Warriors of Wind and Ash (Merciless Dragons #2)

I choke on a mirthless, despairing laugh. “Why would you poison me? It makes no sense. You need me as leverage with the people.”

“Ah, but this poison doesn’t kill you… not exactly. It prevents you from going too far from me. Let’s say I was standing in the center of your palace, and you were headed toward the city wall. By the time you got there, you would start feeling sick and faint, and if you persisted, you would eventually collapse, bleeding from the eyes, nose, and ears. If you managed to crawl farther, you would slip into unconsciousness, and if anyone carried you beyond that point, you would die.”

“Liar,” I whisper. It’s the only word that makes sense, the only defense I can muster. “Liar.”

“Try to escape, and you’ll find out if I’m lying,” Rahzien answers. “The proximity poison is somewhat inconvenient for me, I’ll confess. I’ve had to remain nearby to avoid accidentally killing you, which complicates some of my duties. The sooner you submit, the sooner we can both return to your palace and proceed with our new lives. I shall proclaim myself Emperor of Vohrain, Elekstan, and Ouroskelle, while you shall take your place as my first ‘Conquered Consort.’ I came up with the title myself. What do you think of it?”

“Fuck you,” I wheeze.

“Yes, you will.” His beard twitches as he smirks. “As for the other thing, the extermination of the dragons—I have long believed that those creatures were far too powerful to be allowed to exist. Our alliance gave me the chance to evaluate the threat they pose, and I’ve decided there’s no place for such monsters in the empire I’m building.”

A hideous wave of heat roars through my body, followed by a burst of nausea. I imagine the dragons sickening, spasming, dying, unable to fulfill Kyreagan’s promise and set their captives free after mating season. I picture the women stranded in caves, unable to return to the ground, slowly starving. I envision the eggs—my eggs—the pretty violet one and the marbled blue one, hatching alone in the cave, with their father’s skeleton as their sole guardian. The little ones will suffer and perish, with no one to bring them food or teach them to fly. They will die, believing themselves unloved and unwanted, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Their father did terrible things to ensure their existence, to provide for them.

“Kyreagan.” Fuck, I said his name aloud. The boundary between my thoughts and my voice has grown watery, imagination and reality blending together.

Kyreagan. Is he suffering right now, writhing in agony as the poison does its work? Is he torn by anxiety, worrying about everyone else even as he’s dying? Is he already dead, disintegrated by the dawn, a majestic warrior faded into nothing but wind and ash?

No. No.

I need him to exist, even if I suffer, even if I die. I need him to keep being. “I don’t believe it,” I gasp. “Any of it.”

“I’ll find you proof,” says the King. “Might take a while, but I’ll send some men out to Ouroskelle and have them bring back—what do the dragons call it? Bone-tribute?” He chuckles tonelessly. “I’ll have them bring back a bone of Kyreagan’s. Maybe I’ll carve it into a butt plug for you. That way, when I’m fucking you, he’ll be there too.”

“You’re the worst excuse for a human being to ever walk this earth.” I can barely manage the words because the chills are back, and my teeth keep clicking together compulsively.

“I see you have a fever,” observes Rahzien. “Probably from that wound in your foot.”

I glance down and nearly vomit at the sight of my foot. It’s swollen and unrecognizable, mottled in shades of sickly taupe, olive-green, and purple.

“I assume you’d like treatment for that,” he says. “Some food and water? A bed?”

“What’s the point? I may as well die.”

“Because of the dragon?” Rahzien leans closer, his stare oddly intense. “You want to die because he’s dead?”

The question rings through me like a bright bell, and for an instant I’m alert, fully cognizant.

To live, knowing that Kyreagan is gone, will hurt, every single day. But I can do it, if somewhere in the future lies a promise of revenge. I can do as I’m told, bear any brutality, suffer any assault, in the interest of one day finding the chance to kill Rahzien with my own hands—or at the very least, look into his eyes while someone else slaughters him at my feet.

If Fortunix can bide his time for so long, and wreak such far-reaching vengeance upon the kingdom who hunted his mates, I can do this. I can be the soft, submissive creature Rahzien wants. I can do anything he requires of me.

This is the game, the task, the strategy—my tragic masterpiece. Just as I played the arrogant, demanding princess for Kyreagan, so I will play the defeated, spiritless doll for Rahzien.

Until the day the doll rises up, and stabs him to death with a splinter of her own broken heart.

I let myself sag in my chains. “Yes, I want a bed, and food, and medicine. Please, Master.”

“That’s a good little fool.” He grabs my chin, tilts my face up to his bearded one so I’m forced to stare into his eyes. He’s trying to see if I mean it, if he has broken the spirit of the wild horse.

I let my misery, dizziness, weariness, and grief flood my eyes, oceans of hopeless submission surging over my true motives, concealing the black anchor of vengeance buried in the depths of my heart.

Rahzien seems satisfied with what he observes in my gaze. “Repeat after me.”

He pronounces the mantra, and I speak it five times for him, in a voice faint and shaking.

“I did not save my people, nor can I save myself. I am worthless. I am foolish. I am alone. I have no value, and no one wants me.”

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