He showed me a mental picture of the courtyard and the raised platform near where we’d landed on arrival. Before he could block it, another image seeped through. Not just an image, a memory.
The distance was significant, and I could only see the details because Tyrrik had partially shifted to use his Drae eyes. A crowd of Azulis surrounded the platform, dressed in clothes not quite sheer. This group reminded me of the people in the outer corridors leading up to the wild orgy.
Queen Mily stood on the platform, wide-eyed and whole, her insides still in, although her dress was shredded and saturated with blood. Marb, Dilowa, and half a dozen other people stood near the former queen.
Draedyn flapped his wings overhead, the massive Drae shifting in the air to land on the platform in his coarse tunic. The afternoon sun bathed the entire courtyard in golden hues, but the prisoners paled.
Mily shook so hard as Draedyn approached that she appeared to be having a seizure. She fell to her knees before him, her head bowed.
My heart pounded with dread as my mind reeled with confusion. I watched my father disembowel her this morning. How was she still alive? And whole?
Draedyn’s angular features didn’t change. He wasn’t smiling or frowning, but his narrowed eyes gleamed. He brought his arm back as if he was about to slap the queen, but his digits shifted as he moved, and the razor-sharp talon sliced through her neck. Her eyes widened and mouth opened as her head fell to the platform’s edge and bounced into the crowd.
Tyrrik had looked up then because I saw Draedyn smile and bring his talon to his lips.
My stomach heaved again, and I begged my mate, No more.
Tyrrik broke my connection to his memories just as Draedyn approached Marb. I’m sorry.
Was it that fast for all of them?
No. He forced Kamini to heal Marb and Dilowa several times before he finally ended it for them.
Draedyn must’ve had Kamini heal Mily, too. My heart ached for my Phaetyn friend. I’m not sure I can tell Lani.
Don’t. It’s not your trauma to share. Lani isn’t ignorant of Draedyn’s cruelty.
I wasn’t so sure, but I wasn’t going to worry about it right now. A weight tugged at my heart and pressed on my shoulders. They’d all been alive this morning. So much could change in the blink of an eye. What if we don’t win, Tyrrik?
We’d gone into Azule anticipating their allegiance for the final battle against Draedyn. First the weird party, and then Draedyn’s presence and waking in the closet. Kamini and Kamoi had been with him, and I didn’t pay enough attention to defending myself. Now, the Azule kingdom had a different ruler, set on the throne by Draedyn, and more than half of the group we’d gone with was dead. We should have never entered that place.
My throat was tight with sadness and bitterness choking me. I’d had a bad feeling from the get go. The Azulis’ insanity, Dyter’s disappearance. Why hadn’t I listened to my instincts and never gone inside? Or forced everyone to leave when we all saw what the people of the Azule kingdom were like? People of that level of baseness, so comfortable in Draedyn’s realm, couldn’t be trusted.
It’s not your fault, Ryn.
He was flying over a freakin’ ocean and reassuring me.
I could have done more, I said. I should’ve done more.
You are doing more.
I didn’t reply. He had a point, and that made me feel marginally better. But then Boyra’s words reared in my memory, telling me I was only doing more to try and lessen the guilt I had for killing more people. I forced the doubt away; I had a job to do. Feeling guilty was a luxury I didn’t have time for. The army should be close. I’ll work on this end.
Tyrrik mentally tsked. Good, and I need to focus on the boats.
Okay, I’m going to drop my shield so I can find Lani. Are you ready?
I love you, Ryn.
I love you too. Words failed me except those that were honest. I wanted to laugh, to somehow make a joke. I’d always joked, even in the dungeons of Verald, but my humor had apparently fled.
I took a deep breath, double checked my Phaetyn veil, and then relaxed the blue bands of my Drae shield from around my mind.
The sun dipped below the horizon, the sky’s hue deepening from cerulean to indigo. My Drae vision was still fine, but my anxiety increased every time the shade in the sky darkened. Normally, I loved the night. Back when I lived in Verald, I went through a romantic phase where I believed the darkness called to me like a lover. Now, I was fairly certain most of those emotions were my Drae transformation building within me. I still liked the darkness, a lot even, especially if it meant I got to be in bed with my mate. But flying in the night sky with Draedyn on the loose made my Drae skin crawl. Even with my Phaetyn veil firmly in place.
A roar from behind me shattered my thought, cutting through my attention to Tyrrik. Fear spiked through my spine, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. My heart raced, but I didn’t even have time to turn before a heavy weight crashed into me.
Sharp talons pierced my scales, and I shrieked in pain.
Tyrrik!
My mind blanked for a moment amidst my panic. Then I was reaching for the azure bands of my Drae power. I pulled them close, tossing them in loops around my mind. Faster, faster. I needed my shield; I knew what this was . . .
An explosion of emerald detonated in my mind. My chin dropped, and I blinked to clear the blurriness from my eyes. I pumped my wings, weaving in the sky as I grabbed for the threads of my power, but the lapis lazuli strands evaporated faster than I could grab them. Every time I snagged a bit of my power, deep-green ropes wound around the blue and pulled them away, swallowing them whole.
Dark, oily power poured over me, pushing through the shattered blue bands, cracking the remains of my shield as the emerald force flooded into my head.
Ryn—
I latched onto Tyrrik’s voice, screaming his name. My panic spiked and then waned as the Drae-energy of my alpha father swamped me, coating my insides.
My connection to Tyrrik disappeared, followed by my fight. I had a fleeting concern about the hunger behind Draedyn’s determination to own me, followed by a passing thought, now no more than curiosity, about how my father would’ve found me. The darkness of the emperor’s strength swallowed me and my entire world. My sole focus became the will of my alpha.
I was my father’s daughter, and I only wanted to serve him. I needed to. I had to make up for all the problems I’d caused.
Come, my beautiful daughter, let’s go home.
He thought I was beautiful. I bowed my head in reverence even as a quiet voice in the back of my mind screamed in protest. Yes, Father.
Cover us with your Phaetyn veil.
I pulled the mossy-green net over Draedyn, seeing for the first time that my father carried a passenger. The silvery-haired man sat astride my father between two of his spikes, facing away from me. Hiding, even. He was clearly a Phaetyn, our enemy. My father’s disgust echoed through me. The Phaetyn had to die. All of them.
The traveler turned, and the shock at seeing his handsome face and stunning smile disconcerted me enough that I reared back in the sky . . . though I couldn’t place why I did so.
Or how I knew the Phaetyn’s name.
Kamoi.
28
I stretched out in bed, one of those long extensions with the arms above the head and the toes pointed. The morning movement was my favorite with muscles taut the length of my body; the occasional shuddering spasms were like kisses of life.
Except it didn’t bring a smile to my face as it had in the past.
I threw my arms out, extending my hands to either side of me on the bed before opening my eyes. The sheets were coarse and cold, like burlap left out during a frost. Rough but unrumpled. Unused.
Something was off. My excitement for a new day, the pleasure of a stretch, even the knowledge that something was wrong only produced a mild, blunted emotion. My fingertips felt numb, and although I could move and think—