In those days, the continent of Yrvalin was awash in blood. War had spread to every corner of the land except the nation of Galafrey, which steadfastly upheld its neutrality amidst growing conflict with the other five nations.

A mountainous queendom known for its trade of iron ore and goat meat, Galafrey occupied the southwest corner of Yrvalin, ruled by a queen and prince consort who were pragmatic in most, if not all, their decisions.

Their military wasn’t the largest or the most powerful, but they balanced the board with rumors of a secret weapon. For no nation would be foolish enough to invade Galafrey when it possessed, not one, but two Dragonturned.

In the first month of the Cold Season, which the people of Yrvalin named Hastus, Castle Snowmount stood shrouded in the shadows of two large mountains. It was approachable only from the south, and Queen Vague and Prince Consort Dumornth ruled here for most of the Cold Season.

Tucked away in the basement of Castle Snowmount, two figures sat illuminated by a large, bold fireplace. The room’s floor was mostly covered in the fur of a snowbear, and a large wooden table sat in the center with five chairs on different sides, most of which were never filled.

In the corner, a mouse scurried to find a hole as it stole a crumb of bread. Neither of the room’s occupants paid it any mind. For what was a mouse to a dragon?

Warmth from the orange flames in the fireplace washed over the table as a large figure covered in a mix of gold scales and flesh the color of egg shells sat with a rag and a jar of boiled linseed oil. Running her fingers up and down the wooden shaft of a two-handed war hammer, Dybel Harken felt for any signs of rust or other corrosion on her weapon.

Dybel’s claws extended a few inches past the tips of her fingers, and short orange hair hung down, barely covering the tops of her pointed ears.

She sat clothed in brown trousers and a stained white shirt, violet eyes closely scanning the war hammer in the flickering light of the fireplace. Yellow and gray light danced along the black steel head of her weapon.

All was quiet in the basement aside from the scrubbing and polishing noises of Dybel’s lovemaking with her war hammer and the occasional sound of a page being turned in a book across the room.

“Shit. I need a softer rag. Hey, Azella, there should be a blue cotton cloth over on the table by you. Will you toss it to me?”

The Flamestress, curled up in a fuzzy green chair set against the wall didn’t budge.

After a moment of silence, Dybel’s agitation grew.

“I know you can hear me over there,” Dybel said, looking up from her weapon work and scowling at the more frail-looking girl. Dybel easily had a foot or two of height on her. Yet with all of her bulk and scaled muscle, she could never seem to get anywhere near intimidating Azella.

“That’s good. It means you’ve finally grasped the concept of being ignored. You have my congratulations on your latest feat of intelligence,” the Flamestress said.

She kept her eyes on a book describing some lesser-known trails mountain goat herders took through the Cascundian Range that surrounded Snowmount.

“It’s right next to you. Why don’t you use those stubby little arms of yours for once and toss it to me.”

Azella turned a page in her book and rotated the tome to stare vertically at a map of the surrounding area.

“Last I checked, Dybel, you had functioning legs. They were fully capable of carrying you to any corner of this room and grabbing whatever you required to continue your obsessive affair with that damn hammer of yours.”

Stifling her anger, Dybel stood, screeching her chair back as loudly as she could. Then she stomped over toward Azella, scaled feet pounding as much noise into the floor below her as possible. The Flamestress tried not to look annoyed with this petty display.

“Five years I’ve shared this space with you, and not once have you had a kind word to say. And NOW I find out you’ve been checking out my legs all this time? Why, Azella, we could have saved a lot of time and gotten right into some truly nasty hate fucking.”

The ex-knight towered over Azella, hand placed on the wall. And the Flamestress finally looked up. Her eyes trailed Dybel’s body, eyeing everything from the scales covering her forearms to the coin-sized chunk of ruby embedded in her forehead. Dybel’s violet eyes matched Azella’s and the two were locked in a contest called Who Can Stare More Angrily?

After a fair amount of silent smoldering, Azella scoffed and went back to her book, looking every bit the scorned priestess she carried herself as.

A long black skirt covered the crossed legs of the bitter Flamestress, with the top half of her body wrapped in a gray hooded robe. The outfit swallowed her meager bosom and covered a series of sleeve tattoos Azella had gotten to announce her dedication to the Flame Goddess everywhere she went without having to say a word.

“I can assure you, Dybel, that if I wanted to fuck a creature whose mind was as blunt as your hammer, I could find a sow or a doe that would do the job with much less complaining than you. Go back to making love with that monstrosity of a weapon covering my table. You can use both hands to your heart’s content.”

The larger Dragonturned sneered, grabbed the cotton rag, and returned to her seat without another word. Azella let a hint of a smirk spread to the edge of her lips as Dybel’s back was turned.

After a few more sour seconds of silence, one of the logs popped in the fireplace, sending a few sparks out to die in the cold hate of the basement.

“You know, if you keep insulting my hammer, one of these days you’ll get properly acquainted with her as she breaks every bone in that prissy little face of yours.”

Azella turned another page and memorized more mapping around the castle.

“Dybel, I find your empty threats tiring. In a way, it’s no surprise you wound up in Galafrey. You bleat endlessly like the mountain goats that seem to fill every inch of empty land in this queendom. One day, my soul will rise to the Righteous Star, and I will be united with the Flame Goddess in warm praise of my life’s deeds. And one of those deeds will be reducing the oversized bones in that gargantuan body of yours to ash. Now be quiet and let me read in peace.”

Denying her roommate this request, Dybel waited a few seconds for Azella to settle before saying, “So that’s a no on the hate fucking for now?”

With a frustrated sigh from her companion, the ex-knight knew she’d won that particular volley.

Quiet once more filled the room as the pair returned to their previous activities.

The logs in the fireplace popped again as the flame died down a little more. Embers rose into the chimney fleeing the tense silence of the Dragonturned.

The mouse in the corner dared to run across the fuzzy bear rug and grab another crumb of bread, this time cutting to the opposite side of the room from Azella. Scurrying under a bookshelf laden with several aged tomes from goat herding contracts to maps of mines, both operating and closed. A bound collection of illustrated nudes from famed artist Penlaw McPherson filled the entire bottom shelf. Azella had on two occasions questioned Dybel about her rather explicit images, and the larger Dragonturned assured her that nothing was more worthy of an artist’s embrace than a “fine set of tits.”

After that, Azella kept her books to the upper shelves without further complaint.

When the mouse was satisfied it hadn’t been detected, it rushed from under the bookshelf and over to a large wooden chest, holding an unlit oil lantern. There, it waited, bathed in the last stretches of the fireplace’s light and warmth.

Neither Dragonturned faced the mouse, so it made a mighty leap toward a crack in the stone wall between two tapestries, one with an embroidered prayer to the Flame Goddess and one with the crest of Galafrey, large goat horns curled around a crown.

Landing just inside the crack of the wall, the mouse scurried inside, its tiny paws scratching on the stone providing the only other sound in the room.

For a while, the pair did not speak. But that wasn’t unusual. For in their hatred of one another, the Dragonturned typically only traded words when there were barbs to be exchanged and death threats to deliver.

Dybel turned her hammer over and started to polish the face when the Flamestress spoke again.

“You’re a damn fool, you know that?”

Looking up with a quirked eyebrow, Dybel snarled, having had enough for one night.

Maybe this really is the night I finally kill that self-righteous bitch, she thought, an iron grasp on her war hammer’s grip eliciting a slight groan from the leather wrapping at the weapon’s base.

“You can cloak your visage and perhaps even your noise, but I still see your body’s heat. You might as well be holding a torch.”

Dybel squinted and noticed Azella wasn’t staring at her. She wasn’t even speaking to the ex-knight. Her violet eyes were focused on something halfway between them. But the larger Dragonturned could see nothing present.

Maybe she finally snapped, Dybel thought. Anyone crazy enough to worship the Flame Goddess couldn’t have had much sanity to begin with.

Only then did Dybel’s ears twitch when a man’s quivering voice appeared from nowhere, saying, “Gods, the rumors were true. Dragonturned. Two of them.”

And before she could pick up her war hammer, Dybel watched her companion raise her right hand, eyes not moving from whatever she saw.

Azella flicked her fingers toward the fireplace, shimmers waving through the air as she wet her lips and said, “You there. Flame. Consume this man’s flesh. Leave me his clothes and jewelry.”

Her words sprinkled over the fire like a chef salting a steak, and at once, the flames grew upward into the chimney. Blistering heat filled the room as twin hands and arms sprang forth from the yellow flame and grabbed an invisible form.

An older man screamed as his spell melted, and a full body came into view. His gray hair was tied back into a long braid, and his black cloak wafted around, rising upward as the fire did as it was commanded.

He reached into his cloak and pulled out a knife, trying to cut through the flaming tendrils that held him, but the grip was simultaneously immaterial and vicelike. Such was the form of flames commanded by a firespeaker.

The arms pulled him into the fireplace where a mass of orange light began to consume the intruder. His screams echoed up the chimney, and Dybel flinched a bit.

Azella, however, ignored his cries and walked across the room, calmly putting her book back on the shelf. Then, she returned, reaching into the fire with her bare hand and withdrawing it once her fingers wrapped around a small object.

Her flesh was unscathed as it exited the flames that kissed it. For how could flames harm a firespeaker blessed by Azalyn? Fire could no more harm stone or air.

“What is that?” Dybel asked as the Flamestress examined a bauble in her grasp.

Dangling from a thin silver chain, a dog’s head baring its fangs swung back and forth, unable to shake the soot and scorch marks from its previously polished surface. Each of the dog’s eyes was painted red.

“The Snarling Hounds,” Azella whispered, her pulse quickening. She’d only stumbled across this symbol once before, and had she been the target of its wearer, she might not have lived long enough to threaten Dybel in Galafrey.

The larger Dragonturned walked over, ignoring the screams from the man in the fireplace. His flesh was bubbling now, and a fervent stink began to fill the room.

“Everything’s a prayer or a riddle with you, isn’t it? The fuck is a Snarling Hound?”

Azella’s grip around the necklace tightened as her fingers began to shake. This attack wasn’t aimed at them. For starters, so few knew Azella and Dybel actually existed. And if an enemy did learn of their place in Galafrey, they’d send more than one man to finish the job.

No — this was the beginning of something else. Something the Flamestress didn’t want to acknowledge. But she had no choice. Azella’s entire life up until this point had taught her to stare at reality as it was, not as she wished it to be. She’d leave the foolish thoughts about how things could be to overly optimistic knights.

But in good futures, as in bad, fire would still burn.

“Snarling Hounds are assassins. Expensive ones. Most people who lay eyes on one don’t live to talk about it later.”

Azella tucked the necklace into an inner pocket and stood up. The assassin had finally stopped screaming, fire having stripped away his flesh and moved onto bones.

“Why would someone send an assassin after a pair of Dragonturned?”

“We weren’t his target. I’d wager above us the castle has several more skulking about. You can consider Galafrey’s years-long experiment with neutrality officially ended. War has come to this land. It’s veiled, but it’s here all the same. Grab your hammer. It’s time to work.”

Doing just that, Dybel snorted.

As the pair quickly headed for the stairs back up to the castle’s ground floor, the ex-knight shook her head.

“I don’t get it. I thought we were supposed to be a war deterrent. The rumors of Queen Vague having a pair of Dragonturned to sick on any invading forces were supposed to keep this place safe. Who would attack us now?”

Azella gritted her teeth. Five years ago, she couldn’t believe that she’d found a place to call home. It was peaceful. Nobody bothered her, aside from Dybel. For years, the plan to keep Galafrey out of the muck that’d swallowed the rest of Yrvalin had held firm. Nobody wanted to risk losing a sizable chunk of their army to a couple of Dragonturned. And now. . . none of it mattered.

“Someone who either didn’t believe the rumors or simply refused to be swayed by threats. Stop your whining, Dybel. All we can do now is root out the rest. I’ll let Captain Ikeman know that —” she was cut off as they arrived in the castle’s foyer and found it full of slain guards.

Slashed throats and stabs from behind. Not a single soldier remained alive. And there weren’t many to begin with. Snowmount was supposed to be well protected, nestled in the southern portion of Galafrey.

Most of the queen’s forces were a day’s march away, taking part in a defensive exercise. A handful of guards remained in the castle to protect the monarchy. And this room contained most of them.

“None of the furniture is overturned. I don’t see a single curtain or tapestry torn down. This wasn’t a struggle, Azella. I count 30 slain soldiers. You’d need at least 15-20 skilled assassins to do that quietly. Just how many Snarling Hounds did they send?”

Dybel’s voice was growing taut as she stared at the troops. They didn’t hear any sounds of struggle or fighting. That would have drawn the Dragonturned upstairs in a heartbeat. Instead, the assassins had done their job so well that the only reason Dybel and Azella were aware of them in the first place was because they didn’t believe the Dragonturned were real. It was pure chance they’d been alerted.

“Take your hammer and rush to the queen and her husband. I’ll check the western tower to make sure Prince Mathias is safe,” Azella barked.

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She rarely raised her voice, so hearing it with such volume hit Dybel’s ears like a cracking whip. They rushed up a grand stairwell to the upper floor, finding more slain guards along the way.

They parted and dashed down different hallways filled with extinguished torches and carpets stained red with blood. Bootprints of all different kinds fanned out as assassins had clearly searched for the queen and king.

Dybel’s heart hammered in her chest as she pounded down the hallway, expecting resistance at any minute. Approaching the queen’s bedroom door, she gasped to find it thrown wide open. A man in a gray cloak identical to the assassin downstairs stood with his back turned. But upon hearing the thundering footsteps behind him, he spun just in time to be picked up by the throat.

The Dragonturned rushed forward into the room and hurled him into a nearby dresser. It spilled backward in a mess of clothes and half-empty drawers flying in every direction.

Turning to face the bed, Dybel’s chest tightened to the point of her lungs popping like balloons.

“No,” she managed to choke out. “No.” The second no came in a whisper so quiet even the mouse downstairs wouldn’t have heard it up close.

Queen Vague and Prince Consort Dumornth had their throats slit in their sleep, blood seeping out and staining the pillows and sheets around them. Their eyes were closed. The queen’s long brown hair spilled around her and partially covered her husband. The blankets looked like they’d thrashed for at least a second or two, twisted and knotted in several directions.

Dybel felt cold, ice cold as her eyes narrowed. Her vision started to swim as the image of the slain queen and prince consort burned into her mind such that she’d never forget it for as long as she lived.

Years from now, decades even, she’d awaken in the middle of the night screaming and quivering at the terror before her.

“I will give you a home,” Dybel heard Queen Vague say with a warm voice when she first arrived in Galafrey. “The other kingdoms may have spurned your service, but I would be very happy if you lent me your strength, Ser Dybel Harken.”

Tears streamed down the Dragonturned’s face as she gripped the war hammer tighter and tighter.

Now she remembered Prince Consort Dumornth’s voice as she demonstrated her strength by smashing boulders on a trip up into the mountains. “Gods be damned, Dybel. You’re a real force of nature. I’m glad we’ve got you in our queendom. No wonder the others are too chickenshit to invade over the mere rumor of Dragonturned.” She looked at her shoulder where he’d slugged her. It didn’t hurt of course. She was scaled there and fairly well protected. But she remembered that cornball goofy grin he wore. He wasn’t scared of Dybel. The prince consort never called her a beast.

The room spun around Dybel as more memories of the queen and her husband played through her mind. The armor they’d have made just for her. The hammer they’d presented her with. The dinners they shared when court business grew slow enough for them to sneak away from the throne room.

Taking one hand from her war hammer and placing it over her heart, Dybel remembered how Queen Vague once did the same not long after the Dragonturned had arrived.

The queen found Dybel drinking alone and crying in the garden one night. Under a half moon, she’d knelt, bronze hair flowing around her in the evening breeze. Her kind eyes brought a calm to the ex-knight.

And she listened to Dybel’s story with nothing less than patience and full attention. Once or twice, palace guards came over to escort her back into the castle, and she shooed them away.

“My place is here,” she told them.

And when Dybel’s pain spilled over into fresh tears anew, Queen Vague placed her hands over the Dragonturned’s heart.

She closed her eyes and listened carefully. Time seemed to freeze as the evening drew in quiet around the pair of them.

“Yup. It’s just as I thought,” the queen said.

“What?” Dybel whispered.

“The heart of a great and kind warrior. I feel it. I hear it. So why can’t you? It’s in there, I promise. You just have to listen closely when the noise around you grows too much.”

Doing just that, the Dragonturned sat on her crate and listened until she heard what the queen did.

“There, see?”

Water continued to pour down Dybel’s face.

“They were. . . my home,” she whispered.

Around here, men and women folded out of the shadows in various stages of shimmer. They slowly drew blades that were already responsible for murder and regicide. The man who’d been thrown into the dresser stood and pulled a thin wire between his hands.

Quietly, they stepped toward the mourning Dragonturned. Her shoulders tightened. Her fangs ground together. And just before the assassins got within striking distance, Dybel’s eyes snapped open in a fury. She threw back her head and roared.

It wasn’t the cry of a human. This was the pained wail of a dragon that lost something precious. The very stone and furniture around everyone started to rattle. One of the windows cracked.

Within the Dragonturned, a heart drowned with hate. And an ex-knight pulled all the power from it she could. Feeling every muscle pull rigid and stand ready to unleash her raw power in a way she hadn’t in years, Dybel counted 10 men around her.

“It was arrogant of you to reveal yourselves. I’ll smash you all until there’s nothing left by goo.”

“We’re Snarling Hounds, Dragonturned. I think you’ll find us more than capable of —” The man who’d been thrown earlier was cut off by a black steel hammer crashing into his face and shattering every bone present.

The other assassins froze where they stood upon seeing the Dragonturned hit so hard and move so fast.

“You spoke because you assumed a heavy hitter like me was slow. That was your second fuck-up. The first was breaking into my home and taking away the kind rulers who gave me my first real measure of peace since these scales were burned into my flesh. If you think you have time left for any more words, I’d direct them to your gods. You’ll be meeting them tonight.”

One of the braver women in the room rushed forward with a dagger in each hand and thrust it forward into Dybel’s forearm.

Where the iron blade met dragon scales, it immediately halted, unable to be driven even another millimeter forward.

The assassin hissed in frustration, but Dybel flicked her arm, throwing the dagger up into the air. Before the disarmed assassin could step back, a hammer smashed into her ribs, sending her crashing through a nearby window.

“You came in here with your fancy magical cloaking spells and your sneaky little blades. My prissy companion is torching some of you down the hall with fire bestowed upon her by a literal goddess. But you know what I have? I’ve got a giant fucking hammer. And I will kill everyone in this room all the same.”

And over the next few minutes, that’s exactly what Dybel Harken did. She laid waste to every single body breathing in that room.

When it was all over, the Dragonturned pulled a dagger from her upper shoulder and another from her thigh. Her belly was cut in two places. But she was standing and the queenslayers were sprawled across the floor in various stages of broken.

Dybel wanted to kneel beside the bed and cry as her rage subsided, and she realized everyone else in the room had been violently murdered. She wanted to sit there and hold the queen’s hand until sunrise, apologizing for all the ways they’d failed her tonight.

But all she got out was a quick, “I’m sorry, Your Grace” before a loud shout from down the hall reached her ears. It was followed by a rather grand explosion that shook part of the castle.

“Dybel! I need you,” the voice hollered, but the ex-knight was already rushing down the hall toward it.

When the Dragonturned reunited, they found a hallway of assassins standing between them and a smaller doorway, the only one they hadn’t checked tonight because they didn’t believe the room’s occupant would be a target. After all, who would harm a child?

Azella’s face was bleeding from a cut on her right cheek, and she limped toward the doorway. From inside, a muffled scream met their ears, further driving their desperation.

“The prince?” Dybel asked.

With sweat and blood dripping down her face, the Flamestress looked more tired than Dybel had ever seen her before. Just how many attackers had she faced in their brief minutes apart?

Her body was shaking, the ex-knight realized. Azella’s body was shaking. When had she ever witnessed a moment of vulnerability from the Flamestress?

“Dead,” Azella said, not removing her eyes from the blocked doorway. “Her Grace?”

“Slain,” Dybel said. “Like her husband.”

Clenching her fists, Azella shook harder until steam rose from her knuckles.

“That leaves Princess Camilla Vague, last living member of the royal family. Dybel, whatever our differences, we have to break through this line and get her out.”

The Dragonturned had an interesting relationship with Princess Camilla. At the age of six, she wasn’t in heavy training or classes like her older brother had been. She spent her time running around the castle, content to have as many years of her childhood intact as any princess should.

And when she got real good at sneaking around, she’d make her way to the basement, where the fiercest of monsters was said to live. There she found Dybel and Azella and became instantly fascinated with them.

The first thing she asked was why they didn’t come upstairs for tea more often.

When Camilla’s caretaker found the princess in the basement, she was horrified and apologized to the dragons, as if they’d been horrendously bothered by the girl.

But they only found her amusing.

So week after week, she crept down to the basement, until Azella was reading her stories and Dybel was playing hide and seek with her.

Within a few days, Camilla strode into the basement with a small clear crystal she’d stripped from a necklace. It was tied to her forehead with a string.

“Look! I’m a Dragonturned too!” she beamed before the pair.

It was the only time Azella and Dybel were seen laughing in each other’s presence and then subsequently apologizing to the newborn baby dragon for not taking her sudden transformation seriously.

“How do we handle this? There’s gotta be another eight of them blocking the door.”

“A spear and a shield. Get in front of me. You block. I blast.”

Without hesitation, Dybel took her place in front of the Flamestress. Azella closed her eyes and prayed.

“DEAR GODDESS OF FLAME. I THANK YOU FOR WARMTH, FOR LIGHT. EVEN IN THE FACE OF TRAGEDY THIS NIGHT, YOU ARE WITH ME. I HUMBLE MYSELF IN YOUR PRESENCE. I DRAW MY SPIRIT INTO YOUR GAZE. AND I BEG YOU. . . PLEASE GIVE ME THE STRENGTH TO SAVE OUR PRINCESS. BY YOUR FIRE, I FIGHT ONCE MORE.”

When she opened her eyes, Azella’s palm was aglow with a contagious orange light, illuminating every single assassin before them in the hall. It was a narrow fit, so as Dybel took her first step forward, the assassins could only attack one at a time. The bottleneck gave the Dragonturned complete control over the pacing of their fight.

Dybel blocked the first blade that came crashing down toward them. And Azella leaned to the side, slamming her palm into the assassin’s chest and igniting their entire body ablaze. The next fighter met the same fate.

Sweat poured down Azella’s face in abundance as her legs faltered. Still, they advanced toward the princess’ door.

Block. Blast. Block. Blast. Block. Blast.

The process continued as Dybel saw each attack coming and blocked it with her hammer or her scales. Not one blade got by her to mark Azella. And the Flamestress continued to spread fire to every single body in the hallway except her own (and the mountain of a woman in front of her).

When they crashed through the door, Azella and Dybel were faced with a fierce light growing weaker by the second.

Princess Camilla Vague cried on her bed, a glowing violet pendant putting a magical wall between her and two assassins who were busy proceeding to hack away at it with their swords.

The wall grew dimmer, and Azella noticed the princess’ focus growing weaker. How long had she kept that shield up? It was beyond amazing to see it still intact and protecting her.

Camilla’s eyes whirled to the dragons entering her room. The assassins turned their heads as well, just as the necklace gave out.

As the translucent wall that’d been protecting Camilla faded, the exhausted girl awoken in the night by who knows what fell backward onto a pillow. Her eyes were red and puffy, long bronze hair messy and wavy with loose curls hanging around her face.

Snot dripped from her nose, and a bed sheet gripped her leg tightly.

One assassin turned back to the suddenly vulnerable girl. The other pointed his blade at the Dragonturned who stood at least 15 feet away from the princess.

“Help me,” she whimpered.

“You’re going to be fine, princess. I promise,” Dybel said.

She nodded.

The assassin with his blade facing Dybel and Azella was a woman with short brown hair and cutting blue eyes. She sneered.

“I’ve never heard dragons make a promise before. That’s amusing.”

Azella took a step forward, her eyes glowing, and the temperature in the room climbing by at least three or four degrees. The smirk on the assassin’s face vanished.

“If you found that promise amusing, then you’re going to love this. If you don’t step aside and lower your weapon immediately, I promise to melt everything but your skull, which I will then use as a bookend for my shelf downstairs,” Azella growled.

The assassin didn’t lower her weapon, but she did swallow nervously.

“Who hired you?” Dybel asked.

“The Snarling Hounds haven’t betrayed a client in over 75 years. Do you honestly think we’d start tonight?”

“I don’t particularly care what you think. Drop your blade and stand aside.”

When she refused, Dybel and Azella took another step forward. Sweat started to bead up on the woman’s forehead.

“Hey, what’s taking you so long back there? I still hear the girl’s breathing,” she snapped.

“I’ll save you some time. He’s frozen in terror. Most humans get that way when they’re about to meet a gruesome end,” Azella said.

The woman scoffed.

“Hurry up, Samuel! It’s one kid, and our contract is fulfilled. Her mom, dad, and brother are all dead. If you think about it, you’re doing the brat a favor by sending her after them,” the assassin hissed at her partner.

Upon hearing those words, the princess froze, still as a statue.

“What?” she whimpered.

Fresh tears welled up in her eyes.

“What?” she repeated, this time in a whisper.

And hearing Camilla’s renewed cries, seeing her tired fingers cover her face as she sobbed, the dragons grew enraged and even more protective.

Camilla barely had time to blink before Dybel’s hammer crushed the assassin’s skull and sent her flying into a nearby wall. At the same time, Azella grabbed the remaining assassin by the neck from behind and set him ablaze with the last of her strength.

As his head burned, Azella threw him to the floor, where he shrieked and rolled, hoping the orange flames might sputter and die. By Azella’s rage, they did not.

“Princess,” Dybel started, but Camilla folded over and continued to bawl.

“I want. . . my mom,” she choked out in between gasps for breath. “Where is she?”

The question was too painful to answer, so Azella slowly scooped the girl up into her arms. It only took Camilla a moment to wrap her little exhausted arms and legs around the Flamestress. And then she was sobbing into Azella’s shoulder.

The sound of movement down the hall caused Azella’s eyes to snap toward the door.

“Shit. Dybel, there’s more coming,” she hissed. “They’re all cloaked, but I’m counting at least another eight or nine assassins coming down the hall.”

Dybel sighed and turned toward the door.

Both Dragonturned were shaking, knees buckling at the thought of more fighting. They’d spent their strength to avenge the queendom and save Camilla.

“Do you trust me?” Dybel gasped, turning to Azella. The Flamestress shook her head.

“No.”

The ex-knight slapped her forehead.

“Do you trust me where Camilla is concerned?” she growled.

Azella thought for a moment and then nodded.

“Good. Hold on tight,” Dybel said before grabbing Azella with her left arm and singlehandedly shattering the closest window with her hammer.

The sounds of footsteps grew louder as the assassins rushed after the Dragonturned. But by the time they entered Camilla’s chambers, Dybel had leaped from the tower with Azella in her arms.

“You idiot!” Azella hissed as the wind rushed up around them. Gravity pulled the women down toward a snow-covered ground.

Putting the whimpering Camilla between herself and Dybel, Azella wrapped an arm tight around the ex-knight’s neck. The snowy ground was rapidly rising to meet Dybel’s back.

Raising her free hand above Dybel’s shoulder, Azella used the last of her strength to blast as much fire as she could toward the ground in a pitiful attempt to slow their momentum.

Their stomachs all remained in flux as the Dragonturned closed their eyes tight and held onto one another for dear life.

With a mighty crash, Dybel’s back slammed into the ground, and all the air rushed out of her lungs in an agonizing wheeze. Azella and Camilla remained relatively safe within the ex-knight’s arms, her scales protecting the three of them from certain death. Er — her scales combined with the massive blanket of snow and Azella’s last stream of fire keeping the trio from certain death.

For a moment, they all lay there, too stunned to move. But with a great groan, Azella got up, still holding Camilla.

“That was incredibly reckless!” Azella snapped as soon as the castle stopped spinning around her.

Dybel took a minute to respond, but she eventually grimaced and slowly stood up, popping her back and neck in five places.

“But did we die?” she finally asked with a stupid grin.

If Azella had any fire left, she’d burn that smile right off her companion’s face. But that would have to wait. For now, they had some distance to make before the assassins found their way out of the castle and came after them. They had one target left.

“We have to go,” Azella said.

Dybel nodded, and the three of them ran off.

The trio moved toward the base of Hornback Mountain, one of the two Castle Snowmount nestled up again.

“Where are you leading us, exactly?” Dybel asked after a couple of hours of walking.

Azella’s breath was ragged as she answered.

“An old. . . goat farmer path that leads up the mountain,” she wheezed.

Dybel nodded.

As they started their ascent, Camilla started crying softly again.

“I wanna go home,” she whimpered. “It’s cold. And mommy’s room was always warm. I can sleep in there tonight.”

As she cried with tearless sobs, Azella and Dybel exchanged a helpless glance.

Then, clearing her throat and taking a deep breath, Azella ran her fingers through the princess’ hair and started to sing.

Dybel’s eyes widened at this. She’d never heard the Dragonturned sing. She’d never seen Azella show a single moment of tenderness. Not even to her books. But here, her quiet voice did its best to soothe the sniffling princess.

Hush now, quiet mouse.

Be still in my house.

All is well.

All is well.

Hush now, quiet mouse.

I will hold you in my hand.

Dry your tears where you stand.

All is well.

All is well.

I will hold you in my hand.

Azella slowly swayed left and right as she sang softly amid the freshly falling snow. And gradually, Camilla’s eyes dropped.

Safe and warm you will be.

Just stay here with me.

All is well.

All is well.

Safe and warm you will be.

Hush now, quiet mouse.

When the princess, at last, cried herself to sleep, the Dragonturned crept up the slope, unsure of their destination, only knowing that they had to keep Camilla safe at any cost.