The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(18)

In the alley beyond her, a man with dark skin and graying hair stood with his hand on the hilt of the sword strapped to his waist while the boy who’d followed the girl into the tavern was looking both ways. “It’s still clear. Let’s go,” he said.

The mob behind the Eldrians surged forward, and a man with sunken cheeks and a patched shirt that hung from his frail shoulders launched himself at Kol, his bony fingers grabbing at the small leather satchel tied to Kol’s belt. Two more men leaped forward and snatched at Kol’s cloak.

“Get off him!” Trugg roared and slammed into the men, sending all three of them flying into the closest wall.

More villagers—starving and desperate to get their hands on anything of value—poured into the room and surrounded Jyn while Trugg shoved his way to stand in front of Kol.

Kol’s chest burned with dragon’s fire, and pain rippled over his muscles as his body fought to shift. He drew a deep breath, tasting smoke at the back of his throat, and focused on keeping his human form.

Jyn’s laugh raised the hair on Kol’s neck. “You picked the wrong girl to mess with today, humans.” Her fingernails lengthened into talons, and a shudder rippled across her skin as it began hardening into scales.

“Who wants a piece of this?” Trugg shouted, smoke pouring from his nose as the crowd pressed in on all sides. Some of them raised crude weapons—planks of wood, butcher knives, and hand-carved spears—and waved them at the Eldrians.

“No!” Kol shouted, panic slicing into him. “Don’t shift. I forbid it.”

Over the heads of the mob, he spied the girl in the dress. Her dark eyes met his, and then she whistled sharply.

Something sharp jabbed Kol in the back, and he stumbled forward. The crowd surged against him, and its weight shoved him to his knees on the dusty floor. Smoke began pouring from his nostrils, and his dragon raged.

Then a piercing shriek split the air, and an enormous white gyrfalcon swept into the room and slammed into the people surrounding Trugg and Jyn. The bird circled, raked the mob with its talons, and then screamed a battle cry.

“Get up. Up!” A small gloved hand wrapped around Kol’s arm and hauled him to his feet. Before he could take a single step, the girl locked her arm around the back of his neck, leaped against his chest, and slammed both of her feet into a group of villagers, sending them sprawling. Falling back against him, she whirled around and pulled his shoulders toward her while another plank whistled through the air where his head had been.

Skies above, she knew what she was doing in a fight. He supposed he should be embarrassed—the king of the Draconi needing rescue from a human wasn’t exactly the kind of story the bards would turn into song—but he was too grateful for her help to bother.

Trugg and Jyn, their attackers momentarily driven back by the gyrfalcon, hurried toward him. The mob quickly rallied in their wake and came after the Eldrians with renewed fury.

“Follow me.” Without waiting for a response, the girl looked at the gyrfalcon. As if obeying some unspoken command, the bird shrieked and flew toward the door. The girl hiked up her skirt and ran forward, the Eldrians on her heels.

They burst out of the tavern and into an alley covered in sodden leaves and clumps of almost-melted snow, the crowd of villagers right behind them.

“Gabril, get Risa and anyone else who will be reasonable and see if they can talk sense into their neighbors. Promise them we’ll rob the next treasury wagon and give food to everyone.” The girl turned from the black man with the sword and looked at the boy who’d entered the tavern with her.

“Leo, find a clear path out of the village,” the girl said. The boy disappeared around the corner, and then reappeared on the roof of a building close to the street.

“North and then west,” he called.

“You three, follow me!” the girl said as she sprinted down the alley, leaving the man with the sword behind. Kol obeyed without hesitation.

The bird swooped low and slammed into a pair of women who were chasing Jyn, rusted knives in their hands.

“I like this bird,” Jyn said, and though her skin still shimmered with her dragon’s silvery sheen, her eyes were human again. “It has good taste.”

“I think the girl is controlling the bird. She has it trained to obey her movements or something,” Kol said as he raced with his friends toward the mouth of the alley where the girl was . . . skies above, she was yanking off her dress.

“Then the girl has good taste, and, hello there,” Trugg said with appreciation as the poufy green dress was dumped unceremoniously on the dusty cobblestones, leaving the girl in a pair of fitted dark brown pants, a white jerkin that left her pale arms bare, and a pair of boots.

A thick jug went sailing past Kol’s head and slammed into the ground, and the crowd behind them screamed for money, for food, as Kol snarled, “She just saved our lives. Stop looking at her like she’s next in the try-Trugg-on-for-size club.”

“I’m one size fits all,” Trugg said as they reached the mouth of the alley and tumbled into the street where the girl was already moving north.

“You’re a fool,” Jyn snapped.

The mob of villagers poured out of the alley in the Eldrians’ wake and came for them.

“We have to get out. Now.” The girl sprinted up the street and skidded around the corner of a squat little brick building. The boy appeared on the rooftops to their left and kept pace with them, leaping from building to building like a mountain lion.