Page 102 of Heartbreak Prince

The assassin flings out his hand, and arcs of light shaped like crescent moons fly from his fingertips. One shears off a bit of Severin’s left front tassel, and two more hit Vawn, making his body jerk.

“Vawn!” I shriek.

“I’m all right, I was shielded,” he replies.

“They tried to kill you this time,” I gasp. “Their orders must have changed.”

“The Exemplar doesn’t want me crossing the border,” Vawn mutters.

Jaws open right in front of us, and a roar of hot, foul breath blasts in our faces. Severin dives and we crouch low as he skims along the underbelly of the wyvern and soars past its tail.

“The gate’s still closed,” I tell Severin. “We’ll have to go over the wall.”

The air around us is a storm of pounding wings, snaking necks, and clashing jaws as the wyverns of the border guard battle each other. The three helmeted assassins are still pursuing us, two at the rear and the injured one closing in on our right flank again.

I fling three more stars with no luck, then sink a hand into the bag of sheep’s heads tied to my waist. I take one out, heft it, and twist around, throwing it onto the carpet of a rider behind us. Blood spatters the assassin and his carpet.

“You told me the animal was drained,” Severin says reproachfully.

“Oops.” I grimace. “At least none of it got on you.”

The nearest wyvern reacts to the blood spatter immediately, nostrils flaring. The winged beast lunges toward the sheep’s head, but before he can reach it, another wyvern dive-bombs the assassin’s carpet from above, snatching up both the head and the carpet’s rider in his jaws. The wyvern’s fangs shear through the carpet like a sword through flesh.

I lob two more sheep’s heads at the remaining assassins. One of them catches the head like a ball, by instinct rather than thought, and even though he throws it away immediately, he’s too late. A wyvern dives for the head and its wingtip flicks the assassin right off his carpet. His body careens down toward earth, and one of the riders from Anyssir Castle shoots him before he hits the ground.

“We have to get over the wall now!” I yell. “We should head to the left and go past the arch with the alarm bell.”

“No, go up and to the right, between that big tower and the smaller one,” Vawn says.

“Why that way?”

“I don’t know—the guards look more loyal over there.”

“They look more loyal?” I screech. “You can’t tell that just by looking! Left, Severin!”

“Go right!” Vawn insists.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” bellows the carpet, doing a dramatic roll that makes us gasp and clutch each other. “I am trying to get over that wall without being torn to pieces or soaked in your blood. Fight our enemies if you must, but cease battling each other, and leave the flying to me!”

He puts on a burst of breathtaking speed, and it’s all we can do to hold on. “Your other shield, Vawn!” I shriek through the wind.

I don’t know if he activates it, but he shoves me forward on the carpet and curves his body over mine. Arrows fly, along with what I think are knives and spears. A wyvern’s roar shakes the air and fills my nose with the nauseating stench of blood-soaked breath.

I open my eyes a crack, then turn my head to look beneath Vawn’s braced arm. We’re past the border wall, but four of the wyverns and the final assassin are still chasing us across no man’s land between Belavrin’s boundary and the border of Tularesk.

“My second shield is failing,” Vawn says.

“Switch places with me,” I tell him. “You at the front, me at the back.”

“Are you all right? Your stitches—”

“Ask me about that later. Right now, do as I say.”

“Shit—” He clambers around to Severin’s front end, while I crouch at the back. I untie the bag from my waist and wait until the wyverns are so close I can see their rider’s uncovered faces. Traitors, all of them, not even wearing masks to hide their identities.

If I had ever thought this regime change was instigated by a foreign power, this battle would have changed my mind. Too many of the Belavrin military are involved with this coup. This revolt definitely came from within our kingdom’s borders. There may have been some mercenaries involved, but it has all the earmarks of a takeover by Belavrin’s soldiers and guards—the people who, like me, were trained to put their duty first and serve the Crown without question.

I don’t know all their motives or the identity of their leader. But I do know one thing—that I am the last defense between them and the youngest Molloi prince.