“What’s wrong with you? What did you see? Could you get inside his mind? If he was a real shifter, you wouldn’t be able to see into his thoughts. This could be our proof.”
Sahalie shook her head vigorously, and calmed her features, stuffing aside whatever had spooked her.
“That, most definitely, is not Prince Aurelius. It is also not a shifter.” She let out an explosive sigh. “Where did they even find one?”
“One what?
” I grabbed her wrist, but Sahalie pulled away and turned back, taking a few strides toward Bastien.
“Does this finally settle things?” my brother asked.
Before Sahalie could answer, Bastien glanced behind us toward the trees, an expectant look on his face, then he shot his eyes toward the sky. A surreptitious glance, fast enough that it wouldn’t have been noticeable had I not been looking right at him when he did it. I glanced up as well, but thankfully Aurelius was hidden in the clouds again.
“Or,” Bastien said, “Would you like to bring out this imposter of yours? I’m sure you’d like to show him off. Let us see him so he be exposed as the liar he is for all to see. We can put this charade to rest at once.”
There it was. My heart jumped to my throat. This really was his plan all along. We’d been right. He was looking for Aurelius to come forward. Bastien had known from the start that his imposter wouldn’t get through all the tests. This was a giant show to bring him out to be killed, maybe by whatever was masquerading as Aurelius. But what even was that thing pretending to be Aurelius, and why had it terrified Sahalie so much?
“No need,” Sahalie said, and her voice was strong and confident, hiding all the fear I’d seen in her face a few moments before. “This man is who you say he is. He passes all the tests. You may proceed with the execution.”
Bastien stood frozen, the smile crystallizing on his face.
“Uh.” He tried to chuckle, but it came out as a cough. “I’m sorry? Is, uh, that all you have? Nothing-uhm, no further evidence perhaps?”
“No.” Sahalie shook her head. “Go on then,” she said, waving a hand toward the Aurelius thing. “Let’s do it. Off with his head or whatever you’re going to do.”
The imprisoned Aurelius’s eyes went wide, and his upper lip curled back, revealing a face that could have been either terror or anger. It was most definitely a face I’d never seen the real Aurelius make. He turned and shot a look at Bastien.
“Understood,” my brother said, enunciating the word slowly. Behind him, I could see my mother and father looking confused, and my sister and aunt cast me a hopeful glance.
“It may take some time to prepare,” Bastien said. “A…uh, a few hours? Maybe?”
“A few hours?” I glared at my brother. “Why not go ahead and put a silver bullet in his brain right now?” I glared at my brother.
His look of discomfort turned into one of revulsion. “You should hold your tongue, filth. You have no say here. This is between us and the Hikshil. You and your little dragon friends are here as a courtesy to them. It will take as long as it takes. Is that understood?”
“What I understand,” I said, “is that you’re trying to buy time. Why don’t you come out and say it, Bastien?”
All his calm composure vanished, and Bastien turned into the spiteful and spoiled boy I’d known my whole childhood. “Say what, you stupid bitch?” he growled.
I smirked at him, enjoying the fact that I was getting under his skin. “Say that you want us to bring out the real Aurelius so your hidden assassins can kill him the way you killed Jolon.”
All the color drained out of Bastien’s face as he looked at the Hikshil. “That is a disgusting lie,” he said, pointing a wavering finger at me while looking at the fae.
“It’s not,” Freddy said, stepping forward, and raising his voice to be heard by all in attendance. “I was there when he planned it. I heard it from my brother’s own mouth. He knew my sister was alive and not an imposter, so he decided to kill the Hikshil shaman before he could pronounce her identity.”
I grinned at Freddy. This was our secret information, the tidbit of intel he’d given me and Aurelius.
Freddy lifted a small, jagged crystal and grinned at his brother. “I recorded what you said on this. A little gift from some local fae friends of mine. You should really be more careful when you leave your office windows open, big brother.”
Bastien’s mouth worked up and down, like he wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. Finally, he did the only thing he was good at-causing chaos.
“Kill them!” he screeched like a madman. “Kill them all!”
Delphine tugged my hand, probably urging me to run. Before we could move, something horrifying happened to the person masquerading as Aurelius. At Bastien’s command, the thing tossed his head back and belted out a roar unlike anything I’d ever heard in my life. It was something between a serpentine hiss and a reptilian snarl. Once its cry was finished, the flesh of its face-such a perfect imitation of Aurelius-melted away, revealing brownish-green scaly skin. Before our very eyes, its arms fell away and crumbled to dust. Its legs expanded, merged, lengthened. The crowd behind Bastien let out an audible inhalation of surprise and horror as a massive snakelike body emerged from the ruin of what had once looked like Aurelius. In seconds, it had grown into what I could only call a gigantic snake, the head covered in scales, but with the jaws, skull, and teeth more akin to a cross between a man and a tiger. It was an abomination. At the back of my mind, I recalled a single paragraph in a book on mystical and magical creatures I’d read as a child. The hand-drawn picture beside it had been nothing compared to the real thing.
Sahalie backed away, bumping into me. “It’s a naga.”
A serpent shapeshifter from Asia. From what I could recall from my lessons, it was ancient beyond belief, slithering across the world in the days before humans or shifters had even evolved the ability to walk. The fact my brother had managed to import one, much less control it, was impressive and awful all at once.
The naga turned its wicked yellow eyes upon our group and belted out a rumbling hiss as saliva dripped from its fangs.
An instant before we could run, a bellowing roar tore through the air. Looking up, I saw the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen in my life. Aurelius. His inky-black dragon barreled down from the sky, wings folded back to use gravity for speed, his jaws open, still roaring out his anger. Behind him, more dragons speared the clouds, descending behind their prince.
AURELIUS
Iwatched the proceedings below from deep in the clouds. With my enhanced hearing and vision, I might as well have been standing right there with Elle and the thing that wore my face. One by one, the Hikshil stepped forward and tested it, but I barely paid attention to that. As I bobbed up and down in the clouds, doing my best to stay hidden, I kept glancing back.
Eventually, high in the air, I spotted the tiny dots of approaching dragons. Octavius and I had ordered my security to remain behind until we got a good head start.
My dragon purred happily as I dipped below the ground to get a better look at the ground. What I saw nearly made me forget to flap my wings. The shock of it was worse than seeing my exact duplicate come strolling out of the tent a few minutes before. Narrowing my eyes, I looked down over a thousand feet below as the thing that looked like me writhed and twisted, tearing away the outer façade until some monstrous snake-like creature revealed itself, opening its massive jaws to reveal huge fangs glistening in the sunlight. It threw back its head, and a screech of fury erupted from its mouth.
Iknew this creature. I’d heard stories of them as a child, and Dad even had a story of one of our ancestors succumbing to one during an exploration of ancient Japan nearly two thousand years ago. Anaga. They were supposed to have been eliminated in the Fae Wars over a millennium ago.
Turning, I found my men, almost upon me, I gave a single barking cry to them, furled my wings, and dove toward the ground. Understanding my command, the reinforcements dived along with me. All six of us sped toward the ground below, where chaos was unfolding.
The naga thrashed about and turned its baleful eyes upon my friends. The beast was at least fifty feet long and five or six feet thick. Whatever magic it had used to hide itself in a form as small as my body was even more impressive than my ability to shift. It was the stuff of nightmares come to life.
Bastien’s forces gathered behind him, at least fifty strong. The other shifters in attendance were in disarray, some moving to join Bastien, others backing away, unsure what to do. With my forces, fighting off fifty wolves in the open would be achievable, but difficult. There were too many innocents around to use fire-otherwise the odds would be better. The problem was that goddamned monster down there.
Unleashing a battle cry, I opened my mouth, revealing my serrated teeth. The scream caught the attention of the naga, and it rose up like a cobra. Its blocky, scaled head snapped forward as I descended. Fast as lightning, it struck, but I tilted to the side at the last second. Its jaws clacked together on empty space, and I managed to drag my rear claws down its back before swooping down to land. It cried out in pain and rage, and the moment my feet hit the ground, the battle commenced in earnest. Within seconds, dozens of men and women had shifted, and there were massive wolves coming at me from all sides, snapping and biting at my feet.
My men landed around me, and I spotted Vince, Rasp, and Octavius shifting, moving forward to guard Delphine and Elle. The naga spun around, green-black blood oozing from the wound on its back. It leveled its ancient eyes on me. The fury and hunger there sent a spike of fear through me, but I pushed it aside and leaped forward, claws extended and jaws open.
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