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“Great,” I mutter, looking around for a way out, but there are no doors anymore, nothing but tall grey stone walls and that stained glass window.
“Ellelin!” Katherine shouts, and I turn to look at her as she runs to me. Flames pour through the ceiling on either side of her, and suddenly she is shoved into one of them, burning so quickly she didn’t get to scream. Hope looks bored as she lowers her arm and tilts her head as she finds my furious gaze. I take a step towards her, my heart screaming, but flames spread across the floorboards in front of me.
“She just killed her. She just killed her,” Arty keeps repeating, her voice shocked. Sickness rises in my throat, reminding me of how Finley died. It’s the same. This is just like how Finley died. Rapidly, more flames appear around the room, burning the floor slowly away. The ones left all move away from it, backing towards the edges of the room. We go to the window nearby, and I press my back against it as my heart pounds. Some of the walls nearby begin burning from the top, thick smoke filling my lungs, and I choke on it, coughing as I duck down low with Arty. I catch Livia’s eyes across the room, and she is pulling a girl with black hair out of the flames as she screams.
“How on earth did we survive this?!” I shout at Arty, just as two more people scream as they are burnt to ash, and another two incinerate moments after that. We are all going to die. The smell of smoke and burning is overwhelming, and I can’t think straight as I press my hand on the glass. I slowly look at my hand on the window, the fresh air waiting outside, along with the sheer drop.
No, that’s crazy. Crazy. There must be another way. I glance behind me at the flames, coughing and sputtering. There’s only a small gap in the flames, but it’s big enough for me to get enough traction to break through the window with my body. I’m pretty sure I’d rather risk dying by being flattened out there than burning to death in here. This is mad.
“I’ve got a crazy plan, but follow me and be brave,” I tell Arty, who looks at me with wide eyes as I begin crawling as far away from the window as I can get. Her eyes follow me as I stand up, flames licking and hissing around me as I look at the window. She follows my gaze.
“No! Don’t do it! That’s insane and you’ll die!” Arty screams at me, beginning to crawl my way.
The truth is, I’d rather fly than burn.
With all the strength I have, I run straight into the window with a jump. I smash through it, bits of glass cutting into my skin as I fall. My stomach twists and turns as I scream, air whipping fast by and taking all the air in my lungs.
But I don’t fall for long. I slam on something hard, clutching onto a ledge that’s warm. I open my eyes, looking right down at scales. I lift my head as my landing pad moves slightly, almost knocking me off, and I look around to see I’m on the back of a dragon. It has black rippling scales tinted with red on the ends, almost like flames, and it is so warm. Large wings are spread out on either side of its huge body, and it has a long neck leading to a huge head with two horns curled up around its ears. The dragon—holy shit, I’m riding a dragon—its long tail is covered in red spikes. The dragon roars loud and I cover my ears until it stops. It turns its head to me, and its eyes are familiar. The pure, blood red belongs to a dragon king I wish I didn’t know.
“Arden,” I say breathlessly, only now feeling drops of my warm blood dripping down my arms and legs from the glass, and I wince, holding on tightly to one of Arden’s scales. Arty lands with a loud thump next to me, followed by Hope, others I don’t know, and Livia not long after with the black-haired girl she saved whose leg is badly burnt. I count fifteen, and I look up, waiting for more to come. Nine people couldn’t have just died then.
Arden sweeps low, and I barely manage to hold onto the scales as he flies around the castle, his wings reflecting the bright sunlight. His dragon swoops down to the field below, landing on a grassy field. I look up at the broken window of the tower, seeing the outline of at least three girls standing there. They don’t jump. They don’t move as flames suddenly engulf the room, leaving nothing but ash flickering into the wind from where they stood. I close my eyes.
Arden’s dragon tilts to the side, letting all of us roll off his wing onto the grass. Only it’s not silent; there are people loudly cheering. I look around us to realise the edges of the field are full of people. So many people in dresses, in cloaks, and some normally dressed. They’re cheering so loudly that it’s all I can hear, and it cuts into my heart. People just died. Katherine died and they’re cheering like that is something to be celebrated.
Arden’s dragon is smothered in mist, which fades to leave him standing on the grass in a blood red cloak, tight black trousers, and a black shirt.
“Congratulations on winning my test. Fire is fast and deadly, and even the smallest flame can destroy. This was the lesson of the Fire Court,” Arden declares, his voice smug. I flinch as my wrist burns, and I pull up my sleeve to see a red dragon mark on my wrist near my hand.
Males in dark blue cloaks run over to us from the crowd, and a man comes to Arty and me, bowing his head of short red hair. “We are healers from the Water Court. My name is Prince Kian. Will you allow me to heal you both?”
“She needs it more than me,” Arty says, rubbing her wrist. Kian meets her gaze for a moment, and they both stare at each other before he clears his throat and turns to me. He offers me his hand, and despite the anger coursing through me, I take it. I feel like every inch of my skin is suddenly underwater, and it only lasts a moment, but when he lets my hand go, every little burn and cut from the glass is replaced with smooth skin. Even the blood is gone.
“Impressive. Thank you.”
Kian bows his head once more and then turns to Arty. “May I?”
I leave them to it as I hear Arden laugh. He is laughing. You have to be kidding me. Anger fills me, uncontrollably, and I don’t even think of the consequences as I storm over to him. He turns to face me, and the others he was with back away. “Nine people just died and you’re laughing? You heartless fucking monster! Nine families are going to search for those girls. Nine fucking lives were just lost just so you can find a wife! How dare you laugh?!”
Silence. Everyone is silent after my rant, but I don’t care. He needed to hear it. Arden meets my eyes, and I don’t look away. I don’t so much as blink. “Would you care if you knew their names? One of them was called Katherine, who liked to go to the arcades and was going to university soon. She could have had a whole life, and she was innocent, but she died up there. She was murdered by you and Hope. Why are your people cheering? It’s disgusting. It’s barbaric!”
He takes one step, his arms crossed as he stands over me. “Get over it. They’re just mortals. This isn’t a fun competition. You win or you die. What do you think that meant? That you weren’t going to see people die? Grow up, princess. This isn’t Earth. We don’t have rules here for mortals like you. You’re sheep to us.”
I don’t back down. I refuse to back down. He lowers his hands and reaches out, touching my cheek. “You jumped first, Elle. You’re impressive and fiery. Just like my queen will need to be.”
“I will never be your queen,” I snarl at him.
He smirks before walking away into the crowds that happily cheer for him. I watch him go, only to find Lysander watching me. He flashes me an unfriendly smile before walking to Arden’s side. Fuck, I was meant to get close to Arden, not tell him to fuck off. Lysander claps Arden on the back, both of them laughing together like they are close friends and he’s not stabbing him in the back. I don’t know what the story is or why he wants Arden dead, but I know that killing any of the dragon kings is not something I’m going to be able to walk away from. I don’t think I could take anyone’s life, even a monster like Arden’s.
The crowd starts walking towards us, but I back away until I turn and leave. I need to get out of here. I don’t want to talk to them. Most of us are standing in silence. Traumatised silence. I turn around just as the food that was in my stomach comes up, and I puke all over the floor. A few people laugh around me, including Hope, but Arty comes to my side, rubbing my back. She helps me stand. “Come on, let’s go back to the room. Ignore them. There is something wrong with them if they don’t feel sick after that.”
I nod, words escaping me for a moment. “Thank you. I’ve been really mean to you. Why are you helping me?”
“Because we’re friends,” she says as I wipe my mouth. “And you just saved my life up there. I wouldn’t have jumped. I was just planning to die, but you somehow found the answer.”
A tunnel appears in the rock, and we head inside, trusting the castle to take us back to the rooms, or we’re just too tired from everything to care either way. The stone tunnel leads into a room in the castle with a staircase, which we head up, and it leads into the main room where we had breakfast. Now, it’s back to sofas, and the archway to the bedrooms is open.
“She said the castle is alive. It knew you needed to go back to your room, so it took us back to the rooms. It’s pretty smart,” Arty comments. I swear the room gets a little warmer with her compliment.
