Page 182 of Vicious Is My Throne

“Then we climb back down and pick our way across that.” I nodded to the Pale, spilling out before us like a barren flatland. “Our magic will replenish. Tristan and I can clear the blight as we go.”

“Anaria.” Raz ran his knuckles down the side of my face. “We’ve no water. No food. We’d never make it.”

I ground my teeth together. “We would. I would make sure of it.”

“You can’t will five people—one of them badly injured—across a hundred miles of blight-infested desolation, no matter how badly you want to.”

“Don’t be condescending,” I snapped.

“I’m not…” Raz scrubbed his face, Zorander stepping closer.

“He’s right, and he’s not being condescending. You just don’t want to hear the truth,” Zor said softly. “Because it’s hard to win the battle but lose the war. But sometimes…you fucking lose, princess. And there’s nothing you can do but accept that.”

I was shaking my head. “No. No.”

Not after all this fucking bullshite would I accept for one godsdamned minute we’d ended Corvus and Gelvira, lost Sylvi, only to die on this outcropping above the awfulness of the Pale.

“We are climbing down there.” I pointed my shaking finger at the treacherous path we’d taken to get up here, which, admittedly, looked impossible. “And when we reach the bottom, I am getting us across that.”

As if on cue, the mountain rumbled behind us, followed by dust spewing from the opening.

I felt old. Ancient.

Not in a good way, but in a worn-out, I-don’t-know-how-much-more-I-have-in-me way. I noted the raised eyebrows, the arguments poised on everyone’s lips, and I shook my head.

“I know this is impossible. But we can’t just…die here.” I tried to stop the tears, but they came anyway. “I thought…” I swallowed and tasted nothing but blight. “We deserved a future. After everything, we deserved something.”

Raz’s arms went around me, Zorander’s, too, then a sinuous neck covered in golden scales wound around my waist. Even Tavion managed to crack his eye open.

The mountain groaned.

The sort of groan that preceded a total collapse.

“It was the honor of my life”—Raz nuzzled into my hair, which was probably disgusting—“to serve you, princess. I would have liked to sit on a beach with you.”

Zor gave me a tired grin. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and do this again, without the evil overlords next time.”

“We’re not doing this.” Desperation raced through me, and I jumped from one solution to another, anything to get us off the side of this mountain…but nothing came except more tears, my insides crumpling.

“We’re not doing goodbyes and thank you’s and I love you’s, because we are getting that fucking future we fucking deserve.” The words ripped out of me on a snarl so vicious even Zorander reeled back a step.

“Anaria.” Raz’s eyes flared wide.

“No. No. No. Not happening.” I shoved at his chest, trying to put some distance between that look on his face and the panic taking over me. “We’re not?—”

“Anaria.” Raz pointed over my shoulder. “Look.”

So I did.

To the enormous black dragon circling over the valley below, the white-haired seer on his back, and the golden speck flapping beside them.

77

ANARIA

Three days later, Blackcastle was organized chaos, refugees slowly streaming back from the Havens, Torin and Cosimo taking care of their resettlement while we recovered.

A very grumpy Tavion was still on the mend, much to his dismay and Tristan’s eternal delight.

---