Dragons Realm (18 page)

She frowned, need­ing a mo­ment to col­lect her wits.

Her mind was hazy, and she felt weak enough to topple over side­ways in the door­way; yet she held her­self to­gether, stead­ied her re­solve, and con­cen­trated keenly on his ques­tion. “North­ern or east­ern?” she asked, want­ing to an­swer cor­rectly.

“Either.” He shrugged his shoulders with im­pa­tience. “Both.”

She nod­ded faintly. “I un­der­stand the ba­sic north­ern dia­lect, at least well enough to get by, to trans­late what I’m hear­ing; but yes, I can speak the east­ern tongue flu­ently.”

He seemed to go some­where else in his mind, mulling over her words. When, at last, he met her gaze again, he was no longer a sad­istic an­imal, but a cal­cu­lat­ing prince con­sid­er­ing the needs of his realm. “Can you de­cipher and tran­scribe the syl­lab­ary as well?”

Once again, Mina nod­ded. “Yes.”

“Good. Then you may come in handy should we cap­ture any pris­on­ers since I can’t be in all places at once.” He snorted, ap­par­ently sat­is­fied with her an­swer. “I will let my gen­er­als know.”

Mina bowed her head and aver­ted her eyes, still try­ing to main­tain her com­pos­ure and her bal­ance, and that’s when he leaned back in the door­way and crossed his arms over his power­ful chest. “Look at me,” he growled. His voice was no longer pla­cid.

Mina met his heated gaze.

“I am not a mer­ci­ful dragon, Mina Louvet. I hurt Ta­tiana be­cause I could, be­cause she was weak and pathetic and easy to hurt, and be­cause it simply felt pleas­ur­able. I killed Pralina be­cause she chal­lenged me—and scratched me—and frankly, I was tired of hear­ing her voice. And I will make the rest of your life a bit­ter pill to swal­low, one long, mono­ton­ous day at a time, be­cause
that
is your lot in life. You will pay dearly for call­ing my brother’s name; you will not go un­pun­ished for em­bar­rass­ing me in pub­lic; and I
will
even­tu­ally break you—your stub­born will, your pli­ant body, and your in­de­pend­ent mind. But—
and this is the part you really need to hear
—I will also keep you alive as long as you are use­ful, as long as you serve the Realm and give me dragon sons. And you will at least be safe from my
cor­rec­tions
when you’re preg­nant, so the sooner, the bet­ter…for you.” He stroked her cheek like a wist­ful lover, and then he grabbed a fist­ful of her hair. “But know this,
my
Sk­la­vos Ahavi: If you ever defy me again, dis­obey one of my com­mands, or even hes­it­ate to do what I say, the mo­ment I say it, I will tear out your throat with my teeth and laugh as you ex­pire, with your spine still dangling in my mouth. Are we clear?”

As an icy breeze of hatred and re­sent­ment swirled in Mina’s heart, wrapped around her ar­ter­ies, and cal­ci­fied to stone, she re­leased every emo­tion other than de­term­in­a­tion—and she curt­sied.

Yeah, they were clear.

Damian would spend his every wak­ing mo­ment mak­ing Mina’s life a liv­ing hell, and Mina, a com­moner, a fe­male, and a lowly slave, would spend every wak­ing hour try­ing to solve an age-old riddle, one that had baffled the greatest of minds through­out time:

How to slay a dragon.

“We’re clear, my prince,” she whispered, wait­ing pa­tiently for the evil fiend to re­lease her hair.

Chapter Six­teen

K
ing De­mitri Dragona
groaned from the pain in his gut, the fire that was sear­ing his belly like lava, the poison that was scorch­ing his veins. He stared at the rampant carnage be­fore him, sur­veyed the blood­stained floor of the throne room, and gazed ab­sently into the va­cant eyes of the last corpse, the fi­nal pris­oner he had con­sumed as a sac­ri­fice.

The boy had been young.

He had been favored by the gods with a thick pelt of wavy blond hair that fell into deep blue eyes, and he had ar­gued for his life like a seasoned coun­selor, rather than a power­less cap­tive. Yet and still, he had also made a crit­ical mis­take, earlier that day: The cour­ageous lad had dared to an­ger the king’s middle son, to tres­pass onto the grounds of Castle Dragon, un­in­vited, and to ap­proach a Sk­la­vos Ahavi.

King De­mitri frowned, al­most feel­ing sorry for the mis­guided lad.

Al­most.

He stared closer and scowled. The boy’s fore­head was still drenched with sweat, his di­vinely ap­poin­ted crown of hair was now mat­ted and plastered to his temples, and he didn’t look peace­ful in death.

The king shoved the car­cass away.

What did it mat­ter if the youth had died a grue­some
death?

So had the three sac­ri­fi­cial Blood Ahavi, who had presen­ted them­selves with pride, and they had been beau­ti­ful as well. He grim­aced, re­mem­ber­ing the fiasco. Each girl had ul­ti­mately writhed in agony, groaned in de­li­rium, and cursed the very king they served as the dragon had drained every last ounce of their es­sence and blood.

Still…

So be it.

They were all pawns, each and every one of them, just like the king and his sons, born to serve the greater good of the king­dom. And this day—this fate­ful May af­ter­noon—would go down in an­tiquity, along with De­mitri’s vo­ra­cious sac­ri­fice, as one of the most pivotal mo­ments in the Realm’s glor­i­ous his­tory. The de­fense of the Realm was no small mat­ter. It re­quired a great ransom and a ter­rible sac­ri­fice. And the cour­age to see it through re­quired a great and in­dom­it­able king, a ruth­less ser­vant of the people.

Hell’s fire
, it was a very simple equa­tion: It re­quired a
dragon
that could shift.

As King De­mitri ran his thin­ning, elong­at­ing tongue along the tips of his still-pro­trud­ing fangs, he struggled to re­lax his body and wel­come the beast that was bur­ied within him, to let the change come nat­ur­ally. It wasn’t as if break­ing every bone, trans­form­ing every cell, and grow­ing scales, wings, and a massive jagged spine was go­ing to be a walk in the park for him, either.

He groaned with pleas­ure as the ser­pent in­side him stirred, lux­uri­at­ing in all the fresh es­sence, heat, and blood, snarling in an­ti­cip­a­tion of the up­com­ing trans­form­a­tion.

Soon.

The change would start soon, any mo­ment now…

And as it tran­spired, the king would do his best to simply let it hap­pen, to sleep the night away if he could, and arise at dawn as a fear­some, prim­or­dial beast. He would take to the skies as a dragon of old, nearly 270 years old, and then he would lay waste to the Lycanian fleet in grand, Dragona fash­ion. He could only hope that his for­mid­able sons could hold back the shifters un­til then, fight like the mon­sters he had made them.

As his eyes rolled back in his head and his skin began to boil, he shrieked to re­lease the pain and wel­come the vi­tal­ity. And then, in the whis­per of a mo­ment, just a fleet­ing breath of time, he thought he saw some­thing move out of the corner of his eye, some­thing—
no
,
someone
—stir­ring be­fore him.

But no; that was im­possible.

The king had drained them
all
.

He had fed very,
very
well.

Fall­ing to the floor and sprawl­ing on his back, he ex­ten­ded both arms out­ward, like the wings of an eagle, arched into the pain, and bent his neck un­til his chin poin­ted sky­ward so the ver­teb­rae could stretch. The first spasm hit him, and he began to writhe in pain.

“Come, my be­loved dragon…
come
.”

*

Mat­thias Gentry came awake with a shout.

He punched wildly with his arms, kicked vi­ol­ently with his feet, and roared like a lion, an angry, cornered beast, protest­ing his agony from the very depths of his soul.
Oh, dark lords of the un­der­world,
he thought.
Make it
stop!

The king had trapped him like an an­imal, locked his up­per torso in what had to be iron-clad arms, and tossed Mat­thias to the floor as if he were noth­ing, weight­less and un­sub­stan­tial, climb­ing atop him like a scoun­drel seek­ing to de­flower a maiden be­fore gnash­ing his teeth in warn­ing and bar­ing his lethal fangs.

Mat­thias had taken one hard look into those dark, prim­or­dial eyes and pan­icked. He had bucked like a wild horse; twis­ted this way and that; and struggled point­lessly to get to his knees—
to some­how crawl away
—be­fore he had slid on the soppy floor and col­lapsed into a pile of fresh blood and gore, suc­cumb­ing to the king’s su­per­ior strength. He had screamed like a child. He had begged for his life. He had ar­gued the mer­its of his ex­ist­ence, es­pous­ing his value to the Realm, and, fi­nally, when all of that had failed, he had prayed to the Giver of Life for a quick and pain­less death.

The Giver had not answered.

The king had torn into Mat­thias’s throat like it was a suc­cu­lent piece of meat, slurp­ing on the blood, gnaw­ing on the flesh, wor­ry­ing the bone—drink­ing, swal­low­ing, gulp­ing—de­vour­ing its very es­sence…in­hal­ing Mat­thias’s soul.

And the pain—
was there no mercy left in the uni­verse?
—the pain had been un­re­lent­ing…un­ima­gin­able…im­possible to bear. And then, just like that, the throne room had dis­ap­peared. The world had gone dark. And Mat­thias had wel­comed peace.

Un­til now…

Un­til he came awake with a shout and star­ted punch­ing furi­ously.

Mat­thias raked a wild hand, fes­tooned with coiled claws, at the vis­age of those two de­monic orbs, the king’s dragon eyes. He slammed his head for­ward, hop­ing to strike the king’s skull with his own bony brow, and jol­ted in sur­prise when he only struck air.

What the hell!?

He tried to land a solid punch.

He tried to knee the mon­arch in the groin.

He tried to bite him back, as if such a thing were pos­sible, and once again, he came up short. Noth­ing landed. And noth­ing con­nec­ted. Be­cause there was noth­ing—
and no one
—there.

The room was spin­ning.

“Are you…still alive?”
The young­ster’s voice came from be­hind a heavy column, sound­ing dis­tant, hes­it­ant, and ut­terly wrought with ter­ror as the nine-year-old scribe seemed to rise from the ashes of the carnage and tip­toe to­ward Mat­thias, still hold­ing his quill in his trem­bling right hand.

What had the king called the boy earlier?

Oh, yes, Thomas…Thomas some­thing or other.

And he had forced the child to re­main in the hall so he could re­cord the names of the dy­ing for pos­ter­ity’s sake. He had forced the young scribe to enu­mer­ate the wretched sac­ri­ficed souls as they
fed
the dragon, be­liev­ing their names would one day be­come folk­lore, epic le­gends, in­tim­ately as­so­ci­ated with a great his­toric battle, im­mor­tal­ized in the an­nals of war.

Mat­thias reeled from the im­mor­al­ity of it all and the de­sec­ra­tion be­fore him.

Was he dream­ing?

Re­liv­ing his death?

He couldn’t make sense of any­thing.

And the pain!

Dear Giver of Life,
he just wanted to make it stop!

It had
stopped.

The king was no longer be­fore him. The pain was no longer ma­ter­ial. And other than the trem­bling ut­ter­ances of the young lad with the quill, the throne room was eer­ily quiet.

Mat­thias rose to his knees and pat­ted his chest, stunned to find his bare sternum com­pletely un­blem­ished be­neath the dried, crus­ted blood. He reached for his throat to feel for the gashes, and then he stared at the in­side of his palms. Everything was nor­mal—bey­ond nor­mal, really—Mat­thias felt in­vin­cible.

Was he truly…
still
…alive?

The young squire blinked rap­idly, swal­lowed con­vuls­ively, and star­ted to pant. “That’s, that’s, that’s just not pos­sible. I saw it. I saw him, the king, he…he ate you.”

Mat­thias rocked back on his heels, and for the first time since he’d—
awakened?
—he scanned the en­tirety of the macabre hall and began to retch. There were tor­tured, mangled bod­ies every­where, blood as far as the eye could see, and at the bot­tom of the dais, ly­ing on the floor and writh­ing in bru­tal agony, was the king of Castle Dragon un­der­go­ing some mor­bid state of trans­form­a­tion.

Mat­thias sprang to his feet. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”

The scribe shook his head furi­ously and scampered away, duck­ing be­hind an­other column. “You’re sup­posed to be dead,” he called from be­hind the pil­lar. His voice was hoarse with fear.

Mat­thias dropped down into a crouch and stared at the young­ster. He snorted, snarled, and then swayed to the left. The boy dropped his quill and took off run­ning like a bat out of hell, try­ing to reach the throne-room doors. At this, Mat­thias chuckled, deep in his un­fa­mil­iar throat.
What in all the worlds was hap­pen­ing?
Was this some kind of su­per­nat­ural game? Was he caught between di­men­sions, neither dead, nor alive? Or was he at the gates of the Eternal Realm of Peace—
or the Eternal Realm of Suf­fer­ing
—no longer a sen­tient be­ing?

Mat­thias had no idea who he was or where he was
,
if any­thing around him was real. He only knew that he felt all at once glor­i­ous, for­mid­able, power­ful bey­ond reason, and as some­thing for­eign in­side of him stirred—some­thing deep, prim­or­dial, and claw­ing to get out—he began to see the child as prey.

The boy moved so slowly, like a mouse try­ing to elude a cat.

Mat­thias could track his every move­ment, pre­dict the fluc­tu­ation of each and every muscle be­fore it flexed or re­laxed. Hell, he could hear the boy’s frantic heart­beat, meas­ure his every breath. A sud­den surge of en­ergy pulsed through Mat­thias’s veins, and he snarled again, much louder this time, pre­par­ing to give chase.

In an in­stant, he was at the throne-room doors and on top of the mouse, pin­ning him to the floor by the throat…
with his
fangs
.

The boy squealed in hor­ror, and Mat­thias let go.

What was
hap­pen­ing!

“Sweet Nuri, you’re a dragon,” the scribe gasped. “How can that be?”

Mat­thias shook his head.
What?
He lumbered back­ward into a squat, try­ing to cre­ate dis­tance between him­self and the scribe, try­ing to calm his in­ner…beast?

And then the boy sat up­right, an awe­struck look in his eyes, and re­garded Mat­thias with rev­er­ence. His quiv­er­ing mouth dropped open, and he stared bey­ond Mat­thias’s shoulders, to­ward the dais, and watched the writh­ing king. “How old are you?” he whispered, barely able to form the words.

Mat­thias frowned.

“How old?” the boy re­peated.

“Twenty sum­mers,” Mat­thias growled.

The boy’s face turned ashen and he nod­ded. “What is your mother’s name?”

Mat­thias had no idea where this was headed, but he didn’t have time to play
two dozen ques­tions
. He had to get out of that throne room, away from that crazy king, and hope­fully back to the
com­mon­lands
, be­fore the dragon arose.

“Her name!” The boy’s voice cracked with in­sist­ence.

Mat­thias turned back to stare at the scribe. “Why are you ask­ing me this?”

The child licked his lips and tried to stop his teeth from chat­ter­ing. “The king taught me to trans­pose all the Realm’s dia­lects into the com­mon tongue, us­ing the formal script, and I’ve been tran­scrib­ing the his­tor­ical rolls for two years now. This one time, I came across some­thing I was never meant to see—like a miss­ing page from a scroll or some­thing—it was hid­den in the wall of the archives, stuffed between two loose stones.”

Mat­thias frowned, more con­fused than ever.

The boy shook his head and pressed on. “You don’t un­der­stand. It was a miss­ing leaf from the re­cord of the Ahavi, the girls taken to the Keep, those who were ac­cep­ted and those who were re­jec­ted. In the ori­ginal scroll, there was a short entry about a dis­missal, not that un­usual, ex­cept…the witch rarely gets it wrong. Never, really.”

Mat­thias was los­ing his pa­tience as the child rambled on. What the heck did any of this have to do with him—and his ur­gent need to get
away
from the king? “What witch? What are you talk­ing about? And what does she never get wrong?” He peered over his shoulder and shuddered. The king was grow­ing scales.

Thomas labored to catch his breath. “I’m sorry. I’m not mak­ing any sense, am I?”

“No,” Mat­thias answered bluntly.

“Please…just don’t eat me.”

Mat­thias shrank back.
What the hell?
For lack of any­thing more ap­pro­pri­ate to say, he mur­mured, “I won’t.”

The boy leaned for­ward then, tak­ing Mat­thias’s meas­ure from head to toe, star­ing deep into his troubled eyes. He held his gaze for an ex­ten­ded period of time be­fore com­ing to a de­cision, ap­par­ently, to trust him. “Let me try again. There was a very beau­ti­ful girl from the
com­mon­lands
, from the lower dis­trict of Arns, who was taken to the Keep be­cause the king’s witch, Wavani, be­lieved she was Ahavi, one who would serve the Realm. At first, Wavani swore she was Sk­la­vos as well, cap­able of bear­ing sons with the help of the fer­til­ity elixir, but the gate keeper dis­agreed. So she was brought be­fore the high priest, and ul­ti­mately, she was culled from the ranks of the sac­red. The priest said she was noth­ing spe­cial.” He sighed. “
But…
she spent three days and nights in the castle un­der the ana­lysis of the king be­fore she was al­lowed to go home, and the ru­mors and con­flict­ing ac­counts abound: Some say the king fed from her just to be sure, to see if he could taste some­thing spe­cial in her es­sence. Oth­ers say he took her to his bed to use her be­cause she was so in­cred­ibly beau­ti­ful. But the miss­ing page from the scroll says the king put the fer­til­ity elixir in her tea to see if her scent would change, that he waited three days and nights to be sure, and then he let her go. The truth is: No one really knows for sure if she was truly his mis­tress or not, but I do know this: There was a spe­cial Ahavi—
she was real
—and she would’ve been here, at Castle Dragon, twenty-one years ago.” He stared at Mat­thias with a shrewd, in­sinu­at­ing gaze. “Like I said be­fore, Wavani the witch has never…
ever
…been wrong. What if the girl was Sk­la­vos, after all? And the king
did
use her as his mis­tress be­fore he let her go?”