by Tessa Dawn
Matthias nodded, and his handsome features seemed unusually stern, far too serious for a lad his age. “I am.”
Soren frowned. “Then I just can’t ask you to do this.” He gestured toward his wife. “We just can’t ask you to do this.”
Matthias stood quietly, seeming to weigh his words very carefully. After a thoughtful, protracted moment, he finally replied, “I understand that you can’t ask, Mr. Louvet, but I’m offering.” He held up his hand to silence any protest. “And when I’m done, I’m offering to ride with you and some of the other farmers into Warlochia, through the dragon forest, all the way to Umbras and beyond if needed, to help you search for Raylea.” He cast a brief, compassionate glance at Margareta before turning his attention back to Soren. “Look, I understand your reservations as well as your many concerns. I do. But this isn’t just about my friendship with Raylea or my past with Mina. It’s about my honor as a commoner and a citizen of this realm.” He eyed Margareta warily, as if wanting to temper his words—and their meaning—in the presence of a woman. “The dragons take our women, our girls—hell, our futures—and they lock them up in that gods-forsaken Keep, training them to be servants, consorts, and worse; and we allow it because we have to. The warlocks do the same, only instead of just taking our young women, they also steal young boys—they make them all but indentured servants, and we never get them back. And the shades, they come for our souls, and there is little protection. Now, this? Raylea? For what? By whom?” He shook his head in disgust. “We have to fight back, Mr. Louvet. We have to form our own militias and guards. We have to start resisting. Surely, the scattered descendants of the Malo Clan, the giants, are not the only humans who secretly detest the king.”
Soren shrank back in alarm. “You would oppose the Dragonas and their laws? Align yourself with the descendants of slaves, who are few and far between, not to mention carefully watched by the Dragons Guard? You would oppose traditions as old as time in a realm controlled by magic? Son, we could never win.”
Matthias shook his head in opposition, displaying a more reasonable frame of mind. “No. I don’t mean to change the way of the Realm. I understand why the Ahavi are needed, even if I don’t agree with how they are acquired and kept from their families.” He pursed his lips in frustration before pressing on. “The moment we weaken the dragons, the Umbrasians and the Warlochians will be the least of our worries: The northerners will come across the restless sea, and the Lycanians will make every sin committed in this realm seem like child’s play by comparison. They’ll scorch the farmlands, murder the children, rape the women, and leave our corpses like bare husks in their wake on their way to overcoming Castle Dragon, in an attempt to overthrow the king. No,” he insisted, “we need the dragons—we need their protection—and they need to remain strong by having dragon sons. But this? Common thieves and raiders? Slave traders and mercenaries, capturing ten-year-old girls for their own deviant purposes? This is my province too—I grew up in Arns—and I have a personal investment in making it safe. I have the right—we have the right—to fight for our own.”
Margareta took Soren’s hand in hers and squeezed it, beseeching him with her eyes. “Please, Soren. Let him go. At least let him try.” She practically held her breath, waiting for an answer.
Soren appraised Matthias more carefully then, taking his measure from head to toe, and Margareta couldn’t help but appraise him, too: The adolescent had grown into a powerful young man with the broad bearing of a warrior, standing at least six feet tall. His lean, muscular frame was robust and vibrant, practically radiating with the infinite energy of youth. He was strong and sturdy, sound of mind. And he had always been a fiercely determined lad, as skilled with that crossbow as the most adept, professional soldier. If anyone could get the missive to Mina, it would be Matthias.
All at once, Margareta frowned, thinking about another issue that plagued them, another potential complication: From what she had seen of the princes—Damian, Dante, and Drake—it wasn’t as if any one of them would bother to lift a finger on Mina’s behalf. It wasn’t like her daughter had any political power or pull. So what if Matthias did achieve the near impossible—he successfully got the missive to Mina, all the while remaining undetected? Would Mina then turn to her masters for help? What if she approached one of the princes on behalf of Raylea, begged them to intervene, and her request was met with hostility, seen as disobedient? Matthias could very well be placing Mina in grave danger, even if he succeeded in his mission.
But what else were they to do?
Margareta had clung to every hope that Soren and his companions would find Raylea somewhere…somehow…and bring her home safely. She had prayed for it every night since Raylea was captured, but she had also stood in the Warlochian square and watched Dante Dragona execute two prisoners, severing one’s head as easily as one might halve an apple, scorching the other to ash. He was, indeed, a frozen block of ice: cold, calculating, and ruthless. And his brothers were his equal.
Still, there was an alternate possibility, one that renewed her hope: What if Matthias did get the missive to Mina; Mina somehow appealed to one of the princes—perhaps the most reasonable of the three, Prince Drake—and the prince actually took mercy on Raylea’s plight and stepped in? With so many resources, such supernatural power, all at the tip of his fingers, the king’s son could have Raylea home by the end of the week.
If anyone could save Raylea, a Dragona could, and Mina was very resourceful…
Margareta could only hope that her eldest daughter was still as strong and creative…and single-minded as she had always been growing up. She could only pray that the gods would show her favor. Or mercy. And bless Matthias and his powerful arm.
“Soren?” she entreated, her voice rising in a hopeful plea.
Soren reached out, placed a firm hand on Matthias’s shoulder, and slowly nodded his head. “Thank you, son.” He paused for a moment and murmured, “I wish…things had been different for Mina…and you.”
Matthias’s nose twitched, almost imperceptibly, and then he declined his head in a polite nod. “What is done is done,” he said, in an unusually acquiescent voice. “It is not for us to try to alter the will of the gods. But the will of evil men, bent on their own carnal pleasures and destruction, well, that’s a different matter.”
Margareta stared at Matthias’s expression and shivered.
There was just something so unusual in his eyes: something dormant, something dangerous, something powerful and ancient. She shook her head, dismissing the wayward thought.
Matthias was…Matthias.
His resolve was implacable.
His determination was rock-hard and fierce.
She took an unwitting step back and wrung her hands together. By all the Spirit Keepers, the Dragonas were not the only formidable beings in the Realm.
Not anymore.
*
Raylea Louvet tugged against the heavy chains that bound her wrists to the damp stone wall. She blinked back tears of terror and gazed out the small iron-barred window above her, trying to figure out just where she was now.
A dungeon?
A cellar?
A rat-infested hovel?
But in what territory?
She thought about her mother and that calamitous day in the forest, the day they had traveled back from the execution in Warlochia, the day the old man has asked for her doll in order to send it by courier to Castle Dragon, and the day they had been attacked near Devil’s Bend. Raylea trembled as she replayed the awful events in her mind, the way that nasty gargoyle had leaped out from behind a linden tree and frightened her horse half to death, how terrified she had been when he had reared up and she had fallen, and what it was like when she’d looked into her captor’s eyes: those vacant, evil, witchy-gray eyes. He had looked at her like he hated her, and for the life of her, she hadn’t understood why. What had she ever done to him? To any of them?
She winced, remembering how her mother had screamed, wheeled h
er horse around, and tried to charge at the slavers. Raylea had wanted to run to her mom so badly to get on the back of her mother’s horse and go home to her father. She had been so excited about the prospect of her doll making its way to Mina.
But none of it had mattered.
It hadn’t mattered at all.
The Realm was a wicked place full of evil people just waiting to prey on the weak, and she had been one of them. As angry tears welled in her eyes, she wished she could wipe them away, but those damnable chains clutched her little arms like a dragon’s talons, and it was simply impossible. She was just about to scream in frustration when she heard a key rattle in the lock. The iron door swung open, and a shadow-walker entered. Oh dear gods, she was being held captive by a shade, an abominable creature that fed on human souls.
It must have been past twilight because the shadow no longer held his human form. He was wispy and somehow skeletal, like half of his flesh was gone. In fact, he slinked, more than walked, toward the back of the room, where Raylea watched him with rising terror.
“My name is Syrileus Cain”—he spoke with a hiss—“and I am your new master, your benefactor, and your god.”
Raylea literally recoiled, pressing her little body as tight against the stone wall as she could, wishing she could blend in with the rocks.
“You will worship me, obey me, and see to my every need.” He flashed a wicked, contemptuous grin, his front yellow teeth gleaming in the moonlight that shone through the iron bars, and Raylea felt instantly faint.
She tugged against the chains and screamed bloody murder, praying that someone could hear. That someone would please…please…help her. She was desperate to get away from the shadow, but there was nothing she could do. Nowhere she could go. Her lungs burned in her chest, and her voice became raw from her effort.
And all the while, Syrileus just licked his thin lips and laughed.
He laughed.
As if her terror and her pain were nothing, mere performances to amuse him. And then he took several steps toward her, and she flinched. As she tucked her head forward, nearly pressing her chin to her chest, he reached out with a ghostly, shadowed hand and scratched the underside of her jaw. His fingernails were long, pointed, and disgustingly dirty, and he purposely nicked her flesh in order to draw a droplet of blood.
And then he tasted it.
Oh gods—he tasted it!
His thin, slimy tongue snaked out of his garish mouth, and he sucked the droplet off the end of his finger.
Raylea began to retch, even as she continued to twist this way and that in her chains, trying to put some distance between herself and the shadow-walker. And then he opened his distended jaw and bent toward her, not for a kiss, but to sample her soul…to draw out the first taste of her essence.
Raylea’s eyes rolled back in her head as fear consumed her.
True or false, her young life passed before her eyes, and then the entire world went black as she blessedly passed out.
Part Two:
Dragons War
“Come not between the dragon, and his wrath.”
~ William Shakespeare, KING LEAR
Chapter Thirteen
Two weeks later
Mina Louvet stared out the open, stained-glass window in her private bedchamber, enjoying the view of the immaculate gardens below. Things had settled down nicely over the past two weeks. Okay, so nicely might be too strong a word, but they had settled down. Mina and Dante had fallen into an amiable, predictable rhythm, both in terms of Mina feeding his dragon and the two of them exchanging cordial banter. Tatiana had completely healed from Damian’s brutal attack, at least physically, if not emotionally, and life at Castle Dragon had settled into an affable routine, at least something she could anticipate.
She glanced askance at the mantel, smiling as she eyed Raylea’s doll, remembering the day Dante had presented it to her, and feeling grateful for the priceless gift even now. The prince did have a heart, albeit deeply buried beneath all that battle-hardened Dragona armor, and she was finally learning how to navigate around the rough, thorny edges.
A high-pitched whistle hummed beneath the open window, piercing the tender silence of contemplation like a blade, and she instinctively leaned over the sill in an effort to identify its origins. And that’s when she saw the wooden arrow with its bright, twisted quills sticking out of the bushes.
Mina sucked in an anxious breath and leaned out further, staring at the familiar fletching.
She would know that arrow anywhere.
The telltale bright-colored plumes; the narrow wedge-shaped design; the superior craftsmanship of the wood—that arrow belonged to Matthias Gentry, one of her oldest and dearest friends.
A boy she had once been promised to in marriage.
She ducked away from the window and grasped the outer layer of her tunic, absently glancing to the left, then the right, as if someone might be watching. Great Spirit Keepers, she needed to calm down…
Of course no one was watching.
Mina knew she was alone.
She peered out the window once more, this time scanning the distant surroundings for the archer, and that’s when she heard the swallow’s nervous call from within a weeping willow, the rapid, high-pitched chirping that alerted her to a stranger’s presence.
Ancestors be merciful, what was Matthias doing?
Why had he come to the Castle Dragon?
Was he trying to get himself killed?
Wasting no time at all, she dashed across the room, snatched her parka, and sprinted toward the back castle staircase, where she flew down the steps like a falcon intent on surprising its prey, eager to get to the archer.
Dante had given her a wide berth when it came to exploring the castle grounds, just so long as she took reasonable precautions. She didn’t think her sudden exploit would be noticed.
Throwing open a heavy door, she emerged on the eastern end of the grounds, quickly traversed the small sunlit plaza, circled the bubbling fountain, and then headed in the direction of her bedroom window toward the shady end of the gardens. The moment Mina approached the huge willow tree, she bit her lip, kept her eyes focused downward, and swiftly made her way toward the low-arcing branches. And sure enough, her childhood friend stood up, his broad, muscular shoulders held in a proud, easy stance, his long legs crossed at the ankle as he copped a lean against the trunk of the tree and turned in her direction.
“Matthias!” she exclaimed. “What in the name of the gods are you doing here?” She planted her hands on her hips and tapped her foot in nervous anticipation.
Matthias rose to his full six-foot height and ran a long, slender hand through his thick blond hair. “I’ve been traveling for the last ten days. I have news concerning Raylea.” He nodded in the direction of his spent arrow, indicating the vertical quills, still standing upright, beneath her bedchamber window. “I can’t believe my luck, that I saw you standing in a window, but you’d better retrieve that arrow—there’s a missive attached to the tip.”
Mina glanced over her shoulder and nodded. She drew back her shoulders and strolled leisurely toward the arrow, stopping to admire a cluster of bright pink-and-violet peony bushes along the way, just in case someone was watching. She bent over slowly, as if to check the hem of her skirt, pulled the arrow out of the ground, and tucked the shaft beneath her arm, concealing the object in the various folds of fabric. Then she checked the gardens one more time to make sure they were alone as she slowly strolled back toward Matthias.
Ducking beneath the cover of the willow, she handed the arrow to Matthias, waited as he placed it back in his quiver, missive and all, and then squatted low to the ground. “Get down.” Her voice was unintentionally harsh. “You’re not safe here, Matt.”
He immediately followed suit. “I know, but it was really important. Your parents are having a very hard time.”
Mina felt something inside of her constrict, perhaps her stomach growing queasy or her heart beginning to ache. Sh
e knew Matthias would not have traveled all the way from the commonlands—he would not have taken such a risk—if the matter had not been of the utmost importance. And it was about Raylea. She almost wished she had read the missive the moment she had pulled the arrow from the ground, but that would have been stupid, not to mention unnecessary. It would be better to hear it from Matthias. Oh gods. Her palms began to sweat from anticipation. “Well,” she finally whispered. “What is it?”
Matthias captured her gaze in an unwavering stare. “Your mother and Raylea were attacked in Forest Dragon, nearly three weeks ago, by a band of warlocks and their gargoyles. We believe they were slave traders, those who sell to the shades in the west.” He shook his head, and his eyes grew cloudy. “Your mother got away. Raylea did not.”
Mina gasped, and then she immediately shoved her hand over her mouth to stifle her outcry as the emotion slipped out. “Oh, gods…no.” She practically whimpered her next words. “What happened? Do you know where she is? What is being done?”
Matthias sat down on the ground, and Mina mimicked the action. She could hardly contain her panic, but to her credit, she waited for Matthias to collect his thoughts and answer when he was ready.
He drew a crude diagram in the dirt. “Her horse was here, not far from Devil’s Bend.” He pointed at a rock about two inches from the slash which indicated the horse. “The raiders came from behind a thick grouping of trees.” He drew another slash in the primitive illustration, presumably to designate the trees. “We believe it was a band of Warlochian slavers led by the high mage Rafael Bishop, but we don’t know who actually took her—Rafael runs with a very dangerous crew: Sir Robert Cross, Micah Fiske, and Sir Henry Woodson, at least before he was executed, just to name a few.” He waited for his words to sink in, fully expecting her to recognize the notorious names. “And we believe Raylea was taken to be sold—not sacrificed or consumed—but the constable refuses to follow up. He isn’t doing a thing. They’re just too busy to organize a search.” His jaw stiffened in a visible attempt to subdue his anger. “Or perhaps they’re just too indifferent.” Before Mina could pepper him with questions, Matthias pressed on. “Your father and several nearby farmers organized a search party of their own, but they haven’t had any luck. We feel like…your mother feels like…unless you intervene, unless you can get one of the princes to intervene—right away—Raylea may be lost to us forever.”