Page 235 of Feralheart

Another dragon’s wing tore, the membrane splitting along the leading edge.

Through the pack bond, I felt Eradin counting. How many bones in these walls? How many riders had clambered over their dying dragons to reach the top?

How many had believed it was worth it?

Including my father.

The structure’s hum twisted into a wail.

“We need to stop pushing them,” Eradin called out. “Let the dragons choose the pace.”

Reece frowned. “But the voice said⁠—”

“The voice is lying.” Her jaw locked. “It’s giving them permission to kill their dragons. We’re not doing that.”

Lyndie nodded. “Agreed.”

We let them guide where they stepped, where they climbed. Aristus’s sides heaved with the effort.

Until a spell hit like a fist to the base of my skull.

One second Aristus was picking his way up the rock face. The next, his left shoulder buckled, his wing collapsing inward with a wet crunch that ricocheted through the bond. He sagged to his left. A bone snapped and ligaments tore while he tried to compensate for a limb that no longer worked.

My belly surged. I swallowed bile and tightened my grip on his neck spike, but my hands had gone slick with sweat and I was sliding, my thighs burning as I clamped down harder.

Falling meant landing on bone-studded rock far below. I’d seen what that did to bodies.

His pain roared through our connection, so intense my vision blackened.

He shifted hard right, seeking better footing, his good wing beating frantically. My fingers found purchase again, digging into the ridge above his shoulder blade hard enough my nails bent backward. My shoulder screamed. Blood trickled down my chest.

Another spell crackled past my ear, close enough it nearly burned a path across my scalp.

I couldn’t locate the source. The canyon walls threw the magical signature in every direction, fragmenting it, making it impossible to pin down. Someone had trained specifically for tight spaces. For exactly this.

The next one hit Aristus’s good wing. He shrieked and wrenched sideways. I jolted forward, nearly tumbling over his shoulder. Only my grip on the neck spike kept me on his back, my wounded shoulder spasming at the angle.

Someone was trying to kill me. And when they did, I’d fall down the bone-studded wall.

Reece and Lyndie brought their dragons closer while Eradin urged Selira between us and whoever had cast the spells, her hands already glowing red. Selira growled and blasted fire toward the other elites. The wild dragon had no patience for strangers who hurt what was hers.

I pulled magic from the well I’d been trained to tap since childhood, blue fire crackling across my palms. Combat magic, the kind reserved for killing.

Eradin’s red light met mine in the space between us.

Our magic should’ve repelled. Commons couldn’t do magic. Elite magic came from a different bloodline.

The texts were wrong. The entire kingdom was wrong.

Red and blue hit in the space between us.

The colors fought each other, pushing back, refusing. Then something gave way and the colors spiraled, braiding tight. The shield that formed wasn’t mine or hers. It was ours. Just like when we clung to each other, drowning beneath the dome.

Our magic caught the next spell and shattered it into sparks that winked out before they reached the ground.

I stared at my hands. At hers.

The bond between us sang so loudly I felt it in my back teeth.