Gwen glanced over at him, grateful to have an ally in all the chaos—and then froze.

His eyes met hers and slid away immediately, his lips tightening. Then he drew himself up, lifting his chin, and looked back at her.

Gwen stared at him, a strange numbness spreading through her as her body understood what she had seen before her mind caught up.

“It was you,” she murmured, wishing the guards had left her on her knees, for her legs were struggling to hold her up. “You told him who I was.”

Orson tucked his helmet under his arm and met her gaze. His eyes held sorrow—but not regret. “You would have won if you’d been allowed to ride,” he said, under the din of the crowd as Whimsitt stood, barking orders. Orson took a breath and let it out slowly. “You would’ve beaten me.”

Gwen was still staring at his features, so perfectly sculpted, his blond hair stirring in the breeze, his blue eyes straight out of every ballad of perfect knighthood she’d ever heard, when a shadow passed over the sun.

She shivered, grateful to the shifting clouds for breaking the tableau.

But then the sun blinked back in again, faster than any cloud could move.

A cry of confusion rippled through the crowd as something swept past them, above them, impossibly huge.

Gwen looked up in time to see a sinuous forked tail vanish across the sky.

For a long, long moment, no one moved. No one so much as glanced at their neighbors to see if they’d imagined the sight—no one wanted to know if what they’d seen was real.

And then, with a roar that shook the very ground beneath Gwen’s feet, the creature swept up the hill, behind the stands, and launched itself into the sky with a ribbon of searing, spraying flames that engulfed the tents at the far end of the lists.

A single voice, high and piercing with terror, screamed: “DRAGON!”

The crowd erupted into screams, turning from a quiet, meek pool of humanity into a seething, vicious, storming sea. Everyone tried to flee, and with the stands at twice their normal capacity, there was nowhere for anyone to go. Screams of fear turned to screams of agony as many were trampled, and people spilled out over the barriers onto the lists in an attempt to find escape and shelter.

Whimsitt vanished immediately, though his voice was still shouting orders, demanding the guards do something. “It’s after the gold in the prize pot!” he screamed from a crowd of other nobles also fleeing the scene. “Stop it!”