Dragons Realm (28 page)

The trunk split open, splintered into a dozen pieces, and littered the room with shards.

Damian cata­pul­ted to his feet and brushed the dust away. “Well done,” he drawled las­ci­vi­ously, seem­ing al­most aroused by the game. “I’m im­pressed with your lin­eage,
dragon
; at least you have a heart. How­ever, you are in­sane to think you are my equal, when you are yet a pi­ti­ful neo­phyte. Alas, it is time to end this silly duel.”

Just like that, Damian Dragona un­leashed the full fury of his wrath—the full powers of hell—call­ing on his feral beast for su­prem­acy, draw­ing on his blackened soul: A pair of enorm­ous webbed wings punched out of his back, and he flew at Mat­thias like a de­mon pos­sessed, en­gulfed in a ring of fire. He latched onto Mat­thias with both sets of claws, mak­ing full use of his talons, his teeth, and his speed. He ripped at the fledgling’s skin and tore at his muscles like a bird mak­ing sport of a worm. He un­du­lated, coiled, and struck in pre­cise ser­pent­ine mo­tions, draw­ing upon
dec­ades and dec­ades
of train­ing as he sliced, punc­tured, and with­drew. In a mat­ter of seconds, Mat­thias was ly­ing at Damian’s feet—blood­ied, battered, and broken—nearly life­less on the floor.

His left arm was frac­tured in three vis­ible places. His right leg was propped against a chair—on the other side of the room. And his in­test­ines were spill­ing out of his stom­ach, the flu­ids, guts, and tis­sue ooz­ing onto the bloody floor in a gory pile of mush.

Mina cried out in an­guish; bit­ter tears of sor­row streamed from her eyes; and her heart broke with re­gret. Mat­thias was moan­ing in agony, and the tor­ture was not over yet…

Damian bent over his torn, ruined torso, thumped Mat­thias on the chest, and carved a deep, cir­cu­lar gash into his flesh, over his heart. “Not yet, baby dragon.” He spat the words with de­ri­sion. “You don’t get to leave us…quite yet.” He turned to Mina and bran­dished his blood­stained claws in a clear and im­pli­cit threat. “This is the
same
male who ap­proached you in the gar­dens, the
same
male who I had thrown into the dun­geons, the
same
male that my father should have eaten! So I will ask you more spe­cific­ally this time: What is his name? And what do you know of his lin­eage?”

Mina shivered, un­able to find her voice, and Damian swelled up with rage.

“An­swer me, witch! Or so help me gods…” He booted a heavy clay pot across the room, hurl­ing it into the ar­m­oire, and the col­li­sion shattered the huge wooden bur­eau, break­ing it into a thou­sand use­less pieces. “I am no longer play­ing games with you, Mina!
This bas­tard is a dragon
.” He paused to catch his breath and lower his voice. “Tak­ing Dante’s un­born child from your womb is one mat­ter, but
you,
con­tinu­ing to defy me, will not be tol­er­ated an in­stant longer.” He ground his teeth to­gether in fury. “I swear to you on my mother’s grave, if you do not an­swer me now—
truth­fully
—you will pray for death, but it will not come. You will curse the day your mother gave you life, and I will make your en­tire clan pay dearly. Yes, Mina, I will wipe your fam­ily from the face of this earth. Now an­swer me!”

Mina dug her nails into the sides of her arms, try­ing to gain con­trol of her fear. She struggled to think, so she could an­swer,
to simply think
, clearly enough to speak. “His name is Mat­thias Gentry. He was…is…he’s the son of Cal­lum Gentry and…and…and—”

She couldn’t think of the wo­man’s name!

Who was
she?

His birth mother?

The one…the girl…at the castle!

What was the name of the
slave?

“The son of Cal­lum and whom!” Damian roared.

Mina bit her lip un­til she drew her own blood and tried even harder to con­cen­trate.
“Cal­lum and Penelope Fair­fax,”
she fi­nally ex­haled, breath­ing the words in a rush. Her palms grew sweaty, and her stom­ach roiled from panic. Dear gods, she was go­ing to vomit.
No!
she told her­self, vehe­mently.
Not right now.
It will only push him over the edge.

She pressed her hands, flat and hard, against her belly and cast her eyes to the ground. She had no doubt, what­so­ever, that Damian Dragona could in­vent a life­time of tor­ture bey­ond any­thing she could ima­gine, bey­ond any­thing she could bear. Her tongue snaked out to wet her bot­tom lip, and she trembled. “Your father…my king…he had an Ahavi…um, a mis­tress…he…he…he kept her in the castle…at the castle. The priest didn’t think she was Sk­la­vos, but Wavani did…and she had to have been be­cause…the serum…well, the king—”

“Shut up, Mina.”

Mina gulped.

“I get the pic­ture.” He ran a tense hand through his hair and began to pace around the room, and then he stopped ab­ruptly and flicked his wrist to­ward Mat­thias. “Who was this boy to you, and how long have you known him?”

Mina clutched her hair in her fists and tugged at the roots, as if she could some­how pull the in­form­a­tion from her head or make her thoughts flow more freely with the ges­ture. “We grew up to­gether in the south­ern dis­trict of Arns. He was my friend.” She choked on the last two words, try­ing des­per­ately to avoid the mean­ing be­hind them—she couldn’t bear to think of Mat­thias Gentry as a child, of the two of them grow­ing up as neigh­bors on nearby farms. She couldn’t bear to listen, not for an­other tor­tured second, to his wretched, tor­men­ted moans: He was chok­ing on his own blood, writh­ing in un­speak­able pain, dy­ing on the floor less than ten feet away from her, but his dragon’s-blood would not al­low him to per­ish. And she was help­less to come to his aid. “Please,” she fi­nally whispered, know­ing she took her life in her hands. “Just kill him.” She blinked sev­eral times, try­ing to steady her re­solve, draw­ing cour­age from her child­hood com­pan­ion’s un­bear­able suf­fer­ing. “Please, Prince Damian…I’m beg­ging you, mi­lord…have mercy, and put him out of his misery.”

A spark of sat­is­fac­tion glittered in Damian’s eyes, and his feral-red ir­ises re­ceded to dark brown. He re­laxed his jaw, just a tad, as if he might con­sider her re­quest. “How long have you known that he was a dragon, that he was my half-brother?”

Mina cleared her throat. The fact that Damian had used the word
was
rather than
is
was not lost on her. Mat­thias was as good as dead. The only ques­tion, now, was whether or not Damian would pro­long his un­speak­able suf­fer­ing. “I’ve known since early this morn­ing, per­haps fif­teen or six­teen hours, my prince,” she said softly.

“Does Dante know?”

Mina was sur­prised by the ques­tion. “No. Not that I know of.”

Damian nod­ded. “Does my father know?”

Mina shook her head. “Not that I know of, my prince.”

Damian fur­rowed his brow. “I see. Who else knows?”

Mina began to weep openly.
Oh gods, this was im­possible.
“No one,” she lied.

Damian grunted, know­ingly. He walked over to Mat­thias, raised a bare foot, and stomped down on his pel­vis, crush­ing the sac­rum be­neath his heel. As Mat­thias howled in pain, Damian turned back to Mina. “Who else knows?”

Mina would have gladly gone to her grave keep­ing Thomas the squire’s secret, but the truth of the mat­ter was this: It wasn’t a secret that could be kept. Damian Dragona could ex­tract the in­form­a­tion from her mind at any time he chose. He was only ask­ing her to force her obed­i­ence. He was only go­ing through the mo­tions be­cause he wanted to watch her squirm. And maybe, just maybe—
lord of the Eternal Realm, be mer­ci­ful
—he was ac­tu­ally con­sid­er­ing put­ting Mat­thias out of his des­pair. “The squire knows.”

Damian smirked. “Which one?”

“Thomas.”

He let out a hol­low chuckle. “Why doesn’t that sur­prise me?” And then he frowned. “Lie back on the bed, Mina.”

Mina re­coiled. “Ex­cuse me?”

He held up his right hand, dis­played all five deadly claws, and hardened his tone. “We don’t need the dag­ger. Lie back on the bed. Be as still as you can while I re­move that child, and I will heal you straight­away when I am through.” He glanced at Mat­thias, still writh­ing on the floor. “And I will even send my
brother
to the af­ter­life as your re­ward.” He stepped for­ward and frowned. “But res­ist me, and you will both be eager to sell your souls to the Keeper of the For­got­ten Realm in ex­change for a mere hint of the
tem­por­ary
suf­fer­ing I of­fer you now—
such
will be the depth of your suf­fer­ing.”

Mina felt her
soul
re­cede in her tem­poral body.

It was as if time sud­denly stood still; sights and sounds in­tens­i­fied; and she could
feel
her own heart rising, fall­ing, and beat­ing in her chest. The en­tire mo­ment was sur­real, the haze of dreams and the sludge of night­mares, and she knew she had no choice: She be­longed to a devil, per­haps the Keeper of the For­got­ten Realm him­self, and one way or an­other, he would have his re­venge. He would take his due.

Fix­ing her eyes on a dis­tant point across the room, Mina lay back on the bed. Be­fore Damian could in­sist or in­struct her, she moved her left ankle to one side of the mat­tress, her right ankle to the other, and grasped the cov­er­let in two clenched fists. Ig­nor­ing the help­less tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes, she drew a deep, ragged breath and waited, re­fus­ing to think of the child.

Damian ap­proached the bed lan­guidly. He sauntered to the edge of the mat­tress, his gaze fixed on hers, and crawled like the an­imal he was; un­til, at last, he knelt between her legs and lowered his wicked hand.

She held her breath, shiv­er­ing, but she re­fused to whim­per or beg. She could only pray that he would get it over with quickly—per­haps he would use his preter­nat­ural speed. Either way, she would simply hold her breath and stare into the corner.

“Look at me,” he com­manded, and her heart sank in her chest.

The
bas­tard.

By all that was holy, she would kill him one day if it was the last thing she ever did.

She never got the chance.

The evil prince’s head jerked on his neck, toppled onto his shoulders, and then tumbled onto the bed, no longer at­tached to his body.

Chapter Twenty-six

D
ante Dragona shimmered
into view, lowered his sword, and placed it back in its scab­bard. He didn’t even bother to wash off the blood.

His brother’s blood.

He had just com­mit­ted the worst be­trayal—and treason— ima­gin­able.

As an­guish, guilt, and re­lief washed over him in turns, each one tak­ing a strangle­hold on his break­ing dragon’s heart, he fought to keep them at bay.

To do what he must.

“Agui­lon,” he said in an ice-cold tone. “Is your spell ready?”

One of only seven mem­bers of the War­lock’s Coun­cil on Su­preme Ma­gic and Mys­tical Prac­tices, a sor­cerer whose skill was sur­passed only by that of the high mage of War­lo­chia, stepped for­ward at his prince’s be­hest and bowed his head in de­fer­ence. “Yes, mi­lord.” His face was a mask of stunned dis­be­lief, but he stripped all emo­tion from his voice.

Dante nod­ded. He waved his hand in an im­per­ial ges­ture and turned his at­ten­tion back to the bed. “Mina, get up and get dressed.” He didn’t ex­press any feel­ings as the Sk­la­vos Ahavi, the fe­male who was car­ry­ing his off­spring, scrambled from the bed, wrapped her na­ked torso in a sheet, and dug through the broken pieces of the ar­m­oire, try­ing to find a dress. “Thomas…” He spoke now to the squire, who had been wait­ing in the wings, hov­er­ing in the shad­ows, through­out the en­tire bru­tal scene.

The squire stepped for­ward war­ily. “My prince?”

“Is the soul-eater here?”

“Yes.”

“Bring him in.”

Thomas scur­ried to the rear of the tent, pulled back the flap, and stepped to the side as a tall, in­tim­id­at­ing male ducked be­neath the folds and entered the room. He was clearly a
shade
, and by the deeply etched lines in his brow and the pale sil­ver cast of his hair, there was no ques­tion that he was an elder, an an­cient, cap­able of stun­ning and power­ful feats. “Your name?” Dante in­quired, no­ti­cing how washed out the male looked at night.

“My prince,” the shadow replied, “I am called Elzeron Gris­wold. I am a res­id­ent of the lower province of Um­bras, your ever-faith­ful stew­ard, and it is my honor to serve you this night.”

Dante knew that the lat­ter half of the state­ment was bull­shit—shad­ows were ar­rog­ant, in­de­pend­ent, and de­fi­ant down to their vile, car­ni­vor­ous souls—but they weren’t stu­pid, and they pre­ferred to live as long as they could. The
shade
would do as he was bid. “We don’t have much time,” Dante said dis­pas­sion­ately, point­ing at Mat­thias’s body, still stunned by the rev­el­a­tion. “He is a dragon, so his soul will not leave his body or re­turn to his an­cest­ors un­til his flesh has been burned, but it will only re­main vi­able for a time.” He turned to­ward the bed and with cal­loused in­dif­fer­ence sauntered over to Damian’s body, hef­ted his torso in one hand, his head in the other, and car­ried both, like two sacks of grain, to the floor.

He dropped his brother’s re­mains be­side Mat­thias, and then he po­si­tioned Damian’s head on his shoulders and sealed the two sec­tions of the corpse back to­gether us­ing a power­ful stream of blue fire, all the while, fight­ing migh­tily not to stag­ger…or vomit.

Not in front of his sub­jects.

Not in front of Mina Louvet.

What was done was done, and what was yet to come was ab­so­lutely ne­ces­sary: a form of eternal re­tri­bu­tion, an act of un­for­giv­able sedi­tion, but a re­quired deed just the same. It was a sol­emn and in­ev­it­able duty.

This
was for the
Realm.

Damian had plot­ted with the dragons’ mor­tal en­emies—
the Lycani­ans
—be­hind their father’s back. He had sent faith­ful and loyal sub­jects to their need­less, grue­some deaths in an or­ches­trated battle with the shifters, and he hadn’t even con­sidered what would have happened to the Realm had his ne­far­i­ous plan some­how failed—had the Lycans breached the beach and made their way to the vil­lages.

And for what?

All to win fa­vor with Thaon Percy, a jeal­ous nar­ciss­ist who wanted his brother’s throne?

All to el­ev­ate his own sta­tion so he might one day over­throw the king?

Damian had maimed and raped and murdered one too many in­no­cent souls. And the life that grew in Mina’s womb was the fi­nal straw, the ul­ti­mate cata­lyst that had tipped the scales of justice.

Still, Dante Dragona had not ac­ted out of ven­geance or spite—or even un­bridled emo­tion—he had ac­ted out of wis­dom, strategy, and duty.

He had ac­ted out of ne­ces­sity.

He turned to re­gard the suf­fer­ing male, still groan­ing in misery on the floor, and knelt down be­side him, want­ing to
see
who he truly was, need­ing to
sense
his life force—this stranger who shared his blood. “Dear gods,” he mumbled be­neath his breath. The hu­man—
no, the dragon
—was bey­ond dis­figured and torn. He was vir­tu­ally evis­cer­ated, nearly bey­ond re­pair.

And it didn’t mat­ter any­way—that was not why Dante had come.

The prince bent to his ear. “Brother, be strong. Know that your suf­fer­ing will soon be over, and then all will be as it should.” In a rare and tender act of em­pathy—or con­tri­tion—he pressed a soft, fa­milial kiss against the young man’s fore­head, and then he stead­ied his re­solve. Turn­ing to re­gard the shadow-walker, he spoke in a clear and im­per­i­ous tone: “Soul-eater: As I ex­tin­guish this young one’s life, once and for all, you must de­vour his soul. In­hale it. In­gest it. But do
not
ab­sorb it. It is not yours to keep.” He ro­tated at the waist and ges­tured to­ward Damian’s corpse. “Rather, you will place it into the prince’s body im­me­di­ately, ex­pelling each and every vi­tal particle into this car­cass, un­til the skel­eton is re­an­im­ated and the heart is alive and beat­ing.” He glared at the war­lock next, mak­ing it abund­antly clear that his words were an ir­re­fut­able com­mand. “And you will use your con­sid­er­able ma­gic to con­jure a re­sur­rec­tion spell—you
will
bring the prince of Um­bras back to life.” He didn’t bother to tell them that he would either have to scrub their memor­ies so com­pletely that they went through the rest of their lives as sim­pletons, barely able to func­tion, or he would have to kill them.

They could not be al­lowed to carry this secret.

It would be far, far too dan­ger­ous.

Be­fore the war­lock or the
shade
could reply, Mina Louvet rushed to Dante’s side, wrest­ing his at­ten­tion from his mor­bid thoughts. She placed a trem­bling but gentle hand on his shoulder, and her fin­gers quivered in alarm. “My prince,” she whispered, her voice tinged with unadul­ter­ated awe. “You mean to re­sur­rect Damian?”

Dante shook his head. “No, Ahavi. Not Damian. I mean to re­sur­rect Mat­thias…in Damian’s body.”

The scale of the de­cep­tion was simply in­con­ceiv­able.

Mina blanched. She let go of his shoulder, dropped down be­side him, and ex­ten­ded her hand, as if to stroke his jaw, stop­ping just short of ac­tu­ally touch­ing him. She earn­estly be­seeched his gaze. “For­give me,” she whispered, her voice thick with hu­mil­ity and re­spect, “but why not heal Mat­thias, ex­actly as he is? Can you not save his im­mor­tal body? He is a dragon, after all.”

Dante’s lips turned down in a frown. “Oh, Mina—we are still be­holden to the Realm.
Al­ways
be­holden to the Realm. We are still my father’s sub­jects. We can­not des­troy his middle son and ex­pect to walk away un­scathed.” He nar­rowed his eyes in an all-per­vad­ing glance, and met her des­per­ate pas­sion with his own. “And you must know that I do not do this for you. I would not be­tray my lin­eage and my ob­lig­a­tions to the Realm for my own selfish gain.” He reached out to brush the backs of his fin­gers against her quak­ing belly. “Not even for the life of my child.” He closed his eyes, if only for a mo­ment, and it felt as if the weight of the en­tire world was rest­ing on his shoulders. When he re­opened them, he was even more cer­tain than be­fore. “I do this be­cause Damian’s heart is ir­re­triev­ably black, be­cause his soul is tain­ted and he can no longer lead our people with the wis­dom of a prince. I do this be­cause his many dec­ades of train­ing and his su­per­ior acu­men—as both a dragon and a prince—are far too valu­able, far too honed, far too ir­re­place­able to simply aban­don…to sur­render in death. The Realm needs Damian’s cour­age and his dragon’s strength. It needs his keen in­tel­li­gence and his in­nu­mer­able skills, as much as it ever has; but it can no longer sus­tain his in­solence, his selfish­ness, or his cor­rup­tion. I do this be­cause we need Damian’s su­prem­acy, tempered by Mat­thias’s soul. We need my brother’s power, his sov­er­eign abil­ity to rule, and my half-brother’s in­teg­rity, his tran­scend­ent abil­ity to reason. And we need it
all
in a body that my father will re­cog­nize as his own be­loved ped­i­gree: the child he has raised for nearly one hun­dred fifty years.”

As if she un­der­stood that any ar­gu­ment would be fu­tile, Mina looked away. She gathered her cour­age and placed her hands in her lap. “Whose memor­ies will he have?”

Dante smiled then, al­beit faintly, en­cour­aged by the bril­liance of his plan. “He will have both. His con­scious­ness will be­long to Mat­thias, for that is the ori­gin of his soul. He will see through Mat­thias’s eyes and think as Mat­thias thinks—for all in­tents and pur­poses, he will
be
Mat­thias Gentry, but he will wear Damian’s skin, he will bear Damian’s name, and he will know
all
that Damian knows in terms of memor­ies and skill. He will speak War­lo­chian, Um­brasian, and the com­mon tongue, and he will wield both sword and dragon like a maes­tro. True, it will be an enorm­ous ad­just­ment for a hu­man from the
com­mon­lands
—a
dragon
from the
com­mon­lands
—yet there will be no learn­ing curve in terms of Damian’s know­ledge and mil­it­ary prowess. Mat­thias will know what Damian knows. He will know how to please and ap­pease our father.”

Mina shuddered be­fore she nod­ded, as if she were enu­mer­at­ing all of Damian’s hideous crimes, his cow­ardly acts of bru­tal­ity. Mat­thias would awaken, in­tim­ately bound to both light and dark­ness, in a body made strong through cruelty.

He would live with Damian’s memor­ies forever.

Still, to her credit, Mina nod­ded her head and shuffled back, mov­ing out of Dante’s way, and in this fate­ful, life-al­ter­ing mo­ment, the prince ap­pre­ci­ated her obed­i­ence more than she would ever know.

With a crook of his fin­ger and a nod of his head, Dante ushered the shadow and the war­lock for­ward, and then he bent to Mat­thias’s throat and swiftly drained him of blood…

Of heat…

And of es­sence.

Slowly with­draw­ing his fangs, he turned to his loyal sub­jects and gave them a single com­mand: “
Be­gin
.”