Ash crown, Thorn heart (Complete)

Sky over Letharis

*Elara*

Kaelthar makes a harsh sound that’s a mix of a curse and a laugh, looks down at the arrow embedded in his side, and snaps the shaft off before I can even breathe. Then the second volley comes.

"Down!" I shout.

The refugees drop where they stand. Kaelthar's scout is already hauling the woman and children behind the hut wall. I grab the courier by the collar and fling him into the mud with them. An arrow strikes the fence post where his throat had been just moments ago.

Kaelthar sways once. Heat ripples off him hard enough to sting my face.

"Do not you dare fall over," I say.

"Princess," he grinds out, one hand clamped to his side, "your bedside manner remains ghastly."

Riders burst through the mist below, temple gray and palace green mixed together, just as I feared. Saelor has stopped pretending there’s a difference. More men move through the trees to the west, trying to close the ridge and cut us off from the upper path.

Not a raid. A net.

"Can you shift?" I ask.

His mouth bares in a grimace. "Not cleanly."

Blood is already running through his fingers. If he forces it now, he might tear himself apart before he burns a single line of soldiers.

The old instinct rises, ugly and familiar, urging me to make myself small around everyone else's wounds, to choose one life in front of me and lose the field. But I kneel anyway.

My boots sink into the mud beside his blood, and for the first time in years, I don’t keep them on out of habit or caution or the childish belief that I must always be ready to run. I drop to both knees and press my hand over his on the wound.

"Look at me."

His eyes find mine, bright with pain and fury.

"You do not get to be nineteen again," I say. "You do not get to die because you think delay is failure."

Something fierce and frightened moves in his face.

I tear open his coat, shove a folded bandage into his hand, and press it hard against the wound. "Hold that. Breathe. Burn anyone who reaches this yard. Nothing farther."

"You are assigning me corners now?" he asks.

"Yes. Be flattered."

Another volley hisses overhead. One of the hut supports splinters.

I rise and turn before fear can drag me back down beside him.

"Archers with me," I call. "Anyone who can pull a bow, to the ridge line. Noncombatants stay low and move only when told."

The younger soldier from the river patrol, the one who dropped his pike, stares at me from behind the rain barrel. He still wears temple gray.

"You," I snap. "Can you shoot straight?"

He swallows hard. "Yes, Highness."

"Then earn surviving the night."

He comes.

Kaelthar's scout meets me halfway up the slope. "West line is lighter. South is the hammer."

"Good. We break the west before the south closes."

I glance back toward Kaelthar. No argument… only a sharp nod.

We run.

At the ridge crest, I drop behind a fallen cedar and take in the field in one hard sweep. The south road is packed with riders, while the west flank climbs through rock and fern. Above them, in the thinning mist, three dark shapes circle too high to strike.

Dragons.

Not Kaelthar's war flight. Smaller, border scouts, perhaps, holding back because they have no clear command and no reason to trust an elven princess with their king bleeding below.

Fine. Then I will give them one.

I put two arrows into the western climbers before they find our position. The temple-gray boy beside me looses a third and nearly takes a man's ear off.

"Lower," I say.

He corrects at once and drops the next one cleanly.

Below us, Kaelthar steps into the yard and exhales a line of fire so precise it catches only the gap in the gate and the first three men through it. They go down screaming. The rest break sideways in panic. Even wounded, he holds the whole southern push at bay by standing there, refusing to look mortal.

Idiot dragon king.

I rise just enough to wave my silver-clad arm at the sky. "Varkhast!" I shout. "Your king holds the ground. I need the ridge cleared now."

One of the circling shapes banks lower. Copper scales flash through the rain. Another holds back.

No answer.

Of course not. Why would they obey me? I am an elf with a borrowed alliance and a famous uncle calling me corrupted.

So I give them the truth.

"If this line breaks, civilians die first, and the lower chamber opens by dusk. Choose."

That reaches them.

The copper dragon folds its wings and dives.

The impact among the western climbers splits the line open. Men scatter, some dropping weapons before claws even touch the ground. The second dragon comes a breath later, slate-gray and lean, fire shearing through the wet brush to drive the survivors back downhill.

The third still circles.

I don’t have time to resent it.

"Forward," I shout to the archers. "Take the gap while they run."

We surge over the ridge. Elven bowmen, one temple deserter, and Kaelthar's scout with two knives flashing like quicksilver. Below us, dragons tear panic into the flank, but they are not enough alone. Riders from the south have found the side path and are angling toward the refugee hut.

Civilians over advantage. Again.

I break left at once.

The scout sees it and curses. "If we don’t finish the west, they’ll regroup."

"If we lose the hut, we lose everything."

She doesn’t waste breath arguing. She follows.

We hit the side path at a sprint. I shoot the lead rider through the throat before he sees me. The second reaches the awning where the woman and children huddle and lifts his spear.

Kaelthar's fire takes him from the saddle.

He is on one knee now in the yard, one hand braced against the mud, his face bloodless under the soot. But his eyes find mine across the chaos, and even from that distance, I feel the force of him… furious that I have run toward danger and fiercer still that I have been right to do it.

The third dragon finally descends, not to strike the enemy, but to land between the hut and the road, huge and black-red, shielding the refugees with his body.

He lowers his head to me.

Not submission. Recognition.

I lift my bloody hand and point toward the south road. "Hold the civilians. Burn the wagons if they try to take them."

He rumbles once and turns.

That is enough. Enough to break the last hesitation in the yard, enough that elves who have never stood near dragonfire and dragons who have likely mocked my whole species now move under the same shouted commands because the alternative is s*******r.

We hold.

Gods, it costs.

The west flank regroups twice. The south road tries a final push with shields locked. Kaelthar staggers to his feet and nearly goes down again. I climb the fence rail and call out targets until my throat goes raw, directing arrows into shield gaps, sending the gray dragon over the road cut, ordering the copper scout to tear down the fallen pine that blocks our retreat route so the refugees can move if the line snaps.

At last, the enemy breaks for true.

Those who can run do. Those who cannot drop weapons and beg whatever gods handle bad decisions.

The yard stinks of wet ash, blood, and churned earth.

I turn at once for Kaelthar.

He is still standing because stubbornness has built him and will likely preserve him past reason, but only just. I catch him as his knees give.

"There you are," he murmurs, breath hot against my temple. "I leave you alone one moment, and you steal my army."

"Our army," I say, and the words come without effort.

His hand, bloody and heavy, slides to the back of my neck. "Say that again when I am less full of arrows."

I laugh, and it breaks halfway into something rougher. I kiss him before I can think better of it… hard and brief, tasting of smoke and rain and the edge of fear. He makes a low sound that goes through me like fire through dry brush.

Then his weight sags harder against me.

The copper dragon shifts on the road in a flare of heat, becoming a broad-shouldered man in scorched leathers. He strides toward us and drops to one knee, fist to his chest.

"My king. Princess. The riders carried sealed orders from the palace lower vault."

He holds up a leather case slick with rain.

I take it with blood-stiff fingers and open it. Inside lie a ring of ribbon-colored keys, each tagged in Saelor's neat hand.

Vault. River gate. Moonbridge archive. Lower sanctum.

And one more.

Crown chamber beneath Letharis.

I look toward the south, where the mist is lifting at last, and the pale far shape of my city shines through the rain like a blade being drawn.

"He is going underground," I say.

Kaelthar straightens by force alone, pain carving him fierce and plain. "Then so are we."