It was a tidal wave of snow, careening down from the summit of the nearest mountain, flattening trees, sweeping across the northern side of the lava field. Screams rang out as the white wave crashed over half of Dragon’s Lair. Buildings broke apart. People turned and ran, but they were sucked beneath the barrage of snow.
I didn’t see it take Draki. One moment he was in its path, the next he had vanished.
Reyker appeared beside me, grabbing my hand, startling me out of my stupor. We ran for the fortress, but we’d never make it. With what little power I had left, I managed to push some of the snow back, enough to keep it from drowning us. Snow surged around our legs, burying us up to our chests.
The war gift droned within me. I closed my eyes and shivered. What have I done?
“Lira?” Reyker wiped away the blood on my face.
“I’m all right.” I opened my eyes and saw a pearlescent plain where a crowd had stood. “I killed them. All of them.”
I made the seeress’s vision come true.
“Most of them deserved to die,” he said. He shifted as much as he could, loosening the packed snow, and then he began to dig us out.
“How many?” On the other side of Dragon’s Lair were clusters of people who had scaled the fortress or the cliffs in time—a fraction of the Dragonmen and guests who’d attended. In my mind, I saw the various faces of servants who’d brought me food and filled my bath, the young women who’d helped me into my gown and fixed my hair only hours ago. “Two hundred souls? Were none redeemable? You lived here once, and your mother. Hilde, Andrithur—”
“Stop.” Reyker paused his digging to cup my cheeks with icy hands. “What you’re feeling now, I’ve felt it myself, many times. When this is over, I will mourn with you. I will rage and scream and weep with you. But first, we have to get out alive.”
“He’s not dead, is he?” I searched the shroud of white coating the land, as if I could see beneath it.
“No.” Reyker pulled himself free and hauled me out after him. He looked toward the far side of the lava field, the section that hadn’t been buried by the avalanche, where a small army stood in formation. The Mountain Renegades.
With them were four massive creatures, furry as wolves, their heads crowned with ram-like horns. Ice demons. Skrikflaks.
One of those things had brought Stalwart Bay to ruin. One had cracked a glacier. What could four of them do?
“Hurry,” Reyker said, and then we were running toward that army, sinking up to our knees every few steps, pulling each other out again.
The surviving Dragonmen shouted and drew their weapons, trekking across the snow toward the Renegades. Their contingent was small, but vicious—they would die fighting for Draki, taking as many of his enemies with them as they could, loyal to their master until the end.
In the distance, the skrikflaks lifted their heads, arched their necks, and began to shriek, a cacophonous chorus that shook the earth. What was left of the lava field shattered. Reyker and I pressed our hands to our ears as the block of sound rolled across the snow, over us, past us. Slamming into the fortress.
The walls of Dragon’s Lair groaned and snapped like brittle bones. The whole structure, every building from one side of the cliffs to the other, came down in an eruption of smoke and debris.
There was a pause, like a held breath, and then the ground trembled. The cracks I’d made with my earth gift spread, widening into crevasses, and the land could no longer hold itself aloft. With a thunderous boom, the cliffs themselves crumbled, swallowing the rubble, dropping every trace of the fortress into the sea.
It didn’t stop. The ground kept falling, and the land behind us caved in. The end of the earth chased us, growing closer, so close I felt dirt and snow give way beneath my heel. We ran, lungs burning, legs straining, until the skrikflaks’ shrieks fell silent and the shaking ceased.
Reyker and I slowed to catch our breaths, and a mad laugh escaped me, seeing how close the drop-off was, how close we’d come to falling.
Dark laughter joined mine.
Poised on the cliff’s ragged edge, a hundred paces away, halos of dust and dirt swirling around him but never touching him, was the Dragon. Lips twisted into a snarl. Eyes gleaming. His followers were dead, his kingdom gone.
Because of us.
“The secret to killing him is in my soul, in one of my buried memories,” Reyker said. “How quickly could you find it?”
The Dragon stalked toward us with the slow, sleek motions of a predator craving blood. With the fixation of a god, seeking retribution.
“Not fast enough,” I said.
Reyker nodded, as if this was the answer he’d expected. “Then you have to run.”
The Renegade army advanced across the snow, cavalry and infantry marching for the furious Dragonmen, but they traveled over broken chunks of lava rock and snowdrifts so deep the horses and warriors had to wade through them. They were too far to come to our aid, and my gifts were too depleted to clear a path. I’d never reach their lines before Draki stopped me. “He won’t let me go, Reyker. He won’t let either of us go. I’m staying with you.”
“Lira—”
“I lied.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, filling my vision with him so I wouldn’t have to see what was coming for us. “Everything I said before. I didn’t mean it. I only wanted to save you.”
“I know.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “I wish we’d made it onto that ship. I would have run with you to the edge of the world and beyond.”
I kissed him with the force of my fear, our chests pressed together, our hearts beating the same fierce rhythm. We held each other tight, and I promised myself I wouldn’t let go. If Draki took Reyker, I would follow; if Draki killed him, I would die by his side.
But when the Dragon came, he tore us apart, throwing me in one direction and Reyker in the other. I hit the snow so hard I sank. Digging, clawing, I had to crawl my way out, until I was lying on top of the snowbank.
The Renegade army was closer—I could see Solvei leading them, riding atop one of those horned ice demons—but still not close enough.
Draki and Reyker were fighting not far from me. Blood and furrowed snow marred the space, a map of violence painted across the white canvas.
Reyker’s knuckles were swollen, his clothes torn. Punches and kicks that would have leveled a mortal man did nothing to Draki. The best Reyker could do was dodge Draki’s attacks, but some of the Dragon’s strikes still landed, and each one sent Reyker sprawling. They shouted and cursed at each other, hurling insults as if this were an ordinary brawl between brothers.
“You wreck my home, steal my consort, and bring an army of traitors to my door, after all I have done for you? I left you your precious Vaknavangur. I could have destroyed it, but I kept it safe, waiting for the day you join me. I spared all but one of its children. I allowed you a final night with Lira to say your goodbyes. All of this I did for you, Reyker, you ungrateful little prig. But you do not deserve my mercy. You do not deserve to call me brother.”