Page 55 of The Forbidden Dragon King (Shadow Kings #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Draca Kingdom

D aire

I sprint through the geometric rows of ancient olive groves on the plain outside Bael’s city walls. The afternoon is hot, and sweat stains my cadet uniform.

It’s silent here, apart from my panted breaths, the call of birdsong, and the staccato buzzing of crickets like an insect army are hiding between the gnarled trees.

If Caligo thinks that a couple of beatings will make me die in this trial, then he doesn’t know the true strength of the Unseelie.

He’s a war criminal who has poisoned my land and murdered already weakened citizens. He’s never faced the featherglass who have been forged in the flames of battle .

He’s never faced me.

I duck and weave between the gnarled olive trees, making for the city gates, which I can’t see. In fact, the entire city walls are no more than a shimmering mirage.

How many hours has it been? Two? Three?

I squint at the sun, assessing.

I must still be within the four hour limit to pass the trial.

I hope.

Holding my arm around my aching ribs, I rest for a moment against the rough trunk of a tree. My limbs feel heavy and weaker than they have in my entire life.

The poison, the beatings, and the strain of the training would have most people crawling by now. It’s lucky that I’ve spent my life enduring hardships, or I’d be as broken as Caligo wants me to be.

They have accelerated my loss of vision.

I trace over a fragile, white flower on the branch. I had almost forgotten that things like this could still grow in Draca.

I bloody hope Freya is coping with this trial.

Where was her starting point?

I slide my finger over the silver snowflake.

Exhaustion washes over me through the bond but no fear or panic.

I let out a relieved huff. Considering Freya has never trained before, I’m impressed how dedicated she is being to this whole academy scheme.

But then, she’s been dedicated in following through on her deal to me .

In her love.

Last night, when she worshiped me as shifters once worshiped fae, my soul died and was reborn from the ashes.

Yet by the Shadow Gods, for however long I have left, I will worship my Omega as well. My nests may never be as soft as the ones that Aurelius can offer her but maybe they don’t need to be.

Freya slept happily last night in a nest woven out of our clothes, tangled in my wings.

Freya deserves a pack. Aurelius and I aren’t in competition, despite what the possessive idiot thinks.

This exercise today isn’t much different to how I learned to survive as a young leader in charge of a group of kids, suddenly finding ourselves in countryside that we didn’t know.

Each cadet was dropped in a different part of the lands outside Bael and told to find our way back to the city gates within four hours or fail: the olive groves where I am, the banks of the River Umbra, which cuts through neat farm land to irrigate it to the north, and to the south, rich vineyards.

Obviously, the trial hands the advantage to the arseholes who were raised here.

I guess that’s the point.

The rules state that we must not help our fellow cadets. This is a trial to be completed independently.

Survived alone.

I take a final deep breath, before pushing myself to start running again .

Then I grunt in shock, as my foot hits something hard and unexpected. I fall forward, landing onto my hands and knees.

I hiss out a breath, as my palms are scraped bloody.

I glance behind me, feeling out the shape of the object with my hands that I must have tripped over.

A low water trough.

“Taken out by a fucking trough. If my soldiers could see me now.” I turn my head toward the sky. Then I whistle. “On the sacred ash, my ravens, be my sight and guides.”

I push myself back to my feet, raising my arms.

My remaining magic wells through me. My wings spread wide.

Above me, like giant ruby dragonflies, the instructors hover in the azure sky.

Watching.

Monitoring.

Making sure that nobody escapes.

They’re the true danger here.

I close my eyes, indulging myself in the glorious sensation of the sun kissing my upturned face, the fresh but bitter scent of the grove, and my lapping magic.

I feel my ravens, like companionship and freedom, before they arrive.

Slowly, I smile, opening my eyes.

My conspiracy of ravens flock from the sky, croaking their greeting.

“The King of the Ravens greets you.” They like it when I’m formal. “Help me out, aye? ”

The ravens fly around me in wide circles, feathered shadows.

I stand in the center of their whirlwind, relishing their beautiful chaos.

“I missed you too,” I say, fondly. “Now, show me a safe route to the gates.”

They fly up, flapping around me in a traditional Unseelie honor guard.

I follow their lead, running to keep up and certain that they won’t guide me into any more obstacles.

I’m going to make it.

I squint at the city walls.

I’ve dreamed of escaping them for the last few months. I never thought that I’d be so desperate to return back inside them.

All of a sudden, my ravens start up shrill, high-pitched cries of alarm. They circle up above me, shielding me with their wings.

I reach for a weapon that is no long at my side out of instinct, before I tip back my head and stare above me, wishing more than ever that I could make out clearly the threat.

Except, I can feel its shadow, and it’s dragon shaped.

The ruby dragons are swooping low overhead now in war patterns.

Attack patterns.

My pulse speeds up, as adrenaline shoots through me.

I grit my teeth at the memory of a nighttime grove, circling dragons, fire blasting the trees and Ciara, my best friend, her ash and shadows scattered onto the breeze .

“Fly,” I hiss at my ravens, before they too can be turned to ash. “Bloody leave me.”

They don’t.

Instead, they flap around me in a protective shield.

All of a sudden, the largest dragon dives.

It has to be Caligo.

To me, it’s no more than a terrifying ruby blur, death with wings.

When flames burst from the dragon, I throw myself to the side of the grove, and the ravens move with me, as if we are one.

The flames burn a line down the grove, setting alight the ancient trees. The smell of the trees being turned to ash, as their branches explode into flames, makes bile rush into my mouth.

The trees groan and fall. Their canopies flame on fire like an army with their heads set alight.

I blink, struggling hard not to slip between today and the worst night of my bloody life, when my entire world was burned down.

Is this part of the trial? Or are the bastards trying to truly bloody murder me?

On the Shadow Devils, I’m not easy to kill.

Now, other dragons are circling lower.

A second burst of fire. A third.

I duck and weave between the lines of olive trees, letting the ravens be my eyes.

The city gates are closer now. I can see Bael’s high, stone walls.

Is this the last stage of the trial? Avoid being roasted alive?

I hit the ground hard, as the fire lands so close that I feel it scorching across my cheek, before tumbling into a roll. I pull myself up into a crouch, then leap to the side to avoid another blast.

Almost there.

All of a sudden, a searing pain, as if my wings are disintegrating from the inside out to ash, shocks me. I curl over, letting out a scream. My ravens add their voices in alarm.

My soul bond sears like a brand. Then the soulmate connection between Freya and me opens, howling through my soul.

We’re intertwined, ivy growing up oak, not two but one. I can feel everything that she can, as if it’s my own emotions.

I curl over even further, dragging my wings around myself at the sudden flood of adrenaline. I tremble, shaking with cold and terror.

…Slipping…falling…sickening lurch of my stomach, as I fall over the edge, glimpsing the steel rush of water below and I can’t swim…

I turn my head to the side and retch, slowly returning to myself.

My pinion feather.

Freya must be in serious peril.

I blink against the smoke, choking. The olive grove around me is aflame. The dragons are directing their fire at the area that I’ve fallen. I drag my sleeve over my mouth and nose, struggling to breathe. My eyes sting. I can’t see anything but dancing orange through a fog of smoke.

My heart is hammering.

How can I get through this hell to the Umbra? To my Omega?

My ravens rise up now enraged, diving at the dragons and their riders, pecking furiously.

I struggle to my knees, coughing. My feathers are singed.

I attempt to crawl in one direction but grunt as a blast of flames scorch my cheeks, driving me back. I blink through the smoke and try again in another, but falling embers catch in my hair. I hiss in pain, burning my palms, as I pat them out.

I’m trapped. I’m being burned alive.

I try to stretch out my wings.

“Fucking fly.” I attempt to focus all my magic but nothing happens.

Until now, I believed that as much as I grieved the loss of my flight, I could live without it.

My pinion feather has given me warning but it’s also ensured that I can’t fly to Freya’s rescue. I can’t even save myself from being burned to ash in this olive grove.

Except, the pinion feather of a fae should also be able to create a portal between soulmates. Do I still hold enough shadow magic to create one?

My eyes blaze, as I wrench my wings forward. I ignore the pain, the smoke in my lungs, and the burns from the flames .

I ignore everything apart from the shadows flowing through me, throwing them out in front of me.

Instantly, the flames die down.

The shadows swirl into a portal, as black as night before the moon or the stars were born. The portal expands and expands, until it’s large enough.

Then I throw myself into the void with a warrior yell of rage and agony.

It’s like dying.

It’s like being taken apart and then being put together again.

It’s like being battered with every overwhelming emotion and sensation for less than a fraction of a second and yet an infinite amount of time.

I land on the other side of the shadow portal on the muddy riverbank of the Umber, disorientated, barely able to see, and nauseous.

Yet I still sense Freya’s terror through the bond.

I sniff, desperately trying to smell her.

When I catch the smell of roses, I drag myself through the mud toward the edge of the river, letting her scent guide me alone.

I wrinkle my nose, listening to the loud sound of the rushing river below.

My Omega is down there.

How did she fall? Is she on a ledge?

I take a deep breath. I don’t have a way to get her out of this from up here. I’ll need to join her.

I let my body go lax, which is the best way to avoid injury, then I grit my teeth and fall over the steep bank .

“Daire?” I hear Freya’s panicked call. “Watch out. Don’t fall.”

I tumble through the mud, hitting my hip hard on a ledge and catching onto it with quick reflexes. I haul myself up.

“I knew that you’d come.” Freya’s voice is tear tinged. “I knew…”

Shocked, I stare down at the edge of the narrow ledge, which hangs over the wide, angry river.

Freya must have fallen and rolled off. She’s hanging from the ledge by whitened knuckles.

“By the Shadow Devils…” I lean over and grasp her by the arms. “I’ve got you, love.”

I tighten my hold, refusing to think about how close I came to losing her.

Then I pull, hauling her back to safety with me.

Freya loops her arms around my neck, clinging to me in terror. She is panting hard.

Her hair is tangled across her face. Her uniform is crusted with mud. And her cheek is grazed.

“Don’t let go.” Freya is trembling.

“I won’t.”

I rub soothing circles on her back, pushing her nose against my scent gland to help slow her racing heart.

It helps slow mine as well.

Finally, Freya draws back. She gasps in horror, smearing the ash on my uniform and attempting to brush it out of my curls.

I wince, when she touches my burned cheek. “What happened to you? You look worse than I do. ”

Debatable.

“Flattery will get your everywhere.” When I attempt to take Freya’s hand in mine, however, and she stares in horror at my burned palms, I sigh.

“Maximinus and the other instructors decided to add in a game of burn the fae. But I felt the pull through the pinion feather that you were in danger. So, here I am.”

“Here you are,” she repeats, sounding like she’s still in a daze. I pull her to her feet next to me, beginning to look around for our way back up onto the bank. “How?”

“A shadow portal.”

“But that’s powerful magic, which you’re not meant to be using. Plus, you’re helping me, when the rule of this trial is that we complete it by ourselves.”

“One problem at a time. Let’s work our way back onto the bank. How far do you think we are from the city gates? Should we be able to make it within the time limit?”

“Maybe. I was following the line of the river to where it comes closest to the city. I was almost home.”

“Home?”

Is that truly how Freya is coming to see my prison?

She flushes. “You know what I mean.”

I don’t.

I also don’t tell her that.

“Hey,” Freya looks up at me, before standing on her tiptoes to kiss me, sudden and sweet and unexpected, “thanks for saving my life.”

“I told you that you’d never be alone. I’ll catch you, when you fall. Even if that’s to tumble arse over elbow into a bloody river. Also, I made a deal to serve you and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Fae, all about the deal.”

“Aye.”

Freya’s eyes are dancing like she sees straight through my bullshit.

She doesn’t say anything though, only gently takes my hand.

I’m relieved that it means I don’t have to figure out a way to avoid tumbling myself into the water by accidentally not seeing the edge, as we work our way back to the top of the bank.

I hope that Maximinus sets me up on another mission soon and I can earn another dose of the antidote.

“You shouldn’t have come back for me.” Freya’s hand tightens around mine. “You’ve broken the rules, when you could have just passed the trial. Your survival instincts aren’t very good.”

“They never were. The thing about an Alpha fae is that they will do anything to make sure that their fated mate survives. They’d give up their souls if it meant that their Omega wasn’t hurt.”

Freya’s voice becomes small with fear. “Ignatius received ten lashes simply for losing a button. What do you think your punishment will be for breaking the rules of the trial?”