Page 87 of Between Fear and Favor

“Get dressed, and I’ll help you. I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said, wishing I’d been more gentle. But with everything that occurred, with everything we’d fought for and how badly I wanted her, I was grateful I hadn’t been rougher.

Em bent at the waist, rifling through the chest of drawers for fresh underthings, when she let out a high-pitched whine.

“Is it that bad?” I asked, grasping her by the shoulder and putting my hand on her lower back. She stood, quickly pulling the chemise over her head.

“This isn’t—I’m not?—”

Another whine, and she gasped for breath.

A roar resonated, shaking the entire palace. It sounded like Irses.

“The dragons,” I said, panicked, as I held out the skirt for her to step into. No horns had sounded, and last I’d checked with our scouts, the Supreme’s army had retreated to the Aesiron. We would push them out of Vesta entirely once we had time to recuperate. So what new threat was this?

“What’s happening?” she cried, pulling the skirt up to her waist and tying it in place. “They’re hurting him.”

Quickly, I helped her with the bodice. She whimpered in pain as we both found our boots. Thanking the gods I’d brought my sword into our chambers, I unsheathed it as she opened a rift into the Dragon Hollow.

What we found carved my stomach out.

“STOP,” I bellowed, as Em used her shadows with such a quick and intense force that I felt a breeze on my forehead.

“What are you doing?” she screamed, throwing Lasu to the ground with her divinity.

A few dozen soldiers encircled Irses, each holding a spear. A large metal collar sat on the ground before the snarling and snapping creature, and I didn’t understand how it got there. Something of that size couldn’t have been crafted overnight.

Rage filled me as I spotted Traekka behind him, curled on the grassy spot beside the pond with her wings covering her body. She whined, deep and mournful, as I spotted the glint of a metal collar around her neck. Irses had taken a protective stance in front of the rest of the dragons, and he’d been physically injured because of it. Light passed through a ragged hole in his wing, and a spear had clearly scraped his leg.

Irses was too big for the Hollow, and I feared if he slammed his head into the cave roof, it would cause the palace to fall. Thankfully, as it was, Em’s newly formed escape dug from the cavern to the grounds hadn’t seemed to affect the integrity of our surroundings. Soldiers stood against the sunlight filtering in from the steeply angled tunnel, and half of the torches had gone out. Quickly, I accounted for the other dragons in the dark. Lux and Ifash were missing, and I was grateful for it. Their fire would have certainly caused far more damage.

Irses could have ripped each of these soldiers to shreds, yet he hadn’t. Thank the gods.

“Drop your spears,” I ordered, and not a single one of my soldiers listened. Probably because they were too afraid to drop their weapons when a massive creature bared its teeth at them.

Normally, I’d have rumbled the earth to get my gods damn point across, but I didn’t feel confident doing so at the moment. Em didn’t wait, though, using her shadowed divinity to steal the weapons from each of the soldiers and hurling them into the dirt walls behind them. My eyes widened at the show of power.

It was organized chaos after that, each soldier running to their spear to pull it free.

“ENOUGH,” I bellowed once more, walking in front of Irses. The dragon, though he’d been suspicious of me and protective of Em since I met him, seemed to calm. Em ran to the beast, cooing and soothing and healing.

“Why?” she whispered, heartbreak heavy in her words. Irses being harmed after Ryo’s death stung. If I felt like a failure, I was sure Em only felt worse. But these were our soldiers. We shouldn’t have had to consider they would harm the dragons.

“Lasu,” I snapped, and he limped toward me. Irses growled, and the one-eyed man lifted both his hands as he approached. Em shushed and petted the dragon, pouring her healing divinity into his leg. “Explain this.”

“Ashmont’s orders. From the council.” He winced, rubbing at his hip. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“You don’t answer to Ashmont. You answer to me,” I responded, my voice icing over.

“He outranks me,” Lasu said, affronted. The meager torchlight played over his face, darkening the black eye he’d been given in the pit the day before.

“And I outrank him, do I not? Where is Ashmont? What were the orders, exactly?”

Before he could answer, the enraged sound of a woman barely concealing a scream came from behind me. Whirling toward her, I wasn’t shocked to see Em’s hands clenched tightly.

“The spears had obsidian tips,” Em spat, and I tasted her fury. “That collar on Traekka is probably obsidian.”

“He could have killed them,” I said, my own anger contorting my features into something ugly. “Why the fuck didn’t you come to me, Lasu? You had to know I wouldn’t stand for such treatment of the very creatures who saved us.”

“And they will ruin us too,” a soft voice said from the shadows. “At least, that is what the council believes.”

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