Page 57 of Soul of Fire

“I see.” The king sat on his throne and steepled his hands as he regarded his son with a mix of fury and…disappointment? Disgust?

“And my offer meant nothing to you? I offered you a kingdom. A crown.”

“I believe I made my feelings clear,” Arik replied coolly.

The king’s eyes flashed with anger, and he turned his attention to me. “There are many things of interest in the Book of Chaos. One of them is what makes drage weak. Even dragons are notcompletely immune to everything, and the Book warns the drage stay away from a few particular things. Iron we all know about, but that’s not enough. Do you know, Eisa, what works even better?”

It was the first time I had heard the king use my name, and I hated the sound of it more than whore or thrall.

I emulated Arik and adopted a mask of blank indifference, imagining Arik’s tap of approval against my mind.

No tap came.

“There is one other thing that can separate a drage from his dragon,” the king continued, “and it is, luckily for you, something not widely known.” The king pulled a sprig of something from his breastplate, with long rounded leaves and small white berries.

I frowned, my mask faltering in my confusion. I had only ever seen the plant around the winter solstice, and only when Henrik was trying to draw in customers during a particularly slow season. Sigrid had explained that couples would kiss under a sprig for luck. “Mistletoe?”

The king huffed a laugh, twirling the small bundle of leaves between his index finger and thumb. “Clever girl. Yes, mistletoe. The plant of lovers. Too much may prove deadly to a man, but to a drage…” He pinched one of the white berries, crushing it between his fingers. “A small amount added to a carafe of wine will render the bond between man and dragon mute for a while. Several days, in fact, if he drinks enough.”

I gasped in horror at the implication. Jorgen and Arik had both drunk wine the night before. And Arne…

“There are casualties, of course,” the king continued, looking intensely pleased with himself, Jorgen snarled furiously behind me, and Arik was still as a stone statue. “It’s likely Edvard will recover.”

Edvard? I blinked, realizing I hadn’t seen the prince since the training ring. Had he drunk the poisoned wine too? What about Arne?

Drekadrottning.It was Bryndis, sounding just as panicked as Idunn at the loss of her mate.We must leave.

How?I asked her, throwing the question out to Idunn as well.Jorgen and Arik can’t fly.

But you can,Idunn hissed impatiently.And I will burn this king to ash for stealing my mate from me.

I felt Idunn’s fire surge, and I banked it, an idea forming as I quickly glanced around the hall. The doors were barred and guarded and the windows were all too small for Idunn, although Bryndis might manage to squeeze through them.

I looked up, and the plan solidified.

“Let us go.” Arik’s growl reverberated around the hall, even without Baldur’s power behind it. “And we will not burn your fucking castle to the ground.”

The king laughed. “Perhaps I was wrong about you, boy. Perhaps you are all brawn and no brains. With what fire will you burn down my castle?”

I released my hold on Idunn, finding Bryndis’ golden thread and tugging on it hard. “With mine.”

Gold and blue scales and claws surged out from our fragile human forms, the shapes of our dragons filling the space and sending guards scattering. Bryndis laid down a halo of golden flame around us, forcing the king to dive from the dais as she lit his throne ablaze.

“Guards!” The king’s cries were futile, as his men were too terrified to heed them. With a swipe of one claw, Idunn swept three men against a wall so hard they lost consciousness as Bryndis continued to lay down small blasts of fire that caught the wooden paneling on the walls and the beams of the ceiling.

Idunn swiped her claws through the bindings holding Arik’s wrists while Bryndis did the same for Jorgen.

“Fly, gods damn you!” Arik shouted, smacking Idunn on her rump.

Idunn snorted irritably, snatching up my mate by the collar and depositing him on our back as she began to flap her wings. The hall was just big enough, and Bryndis continued to lay down flame cover, giving us time to get airborne.

Jorgen was on Bryndis’ back, and he whooped as Idunn lifted from the ground and made for the burning beams in the ceiling.

With a blast of blue flame, she opened a smoking hole in the roof.

Bryndis followed, and I heard the king calling for archers as we broke through the wooden beams of the ceiling and launched ourselves into the sky.

Chapter eighteen