>>Ariston
I pushed myself up from the rubble, coughing dust out of my lungs as I blinked through the smoky air.
The courtyard was still. Not silent—never silent—but stilled in that momentary aftershock that followed a monster's fall.
And then I saw it.
A golden blaze from above—a thread of flame slashing the battlefield like the blade of a god—and I froze, chest heaving. It struck the spider nun straight in the eye, right where her sickly glow pulsed.
Her scream pierced the world.
She collapsed with the sound of a mountain being brought to its knees.
And before I could move, before I could breathe, I saw her.
Aelin.
She was fainting. The moment the flame vanished, her knees gave out. I barely registered the astonishment rippling through the human delegates before Draegon—wounded, battered, half-drenched in black blood—launched upward in a final, staggering burst of strength.
His wings flared once.
And he caught her.
