The dragon circled once, then twice, around the tower of smoke, screaming wildly. Like called to like, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it said. Was it hopeful there was another like it, or angry at what it might have believed was the origin of its anger?
“Swords up!” Ethan called out, and we lifted our blades.
It dove like a waterbird and came in fast, moving within twenty feet of us before banking again, rising along the bleachers, and turning for another pass.
It dropped again, and this time aimed for Mallory.
Jonah jumped, spun his katanas against the dragon’s right wing, managed to nick the tendon.
I ran beneath the dragon, sliced at its leg, in a spot with scales thicker than those on its toes.
The sword was strong, and Catcher’s magic made it stronger, but it was still tough going, felt like cutting through concrete. Each millimeter forward took a disproportionate amount of effort.
I managed to slice a wound into its thigh. The dragon shrieked and ascended again, trailing blood into the sky. And then it turned and headed in for another round.
“Second volley!” Catcher said, and Ethan rolled his blade around his body, gaze set on the creature arrowing toward him.
The dragon reached him, snapped its teeth, and roared with pain and anger. ENEMIES.
Ethan dodged gnashing teeth and swung the sword in an arc, catching the plates on the underside of the dragon’s neck. They cracked with a snap, like tiles breaking against concrete, blood welling in the cut beneath them.
The dragon hit the ground, rolled, leaving a trail of blood across the grass, and scenting the air with blood and chemicals. Ethan ran toward it, sliced its leg. I did the same with the other, then darted away when the dragon roared with anger, rose to its feet.
Our magicked swords were working. We actually had a chance at this.
And wasn’t that always when pride got in the way?
The dragon climbed to its feet. It was nimble in the air, but not on the ground, so I expected it to amble forward. Instead, it darted to the side, head snapping. Its teeth—serrated and sharp—scraped against my arm, leaving a trail of pain and heat.
I cursed and dodged away, and the dragon screamed as a katana lodged in its foreleg only inches away from my head.
I looked back at Jonah, hand still lifted in perfect follow-through form.
“No throwing swords near a vampire’s head!” I called out. “New rule!”
“Saved your ass, didn’t it?” he said, running forward and hopping onto the dragon’s foot, snatching back his sword before flipping away again.
Little wonder he was captain of the Grey House guards.
“Your arm?” he asked.
“It’s fine.” It actually burned like fire, but that didn’t much matter now.
Ethan and Catcher went in for another volley; Catcher tossed fireballs while Ethan spun forward, going in low and catching slices across the dragon’s abdomen. The dragon pushed Ethan away, sent him sailing onto his back.
You good, tiger?
Fine, he said, climbing to his feet again, cheeks pinked with anger. But now I’m pissed.
With what I’d swear looked like fury in his eyes, the dragon slapped its tail at the fireball, sending it flying through the air. Catcher dodged, but not fast enough. It caught him across the thigh, searing his jeans and the skin beneath.
“Shit!” he said, and fought for control.
FIRE, the dragon said.
It was learning, had figured out how to use its scales’ resistance to fireballs to launch them back at us.
Ethan got another shot at its abdomen, and the dragon turned, wings flying around it. “Jonah!” I called out, but a moment too late. The swipe caught Ethan, sent him sprawling forward into the grass.
He didn’t get up immediately, and I had to tell myself he was a vampire and could take care of himself, that he’d just had the breath knocked out of him.
I needed to bind the dragon now, before it hurt anyone else.
I put my palm against the katana’s cutting edge, pulled. Pain shot through my hand as blood beaded at the edge of the steel.
I turned the blade on its side, watched the drops of blood roll down the blade as if with purpose and into the inscription Catcher had etched there. Blood met magic, and fire burst across the blade, which quickly spread from handle to tip.
“With blade and blood I bind you,” I screamed, yelling the words that Catcher had composed.
YOU CANNOT BIND ME. I AM EVERYTHING.
“You are pain and death.”
SHE GAVE ME LIFE, POWER.
“And you killed her, so don’t lie to me. With this blade and blood I bind you!”
The dragon screamed and flapped its wings and began to ascend straight out of the stadium. I wasn’t sure how intelligent it was, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t fall for Mallory’s bait twice. That meant this was our one and only chance to take it down without more injuries, more deaths.
I’d either have to give up, or go with it.
If I didn’t stop it now, it would destroy more of Chicago. More people, more sups, would be injured and killed. More homes and businesses destroyed. The apocalypse would continue.
But if I jumped, if I took flight with it, I’d have to face my fear of heights, and I’d have to face it alone. I’d have to fight the dragon without Mallory, Catcher, Jonah . . . or Ethan. I’d have to fight him alone—just me and my steel—in a place of his choosing. And then I’d have to find my way back.
I’d have to face the risk of losing, of dying on whatever field it chose for the inevitable battle.
For a moment, I was back in the green land, with the child’s laughter echoing across the hills. The laughter, I thought, of a happy little girl.
Yes, I thought, as tears blossomed again, we might never know her. Or worse, we might know her and lose her, as my parents had done with their first Caroline. But if there was a chance I was to be a mother—her mother—she deserved more than fear and bravery. She deserved a Sentinel of her own, someone who would fight for her father, her family, her city.
Gabriel’s test, I realized, wasn’t about triumph or victory. It wasn’t about winning. It was about bravery. It was about trying, and persevering. It was about staying the course even when things seemed desperate, even when all seemed lost.
That left me only one choice.
I ran toward the dragon and jumped, gripping for purchase with my nails one of the ridges that lined his spine and climbing up his leg.
NO, it screamed, furious at the contact, but didn’t have enough rotation in the limb to shake me loose.
Its scales were pitted and cracked, giving me handholds to climb the relatively short distance from leg to neck, then throw a leg over its side, settling between two ridges on its back.
Our fates were bound together now. Either the dragon would live and die by my sword—or we both would.
“Merit!”
I wasn’t sure whether Ethan screamed the word aloud, or silently for me. But it ran through the air on a current of fear and grief and fury that I’d offered myself up.
Too bad. I was Sentinel of my goddamned House.
I love you, I silently said, and hoped that he could hear me.
The dragon banked sharply, lifted, and I pressed my face into its scales, the scent of chemicals and city, of tears and anger, of sweat and fear.
“Don’t fire!” Ethan yelled, his voice in the earpiece Luc had handed out before we’d left the House. “Don’t fire! Merit’s on the dragon.”
The dargon turned and banked toward the heart of downtown Chicago.
I considered my options. I didn’t think I could finish the magic in the air. I had to wait until it landed and we were both on solid ground. Otherwise, it would disappear beneath me, and I was pretty sure falling a thousand feet wasn’t the same as jumping a few hundred.
So I held on, and felt guilty about the exhilaration of soaring over Chicago, soaring over glass and asphalt as the wind whipped my hair into tangles. I shouldn’t have reveled in the feel of flight, shouldn’t have closed my eyes in the warm breeze. But it wasn’t often that a girl who loved fairy tales, who spent her childhood dreaming of princesses and haunted woods and dragons, got an opportunity like this.
But the exhilaration faded as we moved closer to the river, as I saw what the dragon had done to the city of my heart.