“You’re right,” Lucyan said gaily as he whipped his towel off and hung it on the hook. “Next time you try to break my nose, I’ll just politely ask you to stop.”
He left the stewing Leager staring after him as he stepped beneath the shower spray and reveled in the hot water gushing from above him. These new-fangled hoses were another fantastic invention—instead of having to draw a bath and sit in your own dirty water while you tried to clean yourself, you could simply stand under these manufactured hot streams and scrub yourself clean with a bar of soap. It was efficient, much faster, and Lucyan thought it might even use a bit less water.
When he was finished, he quickly dressed and combed his hair, then headed straight for the castle. Leager was already waiting, as was Tran, first in their class. For a moment, Lucyan bemoaned that he hadn’t been placed with Tran, who had a much milder temperament than Leager, and was in general easier to work with. But then he remembered he would likely have to kill his partner, and changed his mind.
Delara was the last one to arrive, her hair still damp from the shower. She was a bit late, but Lord Byrule didn’t seem to mind—likely because the top button of her uniform was open, showing a healthy amount of cleavage. Lucyan held in a snort as they sat down—the sergeant would have punished her severely for the uniform infraction, but Lord Byrule merely waved them into his office.
He supposed it was similar to how he could get most women to forgive him with one of his smiles, combined with just the right amount of flattery. As with cleavage, too much, and your target thought you were a sleaze, not worthy of attention. But if done right, she would giggle and blush and declare all your sins a thing of the past.
Not that such tactics worked on Dareena, he thought fondly. His mate had been a bit overwhelmed when he and his brothers had first started courting her, but she’d figured out all of them quickly enough. Lucyan had never thought he’d be wrapped around any woman’s finger, but he was more than happy to be wrapped around any part of Dareena.
Gods, he couldn’t wait to get back home.
“Suric, are you ready to join us?” Lord Byrule asked dryly. Lucyan blinked, focusing on the spymaster’s face. His eyebrows were raised, and the others were looking at him as well.
“Sorry,” Lucyan said blithely. “I’m afraid I didn’t get much sleep. Delara snores quite loudly.”
“I do not!” Delara protested as the others snickered.
Lord Byrule merely rolled his eyes. “If the four of you are ready to act like adults, I’d like to start the briefing.” He waited until their attention was on him before speaking again. “You are finished with your additional training and are now ready to embark upon the mission I selected you for. But before I give you the details, let me give you some background information first.”
Lucyan and the others sat up straighter. “As you may already know, Shadowhaven has been working on bringing both Dragonfell and Elvenhame down in secret. It would take far too long to tell you about all of the different operations in place, but by far the most important thing we did was sending in one of our agents to pose as their oracle. He spent years slowly turning the population against the dragons, and he also killed the previous Dragon’s Gift, which sent the former king into a spiral of madness.”
“Unfortunately, the princes got wise to this scheme. They unmasked our agent, who was forced to flee, and have chosen a new oracle. From what we know, this woman, Rofana, is legitimate, and she will begin doing everything in her power to bring favor back to the dragons. We must not let that happen.”
Lucyan kept his face carefully blank, hiding the rage that built in his chest. He already knew all of this, but sitting here while Lord Byrule admitted to it all, as if he were merely reading from a history text rather than telling him about atrocities committed against his people, was almost more than he could bear.
“Are you asking us to go in and sow discontent amongst the people?” Tran asked, his eyes glittering. Lucyan buried his disgust—these people had absolutely no regard for the innocents they were about to hurt.
Lord Byrule nodded approvingly. “That is exactly what we are going to do. But that is not the only goal we are after. When we targeted the Dragon’s Gift all those years ago, we made an error of judgment. We originally intended to kill the entire royal family and wipe out all the dragons, but unfortunately, the magic that protects their kind repelled the spell. We were unable to find a way around this, but we had thought that if we could kill the Dragon’s Gift this time around that we could prevent her from delivering her babe, and thus prevent Shalia’s Curse from being lifted.”
“Why isn’t she dead already, then?” Lucyan asked, making sure to hide the anger in his voice so that he merely sounded puzzled.
“Because the dragon babe in her belly is shielding her from the spell,” Lord Byrule said. “An unfortunate side effect of the pregnancy. The spell will work once she has given birth. However, we must eliminate her before that happens, or the dragons will rise again.”
Ice-cold horror rose in Lucyan’s chest, and he had to swallow back a wave of bile. “I assume there must be an agent within the Keep, one who has placed the spell?”
Lord Byrule nodded. “I cannot disclose the identity of the agent, of course, but know that she is quite close to the royal family. For now, she is merely serving the royals and awaiting further instructions, but as soon as the time is right, she will move against them. We want to stir up additional doubt and discontent before we strike. If the people are already against them when they are killed, it will look like they have brought this tragedy upon themselves, and the people will be less likely to rally against us when we come to occupy their territory. For all they know, they will think their god willed it.”
Lucyan bit back a snarl of rage at Byrule’s smirk.
“So this is where we come in, then?” Leager asked. His eyes were bright with excitement, his lips twisted into that cruel smile of his. “You wish for us to stir up the people before you strike at the royals?”