The Last Namsara (Iskari #1)(59)

“Stay low.” Her voice echoed inside her helmet.

Torwin cried out as the fire rushed past them, the heat searing his skin. He grabbed the lower edge of her breastplate, holding her to him.

Bits of flame flickered and died in the sand.

Asha turned back to the dragon. It crouched low and hissed.

They’d turned her playful Shadow into a predator.

“Shadow,” she said, pushing off her helmet. It fell to the sand with a clunk. “It’s me.”

He growled and thrashed his tail.

Asha began stripping off her armor, throwing piece after piece away from her.

“You know me.”

Above them sat the hushed crowd, their disbelieving eyes fixed on the Iskari. Their startled murmurs rang in her ears, and above it all came a shout: a command for the soldats to open the gates. To get the Iskari out.

It was her father’s command. And worse than the ferocious roar of the dragon king’s voice was the chilling gaze he fixed on her. One she could feel even here.

With trembling fingers, Asha worked at the laces of her dragonskin boots, needing to get them off, to convince Shadow she wasn’t the enemy.

“He sees you,” Torwin said from behind her.

Asha’s eyes lifted. Shadow stopped circling. His tail no longer thrashed. He took a hesitant step toward her, cocked his flat and scaly head, and made a small sound. Like a whimper.

Asha had the strangest urge to throw her arms around his neck.

She kicked off both loosened boots and slowly approached, barefoot, with her hands outstretched. Shadow nudged her palm with his snout. He trembled all over.

Asha needed to get him out of here.

Heavy footsteps thudded toward the pit entrance. Both Asha and the dragon looked to find soldats lining the other side of the gate. They were trapped. She may have stopped Shadow and Torwin from killing each other, but she couldn’t protect them from her father’s army.

“Asha!” Safire’s voice rang out. “Fly!”

The sound of metal scraping against metal, the turning of gears, filled Asha’s ears. She looked up. The iron bars above started to rise toward the sky.

Safire was in the crank room.

And then: a whistle came from above.

Both their faces turned up in time to see Dax drop two objects, one after the other. Torwin stepped out, catching the bundle of arrows in one hand and a strung bow in the other.

Asha didn’t have time to wonder why Dax had a bow and arrows at the ready. She searched the sand for her slayers, which she’d flung off with her armor, while Torwin readied his arrows in his draw hand.

Does he even know how to use those?

As if hearing her thoughts, Torwin met her gaze, and Asha noticed his split and swollen lip. Then the welt across his cheek. Then the purple-black bruise along his cheekbone.

Someone had struck him. More than once.

A searing-hot rage flared up in her.

“Get behind me.” She grabbed her hilts from the sand. The sacred blades came free of their sheaths with a ring. “I’ll defend you until Shadow has a clear path out of here.”

Torwin did as she said, nocking an arrow just as the gates opened and soldats flooded in.

Asha spun her slayers, her whole body humming and alive. She took the front while Shadow defended their backs.

“Shoot left!” Asha pointed with her slayer as the first of Jarek’s men swarmed the pit.

The soldat fell before the words left her lips, an arrow embedded in his heart.

She marveled as Torwin nocked his next arrow, letting it fly before she could point out the next advancing enemy. Behind them, Shadow struck with his tail, taking out three soldats at once, flinging them into the walls.

“Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

Another soldat got an arrow through the heart.

“Why? Are you impressed?”

From the crank room, Safire’s voice bellowed at whoever was trying to break down the door. She’d locked herself in.

“Greta taught me,” Torwin said as another arrow flew, whooshing past Asha’s hair. “And I taught your brother.”

My brother?

Asha thought of callused fingers—Torwin’s and her brother’s. But there was no time to ask the questions swirling through her.

“As soon as those bars are up,” she said, “get on Shadow and fly.”

At the gate, soldats parted to let someone through. Someone dressed in white and gold.

The commandant stepped into the pit, heading straight for them, his saber in hand.

As Jarek advanced, Asha gripped her hilts hard. Everything Safire ever told her about fighting a bigger, stronger opponent ran through her head. Strike fast. Go for the legs. Get in and out. Never linger.

Halfway to her, though, Jarek stopped dead. The soldats around him all lowered their weapons, staring over Asha’s shoulder. Wondering at the reason, Asha herself turned to look.

Torwin had drawn his last arrow. It was nocked in his bow, the bowstring pulled taut, and pointed directly at Asha’s chest.

No soldat would advance with his arrow trained on the daughter of the dragon king.

“You get on first.”

“What?”

“Asha.”

He’d never said her name before. The sound of it clanged like a bell inside her, filling up her hollow places.

“Do as I say.”