Draemyr squinted and counted on her fingers for a moment. “I was five, almost six.”
Holy pancakes. I didn’t even have memories from when I was five, and that was only thirteen years ago. Crazy.
“How many of you were taken? Or how many of you made it here?”
The woman with the scar answered. “There were fifty-two of us taken. Forty-eight made it here to Draedyn’s palace. Twenty-two died in childbirth before your mother had you, only one since then.”
Twenty two! My mouth fell ajar. He’d killed nearly half of them through forcing them to bear his child unmated. I did the math in my head, but the numbers didn’t gel. There weren’t twenty-four anymore. “What happened to the others?”
The Drae ran her hand through the dark water again. “Several found ways to take their own life. There were Phaetyn in the palace after all. And Draedyn has used a few more of my sisters as . . . examples.
I didn’t need to know what they were used as examples for. Clearly, being an example did not end well. No surprise there with plain-ole’ eat toast and then control everyone Draedyn.
“I couldn’t help noticing some of you have similar names. Why is that?” What I really wanted to ask was why did Draedyn and I have a similar name. The fact that his name was Drae with a –yn and my name was R-yn had not escaped my notice.
The leader leaned toward me in the water and whispered, “It’s usually the firstborn child who gets the suffix –yn.”
Which meant Tyrrik had an older sibling before being taken. My heart panged, and I rubbed my chest again. “So Draedyn was the first born?”
“No. He was not. He was the second child, and like many second children, he struggled to find his place in his brother’s shadow.”
That Draedyn had a complex shouldn’t surprise anyone. “But he was the emperor, or rather, he is the Emperor.”
“Yes, but his older brother was the alpha Drae.”
“So Draedyn’s brother was the one to refuse to help in the emperor’s war?” Is that what he’d meant by the ‘those who don’t fight for me are against me rubbish?’ I continued, “Draedyn had his own brother killed.”
Power could make people do crazy things, like Kamoi. He’d barely flinched when his parents were killed, and his mother had basically killed her own sister for power. Yet with Draedyn, my gut told me there was something . . . more.
“No. When Draedyn’s brother, Aedyn, disappeared, Draedyn, then known as Aerik, believed he should become the alpha, but the position of alpha male is not inherited within familial bonds. Aedyn chose his successor before he left, and it wasn’t your father.” She looked at me meaningfully. “Any guess who it was?”
How was I supposed to know? I shook my head, not wanting to interrupt her but also cataloging a question about the meaning of –rik later.
The female Drae continued, “Aedyn died as did his mate, and a new alpha male rose into power over the Drae, Baeyn. Aerik, your father before he was Draedyn, was already emperor over the humans. He declared war oversees and asked Baeyn for aid. The previous alpha had refused, so the new alpha did as well. Aerik changed his name to Draedyn, declaring he would one day rule all of the Draeconia and the Drae. This led to his movement against our kind through the Veraldian king.”
I knew the rest from Tyrrik. “Yes,” I said sadly. “I know of that day.”
“We were corralled and brought here, but a young male Drae was found hidden in the bushes. Irdelron had him brought forth and tricked him into a blood oath.”
Tyrrik.
The detail in her recount made me wonder. “You were old enough to remember all that?”
She nodded.
“I was sixteen when we were taken, one of the oldest.”
“My mother’s family name really was Ry? I’d wondered if she just made it up after her escape.”
“It was your grandmother’s pre-mated name. Ryhl reverted back to it once she was captured.”
“What was it before?” I asked, curious.
The scarred Drae looked up at Draesi, who shrugged her shoulders. She stilled suddenly, peering back to the entrance. A heart beat passed before she relaxed and shook her head.
Something else was happening. “What’s—”
“We are always biding our time,” the Drae said with a hard stare and a finger to her lips.
Okay. That seemed both encouraging and terrifying considering Draedyn could hear everything in my mind. “Did you know my mother?” As I asked, I realized I still didn’t know this woman’s name. Had I been told before? I wracked my memory as she answered.
“Yes. Your mother was the third daughter in her family. She was the baby. Her parents adored her.”
I’d adored her. I closed my eyes at the sharp pain under my ribs. “How old was she when she was taken?”
“Eight. But even then she was impertinent and headstrong. She was a fighter. Not always with her words and not always overtly, but she always said she would find a way to end this. Once we got here, she befriended the Phaetyn. She was the first among us to reach out to them, to be compassionate to their imprisonment and the draining of their blood. She would sneak down to their cells and take them food. It’s no wonder the Phaetyn queen respected her so much.”
My mother’s kindness and generosity were what won the Verald peoples’ loyalty too. That her nature had always been such didn’t surprise me.
“Thank you,” I said, my heart swelling. “There were times I thought my mom wasn’t who or what she’d led me to believe. It does my heart good to know the truth from someone who knew her. I thank you.” I frowned. If I’d been introduced to her, I’d forgotten this Drae’s name. Or had she been deliberately obtuse? “What’s your name?
Her eyes filled with tears. “–Yn means defender. It was the firstborn’s right to defend the family.” She leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “My name is Ryn.”
32
I blinked several times. My tongue was thick, my mouth dry, and I struggled to formulate a coherent question as I stared at the woman sitting across from me. “Wh-what?”
“Ryhl was my youngest sister.” Ryn pulled back to look me in the eyes. “She was the one smart enough to change our names on the ride into the emperor’s realm. Our sister, Ryli, was one of the first to die in childbirth.”
This woman was my aunt? I could hardly believe it. I still had family?
A searing agony shoved at my mind, and my aunt flinched.
“Now!” Draesi yelled from the entrance.
I jumped, spinning in the pool to look for the danger, my mind fully clear for the first time since arriving in Draedyn’s house.
Ryn leaned forward and spoke in a rushed whisper, “Our family name was Bae. You are the granddaughter of the last alpha. Now, listen: that pain you just felt was Draedyn’s. You have a few seconds to act—“
As soon as she said the pain was my father’s, I knew what I needed to do. My heart and mind were on the same page. I had to call Tyrrik. My instinct was to scream out for my mate. With his help, I could shatter Draedyn’s hold on me and flee. But running wouldn’t defeat this monster, and I needed to defeat him. For everyone I’d lost, for everyone I could lose if I didn’t.
My heart thundered, and I turned my attention inward. I could see Draedyn’s shield, but the normally solid emerald power blocking my Drae energy from my reach was fissured and cracked. Wherever he was, his rage was so consuming his loss of focus was affecting his shield, just as mine had in the Azule kingdom.
It wouldn’t last.
Ryn continued whispering hurried instructions about contacting my mate, but I knew if I did this the wrong way, Draedyn would know. And if he knew, he would outmaneuver us again. We had to be smarter, trickier—like Tyrrik was when breaking the blood oath.