sweetly, “Don’t kill her, or I’ll bite off your big toe. And eat it. Now, how do we get her down?”
“Watch the mist,” Safya growls, and it sounds like she’s retreating.
“Yes, thank you, I am. Now how do we get her down that does not involve shooting or bodily harm—and gets her out of the way of the mist? It’s still directly below her.”
“Not my problem.”
“Stop where you are,” Eshe snaps. “Don’t you dare take another step down.”
A deliberate step sounds through the air. Followed by a second. Then a third.
“We are your only option,” snarls Eshe, and I think it might be the darkest I’ve ever heard her voice. “You may think the Neverseen King is your ally, but he’ll sacrifice any of us for his purpose, and he won’t hesitate to kill us if we cross a line. You can walk away now, but if you do, you’ll lose your only allies. If you’re in trouble, we won’t help. Not if you leave now.”
“There’s no such thing as an ally,” Safya replies, her tone cool. “The sooner you learn that everyone has their own agenda, and that you’re either a tool or an obstacle, the better off you’ll be. It’s a miracle you’ve survived as long as you have.”
When I try to twist my ankles into the chandelier for a better grip, it starts swinging. Even though the motion is subtle, it sends my stomach pitching. I count my breaths, waiting for it to stop. During the span of those breaths, there’s no sound coming from below.
Then a quiet hiss: “You assassins and your cynicism. Doesn’t it ever get old?”
“Not really thinking about cynicism right now,” I gasp. “Just stay away from the mist. I’ll . . . think of something.”
A lie. Thinking is impossible right now.
“Hang on, Nadira. I’m going to find the Neverseen King.”
“Don’t! Don’t distract him! He needs to—”
“Wait! The mist . . .”
“What?” I gasp, jerking my head up as blood rushes to my brain. The chandelier starts swinging again. “Is it reaching higher?”
“It’s . . . it’s . . .”
“It’s what?”
“It’s melting. Into the floor.”
“It is?” Hope surges so heady that I nearly forget to maintain my grip. “It’s going away?”
“Yes! It’s half gone already!”
He did it. He must have closed the portal. Bless him! I could weep from relief.
“Keep holding on! Once the mist is gone, I’ll grab your mattress and pull it out beneath you. In case you fall.”
I should be able to fall and not get hurt, but I don’t trust myself with something as simple as rolling when I hit the ground. My muscles shake too much, adrenaline clouding my vision, panic muddling my thoughts.
Then his voice cuts through the panic. Sharp, authoritative, but also . . . afraid. “Nadira! Where—”
“We’re up here!” calls Eshe.
He’s back.
His heavy footsteps thump against wood as he hurries up the staircase. He curses sharply.
“The mist is almost gone!” Eshe calls up to me. “I’m going to—”
There’s a muted sound, like the Neverseen King has snatched Eshe’s shoulder before she dove into action. “Don’t move until it’s gone. The edge of its fingers are invisible, and even in this form it’s deadly. Don’t step into the hallway until it’s gone.”
“But she might fall!”
“Mourner?” he calls. “Can you hold on for another minute?”
I ignore the cramping in my hands. “Yes!”
“When the mist is gone, I’m going to stand below you. When I tell you to, let go. I will catch you.”
No chance. I’ll flatten him. I say nothing, however, because I don’t have the strength to argue.
“Nadira?”
“Yes?” I grit out.
“Will you do that?”
“No.”
The Neverseen King lets out a short sigh. His voice is darker, firmer. “You can trust me. I won’t let you be hurt.”
That’s easy for him to say—he won’t be the one falling through empty air.
“It’s gone now!”
“Hold still, thief.”
Another moment passes. The sky is almost dark through the window, one star shining in the twilight.
I’m going to fall. I can’t keep—
Footsteps. “I will catch you, Mourner.”
I cling tighter, my fingernails almost prying off their nail beds. I shake my head. To just . . . let go. It feels impossible. I’ll just have to hang here until my grip breaks, and I fall, fall, fall. But I cannot make myself let go.
“I’m right here.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Shake my head. Whimper. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Can’t.”
His voice turns to iron. “Let go. Now.”
“No.”
“Give me your knife,” he says to Eshe.
My heart nearly explodes in panic. “Wh-what—”
“Either you trust me, and you let go, or I will cut the chandelier down.”
“A knife can’t cut brass!” I cry, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes.
“A spelled one can,” he replies darkly. “Last chance, Nadira. Trust me. Let go.”
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t—
“You. Can. Let. Go. Trust me.”
I close my eyes. My limbs quake like a leaf in the wind. It’s too much. The storm of emotion, the need to survive, rushes like water through every inch of my body. Survive, survive, survive.
Everything up until this moment has been about fighting for every breath in my lungs, for every beat of my heart. Even if my rational brain knows the best thing to do is let go, my body screams at the thought. It’s suicide. To fall with my back to the ground, to fall with no strength to even land properly.
But maybe life is more than survival.
If I can just . . .
I let go.
Just as the sharp slice of metal on metal cuts through my awareness. Suddenly, I’m weightless, I’m—
Falling.
I let go of the chandelier, blood rushing like a torrent through my veins as I wildly wheel my arms. As though that can stop me from breaking my spine on the ground beneath me. All survival instinct abandons me in an instant, and I’m left with nothing but the expectation of death.
Fall.
Fall.
Fall—
Suddenly, it stops.
Something catches me. Spins me around. My back hits the wall—not the floor—at the same time a large forearm also hits the wall above my head. An arm is around my waist, holding me to a solid chest as I gasp for air.
My eyes open.
A pair of gleaming eyes stare back at me. So close.
Neither of us say anything for a long moment. We just breathe the same hot air, staring at each other, while our chests heave and I fight to remember what just happened.
Then, softly, I say, “You caught me.”
His voice isn’t amused when he replies, “You’re surprised.”
I . . . I am. And I’m not. I’m both, and I don’t know how to explain it. So I say nothing, lean my head back against the wall, and close my eyes. I’m not sure my body will ever stop shaking. My feet won’t be steady again.
“You killed the dragon,” he says.
I open my eyes and somehow manage to arch a single eyebrow. “You’re surprised.”
“Well,” Eshe chirps from somewhere behind the Neverseen King, “if we’re done surprising one another, should we . . . find some place to stay? Until morning? Just so we don’t . . . you know, die?”
The Neverseen King’s gaze holds mine. Something sparks in his pupils.
Then a loud voice thunders from outside: “Come out of your palace, Neverseen King! We have you surrounded!”
Suddenly I’m not pinned by the Neverseen King’s weight against a wall. I’m curled in a ball on a frozen lake. I’m kneeling on the floor of my former cell-room, forced to look up into the face of my captor, my jaw caught and held with the spikes on his gloves.
That was Jabir’s voice.
