Dragons Realm (14 page)

Mina felt her heart harden. “If they are that evil, that un­re­deem­able, then couldn’t the Drago­nas des­troy them all?”

Drake whistled low be­neath his breath, and Mina shot him a furt­ive glance of apo­logy. By all the gods, she soun­ded like a traitor, even to her­self.

Curi­ously, Dante answered her fi­nal ques­tion. “
All
the war­locks?
All
the witches?
All
the gar­goyles and shades?” He smiled, yet the mirth didn’t reach his eyes. “And then, when the Lycani­ans come from across the sea, there will be no armies to stand in their way, no war­ri­ors to meet them on the sands. Are you ser­i­ously ad­voc­at­ing the de­struc­tion of our world and every­one within it?”

Mina bowed her head. “I…oh gods, my prince.” Her eyes sought his for the first
real
time, hon­est, un­chal­len­ging, and raw. “I un­der­stand.”

And for the first
real
time, his au­then­tic gaze found hers as well. “I should slay you, Mina. Right now. Right here.”

She wanted to protest, to plead for ab­so­lu­tion, but the dragon prince was right. All those years be­ing raised in the Keep, be­ing taught more about the Realm than her non-Ahavi, hu­man coun­ter­parts, she had ac­tu­ally been
sheltered
from the truth. She had been pampered and priv­ileged and raised for one pur­pose, and even that, she had failed. Dante
loved
the king­dom she re­sen­ted, and he served it, while she only re­belled. He kept her mother and her father and her sis­ter…alive. “I’m an idiot,” she whispered. “A will­ful, ig­nor­ant, ideal­istic
idiot
, who only thinks of her­self.”

Dante shook his head. “If that were true, I would have let you die in the Great Hall when my father caught you, when Damian sug­ges­ted it.” He took two meas­ured steps away from the bed­post, roun­ded the bed, and reached out with a self-as­sured hand to fin­ger a lock of her hair, and then he stroked the un­der­side of her chin and bent to her ear. “One day, I will be as power­ful as my father,” he whispered, so that only she could hear. Well, per­haps, her and Prince Drake. “You may not live to see it, but you may still live to raise our sons. That is not a small thing.” He stepped back, stood up straight, and re­garded her squarely. “If you want to help me, Mina, feed the dragon’s fire un­til he is strong. Pray that I live to come of age. Give me sons…many, many sons…so that one day we might have im­par­tial princes to rule. But do not
ever
ask me to com­mit sedi­tion or high treason, to take on a prim­or­dial dragon that can­not be des­troyed, or to op­pose my brother at the ex­pense of the Realm—to save one beau­ti­ful slave who would die any­way, at the hands of our en­emies, should her per­se­cutor be des­troyed. Do not ques­tion me as your prince.”

Drake sighed and clasped his hands to­gether. As al­ways, he in­jec­ted com­pas­sion into the dia­logue. “You can’t avoid Damian if he calls you.” He turned to re­gard Ta­tiana. “Neither of you can.” He tightened his in­ter­locked fin­gers like a single fist. “And you wouldn’t be the first to suf­fer at his hands. If we can heal you, we will try—send a missive through the squire—but never, ever, ap­proach my father’s
lair
. Never break our laws. Try to avoid Prince Damian if pos­sible. If not, then try to ap­pease him, to please him the best you can, and pray to the gods for mercy. That is all any of us can do.”

Ta­tiana emerged from the shad­ows like a specter rising from a grave: si­lent, omin­ous, and haunt­ingly alone. She pad­ded to the foot of the bed, where Prince Drake still sat, and slowly fell to her knees. Bow­ing her head, she whispered meekly. “My prince. I have a ques­tion of my own.”

Prince Drake sat for­ward, still clearly fa­tigued and wan­ing, but he gave her his full at­ten­tion. “What is it?” he asked. “Speak your peace.”

The Ahavi swal­lowed re­peatedly, her nar­row throat con­vulsing in waves. “Only you know what is best for Castle Com­mons, what the province needs the most, but if all things are equal…” She began to tremble un­con­trol­lably, and her eyes spilled over with tears. Strug­gling to keep from cry­ing, she wrapped her slender arms around her waist and pressed on. “But if all things are equal, would you ask your father for me when the time comes? To make me your con­sort, in­stead of Damian’s?”

Mina felt her chest con­strict; her heart was break­ing in two. Ta­tiana soun­ded so wretched and ashamed. She waited with bated breath as Drake in­haled sharply and stared at her com­pan­ion’s face, seem­ing to study each one of Ta­tiana’s fea­tures in turn.

“So much has happened…I…” His voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat. “Look at me.”

Ta­tiana met the prince’s hazel gaze, and her lips trembled as she waited.

Like all the Drago­nas, Drake was both hand­some and ro­bust. He kept the front edges of his mid­night hair plaited in mas­cu­line braids, and his strik­ing fea­tures were both noble and re­fined. Al­though not quite as tall as Damian or Dante, he was just as im­pos­ing, but his eyes were dif­fer­ent—they were un­usu­ally kind. Just the same, he was a dragon by birth, a ter­rit­orial pred­ator at heart, and Ta­tiana was no longer pure. She had been used, and thus
marked
, by Prince Drake’s brother.

He stared at Ta­tiana un­til Mina thought her own heart would cease beat­ing, and then he simply nod­ded his head. “I will ask,” he said.

Ta­tiana bur­ied her face in her hands and sobbed.

Touched by the mo­ment, Mina turned to­ward Dante and offered him a smile, as paltry as it was. “And you,” she said, “thank you for what you did to­night. All of it. There are no words.” She fol­ded her hands in her lap. “And I’m truly sorry.”

He lowered his head in the barest in­clin­a­tion of a nod. “Then we start again?”

She rose from the bed and ap­proached him cau­tiously, un­til their toes were nearly touch­ing. “We start again.”

Dante held her seek­ing gaze for a mo­ment longer than was com­fort­able. Then, ges­tur­ing to­ward Ta­tiana, he lowered his voice. “I think your friend is a bit over­whelmed. If you please, go fetch the blood slave. My brother,
your prince
, has waited long enough.”

Without hes­it­a­tion, Mina fell into a curt­sey, spun on her heel, and headed for the cham­ber door to do the dragon’s bid­ding.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next day

“
I
asked Mat­thias Gentry
to travel to the royal province.” Mar­gareta Louvet res­ted her el­bows on the old wooden table and dropped her head in her hands, wait­ing for her hus­band’s re­ac­tion. When he stared at her blankly, not say­ing any­thing, she ad­ded, “I asked him to try to get a missive to Mina.” And then she simply waited…for the brunt of his an­ger.

His voice rang out, ir­rit­ated but calm. “You did
what
?”

She sighed and lif­ted her head. “I spoke with Mat­thias.”

Soren Louvet kicked back his chair, stood up, and paced to a nearby win­dow where he stared out at the fal­low pas­ture, his face a mask of dis­be­lief. “When?” he snarled. “Why?”

Mar­gareta turned around in her chair to face him and rubbed her tired eyes. She had no tears left to shed. “Yes­ter­day, out­side of the mar­ket.
Why?
” She shook her head sadly. “Why do you think, Soren?
Why do you
think?
”

Soren crossed his arms over his broad chest and con­tin­ued to stare out the win­dow. “Mat­thias and Mina were best friends grow­ing up. Hell, they were prom­ised to each other in mar­riage by age five, be­fore the Dragons Guard came for Mina, and you know that he is still very fond of her…” His voice trailed off, and he sighed. “What could pos­sibly come of in­volving Mat­thias now? Do you wish to get the boy killed? Do you wish to get Mina killed?”

Now this set Mar­gareta off.

She slammed her open palm down on the table, win­cing from the pain, and stood to face her hus­band, even if she was only star­ing at his back. “They were never old enough to fall in love,” she pro­tested, plant­ing her hands on her hips. “But yes, they were true friends, and Mat­thias may be the only one left who cares about Raylea! If any­one can get word to Mina, Mat­thias can.”

Soren spun around, re­gard­ing his wife cau­tiously, his own blood­shot eyes droop­ing be­neath heavy-burdened lashes. “Mar­gareta…”

“What?” she huffed. “What would you have me do? The con­stable has done noth­ing! The in­sens­it­ive fool simply took a re­port and filed it away.” She turned her nose up in dis­gust. “We are so sorry for your loss, Miss Louvet. We mourn what has happened to Raylea along with your fam­ily, but we have no ex­tra re­sources to send on a fish­ing ex­ped­i­tion. We will, how­ever, look into the mat­ter, as the slav­er­ings are a top pri­or­ity for this province.” She ges­tured an­grily with her hands, her voice rising in angst. “What the hell does that mean, Soren? The slav­er­ings are a top pri­or­ity? They ba­sic­ally told us to for­get Raylea and go on with our lives. She’s gone.” Mar­gareta slumped back into her chair and lay her head down on the table, as if it were too heavy to hold up. “Raylea is gone,” she re­peated in a for­lorn voice. “She’s just…gone. And so is Mina. What was I to do?”

Soren stepped away from the win­dow, crossed the room in three long strides, and stood be­hind his wife, pla­cing two firm hands on her shoulders. Des­pite his best at­tempt at valor, his hands trembled against her dress. “We will con­tinue to search for her, ourselves. By all the gods and god­desses, I prom­ise you, I will not stop look­ing. I’ll never quit.
Never.
Not un­til we bring her home, or find out—”

“That she’s dead,” Mar­gareta sup­plied.

Soren shut his eyes and shook his head. The mere pos­sib­il­ity was un­think­able, and Mar­gareta knew the stub­born man would
never
give voice to such a pos­sib­il­ity. “She has to be alive,” he said with con­vic­tion. “She
has
to be all right.”

“All right?” Mar­gareta echoed, her voice catch­ing on a sob. “No, Soren. She is not all right. You and I both know how the raid­ers work, the pur­pose of the slave trades.” She swal­lowed hard and searched for her own brand of cour­age, a bravery she could no longer find. “Why they would take her…what they would want of her…what they will do to her…even­tu­ally.” She tugged on a lock of her hair, care­lessly twist­ing the ends into knots. “And that is why we can­not wait, Soren! Every minute, every hour, every day we pro­cras­tin­ate, Raylea is in the hands of mon­sters. Even if we find her—”

“
When
we find her,” he growled, his face a mask of iron de­term­in­a­tion.

“Even if…or when…we find her, she may not be the same. Her soul may not be the same. Her laughter, her joy, her spirit may be gone.” Mar­gareta’s tears fell freely then, and she made no at­tempt to hold them back. “Oh, gods, Soren! She sur­vived the loss of Mina—we all did—but how can any­one sur­vive this?
How?
”

Soren pulled a chair in front of hers and sat down to face her, tak­ing both of her hands in his own and squeez­ing them far too hard. His knuckles turned white as he grin­ded his teeth, try­ing to find the right words, and it was as if the en­tire humble cabin groaned in re­sponse. The old wooden floor-planks creaked; the dilap­id­ated shut­ters settled with a grumble; and the run­down shingles, high above their heads, seemed to sigh with an aud­ible moan. The cabin, like their lives, was fall­ing apart. “Raylea is
our daugh­ter
, and her spirit is strong. She will sur­vive in­tact. She has to. And so will Mina. We haven’t lost her yet; there is still the Au­tumn Mat­ing and—”

“And
the Sk­la­vos Ahavi
be­long
to the Realm, not to their fam­il­ies
,” Mar­gareta mocked
.
“
They are not
per­mit­ted
to main­tain con­tact with their kin, at least not un­til after the Au­tumn Mat­ing; and even then, it is at their lord’s dis­cre­tion
. That’s what he said, Prince Drake, and he was the kind one!” She felt her ex­pres­sion harden, even as her ire rose like a sud­den gust of wind, swirl­ing up­ward in pas­sion­ate ed­dies, fan­ning out in frus­tra­tion and rage. “The
kind
prince, the one who showed even the barest amount of com­pas­sion, looked our daugh­ter right in the eyes and told her that Mina be­longed to him. And the other one, Prince Dante, he was like a block of ice or a slab of stone. We are noth­ing to these dragons! Noth­ing, Soren—you didn’t see his face.” She clutched a pot­ted urn that was sit­ting on the table, serving as a center­piece, and ran her fore­finger along the petals of a single pale rose, planted in the cen­ter. “And Damian Dragona, our fu­ture prince of Um­bras? He was the Dark Lord him­self, Keeper of the For­got­ten Realm. He was evil in­carn­ate, Soren. There was noth­ing in his eyes: no soul, no com­pas­sion, no mercy. He held a dag­ger to Raylea’s throat—a ten-year-old child!” She stood in a sud­den storm of fury, tossed the pot across the room, and watched as so many shards of clay scattered about the cabin, ri­co­cheted off the walls, and dis­persed across the floor in a dis­son­ant pat­tern. “Who do they think they are? What gives them the right? To take our chil­dren, our little girls, and use them like com­mon whores!” She fis­ted her hands at her sides and glared at her hus­band with scorn. “You are not a wo­man, Soren.” She felt hor­rible say­ing it, but she just couldn’t help it. “I know you love your daugh­ters, of course you do, but you can’t pos­sibly ima­gine. I would rather slit my own throat than be forced to breed a son for the Realm with one of those princes. And now, Raylea, too? Oh great Spirit Keep­ers, why?
Why!
” She slumped to the floor in a ball of an­guish and began to weep un­con­trol­lably.

Soren knelt down be­fore her and tried to wrap his arms around her quak­ing shoulders, but his own an­ger, his barely con­cealed help­less­ness and rage, rose from his be­ing like fog from the sea, and joined her fury in the room. He was com­ing apart, about to break down, ut­terly mired in feeble­ness and con­tempt. “I…I…” He bowed his head and shuddered. “I don’t know what to say. I would kill them all if I could, but it wouldn’t bring our daugh­ters back.” He tightened his grasp around Mar­gareta’s slender frame and bur­ied his fin­gers in her long, au­burn hair. “I swear to you, my love. I will find Raylea or die try­ing.” His deep, mas­cu­line voice broke then, giv­ing way to an­guish and tears. “I’ll bring our baby home…or I’ll die try­ing.
I swear
.”

Mar­gareta clung to her hus­band as if her life de­pended on it—and maybe it did—be­cause in this fate­ful mo­ment, she no longer pos­sessed the will to go on. She had no idea how to get up in the morn­ing, how to stumble through each day, or how to carry on with the busi­ness of life and farm­ing when all she had lived for was gone.

Hell, she didn’t even know how to draw her next breath.

By all that was holy—or un­holy—the Realm had stolen the most pre­cious gifts she had ever been given: her ba­bies, her an­gels, her daugh­ters…

First, Mina.

And now, Raylea.

It was just too much to bear.

And even though Mar­gareta had es­caped the at­tack in the forest with her life, just barely, she did not wish to con­tinue, not like this. Not without her young­est daugh­ter. It was hard enough to ac­cept the fact that Mina was liv­ing on the other side of what felt like the world with those three de­monic dragons, but to give Raylea up, too? It was simply im­possible.

She was just about to pry Soren’s hands from her hair when she heard a hard, crisp knock on the door, and she froze. Oh gods, what if it was the con­stable, or worse, a mem­ber of the Dragons Guard? The words she had just spoken were treason, and they wouldn’t hes­it­ate to take her away. She stared at Soren blankly and shrugged her shoulders, her lip be­gin­ning to quiver.

“Miss Louvet? Mas­ter Soren? Are you in there?” Mat­thias Gentry’s deep, me­lodi­ous voice re­ver­ber­ated from the other side of the panel.

“Mat­thias?” Mar­gareta called out, quickly rising to her feet and ush­er­ing her hus­band to fol­low. She hur­ried to the door and un­hitched the latch.

The boy, who was now a proud and for­mid­able man of twenty sum­mers, stood on the front stoop like a sol­dier: his angled chin held high, his proud shoulders pulled back, his deep blue eyes nar­rowed with stead­fast pur­pose. His fa­mil­iar cross­bow was slung over one of his broad, mus­cu­lar shoulders, and his long, wavy blond hair rustled in the wind as he fixed his gaze on Mar­gareta’s. “Ma’am. I’m here to re­trieve that missive. I’ll be head­ing out for Castle Dragon come morn­ing.”

Mar­gareta took a cau­tious step back and ges­tured for the youth to come in.

He stepped past her like a cool, wel­com­ing breeze on a scorch­ing, un­for­giv­ing day, and im­me­di­ately re­garded Soren. “Mr. Louvet,” he said by way of greet­ing.

Soren nod­ded. “Mat­thias.” He shook the young­ster’s hand. “I think there’s been a mis­un­der­stand­ing, son.” He leveled a cross­wise glance at his wife. “We can’t ask you to get in­volved in our private af­fairs, to do some­thing this dan­ger­ous. My wife was dis­traught, and she—”

Mat­thias held up a gra­cious but firm hand to si­lence him. “With all due re­spect, sir, I think I’m old enough to make my own de­cisions.” He pitched his voice a bit softer out of es­teem. “Mina was—
is
—my friend. And Raylea is like a little sis­ter to me. So if you think I can just go on with my life as if noth­ing has happened or changed, well then, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

Soren ap­praised Mat­thias care­fully then, his mouth turn­ing down in a frown. “Son, this has noth­ing to do with your char­ac­ter or the place you have in our hearts. You de­sire to speak man-to-man, then I’ll speak to you with candor: If you go to that castle, you’re gonna get killed. You might even get Mina killed in the pro­cess. My friends and I, we will con­tinue to search.”

Mat­thias’ bright blue eyes turned dark with dis­ap­proval. “I un­der­stand that, sir. I’m not a fool.” He tapped his cross­bow. “My aim is not to storm the castle like some lun­atic or to try to get to Mina, but I’ve got a really strong arm, and I can thread an ar­row through the eye of a needle at two hun­dred yards. All I need to do is get the missive to her,
some­how
. I’m think­ing of at­tach­ing it to the end of an ar­row—she’ll re­cog­nize my fletch­ing.”

Mar­gareta cast a hope­ful glance at Soren, wait­ing to hear his reply.

He shook his head in con­sterna­tion. “Aren’t you en­gaged to be mar­ried next sum­mer to the Wal­cott girl?”

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.”