Ector.
I staggered, my throat sealing as I clapped a hand over my mouth, and a softer red snagged my attention.
The color of wine.
The flash of a silver chain around a throat, soaked in blood.
“No,” I whispered, skin flashing hot and then going numb. “No.”
“She came outside to help,” Saion said raggedly frombehind us. “I told her to get back, but Kyn saw her. And Ector—fucking Ector tried to stop him.”
I swayed, chest throbbing as the embers responded to me—to the storm of emotions roaring through me. My blood heated, filling my veins with fire.
“Bele doesn’t know,” Saion rasped. “She was already on the way to Lethe. She doesn’t know—fuck, you’re starting to glow.”
He wasn’t talking about Ash, who had gone completely silent and still.
It was me.
A distant rumble echoed in the sky. Davon was near. That was a problem, one we needed to figure out how to handle, but I couldn’t think beyond Aios and Ector and the dozens of lives lost on these pikes.
I couldn’t understand why.
What had any of them done?
The embers throbbed as I started toward Aios—toward them—but I forced myself back. Using the embers had caused this. If I were to do it again, it would lead to more attacks.
My hands curled into fists as fury clashed with grief. I could do something. I could fix this, but who would pay for it?
Not the one who should.
Kolis.
“Is Kyn still here?” Ash demanded, his voice cold and flat as the temperature suddenly dropped several degrees.
“The last I saw him, he was outside the Rise,” Saion answered. “Behind the line of dakkais. He had Cimmerian—” Saion turned to the sky. “That fucker is coming back.”
Ash turned from the pikes, away from the carnage. “Summon the armies.” Eather sparked from his whirling flesh as his lips peeled back over his fangs. Power poured into the air. Shadows spilled into the space around him, spinning and whirling, and when his eyes met mine, they were pure orbs of silver. The rumble of Davon’s roar was closer as Ash tipped his head to the sky.
Then Ash rose.
Straight up like a launched arrow. Streaks of silver light radiated from him, hissing and snapping. The hazy outline of wings appeared as his hands splayed open. Outside the rise, the dakkais howled as Saion ran toward a guard on horseback, givingher orders. She took off for the gates facing the Undying Woods. I could only hope that she and the armies were quick.
“Fire! Fire!” I heard—thank the gods—Rhain shout from the Rise. “Now!”
The air around Ash crackled, flashing a lighter gray as the eather built inside him, turning his skin the shade of mottled shadowstone. His wings looked almost solid as clouds darkened the sky—actual darkcloudsthat gathered and thickened.
Ash became a storm.
Davon appeared over the palace, jaws open and scales vibrating. Flames sparked from inside his throat.
Ashlaughed.
And the sky trembled with thunder. The draken spread his wings, slowing as he curled his body, but he wasn’t stopping.
Ashwas stopping the draken.
He’d lifted a hand, twisted his wrist.