“Just like the Archives,” I tell Xaden.

Mom orders her accompanying soldiers to stand guard. In return, Rhiannon orders Sawyer and Imogen to guard them as we walk into the tunnel. Mom goes first.

“What happened to being guarded?” Xaden asks, walking ahead of me.

Mira’s at my back.

“The wards are guarded,” she says, turning sideways when the tunnel narrows even farther. “Wouldn’t you find it suspicious if guards were stationed at the bottom of an empty stairwell?” she challenges. “Sometimes the best defense is simple camouflage.”

I walk sideways, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, and try to pretend I’m somewhere—anywhere—else.

We’re going to have fun, you and I. Varrish’s words slide over me, and my heart rate jumps.

Xaden’s shadows expand from our hands to my waist, and the pressure there feels like his arm is around me, making it bearable to get through the passage for the twenty feet it takes to open up wide again. The tunnel runs for what looks like another fifty yards before ending at a glowing blue archway, and the hum of energy from what I assume is the wardstone vibrates my very bones, tenfold the intensity of the one at Aretia.

“See, it’s guar…” Mom’s words die, and we see them the same moment she does.

Two bodies in black uniforms lie on the ground, pools of their blood slowly expanding toward each other. Their eyes are open, but they’re glazed and vacant, freshly dead.

My heart lurches and the shadows fall away with Xaden’s hand as we both reach for weapons.

“Oh, shit,” Ridoc whispers as the others file through the bottleneck behind us, drawing swords, daggers, and battle-axes.

Metal slides against metal as Mom pulls her sword, then breaks into a run, sprinting down the tunnel.

“No chance you’d stay here if I—” Xaden starts.

“None,” I say over my shoulder, already racing after my mother down the long expanse. The vague sound of barked orders echoes off the tunnel walls as Mira catches up quickly, then passes me to run at my mother’s side while Xaden keeps pace with me.

“Do you know where the ward chamber opens to the sky?” I ask Tairn as my boots pound the stone floor of the corridor. It has to, if it’s constructed anything like Aretia.

“According to you, I cannot supply fire to more than one—” He pauses as though taking stock of my situation. “On my way.”

“No!” Mom’s shout sends chills down my spine as she and Mira make it to the chamber ahead of us, both charging left, weapons high.

The rest of us reach the chamber, and before I can assess the situation, Xaden’s shadows jerk me off my feet and into his chest as he spins us backward, pressing my spine against the wall of the archway as the points of an orange’s scorpiontail swing through the very place I’d been standing.

There’s a fucking dragon in there?

“Are you…” His eyes fly wide.

“Didn’t get me,” I assure him.

He nods, relief shifting his gaze from worried to alert, and we both turn into the entrance, quickly joined by Ridoc, Rhiannon, and Dain.

My mouth drops, and power charges through my veins, so potent my hands buzz.

The wardstone is twice as large as the one in Aretia, as is the chamber that houses it, but unlike Aretia’s, the rings and runes carved into it are interrupted by a diamond pattern. And unlike our wards in Aretia, this wardstone is on fire, lit on top by black flames that sputter and flare as a dragon emerges from behind the left side of the stone, driving Mom and Mira back toward us.

Not just any dragon. Baide.

“Get out of there!” Tairn orders as Baide lowers her head, and I get a single glimpse of her eyes—opaque instead of golden—before Mom charges toward her nose, lifting her sword to swing.

Baide knocks her aside with a single swipe of her head, and Mom flies into the stone wall of the chamber, cracking her head before falling into a heap.

Xaden throws his hand out, and shadows stream past, grasping both Mira and Mom, pulling them back to us as Baide roars, steam and spit flying from her mouth.

She stalks forward, her talons clicking on the floor as she maneuvers around the stone, revealing Jack Barlowe in his seat on Baide’s back. The smile he gives me twists my stomach. “You’re right on time, Sorrengail.”

“Anytime you want to show up would be very appreciated,” I tell Tairn as Xaden’s shadows release Mira at my side but drag my mother’s unconscious body back through the archway.

I can’t wield in here, not without endangering everyone. Besides, the charge of the stone would draw every strike to it.

“It’s not exactly an easy location to get to,” Tairn growls in reply.

“What the hell are you doing, Barlowe?” Dain snaps.

“What I promised,” he answers, glee shining in his eyes.

Xaden sends another stream of shadows, this one shooting toward Barlowe, and Baide drops her jaw, her eerie eyes flashing as fire glows up her throat.

“Xaden!” I yell as Ridoc pushes past me—past all of us—and throws his arms forward, palms out.

“Get down!” Ridoc shouts, and I glimpse a wall of ice rising before us as Xaden pulls me into the shelter of his body and crouches. The chamber glows orange for a heartbeat, then two, as fire rages against the stone walls. Ridoc screams as the blast dies.

The second the fire ceases, we’re on our feet to face Barlowe and Baide, but the dragon has disappeared behind the wardstone again.

“I’ve got him!” Rhiannon rushes forward and hooks her arms under Ridoc’s, then hauls him back from where only a puddle marks where the wall of ice had stood. Nothing prepares me for the sight of Ridoc’s burned hands, blistered and bleeding.

“We’ll take the left,” Xaden says, glancing at me.

“Taking right,” Dain agrees, shooting a look at Mira, who nods.

Xaden and I run to the left, and I flip the dagger in my hand, pinching it by the tip in readiness to throw as we round the corner.

What the fuck?

Baide is up on her back legs, her front claws grasping the top of the flaming wardstone, and Barlowe isn’t in his seat. It takes a precious second we don’t have to spot him holding on to the top of Baide’s neck, clutching one of her horns.

Not even Xaden is fast enough to stop the downward plunge of Jack’s shortsword between the scales alongside Baide’s neck. The dragon’s cry shakes the foundation of the chamber and stops abruptly when Jack pushes the blade all the way through the front of her throat.

Jack’s head swings in our direction, and he wields with an outward-facing palm, throwing a shield that deflects Xaden’s shadows as blood sprays from Baide’s throat onto the wardstone. The black flames extinguish an instant before Baide collapses, her weight pitching forward.

The wardstone tips and Jack fumbles to hold on, giving me the perfect opportunity to flick my wrist and release the dagger.

I hear a satisfying cry as Xaden grabs hold of my waist, throwing up a wall of shadow that blocks out the chamber around us but doesn’t shield us from the noise of the stone crashing. Cracking.

The humming stops.