Chapter 57

Tavion shoved a path through the crowd, and we arrived outside in time to see the enormous black dragon swoop out of the clouds, dark membranous wings stretching the length of ten horse carts. If I squinted, I could make out the slender form clinging to his back and the tiny speck flying alongside them.

I frowned. No sign of Tristan.

"Do you see him anywhere?" Tavion muttered beside me. "He should be here by now."

"No, and I've been looking." I scanned the crowd again. "Tristan has to be here somewhere; it's been an hour since the explosion." I handed my iron bands over to Tavion and shadows spilled like a dark, stormy ocean at our feet, sending the crowd skittering back. Sophie remained close, her eyes wary but curious, too.

"He's probably hiding because he fucked up and almost got us killed," Raz muttered.

"Go look for him, Tavion," I muttered for the tenth time. "Trust me, no one is going to lay a finger on me. Not now."

Indeed, the Fae kept their distance, pointing and whispering but respectfully cautious. Word of the king's death had spread like wildfire, and that Zorander Vayle, the king's former commander, was now in charge of the Keep, and soon, the entire Solarys army.

"I'm not leaving you alone and Tristan can take care of himself." Tavion's grin turned slightly evil. "Besides, I wouldn't miss this for the world." He pointed at the sky, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting, "A dragon is coming. Give him room to land."

"Tavion," I muttered reprovingly as the crowd both craned their necks and tried to scramble away in all directions, kicking up a cloud of choking dust. "Seriously? That wasn't what we planned."

"This is going to be fucking legendary." His green eyes were alight with anticipation. "Blackcastle will talk about this day for centuries."

"I'd rather they didn't." I shifted uncomfortably. "I'd rather everyone go about their lives and forget about today all together."

"If you really wanted that, you wouldn't have agreed to Zeph landing in broad daylight in his dragon form. We should have had Tristan here as his wyvern. They wouldn't have known what to do." Tavion sounded positively giddy.

"You know a wyvern, too?" Sophie asked, shading her eyes, her gaze fixed on the sky.

"A golden one. He breathes fire. I'm telling you, today is the kind of day that goes down in the history books."

"You are impossible." I squinted as Zephryn circled above us, the light illuminating every bone in his immense wings. Despite everything, I couldn't stop my surge of excitement at the utter grandeur of an enormous dragon soaring above us, neck and tail stretched out as he swooped down over the crowd, everyone ducking low.

I counted every scale on Zephryn's belly as they passed overhead, Torin's grin turning incandescent when they blew past us, the air ripping her hair free.

"He really is something, isn't he?" I murmured, standing back up to watch him bank and come around for a landing, the crowd fleeing.

"He really fucking is." There was enough jealousy in Tavion's voice I ran my hand up his arm.

"I'll take my wolf any day of the week, just so you know."

"Nice of you to say, wife, but gods…" Tavion blew out a long, appreciative whistle when Zephryn flapped those wings as he came in for his landing, engulfing us in a choking cloud of dust. "Fucking look at that monster."

Then I was wrapped up in his arms, sheltered from the choking cloud, my face protected by his cloak. "Do you have dragon envy, husband?" I asked softly, pausing when Tavion's eyes flared wide.

"Say that again," he murmured, his lips tracing my cheek.

"Husband?" I asked softly.

"Yes," he whispered. "Say it again."

"You are my husband, Tavion. From now until forever." I leaned into him, the sound of the screaming, panicked throng around us fading away. Time seemed to slow down like we were trapped in this single moment together. "I love you."

"And I love you, wife." His chest shuddered from the force of those words, hands tightening on me like he'd never let me go. "From now until forever."

The only goodthing about all the dust was it allowed Zephryn and Simon to pull on trousers before the citizens of Blackcastle got a good look at them, Torin striding over to greet us, that wild grin still on her face.

She looked younger, like she'd left the last three centuries behind her, and before I knew it I'd thrown my arms around her neck. "That was some entrance."

"You asked us to make an impression. We did our best."

I surveyed the wide-eyed crowd creeping back, fear and awe painted on their faces. "They're impressed."

"They should be impressed and afraid, Anaria." She smoothed her hair back. "You killed the king, and their world is about to change even more in a few hours. Fear is the root of respect."

"Both of those bastards ruled through fear," I told her quietly. "That's not what I'm going to do."

I'm not going to rule at all, I didn't say, because through all of this, that had been the one unspoken rule. That somehow, at the end of everything, it would be my arse sitting on the Shadow King's throne, or the one in Tempeste, or some combination of the two, when I had no intention whatsoever of that being my fate.

"They should trust their leader not fear them."

Torin shot me a look as if to say, you are so naive, but I just lifted my shoulders. "Where is Cosimo? Nothing is going to happen with the magic if he's not here."

"He's just south of here. Been there since dawn, studying the soil, trying to find an answer for what happened to the magic." Her face brightened. "Ah, here he comes now."

I blinked in surprise. The astrologer strode through the crowd dressed in a flowing blue robe with silver embroidery and wide sleeves. Torin's face glowed. "He's always preferred robes to a warriors clothing. Says they're more…freeing."

I stifled my laugh. "Well, he certainly looks the part."

Cosimo was imposing, dark hair pulled back into a sloppy knot on the back of his head, his eyes glowing with some blue, inner fire. He rolled his shoulders with a bone-crunching crack then swept those eyes over me with a fierce grin.

"Good job with the king today. You'll make a fearsome queen, Anaria."

I bit my tongue. Obviously, I'd be convincing everyone a throne was not in my future. And there was no reason to go into too much detail over what a fucking almost disaster our assassination attempt had been. I scanned the crowds again for a flash of red hair and my stomach twisted tighter.

"I've discovered the problem. As we suspected, the king spread a layer of iron over the entire realm, locking the magic beneath the earth," Cosimo said with no preamble. "I spoke to my contacts in Southwell. The magic's been slowly dissipating for centuries, which means this happened so long ago the damage won't be easily reversed."

"That's good." I blew out a relieved breath, remembering the shitestorm I'd caused in Caladrius with that devouring black wave of power. We'd discussed the consequences at length and still hadn't figured out how to minimize the effects.

"Slow is good. Hard to tell what a wave like that would do to all these people."

Tavion shifted nervously beside me.

Something lurked behind his expression, regret or fear or guilt, and I frowned. I'd seen that exact look on Raz's and Zor's faces every time we'd discussed this part of the plan.

"Is there something you're not telling me, Tavion?"

Now he definitely looked guilty. "No, nothing."

"We might not have the luxury of slow," Cosimo interrupted as he knelt and picked up a handful of desiccated soil, letting the dirt sift through his hand. "With the help of some friends, I removed the iron from a small section of land outside the main portal in the wall. If we open that doorway and you call up the wild magic from Caladrius, I believe a chain reaction will occur."

A dull sort of dread came over me. I didn't like this feeling that we were starting down a path of no return.

I scanned the mass of people around us then the city beyond, trying to calculate how many souls lived within these walls. "What about all these people?"

"We'll pack as many as we can inside the Keep," Torin reminded me of our stopgap protective measures. "The Shadow King had mages in his employ. We'll set wards around the city to protect everyone inside."

That, too, had been discussed many, many times. But the Keep was stone and mortar—not capable of standing up to magic—and too small to fit everyone inside.

These were my people now. Mine.

Something fierce and savage pounded through me the longer I looked at them. Such hope on their faces when they pointed at us. Such awe when they looked at Zephryn.

I didn't want to be their queen.

But I did want to protect them.

"You didn't see what happened in Caladrius." Fear scoured my bones, turning my lungs to ash. "That wave will crash through this realm like a battering ram, crushing every woodland village and town."

Leaving life in its wake, yes, but…at a terrible cost.

A cost I was not willing to pay.

"What if we left things as they are?" I asked quietly, already knowing the answer, because those consequences had also been discussed.

Maybe I needed to hear someone say it out loud one more time.

"The Oracle will come." Absolute conviction thrummed in Tavion's voice. "She will bring her Reapers and she will decimate this realm and these people will become collateral. If you want to save them, we have to see this through. We'll save as many as we can, Anaria. But we can't save them all."

I balled up my fists. "That is not good enough. Not fucking good enough."

It hadn't been good enough before, and maybe I'd counted on Cosimo coming up with some brilliant solution, but…Zorander and Raziel stalked toward us, a grinning Lyrae in tow. Raz sported a black eye, Zor was favoring his right leg, while Lyrae looked like she was having the time of her life.

"How did it go with the guards?" Tavion called because he had to be an arsehole. And maybe, just a little, because he sensed my growing dread and wanted to lighten the mood.

"I see the power transfer went as smoothly as expected."

"Fuck you, wolf," Zor growled good-naturedly, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"Good work. Your entrance was as awe-inspiring as we'd imagined." Zor clasped hands with Zephryn. "Word's already spread through the entire castle we have a dragon on our side. That will make our enemies think twice."

Zor's keen eyes drifted over us, his frown deepening. "Where is Tristan?"

I, like everyone, stared out across the sprawling army, a thousand fires blackening the air with soot. Tristan should have been back by now.

Injured or not, he'd set off the explosion, but that was hours ago. Dread crawled slowly through me, worthless and unhelpful, but locating him would take hours.

Days.

"Still out there somewhere." Tavion's face was troubled. "Now that you two are here, I'm going to look for him." He slipped his hand from mine and squeezed my arm.

"Don't worry, I'll find him, Anaria," he murmured with a steady calm that dulled the ragged edge of my panic into something manageable.

"No." Zor shook his head. "We stay together. Especially now when the magic's about to be released. Tristan knows to regroup at the Keep. He'll be here. He must have been delayed." But Zor's face tightened with the same worry that tied my stomach into knots.

"We're ready to bring down the wall, then?" Simon pulled on a dusty black jacket, a Solarys soldier's from the looks of it.

I swallowed. "We're only taking stock of the situation," I cautioned. "Not to open the portal or anything else. Not until everyone has time to find shelter."

"Then let's get moving, princess." Raziel's grin was dazzling as he swept his arm around my waist. "We don't want to be late."

I was reaching up to touch his bruised eye when the world blurred.