Dragons Realm (15 page)

Soren shrank back in alarm. “You would op­pose the Drago­nas and their laws? Align your­self with the des­cend­ants of slaves, who are few and far between, not to men­tion care­fully watched by the Dragons Guard? You would op­pose tra­di­tions as old as time in a realm con­trolled by ma­gic? Son, we could never win.”

Mat­thias shook his head in op­pos­i­tion, dis­play­ing a more reas­on­able frame of mind. “No. I don’t mean to change the way of the Realm. I un­der­stand why the Ahavi are needed, even if I don’t agree with how they are ac­quired and kept from their fam­il­ies.” He pursed his lips in frus­tra­tion be­fore press­ing on. “The mo­ment we weaken the dragons, the Um­brasi­ans and the War­lo­chi­ans will be the least of our wor­ries: The north­ern­ers will come across the rest­less sea, and the Lycani­ans will make every sin com­mit­ted in this realm seem like child’s play by com­par­ison. They’ll scorch the farm­lands, murder the chil­dren, rape the wo­men, and leave our corpses like bare husks in their wake on their way to over­com­ing Castle Dragon, in an at­tempt to over­throw the king. No,” he in­sisted, “we need the dragons—we need their pro­tec­tion—and they need to re­main strong by hav­ing dragon sons. But this? Com­mon thieves and raid­ers? Slave traders and mer­cen­ar­ies, cap­tur­ing ten-year-old girls for their own de­vi­ant pur­poses? This is my province too—I grew up in Arns—and I have a per­sonal in­vest­ment in mak­ing it safe. I have the right—
we have the right
—to fight for our own.”

Mar­gareta took Soren’s hand in hers and squeezed it, be­seech­ing him with her eyes. “Please, Soren. Let him go. At least let him try.” She prac­tic­ally held her breath, wait­ing for an an­swer.

Soren ap­praised Mat­thias more care­fully then, tak­ing his meas­ure from head to toe, and Mar­gareta couldn’t help but ap­praise him, too: The ad­oles­cent had grown into a power­ful young man with the broad bear­ing of a war­rior, stand­ing at least six feet tall. His lean, mus­cu­lar frame was ro­bust and vi­brant, prac­tic­ally ra­di­at­ing with the in­fin­ite en­ergy of youth. He was strong and sturdy, sound of mind. And he had al­ways been a fiercely de­term­ined lad, as skilled with that cross­bow as the most ad­ept, pro­fes­sional sol­dier. If any­one could get the missive to Mina, it would be Mat­thias.

All at once, Mar­gareta frowned, think­ing about an­other is­sue that plagued them, an­other po­ten­tial com­plic­a­tion: From what she had seen of the princes—Damian, Dante, and Drake—it wasn’t as if any one of them would bother to lift a fin­ger on Mina’s be­half. It wasn’t like her daugh­ter had any polit­ical power or pull. So what if Mat­thias
did
achieve the near im­possible—he suc­cess­fully got the missive to Mina, all the while re­main­ing un­detec­ted? Would Mina then turn to her mas­ters for help? What if she ap­proached one of the princes on be­half of Raylea, begged them to in­ter­vene, and her re­quest was met with hos­til­ity, seen as dis­obedi­ent? Mat­thias could very well be pla­cing Mina in grave danger, even if he suc­ceeded in his mis­sion.

But what else were they to
do?

Mar­gareta had clung to every hope that Soren and his com­pan­ions would find Raylea some­where…
some­how
…and bring her home safely. She had prayed for it every night since Raylea was cap­tured, but she had also stood in the War­lo­chian square and watched Dante Dragona ex­ecute two pris­on­ers, sever­ing one’s head as eas­ily as one might halve an apple, scorch­ing the other to ash. He was, in­deed, a frozen block of ice: cold, cal­cu­lat­ing, and ruth­less. And his broth­ers were his equal.

Still, there was an al­tern­ate pos­sib­il­ity, one that re­newed her hope: What if Mat­thias
did
get the missive to Mina; Mina some­how ap­pealed to one of the princes—per­haps the most reas­on­able of the three, Prince Drake—and the prince ac­tu­ally took mercy on Raylea’s plight and stepped in? With so many re­sources, such su­per­nat­ural power, all at the tip of his fin­gers, the king’s son could have Raylea home by the end of the week.

If any­one could save Raylea, a Dragona could, and Mina
was
very re­source­ful…

Mar­gareta could only hope that her eld­est daugh­ter was still as strong and cre­at­ive…and single-minded as she had al­ways been grow­ing up. She could only pray that the gods would show her fa­vor. Or mercy. And bless Mat­thias and his power­ful arm.

“Soren?” she en­treated, her voice rising in a hope­ful plea.

Soren reached out, placed a firm hand on Mat­thias’s shoulder, and slowly nod­ded his head. “Thank you, son.” He paused for a mo­ment and mur­mured, “I wish…things had been dif­fer­ent for Mina…and you.”

Mat­thias’s nose twitched, al­most im­per­cept­ibly, and then he de­clined his head in a po­lite nod. “What is done is done,” he said, in an un­usu­ally ac­qui­es­cent voice. “It is not for us to try to al­ter the will of the gods. But the will of evil men, bent on their own car­nal pleas­ures and de­struc­tion, well, that’s a dif­fer­ent mat­ter.”

Mar­gareta stared at Mat­thias’s ex­pres­sion and shivered.

There was just some­thing
so un­usual
in his eyes: some­thing dormant, some­thing dan­ger­ous, some­thing power­ful and an­cient. She shook her head, dis­miss­ing the way­ward thought.

Mat­thias was…
Mat­thias
.

His re­solve was im­plac­able.

His de­term­in­a­tion was rock-hard and fierce.

She took an un­wit­ting step back and wrung her hands to­gether. By all the Spirit Keep­ers, the Drago­nas were not the only for­mid­able be­ings in the Realm.

Not any­more.

*

Raylea Louvet tugged against the heavy chains that bound her wrists to the damp stone wall. She blinked back tears of ter­ror and gazed out the small iron-barred win­dow above her, try­ing to fig­ure out just where she was now.

A dun­geon?

A cel­lar?

A rat-in­fes­ted hovel?

But in what ter­rit­ory?

She thought about her mother and that calam­it­ous day in the forest, the day they had traveled back from the ex­e­cu­tion in War­lo­chia, the day the old man has asked for her doll in or­der to send it by cour­ier to Castle Dragon, and the day they had been at­tacked near Devil’s Bend. Raylea trembled as she re­played the aw­ful events in her mind, the way that nasty gar­goyle had leaped out from be­hind a linden tree and frightened her horse half to death, how ter­ri­fied she had been when he had reared up and she had fallen, and what it was like when she’d looked into her captor’s eyes: those va­cant, evil, witchy-gray eyes. He had looked at her like he hated her, and for the life of her, she hadn’t un­der­stood why. What had she ever done to him? To any of them?

She winced, re­mem­ber­ing how her mother had screamed, wheeled her horse around, and tried to charge at the slavers. Raylea had wanted to run to her mom so badly to get on the back of her mother’s horse and go home to her father. She had been so ex­cited about the pro­spect of her doll mak­ing its way to Mina.

But none of it had mattered.

It hadn’t mattered at all.

The Realm was a wicked place full of evil people just wait­ing to prey on the weak, and she had been one of them. As angry tears welled in her eyes, she wished she could wipe them away, but those dam­nable chains clutched her little arms like a dragon’s talons, and it was simply im­possible. She was just about to scream in frus­tra­tion when she heard a key rattle in the lock. The iron door swung open, and a shadow-walker entered.
Oh dear gods
, she was be­ing held cap­tive by a
shade
, an ab­om­in­able creature that fed on hu­man souls.

It must have been past twi­light be­cause the
shadow
no longer held his hu­man form. He was wispy and some­how skeletal, like half of his flesh was gone. In fact, he slinked, more than walked, to­ward the back of the room, where Raylea watched him with rising ter­ror.

“My name is Syr­ileus Cain”—he spoke with a hiss—“and I am your new mas­ter, your be­ne­factor, and your god.”

Raylea lit­er­ally re­coiled, press­ing her little body as tight against the stone wall as she could, wish­ing she could blend in with the rocks.

“You will wor­ship me, obey me, and see to my every need.” He flashed a wicked, con­temp­tu­ous grin, his front yel­low teeth gleam­ing in the moon­light that shone through the iron bars, and Raylea felt in­stantly faint.

She tugged against the chains and screamed bloody murder, pray­ing that someone could hear. That someone would please…
please
…help her. She was des­per­ate to get away from the shadow, but there was noth­ing she could do. Nowhere she could go. Her lungs burned in her chest, and her voice be­came raw from her ef­fort.

And all the while, Syr­ileus just licked his thin lips and laughed.

He laughed
.

As if her ter­ror and her pain were noth­ing, mere per­form­ances to amuse him. And then he took sev­eral steps to­ward her, and she flinched. As she tucked her head for­ward, nearly press­ing her chin to her chest, he reached out with a ghostly, shad­owed hand and scratched the un­der­side of her jaw. His fin­ger­nails were long, poin­ted, and dis­gust­ingly dirty, and he pur­posely nicked her flesh in or­der to draw a droplet of blood.

And then he tasted it.

Oh gods—he tasted
it!

His thin, slimy tongue snaked out of his gar­ish mouth, and he sucked the droplet off the end of his fin­ger.

Raylea began to retch, even as she con­tin­ued to twist this way and that in her chains, try­ing to put some dis­tance between her­self and the shadow-walker. And then he opened his dis­ten­ded jaw and bent to­ward her, not for a kiss, but to sample her soul…to draw out the first taste of her es­sence.

Raylea’s eyes rolled back in her head as fear con­sumed her.

True or false, her young life passed be­fore her eyes, and then the en­tire world went black as she
blessedly
passed out.

Part Two:

Dragons War

“Come not between the dragon, and his wrath.”

~ Wil­liam Shakespeare, KING LEAR

CHAPTER THIR­TEEN

Two weeks later

M
ina Louvet stared
out the open, stained-glass win­dow in her private bed­cham­ber, en­joy­ing the view of the im­macu­late gar­dens be­low. Things had settled down nicely over the past two weeks. Okay, so
nicely
might be too strong a word, but they had settled down. Mina and Dante had fallen into an ami­able, pre­dict­able rhythm, both in terms of Mina feed­ing his dragon and the two of them ex­chan­ging cor­dial banter. Ta­tiana had com­pletely healed from Damian’s bru­tal at­tack, at least phys­ic­ally, if not emo­tion­ally, and life at Castle Dragon had settled into an af­fable routine, at least some­thing she could an­ti­cip­ate.

She glanced askance at the man­tel, smil­ing as she eyed Raylea’s doll, re­mem­ber­ing the day Dante had presen­ted it to her, and feel­ing grate­ful for the price­less gift even now. The prince
did
have a heart, al­beit deeply bur­ied be­neath all that battle-hardened Dragona ar­mor, and she was fi­nally learn­ing how to nav­ig­ate around the rough, thorny edges.

A high-pitched whistle hummed be­neath the open win­dow, pier­cing the tender si­lence of con­tem­pla­tion like a blade, and she in­stinct­ively leaned over the sill in an ef­fort to identify its ori­gins. And that’s when she saw the wooden ar­row with its bright, twis­ted quills stick­ing out of the bushes.

Mina sucked in an anxious breath and leaned out fur­ther, star­ing at the fa­mil­iar fletch­ing.

She would know that ar­row any­where.

The tell­tale bright-colored plumes; the nar­row wedge-shaped design; the su­per­ior crafts­man­ship of the wood—that ar­row be­longed to Mat­thias Gentry, one of her old­est and dearest friends.

A boy she had once been prom­ised to in mar­riage.

She ducked away from the win­dow and grasped the outer layer of her tu­nic, ab­sently glan­cing to the left, then the right, as if someone might be watch­ing.
Great Spirit Keep­ers
, she needed to calm down…

Of course no one was watch­ing.

Mina knew she was alone.

She peered out the win­dow once more, this time scan­ning the dis­tant sur­round­ings for the archer, and that’s when she heard the swal­low’s nervous call from within a weep­ing wil­low, the rapid, high-pitched chirp­ing that aler­ted her to a stranger’s pres­ence.

An­cest­ors be mer­ci­ful
, what was Mat­thias do­ing?

Why had he come to the Castle Dragon?

Was he try­ing to get him­self killed?

Wast­ing no time at all, she dashed across the room, snatched her parka, and sprin­ted to­ward the back castle stair­case, where she flew down the steps like a fal­con in­tent on sur­pris­ing its prey, eager to get to the archer.

Dante had given her a wide berth when it came to ex­plor­ing the castle grounds, just so long as she took reas­on­able pre­cau­tions. She didn’t think her sud­den ex­ploit would be no­ticed.

Throw­ing open a heavy door, she emerged on the east­ern end of the grounds, quickly tra­versed the small sun­lit plaza, circled the bub­bling foun­tain, and then headed in the dir­ec­tion of her bed­room win­dow to­ward the shady end of the gar­dens. The mo­ment Mina ap­proached the huge wil­low tree, she bit her lip, kept her eyes fo­cused down­ward, and swiftly made her way to­ward the low-arcing branches. And sure enough, her child­hood friend stood up, his broad, mus­cu­lar shoulders held in a proud, easy stance, his long legs crossed at the ankle as he copped a lean against the trunk of the tree and turned in her dir­ec­tion.

“Mat­thias!” she ex­claimed. “What in the name of the gods are you do­ing here?” She planted her hands on her hips and tapped her foot in nervous an­ti­cip­a­tion.

Mat­thias rose to his full six-foot height and ran a long, slender hand through his thick blond hair. “I’ve been trav­el­ing for the last ten days. I have news con­cern­ing Raylea.” He nod­ded in the dir­ec­tion of his spent ar­row, in­dic­at­ing the ver­tical quills, still stand­ing up­right, be­neath her bed­cham­ber win­dow. “I can’t be­lieve my luck, that I saw you stand­ing in a win­dow, but you’d bet­ter re­trieve that ar­row—there’s a missive at­tached to the tip.”

Mina glanced over her shoulder and nod­ded. She drew back her shoulders and strolled leis­urely to­ward the ar­row, stop­ping to ad­mire a cluster of bright pink-and-vi­olet pe­ony bushes along the way, just in case someone was watch­ing. She bent over slowly, as if to check the hem of her skirt, pulled the ar­row out of the ground, and tucked the shaft be­neath her arm, con­ceal­ing the ob­ject in the vari­ous folds of fab­ric. Then she checked the gar­dens one more time to make sure they were alone as she slowly strolled back to­ward Mat­thias.

Duck­ing be­neath the cover of the wil­low, she handed the ar­row to Mat­thias, waited as he placed it back in his quiver, missive and all, and then squat­ted low to the ground. “Get down.” Her voice was un­in­ten­tion­ally harsh. “You’re not safe here, Matt.”

He im­me­di­ately fol­lowed suit. “I know, but it was really im­port­ant. Your par­ents are hav­ing a very hard time.”

Mina felt some­thing in­side of her con­strict, per­haps her stom­ach grow­ing queasy or her heart be­gin­ning to ache. She knew Mat­thias would not have traveled all the way from the
com­mon­lands
—he would not have taken such a risk—if the mat­ter had not been of the ut­most im­port­ance.
And it was about Raylea.
She al­most wished she had read the missive the mo­ment she had pulled the ar­row from the ground, but that would have been stu­pid, not to men­tion un­ne­ces­sary. It would be bet­ter to hear it from Mat­thias.
Oh gods
. Her palms began to sweat from an­ti­cip­a­tion. “Well,” she fi­nally whispered. “What is it?”

Mat­thias cap­tured her gaze in an un­waver­ing stare. “Your mother and Raylea were at­tacked in Forest Dragon, nearly three weeks ago, by a band of war­locks and their gar­goyles. We be­lieve they were slave traders, those who sell to the
shades
in the west.” He shook his head, and his eyes grew cloudy. “Your mother got away. Raylea did not.”

Mina gasped, and then she im­me­di­ately shoved her hand over her mouth to stifle her out­cry as the emo­tion slipped out. “Oh, gods…
no
.” She prac­tic­ally whimpered her next words. “What happened? Do you know where she is? What is be­ing done?”

Mat­thias sat down on the ground, and Mina mim­icked the ac­tion. She could hardly con­tain her panic, but to her credit, she waited for Mat­thias to col­lect his thoughts and an­swer when he was ready.

He drew a crude dia­gram in the dirt. “Her horse was here, not far from Devil’s Bend.” He poin­ted at a rock about two inches from the slash which in­dic­ated the horse. “The raid­ers came from be­hind a thick group­ing of trees.” He drew an­other slash in the prim­it­ive il­lus­tra­tion, pre­sum­ably to des­ig­nate the trees. “We be­lieve it was a band of War­lo­chian slavers led by the high mage Ra­fael Bishop, but we don’t know who ac­tu­ally took her—Ra­fael runs with a very dan­ger­ous crew: Sir Robert Cross, Micah Fiske, and Sir Henry Wood­son, at least be­fore he was ex­ecuted, just to name a few.” He waited for his words to sink in, fully ex­pect­ing her to re­cog­nize the no­tori­ous names. “And we be­lieve Raylea was taken to be sold—not sac­ri­ficed or con­sumed—but the con­stable re­fuses to fol­low up. He isn’t do­ing a thing. They’re just too busy to or­gan­ize a search.” His jaw stiffened in a vis­ible at­tempt to sub­due his an­ger. “Or per­haps they’re just too in­dif­fer­ent.” Be­fore Mina could pep­per him with ques­tions, Mat­thias pressed on. “Your father and sev­eral nearby farm­ers or­gan­ized a search party of their own, but they haven’t had any luck. We feel like…your mother feels like…un­less you in­ter­vene, un­less you can get one of the princes to in­ter­vene—
right away
—Raylea may be lost to us forever.”

Mat­thias’s words swept over Mina like a cold, bit­ter wind, chilling her skin and caus­ing her body to shiver. She grasped her head in her hands as she rocked for­ward in an­guish. Oh, heav­ens above, not Raylea, not sweet, in­no­cent, beau­ti­ful Raylea. What were those mon­sters do­ing to her little sis­ter? Try­ing to con­tain her grief—it wouldn’t help, and Raylea could not af­ford the wasted time—she tried to think of some­thing she could do. Would Dante ac­tu­ally help her? Would he send a fac­tion of the Dragons Guard to search for Mina’s little sis­ter? Would he ac­tu­ally go him­self?

She hon­estly didn’t know.

It was a lot to ask.

A lot to con­sider.

Be­fore she could for­mu­late her next words, seek ad­vice, or ask Mat­thias for sug­ges­tions, a dis­tinct­ive, fa­mil­iar sound caused the hairs on Mina’s arms to stand up: the crack­ling of crisp, brittle leaves be­neath foot­falls, alert­ing the two of them to an ap­proach­ing vis­itor.

Someone was com­ing to­ward them.

Mina slid onto her belly and rolled to­ward the trunk of the tree, even as Mat­thias scur­ried be­hind it.

“Too late, you little witch. I knew you could not be trus­ted.” Pralina Darcy’s shrill, heart­less voice pen­et­rated the tense at­mo­sphere. “Get off the ground, you stu­pid little whore, and tell your lover to come from be­hind that tree.” The castle’s spite­ful gov­erness glared an­grily at Mina as she stood be­fore her like a loom­ing bas­tion of evil, her skeletal hands planted firmly on her bony hips, her thin blood-red lips pulled back into a scowl. She looked pos­it­ively mur­der­ous.

“Mis­tress!” Mina bounded to her feet, un­con­sciously pla­cing her body between the witch and Mat­thias as he crept from be­hind the tree, his knees bent low to the ground, his con­sid­er­able weight shif­ted for­ward, as if he were pre­pared to spring. “What are you do­ing in the gar­dens?” Mina per­sisted, try­ing to sound in­dig­nant. “Were you
fol­low­ing
me?”

Pralina threw back her head and howled like some sort of de­men­ted an­imal, ut­terly in­sane.

“Pralina!” Mina curled her hand into a fist and thought ser­i­ously about strik­ing the gov­erness across the jaw. “Be quiet!”

Pralina’s severe gray eyes nar­rowed in rage as she howled again, this time call­ing for as­sist­ance. “Guards!
Guards!
Come quickly!”

Mina’s heart con­stric­ted in her chest.

She spun around to face Mat­thias. “Go!” she ordered, hop­ing her sud­den, im­per­i­ous com­mand would startle Pralina into si­lence, at least long enough for Mat­thias to slip away. “Get out of here. Quickly! Be­fore she wakes the dead.”

Mat­thias rose nimbly to his feet, his nervous eyes scan­ning the nearby com­mons, even as he took a cau­tious step back­ward, pre­par­ing to run. “What about you?” he whispered softly, his over­whelm­ing con­cern etched into his fore­head.

Be­fore Mina could an­swer, Pralina stepped for­ward and glared at Mat­thias, chal­len­ging him to even flinch. “You dare to step foot on these royal grounds, com­moner!” she snarled. “To ap­proach one of the castle’s Sk­la­vos Ahavi without es­cort or in­vit­a­tion? I will see your head on a spike.”

Mina sucked in wind, her clenched fist con­vulsing with spasms. She was go­ing to kill this witch—

Right here.

Right now.

This was not a game.

She fixed her at­ten­tion on Mat­thias and placed all the volume she could muster into her voice. “Go!”

Mat­thias hef­ted his quiver onto his back, clenched his bow in his right hand, and spun around in quick re­treat, head­ing to­ward a thicker group­ing of trees on the out­skirts of the gar­dens, just as a tall, loom­ing fig­ure entered the private set­ting from the east.
Oh dear an­cest­ors, have mercy!
It was Damian Dragona.

He was dressed in black from head to toe; he had a wicked-look­ing sword dangling in a scab­bard at his hip; and he was strid­ing for­ward like a tor­nado bent on de­struc­tion. Mina saw her life flash be­fore her eyes—
to hell with it
! She cupped her mouth in her hands and shouted from the top of her lungs. “Dante!” She arched her back, turned to­ward the castle, and shouted again, this time ab­rad­ing her throat.
“Dante!”
What were the odds that the prince could hear her? What were the odds that he was any­where near?
Oh gods above,
she prayed for their di­vine in­ter­ven­tion.

Damian stepped promptly in front of her, drew back his arm, and slapped her soundly across the cheek, send­ing her spiral­ing to the ground on her knees. And that’s when Mat­thias hal­ted, drew an ar­row out of his quiver, and turned back around. Mina stared in stunned stu­pefac­tion as Mat­thias Gentry nocked the ar­row in his cross­bow, poin­ted it dir­ectly at Damian, and sidled for­ward to­ward the wil­low tree.

Blessed Nuri, pro­tect them all.

He was go­ing to con­front the prince.

The ground shif­ted be­neath her knees; the sky spun in dizzy­ing circles of pas­tel blue above her head; and her stom­ach churned like a vat of curdled milk heated in a kettle as Mina reached up with a quiv­er­ing hand and tried to dis­tract Damian. “My prince,” she garbled the words around bloody spittle, “
please
…this is all a big mis­un­der­stand­ing.”

Mat­thias took a bold step for­ward. “Don’t touch her again.”

Damian came to a sud­den halt. He cocked his ar­rog­ant head to the side, meas­ured Mat­thias from head to toe, and laughed: a loath­some, scorn­ful sound. “What are you go­ing to do with that bow, boy?” he snarled.

Mat­thias’s eyes be­trayed his fear. He blinked sev­eral times in quick suc­ces­sion and then planted his feet a shoulder’s width apart be­low trem­bling knees. “I don’t want to do any­thing, my lord, just…but…we all need to calm down.” His voice was wobbly, des­pite his de­lib­er­ate at­tempt at bravery. “Mina is right. This is all a mis­un­der­stand­ing. I came in peace.”

Damian snickered. His bi­cep twitched, and his sword hand covered his scab­bard. “Mina is right.
Mina?
” He glanced down at her trem­bling form. “You mean my in­solent slave?”

Pralina leveled a hate-filled glare at Mina, stepped for­ward, and grasped her by a hand­ful of hair. “Get up, bitch!” she ordered.