Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 85203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
The Queen stands and screeches at the top of her lungs,
“Put her out! Put her out—the fire is making her Shift!”
The guards look at her and then at me, clearly at a loss. They start towards me but they’re too slow.
The ropes holding me to the pole burn away but I don’t fall into the flames. Instead, I look down and see that they’re far below me. How am I suddenly so tall?
Look deep inside…find her…free her, I hear the voice from my dream say in my ear.
Suddenly I understand—I’m taller and bigger now because I’m not Elaina anymore. I’m not just a woman…I’m becoming something else—something more.
I scream—only it’s not a scream. It’s a roar.
My skin peels away in layers of ash and silver light. My bones bend…twist…expand. Wings unfurl from my back, vast and shimmering, white and silver and blazing with inner light. My limbs stretch even more. Claws replace my fingers. My face elongates, my jaw opening wide. My teeth have grown long and curved and razor sharp.
The pyre explodes beneath me, but it doesn’t matter because I’m rising—rising into the sky with wings that beat the wind into submission.
I am no longer just Elaina…I’m a Drake!
The crowd screams. Nobles scatter. Dorian’s mouth hangs open. The Queen is still screaming about putting me out.
Too late.
I sweep upward, circling high above the square. Smoke comes from my nostrils and trails behind me, curling like a banner of victory. Below me, Dorian’s golden throne looks like a shiny toy. The people are nothing but ants but I find I can narrow my field of view and focus on them anyway. I have the eyes of an eagle now—or should I say, a Drake.
And then I see him again—Xaren.
He is limp, unmoving and unresponsive though the people around him are screaming and scattering.
I dive.
My claws scoop him up as gently as I can manage, cradling his body to my scaled and feathered chest. He doesn’t stir.
No! No, don’t let me be too late!
I lift my head and see something completely new—Dorian is flying.
Or rather, trying to.
He has Shifted—but his pale blue Drake is small…stunted…twisted. He looks like a mockery of a real dragon. He’s small compared to my new form—as Tanzy told me so long ago, he’s barely the size of a small cottage. And though I myself am much smaller than Xaren’s black Drake, I’m still quite a bit larger than Dorian’s pitiful beast.
He dives toward me, roaring, his little wings flapping as hard as possible just to keep him in the air. Really, it’s a wonder he can fly at all. And though there’s a thin trail of white smoke coming from his nostrils, I can somehow tell he isn’t going to have any flame to go along with it. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. Call it Drake instinct, I suppose.
I, on the other hand, am filled to the brim with white-hot fire. I feel it boiling inside me, seeking a way out.
I open my mouth—and flame pours out—white-hot, pure, and cleansing.
Dorian shrieks as the fire engulfs him. His spindly wings shrivel and tear like old parchment. He spins in the air, flailing—plummeting like a falling star.
He lands directly on the dais—right on top of the Queen.
CRACK.
The sound is loud enough to be heard even from above. Bones snapping…Royal bodies crushed beneath the weight of their own greed. A puddle of blood begins to form, spreading out from the broken form of Dorian’s Drake. Some of it is black and some is red. Mother and son, together in death.
I wait to feel anything about that but there’s no pity in me—not for those two. I don’t regret what I’ve done—not for an instant.
I hover there for a long moment, breathing hard, watching the Nobles scatter like insects. A voice inside me urges vengeance. Burn it all—the Citadel, the Nobles—all of it.
But then I think of Tanzy and all the other innocent servants. I think of the cooks and the maids and even the men-at-arms, who are mostly decent, other than the Queen’s own guard.
They don’t deserve my wrath.
Beating my wings, I rise, leaving vengeance for another day. Instead, I fly higher…faster…farther away.
I leave my old life behind me.
But ahead of me—cradled in my claws—there is a new future.
Xaren… please come back to me.
53
ELAINA
He moves.
It’s the faintest twitch…a flutter of his body in my claws. But it’s enough.
Hope ignites in me so sharply it’s almost painful. I clutch him tighter against the smooth curve of my palm, careful not to harm him with the tips of my talons. His body is too still. Too limp. But that twitch was real—he’s alive. Somewhere inside, beneath the weight of that awful collar, beneath the crushing silence of suppression, Xaren is still in there.
I hope.
I just have to get him somewhere safe to make sure. Somewhere warm and hidden where no one can take him from me again.