Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5) by Sarah J. Maas

The three wyverns spread out, so huge Aedion’s throat went dry.

And for the first time, he hated his cousin.

He hated Aelin for asking this of Lysandra, both to defend them and to secure the Mycenians to fight for Terrasen. Hated the people who had left such scars on the shifter that Lysandra was so willing to throw her life away. Hated … hated himself for being stuck in this useless tower, with a war machine only capable of firing one shot at a time.

Lysandra aimed for the wyvern in the middle, and when only a hundred yards separated them, she veered left.

They broke formation, one diving low, one keeping to the surface, and the other falling back. They were going to herd her. Herd her to a spot where they’d surround her from every angle and then rip her to shreds. It would be messy and vicious.

But Lysandra shot across the channel. Headed—

Headed right for the final remaining warship.

Arrows rained down on her.

Blood bloomed as some found their mark through her jade scales.

She kept swimming, her blood sending the bull closest to her, the one near the surface, into a frenzy, pushing himself faster to grab her, bite her—

Lysandra neared the ship, taking arrow after arrow, and leaped out of the water.

She crashed into soldiers and wood and the mast, rolling, writhing, and bucking, the twin masts snapping under her tail.

She hit the other side, flipping down into the water, red blood shining everywhere—

Just as the wyvern on her ass leaped onto the ship in a mighty arc that took Aedion’s breath away. But with the jagged stumps of the masts jutting up like lances…

The bull landed atop them with a crunch that Aedion heard across the bay.

He bucked, but—that was wood now piercing through his back.

And beneath his enormous weight … the ship began to crack and sink.

Lysandra wasted no time in getting clear, and Aedion could barely draw breath as she shot across the bay again, the two bulls so horribly close that their wakes merged.

One dove, the depths swallowing him from sight. But the second one, still on her tail…

Lysandra led that one right into Dorian’s range.

She drew in as close to the shore and looming tower as she could get, bringing the second bull with her. The king stretched out both hands.

The bull raged past—only to halt as ice lashed across the water. Solid ice, such as there had never been here.

The sentries beside Aedion fell silent. The bull roared, trying to wrest himself free—but the king’s ice grew thicker, trapping the wyvern within its frozen grip. When the beast stopped moving, hoarfrost like scales covered him from snout to tail.

Dorian loosed a battle cry.

And Aedion had to admit the king wasn’t that useless after all as the catapult behind Dorian sprang free, and a rock the size of a wagon jettisoned into the bay.

Right atop the frozen wyvern.

Rock met ice and flesh. And the wyvern shattered into a thousand pieces.

Rolfe and some of his men were cheering—people were cheering from the docks in town.

But there was one bull left in the harbor. And Lysandra was…

She had no idea where the bull was.

The long green body thrashed in the water, dipping beneath the waves, near-frantic.

Aedion scanned the bay, rotating in the gunner chair as he did, searching for any hint of that colossal dark shadow—

“YOUR LEFT!” Gavriel roared across the bay, magic no doubt amplifying his voice.

Lysandra twisted—and there the bull was, speeding out of the depths, as if he were a shark ambushing prey.

Lysandra threw herself into movement. A field of floating debris lay around her, the sinking ships of their enemy like islands of death, and there was the chain … If she could maybe get on it and climb high … No, she was too heavy, too slow.

She again streaked past Dorian’s tower, but the bull wouldn’t get near. He knew doom awaited him there. He kept just out of range, playing with her as she launched back into the field of debris between the enemy ships. Toward the open sea.

Aelin and the others watched helplessly from the reef outcropping as the two monsters swept by, the bull sending bits of broken hulls and masts into the air—aiming at the shifter.

One struck Lysandra in the side, and she went down.

Aedion shot out of his seat, a roar on his lips. But there she was, blood streaming from her as she swam and swam, as she led that bull through the heart of debris, then cut back—sharply. The bull followed through the blood clouding the water, blasting through debris that she nimbly dodged.

She’d worked him into a blood-frenzy.

And Lysandra, damn her, led him to the remnants of enemy ships, where Valg soldiers were trying to save themselves. The bull exploded through soldier and wood as if they were veils of gossamer.

Leaping through the water, twining around debris and coral and bodies, the sunlight glinting on green scales and ruby blood, Lysandra led the bull into a dance of death.

Each movement slower as more of her blood leaked into the water.

And then she changed course. Heading into the bay. To the chain.

And cut north—toward him.

Aedion examined the massive bolt before him.

Three hundred yards of open water separated her from the range of his arrow.

“SWIM,” Aedion roared, even if she couldn’t hear. “SWIM, LYSANDRA!”

Silence fell across the entirety of Skull’s Bay as that jade sea dragon swam for her life.