Chapter 36

36

R hi

Everybody looks to me, waiting for my answer.

Magical bolts explode below us, as Charmaine and her friends take control of the country that should always have been theirs.

“Back to the republic,” Azlan says with a steely determination.

“Are you insane?” Stone asks. “The Lord Protector wants us dead.”

“I told you already. We have to go back,” I tell him.

“I don’t give a shit about the prophecy. We don’t have to do anything but keep you safe,” Stone says.

“Ellie?” Azlan says.

“Winnie,” I add.

The steel in Stone’s expression wavers. “We aren’t strong enough.”

“Then who is?” Azlan snaps.

“We are,” I say, addressing Stone. “You know we are.”

“Didn’t you see little rabbit take out her daddio – a fucking vampire!” Renzo says.

No more running, no more hiding. No, I’ve had enough of that. There are too many people depending on me. Too many people I care about. Time to meet my destiny. Time to meet it head on. There’s only one place to go.

“Arrow Hart,” I say, “we’re going back to Arrow Hart.”

Immediately, Gwenhwyfar lifts her body, catching the warmth of an air current in her wings and expelling us out of the palace compound, out of the city and eastwards.

I spin around and peer past Renzo, straining my eyes to scan the already lightening horizon and catch the city we’re leaving for one last time. Like the people, it takes on a more sinister form now I look at it with better-informed eyes. Not so stylish and sleek and modern. Oppressive, soulless and bleak.

I couldn’t live in a place like that. I’d miss the chaos, the realness, the honesty of home.

I bet all those things he showed us were a lie. Every single one.

I go to turn back and catch sight of Renzo properly, seated behind me on the dragon, his hands tight around my waist, Pip snuggled between us. Blood trickles from a congealing wound on the assassin’s neck and his ear is hanging from his head in two halves. I jolt in shock and shift my body so I’m facing him better.

“Let me heal that for you,” I say, raising my hand.

He catches my wrist.

“Nah,” he says.

“It’ll scar.”

“Another one to add to my collection.” He winks at me .

“But your ear!”

He lifts his hand and touches it, feeling the two pieces.

“Shit,” he says, and his eyes spin in their sockets. The assassin may love pain and gore and things I try my best not to think about, but he doesn’t seem to love this …

“Can I heal it for you, please?” I say.

“You’re not touching my ear,” he hisses.

I look at it. The scars are one thing – but this, this needs sorting. I try a different tactic.

“I thought you liked me touching you,” I say, trailing my fingertips down his chest.

He looks at me with obvious suspicion. “I do, just not the ears.”

I consider him. “Renzo,” I ask, “do you have a problem with ears?”

“No,” he snaps far too quickly.

“Then you’ll let me touch your other ear?” I lift my hand to his uninjured ear and immediately he ducks his head to one side.

“Don’t touch my ears.”

“Why not?”

He stares at me. I stare right back. He relents, leaning in close and whispering so quietly I can barely hear him.

“Ears are like a thing.”

“A thing?” I prompt.

His voice drops even quieter. “You won’t tell anyone?”

“Cross my heart,” I promise.

He swallows. “Ears are my weakness.”

I blink and try not to giggle. I can’t help it though. After everything that’s passed over the last few hours – all that tension, nearly having my magic drained by a roomful of vampires – I can’t help a little snort of laughter bubbling out of my mouth .

“It’s not funny,” he says.

I school my face. “No, totally not funny.” Although it totally is. This man who’s tortured others, who, I am in no doubt, has been tortured himself. Who willingly walks into the dueling ring one on one with some of the fiercest fighters in the republic, doesn’t like having his ears touched.

“They’re … sensitive.”

“I agree.” I press my fingers to his abdomen. “But it needs fixing, little fox.”

“Little fox?” he says, frowning.

“Big fox,” I correct, making his lips twitch. “I promise I’ll be gentle.” He eyes me warily. “I thought we trusted each other …”

“Fine,” he says. I reach my hand out and again he catches my wrist. “Gentle.”

I can’t help smiling. All this love of pain and hurt but when it comes to the man’s ears …

“Pinky promise.” I wiggle my little finger at him.

He nods and lets go of my wrist. As gently as I can – which is pretty damn difficult considering I’m riding a dragon, am facing the wrong way around and have Pip wedged between us – I touch the tip of my forefinger to his earlobe. He flinches, then steels himself.

“Okay?” I ask.

“Yes,” he answers grumpily.

I track my finger carefully up his ear to the place where it’s ripped in two. Then I concentrate my magic on gluing the two halves back together. It’s both harder and easier than the healing I’ve done before. Harder because that dark magic is still there, pulsating through my body with no interest in healing, dominating my other magic. And easier, because my magic is definitely stronger since sealing the bond with Spencer – much stronger .

Somehow though, despite the way the dragon buffets us about and despite Renzo’s frequent whining, I manage to seal the ear together and to my relief it looks as good as new.

“Done,” I say and Renzo lets out a great big exhale of air. “Sure, you don’t want me to do the wound on your throat?” He tsks at me. I glance at the wound. The blood is clotting and it’s stopped bleeding. “It’s definitely going to scar.”

“A reminder of the day little rabbit was a fucking boss.” He grins at me and I shake my head and concentrate forward. We’re near the border now.

“Best we avoid the barracks,” Azlan calls out to me, pointing out towards the north. The dragons swerve us that way and then east and soon we’re flying over wasteland puckered with craters, nothing but scrubland. Spencer mutters that usually there’d be the odd soldier patrolling this area, monitoring the razor-wire fence. But we encounter no one, no soldiers on either side and I wonder if we’re so high in the sky we’ve passed unnoticed.

The sky continues to lighten around us, the late winter sun hanging low near the horizon. We fly over the rundown towns we drifted between when I was younger, the mountains far away in the distance, their ragged tops the first sign the snow may be retreating, making way for spring on their steep slopes. We fly over forests, single-lane roads slicing the trees in half, empty of vehicles, bigger towns beginning to appear. We fly over factories chugging smoke into the air, lakes that glimmer like mirrors, great fields sown ready for the next year. We fly over prairie land with its tall grasses and roaming cattle. We fly over rivers racing towards the coast.

The sun has begun its dip back towards the horizon when the houses and buildings become more frequent, crowding around each other in ever-increasing numbers until there’s nothing but buildings in all directions and I know we’ve reached the capital. We’re still so high in the sky that no one blinks an eyelid at us, mistaking us for a small flock of passing birds. Or maybe they would know what we were if they weren’t too afraid to lift their heads and look to the sky.

We turn away from the city, over the countryside, Arrow Hart there in the distance, the mansion almost mended on the brow of its hill. The windows flash red with the setting sun and it’s as if the school itself has seen us, knows we’re coming.

I hold my breath.

Were we right to come here?

“There are guards at the school now,” Tristan calls out.

“Then we take them out,” Spencer says, cracking his knuckles. Considering how Christopher Kennedy’s guards treated Spencer when he was being held captive, I can understand his enthusiasm to impart some revenge.

“You think that’s possible?” Azlan asks.

Tristan pats the dragon he’s riding. “Yeah, I think we could.”

“The students might turn on us, though,” I point out. “If the school is full of mini-Summers then–”

“Don’t they love those dudes?” Renzo asks, pointing at Tristan and Spencer.

“Not me anymore,” Spencer says.

“Then him.” Renzo points back at Tristan.

“I don’t know …” Tristan says. But it’s obvious he’s being modest. It doesn’t matter what Summer or his dad or anyone else might say. Tristan Kennedy is popular for a reason and I think most of the student body would follow him right off the edge of a cliff if he told them to .

“Are you sure this is where we should go, sweetheart?” Stone asks.

“Yes,” I say. “I think that’s what the prophecy means. I just have this feeling.”

A feeling and a dream. That dream from way back when. The dream where everything is burning around me. I didn’t know what it was, what it meant. But now as it flashes through my mind, I recognize features of the place I’m flying above – the academy. I’d dismissed that dream as a prediction about the attack on the academy all those weeks ago. But it never really fit. The dream signified the end. The end of the story. Of my story.

We’re flying towards my destiny. I am sure of that.