by N M Zoltack
Blood and Ashes
In the Eye of the Dragon Book Seven
N. M. Zoltack
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Epilogue
Other Books By N. M. Zoltack
About the Author
Copyright © 2021 by N. M. Zoltack
ISBN: 9781727163667
Cover Artist: Joewie Aderes
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Typography: Covers by Julie
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Created with Vellum
For all those who believe in the fantastical.
1
Olympia Li
The Li princess eyed the man before her. Aldwin Lehr was old, yes, a vicar with white hair, a bumpy nose, and bushy eyebrows that appeared like wiggly worms, but he stood as straight as can be, a great deal taller than she was. He carried himself with authority, as if he knew his role of advisor to kings and queens well.
And he had served kings and queens—her parents as well as their murderer and usurper and that vile murderer’s daughter and third wife.
“You killed your twin,” Olympia Li murmured.
"I did." He nodded once. "I make no apology for that. He would have served Jankin Rivera without question. He would have allowed your parents' legacy to be forgotten. I was there when you were born, not he, and that is because, of the two of us, I loved and served your parents far more loyal, with far more zeal."
“But must you have killed him?” Olympia had never met her twin. He had been kept separate from her, secreted away so that they might both survive the persecution the new king would have assuredly commanded had he learned of their existence and subsequent survival.
“Yes. I, Aldwin Lehr, was known to everyone, even the new King Jankin…” Here, Aldwin paused to scowl darkly, and Olympia could easily see how the man would be willing to take another’s life. “I was too staunch a supporter of your parents. King Yijun and Queen Melitta… Oh, how you were both loved and wanted by them both in the minutes they lived past your birth. But I… Jankin would have ordered my death had I not killed Albert. I killed him and adopted his name, and in the twenty years since your parents were brutally murdered, I have kept a watch over your brother.”
Olympia considered all of this in her mind and in her heart. As much as she had sought her twin for some time, to learn that such a dangerous man had watched over him… from afar at least. Perhaps her brother had been saved from what might have been a corruptible experience had the vicar taken her brother under his wing directly.
“Are you even a true vicar?” she asked suddenly. The thought that the man had deceived an entire continent, indeed all of Dragoona, for a time spanning two decades into believing him a man of great faith who believed in the Four Fates—Life, Death, Chaos, and Peace—and served them with his every breath was almost more appalling than the knowledge that he had killed his twin in order for his own life to be spared.
His own life and the lives of herself and her twin.
“Yes, indeed.” The vicar nodded. “My brother and I were both vicars.”
“Were?” she questioned.
The old man smiled wanly. "Was in his case and am in mine. I do believe I was the servant, the direct hand of the Fate of Death and even Life when I killed my brother. After all, I truly believe my brother would not have assured your survival or that of your twin. Instead, he would have used you both as pawns, perhaps even killing them himself such that he could prove his fealty to Jankin and thus have been spared." Aldwin shakes his head and closes his gnarled fingers into tight fists. "Let me assure you, the Fates and the Lis are all I serve and all I have ever truly served. Your family is what all of Dragoona needs."
Olympia shook her head. “My parents and the Li rulers before them only ever had been crowned the leaders of the continent of Tenoch. As much as I hate Jankin, even I cannot deny that there had been a measure of peace that ended the moment he himself died.”
“That peace was as faux as can be,” Aldwin spat out. “Of course, I wished for peace, yes. I do not long for death, and even I cannot deny that I have been tormented from time to time with dreams of my brother. I loved him at one time, but he… he cared for his life far too much, whereas I know my true purpose in life.”
“Your true purpose?” she murmured.
“Ah, to serve the Lis until my dying breath.”
Olympia glanced away, staring out into the land that had once been her parents and her father’s parents before him and beyond. The vicar had it all wrong. His loyalty, without fail, should be to Dragoona and Dragoona alone, not to one particular family.
Slowly, she appraised him. Perhaps that indeed was the case, and he was merely professing his fealty to her family such that she would be behooving to trust him.
“You have come a far, long way to reach Atlan,” Aldwin murmured. “I am not certain where Dong Han had taken you to live, but, if you do not mind my saying, you look as if you have come a far away.”
“Do you mean to say I need a bath?” she asked wryly.
"No. I mean, you look as if you are a survivor," he clarified.
“Xalac Island,” she murmured.
She had crossed the Vast Waters to Maloyan, where she found the once-crowned champion
Bjorn Ivano. The man, the first to know of her secret since Dong’s passing, had gone ahead to Atlan Castle in order to try to locate her twin.
But Olympia had only ever thought that her twin would have been kept within Atlan, the capital of Tenoch. What if she were wrong? This vicar had come to her, and he knew her brother.
Or so he claimed.
Would Bjorn be able to tell who her brother was merely by looking at the man’s face? Would she even be able to?
It seemed she had no choice at all in the matter. None whatsoever.
“You have come so far,” Aldwin said. “Why?”
“To find my twin,” she said, although the trek had been for more than one reason.
“Well then?”
“Bring my twin to me,” she demanded.
The vicar shook his head.
“Whyever not?” she asked, her tone sharp.
“We, you and I, must go to the castle,” he insisted.
Olympia exhaled through her nose. She had many misgivings about this. If she had thought to go to the castle, she would have gone along with Bjorn. Together, she and Bjorn had decided it would have been unwise for her to venture within the walls of the castle again. Some of the maids and servants might be old enough to recognize her despite the long passage of years. From what she had been told by Dong, she looked greatly like her mother.
“You will not bring him to me?” she asked.
“You and I must go to the castle,” he repeated.
“Very well, Aldwin Lehr,” she said. “We will go.”
“I would offer you the horse, but… Alas, my back…” He hunches over, at once appearing weak and feeble instead of the strong old man she knew him to be.
All a part of the ruse.
“Very well,” she murmured, and she fell into step beside him once he climbed back onto the horse.
If he would dare to betray her…
Olympia felt for the dagger concealed within her clothes. Death was not something she wished for anyone right now. Tenoch was at war with Vincana, and the dragons had returned. Yes, one had been killed, but two more winged monsters ruled the skies.
A war between Tenoch and Vincana had almost happened once before, the excuse Jankin had used to act as if his actions against her parents had been justified, when, in reality, it had been a massive grab for power. He had united all of Dragoona—Tenoch, Vincana, and the isles—under what he termed Tenoch Proper.
Only now, Tenoch Proper was falling apart.
Indeed, all of Dragoona was.
All of this was why Olympia’s goal had altered to be with her twin first and foremost.
But only for now. Eventually, her gaze would return to the crown, to the throne.
2
Princess Vivian Rivera
The youngest child of the late King Jankin Rivera stood there, shocked by what she had just witnessed.
Marcellus Gallus, the self-proclaimed Prince of Vincana, had just killed his father, the king, Antonius.
The prince ran off, heading toward the beach, away from Atlan Castle.
What a wild night it had turned out to be. To think that hours ago, Princess Vivian Rivera had been a captive of the Vincanans. She had freed herself and had been on her way to the castle because the Vincanans had attacked, only she had taken too long. Clearly, the battle was over already, but to see the prince slaughter his own father…
Had the king started the attack? From the encounters she had with the prince, Marcellus was not a man who craved power. No, she suspected his father had been the one to declare himself king without even asking the Vincanans if they would follow him.
But they had, and war had commenced as a result. The dragons three had returned after being dead for a millennium.
Long ago, the dragons had ruled all of Dragoona. Dragons of peace and benevolence who only punished the worst of the worst of the humans.
These dragons, though, were malevolent to their very core. Vivian had seen the great destructive power they wielded right before her very eyes, and at nights, she could feel the heat of the fires, smell the burning flesh, hear the screams anew.
The princess’s eyes fluttered close. Marcellus killing his father helped Tenoch so very much. The move emboldened the plan for there to be peace among the people once more. After all, Vivian’s sister, Queen Rosalynne, was to wed Marcellus. Without a doubt, Antonius would not have sanctioned such a union.
Now, there would be none to object to the marriage.
None.
For most of her life, Vivian had not left the continent of Tenoch, not until she had no other choice. Now, she had traveled a great deal of Dragoona, and she had spent a long while hidden within enemy territory, training and mastering weapons, fighting alongside the Valkyries in Vincana. The Valkyries were the strongest, fiercest warriors. At one time, they had been chosen by the dragons themselves.
Marcellus had known for some time now that Vivian had masqueraded as Cateline Locke. Now, the others knew as well, and it had not surprised her a moment at all that she had been imprisoned as a result. All because she had sought peace and wished to convince the prince to marry her sister.
Peace. Sometimes, it required death.
With the king’s death, if the Fates were kind, the people would stop fighting one another. If not, Vivian feared all of Dragoona would perish, drowned by blood and burned to ashes.
She opened her eyes and headed to the beach. A burning sight and chaos were all around, but her gaze remained on the waters, on the dragon in the waters, on the dragon sinking beneath the waves.
The Vincanans had killed a dragon. Only one still flew.
Between this and their king being killed, Vivian thought better of approaching them. She turned to leave and stilled as her gaze fell on a female warrior from Vincana, one of the Valkyries.
Horatia Ramagi.
Vivian gulped, her hand falling to her sword. She did not relish the idea of squaring off against the Valkyrie, but she would do as she had since she had been whisked away from Atlan Castle after the murder of her only brother Noll.
She would do whatever was necessary to endure.
3
Valkyrie Horatia Ramagi
Leaving Prince Marcellus Gallus had been difficult, but even more so had been departing from Flavius Calvus, much to the shock of Horatia Ramagi. Her feelings toward the commander had taken her by surprise. For so long, they had tormented each other, teasing one another, respecting one another beneath it all. Along the way, feelings had developed.
But then the dragons had been resurrected.
Being a Valkyrie had always been a source of pride for Horatia, but she could not deny that being a Valkyrie while the dragons remained dead had been a bit lackluster. As the Valkyries were all from Vincana, they had served Vincana. With the dragons returning, though, at night, Horatia could feel a pull, a longing, a desperate need.
The dragons were calling her.
Not just her, but the other Valkyries as well.
Even so, Horatia ignored the call of the dragons, but when it became far too great and overpowering, she no longer had a choice.
Her heart and her head were at war, but she knew what she had to do.
“Do not leave me,” Flavius had begged. Flavius begging! She never would have thought that day would come, but it had, and for him to beg that she remain by his side…
He pushed hard, fought for her, but it was a battle he could not win.
Before dawn, before Flavius or any of the others could see, she and the other Valkyries slipped away. They sought one of the dragons.
Massive. Majestic. Beautiful. Terrifying. The dragon was everything Horatia had dreamed of and more.
But despite that, the dragon took one look at Horatia and bared his sharp teeth.
Instantly, Horatia fell to the ground, averting her gaze. She sensed rather than saw the other Valkyries do the same.
And then she heard the dragon’s voice in her head.
You are a disgrace
. I cannot abide the sight of you.
Horatia struggled to find a means to explain their delay, wishing to seek forgiveness, but the flapping of wings sounded, and when Horatia looked up, the dragon was already almost out of sight.
They had been banished, dismissed, found unworthy.
Without a clear goal in mind, Horatia brought the Valkyries to the outskirts of a swamp to the north of Atlan Castle. She could not bear the thought of returning to Marcellus and Flavius. For them to learn that the dragons found the Valkyries lacking would be a sore blow, and if Flavius knew, what would he think of her? She had only just started to accept that she had fallen in love with him, and she had a feeling the dragons would not condone their Valkyries being wed. Distractions of any kind surely were looked down upon. Indeed, it was possible the dragon knew of Horatia’s attention to Flavius, and perhaps that was one of the reasons why the dragon sought to cast them aside.