Dragons Realm (25 page)

Thomas in­stinct­ively ducked. “The battle!” He turned to Mat­thias. “Quickly! Put on your hood and cloak.” And then he turned to­ward Mina, his eyes wide with fright and more than just a little bit of won­der. “It’s the beat­ing of the dragon’s wings!” he ex­claimed. “The king is fi­nally here!”

*

Mina, Mat­thias, and Thomas bounded out­side the tent and began to run along the beach in the dir­ec­tion of the cove, in the dir­ec­tion of the crowd, to­ward the apex of the battle. The Um­brasian sol­diers either didn’t no­tice or they didn’t care—such was the com­mo­tion and the ob­ses­sion with glimpsing the prim­or­dial creature in the sky. Every soul on or near the beach, every sub­ject present from the Realm—man, wo­man, or child; slave, ser­vant, or free—had only one ob­ject­ive in that mo­ment: to catch a glimpse, no mat­ter how dis­tant, of the mighty prim­or­dial dragon as he slayed the Lycanian fleet.

The air bristled with power and crackled with fear as Mina and her com­pan­ions fi­nally roun­ded the corner and caught their first real glimpse of the primary cove. There were Lycanian ships filling the har­bor as far as the eye could see, dozens upon dozens of massive ves­sels un­load­ing their deadly cargo, and even as the hand-to-hand com­bat con­tin­ued on the sands, the air began to crackle with thun­der.

And then the en­tire cove grew as dark as mid­night.

It was as if the sky, the emer­ging sun, and the stars from the pre­vi­ous night had sud­denly been snuffed out. The pitch-black shadow des­cen­ded like a vul­ture, a liv­ing night­mare, gath­er­ing, in­tensi­fy­ing, and spread­ing out with a sud­den, omin­ous flair, the dragon’s enorm­ous wings ap­pear­ing as the ab­sence of light.

And then, out of the cryptic dark­ness came an ut­ter ex­plo­sion of fire. Blis­ter­ing columns of flame ab­ruptly il­lu­min­ated the beach, hurt­ling in all four dir­ec­tions at once, as­cend­ing and dip­ping, above and be­low. The massive beast struck with such amaz­ing pre­ci­sion—he flung dazzling spir­als of heat with such re­mark­able ac­cur­acy—that it ap­peared as if the Mas­ter of Ven­geance, the lord of fire him­self, had un­leashed ten thou­sand flam­ing ar­rows upon the sands.

Shifters of all shapes and sizes dropped to the ground, melt­ing into steam­ing piles of ash, even as their op­pon­ents re­mained un­touched, stand­ing up­right be­side them; and ships the size of grand, mul­ti­level houses erup­ted into flames, their ter­ri­fied, pan­icked cargo leap­ing into the boil­ing, tur­bu­lent wa­ters, scream­ing in ag­on­iz­ing pain.

The dragon didn’t stop there.

He circled like a buz­zard, soar­ing, sweep­ing, dip­ping one leath­ery wing down in or­der to bat the other, the force of the en­su­ing wind send­ing each ad­ja­cent ship crash­ing into nearby rocks. Those who tried to es­cape were seized in the creature’s talons, all four legs work­ing in per­fect ac­cord to an­ni­hil­ate, crush, and tear the dragon’s prey to shreds.

Mina shrieked as the pale green dragon spun his head to the side in a wild, ser­pent­ine mo­tion, opened his mighty jaws, and tossed half a dozen Lycani­ans into his mouth with his hind claws, catch­ing them in his venom­ous, ser­rated teeth.

The mon­ster snarled as he ripped them into sliv­ers, his jagged, un­even fangs gleam­ing in the preter­nat­ural light; his ter­rible arced horn point­ing down­ward to­ward a wa­ter­logged ship; his flared ears, like the ar­mored horns of a devil, cre­at­ing a tri­an­gu­lar com­pass point­ing
true north
to­ward his next Lycanian meal.

When the dragon struck the tar­get, the carnage was too hor­rible to be­hold, and Mina fi­nally turned away, but not be­fore the im­age of severed limbs, de­tached heads, and flam­ing tor­sos was seared into her memory forever.

Blessed Nuri, Cre­ator of Fire and Life; was this what she car­ried in her belly?

Was this what Dante would one day be­come?

And
if and when
he chal­lenged his father, what would such a battle look like?

Dearest god­dess of mercy
, King De­mitri was truly a deity on Earth, and this was in­deed the
Dragons Realm
. It had been this way since time im­me­morial, and so it would al­ways be…

Al­ways.

Sud­denly, Mina felt so in­sig­ni­fic­ant, as if see­ing her­self for the first time as a single, fra­gile thread in a much,
much
lar­ger web. Dante had been right all along: She un­der­stood “noth­ing of the polit­ics, dangers, or dy­nam­ics” that mo­tiv­ated the mon­archy, the con­cerns that su­per­seded the value of
any
one life.

She scanned the sands all around her, hop­ing to check on her friends, and her heart nearly seized in her chest: Mat­thias was bent over in agony, rock­ing on all fours, his spine twist­ing this way and that as if it had a mind of its own. He was pant­ing loudly, and his fea­tures were con­tor­ted with both men­ace and pain.

He hardly looked hu­man.

“Mat­thias,” she whispered, fall­ing to the ground and reach­ing for his shoulders.

He snarled like a wild beast. “Too close,” he rasped. “Too close to my father.”

Mina slowly backed away. Turn­ing to Thomas, she held up both hands in con­fu­sion and con­cern. “What do we do?”

The squire frowned. He poin­ted west­ward and raised his brows. “He’s too new to his beast, too un­fa­mil­iar with the en­ergy. We need to get him out of here, quickly. We need to head in­land be­fore the battle is over, be­fore any­one sees him, be­fore they know he’s still alive.”

Mina swal­lowed her ini­tial protest. Of course Mat­thias would need to flee, but where would he go? How would he live—es­pe­cially now that he knew he was truly a Dragona? She nod­ded, ac­know­ledging his words. “By
we
, you mean—”

“Mat­thias and I,” Thomas replied. “I need to get him home to the lower dis­trict where he can calm down, settle in, and be­gin to learn more about who and what he is. Where he can start to make the ad­just­ment, whatever that ends up be­ing.” He glanced around the beach nervously, eye­ing the dev­ast­a­tion. “The cleanup may take weeks, and the or­gan­iz­a­tion will be chaotic. In a few days’ time, when things have settled down, I’ll re­turn to War­lo­chia and try to speak with Prince Dante. No one will miss me be­fore then.” He sighed. “If you get a chance to speak to him be­fore me, try… Oth­er­wise, un­less you hear from one of us, you need to re­turn to your tent, and
we
need to get away.”

The dragon king roared an ear-pier­cing bel­low, shak­ing the land be­low as he shot into the sky like a comet spiral­ing back­ward, twis­ted his nimble body in midair, flip­ping his spiked tail like a whip, and dove to­ward an­other cluster of ves­sels in or­der to make an­other lethal pass.

Mina shivered. “Go.” She stared at Mat­thias, and her heart nearly broke for him. “Matt, will you be all right?”

Her child­hood friend shook from head to toe, try­ing to con­trol the un­fa­mil­iar con­vul­sions that were wrack­ing his body with re­lent­less fre­quency. He opened his mouth to speak, and a dol­lop of swel­ter­ing drool ran down from the corner of his lips. He had no idea how to con­trol his in­ner beast. She could only pray that Dante’s friend­ship with Thomas was as solid, deep, and bind­ing as the squire had said—that the dragon prince would listen to the story, take mercy on his af­flic­ted half-brother, and some­how agree to help.

Either way, she would not be party to the out­come.

She would be in Um­bras with Damian.

As Thomas helped Mat­thias to his feet, Mina offered a si­lent prayer to the gods, beg­ging them for her friend’s pro­tec­tion:
Blessed deity of light, bringer of rain, lord of re­birth,
I be­seech you for pro­tec­tion and mercy. Go with the squire and Mat­thias. May their travels be swift; may their hearts be strong; may their path be il­lu­min­ated by your wis­dom. Keep and pro­tect their in­no­cent souls even as you grant me the cour­age to en­dure the path I must travel. Pro­tect me from Damian…

She paused and bit her lip.

At least long enough for Dante’s child to be born.

She glanced up at the sky and took one last look at the fear­some, mur­der­ous dragon.

Some­how, some way, re­store justice to this
realm.

With that, Mina turned on her heel, headed in the dir­ec­tion of the Um­brasian tent, and re­fused to look back.

It was all in the hands of the gods now: what happened to Mat­thias, what happened to the squire, what be­came of Mina and her un­born child. The web was truly too in­tric­ate to un­ravel; the stakes for each and every soul too high to cal­cu­late or con­ceive; the depth of in­ter­ven­tion needed on the Realm’s be­half bey­ond the power of mere mor­tals.

Chapter Twenty-three

D
ante Dragona did
not join his broth­ers and his sol­diers on the beach in or­der to watch his father an­ni­hil­ate their en­emy. He knew all too well what was tak­ing place—
ex­actly what was tran­spir­ing
—the death and de­struc­tion; the fire and the fury; the enorm­ous loss of life.

And some­how, he simply had no de­sire to see it firsthand.

Now, as he stood alone in the tent of War­lo­chia, his heart was heavy with aware­ness, thick with the grav­ity of the situ­ation, burdened with the know­ledge of what he had just done with Mina Louvet…

What he had just done to his brother…

What he had just done to the Realm.

Be­trayal was be­trayal after all, even if he had no re­grets.

He splashed a hand­ful of cool wa­ter from a tin basin over his face and stared into the look­ing glass, a flat piece of pol­ished bronze, hung cir­cuit­ous at an angle above a rough wooden ped­es­tal, and then he jol­ted, over­turn­ing the basin, as he hast­ily jumped back.

Great lords of fire!

For the briefest mo­ment, the re­flec­tion cast back at him from the mir­ror did not con­tain the mid­night-blue ir­ises he had come to ex­pect, nor the strong, pol­ished fea­tures that branded him as his father’s son, but a huge leath­ery dragon with poin­ted horns, jagged teeth, and
three
fiery glow­ing eyes:
Dante’s eyes
. The beast was pos­it­ively enorm­ous, sur­roun­ded by a ra­di­ant purple light, and be­hind the dragon’s crest, just above and bey­ond the top of its head, was a shim­mer­ing im­age, a pro­file in sil­hou­ette, the like­ness of Dante’s brother
Des­mond.
And it hovered within the bronze, star­ing out at Dante like a ghost from the past, seek­ing his at­ten­tion; sear­ing dag­gers into his soul; com­mand­ing his im­me­di­ate con­sid­er­a­tion.

Dante turned away from the mir­ror and shook his head ab­ruptly.

He was des­per­ate to ex­punge the vis­ion, yet it wouldn’t go away.

When, at last, he glanced at his re­flec­tion a second time, the like­ness of his brother sharpened, came more fully into fo­cus, and Des­mond locked his gaze with Dante’s in a severe, un­blink­ing stare.
“Be­hold, the greatest king to ever rule the Realm.”
He spoke with the dragon’s voice, and Dante prac­tic­ally quaked in his boots.

An enorm­ous crown, in­layed with pre­cious jew­els and rare ex­quis­ite etch­ings, began to ro­tate in soft, lu­min­es­cent circles above the dragon’s head. It was strangely akin to a halo or a mys­tical aura, and it drew at­ten­tion to the dragon’s
third eye
in a way that could only be de­scribed as a fo­cused beacon of light, a su­per­nat­ural al­legory for the dragon’s second sight…

For
Dante’s second
sight.

Des­mond spoke again.
“Just as the apex of a tri­angle sits like a king on a throne, sup­por­ted by two sides and one base, so shall the greatest ruler of this realm be made wise and strong by the three legs that will sup­port his found­a­tion.”

Like a sud­den gust of tu­mul­tu­ous wind, clouds gath­er­ing be­fore a storm, three dis­tinct mas­cu­line fig­ures swept across the screen—two of them flanked the mighty dragon with the crown, one on his left and one on his right, and the third knelt at the ser­pent’s feet.

Dante’s mouth fell open as he stared at the mas­cu­line per­so­nas—three strong, healthy lads—and while their age was im­possible to de­term­ine, each one pos­sessed an un­mis­tak­able regal bear­ing, the coun­ten­ance of a prince; and each one,
to a lad
, had deep green eyes, the color of…
Mina Louvet’s
.

The storm passed as quickly as it had moun­ted; the chil­dren were simply gone; and Des­mond spoke again:
“Three chil­dren. Three dec­ades. Three acts of de­cep­tion—three be­tray­als. The proph­ecy has already be­gun. Do what you must to strengthen the Realm; seek justice, mor­al­ity, and peace; obey our father in the light of day, but rise to your call­ing in the dark of night.”
Be­fore Dante could speak or re­act, Des­mond whispered,
“Brother, you are never alone.”

Then, in the blink of an eye, the ap­par­i­tion was gone.

Dante took three gen­er­ous steps back from the mir­ror.

He brushed his hands over his face and shivered, re­call­ing each and every word from the vis­ion, com­mit­ting both the verses and the vis­age to memory, me­mori­al­iz­ing the dragon’s eyes.

And he knew—
he just did
—ex­actly what it meant.

The dragon in the glass was his fu­ture self, and he would one day be king of the Realm. He would, in­deed, usurp his father: not Damian, not Drake, but him. He would rise to power in a sud­den surge, like the swell of a rapid storm, and the winds that would carry him to great­ness would not be his de­term­in­a­tion, backed by the fealty of his two broth­ers, but the loy­alty and strength of his sons, of chil­dren he had yet to sire, chil­dren born of
Mina’s
womb.

Sud­denly, the tryst near the traders’ en­camp­ment took on a whole new mean­ing, and his choice to de­ceive his brother seemed less like a be­trayal and more like a ploy, like his des­tiny un­fold­ing…for a reason. Yet he also in­trins­ic­ally knew that the shift in power would be subtle and un­as­sum­ing, un­til the day of reck­on­ing came. He would have to keep this omen and his in­ten­tions hid­den, care­fully con­cealed; he would have to make sure that the storm lay dormant for the next thirty-one years, un­til such time as he was able to fully shift.

He would have to be im­pec­cable in his ac­tions and his words.

Dante stiffened, un­der­stand­ing for per­haps the first time in his life what he was truly meant to do, both what and
who
he was fated to be­come: a dragon that ruled the Realm with smoke and fire; sub­tlety and strength; de­cep­tion and mor­al­ity.

He would have to be oh so very care­ful.

He would have to be cun­ning and de­lib­er­ate.

And he would have to be as ruth­less as he was pa­tient.

For the good of the Realm, Dante Dragona would have to ap­pease his father, con­tinue his pre­as­signed role, and bide his time; and some­how—
some­way
—he would have to gain fa­vor with
Mina Louvet,
for her in­volve­ment, secrecy, and com­pli­city were in­teg­ral to his suc­cess.

As hard as it was to be­lieve,
Dante needed Mina.