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Tamryn awoke with a gasp. Someone was in her room with her, beyond the heavy curtains of her four-poster bed. She could hear them breathing. Skin-hunters?
As slowly as possible, she reached underneath her pillow for the dagger her mother had given her. She subtly sniffed the air, searching for a clue that would tell her who was in the room with her. Figuring out their intent from their feelings would be easier than anything else.
What Tamryn felt in the air was fear, urgency.
“Princess?” A feminine voice.
Tamryn remained silent. The femininity of the intruder wasn’t reassuring. Women could be skin-hunters, too, and the fear and urgency Tamryn sensed could have a different cause. Reading the feelings of others was certainly not an exact method of deducing the truth in a situation; it only supplied clues to the truth.
“It's me, Princess. Illary, the witch.”
Now that she said so, Tamryn recognized the woman’s voice. What was the witch doing in her bedchamber? She relaxed her grip on the dagger and sat up.
A loud scream echoed from somewhere in the castle, beyond her room. Tamryn scrambled for the dagger again and heaved herself from the four-poster bed. Her nightgown tangled momentarily around her legs, but she righted herself before falling. The thick rug beneath her feet did little to prevent the chill of her stone floor.
Everything in the room looked the same as usual, from the low stand with her washbasin to the heavy trunk at the foot of her bed to the heavy tapestry hanging on the far wall over which her mother had woven the story of their lineage—monsters and maidens erupting from fiery mountains.
The witch stood a few paces away, brown hair pulled under a nightcap and deep brown eyes wide in the dim moonlight coming through the castle window. She, too, was in her nightgown, the billowy cream fabric similar to Tamryn’s, heavy against the bite of winter.
“What's happening?” Tamryn asked. Another scream. Her heart pounded rapidly. “They’re here, aren't they?”
“The castle guards are holding the worst of it back, but it didn't look promising when I left the queen’s side—”
“You deserted the battle? Return to them, at once,” Tamryn said.
Her parents should have more aid. The witch should be helping them, not dallying in Tamryn’s bedchamber. In fact, Tamryn should be down there fighting, as well. She moved toward her door. The witch moved with her.
“I left only on the queen’s orders, to protect you,” Illary said. “I’ve been up most of the night and the binding spell finally works. I am to perform it on you, and then on as many of the others as possible.”
“I told you I want no part of that magic,” Tamryn said, her voice heated. She wanted to burn everything to the ground, including the skin-hunters. But she would not breathe fire; she could not, yet. Not until her body learned to shift forms. And her mother had been coaching her to hold the power back. Better to suffocate an unused magic than be skinned alive for her dragon pelt.
“This spell is your mother's wish—perhaps her last one,” Illary said. “Charles has already had the spell done on himself. He allowed me to try it on him first, so I could ensure that it would work without ill effects.”
Charles, Tamryn's betrothed. Prince of another dragon kingdom, he was nobility personified. Brave, loyal. If he had allowed Illary to use her spell on him, then Tamryn could do it, also.
A loud crash came from the royal suite—it was the door to her parents’ rooms smashing open.
“Ellis, no!” Her mother's anguished scream as she called for Tamryn’s father.
“Mama!” Tamryn called, rushing to her bedroom door.
Illary stepped in Tamryn’s way.
Her mother’s voice came from down the hall. “Tamryn, go, now! Be strong. Do not wait! I love you, daughter of mine. I love—”
The words ended abruptly. Tamryn dared not consider what had happened to silence her mother. But in her heart, she knew.
Her mother was dead. Her father, too.
Tamryn blinked back tears and tried to get past the witch.
“No,” Illary said. "There's nothing you can do. They knew this was foretold, which is why they asked me to finish the spell."
Tamryn turned to the witch. Some of Illary’s long, black hair had escaped her cap. In front of her, she held a clay bowl laden with something that made Tamryn's nose twitch.
“I'll be asleep the whole time I am bound?” Tamryn asked. Her mother had explained the spell to her, but Tamryn wanted to be sure. Not that it mattered at this point. Her mother and father were both gone. Skin-hunters were even now running through the castle, collecting as many dragons as they could. Tamryn couldn’t shift to fly away, and even if she could, to shift would be to invite the violence she strove to escape.
Illary nodded. “Yes, you’ll be asleep while in the spell.”
The oblivion of slumber held an appeal, especially as Tamryn’s heart felt as if it were a broken rock in the hollow of her chest. Sleep would allow her to forget this violence. She’d have a long, peaceful sleep, free of pain and hurt and agonizing memories. No mourning. No fear. No more waking up to the sounds of battle just outside the castle as the skin-hunters grew bolder in their attacks.
When she awoke, though, her parents would not be there to greet her.
She didn't think she could bear it.
But she would have to. Her mother had told her as much. Be strong, Tamryn, she had said earlier in the day when they’d discussed the magic. Do not let dragonkind fade from the earth. Do your duty—be strong.
Tamryn looked into Illary's fathomless eyes.
Strength. She could do this.
“I am ready,” Tamryn said.
“You will wake when it is safe,” Illary said. “I will call you forth.”
“Please, do the spell now,” Tamryn said. Before she could lose her nerve.
Illary set the bowl down on the floor and helped Tamryn remove her nightclothes. “I don't want fabric influencing the spell,” Illary explained.
Something big thumped loudly against Tamryn's chamber door. A skin-hunter—maybe they were already wearing the pelt of her mother or father. Bile rose in her throat.
Energy crackled around Tamryn, and goosebumps rose over her flesh. Illary was chanting some kind of rhyme, but Tamryn couldn't hear through the pounding on her door and the panicked beating of her heart.
A golden glow surrounded her, coupled with the pain of her skin tingling. The tingles intensified. She was on fire. It felt like flames were licking over her skin. Instinctively, she touched her face, the burn scar she’d had since childhood. She knew what burning felt like, and this was it. This couldn't be right—Illary had done the spell incorrectly, and now Tamryn was going to perish and no one would continue her family’s name or save dragonkind.
She sent a panicked glance to Illary, but the witch now looked like something out of a nightmare, her face distorted as if Tamryn saw it through warped glass. She reminded herself that Illary was here to protect her, not harm her.
Do not panic, she told herself. Be strong, like Mother said. She pulled in one ragged breath, then another.
But then the burning all over her skin moved inside.
“Breathe, Princess,” Illary said, then returned to her chanting.
How could Tamryn breathe when her skin was on fire? Her entire world was crumbling, the rough castle walls melting and breaking apart, just like her family, just like her life. Everything soon would be ash. Her mother had told her that their lineage had come from volcanoes. It was only fitting, then, that her very blood had turned to lava.
The molten rock consumed Tamryn’s flesh, melting her bones, boiling her blood. She opened her mouth to scream as the fire reached her heart, but she had no mouth.
She was bound in dragon fire, and she was no more.