A Dance of Dragons: Series Starter Bundle (39 page)

"Get behind me," he yelled and threw the
lanterns as forcefully as he could at the floor.

Fire flared to life at his feet, billowing
up in a huge wave that soared overhead and blasted his face with
heat.

The lords jumped back, surprised.

"Rhen," Whyllem yanked on his shoulder,
trying to pull his brother back into safety.

Rhen shirked his hold and met his brother's
eyes. "Get with the women, and stay back. For once, just trust
me."

Not waiting for a response, he looked to the
fire, already feeling his hands itch with longing. But he was not
there to shut the fire off, to pull it into his skin.

No.

He wanted to make it rage.

Rhen glanced at the oil spreading across the
floor, widening the wall of flame before him. In only minutes, it
would be dried up, and the lords would be able to advance once
more. He needed something else. Something beside stone. Something
that would light up and stay that way.

Getting his bearings, Rhen realized he was
sandwiched between the two long banquet tables, right in the center
of the room. Behind him, the royal table sat undisturbed,
confirming his location.

Cloth.

He realized.

Wood
.

Running down the center of the table was a
red silk of Whylkin, a decoration—a fire hazard. Underneath it,
planks of solid wood.

The fire just needed to get there—to spread
a little wider.

He stared into the orange flames, willing
them to grow, to heed his command.

They shrunk.

The fire wouldn't listen. Even as his skin
yearned for its touch, the fire denied him, as it had every time he
had tried to control it.

A shout caught his notice. One lord had
climbed onto the table, circling to fight Rhen from behind.

There was no time.

Ripping his shirt down the middle, Rhen
pulled his formal jacket off and dipped it into the flames, waiting
until it caught before tossing it onto the tabletop to his
left.

Shrugging off his shirt, he repeated the
process, only this time throwing it to his right.

Then he waited. Watching. Praying.

Suddenly a spark, a bright flash.

The fire caught.

A blaze singed the approaching lord as the
silks burned hot, alighting more oil and rapidly pulsing down the
table in small booms.

"Rhen, you will burn us alive," Whyllem
yelled over the cackle.

But hope surged in Rhen's chest and he
turned to his family, beaming with relief.

"No," he said and reached into the growing
flame behind him, letting the heat seep under his skin, comfort
him. His mother gasped, a memory flaring to life behind her irises.
He pulled his untouched, unscalded hand free.

Whyllem's jaw dropped.

Rhen stepped closer and moved his mother,
Awenine, and Whyllem so they all huddled together, covering
Whyllean, cowering from the flames. They listened to his commands
without protest, without pause.

Like a shark, Rhen circled them, constantly
walking around their bodies, pulling any wayward flames into his
flesh to prevent them from smoldering his family.

It seemed like hours that he moved, calling
a flame in, releasing it, searching for the next encroaching
wave.

In truth, it was only minutes.

But the fire had done its job. Rhen knew it
the moment he heard the doors slam open. The lords were running,
saving themselves, escaping.

Still, Rhen let the room burn until he heard
voices call out for the king, the queen, Tarin. He never heard his
own name, but it didn’t matter. The guards were there. The people
loyal to his family were there.

And the house of Whyl had survived.

When droplets of water brushed his face,
Rhen knew for sure that his enemies were gone. If the guards were
safe enough to concentrate on putting out the fire, his enemies
must be out of reach and running.

Letting go of his concentration, Rhen
dropped to his knees, throwing his hands to the side and calling
for the fire to come to him.

It listened, crashing into his chest,
melting into his bare skin, disappearing from the world. He pulled
and pulled, demanding every last source of heat obey his will.

Lord of Fire.

That's what Rhen was—what he had always
been. But now the world would know it too.

He opened his eyes and stood, meeting the
amazed expressions of the royal guard, all paused with disbelief as
water sloshed from the buckets in their unsteady hands.

Not waiting, Rhen spun. He had to check if
his family was safe, that Whyllean remained untouched.

As he opened his mouth to ask the question,
a gasp escaped his lips instead.

Rhen clutched his stomach.

He looked down at the knife hilt protruding
from his skin, at the blood spilling onto his fingers, at the
hand—the delicate, feminine hand—forcing the blade deeper.

Rhen's gaze traveled upward, slowly,
disbelieving, until they met his mother's eyes.

His mother's empty, white eyes.

19

Jinji

~ Rayfort ~

As soon as Jinji reached the castle, she knew that
something was wrong. That she was too late. That the shadow had
beaten her there.

While she ran up the white stone steps,
countless ladies ran down—formal dresses bouncing, elegant hair
falling. Screams filtered into her ears, screeching over the dull
sound of her heart thumping wildly in her chest.

For every step she climbed, Jinji was pushed
down three more. Her feet slipped on voluminous silk skirts, her
face was pelted by wild elbows and whipping jewelry. Trying to swim
upstream would be easier and far less painful. Dressed as a
commoner, she was invisible to these women.

But looking into their frightened faces,
Jinji had a feeling the entire world was invisible to these
girls—their vision was too clouded over by fear, by the desperate
need to escape.

Why?

What has happened?

Jinji's heart continued to pound. Was Rhen
alive? For some reason, she felt as though she would know if he
were dead, that she would feel it, a sinking pit in her stomach,
the same way she had felt when Janu had disappeared.

He was alive.

He had to be.

Using her own strength, Jinji pushed the
approaching ladies aside, not caring if she injured someone. Her
will to enter was stronger than any of their wills to leave.

Luckily, she didn’t need to push for very
long. Behind her, men started to shout, to make way, to part the
madness. An avenue opened up and Jinji sprinted, her short legs
soon overcome by men in shimmering bronze armor and red leather
overcoats.

She recognized the symbol on these men's
chests. It was the same stallion that Rhen had on his ceremonial
garb this morning. The symbol of Whylkin. Better to be a soldier in
these halls than a commoner, that much she had learned already. So,
in the midst of the chaos, Jinji wove a new illusion around her
body, hoping no one saw but not really caring—there was not enough
time to be worried.

After tying the spirit strands into a
thousand firm knots, Jinji held her breath for a split second,
waiting for one of the men to shout, or yell, or hold a knife to
her throat. But nothing happened. The trick had worked, she looked
exactly like a king's soldier, and now her greatest challenge would
be keeping in stride with these men towering at least a foot over
her head.

Together they ran.

Soon after entering the main doors of the
castle, the stream of women ended, replaced by an eerie silence
only heightened by the constant pound of boots on stone. By all
counts, the men should sound thunderous in these vaulted halls, but
they didn’t. Small and powerless was more like it.

Still, Jinji preferred it to the ghostly
sound that followed. A ringing. Subtle at first, but growing
louder. Clangs. Vibrations. Shouts. Cries.

Somehow, something that had seemed so
foreign months ago had become recognizable to her ears. The sound
of battle haunted these hallways. And though it made the men around
her cringe, Jinji's heart lifted ever so slightly.

War.

Just as Rhen had described, just as he had
predicted. The Ourthuri had come.

It was horrific. Horrible.

But it also wasn't the shadow, which meant
she still might have time to save the one person she was worried
about losing.

As they rounded a corner, everything
stopped.

Jinji's jaw dropped. The men around her
gasped.

It was a bloodbath.

The pristine white stone walls dripped
maroon, were stained pink. Bodies lined the floor, writhing,
moaning—not dead but wishing to be.

Men in the same uniform Jinji now wore stood
surrounded, circling, keeping men in fine clothes at bay.

And then Jinji gasped too.

These men were not Ourthuri. They were
newworlders. They were just like Rhen, pale skinned and rich,
dripping in sparkling fine clothes.

She looked closer, unable to tell friend
from foe. Lords stood with the guards against their equals,
fighting their peers.

What had happened here?

But Jinji's question would go unanswered as
the men around her jumped into action, leaping over the bodies
littering the floor to confront the rebellious lords now turning in
dismay—having just realized they were outnumbered once the fresh
round of guards appeared.

"To the king! To the king!" Men shouted
around her in confusion.

"The door!" More answered.

Jinji searched, eyes widening as they landed
on two towering doors at least four times her height.

Her heart sunk.

Hoping it wasn't true, she searched the
crowd, through gleaming swords and lunging bodies, through swinging
arms, looking for his face.

Please
, she thought,
please don't
be just out of reach
.

But he was.

Rhen was nowhere to be seen.

Jinji glanced back up at the door, eyes
following the middle seam all the way to the ceiling. There was no
way that would break down. No way to open it unless it wanted to be
opened.

Still, ignoring the fight around her, Jinji
ran as fast as she could and slammed her shoulder into the thick
wood, not at all surprised at the pain that shot up her arm and the
cry that escaped her lips.

Cutting off her senses, refusing to
acknowledge her hurt, Jinji charged again, willing the wood to bend
at least a little under her might. But it didn’t. Hard as stone, it
remained strong, immobile. Undefeatable. But still, Jinji threw her
body against it, again and again, until her side went numb and she
could no longer command her muscles.

Her mind urged her body forward, but her
legs would not listen. Instead, they crumpled and she collapsed at
the base of the door, even smaller than before, as though
submitting to its greatness.

After all of this, after coming so far, this
could not be the end.

Sluggishly, she knocked her head back, still
refusing to give in, welcoming the headache that invaded her senses
because it meant that she was still fighting.

The shadow would not beat her.

Not this time.

Her life was defined by being too slow—too
slow to wake and find Janu, too slow to dress and save her village,
too slow to run and save Leoa, too slow to act and save Maniuk—to
tear the knife from his hands before he made one fateful final
kill.

Now this.

Too slow to leave the castle, too slow to
return, too slow in a world where everything happened far too
fast.

Flipping over, Jinji struggled, bending her
knees and raising her fists so her hands at least could still beat
against the door—softly, but with all the strength she had
left.

Other men appeared around her, thinking she
was wounded, dying or bleeding out, but they didn't offer to help.
They stood with her, beating the door, trusting their companions
would protect their backs as they fought to reach their king.

With her cheek pressed against the wood,
Jinji felt the rumble of their strength—felt how little it did
against the door. But she also felt something else.

Heat.

Weak at first, but growing stronger, until
her face began to burn.

Brows furrowed, she leaned back, watching
the splintered surface as if it would reveal a hidden secret.

Looking.

Waiting.

Then
bang
, the doors catapulted
inward and a blast of hot air singed her face, making Jinji fall
backward in surprise. Her eyes stung, immediately watered. She
blinked, trying to clear her vision. Swords rang anew in her ear,
shouts.

"Fall back."

"To the king."

"Retreat."