Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“Burning us will not grant you an audience with our queen.” The captain raises his chin.
“No, but defeating your best in combat earns us entrance to court at the defeated opponent’s rank,” Xaden says, cocking his head as a smirk plays across his mouth.
The smile fades from the captain’s face. “You know our laws.”
“She does.” Xaden gestures toward me. “And I’m with her. Seeing as I’ve already had my blade at your throat, I guess that means we should move up to someone with a higher skill set.”
The captain slowly turns, his gaze sweeping high above our heads, and Tairn snarls. “The fire-breathers stay.”
Sgaeyl lunges from the left and snaps her teeth close enough to a soldier that the woman’s hair blows sideways as she gasps.
“She said to get fucked,” Xaden replies to their captain.
The captain glances toward Sgaeyl without making eye contact. “Only half may come. Choose wisely. Final and only offer.”
Xaden nods, then turns toward us and hands Garrick his sword. “Who do you want to take?” he asks me.
“Me?” I blink.
“Your mission,” he replies.
Fuck. I draw a deep breath and look past Dain to Mira. “Xaden to challenge. Aaric to speak for Navarre. Cat for Poromiel…” My throat constricts, realizing I’m down to two.
Mira nods. “Solid choices. Stop stalling.”
“Dain and me.” Which leaves our second-strongest fighter behind as well as my sister.
“Aetos?” Garrick asks.
“Do not question command,” Xaden warns in a tone that stiffens Garrick’s back.
“Captain said he was selected for the mission because he speaks our language, so we can’t assume it’s common,” I explain. “I can pick up a few words here and there, but I spent my time learning Hedotic and Dain took the rest.”
Garrick’s jaw ticks, but he nods once.
“Let me guess. I’m to stay here,” Andarna snipes.
“You’re learning,” Tairn replies.
I lift my gaze to Mira’s and find no judgment waiting there. “If we’re not back by nightfall, burn the place to the ground.”
• • •
Eistol, the capital of Unnbriel, is less than a twenty-minute flight inland, but it takes two hours for the cavalry to wind their way through the steep terrain and over the ridgeline to the heavily fortified city.
The city itself makes me second-guess bringing Tairn. Eistol dominates the countryside, consuming the tallest hill for miles. It’s built in a series of terraced circles in various shades of stone, but the roofs of its structures are a uniform pale blue color. Each terrace is surrounded by a wall thick enough to sustain Tairn’s weight, and the bottom one supports a dozen manned cross-bolts. The eight above hold decreasing but proportionate numbers, and unlike Deverelli, these swing in multiple directions.
This place is constructed to fight dragons, whether or not they’ve actually been here.
“I don’t like you being this close to those bolts,” I say along the bond, noting the platoon of cavalry as they ride single file through raised metal gates inside each ring. One order, and the city would be impossible to breach on foot…or escape.
“I don’t like your selection in mates, yet here we are,” Tairn responds as we approach the city from hundreds of feet above, leading the formation as a storm rolls in from the west.
“Third ring,” I remind him as we soar over the fifth.
“I was there. I remember,” he replies, tucking his wings and diving toward the third-highest ring in the city.
The belt of my saddle presses into my thighs as we dive, and I wait for the snap of wings I know is coming…but it doesn’t.
“Tairn?” People run in the streets, ducking into the structures that line the rapidly approaching walls. If he doesn’t slow soon, we’ll take out the masonry. “Tairn!”
He sighs, then flares his wings and pumps once, jarring me in a bone-rattling shift of momentum before landing lengthwise on the wall of the third ring. Rock crumbles beneath his talons, and he lowers his head at the cross-bolt stationed less than a dozen feet away.
Two of the soldiers manning the station back up, but the third bravely stands partially hidden within the wooden base of the launching unit, one hand poised on the lever mechanism while the other slowly cranks the wooden wheel that pivots the weapon at us.
I undo the belt of my saddle and quickly rise for a better vantage point, dagger already in hand.
Shadow falls over us a second before Sgaeyl lands on the opposite side of the cross-bolt, and the soldier’s head jerks in her direction as she growls low in her throat, her nostrils flaring.
The soldier lifts both hands from the weapon.
I leave everything strapped to Tairn’s saddle except the weapons I carry, then move toward his shoulder, only pausing to be sure Cath, Kira, and Molvic have landed behind me.
“Watch where you dismount or you’ll embarrass us both,” Tairn warns, and my stomach lurches as I glance down. If I nudge even a few feet to the right, I’ll fall off the edge of the fifty-foot wall.