Warriors of Wind and Ash (Merciless Dragons #2)

Whipping out my wings, I plunge down from the peak, angling for the fastest wind channel to gain maximum speed.

Varex follows me. “Kyreagan, what’s wrong?”

“Serylla. I can’t sense her. I’ve been so distracted—I can’t remember when I last felt her presence. Shortly after I left the cave, I think. Fuck…”

Varex doesn’t reply. Perhaps he and Jessiva do not share the same link that Serylla and I do. Our bond is new, untested… perhaps I shouldn’t be so frantic about its absence. But I can’t shake the dread crawling along my bones, the suspicion that something is very wrong.

With Varex at my side, I soar toward the entrance of my cave and land hastily on the ledge.

“Serylla!” I hate how desperate I sound. Her scent is everywhere, but it’s not fresh. It has faded over a number of hours.

With a wondering light in his eyes, Varex crawls toward the nest where the two eggs sit side by side. “Your little ones.”

“Serylla!” I call again. I return to the brink of the ledge, peering down at the ground far below. Maybe she fell, maybe she jumped… but she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. Not after I promised to take her back to the mainland and set her free.

I shouldn’t have stayed out so long. I told myself it was my responsibility to speak with every member of the clan, as well as each captive. But maybe I was also putting off the conversation Serylla and I planned to have—our discussion of her departure. She said we would talk about it when I returned. Maybe my dread of that talk twined with my need to care for my clan, and delayed my return. This is all my fault. I should have come back sooner.

“Where is she?” My claws grate into the rock, carving deep grooves. “Where is she, Varex? I don’t see a body. She didn’t fall. She’s not here.”

“Perhaps another dragon came by and gave her a ride somewhere.”

“Where?” I snarl. “Where could—”

The peaks of my brother’s wings stiffen and his nostrils flare suddenly. “Be still a moment. Don’t move, don’t breathe.” He lowers his snout to the floor of my cave and prowls along, sniffing deeply.

I’m able to detect a fellow dragon’s scent when they’re nearby, or if they’ve spent a significant amount of time in a certain space, and I can smell a human from some distance away. But Varex can pick up faint traces of an odor hours after its carrier has left the spot.

“Who is it?” I snarl. “Who do you smell?”

He raises his head, alarm in his eyes. “Fortunix.”

Fiery liquid churns in my stomach. While Varex and I surveyed the island today, I told him my suspicions—how I believe Fortunix was behind the plague that ravaged our islands and killed most of our prey. The plague he instigated drove us close to starvation and forced our clan to ally with Vohrain.

“You’re sure it’s him?” I grit out the words between clamped jaws.

“My nose is better than yours, you know that. Fortunix was here, briefly, some hours ago.”

“He took Serylla.”

“He wasn’t at the gathering of the clan, where we chose our partners,” Varex muses. “Several dragons commented on his absence. Maybe he sheltered somewhere alone, and he has been driven mad with the need to mate. Maybe he’s going to—”

“No!” I snarl. “That’s not it. Think, Varex. Who wanted the Princess of Elekstan? Who was willing to pay for her?”

My brother’s eyes widen. “The King of Vohrain. Fortunix is taking her to Rahzien.”

The fiery bile that has been lurching in my gut finally surges onto my tongue. I explode from the mouth of the cave into the sky, spewing streams of orange flame into the rain-washed air.

“Traitor!” I roar through the flames, the loudest cry I’ve ever voiced, immense as a peal of the Mordvorren’s thunder. My voice echoes from cliff to cliff, all through the mountains.

I climb higher, raking my fire across the sky, screaming my fury until my chest aches. Dragons streak from their caves and fly at a cautious distance, hovering anxiously, sharing in my grief and rage even though they don’t yet understand what I’ve lost. Some of the dragons carry human women on their backs, and the sight is like a voratrice’s acid burning through my scales, because my woman is lost. My partner is missing.

“Give us a few moments,” Varex calls to the other dragons. “Then we will gather in the Conch Valley and explain what has happened. Bring any food you have left, so we may all share it.”

The others disperse, except for Varex, Hinarax, and Ashvelon, who carries the enchantress Thelise on his back.

“I can’t stay for a meeting,” I tell them. “I’m leaving now. I have to find her. Varex, you were there, you heard what Rahzien said. You know what he plans to do to Serylla.”

“Explain, Prince,” says Thelise, her brown eyes holding mine. “I’m a friend to your Princess, and if something has happened to her, I may be able to help.”