Dragons Realm (19 page)

Mat­thias crossed his arms over his chest, try­ing to make sense of the whole sor­did tale. Des­pite the boy’s ob­vi­ous con­vic­tion, none of it rang true. “And what does that have to do with me?”

The scribe huffed in ex­as­per­a­tion, and then he stead­ied his re­solve. “What was your mother’s name be­fore she mar­ried your father?”

Mat­thias frowned. “Penelope.”

“Penelope
Fair­fax
,” the child sup­plied.

Mat­thias jerked in sur­prise, grow­ing in­tensely un­easy. “How did you know that?”

The boy ig­nored the ques­tion. “Is she still alive?”

Mat­thias shook his head. “No, she died in child­birth.”

The boy sighed. “Of course. They can’t birth a dragon without the help of a priest.”

Mat­thias snorted, his an­ger rising in a vir­u­lent, as­cend­ing wave. “That’s im­possible!” he in­sisted, wholly un­con­cerned that the child was shuff­ling away. “I am
not
a dragon. As you have already poin­ted out, I am twenty sum­mers old. I think I would know if I grew scales and breathed fire.” He in­stinct­ively glanced over his shoulder to check on the king and the loom­ing beast he was be­com­ing. The dragon’s scales were now fully formed, and the king’s spine had morphed into a tail—but for all in­tents and pur­poses, King De­mitri seemed to be lost in a trance, co­cooned in slum­ber, sus­pen­ded in an un­con­scious state, al­though he still writhed in un­speak­able pain.

As if em­boldened by the vis­age of King De­metri, firmly en­sconced in a preter­nat­ural shell, the squire found his cour­age. He raised his chin and puffed out his chest, com­mand­ing Mat­thias’s at­ten­tion. “An­cient Lords of the Sky, Volume Five, Scroll Three:
And the dragons could only be­get sons from the wombs of the sac­red, and those sons could only be­come fully an­im­ated beasts over time, as the fire cured and ripened through the ages. But the sac­red powers that made them im­mor­tal; these were gif­ted from father to son at birth, passed down through the dragon’s saliva through the tak­ing of blood and heat. The kiss of a dragon father awakens an im­mor­tal son
.”

Mat­thias shif­ted un­eas­ily, bra­cing his palms against the ground.
The powers were passed down through saliva, from father to son, through the tak­ing of blood and heat
. He twis­ted back around in or­der to sur­vey the hor­rendous, bloody throne room—
yet again
—and nearly re­coiled at what he saw be­neath the ob­vi­ous, outer carnage: King De­mitri has shared his saliva with each and every vic­tim. He had taken their es­sence, their blood, and their heat. Yet Mat­thias was the only one who had sur­vived…who had some­how arisen from the dead.

He shook his head like a ra­bid dog, en­raged by the very im­plic­a­tion.

No!

It simply wasn’t true.

Penelope Fair­fax was not a Sk­la­vos Ahavi whom his father had mis­taken for a com­mon maiden. She had not been the mis­tress—or the vic­tim—of the king.

His father would have known.

Penelope would have told him.

Mat­thias’s mother—
bless her eternal soul
—was a mere mor­tal, a com­moner, a fra­gile, un­for­tu­nate wo­man who had died in the prime of her life, un­able to bring Mat­thias into the world be­cause…
be­cause
…

Be­cause
why?

As an in­ex­plic­able panic swelled in­side him, Mat­thias spun around to face the squire with barely con­cealed rage. “Don’t you ever speak those words again,
not to any­one
, and es­pe­cially not to me! Ru­mors be­long in tav­erns, sung by min­strels, or in the com­pany of five-year-old girls as they play with their little dolls, not in the ser­i­ous dis­cus­sions that take place among men.” His voice grew in pro­por­tion to his angst. “I am Mat­thias Gentry, son of Cal­lum Gentry, a black­smith and a farmer, and Penelope Fair­fax was my father’s first and only love. My
hu­man
mother.” He stood up ab­ruptly, sidestepped around the squire to reach for the door, and snatched the handle with a trem­bling fist. “I do not know why
or how
I sur­vived this bloody mas­sacre, but for whatever reason,
I did
. And now? I am free.” He wrenched at the large or­nate handle, and the whole of the iron broke loose from the door be­fore crum­bling in­side his palm. “Bloody hell!” he cursed, slam­ming his fist into the panel. As the thick, sturdy oak ex­ploded upon im­pact, splin­ter­ing into a dozen frac­tured pieces, a con­ical or­ange flame shot from Mat­thias’s mouth and singed the re­main­ing lay­ers of for­ti­fic­a­tion, leav­ing a charred hole in the cen­ter of the door.

Thomas stood slowly, cower­ing be­side Mat­thias. He stared up into the male’s angry eyes and poin­ted at the scorched, miss­ing circle. Tak­ing a cau­tious step for­ward, he gently shoved at what re­mained of the door and pushed it open. “I agree: You need to get out of here. But first, I think you need to see the hid­den page for your­self, and then maybe, just maybe, you should read a little bit more about dragons…and find a Blood Ahavi. There are a couple we can trust.”

Mat­thias frowned, still reel­ing from what had just happened. “Wh…
why
…a Blood Ahavi?”

Thomas squared his shoulders and planted his feet, re­gard­ing Mat­thias gravely. “Be­cause you need to
feed
be­fore you hurt someone.”

CHAPTER SEV­EN­TEEN

Dra­cos Cove

M
ina leaned against
a thick sec­tional tent-post at the rear of the large pro­vi­sional shel­ter and bur­rowed her bare feet deep into the sands of the beach, of­fer­ing a heart­felt prayer of thanks to the god­dess of mercy: The tent of Um­bras was about one mile east of Dra­cos Cove, and Mina was more grate­ful than words could ex­press that Damian had chosen to meet with his sol­diers im­me­di­ately upon ar­riv­ing at the bar­racks. In fact, she could have fallen to her knees and wept with grat­it­ude at the mere fact that she was fi­nally—well, mostly—alone.

She stared bey­ond the heavy regal can­opy out at the bust­ling en­camp­ment—with all its scur­ry­ing sol­diers, nervous horses, and crudely erec­ted tents—and en­deavored to fix her gaze on the dark blue wa­ters of the north­ern sea. In­deed, it was as rest­less as the camp. She dug her toes into the sand, rev­el­ing in the feel of the soft, warm gran­ules as they tickled the heel of her foot, and she sighed.

She couldn’t be­lieve she was here.

Stand­ing at the back of an enorm­ous, ma­gis­terial tent, be­neath the flag of Castle Um­bras.

As a child, her dreams had been so simple, her de­sires so easy to define: She had loved to plant tulips in the fall and await their col­or­ful blooms in early spring; she had en­vi­sioned get­ting mar­ried one day, per­haps to Mat­thias Gentry, and filling the chapel with the same lovely flowers that grew in the garden. She had ima­gined a fam­ily and a simple life, and she had cher­ished her life in Arns with her fam­ily. It all seemed like a life­time ago—just a fanci­ful child­hood story in the pages of an eph­em­eral book—a fleet­ing castle built in the sand, washed away by a tide of in­dif­fer­ence, by all the cold, lonely years lived at the Keep.

She ab­sently smoothed her skirts as she brought her at­ten­tion back to the present, swal­lowed the bit­ter pill of her new real­ity, and sur­veyed the up­heaval be­fore her.

Here she
was…

Sur­roun­ded by shadow-walk­ers and Um­brasian sol­diers, su­per­nat­ural ser­vants of the Realm, who aver­ted their eyes when she passed by, gen­u­flec­ted when they spoke, and pre­ten­ded as if her role was some­thing sac­red. If she didn’t know bet­ter, she would al­most feel like roy­alty, someone of great im­port­ance and stature.

Oh, but she knew
bet­ter.

Damian had made her true po­s­i­tion crys­tal clear.

In truth, each and every fighter on the beach was loyal to Prince Damian—and Prince Damian, alone. Their only job was to serve their mas­ter, and if their mas­ter in­cluded his new Sk­la­vos Ahavi in that ob­lig­a­tion, then so be it. But make no mis­take; they would slay her where she stood if the prince com­manded it.

Dis­miss­ing the mor­bid thought, Mina spun around to nod at a maid­ser­vant who had been hov­er­ing be­hind her for the last ten minutes, gawk­ing at Mina like she held the secrets of the uni­verse in her eyes, Mina forced a con­genial smile. “Daugh­ter, would you mind giv­ing me a little space?” The fa­milial term meant
daugh­ter of the
Realm
.

The ser­vant girl curt­sied, caus­ing her light brown ring­lets to bounce, and took two in­sig­ni­fic­ant steps back, bow­ing her head in sup­plic­a­tion.

Mina bit her tongue—that wasn’t ex­actly what she meant. Shak­ing her head in frus­tra­tion, she tried to ig­nore the ser­vant girl’s pres­ence as she bustled around the room, un­packed sev­eral items from her trunk, and placed them in a heavy ar­m­oire. It was mind­less work and a
stu­pid
ne­ces­sity—the fact that so many ac­cessor­ies had been brought to the beach and stored in the tent, just a mile away from a bloody battle.

Just the same, she could use the dis­trac­tion.

She needed a mo­ment to think.

Mina was try­ing des­per­ately to hold it all to­gether. She wanted to take each and every hor­rific event, all the mad­ness from the last twelve hours, and lock it away some­where safe in her mind. She could al­ways re­trieve the de­tails later, when she was bet­ter equipped to look at it…to think about it…to
feel it
.

Her stom­ach clenched as her mind failed to obey her dir­ect­ive, as thoughts of Mat­thias and his hideous death stole into her con­scious­ness like a thief in the night: the fact that he had been sac­ri­ficed to such an evil, bar­baric king, the fact that he had ex­pired in such a bru­tal, grue­some way, the fact that he had been cap­tured while try­ing to bring news of Raylea…to Mina.

Bit­ter tears stung Mina’s eyes as she fol­ded sev­eral use­less sec­tions of linen, slips to ad­orn Damian’s pil­lows, into neat little squares and struggled not to ima­gine what the king had done to Mat­thias. It was too grue­some to con­tem­plate, too ter­rible to en­vi­sion. Yet and still, the pain of it gnawed at her gut, and she knew she could not live with the out­come. Some­how—
some­way
—she had to res­cue Raylea. Mat­thias could not die in vain.

Mina shivered and quickly donned a cloak to stave off the chill. She had no idea how to find Raylea, let alone how to stage a res­cue and bring her back home, es­pe­cially with Damian Dragona stand­ing watch as her new gate­keeper.

Heck, she didn’t even know if she would live to see the sun­rise.

Flash­ing back to ten o’clock that morn­ing, she tried to re­call every single de­tail of Mat­thias’s news, to put all the jumbled pieces to­gether in her mind. She en­vi­sioned the dia­gram he had sketched in the dirt and re­hashed the vari­ous par­tic­u­lars: So Mar­gareta and Raylea had been at­tacked in Forest Dragon, near Devil’s Bend, more than likely by a band of rov­ing slave-traders. The slavers were led by Ra­fael Bishop, the War­lo­chian high mage, and they would have taken Raylea to some sort of hold­ing sta­tion, per­haps for a couple of days, be­fore trav­el­ing west to the shadow lands—
to Um­bras
—to sell her to a
shade
. That meant Raylea was be­ing held in Damian’s di­vi­sion of the Realm. She was be­ing held in Mina’s new ter­rit­ory.

The Sk­la­vos Ahavi clenched and un­clenched her fists as her de­term­in­a­tion grew. A snow-white owl, perched on a nearby post, hooted three times and turned its head in her dir­ec­tion—a sig­ni­fic­ant omen to be sure—but what did it mean? Were the hoots in­dic­at­ive of three ma­jor events: Raylea’s cap­ture, Mat­thias’s im­pris­on­ment, and Mina’s en­su­ing mis­for­tune, be­ing given to Damian as his slave? Or did it refer to the fu­ture: three days, three months…three years?

She sighed, hav­ing no way of dis­cern­ing the mean­ing.

She did not pos­sess the gift of sight.

“Mis­tress Ahavi.” The voice of the maid­ser­vant, meek and un­cer­tain, drew Mina away from her con­tem­pla­tion. The girl cleared her throat, wrung her hands to­gether nervously, and clutched at her skirts un­til her knuckles turned white.

“Dear lords,” Mina ob­served. “What is it?”

The maid licked her lips. “Um, I…for­give me for in­ter­rupt­ing your
space
, but I was won­der­ing…well, I was hop­ing…” Her voice trailed off.

Mina re­laxed her shoulders, try­ing to ap­pear less in­tim­id­at­ing. “Yes?”

The girl tugged at her skirts again.

“You’re go­ing to worry the thread right out of that fab­ric if you’re not care­ful,” Mina said, try­ing to re­lax her. “Please, just take a breath and say what you have to say. I don’t bite.” Con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent situ­ation, the fact that they were both stand­ing in the bed­cham­ber of an im­mor­tal dragon prince, it was prob­ably the wrong thing to say.

Non­ethe­less, the maid curt­sied with ap­pre­ci­ation.

Great Nuri,
Mina thought,
she’s so nervous.

“Mis­tress Mina?”

Mina smiled. At least she was us­ing her name this time. “Yes,” she re­peated—once again—with in­or­din­ate pa­tience.

“May I”—the ser­vant looked away, her nervous­ness get­ting the best of her—“May I ask you for a fa­vor?”

Mina frowned. She was hardly in a po­s­i­tion to grant well-wishes, let alone fa­vors, to any­one, and she didn’t even know this girl. “What kind of fa­vor, child?” She crooked her fin­ger, bid­ding the girl to come closer, out of the shad­ows.

The maid re­claimed the two mea­ger steps she had sur­rendered when Mina had asked her for some space. “Just some­thing…um…I know it isn’t proper, but I was just hop­ing—”

“Out with it,” Mina said, hop­ing her voice did not re­flect her grow­ing sus­pi­cion.

The girl nod­ded briskly. “My older sis­ter, Anna; she traveled with the cara­van from the
com­mon­lands
to the en­camp­ment, and she’s stay­ing with other mem­bers of our clan. Would you…could you pos­sibly…would you be kind enough to hold her hand? Just for a mo­ment or two.” She rushed the last words.

Mina frowned in con­fu­sion:
Would she be kind enough to hold the wo­man’s hand?
She shook her head, dis­miss­ing the thought—first things first: “The cara­van? What do you mean?
What cara­van
? Why would com­mon­ers travel to this volat­ile, haz­ard­ous cove and place them­selves in such grave danger? For what pur­pose?”

The girl seemed to re­lax as if she were fi­nally faced with a series of ques­tions she could clearly an­swer, a sub­ject that didn’t make her squirm. “The cara­van of mer­chants and laborers, those who have traveled to the beach to sup­port the sol­diers, to feed them, at­tend to their wounds, build weapons and re­pair ap­par­atus, those who are here to sup­port the armies and serve the king.”

Mina nod­ded.
Of course.
War was more than a clash of two op­pos­ing forces on a par­tic­u­lar bat­tle­field. It was a multi-spiked wheel, a bur­geon­ing en­ter­prise, and it re­quired the ef­forts of many to keep the wheel turn­ing, not just the her­oes and war­ri­ors who fought on the front lines. “Are there cara­vans from all the provinces?”

“Yes, mis­tress,” she answered quickly. “All have some­thing to con­trib­ute.”

Mina bit her bot­tom lip, deep in thought. “I see. And so your sis­ter—
Anna
—she is part of the con­voy from the
com­mon­lands
? What does that have to do with me? And why would she wish to hold my hand?”

The girl shif­ted her weight nervously from foot to foot be­fore twirl­ing a lock of her light brown hair into what was surely to turn into a knot.

“Please,” Mina en­cour­aged, “speak freely. You don’t have to be afraid. I would never harm you in any way.”

The girl let out an anxious sigh, and then she raised her chin. “My sis­ter Anna has been wed for seven years now to a won­der­ful man, a shoe­maker named Jar­ett, and he treats her so very well. But…” Her eyes clouded with tears. “She has suffered five hor­rible mis­car­riages, and the last one al­most took her life. Ac­cord­ing to the mid­wives, there is no help for it, noth­ing they can do. The only cure for her mal­ady is to hold the hand of a sac­red, of a Sk­la­vos Ahavi.” She gen­u­flec­ted with her hands. “I know it’s im­proper—and I really shouldn’t ask—but we just can’t bear to see Anna suf­fer again, and we cer­tainly can’t bear to lose her. You see; she’s preg­nant again.”

Mina’s heart went out to the poor girl and her fam­ily. She knew all too well what it felt like to nearly lose a sis­ter—wasn’t that why she was will­ing to risk her own life and well-be­ing in or­der to search for Raylea? Al­though she had no per­sonal be­lief in the an­cient su­per­sti­tion, she un­der­stood the power of
be­lief
. She smiled softly. “What is your name?”

“Ja­cine.”

“Even if I was will­ing, Ja­cine, you do un­der­stand that it is for­bid­den for me to in­ter­act with any of my lord’s sub­jects, un­less he is present, don’t you? Out­side of our private guards and my per­sonal ser­vants—” She cleared her throat and crossed her hands neatly over her skirts to dis­guise her fear. “—the prince would be dis­pleased.” She didn’t say what she really thought:
And when Prince Damian is dis­pleased, bones get crushed, vir­tue gets taken, and lives no longer have any value. He’s a
mon­ster.

The look of in­stant dis­ap­point­ment and heart­felt des­per­a­tion that swept over the girl’s face made Mina want to cringe. Ja­cine nod­ded slowly and swiped at a tear. “I un­der­stand,” she mur­mured sadly. “It was a lot for me to ask.”

No
, Mina thought,
it was brave and kind…and com­pas­sion­ate.

She was just about to fol­low up, per­haps of­fer some words of en­cour­age­ment, of­fer to say a prayer on Anna’s be­half, when three Um­brasian guards sauntered by, about five yards from the rear of the tent.

“Sir Robert Cross is here at the en­camp­ment.” One of them spoke to the oth­ers in gut­tural, in­formal Um­brasian. “He brought the latest…catch.”

“One of Ra­fael Bishop’s girls? A slave or a pros­ti­tute?”

The crude, stocky guard, the one who had spoken first, cupped his groin and cackled, cast­ing a side­long glance at Mina and her maid­ser­vant. “A fif­teen-year-old slave, not as fancy as that one, but fresh from the mar­ket.”

They all laughed in uni­son, feel­ing ut­terly con­fid­ent that their words were un­in­tel­li­gible, that neither Mina nor her lowly maid­ser­vant could un­der­stand a single word they were say­ing. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Mina spoke per­fect Um­brasian in all of its bas­tard forms.

“How much for a vir­gin?” the third sen­try, who was miss­ing half his front teeth, asked.

Mina’s ears perked up: So Ra­fael hired his mer­cen­ar­ies to catch them, vari­ous War­lo­chi­ans prob­ably hid them, and Sir Robert Cross sold them—that was im­port­ant in­form­a­tion.
And Ra­fael was here, close to the Dra­cos Cove
camp.

“De­pends on whether you want to use or to buy,” the first guard answered.

“I heard he sold a ten-year-old vir­gin from a
com­mon­lands
’ farm to Syr­ileus Cain, just a few weeks back, for a full fif­teen cop­pers. If the un­touched babes garner fif­teen, she’ll prob­ably go for ten.” The thick­set guard raised his eye­brows in ap­pre­ci­ation, and Mina bit back a re­flex­ive gag, keep­ing her eyes fixed ahead: She pre­ten­ded to stare at the ocean. She pre­ten­ded to be ut­terly ob­li­vi­ous to the vile con­ver­sa­tion.