Dragons Realm (8 page)

Good rid­dance to bad rub­bish.

CHAPTER SIX

Three days later

M
ina slipped out
of her bed­cham­ber and pad­ded down the steep ser­vants’ stair­case at the far end of the musty hall, clutch­ing a hand-drawn, rudi­ment­ary map in one hand and a dimly lit torch in the other. Ac­cord­ing to the map, she needed to fol­low the stair­case un­til she came to a forked land­ing and then turn left. At that point, she could fol­low the hall to­ward the rear of the castle and enter a fi­nal nar­row tun­nel that would take her all the way to the kit­chens.

Good grief, this was quite the maze
.

Just the same, she was de­term­ined to sneak into the gal­ley; re­trieve some wine, bread, and cheese; and make her way back to her room be­fore any of the castle’s oc­cu­pants no­ticed her ab­sence. She was edgy, she was rest­less, and she needed the ex­er­cise. So what the heck?

The day had been un­bear­ably long, and now that it was night, she couldn’t sleep.

She hadn’t seen Dante in at least three days—a fact for which she was grate­ful—and the idea of sit­ting by the win­dow and gaz­ing at the stars, snack­ing by lan­tern light, seemed calm­ing, if not en­tirely peace­ful, a mo­ment­ary dis­trac­tion from the in­cess­ant thoughts that rattled about in her head.

As she raised her pitch-covered torch and slowly made her way down the wind­ing stone steps, she thought she heard the faint mewl­ing of an an­imal, per­haps a cat or a stray puppy that had wandered into the castle. Whatever it was, it was com­ing from the bot­tom of the stair­case, and it made the hair stand up on her arms.

Mina moved for­ward with cau­tion, care­ful not to step on the hem of her robe. The last thing she needed was to trip and fall down the re­main­ing stairs. She was just about to place the ball of her foot on a par­tic­u­larly nar­row step when she thought she heard the sound again, only this time, it al­most soun­ded hu­man. She peeked cau­tiously around the corner, try­ing to identify the source, and she hur­ried down the re­main­ing steps.

And then she froze in sus­pen­ded hor­ror as her eyes struggled to fo­cus and her mind fought to com­pre­hend the hor­rific scene be­fore her: Ta­tiana Ward was ly­ing at the bot­tom of the stair­case, her body curled up into a pi­ti­ful little ball, her legs tucked tightly to her chest, al­most in a fetal po­s­i­tion; and her face was stained with rivu­lets of blood that trickled along the corners of her mouth. All the while, she emit­ted a coarse, drawn-out moan like the mewl­ing of an an­imal.

Mina gasped.

She anchored her torch in a nearby iron stand and hur­ried to her friend’s side, des­per­ate to help her, frantic to stop her moan­ing.

The Sk­la­vos Ahavi flinched at her ap­proach.

“Tati?” Mina called out, stoop­ing to get closer.
“Oh dear god­dess of mercy…”
She reached for the girl’s shoulders and im­me­di­ately drew back when Ta­tiana shrieked.

“Don’t touch me!” Ta­tiana cried, re­coil­ing from Mina’s touch.

Mina’s hand went in­stinct­ively to her own heart. “What’s wrong, Ta­tiana? Tell me what happened.” She glanced to­ward the top of the stair­case and cringed, ima­gin­ing her friend tak­ing a hor­rible fall down the steep, wind­ing pas­sage. “Did you fall, sweetie? How long have you been ly­ing here?”

Ta­tiana whimpered, but she didn’t an­swer.

In spite of the girl’s protests, Mina gripped Ta­tiana by the waist as gingerly as she could and gently turned her over, re­mov­ing her arms from her face.

Oh. Dear. Gods.

Ta­tiana’s face was a vir­tual waste­land, battered and bloody. Her left eye was prac­tic­ally swollen shut. Dark, crim­son blood seeped from the corners of her mouth, and there were harsh red welts in the shape of fin­gers striped about her nar­row throat. “What happened to you?” Mina re­peated, im­me­di­ately rip­ping a strip of cloth from her own night­gown in or­der to dot at the blood. She ran her hands over Ta­tiana’s arms, her stom­ach, and then her legs, try­ing to feel for ob­vi­ous in­jur­ies or broken bones. “Please, Tati,” she pleaded, “tell me what happened.” She was about to panic.

Ta­tiana winced in pain as she grabbed Mina by the arm. “Please, don’t touch me.”

Mina drew back as re­ques­ted. “
What happened to you?
” This time, her words were only a whis­per.

“The prince,” Ta­tiana whispered.

Mina’s brow fur­rowed in con­fu­sion, even as her heart sank with dread. “
What?
What do you mean,
the
prince
?”

“Damian.”

As if someone had just tossed her into a fri­gid lake, Mina felt her body stiffen, and the air rushed out of her lungs. “Prince Damian did this to you? Why? When?
Whatever for?
” Her mind was spin­ning with in­credu­lity.

Ta­tiana winced as Mina tried again to re­move the blood at the corners of her mouth, and then she met Mina’s eyes with a cool am­ber stare of her own. “It doesn’t mat­ter,” she mumbled. “There was no spe­cific reason.”

Mina was ut­terly dumb­struck.

Her thoughts were swirl­ing around in vi­ol­ent ed­dies of an­ger and fear, but she had to fo­cus. She had to stay groun­ded in the mo­ment.
She had to help Ta­tiana.
“I don’t un­der­stand,” she whispered.

Ta­tiana shivered. “The prince has been with me—or should I say, I have been with him—off and on for the last three days.” She thrust two fin­gers in­side her mouth and bit down against the tips to off­set the pain.

Mina rocked back on her heels and took a help­less seat on a cold stone stair. She didn’t want to ask any­thing else—she did
not
want to hear what was com­ing next—but she had to. How else could she help her friend? She rubbed her brow in anxi­ety. “What do you mean,
you have been with him for the last three
days
?”

Ta­tiana began to chew on her nails. “That first day, when Dante called you into the court­yard, Damian called me to his cham­bers to feed his dragon, and then he called me again on Monday and Tues­day”—she shook her head really hard as if she could some­how dis­lodge the memor­ies—“and then again on Wed­nes­day and Thursday…only…to ful­fill a very dif­fer­ent need.”

Mina’s stom­ach clenched as a wave of nausea swept over her, and bile rose in her throat. She bit her bot­tom lip, forced back her tears, and tried to re­strain any com­ing re­ac­tion. “That’s not…that’s not pos­sible. Not even Damian can do that. It’s for­bid­den be­fore the Au­tumn Mat­ing. Surely, you don’t mean what I think.”

When Ta­tiana’s eyes welled up with thick crys­tal tears and a heart-wrench­ing sob es­caped from her throat, Mina had her an­swer. She wanted to wrap her arms around her friend to com­fort her, but she was ter­ri­fied that she would just cause her more pain.

Ter­ri­fied, dis­gus­ted, and
furi­ous
.

Who the hell did Damian Dragona think he was to flaunt thou­sands of years of tra­di­tion in this beau­ti­ful girl’s face, as if the cus­toms were mere sug­ges­tions, rather than edicts, as if he was above and bey­ond re­proach, even from the king? She wanted to kill him with her bare hands. “When King De­mitri finds out, he will pun­ish him,” she snarled.

Ta­tiana al­most laughed, the sound com­ing out as a des­per­ate, hol­low bark. “Oh, Mina, don’t be so na­ive.” She waved her hand as if to dis­miss her own protest. “I really don’t be­lieve the king will do any­thing.” She sniffled and drew in a deep breath. “I told Damian that it wasn’t proper, that it wasn’t al­lowed, and he laughed in my face. He said the king would not re­fuse him any­thing—he would give him whatever Ahavi he de­sired, and he de­sired me. He said that he could make the rules, break the rules, or
screw
the rules
, and there was noth­ing any­one could do about it. And when I told him that his broth­ers might not feel the same way if”—she stumbled over the next words, her tears fall­ing in un­bridled rivers—“if I be­came
with child
, only to be prom­ised to one of his broth­ers, in­stead, do you know what he told me?”

Mina shook her head.

“He said that there was noth­ing to worry about be­cause I hadn’t taken the fer­til­ity elixir, and be­sides, Drake was far too hon­or­able to force him­self on an Ahavi—and Dante was too afraid of their father. So even if some­thing freak­ish happened, there would be no ques­tion of pa­tern­ity…so why the hell not.”

Mina swal­lowed a groan of protest. She pressed her hand to her lower belly and tried to steady her nerves. “Oh, Tati.” She brushed a gentle hand over her friend’s cheek and gently cupped her face. “I’m so sorry.”

Ta­tiana sneered. “But you know what really makes it worse?”

Mina could not ima­gine
any­thing
mak­ing this worse. “What, sweetie?”

“I didn’t fight him. I didn’t try to stop him. I fed…
all his ap­pet­ites
…two nights in a row. And to­night? He be­came en­raged be­cause Drake asked me to meet him in the gar­dens to­mor­row for a stroll, some­thing I have no con­trol over, what­so­ever, and Damian beat me like…like I was
noth­ing
…like I was a shadow, or a war­lock, or an­other man.”

Mina stared at her friend closely. Her eye looked pos­it­ive ghastly, and her face was hardly re­cog­niz­able as the beau­ti­ful por­trait it had been be­fore. Yet and still, she had felt Dante’s barely re­strained power, coiled in his hands. She had seen it in his eyes and felt it in his fire: If Damian Dragona had beaten Ta­tiana like a man, Ta­tiana would not be curled up at the bot­tom of a stair­case. She would be six feet un­der­ground, rot­ting in an un­marked grave.

Mina kept her ob­ser­va­tion to her­self. “Where is he now?”

Ta­tiana swal­lowed con­vuls­ively. “He’s in the throne room, just bey­ond the Great Hall. All of them are. It would seem the king called a late meet­ing with his sons to dis­cuss court busi­ness, some­thing about their fu­ture ap­point­ments and the treas­ury—he wants to raise taxes or some­thing.”

“And he needed to dis­cuss this at mid­night?” Mina said, sus­pi­ciously. The ques­tion wasn’t meant for Ta­tiana—she was more or less think­ing out loud—dis­gus­ted by the en­tire situ­ation and sur­prised that Damian had chosen to share so much in­form­a­tion with a Sk­la­vos Ahavi…right be­fore he beat her. She placed a gentle fin­ger over Ta­tiana’s lips to keep her si­lent. “Okay…
okay
. Save your strength now. Don’t waste your en­ergy on speak­ing. Just give me a second to
think
.” She stood up and began to pace the long hall­way, hat­ing to leave Ta­tiana alone, but need­ing a mo­ment to col­lect her wits, to shake and clench her fists if she needed to, without fur­ther up­set­ting her friend.

She had to choose her next move
very
care­fully.

There were so many dangers all around them. And as much as she wanted to rush in and help, she had to be de­lib­er­ate: Where would she take her? Who would help her? And how would she keep them both safe?
Spirit Keep­ers for­bid
, if Damian found out…

And why did he want Ta­tiana any­way?

The concept was mad­den­ing, es­pe­cially when Cas­sidy was such an ob­vi­ous choice—Damian and Cas­sidy were two peas in a pod, two selfish, power-hungry be­ings, cut from the same cloth.

Ah, but then she re­membered…

Of course
.

It was one of the reas­ons Ta­tiana was here: She was a wiz­ard with num­bers and a guru of eco­nom­ics. She could be used for more than her beauty or her body—she could be used to el­ev­ate the prince and so­lid­ify his dis­trict. Mina swal­lowed a lump in her throat and pressed her hands to the sides of her head, think­ing.
Where could she take her? Who would help
them?

When Ta­tiana began to choke and spit up blood, Mina spun around on her heels. By all that was sac­red, this was ser­i­ous. The girl might be dy­ing. She ran to the top of the stairs, stared hast­ily at the omin­ous line of golden strings, the cords at­tached to the ser­vants’ bells, and chose the one for the squire, Thomas. Dante had said the boy was an ally, al­though Mina had no idea why. She dar­ted back down the stair­case and waited, hook­ing her hands gently be­neath Ta­tiana’s armpits to try to pull her up­right. “Try to sit up,” she urged her. “I’m go­ing to take you to my bed­cham­ber and call the squire. You need a healer. Do you think you can—”

“No!” Ta­tiana pro­tested, her voice thick with alarm. “Please, don’t call any of the royal staff; it’ll just an­ger Damian fur­ther.”

Mina frowned. “And would he have you die in your present state? How would that serve him in the end?” She mulled it over in her head. “Very well, at least al­low the squire to help you back to my cham­bers, and then I will clean you up my­self.”
And then I will go find Dante
, she said to her­self, seeth­ing.

She didn’t give a royal damn what Damian Dragona wanted. Per­haps it was time he picked on someone his own size.

His own
spe­cies
.

Not that Dante would ob­lige Mina—or ever de­fend a slave—but still, she had to try to in­ter­vene.

She had
to.

This was bey­ond re­pug­nant and rep­re­hens­ible. It was im­moral and un­think­able. It was evil and ob­scene. And then, she re­membered Dante’s words:
“He is not a pa­tient dragon. He is not a moral prince…Damian would just as soon be­head you as wed
you.”

Mina shivered, fully un­der­stand­ing the danger she was in.

Just the same, she couldn’t let this go. If noth­ing else, Dante had the power to heal Ta­tiana with his blue fire, to soothe her with his mind; per­haps he could even erase her memor­ies. Who knew what all a dragon could do?

Mina knew bet­ter than to wander through the castle at mid­night, to go any­where near the throne room or the king, to dare to ap­proach Dante for help when he could barely tol­er­ate Mina as it was. She knew they were hardly al­lies or friends—she was only a glor­i­fied ser­vant, and he was most cer­tainly her
mas­ter
. It would be as fool­hardy as it would be dan­ger­ous to seek him out…