Dragons Realm (29 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

W
hile the ar­du­ous
task of cleanup began on the beach—enu­mer­at­ing the dead, treat­ing the in­jured, and as­sign­ing all avail­able cit­izens and sol­diers their vari­ous dreary tasks—Dante Dragona had much more im­port­ant mat­ters to at­tend to. Un­sure of whether he should bur­den Drake with the truth, he had left his young­est brother in charge of Dra­cos Cove and set out with Thomas the squire and Mat­thias Gentry, who, in every prac­tical sense, was now Damian Dragona, for the Gil­ded Chalice Inn to con­front Thaon Percy face-to-face.

Mat­thias had only been the bait.

It was far too soon for the dazed and over­whelmed dragon to take an act­ive role in mat­ters of the Realm: He still needed to come to terms with his new fate and iden­tity: to pro­cess, in­tern­al­ize, and cat­egor­ize his nu­mer­ous con­flict­ing memor­ies; to learn the ropes around Castle Dragon and Castle Um­bras—well, to re­call them any­way—and to slowly ease into the part he would be ex­pec­ted to play for the rest of his im­mor­tal life.

Due to the neo­phyte’s fre­quent bouts of ver­tigo and ex­treme fa­tigue, the jour­ney to Um­bras had taken five long days by horse­back, and the con­front­a­tion with Thaon Percy had been dicey at best. Prior to their ar­rival, Dante had planned to murder the trait­or­ous Lycanian where he stood, the mo­ment they entered the inn, but crit­ical news, via mes­sen­ger pi­geon, had reached a pre­vi­ous vil­lage along the way, be­fore they ar­rived, and in­ter­cept­ing the early missive on day four of their jour­ney had changed Dante’s plans:
“Our dragon king has ex­ecuted a swift and de­cis­ive vic­tory over the Lycani­ans”
—this was noth­ing Dante didn’t already know—
“and the king of Lycania, Ba­yard Percy, has been murdered in his palace, the ap­par­ent vic­tim of pois­on­ing. His brother will suc­ceed him as
king.”

This, on the other hand, was crit­ical in­form­a­tion.

Like it or not, Thaon Percy was the new king of Lycania, and a king­dom without a ruler was far too polit­ic­ally un­stable to man­age or pre­dict. Not to men­tion, the last thing Dante needed to con­tend with were ques­tions and sus­pi­cions about the mys­ter­i­ous dis­ap­pear­ance of the second royal brother. Why buy ex­tra trouble? In the end, Dante had been forced to ree­valu­ate his strategy, and he had struck a new al­li­ance with the ter­ri­fied, yet vis­ibly ir­ate for­eigner, who couldn’t com­pre­hend why Damian had turned on him after all they had achieved, why the seedy prince of Um­bras had re­vealed their du­pli­cit­ous plot, as well as their fu­ture al­li­ance, to his law-en­for­cing brother.

It was of no mat­ter.

Thaon had been between a rock and a hard place, and he had swiftly made al­low­ances to save his own skin and en­sure that he made it back to Lycania…alive. In the end, he had agreed to a thou­sand years of peace between the king­doms, fifty sea­worthy ves­sels for the Realm’s com­mer­cial use, and the same, ori­ginal of­fer he had made to Damian: to provide the cit­izens of Dragons Realm with know­ledge and train­ing in Lycanian weav­ing, en­gin­eer­ing, and artistry, all in ex­change for
per­sonal
mil­it­ary pro­tec­tion for the dur­a­tion of his rule, lib­eral use of the Realm’s war­locks and witches in mat­ters of heal­ing and medi­cine, and
two hun­dred pounds
in cop­per coins as pay­ment for the ships, none of which would be­gin un­til King De­mitri’s rule was over. They would not whis­per, con­spire, and bleed the castle’s treas­ury be­hind King De­mitri’s back. It was far too risky…and far too stu­pid.

Peace for peace.

Know­ledge for know­ledge.

And fair pay­ment for the sea­worthy ves­sels.

There would be no dragon-sup­port in raid­ing in­no­cent vil­lages, and there would be no ex­pan­ded, legal slave trade in Dragons Realm, not ever: The Realm had its own sor­did his­tory with the prac­tice of slavery as a primary re­source for labor—the em­bittered and treach­er­ous Malo Clan was a res­ult of that ex­per­i­ment—and Dante un­der­stood only too well that the vile prac­tice cre­ated lifelong ad­versar­ies for the mon­archy, in­ev­it­able wars in the form of up­ris­ings, and a last­ing hos­til­ity, based on ra­cial and clan iden­tity, which was hard to over­come. In short, it placed the most em­bittered en­emies of all, those with vir­tu­ally noth­ing to lose, in the very midst of the Realm. The Malo Clan’s hos­til­ity had las­ted for
eight
cen­tur­ies
, even though there were very few des­cend­ants of the ori­ginal slaves left: Why cap­ture, breed, and cul­tiv­ate a new local op­pon­ent?

In the end, Thaon had taken the deal be­cause he’d had no other choice. Whether or not he would stick to it re­mained to be seen.

Now, as Dante dis­moun­ted from his black stal­lion, tethered him to a tree in the thick of the Um­brasian Moun­tains, and ap­proached the mod­est cabin tucked deep into the forest, he was glad he had sent Mat­thias and Thomas back to the Castle of Um­bras, about eight hours ahead. He would meet back up with them shortly.

This was some­thing he needed to do
alone.

*

Raylea Louvet tossed the dirty wa­ter from the mop bucket out the back door, se­cured the raggedy mop against the top in­ner corner of the doorframe, and slowly made her way back into the front room of the cabin to kneel be­fore her captor.

Syr­ileus
Cain.

Des­pite telling her­self, over and over, that she would not tremble, she would not beg, she would not give the mon­ster the sat­is­fac­tion, her skinny, knobby knees knocked against one an­other be­neath her filthy, tattered dress. Her stock­ings were torn to shreds, yet he in­sisted that she wear them, and her shoes no longer fit her feet, caus­ing blisters on her toes. Yet and still, she kneeled like a “proper lady,” just as Syr­ileus in­struc­ted.

The tall, wispy shadow-walker rose from his lazy re­pose in his fa­vor­ite chair, crossed the room with un­nerv­ing si­lence, and loomed over Raylea with men­ace, his va­cant gray eyes per­us­ing her from head to toe, even as his thin, reedy lips drew back in a par­ody of a smile.

“I have fin­ished my morn­ing chores, mas­ter,” Raylea whispered. She knew the routine. He was wait­ing for her to make the same te­di­ous an­nounce­ment—three times each day—and then he would make a cal­cu­lated de­cision that al­ways struck fear into her heart: He would either take her back into his bed­room, where he would try to rav­ish her and fail, or he would drag her back to the cel­lar and chain her to the wall.

Raylea wasn’t sure which op­tion was worse.

In truth, the old man had never man­aged to truly vi­ol­ate her, at least not in
that
way—his old, de­crepit body would not al­low him to do what he wanted to do—and so he would slap her mer­ci­lessly in­stead, vent­ing his frus­tra­tion. Whereas, if he chose to take her to the cel­lar, the only re­per­cus­sions would be raw flesh where her wrists met the man­acles and the cool, damp air that left her shiv­er­ing from cold.

She al­most pre­ferred the thrash­ings.

At least when he was fin­ished, he would of­ten leave her alone. She could exit the cabin for a time, feel the sun­light on her face, feel the wild grass be­neath her feet, es­cape her con­fine­ment in her ima­gin­a­tion and travel back to Arns, pre­tend she was still liv­ing with her par­ents…and Mina.

Syr­ileus reached out a long, bony fin­ger and tipped her chin up­ward to force her gaze, his dirty nails nick­ing her skin. “I shall have you in my bed,” he crooned.

Raylea closed her eyes, but only for a second. The threat was al­ways chilling, even though she knew he could never fol­low through. She drew a deep breath for cour­age and slowly in­clined her head in ca­pit­u­la­tion. “As you wish.” Then she rose as gently as a lamb and pad­ded across the wide-planked floors to the back bed­room, where she stoic­ally began to re­move her outer gown in or­der to lie on the bed—there was no need to re­move her un­der­gar­ments.

“Do not.”
A dark, deadly voice rang out from the shad­ows, and Raylea im­me­di­ately searched the corner of the room to identify the source. She could see noth­ing. There was no one there. “Keep your clothes on and crawl to the far side of the bed.”

Raylea gasped, stifling a scream. She didn’t know whether to run, call out to Syr­ileus for help, or fol­low the dis­em­bod­ied voice’s com­mands. Every beat of her heart pattered with rising hope—had the Spirit Keep­ers fi­nally come to res­cue her? Was the Bringer of Rain, at last, on her side? Or was this some cruel trick per­pet­rated by her mas­ter—had he fi­nally sold her to someone else, per­haps to a war­lock or an­other
shade
who
was
cap­able of de­fil­ing her? She shivered and in­stinct­ively fol­lowed the specter’s com­mand.

Syr­ileus sauntered into the room, his mas­cu­line ana­tomy vis­ibly aroused as it al­ways was in the be­gin­ning. He glanced to­ward the bed and frowned. “Why are you still dressed?” His voice dripped with the venom of his dis­pleas­ure.

Raylea bit her bot­tom lip and trembled.

“Be­cause…” the dis­em­bod­ied voice purred, draw­ing the ser­pent­ine word out. “She will never suf­fer your ad­vances again.”

In a flash of light that sparked like fire emer­ging from flint, the dark, hand­some male flickered into view. His thick onyx hair cas­caded in vir­u­lent waves about his shoulders, fram­ing his angry jaw, even as his sap­phire-blue eyes deepened to crim­son red.

Raylea clutched at the cov­ers, her jaw drop­ping open. She would know that face any­where, that proud, regal bear­ing, that ter­ri­fy­ing, in­dom­it­able frame. It was the prince she had met in War­lo­chia, the one who had ul­ti­mately asked the old man to re­trieve her doll.

It was Dante Dragona him­self, and he was stand­ing in
her
cabin.

Threat­en­ing
Syr­ileus.

Her eyes welled up with tears, and she quickly blinked them back, strug­gling to catch her breath.

Syr­ileus spun around to face the corner as if he were a much younger man, his move­ments both rapid and true. He nar­rowed his gaze at the in­truder, and then he jerked back, fal­ter­ing for a mo­ment in fright.

So he re­cog­nized the dragon, too.

Dante stepped for­ward and smiled. “Do you know who it is that you have en­slaved?”

Syr­ileus took a cau­tious step in re­treat, his evil eyes nar­row­ing into fine, wary slits. He gulped in place of an an­swer.

“Do you know that the slave trade is il­legal in this realm?”

Syr­ileus turned a gar­ish shade of white. “My p-p-prince,”—he stuttered over the word—“the high mage of War­lo­chia both al­lows and sup­ports our mea­ger in­dustry.” He gen­u­flec­ted like a clown, flash­ing a broad, con­genial smile. “I would never defy my liege if…if…if only I had known.” He waved his arm around the room as if to dis­miss its true bar­baric nature. “Truly, it is a harm­less pas­time, all in fun.” He fixed his gaze on Raylea and ges­tured with an open palm. “In fact, you may have her if you wish. She is young and eager and beau­ti­ful.” He frowned. “Well, when she’s cleaned up, but I can have her washed and ready in no time if you’d like.”

“You have yet to an­swer my ques­tion: Do—you—know—who—she—is?” Dante bit out each word sep­ar­ately, as if the shadow was too dense to un­der­stand.

Syr­ileus’s thin, slimy tongue snaked out to wet his lips. “I—I—”

“She is the sis­ter of a Sk­la­vos Ahavi, one who now car­ries my child. She is un­der my pro­tec­tion.”

Syr­ileus turned from white to green and moaned. “I didn’t know, my prince. I swear to you on the souls of my an­cest­ors, I…I really didn’t know.”

Dante nod­ded af­fably. “You didn’t care, shadow-walker. You thought only of your­self and your per­verse de­sires.” His brow knit­ted in dis­gust, and his voice rang out like thun­der, rat­tling the rafters above the room. “She is a child!”

Syr­ileus opened his mouth to protest, then shut it, clasp­ing both hands in front of him in a ges­ture of sup­plic­a­tion, in­stead.
“My
prince…”

“Kneel.”

Syr­ileus eyed the floor du­bi­ously, and Raylea held her breath.

In the blink of an eye, the prince drew his sword from his scab­bard, lowered it, and slashed it cross­ways through the air, cleanly sli­cing the lower half of the shadow-walker’s legs from his body, just be­low the knees. Syr­ileus fell to the ground with a shout, even as Dante singed the bloody stumps with a steady stream of blu­ish fire, in­stantly caut­er­iz­ing the wounds. “I said
kneel
.”

The stunned shadow-walker scrabbled to his knees, such as they were, and shrieked in agony as he tried to tuck the steam­ing stumps be­neath him. The next slash of Dante’s sword was far more har­row­ing and dis­astrous: With a quick cir­cu­lar twist of his wrist, the prince made sure that Syr­ileus was no longer a man. As the shriveled ap­pend­age fell to the floor, the shadow-walker screamed like an an­imal be­ing slaughtered, and once again, Dante scorched the wound with fire, in­stantly staunch­ing the flow of blood. “Raylea, it is two to three days’ travel where we are headed. Gather what you need for the road.”

Raylea jol­ted, un­sure of what to do. She un­der­stood the prince’s words—he had spoken in the com­mon tongue—yet she was stunned by his simple dir­ect­ive.
Did he really in­tend to re­move her from this hell? Blessed Spirit Keep­ers, it was too good to be
true.

Fi­nally, the dragon prince’s words sank in, and she scur­ried from the bed, dar­ted out the door, and numbly gathered a satchel, filling it with a blanket, a loaf of bread, and a large canteen of wa­ter. When she re­turned to the threshold of the bed­room, mind­lessly mov­ing by rote, her eyes flew open in hor­ror, and she gaped at the macabre sight be­fore her: Syr­ileus Cain was hanging up­side down from the ceil­ing, trussed by his thighs and his waist with lin­ens from the bed, and an iron spike from the head­board skewered him through the ribs, like a pig be­ing roas­ted on a spit. His scalp had been torn from his skull, and it lay atop a con­ical fire-pit be­neath him, while mys­tical flames of red, or­ange, and yel­low danced be­neath his head. Sweat poured from his brow as he swayed back and forth above the fire, writh­ing and jerking in pain.