Dragons Realm (16 page)

Mina clutched her scalp, fury over­whelm­ing her, and stumbled to her feet, try­ing to keep the roots of her hair from rip­ping out with every jar­ring move­ment. “Let go of me,” she cried.

Pralina tightened her fist and tugged against Mina’s scalp, draw­ing pleas­ure from her pain. She dug sev­eral sharp, jagged nails deep into Mina’s flesh and cackled, star­ing at her nose-to-nose.

That was it.

Shov­ing the heel of her shoulder into the hag’s stom­ach to throw her off bal­ance, Mina went for blood: She raked her nails across the wo­man’s cheek, barely miss­ing her eye; kicked her in the shin; stomped on her foot; and then el­bowed her in the neck. The mo­ment Pralina let go of Mina’s hair and began to choke, Mina fol­lowed up with a quick up­per­cut to the jaw, caus­ing Pralina to bite her own tongue. The gov­erness yelped and jumped back in sur­prise, try­ing to re­gain con­trol.

“Son of a bitch,” Damian swore, cross­ing his arms over his chest and re­lax­ing in spite of Mat­thias’s bow. His laughter grew rauc­ous and loud. “You’re a reg­u­lar hellcat, aren’t you, wo­man?” He shrugged a cocky shoulder. “Per­haps I should ask my father for you, after all.” And then he grew cal­lous in the blink of an eye.

Without warn­ing or pre­amble, the dragon prince flicked his wrists, poin­ted one fore­finger at Mina, the other at Mat­thias, and shot them both in the chest with a su­per­nat­ural bolt of light­ning, stun­ning them where they stood. The air whooshed out of Mina’s lungs, and she froze in place like a statue, even as Mat­thias went fly­ing into the air, tumbled in a vi­ol­ent circle, and cried out in agony as his cross­bow singed his hands. Damian ro­tated his fore­finger in two small circles, and Mat­thias’s bow and quiver soared away from his body as if caught in an un­seen wind, spiraled high above the tree, and then plummeted to the ground, splin­ter­ing into a dozen pieces.

Mina gasped, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even speak. All she could do was watch in ab­ject hor­ror as Mat­thias stopped spin­ning and began to drift up­ward—fur­ther and fur­ther—head­ing to­ward the high, wind­ing branches of the wil­low tree. And then the twis­ted limbs began to moan and stretch, wrap­ping their ri­gid arms around the hu­man’s waist, his throat, and his hands.

Oh gods
, Damian was us­ing the tree as a re­straint, bind­ing Mat­thias in wooden chains, sus­pend­ing him above the ground, in or­der to…in or­der to…
what
?

Mina’s eyes grew wide, and she fought against the evil prince’s ma­gic, des­per­ate to turn away, as Damian took sev­eral paces back­ward, opened his feral jaw in the most grot­esque con­tor­tion she had ever seen, and re­leased his poin­ted canines. Smoke bel­lowed from the corners of his mouth; his lips turned fiery or­ange, and deep red flames began to dance like twirl­ing va­pors, emer­ging from his throat.

Mina re­coiled in­wardly, even as she forced an outer moan.

No…

Please…

Oh, gods…no.

She did not want to watch Mat­thias burn.

Please, Damian
, she begged in her mind. Her tongue was still thick and laden like it was coated in goo.
Oh, an­cest­ors, where was Dante? Where was Drake? Where were the gods when they were needed?
Bit­ter tears stung her eyes as Damian’s lip drew back in a prim­it­ive snarl, and he hissed a fi­nal pro­nounce­ment. “You dared to place your feet on the king’s land. You dared to speak to a Sk­la­vos Ahavi, to a wench that be­longs to me and mine, and you dared to raise a weapon to your lord. For these crimes, and just for the hell of it, I sen­tence you to death.” A primal roar es­caped his throat, and he opened his mouth even wider to re­lease the fatal flames.

“Prince Damian!
Prince Damian!
” An agit­ated band of castle sen­tinels rushed into the garden, led by the two Malo Clan guards who had been present at Mina’s scour­ging. “My prince,” the seven-foot guard with a poin­ted, scruffy goatee grunted im­pa­tiently. “The king de­mands your pres­ence in the throne room at once.”

Damian didn’t turn in their dir­ec­tion. He didn’t turn away from his fury. He didn’t even ac­know­ledge their pres­ence.

The second guard stared at the piteous hu­man dangling from the tree and grim­aced as un­der­stand­ing re­gistered in his dark, seedy eyes, but he pressed on with his own en­treaty.
“My prince!”
His voice was gruff and in­sist­ent with ap­peal. “The watchtower sen­try spot­ted at least two dozen Lycanian ships sail­ing this way across the rest­less sea.”

“They’re headed to­ward Dra­cos Cove,” the first guard cut in.

“An at­tack is im­min­ent. You are needed in the throne room
at once
.”

For the first time, both Malo Clan guards glanced ab­sently at Mina, still frozen like a piteous ef­figy where she stood, and then at Pralina, her face bit­ter with an­ger, ashen with hu­mi­li­ation, and speckled with welts, each streaked with blood. The first guard snorted. “There is no time for”—he swept his hand in a dis­missive arc, in­dic­at­ing whatever had gone on with the wo­men—“for
this
.” And then he straightened his spine, squared his shoulders to the prince, and bowed his head in de­fer­ence. “We were told to bring the Sk­la­vos Ahavi, all three of them, to the throne room as well.”

“The king said
now
,” the second guard ad­ded with just a bit of vehe­mence and more than a little dis­taste.

Damian shook his head briskly as if try­ing to snap out of a daze. Un­doubtedly, he was ac­cus­tomed to the Malo Clan guards and their brusque, heavy-handed ways. More than likely, he was try­ing to bridle his dragon, re­tract the beast’s fire, and re­gain some semb­lance of con­trol. Mo­ments felt like hours as Damian blinked sev­eral times; his eyes flashed back and forth between red and dark brown; and he fi­nally drew in a meas­ured, easy breath.

The fire abated.

He tilted his head to the side and glared at Mina, and for a mo­ment, she didn’t know if he planned to re­lease her or murder her, right then and there. “Com­pose your­self,” he ordered, flick­ing his wrist in her dir­ec­tion, and just like that, her in­vis­ible bonds were re­moved. She was no longer para­lyzed.

She shivered and groaned from the strange sen­sa­tion, watch­ing in trep­id­a­tion as he turned his at­ten­tion to Mat­thias, who was still ter­ri­fied and hanging, sus­pen­ded from the tree.
“Oh please, oh please, oh please, sweet god­dess of mercy,”
she breathed.

Damian frowned, but his ire had already cooled.

His at­ten­tion was clearly else­where.

He raised his open palm to­ward the top of the tree, curled his fin­gers in­ward, and the branches simply let go, drop­ping Mat­thias to the ground, where he landed at Damian’s feet. The sad­istic prince kicked him in the ribs, and then spun around to face the leader of the guards, the bar­baric gi­ant with the men­acing goatee. “Take this hu­man ex­cre­ment to the dun­geon—we can ex­ecute him later.” As sev­eral guards rushed for­ward to seize Mat­thias, Damian turned to­ward Mina once more. “And clean her up—
quickly
—then bring her to the throne room.”

“As you wish, my prince,” a nor­mal-sized guard said, lev­el­ing his gaze at Mina.

As if she were ut­terly clue­less to the grav­ity of the situ­ation, Pralina Darcy huffed in ex­as­per­a­tion, rushed to­ward Damian, and grasped him by the arm, her jagged nails un­in­ten­tion­ally bit­ing into his skin. “My prince,” she panted, “for­give me, but I must in­sist on this Ahavi’s im­me­di­ate pun­ish­ment. Did you not see what she did to me?”

Damian’s eyes nar­rowed into two tiny slits, the pu­pils draw­ing as thin as a cat’s.

“I am your father’s most faith­ful do­mestic. I have served him hon­or­ably for the past ten years, and that bitch had the au­da­city to strike me.” She kicked a mound of dirt in Mina’s dir­ec­tion, her voice grow­ing hoarse with dis­gust.

Damian licked his bot­tom lip. Slowly. “You in­sist?” His words were barely aud­ible.

Pralina cleared her throat. “It’s…well…it’s very im­port­ant that the slaves know their place. So in that re­spect, yes; I in­sist.”

Damian nod­ded slowly. He glanced back and forth between Pralina and Mina, his face an iron mask of dis­dain, and then he fingered his scab­bard, drew his sword, and gut­ted the gov­erness from stem to stern in one grace­ful thrust of his blade. As Pralina’s eyes bulged in their sock­ets, swollen with shock and hor­ror, she grasped at his lapels and groaned.

“I couldn’t agree with you more. Slaves should know their place.” With that, he with­drew his sword, shoved her away with a booted foot, and watched as her body slumped to the ground. Turn­ing to Mina, he ex­ten­ded the blood-soaked blade. “You,” he snarled, pla­cing the tip of steel to her throat. “Ten words or less: Why were you meet­ing with that hu­man? Why did you call out for my
brother
? And what made you think you could get away with at­tack­ing Pralina?”

Mina swal­lowed con­vuls­ively, feel­ing the hard, cold edge of the sword taut against her throat.

Ten words or less?

How did he ex­pect her to an­swer?

He in­creased the pres­sure, nick­ing her skin in the pro­cess and draw­ing a trickle of blood. She stead­ied her nerves and spoke slowly. De­lib­er­ately. “He brought a mes­sage from home. I was scared.
Apo­lo­gies
.”

Damian with­drew the sword and sheathed it in its scab­bard. “What was the mes­sage?”

“My sis­ter was kid­napped by slavers.”

He nod­ded slowly. “I see. And you thought Dante would…
what
? Help you find your sis­ter? Pro­tect you…
from
me
?”

“My prince.” The second Malo Clan guard vied for Damian’s at­ten­tion, pre­sum­ably to re­mind him of the ur­gent situ­ation, the need to get to the throne room post haste, but his cap­tain swiftly seized him by the arm and shook his head in cau­tion.

Shh
, he mouthed the warn­ing.

The lieu­ten­ant looked away.

“No, my prince,” Mina answered quietly. “I…I just pan­icked. There was no thought. I…I’m just bet­ter
ac­quain­ted
with Prince Dante, thus far.”

“
Ac­quain­ted
,” Damian echoed nas­tily as he nod­ded again. “Hmm. And Pralina?”

Mina bit her bot­tom lip. “She…she…” There was no po­lite way to put it, no clever way to re­state it, so she chose to shut her mouth.

Damian leaned for­ward un­til he met her at eye level, and his harshly sculp­ted nose twitched. “She was a royal bitch,” he whispered. This time, Mina nod­ded, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a sad­istic smile. “Well, I don’t think she’ll bother either of us again, do you?” He nar­rowed his gaze with
such
con­tempt…

Mina closed her eyes and waited, ex­pect­ing any­thing to hap­pen.

She had no idea what the prince would do next.

To her sur­prise, Prince Damian stood up straight, brushed the dust off his tu­nic, turned on his heel, and pom­pously strolled away.

Chapter Four­teen

M
ina crossed her
arms over her chest, gripped both tri­ceps with her palms, and rubbed her ex­posed flesh briskly in or­der to stave off the chill as she entered the throne room of Castle Dragon.

Again.

How well she re­membered the last time she had stood in this massive hall with its cryptic walls, enorm­ous columns, and elab­or­ate trap­pings. She still re­called the king’s heart­less words—g
ive her fif­teen lashes with a spiked whip
—and the bru­tal flog­ging that had fol­lowed there­after. She still re­membered Dante’s cour­ageous sac­ri­fice as he had en­dured her pain, ac­cep­ted it as his own, and she un­der­stood, more in­tim­ately than most, how quickly one’s fate could turn from bad to worse at the whim­sical nod of this king.

Mak­ing her way to­ward the back of the room, she scur­ried to the left side of the hall and took an in­con­spicu­ous place be­side Ta­tiana Ward. The two ex­changed wary glances be­fore Mina took her best friend’s hand. “Hi, Tati,” she mur­mured, still star­ing straight ahead.

Ta­tiana was prac­tic­ally cower­ing in the corner, and she wel­comed Mina’s touch with a firm squeeze of their in­ter­locked fin­gers. “What is this about?” the frail, au­burn-haired fe­male whispered in an anxious tone. “And where were you earlier?”

Mina shook her head. She wasn’t about to go there. She pressed her shoulder to Ta­tiana’s, leaned in her dir­ec­tion, and whispered in her ear: “The Realm is un­der at­tack, or at least it will be soon: Lycani­ans from the north, sail­ing across the sea.”

Ta­tiana shot her a furt­ive glance. “How do you know this?”

Once again, Mina shook her head. “It’s not im­port­ant.” She shrugged. “And as for where I was earlier—I’ll tell you later.” As the crowd grew around them, courtiers filling up space, Mina tugged Ta­tiana by the arm and shuffled sev­eral paces back un­til they were both lean­ing against the far west­ern wall. She took the op­por­tun­ity to sur­vey the hall, to ob­serve its oc­cu­pants, and to gather in­form­a­tion. She was pre­oc­cu­pied with thoughts of Raylea and Mat­thias, ter­ri­fied of Damian and his sad­istic be­ha­vior, and she was anxious to get this man­dat­ory meet­ing over with so she could con­cen­trate on her much more press­ing con­cerns.

As al­ways, the king was perched like a god on his throne, but he wasn’t lean­ing back in that grand, re­laxed man­ner that told the whole world he was in con­trol. On the con­trary, he looked more than just a little un­easy—he looked equal parts angry and de­term­ined, as he sat sus­pen­ded on the edge of his seat, res­ted his el­bow on his thigh, anchored his chin on his fist, and leaned for­ward to speak with his sons. Dante, Damian, and Drake sur­roun­ded the king in a loose semi­circle, and Mina couldn’t help but no­tice that, for the first time ever, King De­mitri’s crown looked too heavy for his head.

As for the princes, they cast a power­ful, un­easy vis­age of their own: Un­like the first time Mina had viewed the throne room, they were not stand­ing in a lesser, sym­bolic po­s­i­tion, star­ing du­ti­fully at their father from the bot­tom of the dais, dis­play­ing a quiet, per­haps even re­sent­ful, rev­er­ence. They were each stand­ing tall. They were of­fer­ing the king coun­sel. And they were func­tion­ing as a co­hes­ive unit. The thought gave Mina chills. It was hard to see Damian as any­thing more than a vi­cious brute, a ra­bid dog that should be put down by its owner.

She shivered, watch­ing as the two fa­mil­iar Malo Clan guards paced back and forth be­hind the throne, throw­ing off a lethal en­ergy of their own, and then she turned her at­ten­tion to the greater hall.

Stand­ing to­ward the front of the room, about twenty-five feet away from the bot­tom of the dais between two mighty columns, was a vir­tual en­tour­age of im­port­ant dig­nit­ar­ies: the high priest in all of his ce­re­mo­nial garb, the king’s chief re­gent, and the royal scribe, who was car­ry­ing the of­fi­cial seal of Castle Dragon, a quill, some ink, and two trundled scrolls, along with three small vi­als of mys­ter­i­ous li­quid, all placed on a vel­vet-lined tray. Serving the dig­nit­ar­ies were sev­eral ser­vants of lesser im­port­ance, in­clud­ing Thomas the squire.

“Are you look­ing at that?” Ta­tiana whispered, tug­ging on Mina’s hand. “What’s on the tray?”

“I have no idea,” Mina said somberly, yet her stom­ach began to churn as she stared harder at the small mys­ter­i­ous vi­als. Their shape and color were vaguely fa­mil­iar, re­mind­ing her of some­thing she had seen at the Keep: a hand-drawn pic­ture, stuffed in­side an an­cient tome, about the fer­til­ity rites per­formed at the Au­tumn Mat­ing. The Sk­la­vos Ahavi were born with a rare gift of fer­til­ity, the abil­ity to pro­duce dragon sons for the Realm, but this gift did not blos­som un­as­sisted—the fe­males were given a sac­red, ma­gical elixir that awakened their re­pro­duct­ive po­ten­tial for thirty-six hours at the time of their formal mat­ing. And that mys­ter­i­ous po­tion was stored in bottles that looked an aw­ful lot like the ones sit­ting on the royal scribe’s tray.

Mina shook her head.
Nah, that couldn’t be right.
It made no sense. The Realm would soon be un­der siege; the king was wor­ried about an im­min­ent at­tack; and his sons were in­volved in the king­dom’s de­fense—not ex­actly the right time or place for fer­til­ity rites. Mina sighed and dis­missed the thought.

“Are those gen­er­als?” Ta­tiana asked, pulling Mina away from her curi­ous, un­set­tling thoughts.

Mina blinked sev­eral times and fol­lowed Ta­tiana’s gaze to the cen­ter of the hall, where she tried to make sense of the vari­ous males in their mil­it­ary re­galia. There were hu­mans, war­locks, Malo Clan loy­al­ists, and
shades
, all con­greg­at­ing to­gether, with one im­port­ant dis­tinc­tion; they were loosely sep­ar­ated into four dis­tinct clusters, each group gathered by a huge jut­ting column, each column fes­tooned by a fa­mil­iar dis­trict flag: the ban­ner of Castle Um­bras; the stand­ard of War­lo­chia; the pen­nant of Castle Com­mons, and of course, the over-arch­ing em­blem of Castle Dragon, raised higher than all the oth­ers.

“Sweet god­dess of mercy,” Mina whispered. “They must ac­count for half the war­lords in the king­dom.” In ad­di­tion, a host of the king’s private guards were milling around the throne room, re­leas­ing mys­ter­i­ous latches and tug­ging on thickly cor­ded ropes.
The king was clearly pre­par­ing for battle, and his guards were clearly pre­par­ing to open the mighty dome.

Ta­tiana fid­geted with her tu­nic, shift­ing her weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Are we in real danger, Mina?” She glanced to­ward the top of the dais. “I mean, bey­ond the usual, the ob­vi­ous?”

Be­fore Mina could for­mu­late a reply, Cas­sidy Bondev­ille sauntered in their dir­ec­tion, el­bowed her way through the crowd, and sidled up to Ta­tiana’s free side. “Af­ter­noon, ladies,” she said in her usual haughty tone.

Mina re­garded Cas­sidy side­ways, peek­ing around Ta­tiana, grate­ful that she wasn’t stand­ing right next to the witch. Try­ing hard not to roll her eyes at the ut­terly ri­dicu­lous formal gown Cas­sidy had donned for the somber oc­ca­sion, she forced an in­sin­cere smile. “Hello, Cas­sidy.”

Ta­tiana nod­ded her head in kind. “Hi, Cass.”

Cas­sidy curt­sied, more likely than not to show off her gown, and grace­fully in­clined her head. “Any idea what’s go­ing on?”

“No,” Mina and Ta­tiana lied in uni­son.

“Well, whatever it is,” Cas­sidy per­sisted, ut­terly un­aware, “it must be big­ger than life.” She shif­ted her crys­tal-blue gaze to the top of the dais, quirked her rosy lips into a smile, and feigned like she was go­ing to swoon. “By the gods, those dragons are gor­geous, are they not? Es­pe­cially Damian, don’t you think?”

Mina struggled not to cough, even as Ta­tiana vis­ibly flinched.

Lord of Agony,
Mina thought,
Cas­sidy is such a clue­less dolt
. “Well,” Mina whispered, try­ing to con­ceal her dis­dain, “per­haps the gods will smile upon you, and you can have him in the au­tumn.”

Cas­sidy cocked her shoulder in a dis­missive ges­ture. “Per­haps,” she mused. “Al­though I have to say; I guess it doesn’t really mat­ter. I’ve already fed them all, and while Damian is cer­tainly the most dark and deadly of the three, Drake is far from a pushover. And Dante? Could the Bringer of Rain have cre­ated a more fear­some, sexual creature? He makes my knees weak.”

Des­pite her heavy heart and her over­burdened mind, some­thing in Mina’s stom­ach tightened as Cas­sidy’s words set her teeth on edge.

Cas­sidy had already fed them all?

Which meant she had fed Dante, too?

Really?

When?

Why?

She shook her head in dis­gust.

Who cared…

It wasn’t like it really mattered, or that the pro­cess didn’t still scare Mina sense­less. As far as the princes were con­cerned, all the Ahavi were in­ter­change­able in that re­gard. They were slaves with a prac­tical pur­pose, and even if Dante chose Mina at the Au­tumn Mat­ing—even if the king agreed—that didn’t mean he would never feed from an­other Ahavi. If any­thing, Mina should be thank­ing Cas­sidy for serving Drake and Damian.

The shrill sound of a tu­bu­lar horn, the bu­gler call­ing the gath­er­ing to or­der, brought Mina’s at­ten­tion back to the royal dais. Like every­one else in the hall, she grew in­stantly quiet as she strained to see the king above the throng. She was pre­pared to hang on his every word, con­tent to be safely en­sconced in a corner, at the back of the room, watch­ing with the rest of the room.

The king wasted no time get­ting down to busi­ness. He stood and cleared his throat. “As all of you have surely heard by now, the king­dom is fa­cing a very grave threat. Not long ago, while man­ning the watch­man’s tower, Titus Beck­ham sighted a dis­tant fleet of Lycanian ships sail­ing south­east­erly to­ward the port of Dra­cos Cove. He be­lieves the ships will be­gin to ar­rive this night, that all shall ar­rive by dawn on the mor­row, and based on the size of the fleet, the form­a­tion of the ves­sels, and the dis­play of sev­eral dark-colored flags, we can safely as­sume the Lycani­ans are not com­ing here to par­ley or to trade. They are here to in­vade our realm.” He paused to let his words sink in, and then he ges­tured to­ward the cen­ter of the hall, in­dic­at­ing the myriad of high-rank­ing sol­diers clustered be­neath the four dis­trict flags. “I have already dis­cussed strategy and de­fense with my sons and my gen­er­als, and we will be dis­patch­ing an army from Castle Dragon forth­with”—he held up a fin­ger to em­phas­ize his next point—“but that is not all. By sun­down this eve, sev­eral mi­li­tias from the re­main­ing three provinces will make their way to the beach. It is our hope—
it is our con­vic­tion
—to con­tain the shifters when they dock be­fore they have a chance to spread out from the port of entry.” His aqua­mar­ine eyes flashed red with an­ger and maybe a bit of angst. “I don’t have to tell any of you what would hap­pen to this king­dom should the likes of these im­mor­tal shifters spread out like lo­custs across our land—the dev­ast­a­tion would be im­meas­ur­able, the loss of life, im­mense.” He poin­ted to­ward his chief re­gent. “I have asked my proxy to join us for one pur­pose, to reside over mat­ters of court in my ab­sence for the next sev­eral days.”

The crowd grew en­ig­mat­ic­ally quiet, wait­ing for King De­mitri to ex­plain. A barely aud­ible growl rose from the dragon’s throat, and the rafters above them began to shake as the king stood even taller. “Be­cause of the ser­i­ous nature of this threat,” De­mitri con­tin­ued, “I will not wait un­til my king­dom is un­der the sword and ablaze to sum­mon the wrath of the dragon.” He spoke over a col­lect­ive gasp. “This night, as the full moon rises and the ocean tides ebb and flow, I will feed and call forth the prim­or­dial beast that guar­an­tees each man, wo­man, and child in this realm their ul­ti­mate pro­tec­tion. And come the break of morn, I will meet our armies and our en­emies on the sands of Dra­cos Cove, and the east­ern­ers—should any sur­vive—will write le­gends about the slaughter.”

A chorus of shouts and fear­ful bel­lows rose in the hall, even as two ar­mored sentries threw open the massive throne-room doors, and an­other pair of castle guards began to lead a be­draggled group of pris­on­ers—men, wo­men, and chil­dren, all shackled by the wrists, feet, and throat—into the hall. Some were en­emies of the state; oth­ers had simply failed to pay their taxes; yet oth­ers…Mina just couldn’t tell.

All were of lowly status, whether com­mon­ers, witches, war­locks, or
shades
.

Ta­tiana squeezed Mina’s hand so hard it felt like she might crush her bones. “What’s hap­pen­ing?” she asked, her voice grow­ing frantic. “What are they go­ing to do with those people?”

“Mm,” Cas­sidy mur­mured, be­fore Mina could an­swer, lean­ing over to whis­per in Ta­tiana’s ear. “Looks like the dragon king’s din­ner has ar­rived.”

Mina grin­ded her teeth and whirled around to face the in­sens­it­ive wench. “Would you shut up, Cas­sidy!” she snarled. She watched as three fa­mil­iar Blood Ahavi, wo­men who were not born as Sk­la­vos, nor slated to bear sons for the Realm, raised their chins in mis­placed pride and led the hag­gard bunch to­ward the throne. The wo­men were all wear­ing sac­ri­fi­cial garb. “Dearest god­dess of sor­row,” Mina ex­haled.

She was at a com­plete loss for words.

“What is the king go­ing to do?” Ta­tiana asked, press­ing the sub­ject. She turned to­ward Cas­sidy for an an­swer, evid­ently un­car­ing who sup­plied the in­form­a­tion. She just wanted an an­swer.

“He is go­ing to
feed
his beast, my sis­ter,” Cas­sidy said in a dis­pas­sion­ate voice. “He is go­ing to take their blood, their heat, and their es­sence un­til noth­ing sen­tient re­mains. He is go­ing to bleed them dry, the en­tire lot of them.” She shrugged. “How else could he sum­mon a fully formed dragon?”

Mina gulped. She felt sick to her stom­ach.

“And the Blood Ahavi?” Ta­tiana said. “They’re go­ing will­ingly?
Why
?”