Infinity by Andria Buchanan Read Free Book Online Page B

besides being scared out of her mind, she was safe.
    “Come on.” I tried to pull as she scrabbled onto Winston’s back. When she’d gotten halfway on—one leg and one arm were up along his back and the rest of her body dangled off the side—I let go of her hand, grabbed her knee and her elbow, and hauled her up behind me onto Win’s back.
    “Those guys were going to eat me for lunch,” she said as Winston started to flap his wings again, picking up speed as he flew us toward the castle.
    “I know.” I wrapped my arms around her neck and clung to her, relieved that she was alive—and whole—inside my arms.
    “I was coming to tell you that the Forest of Ananth is on fire. Bavasama’s army—”
    “I know. We saw them in the mountains trying to escape.”
    “What about Darinda and the rest of the Order? What happened to them? Did you see them?”
    I pulled her closer and didn’t meet her eyes. I didn’t want to think about that right now. She was safe, and that was all that mattered. We’d deal with the rest of it when we got back to the palace.
    “Allie, where’s Darinda?” Mercedes whispered. “I can’t hear her in my mind anymore.”

Chapter Five
    “Allie?” Mercedes asked as Winston began to circle the top of my palace, bringing himself down slowly so that he could land without jarring us.
    “Mer…” I swallowed and kept my face forward, not looking at her.
    “No.” I could hear her sniffle behind me, and I reached back with one hand to wrap my arm around her waist, despite the awkward angle, trying to find a way to comfort her. She buried her head in my shoulder and started to sob. “No, no, no, no, no.”
    “I’m sorry.” Tears begin leaking out the sides of my eyes. “If I’d known Bavasama was going to send troops out, I’d have never sent your sisterhood to Sorcastia. I wouldn’t have let you get so close to the border. I’d have kept you inside the palace. It’s—”
    “You didn’t know.” Mercedes’s voice sounded hollow, and she sniffled again. “You signed a peace treaty. You couldn’t have known she was going to start another war with you the minute she was back over the border.”
    “I should have known.” I felt my stomach starting to knot with anger and guilt. “I should have known that she would try this instead.”
    I knew that my aunt had something up her sleeve—she’d made that clear before her departure. She hadn’t meant a single one of the promises that she’d agreed to in our treaty. I just didn’t know what she was going to do about it—and I definitely didn’t think she’d act so soon. She wanted to become Golden Rose, be queen of the world we lived in and everything that it encompassed, empress of the lands of both light and dark.
    I swallowed my rage as I thought about how easily she must have believed we’d be destroyed. How she thought she could just take my kingdom like it was nothing. That we’d be so unprepared that she could just send an army in and take us over less than a week after our truce.
    Winston swooped low as he let himself glide across the back garden, narrowly avoiding the goblin workers who were relandscaping parts of my back garden before he reached the flat, green clearing near the aerie that the dragons used as their own sort of landing strip. Some of the other dragons raced toward us in their human forms.
    “Come on.” I swung my leg over Win’s shoulders and grabbed hold of Mercedes’s hand, hoping to get her head off my shoulder long enough for us to get down. Instead of responding verbally, she let go of me and brought her legs together next to mine. She slid down Winston’s flank and into the waiting arms of Dravak, the youngest of the trainee dragon warriors that made their home at the aerie. Once she was on the ground and had moved out of the way so I could get down, I pressed myself close to Winston’s side before slipping down to join her.
    Small, tentative hands grabbed my waist as Dravak moved to