“It’s the morning of your binding,” Safire said, moving through the crowd in an attempt to keep up with Asha. “You’re supposed to exchange betrothal gifts with Jarek today.”
Asha didn’t have a gift. And even if she did, the idea of giving one to Jarek was ridiculous.
But why the arena? Usually betrothal gifts were exchanged in the city’s largest square, to build public anticipation for the binding, which always happened at moonrise. She looked around, thinking hard, searching for an escape.
Men dressed in silk tunics and women in elaborately stitched kaftans sat on benches ringing the pit. But for such an important occasion—the exchanging of gifts—the arena seemed emptier than ever. Even if Asha could get free of her escort and grab Safire . . . there was no crowd to get lost in. No way they’d make it to the exit undetected.
The Iskari was all too easy to identify. Even now, the crowd parted for her. Their fearful eyes fixed on her.
When she reached the crimson canopy, the highest point in the arena with the clearest sight of the fights below, she saw Jarek. His usual black tunic, emblazoned with his crest—two crossed sabers—was gone. Instead he wore a white one with gold edging. Betrothal colors. The dress in her room would have matched it.
Jarek pulled her to him. Asha tensed.
“I have the perfect gift for you,” he said, his body humming with a strange energy. He didn’t seem to notice her attire.
The dragon king sat with his back straight and his citrine medallion on his chest. His fingers glittered with rings. Beside him stood a slave holding a platter of nougat and dried apricots. The king nodded to Jarek, giving him permission to begin.
Jarek raised the hand that held Asha’s into the air. Silence descended. All the eyes in the arena were on them in an instant.
“Tonight, the Iskari and I will be bound! Let this gift of mine be a testament to our formidable union!”
Applause roared in Asha’s ears. When silence fell again, it was her turn. She looked to Safire outside the tent, remembering a joke she’d made not so long ago.
I hear dragon hearts are in fashion these days, for betrothal gifts especially.
The Iskari turned to face her people. She knew what she had to do.
“Tonight, the commandant and I will be bound.” Her voice was neither loud nor confident. “Let this gift of mine be a testament to our long-lasting union!”
The applause this time was much more subdued. But Asha wasn’t finished. She pulled herself free of Jarek and stepped in front of him.
“Today I hunt the First Dragon!”
The applause deadened.
“Today I strike the final blow to the old ways and carve the evil out of my own soul!” A cold silence reared up as she turned to her betrothed. “As a sign of my devotion, I will bring you Kozu’s heart. That will be my gift.”
No one clapped. No one breathed. All the eyes in the arena turned to the dragon king. When Asha herself turned to face her father, he raised his golden wine cup. Toasting her. Well played, his eyes seemed to say.
The arena erupted. But the reaction was divided: some draksors whooped and yelled; others spoke under their breaths, exchanging nervous glances.
Her hunt was out in the open now. They’d have to let Asha leave, so she could make good on her declaration.
“Let the fighting commence!” Jarek commanded, twining his fingers through Asha’s and drawing her down onto his lap.
Asha flinched. She wanted to rise. But she was playing a part now.
If she didn’t kill Kozu, she’d be playing it for the rest of her life.
A group of draksors below turned to the pit. They began to chant, pumping their fists in the air, awaiting the arrival of the fighters. More and more draksors took up the chant until the sound buzzed in Asha’s ears, drowning out everything else.
The interior of the pit was dark. The torches hadn’t been lit yet. All she could see were hordes of spectators—sitting or standing or betting at tables. Cheering and whooping. Waiting for the match to begin.
A sudden roar rippled through the crowd, disrupting the chanters and rattling Asha.
Jarek looped an arm around her waist, keeping her locked against him.
A dragon? She looked to the skies. Here?
But the sky was flawless cobalt blue. Nothing flew above them.
Unseated draksors made their way toward the benches. Jarek held tight, his body crackling with energy.
“I found something of yours,” he said above the noise. “You must have left it below the temple.”
He reached down beneath the bench. When his hand re-surfaced, it held a jeweled axe. The axe she’d given to Torwin.
Asha’s heart frosted over.
Instinctively, she reached for it. The moment her hands closed around the handle, all the torches lit at once.
Asha looked up in time to see heavily armored soldats herding a dragon into the pit. They wielded long steel lances and rectangular shields running the length of their bodies. They prodded the dragon, again and again, sticking their sharp lances deep into its dust-red hide.
The axe clattered to the ground at her feet.
“Shadow . . .”
The dragon had no choice but to move farther in, howling and snapping his jaws. He had no place to go, no place to hide. The lowered bars prevented him from flying out.
But worse than all of this?
In the center of the pit knelt Torwin.
He swayed, as if barely conscious, and a jagged knife rested across his palms. It was all he had to defend himself against the dragon so tortured and frightened, ready to kill anything that looked like a threat.
After one hard jab from a soldat’s spear, Shadow gave a ferocious, heartrending howl. The armored soldats rushed out of the ring.
Just before the dragon charged across the pit, Torwin raised his face to the horde of draksors cheering on his death. His gaze slid right over them, moving ever upward, until it came to rest on Asha herself.
Twenty-Eight
Shadow charged, kicking up red sand. Torwin rolled out of the way—but only just in time. Blood streamed down his back. His old wounds had reopened and he seemed to be in a great deal of pain. It was going to slow him down. Shadow’s forked tail lashed, catching the slave in the side and throwing him onto his back.
Asha pressed her fist to her mouth to stop herself from crying out.
Shadow was also in pain. Blood gushed out of long cuts in his side and he was favoring his right leg. Trapped and hurt, he didn’t recognize the slave before him. The dragon’s terror overrode the link he shared with Torwin. It was new, after all—weak and untested.
They’re going to kill each other, Asha thought.
And she was going to be forced to watch.
“I remembered how much you loved the dragon fights,” Jarek said, his arms locked around her. “I thought I’d try to resurrect them for you.”
Asha swallowed down bile. She stared at Shadow, who circled the skral, getting ready to strike. The sun glinted off Torwin’s knife.
If Torwin killed Shadow, Asha would fail to uphold Elorma’s command to protect the dragon. The Old One would pour out his wrath. And this time, whatever punishment he struck her down with might never be undone.
And if Shadow killed Torwin . . .
Fire swelled in Asha’s belly and her hands tightened around Jarek’s arms. Her fingers dug into flesh and then muscle, driving for bone.
He yelped and his grip on her loosened. Asha leaped from his lap.
She’d taken three steps into the crowd when he grabbed her arm. From the murderous look in his eyes, he planned to never let go. In a single heartbeat, Asha unbuckled the plate of armor sheathing the arm he held and slid away, moving swiftly down to the pit.
When she reached the bars, she crouched. Shadow had charged Torwin, who dropped to the sand at the last moment. The belly was the easiest place to put a knife in. He could have struck a killing blow—but he didn’t.
&nb
sp; His lips moved now. And if Asha strained, she could hear his voice. Trying to soothe Shadow. Trying to coax him.
Only this time, Torwin was using a story to do it.
“No. . . .”
The old stories strengthened dragons. They made it possible for them to breathe fire.
“Torwin, don’t!”
Shadow stopped himself just before hitting the wall and turned around, slitted nostrils flaring, red scales rippling. Torwin got to his feet, his lips still moving.
Shadow planted himself on all fours and reared back his head. His chest heaved. His belly glowed.
“No!” Asha screamed.
Soldats arrived at the edge of the pit. Asha stumbled out across the crisscrossed bars, losing her balance, then gaining it, out of their reach, into the middle. The crowd quieted as Asha clutched the bars beneath her, feet slipping more than once, and finally found a space wide enough to fit herself through.
She lowered herself, dangling above the pit as she realized how far the fall was. It wouldn’t break her, but it would hurt.
Shadow’s belly turned ember red.
Asha let go.
The air whooshed past her ears as she fell. Pain—bright and stark—rushed up her ankles and legs. She’d landed directly between the dragon and the slave. The crowd above her gasped.
Asha threw up her arms—one shielded with armor, the other bare. She saw her helmeted reflection glistening in those slitted eyes. The reflection of a hunter. An enemy.
The fire was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Asha turned and ran for Torwin. Dropping to her knees before him, she covered his body with her own, protecting him with her armor. Taking his head in her hands, she pushed it down, shielding his face with her shoulder.
“Stay low.” Her voice echoed inside her helmet.
Torwin cried out as the fire rushed past them, the heat searing his skin. He grabbed the lower edge of her breastplate, holding her to him.
Bits of flame flickered and died in the sand.
Asha turned back to the dragon. It crouched low and hissed.
They’d turned her playful Shadow into a predator.
“Shadow,” she said, pushing off her helmet. It fell to the sand with a clunk. “It’s me.”
He growled and thrashed his tail.
Asha began stripping off her armor, throwing piece after piece away from her.
“You know me.”
Above them sat the hushed crowd, their disbelieving eyes fixed on the Iskari. Their startled murmurs rang in her ears, and above it all came a shout: a command for the soldats to open the gates. To get the Iskari out.
It was her father’s command. And worse than the ferocious roar of the dragon king’s voice was the chilling gaze he fixed on her. One she could feel even here.
With trembling fingers, Asha worked at the laces of her dragonskin boots, needing to get them off, to convince Shadow she wasn’t the enemy.
“He sees you,” Torwin said from behind her.
Asha’s eyes lifted. Shadow stopped circling. His tail no longer thrashed. He took a hesitant step toward her, cocked his flat and scaly head, and made a small sound. Like a whimper.
Asha had the strangest urge to throw her arms around his neck.
She kicked off both loosened boots and slowly approached, barefoot, with her hands outstretched. Shadow nudged her palm with his snout. He trembled all over.
Asha needed to get him out of here.
Heavy footsteps thudded toward the pit entrance. Both Asha and the dragon looked to find soldats lining the other side of the gate. They were trapped. She may have stopped Shadow and Torwin from killing each other, but she couldn’t protect them from her father’s army.
“Asha!” Safire’s voice rang out. “Fly!”
The sound of metal scraping against metal, the turning of gears, filled Asha’s ears. She looked up. The iron bars above started to rise toward the sky.
Safire was in the crank room.
And then: a whistle came from above.
Both their faces turned up in time to see Dax drop two objects, one after the other. Torwin stepped out, catching the bundle of arrows in one hand and a strung bow in the other.
Asha didn’t have time to wonder why Dax had a bow and arrows at the ready. She searched the sand for her slayers, which she’d flung off with her armor, while Torwin readied his arrows in his draw hand.
Does he even know how to use those?
As if hearing her thoughts, Torwin met her gaze, and Asha noticed his split and swollen lip. Then the welt across his cheek. Then the purple-black bruise along his cheekbone.
Someone had struck him. More than once.
A searing-hot rage flared up in her.
“Get behind me.” She grabbed her hilts from the sand. The sacred blades came free of their sheaths with a ring. “I’ll defend you until Shadow has a clear path out of here.”
Torwin did as she said, nocking an arrow just as the gates opened and soldats flooded in.
Asha spun her slayers, her whole body humming and alive. She took the front while Shadow defended their backs.
“Shoot left!” Asha pointed with her slayer as the first of Jarek’s men swarmed the pit.
The soldat fell before the words left her lips, an arrow embedded in his heart.
She marveled as Torwin nocked his next arrow, letting it fly before she could point out the next advancing enemy. Behind them, Shadow struck with his tail, taking out three soldats at once, flinging them into the walls.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
Another soldat got an arrow through the heart.
“Why? Are you impressed?”
From the crank room, Safire’s voice bellowed at whoever was trying to break down the door. She’d locked herself in.
“Greta taught me,” Torwin said as another arrow flew, whooshing past Asha’s hair. “And I taught your brother.”
My brother?
Asha thought of callused fingers—Torwin’s and her brother’s. But there was no time to ask the questions swirling through her.
“As soon as those bars are up,” she said, “get on Shadow and fly.”
At the gate, soldats parted to let someone through. Someone dressed in white and gold.
The commandant stepped into the pit, heading straight for them, his saber in hand.
As Jarek advanced, Asha gripped her hilts hard. Everything Safire ever told her about fighting a bigger, stronger opponent ran through her head. Strike fast. Go for the legs. Get in and out. Never linger.
Halfway to her, though, Jarek stopped dead. The soldats around him all lowered their weapons, staring over Asha’s shoulder. Wondering at the reason, Asha herself turned to look.
Torwin had drawn his last arrow. It was nocked in his bow, the bowstring pulled taut, and pointed directly at Asha’s chest.
No soldat would advance with his arrow trained on the daughter of the dragon king.
“You get on first.”
“What?”
“Asha.”
He’d never said her name before. The sound of it clanged like a bell inside her, filling up her hollow places.
“Do as I say.”
Asha stared at him. “You’re mad,” she whispered.
Above them the gates creaked. Just a little longer and the way for Shadow would be clear.
“Am I?” Keeping his arrowhead pointed at her chest, he motioned with his chin to the spectators above, their faces crammed together at the bars, staring down at the Iskari they hated and feared. “How many of them want me to put this arrow in your heart?”
Asha swallowed. All of them.
“And your father?”
Asha burned at this question, thinking of the king beneath the crimson canopy. Her father would have seen everything. Would have realized the truth: his daughter was corrupted.
At that thought, she stepped away from the slave.
“Please,” she said. “Go.”
Torwin’s gaze trailed over her face. “No one is going to forgive you for this.”
Not at first, no. But her father needed her to hunt down Kozu. Her father and everyone else would forgive her as soon as she brought back Kozu’s head. That one act would absolve her of all her crimes.
“I need to make things right,” she said. “You need to take care of Shadow. That was our deal.”
The bars shrieked in protest, then stopped rising. From the crank room above, Safire cried out. The bars started to lower.
Fear flared hot and bright inside Asha. If those bars lowered completely with Torwin and Shadow still beneath them, there’d be no saving them again.
“If you die here, after I’ve just saved your life, I will hunt you past Death’s gates and kill you a second time.”
“You can kill me a hundred times,” he said, raising his last arrow over her shoulder, taking aim at his master. “If I can’t free you from him, I’m not leaving him alive.”
Asha stared at him.
He was trying to protect her?
Madness.
“Torwin.” Above them, his chance of escape was slipping away. “I still owe you a dance, remember? You can’t dance with me if you’re dead.”
He glanced at her, surprised..
“Promise me you won’t bind yourself to him,” he said, muscles straining against the pull of the bow. “Being owned by him”—his eyes were suddenly feverish—“it will kill you, Asha.”
She stared at his knuckles, clenched hard from his grip on the bow. He still wore her mother’s ring.
“I’m not leaving until you promise me.”
“I promise,” she whispered.
Accepting this, he clicked to Shadow, then threw himself up between the dragon’s wings.
Released from the threat of Torwin’s arrow, Jarek advanced swiftly now. Like a sandstorm sweeping across the desert. His gaze locked on his slave, who was about to escape him a second time.
From the crank room, Safire screamed, turning Asha’s blood to ice.
The gust of Shadow’s wingbeats snatched at loose strands of her hair. She didn’t look. Didn’t dare take her eyes off the commandant. All she had time for was a silent prayer, begging the Old One to get them safely out.
The Last Namsara Page 18