Page 84 of Burning Heir

The crowd cheered as I blew a flurry of blackened smoke toward them. A few students whispered amongst the others. The headmaster had a monocle on—eyes on me as he stood beside the king, bracing for the wave of heat. As I tore past them, I heard his words to the king, “…Fallon’s daughter.”

Iwas Fallon’s daughter. I knew that statement was a curse. I was the daughter of death, riding on her snow-white resurrected beast.

I met the king’s slivered gaze, which wavered between Naraic and me, devoid of any discernible thought. A hiss of breath whispered through the wind. “Nobody enjoys a show-off,” he said, voice clipped.

Naraic huffed as he dove toward the Day realm. No lunge of the wards repelled us. No electrified field protected the trails as speckled light broke through the clouds, suffocating the rain with that bright beacon above. Knox had never struck me as pure radiant with the worms he’d dug with his bare hands and the roadkill he’d made necklaces with from vermin bones. But this was his realm—hiscalling.

We glided above a large lake, lunging through two more hoops, stealing those golden ribbons each time.

Naraic groaned in pain, snarling his snapping jaw. “What is it?” I screamed.

Then I noticed a shard of metal pierced into his scale by his ribs. A flash of spiked tails slammed into my side. A third-year Night snickered as her silver-tipped fingers threw metal shards toward us. The same woman I’d seen Archer speaking to on the first day during the Rite.

The lead to become his heir.

“Care for a little fun, Sev?” she snickered.

Gasping, I reached toward the fragments lodged near a scale on his ribs. “I’ll tell Archer you attacked us. He’ll never trust you.”

She raised her silver-slicked hand again. “He can’t believe you if you’re dead.”

We dove down, skimming over the water before lurching into the sky. I wielded a leash of flame, hanging onto Naraic’s neck with one hand, snapping the cindering whip toward her with ahiss.

“And you can’t claim his heir if you’re a cindered corpse.”

She choked, eyes narrowing to slits before flicking her wrist, and a shard of metal clipped my ear. “You little,bitch.”

“Naraic!” I cried. “We need to fly.”

Pain, horrible pain, pierced me. A pool of warm crimson trickled down my cheek as she grew two more jagged daggers,sharper than the last, mirroring the trees with the sleekness of the metal. She thrusted, and one tore through across my shoulder, shoving me backward.

I needed to lose her off my trail, but the thought of ending her willed in my thoughts, dangling as the only option to save Naraic.

“He’ll be glad he doesn’t have to protect you anymore,” she hissed, shoving her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Your brother is dead. He shouldn’t carry that burden of ensuring your safety simply because they were friends.”

I curled that leash back. I had never thought so callously about another person’s death, but seeing Naraic in pain did something to me. It ignited not only a flame but rage.

I ripped out the shard from my shoulder with a hiss.

Anger surged—funneled through my boiling veins. I willed that flame to reach her, to wrap around her neck and drag her down.

“Fly!” I screamed, and Naraic took off, ripping Delair off her dragon.

She was bloodied and shaking on the ground, and her flesh peeled over with cindered burns. I had done that—for Naraic. I reached over to his ribs, tugged the serrated metal out with a grunt, and threw it toward the ground.

“I killed her,” I breathed.

“Her shield was weak.”

Riders flew above and away from me, unwilling to risk their lives for the lower hoops I’d set ablaze. We passed through the forests, and two more golden ribbons decorated my wrist. Daylight became the cool breeze of autumn leaves.

Then Naraic cried a howl I had never heard come from him before. It wasn’t a pained noise, but the sound twisted my stomach.

I saw Emerich’s sea-green scales through the clouds. “Damien,” I called.

Moss-flecked peaks lined the horizon. Mist veiled us in midday showers, and I was thankful it wasn’t that beating rain from before. But when Damien didn’t answer back, Naraic chased after Emerich, whose spine was riderless.

Fear gripped my bones as Emerich let out that same howl. A cry ofmourning.

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