CHAPTER 31

SLADE

The Vulmin follow me as I sprint toward the city. They try to stay hot on my heels, but once I have that aura locked in my sights, distance becomes an opponent I have to defeat.

Then, it's the crowd. People everywhere, plugging up the street. The more people I have to maneuver past, the more my irritation rises.

Luckily, Hare catches up and yanks on my arm with a solution. "This way, Lord Rot."

He shoves sideways past the flow of the crowd, heading toward the canals, and then jumps right off the ledge of the street. There isn't a splash, so I follow. Unlike him, I don't have to push anyone away as I cut across. Even with so many fae, none of them touch me, leaving at least a few inches of space. Maybe because of some instinct telling them to stay away.

Smart instincts.

When I make it to the edge of the walkway, I spot the ledge below right next to the water. I jump up and over, landing easily. As soon as I do, Hare waves me over from a narrow gondola, a paddle already in his grip. I step from the ledge into the skinny vessel, and the water sloshes with my weight.

The canals are dammed up with other boats, but I quickly realize how Hare got his name, and it has nothing to do with his teeth. He seems to know where every tunnel in the city exists, and he's just as fast on the water as any rabbit on foot.

He maneuvers us deftly, passing by clusters of other boats and beneath bridges, going down narrow passages squeezed between covered roads and trees. He takes us off the beaten path, finding every nook and cranny our skinny boat can fit through, going down each channel like a rabbit racing away from a fox.

Then he takes us into an underground tunnel, the air dark and musty, but the water empty of other boats.

"Are we actually getting somewhere?" I ask.

I don't like being down in these covered waterways. There's barely enough space to stand, and the air is clogged with dripping moisture that clings to the stone. I want to be back out in the air, able to see the golden aura I desperately need to keep in my sights.

"Yes. Nearly there, my lord."

Seconds later, we come out the other side of the dark, ducking under the low-hanging tunnel exit.

"Here," he says before the front of our needle-point boat knocks into the ledge of a bricked road.

The noise of the city seems to have amplified now. Hare's alternate routes must have gotten us closer to…whatever it is that everyone's swarming toward. As I step off the boat and onto a narrow alleyway, I walk between two buildings and look up once I pass them, realizing with a jolt that I'm closer to Auren. Much closer.

Her aura glosses the air with light, slicking it with shine. But there's also something that hasn't ever been in her aura before. Black vaporous tendrils that snake through her golden glow. They drift through it, like vines down a stream, floating in its surface.

Seeing her aura and mine roiling together like this is a fucking gift. One that knocks the air right out of me. An ebb and flow of light and dark that saturates the sky and sears into my brain.

My chest tightens with anticipation.

I'm coming, Auren. I'm fucking coming.

Hare squeezes next to me, eyeing the busy street ahead. There are people surrounding us, packing us in. "We'll try to cut across. It's just that way." He points. "I know someone who lives a few blocks down who has a rooftop view of the city square. If we can get past all these people and get there, we can—"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence.

People suddenly scream. The sound doesn't come from the square, but from the other direction. The fae in front of us jerk around to look, and I can see some further down the street trying to get away, which makes the packed-in crowd push even closer against the fringes.

Hare and I get jostled back, shoved into the alley again. I yank my spikes beneath my skin as a frown takes over my face. I lean forward to look around the corner of the building so I can figure out what the fuck is happening.

A second later, I see Stone Swords marching. They're shoving people out of the way, with no care for who gets hurt.

Anger pulses down my veins.

One of them wields magic when the packed crowd doesn't move quick enough. A torrent of wind magic gusts out like a cyclone. It whips down the bricked street with a powerful vortex, churning with dirt and branches torn from the trees. I can even see ripped clothing spiraling through its mass.

Fae hurry to get out of the way, hands covering their eyes and mouths squeezed shut, while dirt and debris start to batter everyone's bodies. I jerk my head back as a spray of dust stings my eyes.

"There must be trouble in the square!" Hare says, half hollering in my ear so he can be heard over the gusts. "Looks like someone signaled for reinforcements!"

I blink to clear my eyes and look ahead again. There are a good fifty soldiers from what I can tell, all of them with their marbled shields lifted, blocking them from neck to knee. The crowd is forced aside, allowing the contingent of Stone Swords a clear path as they travel toward the square.

But suddenly, someone from the crowd rushes out. A young male—not even past his teen years—with a round face and a flop of cherry red hair. "Carrick-following traitors!" he shouts as he steps in the middle of the street, directly in their way.

Then he turns his head and spits .

Except instead of just a simple glob of saliva left on the street, streams of white spew from his mouth. The substance sticks to the building on his right and starts to stretch, like underwater tentacles reaching for prey.

People in the crowd gasp and move away.

In a blink, he turns to the left and spits again, sticking another clump to the other building with a wet smack. The two globs grasp for each other in frothing strings that remind me of the left-behinds of spittlebugs, their clots of bubbly refuse sticking to grass and twigs.

The boy's strange magic lengthens and drops down, until the entire width of the street is blocked with his foaming webs of saliva that act as a barrier against the oncoming soldiers.

Hare and I get knocked back against the brick wall as a group of fae race down the alley to get away from the scene, putting distance between themselves and this show-down on the street.

A holler tears down from the rooftops. " Baz !" I look up to see an older fae screaming at the boy. There's fear in his face as he reaches toward him as if he can yank him up from the street. " No !"

Worry starts to twist my insides, and I push myself away from the wall. I have to physically pry open spaces for me to move forward in the crowd.

"Lord Rot?" Hare calls behind me, but I ignore him.

When I shove my way past a few more fae, I spot the boy again, just as the magical cyclone slams into his sticky barrier.

The spinning air magic rips it from the walls, clearing the path with ease. But then it suddenly heads right for the boy.

Shit.

I hurry forward again, but the twister slams into his body, picking him up like he weighs nothing. I see his shocked, terrified face just before his body is sucked further into the spin. Then the tornado pivots, sending him flying out with incredible force.

I watch in shock as his body crashes against a building with a sickening hit that seems to stun the entire street. He falls, landing in a broken heap and covered in dust, his bones bent and eyes unseeing.

What the fuck?

The male on the rooftop lets out a bloodcurdling wail that flays my insides.

"You didn't have to kill him!" someone else screams from the street, a male with a deep blue robe and bare feet. "He didn't hurt anyone!"

"He was obstructing the crown's justice," the cyclone soldier yells. "Now move aside or face the same fate!"

The soldiers start to step toward the robed fae with threat, just as fresh screams rip from the city square. Coming from the same direction where Auren's aura blooms.

A surge of anxiety rushes through me, making the spikes beneath my spine pulse.

I need to deal with these fucking soldiers and get to Auren now .

I shove aside more people, tossing them behind me, and finally manage to wrench forward. Dark intent fills my whole body as I make it to the front of the pack, and the cyclone fae swivels his attention toward me. Our eyes lock.

He's fucking done, but he doesn't know it yet.

My magic pulses through the ground and grips him so that when he starts to say something to me, he finds he can't. His eyes widen as his tongue starts to rot inside his mouth. "Not so tough when you're up against someone your own size, are you?" I snarl into the dying wind. "You had no right to kill him."

The power of the cyclone goes petering out as the fae's tongue turns black, shriveling inside his jaw. I look behind him to all the other gaping soldiers, just as the male who was on the rooftop races out onto the street and collapses over the boy's dead body. His wails soak my ears.

Rot spreads out from my feet, slithering like snakes, and the bricks start to buckle with decay as it reaches the Stone Swords.

I'm going to break them just like they broke that boy.

Their screams of panic start catching on right as the black veins along the ground reach their clustered feet. The soldiers begin to topple, bones decaying within the confines of their moldering skin.

And then I let my dragon tear free.

Like billowing smoke and streaking shadows, it swarms out of my skin, collecting, building, feeding off my emotions. When it lands hard at my side, its chest gleams with gilded scales, and its body is completely solid .

For the first time, I've just manifested a fully physical dragon.

Not vaporous, not intangible. A solidified menace that now stands even taller and more monstrous than it was when its splintered form streaked over the skies of Sixth Kingdom.

It stretches taller than the steepled buildings along the street, its spiked body and coiled tail barely fitting. Then it opens its mouth, showing off its wicked sharp teeth, and breathes fire of black rot, taking out what's left of the soldiers.

Panic decimates the street.

The gathered crowd bolts. Abandoning their tightly packed positions from where they were trying to get closer to the square, they now turn and flee. The grieving fae whose body is draped over the boy shakes in fear, tears caught in every crevice of his face. "Don't destroy him, please!" he cries as he clutches at the body.

I shake my head. "You have nothing to fear from us."

Then I turn and start walking, and people scatter as fast as they can while the dragon stomps behind me, every step shaking the street.

Hare appears at my side out of nowhere. "A dragon ?" he shouts, shock dripping off his face like drool as he stares at the creature. "You can manifest a dragon? I thought that magic died out in your family generations ago!"

"It did."

He clamps his mouth shut after that, staying behind as I make my way down the street. The weight of the dragon snaps the stone as it walks, tail whipping, eyes flashing.

People run past us screaming, but my attention is locked on the blinding aura ahead. Anxiety rises up like acid at the back of my throat, because my bond isn't singing, it isn't even blaring. It's fucking hammering against my chest, demanding with ferocity.

GO GO GO GO GO GO

As soon as the last of the people flee in the face of my dragon, leaving the way clear, I start to sprint . My heart pounds hard in my chest as that aura glows up from the ground like a fallen star, streaked with darkness that flares like a pulse.

I'm getting closer, closer , so fucking close after weeks and weeks of pure darkness, pure agony.

And then, I reach the end of the street, and I see a golden figure running toward me. My heart breaks open.

Auren .