ELARA RATTLED DOWN VALOR’S EXIT RAMP, HER MAGIC SWIRLING around her like protective armor. Lightbringer had yet to notice Gael—Jesper—protected, as he was, beneath a defensive hailstorm of fire from Nobility. Faron’s footsteps sounded behind her, and then her sister surged past her, hurtling toward Gael’s body without hesitation. Elara itched to follow, but the soldier in her refused. She needed to assess the situation. She needed to win this.
Her ears rang with Lightbringer’s thunderous cries. His white body was stained with blood, not all his own. His tail swung back and forth across the rooftop, too far to strike Valor—for now. Faron ducked under his membranous wing, pausing only to shoot a line of lightning through it, and skidded to a halt at Gael’s side. Lightbringer’s throat lit up seconds before a stream of flames erupted from his open mouth, forcing Nobility to bank hard to avoid it.
The dragon rolled onto his feet, shaking the rooftop. Gael and Faron were on his blind side, but his head swung this way and that to catch as much as possible. Smoke flooded between his jagged teeth, transforming to threatening sparks. Everywhere they fell, a small fire flared, turning the roof into a hot maze.
It was chaos. They had to blind his other eye. But how?
“Elara, over here!”
Azeal had landed on the other side of the roof, tackling Lightbringer in a blur of claws and teeth. Even though the carmine dragon was the largest of the breeds, Lightbringer was in a class all his own. They took a chunk out of the stone, a tangle of red and white bodies, but it left a clear path from Valor to Faron. And her sister was no longer alone. Signey, Torrey, and Reeve had joined her, gathering around Gael with solemn faces.
“What’s going on?” Elara asked warily. “He’s not… Is he…?”
“No, of course not. No,” Signey said. She wiped a hand over her face before glancing at Torrey. “We hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but… we have another plan. A last resort. If—I mean, you don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to,” said Torrey. “I want to.”
“What’s going on?” Elara repeated.
Reeve pressed his lips together and looked away. Faron refused to meet Elara’s eyes. Torrey and Signey did that thing again, where they had a silent conversation that implied several conversations Elara hadn’t been privy to. Elara’s wariness turned to fear, curling in her stomach and slicing through her organs. And it had nothing to do with the dragons brutalizing each other mere feet away.
Faron tilted her head toward them, and Reeve followed her. He’d gotten a new dragon relic, she realized, an imitation dragon tooth that hung around his neck as his old one had. It took her a moment to identify it as one of Torrey’s; she’d worn it that day in Beacon when they’d gotten brunch. Now it glowed with magic as Faron and Reeve helped Azeal keep Lightbringer at bay, protecting the pocket of space the rest of them stood in from attack.
Torrey brushed her short blond hair behind her ear so she could loosen her ear cuff, another one of her favorite relics. She traced it with her fingers, a humorless smile on her face. “Jesper gave this to me, you know. There are a thousand ways to make a dragon relic, but he always made sure the ones I had were ‘in my style.’ Ferocious yet fashionable, he called it. He was always the best part of me.”
Elara’s fear began to scream beneath her skin. A gasp shook loose. “You want to take Jesper’s place. You want to let Gael Soto inside your body instead.”
“Jesper never got a choice. I did. And I’m choosing to do this.” Those blue eyes were sad but determined. “Remember when I told you not to die?”
“We all promised—”
“And I intend to keep my promise. If Gael Soto is as good a soldier as advertised.”
Elara was aware her mouth was hanging open, but she didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t noticed Signey and Torrey exchanging looks, or Signey’s focus on finding Torrey after reuniting with Jesper’s body, but she hadn’t imagined this. How long had they been planning this? The day she’d broken the dragon bonds? Or as far back as when Torrey first suspected Gael might be in Jesper’s body?
“You’re agreeing to this?” she finally managed, looking down at Signey. Signey was cradling her brother’s injured body in her arms, her curls blowing around her head like a flag. Elara couldn’t see her expression from where she was, could only see the way that Signey’s fingers were gently combing through Jesper’s hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I knew what you’d say,” Signey murmured. “Because I said the exact same thing.” When she lifted her head, her cheeks were slick with tears again. “Do you think I want this? Do you think I want to lose anyone else? Torrey insisted. For Jesper, she—” Signey’s voice cracked. She bowed her head again. “This is her choice to make. I respect her right to make it.”
Torrey’s hand touched Elara’s wrist, her pale fingers lined with dragon-shaped rings. “Jesper is my best friend. I know he would do the same for me, if he were here. But he’s not here, and that’s the problem. It’s not fair to put him in danger like this. Even if I know he’d agree, the problem is that he didn’t get to. My body and Gael’s power… this is how we end this. Let me end this.”
Elara expected Torrey to cry as well, but her eyes were dry. Her mind was made up. And it didn’t matter what Elara said, she would do this with or without her permission. Elara swallowed.
Across the rooftop, Azeal slammed Lightbringer’s head against the stone. Faron’s and Reeve’s magic twined together to chain the dragon’s tail to the roof, keeping him from using it as a weapon. Lightbringer thrashed against his bonds, throwing fire left and right, fire blocked from hitting them by a shield that Faron had conjured. They were running low on time.
Beneath her, Gael groaned.
No, Jesper. Because he had taken over Jesper.
Elara realized that she was now crying and turned away. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Signey breathed, her voice thick with grateful tears.
“Okay,” said Torrey, withdrawing a vial of blood from her pocket. “In Valor, I think. We have to hurry.”