“I’ll stay to my room this evening and let Dolion…wander, as he does. Send dinner.”
“Yes, sir.”
I watched for a while longer, rage burning brightly. My dragon did the equivalent of pacing within me, desperate to fight, to get out of his skin cage.
I locked the tower room behind me and took the stairs down.
“Sir.” Jessab, the cook, waited on the third-floor landing. He made a fist. “She will be back soon, sir. Her sister says so. We will fight.” He shook his fist.
I furrowed my brow at him, wondering when he might’ve spoken to her sister.
Down the next stairs I went, only to find more servants shaking their fists on the next landing. Anger lit their eyes.
“I’ll fight.”
“We’ll fight.”
“Wait for her, and we’ll fight.”
“I will fight.” Eliza, the plump and lovely seamstress, shook her fist. Her face turned red, and spittle flew from her mouth. “I will kill!”
Great goddess, my dragon thought. I didn’t know she had it in her.
I spied a group of people standing in a cluster, nodding and fisting their hands.
“The demons are coming. Get to your rooms,” I barked as I passed by, power swirling around me.
They straightened, one and all, looking back with wide eyes before scattering through the hall. A girl was left on her own with a spattering of freckles across her fair features. At fourteen, she was all knees and elbows, thinner than she probably should be, but her face wore a hard, determined expression.
“Sable?” I asked, taken aback. It was Finley’s sister. Here, in the castle, as the demons advanced on us. “Sable, damn it!”
I lurched forward and grabbed her, running her up the stairs and to the tower before she could squawk an objection. I fumbled with the key, thrust open the door, and quickly dropped her to the bed. I shut the door behind me, my heart racing and sweat coating my brow.
“Sable, what are you doing here?” I demanded.
She screwed up her face and crawled off the bed, anger showing clearly in her movements. “No you don’t! You are not going to lock me in the tower like you did my sister. I heard the whole story. Even if I were your age, you would not be my type. I expect a little rationality from my men.”
I opened and closed my mouth for a moment, blindsided, then shook my head to clear it.
“Sable, the demons have come. It isn’t safe for you here. Why aren’t you with your family in safety?”
As soon as Finley escaped, I’d relocated her family. Dolion would want to take his rage out on someone, and her blood would likely be his first choice. I didn’t want to give him that opportunity.
She didn’t answer, defiant to the last. She reminded me of her sister.
“We’re going to have to keep you locked in this tower,” I said, “until we can get you out of here.”
“As if anywhere in this kingdom would be safe.” She stomped up to me. “Everyone knows what you’re planning to do. Make a deal, right? In case it hasn’t crossed your mind, that didn’t go so great for your father or the kingdom, did it? Nyfain—sir—I know my sister. And while she can make strange decisions, she always comes through. My brother’s the same way. Hannon would not have left if he didn’t think he was coming back. They will be back. I am absolutely sure of this. I feel it in my bones in that way I do. If you leave before then, she will just try to follow you.”
“You’re right,” I said, because I knew she was. “Except we are out of time. If I don’t do something now, there won’t be a kingdom to come back to.”
She grabbed my forearm. “Please. Stall. Give her a chance.”
I let out a breath and pulled my arm away. “I’m going to have to lock you in this room until we can safely get you out of the castle.”
“But—”
I closed the door tightly and locked it behind me. I just hoped Dolion didn’t try to go in.
Finley is common, my dragon thought. She is from poor stock. She is a nobody. And yet, in such a short time, she is the hope of the kingdom. We need to buy her time to get back to us. And we need to feed her thoughts to hurry her along.
Yes we did. The problem was that I wasn’t so sure how much time Dolion would give us to wait for aid. My guess was not much.
TWENTY-NINE
FINLEY
My dragon hit the ground running, and I shifted before she’d taken three full steps. I raced to the tree where I’d left my clothes and quickly began throwing them on.
“Why are you in such a hurry?” Claudile said with a smirk as she caught up.
“Something’s happening. He’s out of time.” Tears fogged my eyes, and desperation clawed at my throat. I hated that we were so far away from him. A couple of days by boat, at least. “If we don’t get back to the kingdom soon, he’s going to do something stupid, I just know it.”
“What did you say, girl?” A hand grabbed my arm and swung me back.
Ami stared into my eyes, searching.
“Who is going to do something stupid?” Claudile asked, her smile fading.
I yanked my hand out of Ami’s grasp. “The prince of Wyvern. My mate.” I gathered up the sword but didn’t bother strapping it on. There would be no practice today. “Thanks for…the distraction. It’s time that I fight for my home now.”
I turned and started jogging, making it to the everlass field in no time.
“Wait.” Ami and Claudile jogged up behind me. Gunduin wasn’t here today. “Wait.” Ami caught me when I was almost to Hannon. “How can you be sure?”
“Because I know him. Because I feel it. He will think it is his duty to sacrifice himself for the bloody kingdom, because he’s a fucking idiot. Hannon, come on!”
Hannon looked up from his chair and the wooden spoon he’d been whittling. He stood immediately, dropping the spoon to the side.
“What’s wrong?” He looked me over, probably thinking I’d pitched out of the sky or finally fallen off the mountain face.
“Nyfain. Something is happening. He’s getting that impatient…desperate…resigned feeling. Time is up. We need to get to him.”
“Do you think the demon king has reached him?” Hannon asked.
“If you just wait a little longer, there will be a host to join you,” Ami said, shadowing me.
“I don’t have a little longer. It’ll take a couple days just to get to him, maybe more.” I started to jog, Hannon at my side. To Hannon, I said, “Probably, right? It’s been a couple weeks. I’m surprised he didn’t get there before now.”
“Which means it took him a while to figure out we were gone, or he was organizing a large force.”
“We need to ask Govam. He seems pretty knowledgeable about how the demons operate. I would really like to say it was the former, but my bad luck tells me it is probably the latter.”
The tavern common room was empty. I didn’t waste time looking for everyone, not yet.
At the top of the stairs, I turned right toward the end of the corridor and knocked on Govam’s door. Denski answered, his clothes rumpled but his eyes looking fresh and alert. When he saw me, he immediately pushed the door wider, stepping out of the way.