When Anzi withdrew from the gauzy curtains, Bisset was watching her from where he stood flanking the palanquin. He wore no expression, stone-cold and emotionless as always, but behind the marble indifference lay an insidious spite directed at none other than her. She knew. So did he. He wouldn’t be looking at her otherwise. He was sending a clear message he knew she would decipher behind his inscrutable face. And she would have gone for his head for that if not for one thing: she had to stay alive to protect Oza. And Letti, too, if Bisset knew about her. And why wouldn’t he? It seemed all he did now was seek out her weaknesses and threaten them. She should have known he would act quickly. She had thought she could stall until she was no longer under close watch and move then. This was her fault.
A flurry of suspicion slipped through her. She still believed he had a greater hand in plotting Kai’s attempted
Before Anzi could demand an explanation, the clanking of metal from behind made both of them turn. Two soldiers outfitted in the signature armor of the Emperor’s personal guard appeared at the top of the winding steps with the monarch right behind them. He was wearing something different than usual, robes of soft gold and white thread rather than Imperial red. It made him look even more unearthly, if that was even possible, or maybe it was how he stood more than half a meter taller than his guards as he grinned and plumped his garment around himself. “Greetings!” he exclaimed. “Things are going fantastic. We’re doing wonderfully, everyone.” He clapped his hands once, and his two guards as well as the harem men standing nearby bowed and backed away out of sight behind the crimson curtains. “Great, we don’t need to stuff this place with so many bodies. Ah, Oza, come out here.” Anzi’s breath caught in her chest like an ugly clot of tangl
It happened before Anzi had even the slightest chance to react. Not only Kai’s sudden, brutal assault on Tet, but what happened next, too—the explosion of the translucent, swirled dragon glass that made up the top half of the far wall looking out over the city. And as countless shards showered over the entirety of the great domed hall with a piercing, shattered cacophony, the dim sky darkened, far more quickly than any sunset could cause. Shadows! The shadows of wings as two large shapes crashed in, then unfurled, revealing winged dragon-like figures, half reptile and half-man. They deflected a hail of arrows before flaring their wings again. And although they were on the distant end of the great hall, Anzi felt it the instant they raised their heads and stared at her. No, not her, at them—everyone on the balcony. Their wings beat twice, gaining air as they prepared to fly straight toward them. “This is it, then!” Tet shouted over the
Anzi hit the ground so hard it made her teeth rattle, but she managed to land on her feet and tuck into a roll to protect her knees from the impact. In truth, it was easier than it should have been—just a half-year ago, she would never have considered leaping down from such a towering height, but she was desperate and determined as she shoved through the crowd to find that flash of pink she had seen a moment ago. If she had wasted even a single second longer for fear of her own safety, she would surely lose Letti. But desperate or no, the aching pain that throbbed in her calf and foot was a bitch. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, cursing Bisset for crippling her, but there was no time to be bitter about it for long. There—! She wrenched Letti back by the shoulder and found bright blue eyes staring back at her, wide and panicked. They were filled with no small amount of fear and hostility, but as soon as she recognized Anz
“Don’t do this,” said Anzi. She shifted, making certain she was concealing every part of Oza from Doufan’s view. “You’re not going to like how this ends.” His glaive twisted in his grasp, a small rolling of the handle that made the keen edge of the curved blade on the end gleam under the torch light. “I’m obligated to make you an offer since that’s our way,” he said just as blithely. “Give me the boy, and I’ll make it painless for you.” “It? And what’s ‘it’ supposed to be? You’re getting ahead of yourself.” She grasped the hilts of her swords and unsheathed them an inch. The other soldier’s glaive tip edged upward as well. “This is a bad time for you to play Bisset’s lapdog. The whole city’s falling apart. Get out of here, and I won’t bring this up to His Excellency when we see him next. Consider it a favor repaid if you don’t say a word about the guards.” But he said nothing, and something about his cold composure
The falling stones should have crushed her. She had never visited the dungeons often enough to know exactly how far underground this lower level was, but the weight of the upper cells alone should have flattened her. And Oza, too, no matter how much she wanted to believe otherwise. Sheer determination and panic wouldn’t have been enough for her to save him. Or shouldn’t have been. But as she groaned under the weight of the solid slabs threatening to drive her into the ground and take Oza as well, she realized dimly that she wasn’t dead. That wasn’t possible, and yet here she was, breathing, however laborious and painful each rattling, shallow inhale. Her arms and legs trembled madly, struggling to support the weight of every piece of debris fallen on top of her so she didn’t suffocate Oza underneath, and she felt no give as she shifted left and right—but she was alive. She was conscious. And although they were buried in darkness under the rubble and she
It really was Bisset’s dragon. Massive and sprawling, she lay in a heap at the bottom of the hill, her enormous head half buried in the stream that ran across what used to be the embassy house’s garden. Anzi’s heart dropped, and despite the battered state of her body, a surge of panicked strength helped her stumble down on shaky legs. She rushed past Oza and Letti and nearly fell to the ground on top of the creature’s snout, only managing to catch herself by bracing one hand right above the scaly upper lip. But the groaning, rumbling sound of pain that echoed from deep within the dragon’s belly made Anzi recoil in instant regret and yank her hand away. “What has he done to you?” she whispered. Her throat was raw and her lips cracked; her voice was too quiet for anyone but herself to hear. But she asked anyway—never expecting an answer. It came in brief flashes instead of words, glimpses into something that touched her with darkness, heaviness—with the e
The dragon’s talons threatened to crush her ribs with their perilous strength, but she clutched at them with a determined fire and grit her teeth against the pain. She had just been given a second lease on life, and Oza and Letti, too. If Doufan had run her through, he would have gone after them next without a doubt, and they wouldn’t have stood a chance. It chilled her to think how close they had all been to meeting their end just moments before, but as they rose higher and higher over the Imperial City, exhilaration and relief filled her instead, swallowing up all the fear that had weighed her down like the night clouds blanketing the moon. They were leaving. They were leaving, and she had managed to keep everyone alive. Her heart pounded harder when she thought of Kai and how she had had to leave him, but surely he would have done the smart thing and left the Imperial City as she had told him to do before parting ways. And he would be safe, she told
Oza was still perched atop the dragon’s back, motionless, and Anzi refrained from telling him a second time to come down from there. The hostile expressions on the faces of everyone present told her he was in the safest place he could be, high above, and she briefly wished Letti hadn’t come down yet either. But it was too late. They were surrounded, and despite Kai’s sharp command, no one was lowering their guard. Only a few of them were carrying weapons, but she knew well enough they had no need of manmade blades. Not if they really were dragon shifters. Out of the corner of her eye, something gray and black flitted down the great dragon’s side, and she let herself glance there for a precious half-second to see the Prince crawling upside down off the elder dragon’s neck. His wings were outstretched as he climbed down with his thumb-like claw hooks, and now she saw something else peculiar. He had four wings now, two smaller ones that the main o