Page 124 of Realm of Wind and Vines
My heart jerks as Bane flashes us a smug smile.
Every instinct inside me is screaming at me to attack. Or run. Or both. But I force myself to do neither.
Standing on the flat stone ground just outside the library, theIcehearts watch us in silence for another few seconds. Jessina is wearing a sparkling silver dress, and her white hair has been pinned up slightly before falling down her back. As usual, Bane’s black hair simply ripples down his back like a smooth waterfall. He is wearing fancy royal formal wear as well, but neither of them has their wings out.
“I told you it would work,” Bane says.
“You didn’t actually do anything, though,” Jessina replies as she flicks a glance at him from the corner of her eye.
“I gave the order.”
“Mabona’s tits,” Alistair interrupts, staring at them from across the stone ground. “You even sound like them.”
Bane flashes us another smug smile while Jessina just lifts one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. Staring at them in disbelief, I shake my head.
Mabona’s tits, indeed. Nysara sure knows how to cast realistic glamours.
Isera and Orion, who are currently glamoured to look like the Icehearts, remain where they are while Alistair and I close the final distance to them. While the rest of us were scouting out taverns and threatening people, Orion and Isera went off on their own to visit Nysara, Orion’s spy here in Frostfell. Thankfully, they managed not to kill each other long enough for Nysara to use her magic to glamour them.
“All the guards left the moment we showed up and commanded them to fly out to defend the city,” Orion says in Bane’s voice.
“All except one,” Isera adds, and annoyance flits across her, or rather Jessina’s, face. “He must have been ordered not to let anyone inside.”
Following her gaze, I look towards the doors to the white stone library. A single dragon shifter, dressed in silver armor, is standing resolutely in front of the doors. No, not standing. Inarrow my eyes as I study his left wrist. He has handcuffed himself to the left door handle.
“We’ve tried to break the door down,” Isera continues.
“And breakhim,” Orion adds.
“But we can’t get it open, and he isn’t budging,” she finishes.
Alarm shoots up my spine as I stare between the two of them. “He won’t open the door? Even for you, glamoured as the Icehearts?”
“No.”
“Shit,” I curse. Ice washes through my veins as realization hits. “They must have anticipated this. Of course they wouldn’t leave her unprotected. They’re way too smart for that. There must be some kind of special code word or passphrase that they use to make sure that only they can get him to open the door.” I snap my gaze to Orion. “Can’t you find it in his head?”
“I can’t read people’s minds,” he replies. “I can only see bad memories, remember?”
Tension crackles through me as that sudden stress returns with a vengeance. If we can’t get Lavendera soon, Draven, Lyra, and Galen are going to be forced to fight the entire might of the Silver Clan. If we wait too long to leave, the Silver Clan is going to realize that no dragon clans are coming and return to the city, and then Draven and the others will be forced to shift in order to buy us time to get out. They will get swarmed.
Panic pulses through me.
I can’t let that happen.
“He has a lot of memories of being tortured,” Orion continues. “And I meana lot. Too many for me to even sift through.” He shifts his gaze to me, holding it with serious eyes. “It’s all done by the Icehearts, though. So he has obviously been thoroughly trained to withstand torture. We won’t be able to break him in time.”
A snarl of rage and panic rips from my chest. I am so fuckingtired of being outplayed by the Icehearts! Why do they always have to think five steps ahead?
“We are getting through that door,” I declare. That endless rage burns through me as I stalk forward, my furious eyes locked on the guard who is putting Draven’s life at risk. “He is opening that fucking door right now.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Orion says as he and the others scramble after me. “He has been trained to withstand torture.”
“It won’t matter,” Alistair replies, a knowing smile suddenly sliding across his lips. “I don’t call her Soulstealer for nothing.”
I come to a halt in front of the stubborn guard, my friends flanking me on both sides. He raises his chin and glares back at us all defiantly. Impatience crackles inside me like bolts of lightning. Every second we waste is another second that brings Draven closer to danger.
Those awful memories of when he was swarmed by dragons in the sky above Rin’s floating islands flash through my mind. Memories of dragons who tore at his wings and clamped their jaws through his side. I am not letting that happen again. Draven has protected me for so long. It’s time that I start protecting him. I don’t care what kind of villain I need to become. I will protect him.
