Page 63 of Feralheart

I pulled my hand away, my palm red and tender.

Then the official’s gaze found mine.

“Next rider,” he called out. “You.”

It was my turn to die.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ERADIN

My lungs burned from smoke coiling from the canyon. Soot coated the inside of my mouth, gritty between my teeth.

Four of us left. Just me, the blonde woman with tears streaming down her face, the gray-bearded man with his jaw set, and a red-haired man, blank with shock.

I turned to Lykor and checked his tack one more time. If I was doing this, I’d do it right.

A glance up showed the prince standing at the rail, his hands braced on the stone. I couldn’t read his expression, but the set of his shoulders felt too tight for what he must see as a day of spirited competition.

He’d told me the fire maze claimed more than the canyon.

A fact, he’d said. Not a warning.

I dragged my gaze away and walked around to Lykor’s head. Tiny trembles shook his frame. I ran my hand along his jaw as fear rolled through him. His burn scars stood out starkly in the light filtering down from above, white against his ash-gray scales.

“I know it hurts,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

His eye rolled toward me, exhausted, and I understood. He’d been somewhere like this before. The king had made him fly through something horrible until it broke him. And now I was going to do it again, and this time he might not survive.

“Get going,” a handler hissed under his breath.

I’d go when Lykor was ready. Rushing a traumatized dragon got people killed, and if the handler wanted me dead so badly, he could scorch me with magic himself.

I checked the girth strap one more time, taking longer than necessary just because I could.

The saddle leather creaked under me as I settled and stuffed my boots into the stirrups. Lykor shifted, testing my weight, and his breathing hitched.

I didn’t have a choice. Neither did he. I was a monster or a savior, depending on who survived this.

I loosened the reins and leaned forward. “Go.”

Lykor’s wings snapped out and beat fast, lurching us into the air. The entrance to the maze loomed, and the maw sucked us inside.

Stone walls rose around us, cutting off the sky. Narrow gaps appeared at intervals ahead, spaces we’d have to fly through to progress, some even at an angle. The runes carved into the walls throbbed with heat, a red glow seeping through cracks in the stone.

Lykor’s breath came in short bursts, and his wings beat unevenly.

We approached the first turn.

Flames erupted from ground-level runes ahead, shooting up to kiss the iron mesh above, not leaving enough space below them to fly.

Lykor reared in the air, his wings flaring, trying to get away. I flattened myself against his spine as he slammed into the mesh.

A zap rocketed through my body, discharged from the net.

Lykor groaned and dropped, his wings beating frantically to catch himself.

My hum rose from my lungs. From a place deep inside me that knew fear but still faced it.