My heartbeat hammers through my bones. Something in my head screams run. Run. But I go nowhere.

I stand there behind the shrubbery, frozen. This wasn’t a random attack. The shadow dragon, the bandit…they were both part of an elaborate scheme.

This would explain why the bandit was able to make it through the wall.

He was let in.

He’s not a bandit at all, but an assassin.

Not only an assassin, but one hired by my uncle? By my father’s brother?

This can’t be happening. My head reels, skull pounding. My face prickles with fear and adrenaline.

Maybe I heard wrong. Maybe…maybe this is all a misunderstanding.

I shift a little closer and strain to listen, hoping that they might say something to make sense of the situation. Something that shifts Uncle Ivan’s words into a new context.

The shadowed man replies with a stammer, “You should have told me she…the girl. She had a weapon.”

“A weapon,” Ivan scoffs. “Weapon or not, she’s a girl. A child, at that.”

My flesh prickles with an icy chill, and I find myself clutching tightly to my staff. I have never heard Ivan speak this way of me. I am not a child. I am not only a woman.

“Get it right next time,” Ivan snarls, “or you will come to regret your failure tonight.”

“Y-yes sir,” the assassin replies. “Thank you. I will not disappoint you again.”

“And the girl?” Ivan asks.

“She will be dead by morning,” the assassin assures him.

Cold bristles through me, icy needles prickling my face. I shift back into the shadows and rise silently on shaky legs. I’m so terrified, I can hardly feel my feet move as I trace my steps backward, not turning my back to the direction of the men. I reverse my steps until I’m back on the village streets. Then I run, my lungs beating and legs burning, all the way back home.

Hot tears sear at my eyes as I burst in through the front door, locking it behind me and wedging a chair beneath the handle. I reach blindly for the table beside the door, reaching for the basket that holds our candles and matches—but then I pause at the thought.

They can’t know I’m home.

I move through the house blindly instead, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dark as I gather my things up in a large wooden chest. I hardly know what I’m grabbing, and I don’t have the capacity to keep a mental list of what I need. Suns, I don’t even know where I’m going.

But the assassin’s threat plays on and on, like an echo. She’ll be dead by morning.

Dead by morning.

A clatter sounds from behind me, and I twist, snatching a dagger up from among the pile of things I’ve accumulated on the den floor. The room is dark, and it takes a moment to find the source of the clatter. But then I see Droplet, perched on an open window, and I feel a deep, warm wave of relief pass over me.

“Come, Drop,” I tell her, breathless.

Droplet leaps from the sill and glides to the ground at my feet, and I hurry toward the open window. I should shut it. I should block out all the entrances—anything the assassin can use to break in. I hesitate at the window and poke my head outside into the dark. The night is still. If there is an assassin lurking out there, I don’t see him. As for the shadow dragon…well, there’s no way to anticipate one in the dark.

If one is out there, I’m as good as dead already.

I shut the window and lock it in place, backing off stiffly. Fear has tightened every muscle in my body until it aches. Suddenly, I’m terrified of this place. Of the very home I was raised in. The one my father built with his own two hands.

It is far too empty without him.

And he is not here to protect me.

I need to go.

I return to my pile of things, cramming everything I can fit into a bag. There will be no time to haul a chest off. And I don’t know how long I’ll be traveling.

I don’t care how much I need to leave behind. I just need out, before the assassin makes good on his promise to Ivan.

With essentials crammed in my bag, I take a gander around the room, spotting dragon tears on my father’s shelf. I grab it—the hard-to-come-by tincture providing promising healing capabilities—and stuff it in my bag wherever it will fit.

When I am satisfied, I sweep off to my room to make sure I haven’t left anything sentimental behind. I scan the jewelry on my nightstand, scoffing at all of the tiny, sparkling, useless things. But then I spot the dragon scale necklace that Papa used to wear.

He had given it to me not long ago. For safekeeping, he said. Until you’re ready to wear it as Dragon Master.

Now that day will never come.

I take the necklace—the only reminder of my father that I have left—and fasten it around my neck. I am just latching it when a pounding comes from the front door.

My heart shoots up into my throat.

“Arla!” I recognize the voice as Darian’s, but my frenzied heartbeat does not settle. “Let me in!”

My chest tingles painfully as I let out a deep sigh of relief and hurry to pull the chair from the door. Darian stomps in, dropping his pack to the ground. The moment the door is shut behind him, he pulls me into his arms in a crushing embrace.

“I was preparing to take watch tonight when I heard what happened. Are you alright?” He lifts my wrist to examine my arms for bruises or cuts. I try not to linger on the warm, tingling sensation left behind by his touch. Then he spots the gash on my shoulder. “I’m going to take you to the infirmary—”

“I can’t,” I cut him off. “I can’t go there.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Darian says, looking at me as if I’ve gone mad. “You need to have this tended to. If you don’t have the wound cleaned and bandaged, it will go bad. Is your uncle aware—”

Again, I cut him off, “My uncle is aware.” I pull back from Darian’s arms and return to sorting through my pile of things. Begrudgingly, I add, “He is the one who tried to have me killed.”

Darian is silent for a moment. I feel his eyes on me, but I haven’t the time to distract myself with them.

“That isn’t funny,” he says. “I know you’re mad at Ivan over what happened with the council, but he is your family, Arla. The only bit of it you have left.”

“Not anymore. Family does not seek to have family killed.”

I finish stuffing the last of my most vital items into my bag and rise to the confused look on Darian’s face. It seems he’s finally registering that this is no laughing matter. That I am completely and utterly serious.

“But what about the council?” he asks, hushed. “If they knew there was an attempt on your life, they—”

“They appointed him Dragon Master,” I remind him. “They’re probably in on the whole thing.”

Darian considers my words, a darkness flaring behind his eyes. For a moment, I’m afraid he won’t believe me, but then he says, “Bastards. They won’t get away with this. I won’t allow it. There must be someone we can reach. Someone of higher power than the council.”

I rise, slinging my pack over my arm. The gash burns with the added weight of my things, but it is a pain I can ignore. The one in my chest is far greater.

“Where are you going?” Darian asks as I start toward the door.

“I haven’t thought that far,” I admit. “I am only certain of one thing, and that’s that I am not safe here any longer. I need to leave. I need to go…through the perimeter.”

Darian pales. His gaze sharpens. “No. It is far too dangerous out there.”

“It is dangerous here!” I hiss. “My chances are better out there, where there is not a mercenary with a shadow dragon out to kill me.” I lift an arm straight out to my side and call, “Droplet, come!” The little dragon soars through the air like a pigeon, perching herself on my shoulder. I give Darian one last, lingering look and start toward the door. “Goodbye, Darian.”

Darian is quick to put himself in the way. “You can’t go, Arla.”

“I have to!” My heart splinters in my chest, my breath burning under my ribs. At his confused expression, I soften my voice. “There’s nothing left for me here, and…and…” Frustration blisters on my cheeks, because the truth is, I don’t have a plan. At this point, any choice I make is a foolish one. “Well, you can’t stop me,” I say. “I have no choice but to go.”

I start to turn again. Darian catches me, his large hand cupped around my forearm. “Then I’m coming with you.”

My jaw slacks. I look him over in hesitation. I know I should tell him that he can’t. That his place, his duty is here. But I cannot bear the thought of leaving everything behind. Everything I know of myself and my life. Including him.

Darian takes my silence as a forfeit. He slings his pack on over his shoulder. “Let’s go then. Before they come looking for you.”

Darian steps outside and waits for me. I pause, just for a moment. Just long enough to look around. To take in every inch of the only place I have ever known as home. Then I step out after him.

We move silently through the village, sticking to the most shaded regions. Shadows of men sweep past us—most likely rangers, taking watch over the night. But as far as I am concerned, they are all enemies. It is difficult to know just who my uncle has in his pocket.

One word from the council, and all of these men will come hunting me down.

We slink past buildings and through the shadowed backsides of dwellings. Behind carts and vendor stalls, until we eventually reach the gates.

Suddenly, Darian holds out an arm to stop me.

“Ivan changed the guard schedule,” he says. “There are sentinels posted here.”

I look up at the enormous wall, the fissures in the stone mocking me in the shape of laughing faces.

“I know another way,” I tell him.

I lead Darian back toward the wheat fields on the far side of the village. The walls are not often manned here, due to the threat of ticks in the hotter months.

Darian locates a ladder and rope from the farm house nearby and tips it up against the gargantuan wall. “Go first,” he says. “I’ll keep watch.”

I throw the heavy bundle of rope over my neck and heave myself up, one wobbly step at a time until I reach the top of the wall. Then I fasten the rope to the jagged edges of stone at the top and throw the rest down to dangle outside.

All I have to do now is climb down. And as desperate as I am to leave, I cannot help but pause and look back at the village I have called home for all twenty years of my life.

Will it ever be home again?

A single burning tear wets my cheek, and I wipe it away, grabbing hold of the rope and beginning my descent to the ground.