. . . Thirty-four . . . I stopped. We didn’t have enough people. Even if the Conclave put every fighter they had on the field, we wouldn’t have enough.
I swung the spyglass left, toward some dark-brown stains, and saw corrals filled with yeddimur, curled into swarms, piled onto each other. A horde waiting to be unleashed.
“How do I know it’s not an illusion?”
“I have no need to lie,” he said. “What would be the point? It would be a short-lived deception. Whether you agree to my terms or you don’t, I will still field my army. I require sustenance to remain in your world, and I am ready for battle. You will see the size of my force when I unleash it. Nothing would stop you from turning on me if I lied.”
Thousands and thousands and thousands of troops. Nausea squirmed through me. Atlanta was doomed. “You cook people and devour their bones.”
“Yes. It is faster and more efficient than devouring them whole. Eventually I’ll consume enough and will no longer require it.”
“How many people will die to reach that eventually?”
“There will be enough left,” he said.
He stepped closer to me. His fingers rested on my shoulders.
“You hate your father,” he said. “Everyone knows it. People whisper of it.”
“I also love my father.”
“Families are complicated. I loved my father, but I killed him and took his land. I’m giving you the chance to do the same. I need a guide to your world. You can be my queen. You are brimming with magic. I can taste it.”
He leaned down next to me. The smoke from his mouth brushed my cheek. My skin crawled.
“Our children would be powerful beyond measure. They would be kings and queens.”
“I’m married, and I already have a child.”
“Keep him. Keep your husband as a plaything.” His deep voice rolled over my skin. “I will help you kill your father. We will rule the world together.”
“And what happens to Atlanta?”
He touched my hair. “The city is yours to do with as you wish. A wedding gift, if you like. I only require the slaves.”
“The slaves?”
“The humans. We can bargain, if you want. How many do you wish to keep? I will give you the pretty ones.”
“Ugh. You’re really inhuman.”
“Riches, power, the pleasure of conquest, pleasures of the flesh, pleasures of the mind. What is it you want, Kate Lennart?”
“To cut off your head.”
He laughed again. His hands flexed on my shoulders as if his fingers had talons. “I will give you three days to decide. Three days of peace and contemplation. After three days, with the first magic wave that arrives, I come to conquer.”
He had enough troops to attack the city from multiple fronts. We had no walls, no fortifications to stop him, and not enough soldiers to respond to simultaneous assaults. We’d be fighting everywhere, and I’d be crisscrossing Atlanta like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to put out the fires. I had to define the rules of this engagement before he tried to do it.
“Meet me in three days on the ruins of my father’s castle.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Show me the entirety of your army. Let me behold it. I’ll give you my answer then.”
“Agreed,” he promised, his voice rolling through the vastness of his castle. Smoke escaped his mouth.
“That’s my cue to leave.”
“Stay with me for a while longer. I’ll show you more of my wonders.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“But you haven’t seen me.”
He stepped aside and slid the fur cape off his shoulders. His armor clattered to the floor. He stood before me naked, big, muscular, and with a champion-sized hard-on.
Really? What was the thinking here? I know you loathe me, because I’m an inhuman mass murderer, but behold my giant erection. That will make you betray everything you stand for.
I crossed my arms on my chest. “Is this supposed to convince me?”
“No,” he said. “This is.”
He ran and took a dive off the balcony. Midway down the catastrophic drop, his body tore. A colossal shape clawed itself free, obsidian black, with a terrifying reptilian head on a long neck and two wings that snapped open. My heart hammered in my chest while every instinct screamed at me to run and hide and hope he wouldn’t find me.
He was bigger than Aspid. His wingspan dwarfed the largest airplanes I’d seen.
The dragon swooped, banked, and dived under the balcony. A moment and his head reared above the rail, two fiery eyes staring straight at me. He rose into the air, climbing straight up, his gaze fixed on me. It took every ounce of my will to stay where I was.
His mouth opened, revealing nightmarish fangs.
In his realm, you are a ghost . . .
Fire burst out of his mouth in a blazing torrent and washed over me. The flames blinded me, passing over my body but doing no damage.
I waited until he was done. When the flames fell, I stood exactly where I’d been before, my arms still crossed on my chest.
The dragon’s eyes studied me, and for the first time I saw a hint of uncertainty in their depths.
I forced myself to shrug and reached for home in my mind.
The world went white. I landed on the grass, blinked, and saw my father, his face twisted with fury.
“SHARRIM! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
* * *
? ? ?
EVERYTHING HURT. THE pain wasn’t acute, just thorough. Every cell in my body throbbed.
“ARE YOU HARD OF HEARING, SHARRIM? ANSWER ME! SHARRIM?”
It dawned on me that he expected me to make some sort of sound. “No.”
“DO YOU POSSESS THE GIFT OF SPEECH? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS I UTTER?”
“Yes.” I sat up. I was sitting in the clearing outside our backyard. Curran, Hugh, and Elara were standing only a few yards away. They looked like they were screaming, but for some reason I couldn’t hear them.
“REPEAT BACK TO ME WHAT I SAID ABOUT NEIG’S REALM.”
“You forbade me to go,” I intoned.
“AND WHAT DID YOU DO?”
“I went.”
“SO, YOU DELIBERATELY DISOBEYED ME.”
“Yes, Mufasa.”
“DO I LOOK LIKE I AM IN THE MOOD FOR JOKES?” my father thundered.
When not sure what to say, stall for time. I had a role to play in this drama, and I had to think of exactly how to play it to push my dad over the edge. That is, assuming my aunt didn’t chicken out.
“I GAVE YOU A CLEAR SET OF INSTRUCTIONS. MORE, I EXPLAINED WHY CAUTION WAS NECESSARY.”
Curran took a running start and jumped. An invisible wall pulsed with bright crimson, and he bounced back.
“Did you set a blood ward around us, so you could scream at me uninterrupted?”
“YES!”
Of course he did. “Carry on then.”
I lay flat on the grass. It was nice and soft. Come on, Rose of Tigris. Don’t leave me hanging. If Erra didn’t show up, I’d have to rethink my strategy fast.
He bent over me. “You went into the dragon’s den. You could’ve died.”
Ah. That’s why the freak-out. “I’m alive. You’re still with us, Father. Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU, YOU FOOLISH CHILD!”
“You were worried about your own survival.”
My father slapped his hand over his face. “Why, gods? Why me? What have I done to deserve this punishment?”
“Conquered, pillaged, manipulated, imposed your will on others . . .”
“Murdered your children,” my aunt’s icy voice said behind us.
I almost cheered.
My father went completely still. I twisted my neck and saw Erra. She’d strolled through the blood ward like it wasn’t there.
“So, it is true,” he said, the ancient words lyrical and filled with pain. “You betrayed me.”
“You made an order of assassins to murder me.” There was so much in my aunt’s voice: pain, anger, surprise, grief. It almost broke me.
She could do it. If I had to swallow my pride and deal with a man who wanted to murder my child, she could deal with him, too.
“I never meant for it to be used.”
Erra raised her hand. My father fell silent.
“We’ve destroyed our family, Im,” she said. “We ruined it.”
“We were fighting a war.”