Page 182 of The Dragon and the Dove

‘Listen to me. I need you to listen to me.’ He bowed over her, eclipsing the light. ‘Andreas must be unmade. You have to unmake him.’

She frowned, trying to untangle her confusion.

‘Sera. Can you hear me?’

Hearing was not the problem. Theo was telling her what she already knew. He was talking fast and low, a familiar conspiratorial look on his face, like he was on her side. Like he had been on her side all along.

Understanding trickled in.

Theo had played his part well. He had bided his time in Bellevue, all for this moment. Unable to kill the Silver-tongue, he had brought Andreas to her instead, leading him over the bridge like a pig to slaughter.

He kept talking. ‘You need to do it now. Before Ransom loses his head and kills him.’

She crunched upwards, wincing. The pain was everywhere. Her ribs were fractured from the fall, her lungs seizing from the effort of sitting up. Her magic was too weak to mend her. She coughed, hacking up a mouthful of blood.

Before she could make it to her feet, a Strix crash-landed at the foot of the arch. The world exploded into feathers and dust. Ransom was thrown backwards, the sickening crunch of his body hitting the pillar reverberating through her bones.

His dragon disintegrated in the sky, and that thread in her chest frayed down to the quick.

In the clearing dust, Andreas appeared, shiny and gold in his blood-stained armour. His face was a patchwork of gruesome bruises, his jaw so swollen it rendered him almost unrecognizable. He was limping, dragging his sword tip along the cobbles.

‘That’s the last time I’ll ever trust a Versini,’ he slurred.

Theo picked up a sword and rolled to his feet. ‘Why don’t you try fighting one?’

Sera coughed again, spewing blood.

Pull out the thread.

Unmake the prince.

Andreas was injured. If Theo could distract him long enough…

If she could just get close enough…

Their swords met in a violent clash. Andreas shoved, forcing Theo to concede a step. He hissed through his teeth, ‘You gutless turncoat.’

‘I never turned,’ Theo shot back. ‘You were just too stupid to see it.’

Andreas roared, swinging again. Despite his injury, the Silver-tongue was fast on his feet and ruthless with his strikes. There was an anger in him that Sera hadn’t glimpsed before. Theo’s betrayal had unravelled his careful composure.

Theo held his own, weaving and dodging as he drew Andreas further into his web. Taunt by taunt, he led the seething Silver-tongue away from his army and towards the arch. Sera pulled up the hood of her cloak and crawled into a shadow as they disappeared under the arch.

The prince swung at Theo, knocking the sword from his grip. The Shadowsmith only smiled, and as Andreas released a roar of fury, Sera struck from the back, sinking her blade into the fleshy part between his shoulder and his neck.

Andreas howled as he fell to his knees, his agony twisting into a rallying cry. ‘Attack!’

Across the bridge and all along the northern hills, his army juddered into action.

Theo grabbed his sword from where it had fallen. ‘Hurry,’ he said, leaping over the prince’s body. ‘I’ll hold them off.’

It was madness. Impossible, reckless madness, but there wasn’t time to argue.

Sera cast the end of her cloak over the prince, dragging him into a dark corner. The dark bloomed to welcome them, while Theo stepped out into the light to guard her.

Ever since Oriel had reached down from the ether and changed the course of Sera’s destiny, she didn’t feel sure of anything. Not her magic or her future. But right here, in the blood-stained dirt under Traveller’s Arch, with the Silver-tongue pinned underneath her, she was unerringly certain that only one of them was crawling out of here alive.

Pull out the thread.