by Katya Moore
Cass shook his head. "They don’t like to give numbers. But it’s bad. We’ve gone from filling all of these classrooms, to about the population of a medium-sized college. Maybe ten thousand. Maybe less."
My jaw dropped. I picked it up. "And… how are the Chosen doing?"
Chase’s brow furrowed. "Again, they don’t like to give numbers. I’ve heard it said that the serpents themselves are comparable in population, but they recruit. They have humans on their side." He looked away. "It isn’t pretty. And that’s just what I’ve heard as a dragon on the street. It could be better. Or it could be worse."
I closed the door and stepped back into the hall.
"Well, shit," I sighed. "Sounds like I have a lot to talk to the Elders about."
"What on earth is going on out here?" A brusque voice shouted from across the hall. "Why aren’t you in class?"
We all turned to see a gray-haired man with an impressive beard standing in a doorway, glaring at us. He took us in, each in turn, and froze when he got to me. His mouth worked silently for a moment.
"Hi," I managed weakly. "We’re on our way to see the Elder Council. Sorry to have bothered…"
"You’re… no, you can’t be…" He took a step closer. I looked past him and saw a classroom full of teenagers, all swiveling their heads to see what their teacher was up to.
I swallowed hard. This was exactly what the Elders didn’t want to happen. "I’m… just a visitor. Nothing to see."
He was not to be dissuaded. "You… you look so much like your mother. Your Excellency." He bowed low. I heard a few gasps from the kids closest to the door. The low chatter that had been simmering at the edges of the room began to boil over.
"I…" I looked at him, panic rising in my chest. "Please, I just…"
"Are you really her?" Another voice, female, painfully young. I looked up and saw teenaged faces staring at me. "Are you really the Shadow Queen?"
"What? Nooo. Don’t be ridicul…" Galen started, looking both panicked and dismissive all at once.
I cut him off. "I am."
My boys looked at me like I’d sprouted multiple heads.
"What are you doing?" Cass hissed.
I took a deep breath. "Bringing back some hope."
The kids in the doorway looked as awestruck as their teacher. They recovered faster, though.
"You’re alive! Where have you been?"
"Are you going to bring back our dragon forms?"
"Why haven’t you brought them back already?"
"Are those your mates?"
"Why hasn’t the Elder Council told anyone about you? Is there something wrong with you?"
"ENOUGH!" their teacher roared, coming back to his senses and whirling to face his eager students. "You are being disrespectful and I will not have it! Back to your seats, all of you!"
They didn’t budge. A few of them looked downcast, but most of them just looked. Their eyes bored right through me, searching, hoping.
"It’s okay," I managed at last. "Please, don’t yell at them for being curious about me. They have every right to be curious. I’ve been gone for a long time."
"That’s no excuse for their lack of deference. I apologize most humbly. They…" He bowed low again.
I gestured for him to stand back up. "They are young and excited. I understand."
"We just have so many questions. Where have you been all these years?" The young girl who’d started it all spoke up again. She was tall, gangly, pale, and freckled, with curly brown hair that fell into her eyes. I wondered what bloodline she belonged to. I guessed ethereal.
I searched for a good answer, something that wouldn’t get me in shit with the Elders. "The Elders hid me until recently. I’m just coming back to dragon society now." I tried to look confident. Regal. Inside, I felt like I was the new kid in class all over again, sick with nerves and wanting people to like me, or at least not beat me up too much.
"So they locked you away in some… tower or something?" A boy, bespectacled, with shaggy brown hair, gaped at me.
Another boy elbowed him in the ribs. "Don’t be a dumbass, Taylor." He narrowed his eyes at me. "They didn’t, did they?"
I bit my cheek to keep from laughing. "No, they didn’t lock me in a tower." My mind whirled. I wanted to tell them the truth. I wanted to tell them what the Elders had put me through, to make them understand what their Elders were capable of. I looked at their faces, full of curiosity and hope. What would that awful truth do to that hope? I cleared my throat. "They placed me with humans, to keep me under the Chosen’s radar."
"Ohhh." They all looked at each other, confused. The girl spoke up again. "So, you haven’t been around dragons much?"
I felt blood rushing to my face. "Uhhh…" I managed.
"Miss Bellmont!" I could hear the sharp click of high heels on stone, racing toward me at full speed. I looked away from the class to see an unfamiliar woman coming our way.
"I… think I have to go," I hedged, then turned to face the interloper.
"Of course. We have kept you too long." The teacher turned to face his class and began to make shooing motions toward them. Reluctantly, the students returned to their seats, heads still turned to watch me as I walked down the hall. I heard the door close as the woman closed the gap.
"I… see you’ve met some of our students," the woman panted. She was a few inches taller than me, with long black hair and copper skin. Her deep brown eyes were rimmed with artfully drawn black eyeliner, and her tailored gray suit was accented at the neck with a brightly printed scarf. "I’m Ameera Veta. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person."
"Oh! Hi!" I winced inwardly at my own lameness. "Yeah, I was just…" I glanced back at the closed door. "Probably doing something the Elders are going to hate me for. As usual."
She couldn’t quite resist a smile. "The Elders are eager to speak with you. If you’ll follow me, I know the quickest route to get you to them."
Chapter Nine
"Your mates may wait in the library," Veta said as we approached the massive, foreboding doors of the headmaster’s office. I glanced back at them. Galen gave me an encouraging nod and a subtle thumbs-up. I squared my shoulders and nodded at Veta.
"Thank you." I swallowed hard. "Let’s do this."
She stepped forward and placed her hand on the door. It swung inward with a soft creak. I wondered if that was intentional, just to add to the intimidation factor. Knowing Schulte, I wouldn’t put it past her. She’d oil it otherwise.
I was half expecting something out of Hogwarts, all portraits of past Elders and towering bookcases. Instead, I found walls of gleaming white marble and spartan furnishings. A long ebony desk took up the center of the room, with a row of straight-backed ebony chairs arranged in front of it. The red seat cushions were the only color.
Elder Schulte sat behind the desk, stern and forbidding, her piercing eyes staring through me as I walked into the room. Her long white hair was in its usual tight bun, highlighting the tension in her jaw. Her black blazer and crisp white blouse matched the room. She was flanked by two half-shifted fire dragon guards, all shimmering red scales and shining draconic armor. I’ll admit, it was having the desired effect on me. I could feel a sheen of cold sweat forming.
The other Elders were a bit more inviting. Elder Long turned in her chair and smiled warmly at me, her eyes crinkling behind her wire-rimmed glasses. Elder Chang favored me with a terse nod and a thin smile.
"Welcome, Arysia. So good to see you," Elder Meriwether chirped, all smiles. "What brings you to the Proving Grounds? It sounded very important."
Patronizing much? I bit my tongue. "You have a leak. And Chase’s sister has been captured by the Chosen. Both are very important."
"A leak?" Schulte huffed. "Impossible."
I looked at Veta, then at the guards. "Yet, dragons are coming into my pub in droves, hoping to see Dario’s downfall. Talking about me. Talking about Aric’s treason trial. Talking about the missing dragons." I locked eyes
with Schulte. "Unless you’ve all been a lot more forthcoming than usual about Council business, I’d say someone’s telling your secrets."
Schulte glared back at me. "Are you sure it’s not one of your own people? You haven’t exactly chosen our most reliable people as your inner circle."
My dragon writhed in my chest. I took a deep breath. "My people are plenty reliable, and helped me uncover the leak." I flashed her a tense smile. "You know, Aric Beauvais. The one you tried to have killed."
"The one we suspected of treason," Meriwether corrected. "He’d have plenty of reason to spread the word about his brother’s disgrace."
"Shadow dragon, remember? I could feel it on him. He was as surprised as I was to find out that dragons were talking about these things." I frowned. "I’ll admit. We suspected one of the guards at McKinnett’s at first, but he came up clean under questioning."
Schulte raised an eyebrow. "You actually investigated your own people?"
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. Of course I did. I know you think I just go off half-cocked all the time, but I do have a brain."
Schulte looked unconvinced at that, but her sour face intensified. "We will look into it. If that is all…"
"No, that is not all. I want to know why I’ve been shut out of the search for Chase’s sister."
Schulte folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "You are too close to the situation. We’re all concerned that you would do something rash to try to rescue her. Like you’ve done so many times before."
"Maybe it’s time to do something rash." I stepped closer. "You’re missing three scouts. Three kids. Three people who know a lot about the Proving Grounds, and who don’t have a lot of chance to resist being tortured and ground to their very essence in order to turn that information over to our enemies."
"You think we don’t know that?" Schulte barked. "We’ve had teams scouring the area looking for them. We suspect that they’ve been transported to Boston to the Witch Queen, but don’t know her whereabouts."
"How did the Chosen even find them? I’d imagine you guys are pretty diligent about keeping the area cultist-free, what with the school here and all." I looked at the Elders and didn’t like what I saw. I reached out, and liked what I felt even less. There were a lot of guilty consciences in the room.
Meriwether was the first to speak up. "Outside the warded perimeter, there’s always been a certain level of Chosen presence."
I gaped at her for a moment. "You mean, you allow the cultists who worship the Great Serpent and want to bring us all down, and the planet with it, to hang out around your teenaged kids?" My mind boggled. "Humans keep sex offender registries to keep scumbags away from their kids. You can’t do the same with people who are actively trying to sacrifice dragons to their freaking god?"
"The Chosen exist outside of human society," Chang said. "As you’ve mentioned before, we lost track of you when you went off the grid. You were paid under the table, you lived in a bar, and you weren’t even trying to hide. The Chosen have been actively trying to hide from us for hundreds of years now, and they are quite good at it."
"But you know they’re here. You know they’re in the area. Why haven’t you wiped them out?" Horror mixed with exasperation in my voice. I was utterly aghast.
Schulte and Meriwether exchanged a look. Schulte let out an annoyed sigh. "Training purposes. The Chosen have an entrenched training ground not far from here, just across the Massachusetts border near Winchendon. They make periodic incursions toward the Proving Grounds, feeling out our wards, probing for weak spots. We make periodic incursions toward their training grounds, teaching our fire dragons to do battle against the Chosen, to see them in the flesh and see what they are capable of."
Words failed me.
"It’s symbiosis, in a way," Meriwether said with a smile. "They hunt us. We hunt them. Our students learn how to fight them."
"And their students learn how to fight us. Learn our weaknesses. Grab our kids and take them off to be tortured and slaughtered." Venom dripped from my words. "Great plan, guys. Really great plan."
"Sacrifices have to be made sometimes, for the greater good," Meriwether replied, utterly unfazed. "Of course, we feel terrible that your mate’s sister has paid the price…"
"No one has paid the price. No one is going to pay the price. Because I’m going to go out and find her." My dragon was stretching its wings and begging me to let her out to play. There was a very large part of me that wanted to let her. "You may be willing to let your kids die, but I’m not."
"No." Schulte’s tone was final. "You’re not going to put your life in danger for a few scouts. They knew the risks when they went on the mission."
"Did they have a choice?" I hissed. "Or were they following your orders? Like good soldiers?"
Schulte didn’t reply.
"Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to get my mate’s sister back. I’m going to get her friends back. I’m going to find the Witch Queen, and I’m going to end her. And then we’re going to have a few strong words about how we treat the few remaining kids that dragonkind has left, and how they aren’t acceptable losses, no matter what you may say." I could feel my fingers sharpening into talons. It was taking a lot of effort to stay human. I gritted my teeth and turned on my heel, storming toward the door before the others could get in another word.
As I reached the door, I felt a wave of something from the room behind me. Exultation. I glanced over my shoulder and looked at the Elders through narrowed eyes. All of them wore masks of concern.
"You don’t have to do this, dear," Long said.
"Yes, I do." I walked out the door.
I strode into the library, my dragon still writhing in my chest. Cass took one look at me and put his book down.
"Bad?" he asked.
I nodded silently.
Chase rose from his chair. "How bad?"
"We need to get over to Winchendon. Now." My voice was tight, my fists clenched.
Chase nodded silently. "The seniors always talked about Winchendon like it was some big rite of passage. That the instructors would let some Chosen loose in the woods for them to hunt. Did that finally bite them in the ass?"
I stared at him for a moment. "That’s what they tell you?" I cursed under my breath. "Fucking irresponsible crazy-ass bastards, the lot of them." I briefly explained what Schulte and Meriwether had said. The looks of disbelief on my boys’ faces were reassuring me that it wasn’t just a big cultural misunderstanding on my part.
"They just... they honestly think that leaving a full-fledged Chosen nest a few miles away from all of our teenaged children is a good thing?" Galen stood up and started pacing the room.
Aric snorted. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Remember, they torture the water dragon kids for funsies. Why not throw the fire dragons into live-fire situations right at their own door? When the Chosen inevitably come pounding at that door, the kids can all pitch in and fight for their lives!" He leaned back in his chair, disgust plain on his face. "Great plan, guys."
Chase sat hunched over in his chair, chin resting on his clenched fist. "What about the scouts? What about my sister?"
I couldn't look at him. "Meriwether thanks them for their sacrifice."
I heard a low rumble from him, dark and deadly. A chill ran up my spine.
I turned and looked him in the eye. "We're going to find them. Right now. Fuck them and their bullshit ideas. I'm not letting kids die because they want to keep pet Chosen around."
Chase nodded slowly, then stood up and stormed toward the door. I followed a half-step behind. Cautiously, I reached a hand out to touch his shoulder. He whirled on me, eyes full of fire. When he saw my worried face, he froze. I could see the battle behind his eyes, fury clashing with his feelings for me. I could feel the conflict in him, tearing up his insides like ground glass. His jaw clenched, but something resembling Chase returned to his gaze.
"Thank you," he muttered through gritted teeth. He turned away and started down
the hall, leaving the rest of us to trail behind in his wake.
Chapter Ten
Chase
There wasn't a lot to Winchendon, but we'd spent every second since we arrived tearing it apart. Every street. Every back alley. What we couldn’t crawl down in the SUV, we’d walked, painstakingly slowly so that Sia could scour every last inch with her empathy.
I wanted to grab everyone I saw and shake them down for information. I wanted to get in people's faces. I wanted to bust heads.
Unfortunately, cooler heads prevailed.
"I think I can do one more street," Sia said. Her face was even paler than usual. She undid her ponytail, letting the long black locks fall around her face. "Too tight. Can't think."
Cass stepped forward, looking concerned. Galen was a half-step behind him.
"You've never used your ranged empathy for this long," Cass worried, wrapping an arm around her waist. She slumped into him, resting her cheek on his shoulder.
Galen stepped up and took one look at her face, then frowned at me. "We're pushing her too hard. We need to take a break."
A growl slipped from my throat, and I hated myself for it. But the urgency inside me was too strong. Lina was out there, in the hands of the Chosen, suffering Eldest-knows-what torments, and here we were, standing around. Taking breaks. Lina sure as hell wasn't getting a break.
Sia looked back at me. I could see dark circles forming under her eyes. We'd been combing the streets of downtown Winchendon for three hours, using her as an empathic bloodhound. She studied my face for a moment. Exhaustion gave way to resolve. "One more street. I can do it."
"No." I swallowed my frustration and tried to force a smile. "You're exhausted. You need a break."
My stomach grumbled. I ignored it. Galen did not. "We're all tired, hungry, and at the end of our ropes. We need a break. Food, a chance to regroup, a chance to sit down." He caught my eye and stared me down. "You won't do anyone any good if you collapse from exhaustion, Sia."