Gold light circled her, starting from the ground up, moving around and through her. The Empress shifted and Aidan gawked, fascinated. She had gold scales and black-and-gold fur that reached from her head, down her spine to the tip of her tail. No obvious claws, but fur-covered, striped paws. No horns, but antlers. Long whiskers that reached out from her nose. A nose. Not a snout like every other dragon Aidan had ever seen but a nose, because she had a face like a striped jungle cat.

Any other time, Aidan wouldn’t even think of being afraid of such a docile-appearing animal. He wasn’t even sure he’d consider her a dragon of any kind.

But then he looked into her eyes and they were no longer brown. They were fire.

Without wings—she had none—the Empress’s body shot up, going through the ceiling above them, leaving a gaping hole. Aidan moved forward until he stood under it and saw that the Empress had gone through the entire building until she’d reached the outside.

“What did you do?” Ju demanded.

“What you told me to do!”

Now pissed at him—because of course they were—the Empress’s offspring shifted and took off after their mother.

Uther and Caswyn stood beside him, all three of them gazing up into the sky.

“They look like big cats,” Caswyn announced.

“And?”

“Just noting.”

“Do you want to look like a big cat?” Uther asked.

“Sometimes,” Caswyn replied. “Who doesn’t want to look like a big cat?”

Disgusted by the entire conversation, Aidan walked away.

“Oh, what?” Caswyn demanded. “You’ve never wanted to look like a big cat?”

* * *

Kachka didn’t have to fight dragons. There were humans in Xing’s army that kept her and her comrades quite occupied. And they kept coming. Xing’s army of humans. But the Empress had her own army of humans as well, so the Riders didn’t fight alone.

It was strange, though. Something in the air. Something. . . off.

Using the spear she’d taken from a dead soldier, Kachka impaled one soldier and with her sword, cut another soldier nearly in half. She was about to run into a small group of soldiers moving toward Zoya when the ground rumbled and she heard an explosion come from the palace.

She spun and looked up, watching in acute surprise as gold light and flames shot into the sky.

“What the fuck is that?” Kachka asked Nina in their own language.

“That is rage, comrade. Rage and a mother’s pain.”

“The Empress.”

“Xingggggggg!” the Empress screamed out, her body turning circles in the air, leaving a trail of fire and gold light behind her. “Brother! What have you done?”

“I’m here to take what’s mine!” the insignificant male shot back.

“I would have given you all this, brother. I never wanted it. But my son—”