Page 28 of The Dragon Queen (Ember: Queen Of Dragons #6)

JIANYU

The night my father sent the royal guard after me, my mate, and our friends, I thought I reconciled myself to my father's betrayal. I had offered him decades of service and self-sacrifice. I put duty above all else.

And he spit in my face.

The instant I stepped out of line in the slightest--determined to protect the woman I loved and to discover the truth about whatever hidden enemy had sabotaged our best attempt at peace--he had me hunted down like a dog.

I was angry, of course. Furious in a way I'd never been before. But thanks to Ember, I found harmony within myself. My wrath was clean, directed solely at my father and whatever forces had worked to turn him against me. Against our kingdom and our people.

Now, though?

My fury is a raging inferno, bubbling through the stone my father taught me to believe encased my heart. His instruction made me the man I am today. The quiet one, the thoughtful one, the patient, reserved, repressed one. I've shed the constraints of that identity, but I am what I am.

Now, though, a fresh crack appears in my legendary reserve. I stare at my father--the Stone Dragon King. My hero, my idol.

And I explode.

"What did he offer you," I spit, the earth rumbling beneath my feet. I throw a hand out to the side, and the black stone splinters. Reckless rage takes over my psyche. "What could have possibly tempted you to give up everything. Your power, our people, our magic."

Your son, I want to scream. Your grandchild.

But I'm not that far gone. Not yet.

But my father is.

King Haoyu of the mighty Stone Dragon Empire laughs, and he might as well be hurling jagged shards into my heart. "You still know nothing of power, boy."

"Jianyu--" Ember puts her hand on my arm, sending warmth humming through my skin. She's urging me toward caution, and she's right. This is madness.

All of it.

"You've lost your mind." My reckless rage is tempered only by my despair.

If this were temporary insanity, at least I could empathize. But it's not. My father has been joined by all the other rulers of the dragon world, and for what?

I turn my wrath on the true villain here.

"So what was it?" I demand of King Erembour--and forget reckless. This is foolhardy, verging on suicidal. "What did you tell them you would give them if they went along with this?"

And then the Shadow King fixes me with his black gaze, and everything about him is wrong. I flinch inside, my chest wanting to twist in on itself, just looking at him.

He towers over us all, decked out in ebony robes and furs and jewels. My stomach revolts, an instant migraine forming behind my eyes as I try to look him in the eyes. His pale, papery skin morphs in and out of my vision, obscured by an illusion of a handsome, healthy man, but he's not.

He's hardly a man at all. He's a monster.

I blink, and all I can see is rotten flesh stretched over sunken cheekbones, and a black cloud of magic so deep it reaches clear into my soul.

He smiles, and something within me cracks.

"Why, isn't it obvious?" His voice is even more grating and dissonant than his appearance, echoing and screeching and deep. "Jianyu, proud, only son of King Haoyu. Crown Prince of the Great Stone Kingdom."

He's saying the words as if they're compliments, but each one is a blade, sneaking under my ribs.

He narrows his eyes, and when his smile deepens, it reveals fangs. "I offered them their lives."

Bolts of purple lightning rend the sky, deep black clouds swirling at the feet of the rulers of the great dragon kingdoms. The Water Queen holds her head high as electricity wracks her frame, but she's gazing at Malik with a plea for understanding in her eyes. The Fire King grumbles, and King Zephyr of the Air Realm winces, stepping back.

My father stands his ground, but in his rigid expression, I see the pain.

Erembour has them all under his control. He threatens them and tortures them, and they cow to him, and it's pathetic. An insult to the millennia of history stretching out behind us. Our legacy, destroyed in one fell swoop.

"You're weak," I say, my mouth numb. The realization hits me like a bomb, and my father finally flinches as I volley the truth right back at him. "All this time--you're the weak one. You coward--"

"Enough," King Erembour snaps. "They've won their lives with their fealty, but I can extend no such offer to you."

My dragon roars, his great stone wings beating hard against my chest. "As if we would ever accept."

"Oh, you would." Erembour's smile drips acid, and the headache grows behind my eyes. "Or would you trade your fealty for something even more dear?" His gaze darts to the side. "For the life of your beloved?"

Rafe steps in front of Ember before anyone else can reach her, his hands ablaze. Storm summons a swirling cloud of thundering air, and Malik pulls water from the icy sea. I shake the ground.

"Ah, yes." The Shadow King laughs. "That would do it, wouldn't it?" His mouth curls into a disdainful sneer. "You're so easy to manipulate."

"We're not." I sound like a child, taunted on the playground, left with nothing to reply with except sputtering denials.

And he knows it.

"You are." The Shadow King snaps his long, bony fingers, and more black lightning crackles through the sky. "Why, all it takes is a planted dagger and a few muffled whispers, spoken into the correct ears."

The lightning lands in the sea, but it had might as well have struck directly in my heart.

I whip my head around as echoes of memories assault me.

The blade found by the guards at the castle when I was a boy. The chaos, the accusations.

Rafe, just a child, standing there, innocence in his eyes. I reached out for him. He was my friend. But my father was yelling, drowning out Rafe's denials. I couldn't listen. I was whisked away, the door slammed.

It was war.

But Rafe was telling the truth. All those years ago--he never plotted to assassinate me. He wasn't a weapon.

He was a pawn.

I meet his eyes now, and remorse crushes my chest. I believed everything I was told. He betrayed me. Tried to murder me. Our entire friendship was a lie. But the lie ran so much deeper.

King Erembour cackles, clapping his hands. "Oh, yes, even now." His laughter dies away, replaced by pure ice. "It's almost too simple."

"You used us as tools," I spit. "We were children."

"Childhood is not a luxury afforded to royalty." My father glares at me, and oh--how many times have I heard that before?

The rage within me boils over.

Especially when my father looks over at the Fire King, and they share a conspiratorial glance.

I ball my hands into fists so tight it hurts.

They're weak, cowardly fools, all right. But they were both in on it. They allowed the Shadow King to use me and Rafe to start a war between our kingdom and the Fire Dragons, and for what?

"We were your children," I hear myself say. "Those were your people who died on those battlefields in that useless, pointless war."

The waste. The grief. They hit me right in the chest.

"They really do know nothing of power, do they?" King Zephyr simpers.

"We know more than you ever did." Storm's a live wire, whipping up the wind with his own anger.

"Spare us the theatrics," King Erembour drawls. He waves a hand dismissively. "You think you can rule dragons with kindness and friendship and fairness and love."

The word is poison on his tongue.

"But really." Erembour's upper lip curls in disdain, his mocking tone melting away, leaving nothing but the acid underneath. "Your feelings make you even easier to control. Because you'd give anything--" His gaze cuts to the side, and my heart is crushed in a vice when it lands on Ember. "--absolutely anything--for your sad little impostor of a whore."

And something breaks inside me.

"Why you--" Rafe starts.

"Don't," Ember begs.

But I'm molten lava, my rage already surging.

I'll show this monster. I'm done repressing, done waiting. My love doesn't make me weak. It makes me stronger.

The black stone outcrop cracks in two, my magic racing through the earth. Fire follows in its wake, the torrent of flame charging through the whipping wind and the violent surge of water pouring out of the sea, and all of it is aimed at Erembour--every bit of our rage and love. This is what this has all been for.

Until our magic reaches its target, and just...

Disappears.

Billowing black smoke erupts around Erembour, and then he and his Sorceress, and the kings and queen of dragonkind together are pulling at some invisible thread, and I can't breathe.

I croak, my hands going to my throat, my dragon terrified, and he's never felt fear.

Never--

Except when he thought Ember was...

I'm frozen in place, black webs of power rising up my legs, and my dragon is stuck inside. My magic--my power--it's--

"Delicious," King Erembour breathes, and he's lighting up from within, pure darkness swirling in his black eyes.

"The ritual." Ember's voice trembles.

"It's already begun," King Erembour agrees, licking his fingertips.

And then he flicks his hand to the side.

My entire body convulses, agony like fire ripping up my spine. Dark clouds crash over me, and I'm hurtling through the air only to be dashed against the rock, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. The stone refuses to yield to my command.

Blood drips into my eyes, and through the fog of crimson and black, all I can see is Ember. Our gazes connect, and it's clear.

We failed.

EMBER

It all happens so fast. I'm choking on bile and regret and tears that sting my throat.

We came here to take on the Shadow King, but every single part of it has gone wrong. All around us is carnage.

I can't feel my mates.

A shudder of pure ice slips down my spine, but it's not the numbing kind. It's the kind that hurts.

I drop to my knees as Erembour sends another bolt of purple lightning arcing from the sky into the stone. Its power radiates outward in crackles of destructive force, hitting me, my mates, our friends. The electric darkness flays me open, and even as I'm falling, I'm trying to fight back.

My protection spells sputter, shielding me from the very worst of the attack, but it's too much. Every attempt to ward him off shatters beneath his onslaught. Shivers wrack me, and my nose drips black blood, and this is it.

I put a hand to my stomach, silently apologizing to the tiny spark within me. The unborn piece of my mates that never had a chance to be.

With my other hand, I clutch the Crown, praying to the gods that its power can reach into me.

But another jet of pure black smoke strikes me down. I cry out at the wracking spasms of pain, the soul-sucking power of the Shadow Dragon magic encompassing me.

This was why I was so afraid of who and what I am. I look up at King Erembour, and all I see is sadistic, power-mad cruelty.

A sob escapes me. All around me is carnage. Our friends fall from the sky; they're all bleeding and torn.

At the sight of my mates' limp bodies, shattered on the ground, I gag on bile. Thick ropes of purple shadows tie them down; they can't move. Where their magic should be are dead, black, shriveled shreds of connection.

I shudder, fearing the worst. But their eyes are open, their chests moving, even as black webs of shadows creep over them.

They're alive.

But at what cost?

My stomach roiling, I swallow against the shattered shards of glass that are my throat.

Erembour stole their very essence from them. He's ripping it away from the entirety of the dragon world, and he can't. I won't let him.

Tears rolling down my face, I summon every bit of power I have left. I turn it on this tyrant, this brute, this creature of pure fucking evil.

Until--at the last second--Erembour's eyes gleam gold.

With a gasp, I pull up short, and it hurts, cutting off the magic that wants to fling itself from my fingertips.

But that's what the asshole wants.

A sob of pure rage rips itself from my lungs.

I begged Jianyu and Rafe and Malik and Storm not to attack first, but it was because I didn't want to start the fight that way.

Now I see this all for what it is.

Erembour's ritual may have begun, but it's barely in its infancy.

He stole magic from my mates' hands because they hurled it at him.

My power remains intact--amputated as it may be by my mates' fall.

The gleam in King Erembour's eyes fades, his mouth flattening. "Clever girl. But not clever enough."

"You can't do it," I gasp, lungs heaving, my skin crawling with the remnants of black lightning burning through my veins. "You don't have the power."

"But I will." His gaze darts to the crown, still gripped within my hands. "Now that you've so kindly gone and fetched it for me."

Recoiling, I try to step backward, but I'm caught in the same deep black ropes of smoke and crackling, blinding magic that my mates are.

"I wasn't sure you had it in you, you know." The Shadow King is gloating now, his mask of civility falling for a moment, revealing the twisted visage beneath. "When Rook betrayed me, I hoped he might still be useful to me--that he might convince you to go after the Crown and 'take me down'." He spits the words, venom dripping off his tongue. "But there was no telling if you and your merry band would succeed, or if the Tomb would consume you the way it has so many of my servants."

I shudder, new horrors dawning on me, even as I'm caught in a web of nightmares.

This was his plan all along. To get me to fetch the Crown Of Cinders for him. He knew where it was, even.

I blink, and tears squeeze out the corners of my eyes.

The only solace I have is that my uncle truly was on my side--but that doesn't negate the fact that he was also an unwitting pawn.

And so was I.

A whipping lash of purple and black thorns lunges out of the dark cloud of smoke ensnaring me. It reaches for the Crown, but I hold on tightly.

I shake my head the best I can within my bonds. "I'll never give it up."

"I didn't think you would." Erembour lifts a hand, and his Sorceress floats to his side. "Retrieve it for me."

He's so self-assured, but just like she did when he commanded her to strip me of the Bracer, she hesitates. "My lord--"

"Do it," he snarls.

Her jaw flexes. She approaches me, though, and all my magic is boiling over within me. I may not be at full strength; I may be torn apart by the way he's ripped my mates' connections from my heart.

But I have rage enough to overcome it all.

The Sorceress extends her hand, and I snap my teeth, my dragon roaring within me, and my own brand of Shadow magic brushes her aside in a mist of violet wrath.

She hisses, stunned, retreating back to the safety of Erembour's shadow. "It's as I said, my lord. She has a bond with the magical artifacts that I--"

Erembour snarls and shoves her aside. Gasping, she crashes to the rock, a gash on her cheek bleeding.

"Useless," he growls, and he's looming even larger somehow, all teeth and malice.

But there's a crack in his veneer of invincibility. An edge of anger so hot it shoots sparks.

For the first time, he's not completely in control of the situation.

"You will give the crown to me." The air fills with more shadows--darker ones.

But they're insubstantial.

The hold on me loosens, for just a fraction of a second. I spit blood onto the ground. "Never."

The other monarchs behind him begin to shift.

It's King Zephyr who snarls, impatient, "Just take it from her already."

Erembour's eyes narrow into serpentine slits, and another jolt of purple lightning rends the sky. Zephyr flinches.

Erembour's still growling, but an eerie, unsettling calm creeps into his tone. "What's the fun in that?"

Just like that, his magical restraints tighten around me once more. The ground crackles, glowing with menace.

Alarm bells fire off in my head. Jianyu moans, and on every side of me, my broken mates are writhing in pain, and I can't bear it.

But I can't stop him.

I can't breathe.

New waves of smoke choke me, and my eyes flare wide. The magic is reaching into me--into my very lungs. Acid scours my veins. Flailing outward, I summon every bit of protection magic I know, but he bats them all away.

My vision clouds over, going dark around the edges.

Only it's not just darkness. Specks of light dance across my closing eyes, and something is wrong. My limbs go horrifyingly numb, and I'm sagging. Blinking, I strain, gasping for air, but all I breathe in is poison.

Erembour steps closer, flashes of maniacal glee lighting his eyes. His lips curl up into a twisted, awful smile.

I glance over his shoulder at the rising Dragon Moon.

But even it fades to black.

I land on my back on the ground, spasming.

Crouching beside me, the Shadow King scrapes one long, pointed talon under my chin. His voice drips acid as he muses, "Why force her to give it up?" His voice is dissolving into static, but I can still hear him. "When instead, I can make her hand it over to me herself."

I WAKE WITH A START, my heart pounding, a scream in my throat. There's something I have to do--we're in danger, I have to--

Have to...

It all disappears in a cloud of black smoke, filling my head. I rub my eyes so hard they hurt.

A nightmare. It must have been a nightmare, but it felt so real. There's a flash of a decayed visage, black eyes, purple lighting and great black wings.

But then it's gone.

I try to chase it--whatever the hell that was, it feels important, but I can't grab onto it.

Before I can try, the door to my room slams open with a bang.

Startled, I look up to find my Aunt Helena scowling at me.

"Lazy," she spits. "You think breakfast is just going to make itself?"

Breakfast. I blink, but my skull is pounding.

Aunt Helena shakes her head. "No wonder your parents didn't want you."

Her words hit me like a slap. Deep, black shame settles like a rock in my heart.

Right. Because my parents left me here. They abandoned me. They're off living their best life without me.

Only...

The knowledge that they ditched me to be alone together sits differently in my stomach, which doesn't make sense.

"Well?" My aunt claps her hands like I'm a dog. "Chop, chop."

"I'm coming," I mumble, because that's what I always say. Every time she orders me around.

She grumbles something else beneath her breath, but she's already wandering away. As soon as I hear her footsteps on the stairs, I slump backward in my creaky, old bed. It doesn't feel right, somehow. I glance around, but everything's the same as ever.

Nothing changes.

I scrub a hand over my face, trying to shake off the last remnants of whatever the hell that dream was. Exhaling deeply, I open my eyes.

Funny, being so rattled by a bad dream.

When the real nightmare is the reality of my normal, everyday life as a defective dragon, right here in Wynrath Crest.