Page 39 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons (Empire of Vengeance #4)

He turned his back on me, a dismissal more profound than any blow, and raised his voice in a roar that cut through the battle. "ANTONIUS!"

Antonius appeared at Marcus's side, a giant wreathed in the firelight of the battle. His gaze fell on me, then shifted to Marcus’s rigid back, and the same cold comprehension dawned on his face.

He didn't need an explanation. He saw the ring still clutched in my hand, saw the authority I now wore like a death shroud, and drew his own conclusions.

Together, they turned, a solid wall of condemnation, and moved into the fray, their purpose singular and clear: find Livia.

They would do it without me. They would do it in spite of me.

The rejection was a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. I had revealed my deepest secret to save an army, and in doing so, had damned myself in the eyes of the only people whose judgment mattered. I was alone.

"Up!" I commanded Imperia, and we surged back into the churning, smoke-filled sky.

Below, the retreat had begun to take shape, a chaotic but directed flow of men and dragons moving toward the valley mouth.

Cassius, for all his bluster, was a competent soldier.

He was saving what he could of his army.

I had their obedience. I had command. And it was all worthless.

We rose above the slaughter, a single point of focused will in a sea of terror.

I scanned the churning hellscape, my eyes straining through the smoke.

Every shadow looked like her fallen form, every distant scream sounded like her voice.

I was the son of the Emperor, a prince with the power to command armies, and I had never felt so utterly powerless.

We flew in frantic, swooping passes, my eyes scanning the carnage until they burned from the smoke and strain. I saw the glint of downed Imperial dragons, the darker shapes of fallen Talfen mounts, but not the one I sought.

Then, through a sudden tear in the smoke, I saw it. A patch of ground lit by an errant blast of dragon fire, and on it, a sprawling shape of ebony scales, half-concealed by a rocky outcrop. Sirrax.

We landed with a ground-shaking thud that sent Talfen and Imperial soldiers alike scrambling for distance. I was off Imperia’s back before she’d fully settled, sword in hand, my royal authority forgotten, replaced by the primal terror of a man about to lose his world.

The dragon’s magnificent obsidian form lay in a broken heap.

His great wing was twisted at an impossible angle, and a deep gash ran the length of his flank, oozing dark blood onto the trampled earth.

His golden eyes, clouded with pain, found mine.

Within moments, Marcus and Antonius were at my side.

They must have been watching me from below and saw me land.

"He's alive," Antonius said, kneeling beside the great black head and checking for breathing. His voice was tight with barely controlled panic. "Hurt bad, though. Wing's definitely broken, maybe some ribs too. But he's breathing steady."

"Where is she?" I demanded, my voice cracking as I searched frantically around the crash site. "She has to be here somewhere. They fell together!" I kicked at debris, lifted broken pieces of armour, my movements becoming increasingly frantic. "LIVIA!"

My voice was a raw, useless thing against the symphony of slaughter.

Marcus shoved past me, his shoulder hitting mine with deliberate force, his eyes scanning the ground with a hunter's intensity.

Antonius was already moving in the opposite direction, his massive frame a shield against the stray arrows that hissed through the air.

"She's not here," I said, the words feeling like glass in my throat. My hands were shaking as I knelt beside Sirrax's head next to Antonius. "Gods, she's not here. What if she's..." I couldn't finish the thought.

Sirrax's great eye opened slowly, focusing on me with obvious pain and confusion—and something that looked like grief.

“We need to help Sirrax,” said Antonius. “She’d never forgive us if we just left him here to die.”

"How are we supposed to move something that size?" Marcus asked, but his usual pragmatic tone was strained with desperation. He kept looking around as if Livia might materialize from the smoke. "He's got to weigh more than a dozen horses, and we need to find her. We need to—"

“He can shift,” I said. I laid my hand on his great neck and leaned in closer so he could hear me over the din.

"Sirrax, please. I know what you are. I know your secret, and you're safe with us, but we need you to shift.

We can't carry you as you are, but if you take your other form, we can get you out of here and you can tell us what happened. Please. She could be dying out there."

Marcus grabbed my shoulder. "Jalend, what in Inferi are you doing?”

“Just wait, give him a minute,” I said, desperately. “Come on Sirrax.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the massive dragon form began to contract and change, scales flowing like liquid into dark skin, wings folding into his back, the great head reshaping itself into something recognizably human.

When the transformation was complete, a naked Talfen man lay where the dragon had been—tall and lean, with long white hair as his dragon form and skin marked with intricate tattoos that seemed to shift and move in the firelight. He was still badly injured, but he was undeniably, impossibly human.

Marcus and Antonius stared in complete shock, their faces cycling through disbelief, wonder, and finally a kind of horrified understanding as they processed the implications of what they were seeing.

"Well," Marcus said after a long moment, his voice hollow, "that's not something you see every day."

But Antonius was already moving, pulling off his cloak to wrap around Sirrax's shivering form with hands that trembled slightly.

"Questions later," he said, though his usual pragmatic tone was edged with the same desperate fear we all felt.

"Get him out of here now. And then he's going to tell us what happened to her. "

He lifted Sirrax with surprising gentleness for such a large man, cradling him like a child as we began making our way toward one of the paths that led up and out of the valley.

The retreat was in full swing now, with Imperial forces streaming toward the exits under cover of coordinated dragon flights.

We found a sheltered alcove about halfway up the ridge, hidden behind a cluster of boulders that blocked most of the wind and provided some protection from observation.

Antonius set Sirrax down carefully, then began examining his injuries with the practiced efficiency of someone who had treated battlefield wounds before.

"Ribs are cracked, maybe broken," he muttered, his hands moving over Sirrax's torso with clinical precision. "Shoulder's definitely out of joint. Nothing that won't heal, but he needs rest and medical attention."

"How did you know?" Marcus asked, turning to look at me with those calculating eyes. "About what he was, I mean.”

I glanced at Sirrax, who was watching me with an expression of cautious trust. "Livia told me," I said finally.

"About the dragon shifters, about why my—" I caught myself just in time, "—about why the Empire raids Talfen territory.

Every dragon is a shifter. That's why they're captured, why they're enslaved.

The Empire isn't just taking beasts of war—it's taking people. "

Marcus gave me a look that suggested he had noticed my near slip-up, but he didn't comment on it directly. "Makes sense," he said instead. "Explains a lot of things that never quite added up."

I nodded, leaning in towards Sirrax.

“Can you tell us what happened? Where is she, Sirrax?”

“We fell. Wing broken, could not fly. Wrapped wings around her, broke the fall. She hurt, but not... not too bad. Breathing when we hit ground."

Relief flooded through me so intensely that my knees nearly buckled. "She's alive?"

"Was alive," Sirrax corrected, his strange speech patterns making every word seem carefully considered. "But then... shadow-man came. Took her. Carried her away into darkness before I could stop."

The relief turned instantly to ice-cold terror. "Shadow mage? One of them took her?"

Sirrax nodded weakly. "Big magic. Old magic. Wrapped her in shadows, carried her away like wind carries leaf. I tried to follow, but..." He gestured helplessly at his broken form.

"So she's their prisoner," Antonius said grimly.

The word hung in the air, colder and sharper than the wind whistling over the ridge. A prisoner. Not dead, but taken. Snatched from the battlefield by a being of myth and nightmare. It was a fate I couldn't comprehend, a new circle of hell I hadn't known existed.

"No," Marcus snarled, shoving himself to his feet. His face was a mask of furious denial. "Not a prisoner. They'll kill her. She's Imperial. They'll see her uniform and—" He choked on the words, his hatred for me warring with his terror for her.

"They won't," I said, my voice hollow. “He could have killed her here. Why take her captive if he’s just going to kill her later? No, he wanted her for a reason."

"And what reason could that be, Your Highness?" Marcus spat the title like a curse. "A hostage, maybe? Someone to bargain with the son of the Emperor?"

The accusation struck me with the force of a physical blow.

He was right. If the shadow mage knew who I was—and with his power, how could he not?

—then Livia was no longer just a soldier.

She was a pawn. My pawn. Her capture was my fault.

The weight of it threatened to crush me.

I had brought her here. I had led this army.

I had revealed myself to Cassius. Every choice I had made, every compromise born of desperation, had led to this.

Livia, in the hands of a monster, because of me.

"We have to get her back," Antonius said, his voice a low rumble that cut through my self-loathing. He looked from Marcus's rigid fury to my despair. "Arguing isn't going to help her. We need a plan."

Sirrax struggled to sit up. “I go get her.”

“You won’t make it ten feet alone,” I stated, my mind racing, discarding and forming plans with desperate speed. “You’re injured. I’m coming too. Do you know where he might have taken her?”

He nodded. “North. Mountains. I feel her.”

Marcus frowned. “What do you mean, you feel her?”

Sirrax turned those unnerving golden eyes on him. “Little Warrior is mate. Can sense. Moving north.”

“Then we’re all going after her,” Antonius said, his voice a low rumble of absolute certainty.

“We don’t need him,” Marcus glared at me. “He can stay here with his army of murderers.”

I met his eyes without flinching. “You can hate me all you like, Marcus. But Livia is my woman too, no matter who I am, and I will scour this entire damned country, inch by bloody inch, until I find her, whether you like it or not.”

“Royal mate is right.” Sirrax said. “Need all. Call other mates too.” He closed his eyes.

“Other mates?” Antonius asked. ""What does he mean?”

“Tarshi and Septimus,” Marcus said. “But they’re…”

He trailed off as a dark shadow passed overhead the distinctive beat of wings sent a cold wind over all of us.

I looked up, praying it was Imperia, but the dragon that landed mere feet away from us was dark in colour, almost as dark as Sirrax.

Fire danced along the ridge of his terrifying face and over scales that gleamed midnight blue, and my heart stopped.

A figure slid from its back with a groan and staggered towards us. Marcus raised his sword, but instead of attacking, the figure veered off and promptly threw up.

“Fucking dragons!”

I frowned. That voice was so familiar.

“Septimus!” Marcus strode forward and swept the figure into a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you brother. But where did you get a dragon? And where’s Tarshi? Livia said-”

“Ah yes, Tarshi and the dragon,” muttered Septimus, sinking down to sit next to Sirrax. “I’ll leave that for him to show you.” He turned his head, as if noticing Sirrax for the first time. “Alright mate? You look like I feel.”

“What in the name of all the gods…” breathed Marcus, and I turned to see the dragon shifting, his features shrinking and warping until Tarshi stood before us, as naked as the day he was born.

My eyes dropped slightly and I blinked, before wrenching them away again.

Damn. I might be the highest ranked in this weird family, but I was most definitely not the best equipped.

maybe she just lied for my sense of humour.

The thought of Livia sent a wave of despair over me again, and as Marcus stepped back from embracing Tarshi, I stood up and faced them.

“The army is retreating. We should scavenge what supplies we can in the confusion and slip away now. They can list us in the dead, and won’t send scouts out looking for… well, me.”

Tarshi looked at me with a black gaze. “Emperor’s son.”

“How did you…”

“Dragons and mates talk minds,” said Sirrax struggling to his feet with a grunt of pain. “I call. Tarshi brother mate. help find Livia.”

Marcus looked round at all of us.

“Well, I guess that settles it. Let’s go get our woman.”