“I can’t portal you back.” He added.
The drums boomed again, louder now, vibrating through my ribs.
I understood instantly. The drums indicated the official start of a battle. During active battle, no one was allowed to create portals back to Rionis. Wildweavers could slip through with them. Transporting anyone back to the island would risk opening the Veil.
We were stuck. I was stuck.
“I can’t have you interfere with the fight or have a wildweaver take the Solenhart heir hostage,” Lorik said, voice clipped, looking at the horizon for answers. “Hide in the core, Thea,” Ugo said immediately after, command-tight, pointing to the metal door. “Stay hidden until we can return to Elarion.”
Heat flushed through my face, shame mixed with adrenaline.
I had come here out of curiosity, out of a reckless need to see what lay beyond the Veil. And he was right. I had no weapon, no training for this, no idea into what I was truly stepping.
Not yet, at least.
I didn’t think this through. Of course I didn’t.
I always acted on impulse.
I nodded, small, stiff and turned on my heel.
The drums thundered again, the wind whipping against the steel platforms as Dragontails took their positions.
I sprinted toward the metal door, shoved it open, and slipped inside. The room was colder than the corridor, lined with long-range weapons designed to capture or kill dragons. I had never imagined using any of them. In the center, a spiralingstaircase twisted upward, connecting the tower’s platforms like a spine of steel.
I ducked beneath the concrete landing and curled into the shadowed hollow, dragging my knees to my chest. I tried to steady my breathing, to forget where I had dragged myself into… but then I realized just how far gone my mind truly was.
My wrist was bare.
I’d come back to the atrium to grab my protection heirloom, my family heirloom, the only thing shielding me from mental magic until my twenty-first birthday and I hadn’t even taken it.
A violent pulse of panic thudded through me. My breath stuttered. My heart kicked hard against my ribs. I tried to inhale deeply, to force the trembling out of my lungs, but nothing worked. I had messed this up—again.
I had been so desperate to prove I was different. So focused on showing my mother and the entire island that I could be Dragontail. That I never stopped to consider the consequences.
Whether I liked it or not, I was still heir to the throne. And the wildweavers would feast on an opportunity like this. They would peel me apart, use me to unbalance the crown, weaken the island from the inside out. They understood exactly how important a Solenhart heir was.
And I came here unshielded. Unguarded. Completely unprepared for battle. Then darkness swallowed me for a breath.
A scream tore across the cliffs.
Not human.
A dragon.
And the battle began.
From here, I couldn’t see anything, so I focused on listening, on piecing together whatever was happening outside. I drew a breath and picked out four, maybe six different dragon growls. Magic crashed through the air: bursts of light colliding with flames, high-velocity winds tearing across the platform. The scent of rain and smoke seeped through the metal door. Everyone was using their magical traces to fight the wildweavers.
But it was nearly impossible to separate the crack of magic from the screams of Dragontail students. Except for one voice, one I could always find, no matter the chaos, Lorik Draventh.
“Don’t kill the dragon, aim for the wildweaver, Ugo!” Lorik shouted.
His commands cut through everything, sharp and steady. He directed the legion with an ease that shouldn’t have been possible in the middle of a dragon assault. The legion respected him, trusted him, because he led like someone born for war.
More fire, shadow, and other magical traces crashed together just beyond the concrete walls, shielding me. Minutes stretched into hours in my hiding spot as screams tore across the battlefield outside, pulling at the instinct in me that wanted to run out there and fight those dragon feeders myself.
A violent explosion rocked the tower. Steel groaned beneath me as the whole structure swayed, and seconds later came the roar of water slamming against something massive outside. A portion of the tower had collapsed, I felt it through the floor.