Cassian's POV
I moved without thinking.
My body slammed into the thing wearing Lyanna's old face, knocking it away from my true Lyanna before those black-eyed jaws could close around her throat. We hit the ground hard, rolling through dirt and ash. The thing screeched—not human, not dragon, but something old and wrong.
"Protect Lyanna!" I roared at Kieran. "Get Ember away from here!"
The thing beneath me twisted impossibly, bones cracking and reforming. Its strength was crazy. I'd fought dark beasts and demons, but this? This was something else entirely.
"You ruined my surprise," it hissed in that voice that was almost Lyanna's but not quite. "I was going to make this easy. Sweet. But now we do this the hard way."
It threw me off with a rush of dark magic. I shifted mid-air, my dragon exploding in flames. My claws barely touched ground before it was on me again, moving like liquid shadow.
