Page 95 of The Nightmare Queen

“Fuck that hurt.” I groan. I landed awkwardly across the base of Vada’s spine. The dragon didn’t seem too bothered by my intrusion, it’s rider however…

“WHAT IN THE GODS?!” Eveera’s head whips back to see me rather ungracefully crawl my way across Vada’s back and sink down into a the ridges behind Eveera.

My arm pulls tight around her waist, nestling her up against me. Despite the thick layer of copper scented blood covering her skin and hair, the smell of her perfume still carries over. My mouth grazes against the back of her head and I have half a mind to kill her, while the otherwants to slam my mouth down on hers and breathe a sigh of relief that she’s okay so far.

“ARE YOU INSANE?” She shouts, her voice getting lost on the wind. Her hands push at my arms trying to loosen them.

“I’D RATHER LIKE TO NOT FALL OFF THE BLOODY THING!” I shout back at her. She’s rolling her eyes. I know it, I don’t need to see it to know she has. “Explain yourself.”I bark, as we bank hard on a draft of wind. “What other secrets have you kept from me. One was killing my parents, two was killing my city, is there a third snake in the grass I need to be prepared for?!”

“Is there are reason you are shouting in my mind? You’re going to give me a headache, and I didn’t order this attack! It’s as much a surprise to me as it is you, believe me when I find out who went against orders I’ll—” Her words are cut short when we tilt down, looking at the soldiers outside the wall. They carry her banner but a handful of them are placing their hands on the wall, something webbing out from underneath them and up the stone.

“Are those vines?”I ask.

“So I was right.”Her words are breathy in my mind.

“What do you me—”

“Evendell. He has recruited - drafted rather - the Wielders of Evendell.”The thought sinks into my stomach, heavy like lead.“Those aren’t my men. Those are Baelor’s posing as my men which means…”

“He has magic.”I finish for her.Fuck.

Rorin

“You were telling the truth.” I say quietly. Vada, whether at the command of Eveera or of her own volition, makes a move and flies us up higher into the cloud cover.

“Yes, I do that often. What I can’t understand is why the hell they look like my men?” Her mind a tangled mess.

“My father’s an Illusionary. He must have been smuggling them along the border, a condition of whatever farce treaty he signed with Baelor. And I’ll bet you he’s been Illusioning them from the moment he caught wind your soldiers were on our territory.”

I have been such a fool thinking I actually had the upper hand on him for once. I take in Eveera’s profile, her eyes focused on the battle. I’ll have dragged her into this for absolutely nothing; our real armies are miles away. Her men will die.She will die.

“Vada has to end them.” I say with a finality.

“No.”She snarks.“I thought I would risk her just forshow.” The dragon tilts hard to the right, our bodies sliding with the movement. She slips a little further towards Vada’s wing so I hook my thumb into the loopof her belt - fastening her to me. “I’m not…gonna..fall.” She struggles as she tries to right herself.

“Not taking that chance, Nightmare.”

“I hate you.” She grumbles.

I breathe her in, feeling a little bit of relief that she didn’t betray me. “So you’ve said.”

As we fly around circling back around and over to where their base encampment seems to be, I catch her up to speed on what we found in the city. Looking down we can just barely make out what looks to be some apparatus loaded with a large heated stone. The circumference of it almost as wide as the dragon we are sitting on.

So that’s what caused the damage. Wonderful.

I hadn’t realized I said that thought down the seal until I hear her quiet hum of agreement. There is no way that the ten of us; all powerful or not will be able to make it out of this. Vada will, sure. But even dragons can be felled, and by the looks of that weapon…

With a rough landing in the decimated capitol we decide that the quickest way to get out there, to potentially apprehend them, is to have Armond Void each of us to a ridge just south of their encampment that while on Vada we were able to scout out.

Vada takes off with Eveera first.

Armond repeats the process of Voiding us there one by one until we all stand concealed by the trees. Once as comfortable as we could be, Eveera and I clued the rest of our men in on what we found while up in the sky.

“Let me get this right, your father has been Illusioning Baelor’s Guards this entire time to make it look like Obsidian led the attack on Vellar?” Max asks.

Orem perks up his head, suggesting that we burn out their supplies to buy time.

Max doesn’t seem convinced as he shakes his head. “It won’t matter what we delay - there are fuckingthousands of themand only ten of us. Nine and a half if you count the fact that you almost already fucking killed Felix.” He yells, shoving a hand towards the councilman. “What do you suppose those odds will be, hmm?” Orem shrugs, arguing that he was just trying to help.

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