Isobelle knew time was of the essence, but she couldn’t help kissing Gwen again quickly. The men back at the castle would have sent her on her way. They would have insisted she hide somewhere safe. It never would have occurred to them—they never could have imagined—that she could help.

But Gwen simply took her at her word. With her life on the line, Gwen trusted her to be there.

The dragon landed in the woods that stood between the village and the fields beyond, thudding down with a great cracking of smashed and splintered trees and another scream of rage.

Isobelle and Gwen broke apart. Gwen sheathed her sword with a scrape of steel, reached for Achilles’s reins, and swung up into the saddle in one fluid movement. “Isobelle . . .”

“Go!” Isobelle shouted. “When the moment comes, I’ll be there!”

Gwen gazed down at her from atop her warhorse, the words that hung between them shimmering like a skyful of stars. All the things they wanted to say but hadn’t time for. All the things they didn’t need to say at all.

For an instant, Isobelle pictured the smith’s daughter she’d first seen at the market, their eyes meeting across a table full of horseshoes.

How had they ended up here?

And then Gwen twitched Achilles’s reins, turning him toward the great beast. She leaned down to pull the spear from his saddle, touched her heels to his flanks, and, as brave as his rider, he launched himself forward.

Her spear at the ready, her black hair streaming behind her, the moonlight gleaming off her armor, she looked like she’d ridden straight out of legend. She was magnificent.

And she was so much more than a knight.

She was a hero.

Chapter Forty-Eight
Two wounded creatures, facing each other across the empty battlefield

The dragon had carved a ragged corridor through the strip of trees dividing the town from the fields on the other side, and it was along this path of devastation that Gwen guided Achilles. He was snorting with bloodlust, and she offered up a silent thanks to her mother for bringing her horse with her when she ran away with Gwen’s father. Any normal horse would have been halfway back to Darkhaven Castle by now, but Achilles was ready for a fight.

She guided him in an arc, sticking to the edge of the trees. She kept an eye on the dragon as it crouched, mantling its wings and curving its long head around to inspect the wound she’d dealt it inside the mine. The ancient dragonslaying spear was heavier than the lances she’d jousted with, requiring a tight grip to keep it planted against the stirrup platform.