Page 196 of The Kingdom's Reckoning
"Most of us are not," the healer said as he tightened the tourniquet around his patient’s thigh. "There hasn’t been this bloody of a battle since the Great War. Even the skirmishes that have happened on the borders and the small rebellions here-and-there could not have prepared us for this."
"How do you keep going?" Myra asked.
"You stay busy," Gerald said, handing her a bucket and tipping his head toward the man Moris placed on the ground.
Myra took the bucket and began cleaning the stranger’s wounds. Across from her, Phaia did the same. While she hadn’t gotten over her distaste for the sight of blood, she no longer gagged every time she saw a wound.
A light hand fell onto Myra’s shoulder. "I’ll try to see if I can find something out."
Myra looked at Moris with more gratitude than she could have ever expressed. Thank you was on the tip of her tongue, but before she could speak, a scream ripped through the camp.
Chapter 81
GRAESON
The feral drakoniseshad overrun Frenzia’s capital, pouring from the castle in torrents with curled sneers and deadly talons. Rancid drool dripped from their tongues. Graeson’s entire body reeked of it. His clothes were drenched and stuck to his skin. Every time he got a whiff, he recoiled in disgust.
As iron tainted the air, the dragon within roared as Graeson swung his scimitar. With every strike, the desire to shift intensified. His skin itched as the beast begged to break free. But with one quick scan, Graeson knew there were too many people who would get injured if he did. The streets were too narrow. If he transformed, it would only result in more chaos, destruction, and death. Instead, he kept his attention on the battle.
These drakonises were even more aggressive than Nyrri had been when Graeson first encountered her in that crate months ago. It was as if Sebastian had kept the beasts locked inside the cells beneath the castle without food for days, perhaps even weeks, to increase their hunger and anger. But Graeson would not be deterred.
He fought alongside Kalisandre, their movements in perfect harmony. They had fought against each other on severaloccasions and trained together throughout the past few weeks. He knew when she would strike by the shift in her stance, when she would dip by the sharp inhale she would take. With the bond flowing freely between them, their movements were fluid, a ballad twisting around their enemies.
When he looked at her next, he did a double take that nearly cost him his ear.
Kal struggled against a drakonis. The beast chomped at her ankles, forcing her to tumble across the ground, beneath the drakonis’ belly. On one knee, she twisted the dagger in her hand. While she was skilled with the blade, it required her to get much closer to the creatures than Graeson would have liked.
He yanked his scimitar from his most recent kill and swiped the blade across his trousers. As she somersaulted away from another attack, he slid across the ground, meeting her.
"Take it," he urged, holding out the clean scimitar.
"I’m fine," she argued.
He pressed the hilt into her hand, anyway. "Use it, Kalisandre."
Her hand wrapped around the hilt, and they reentered the fight, charging in opposite directions.
When the hoard had appeared, Graeson had debated telling Kalisandre to turn back. He didn’t want her to get hurt. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if she did. Their bond was still new, but he knew without a doubt that it would destroy him if it was severed.
He couldn’t lose her. Not now, not ever.
But when he had looked at Kal and seen her readying for battle, her stance strong, unmoving, and unshakable, he knew his plea would be a waste of breath. Kalisandre’s mind was set. There would be no changing it. Graeson knew that better than most.
Still, he would have been lying if he said his heart didn’t quake every time a drakonis targeted her.
All around him, the motley crew of soldiers, both trained and untrained, fought valiantly. Blades sliced through the tough skin of the drakonises. Arrows drove into their chests, backs, and wings—anywhere that would slow them down.
Sweat dripped down Graeson’s back, dampening his shirt and causing it to stick to his skin. He didn’t let up, though. He kept fighting, as did everyone. He slashed his blade across fur and scales, spun away from webbed wings that threatened to knock him down, dodged the sharp canines of another. But at some point, between blows and grunts and despite his best efforts, Kalisandre vanished from his view.
Frantic, he searched for her. As he spun on his feet, a drakonis knocked him flat on the ground, stealing his breath away.
The need to find Kal, to ensure she was safe, surged through his veins. With the adrenaline pumping through him, Graeson sliced his scimitar across the beast’s neck and rolled, narrowly missing the outpouring of guts and blood.
He leaped to his feet and scanned the street. The clash of steel rang in his ears. His muscles strained as he grabbed onto the jaws of his next opponent. Then he finally spotted her in the thick of the fray, shielding one of their soldiers.
Kal swung the scimitar with deadly precision, as if it had been made for her. But she was losing the battle, and the other soldiers were scattered across the area, too far to help.
The beast’s jaw snapped in Graeson’s hands. A mangled screech spilled from its mouth, and Graeson drove his blade through its heart before abandoning it.
