Warriors of Wind and Ash (Merciless Dragons #2)

He flips the dagger around, holds the hilt out to me. “Do it. Or suffer.”

My eyes flick across the gleaming helmets, each with its own rictus grin. In the distance, across the courtyard, a few stable-hands and servants hurry about their chores. None of them look toward me.

Hinarax is probably nearing Ouroskelle by now. Kyreagan is hiding somewhere in dragon form, lying in wait until he can be human for a couple of hours. I have no idea where Meridian is, and even if he knew what was happening, he couldn’t stop it.

No one can save me from the consequences of the choice I’m about to make.

Rahzien frowns at me, a keen awareness waking in his eyes. “You’ve changed since last night. Fuck, we were so close, Spider, so close to perfect submission, and now we must start all over again. I won’t be as gentle this time, because I need you to learn your place. Kill this man, or you’ll suffer worse than five lashes.”

I draw a deep breath in. “I won’t kill for you.”

“You won’t kill for me?” He chuckles, incredulous, and waves his hand toward the silent rows of soldiers. “Every man and woman in this group would kill for me, and so would countless other Vohrainians spread out across this city, this kingdom. They know their place, and their duty. Unflinching obedience to their king.”

“I used to be afraid of defying a ruler,” I reply, raising my voice so it carries across the courtyard. “I was afraid of my own mother, the Queen. She made terrible choices, and I did nothing to stop her. She made me complicit in her careless cruelty, and I stained my own hands with blood through my inaction. I promised myself I wouldn’t stand by and witness the death of more innocent people. I’ll be your pet, your whipping girl, your consort, but I won’t be your executioner.”

The Vohrainian soldiers are listening. I can sense that I’ve captured their interest by refusing to kill the guard.

Perhaps Rahzien senses their attention, as well. Perhaps that’s why he turns to the disgraced guard and says, “Punish my consort for me, and I’ll forgive you for your foolishness.”

The guard looks up at me, his eyes swollen, his face crumpled, tear-streaked and drooling. He sniffs, scrubs the back of his wrist across his mouth and chin, and climbs to his feet, a panicked frenzy in his eyes.

I fully expect him to spare me, because I refused to kill him. So the punch comes as a shock—his fist crashing into my face. I stagger, and he hits me again, in the stomach this time. Then the face again, with greater force. The blow sends me reeling, and I collapse at the feet of a motionless Vohrainian soldier.

Sickened and dizzy, I lift myself and spit blood onto stone. A few of my teeth feel loose.

The disgraced guard stumbles toward me, and I barely have time to curl in on myself and shield my face with my arms before he’s kicking me, over and over, his cries of effort and desperation ringing in my head. Pain explodes wherever he strikes, until my brain is a blur of oozing scarlet agony.

“Enough,” says Rahzien.

Thank fuck, the worst is over. I suck in a breath that tastes like blood and relax my body.

The guard sees an opening. Rams his boot into my belly with such force I can’t breathe.

I’ve never felt such horrific pain. As if something in my stomach burst and released a flood of nauseating agony.

I’m barely conscious. Dimly I hear Rahzien’s roar of fury as he holds the disgraced guard above me, snarls, “You are forgiven,” and slashes with the knife, drenching me with the lifeblood of the man I wouldn’t kill.

Rahzien drags me upright, clasping me against his chest like he’s comforting a lover. He murmurs into my ear, beneath my bloodied hair, “I told you I don’t like this kind of violence. But you made it necessary.”

He picks me up, and I can’t help a weak cry. I think I’m dying. I think I’m broken, deep inside.

“I’ll take you to the healer,” Rahzien tells me. “But I need to make a stop first.”

My eyes are swollen nearly shut as he carries me past the stables, into the garden, to the aerie where we kept my mother’s hawks.

Rahzien sets me down on the straw-covered floor, and I lie motionless, suffering through each breath. I’m grateful Kyreagan isn’t here. If he saw me like this, he might bite Rahzien’s head clean off, and then—well, I’d be dead too.

“Your mother kept beautiful hawks here,” Rahzien says. Through the blurred cracks of my swollen eyelids, I see him opening a cage, reaching for a bird with glowing red eyes. I think it’s the same one that found me in the alley, after I tried to escape. He holds the bird gently, stroking its feathers with one thick-fingered, ring-laden hand. “When she saw she had lost the war, she could have set them free. Instead I found them dead. She broke their necks, one by one, rather than let me have them. I have to admit… I respected her for that.”

He lifts the bird and speaks softly to it. “Open the mind, free the voice, understand the purpose. Fly to Ouroskelle, Isle of Dragons, and tell me if any of the dragons still live. I’m especially interested in the fate of the dragon princes, Kyreagan and Varex. Secure the mind, preserve the voice, retain the purpose.”

The bird bobs its head and flies from his hand, circling upward and darting out through one of the skylights of the aerie.

“Activation and closure phrases,” says Rahzien, turning back to me. “The sorcerer who created these talking birds for me died some time ago, but as long as I say the correct phrases to trigger the spellwork at the beginning and confirm my intent at the end, I can still use the birds.”

He crouches and picks me up again. He’s broader than Kyreagan, barrel-chested and packed with hard muscle. He smells all wrong to me—heavy cologne and leather. I cringe inwardly at the feeling of his arms around me, but another wave of pain washes over me and I nearly lose myself.

“Stay awake,” Rahzien orders. “Eyes open, Spider.”