Page 34 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter thirty-two

Alyse

T he chatter of the fifteen realms bombards my thoughts as we fly. Always when we fly. The air is thin. Fewer creatures. The screams of pain and despair from the lowest realms of hell are loudest when we fly, easier to hear. All the worst, filthy creatures of the other mortal realms.

I could latch onto Kazimir like I’d done last night, crawl inside him and hide from my own mind…but it scars him. Hurts him. The pain it causes rakes across my insides, but once we’re together, it’s the greatest, silent bliss. Just he and I, forever.

The temptation to use him like a shield is strong. Instead, I persevere because I know I can.

Kazimir turns us toward the cave entrance, a massive den of glassy stone crystalized blue with a sheen of frost. It’s nice today. There’s still a chill, but the sun is shining, creating rainbows of color from the shards of ice and snow.

Kazimir tosses the bear corpse down to the landing before the mouth of the cave. It hits with a solid smack that rings of shattered bones. Blood sprays across the ground and I sense the dragon wake.

Great one of the sky, we come to you with an offering of meat in hopes of having the honor of your counsel.

A grumbled yawn echoes through the cave entrance below us. “Did I not say I would kill you next we meet?”

I channel the words to Kazimir so he knows what we’re saying, but I keep his thoughts far from the dragon’s mind.

I believe you said you wouldn’t immediately kill me when next we met.

“Immediately…” A rumbling laugh rolls from the opening like an earthquake. “Bring the kill. I will see you for a short time.”

I sigh in relief. “We’ve been granted an audience.”

Kazimir cuts the stream of air that was holding us aloft and we drop to the stones. He uses his magic to push the bear along with us into the cave. The entrance reminds me of the temple to the gods, and I wonder if it had once been a dragon’s den.

“Many epochs ago, my kind ruled this land in the north down past the thick forest. It is very possible your mountain refuge was once a roost, given the dimensions of the space.”

I hiss in a breath, upset with my lackadaisical behavior. I must’ve shared my thoughts with the dragon without meaning to. But if the dialogue is open, I may as well entertain it.

What happened?

“Your kind became powerful enough to hunt us.”

The glass-like stone envelops us in darkness, but my eyes adjust quickly with the light at our backs.

It’s a wide tunnel stretching down beyond my sight.

I pull a magus crystal from my pack and light it with my gold magic.

The walls reflect the light like mirrors, bouncing and playing like fish in a spring stream.

There isn’t much history recorded beyond three thousand years. Was it our tools that gave us the advantage? I ask, looking at the crystal in my hand .

The thunderous laugh hits us with a burst of warmth, knocking me back a step. “It was a goddess’s favor.”

We tread carefully, for the large steps and uneven tunnel floor are no trouble for a twenty-foot-tall dragon but could easily break our bones if we fell wrong.

A goddess?

He hums in amusement, his throat clicking. We’re close. “The very one you now seek to destroy.”

Kazimir’s mind becomes a torrent of questions, but I keep them just in me. I don’t know how the dragon would react to hearing another’s thoughts in his head.

You know what we need, then?

“I do.”

The tunnel turns sharply. My crystal illuminates branches and thick trunks of trees first. Atop them sits thinner grasses, hay, and bushes that have been flattened by heavy feet. I see the remains of his kills next, a pile of splintered bones in the corner—some armor, too.

With every step closer, my light reveals the dragon’s den…

And the dragon.

There he sits, comfortable at the top of his pile.

His green scales shimmer and gold eyes pierce.

His throat glows bright with orange, and Kazimir grabs me around the waist. We fly backwards as the dragon turns his head skyward and unleashes his breath.

I scream at the immensity of the flame, but as it fades, I realize there is no heat.

The ceiling of the cave is magus crystals larger than I’ve ever seen, and they all glow brilliantly with the dragon’s magic.

He laughs again. “Scared you, little one? Thought I would break my promise? ”

I’m panting, my fingers digging into Kazimir’s arm. He looks over his shoulder with a snarl and reaches for his scythe.

“Don’t,” I whisper. “He’ll kill us.”

His eyes swirl with violent rage. I caress his mind, pushing myself against him and wrapping him in waves of comfort I don’t yet feel. It’s all right , I whisper to his subconscious. His shoulders drop, and he takes a long, relaxing breath.

Your antics are unknown to me, great one. You did frighten me.

“You stroke my ego with words that speak of my large size or long years. Does this work among your kind?”

I cover my laugh. It does.

The dragon, now well-lit from above, shifts his shoulders and rises to stand. He pads down his mound, snapping branches as thick as my torso as he goes.

“You’ve brought me a nice treat. This speaks more to your respect than words.”

He snatches the bear from the ground with a snap and tosses it into the air. The enormous beast flips end over end twice and is then chomped in half. The rest slops back to the ground, and the dragon licks it clean.

He groans in satiety, then sits back on his haunches like a cat. “Say what you’ve come to say.”

“We need the scale of a storm dragon,” Kazimir says, getting right to the point.

“I am not a storm dragon.”

“But the young one—the one you saved from my vile former fiancé—he was…” I say, my voice feeling small from my lips. Would you be willing to help us find him?

He tilts his massive head from side to side, and I wonder if it’s a no , or if he’s simply stretching his neck .

What must we do to earn your help?

The dragon clicks low in his chest, the vibration shaking me to the core. From the depths of the nest, something shifts. Pines are pushed aside and the air crackles with power. It smells like a storm.

I grab Kazimir’s hand, sucking in a gasp as the immature electric-blue dragon pushes its face through the foliage of the nest. The green dragon looks down on it with fondness.

“What say you? Give up a scale to save their people?”

The blue dragon winces its eyes shut in painfully slow blinks. “When they tried to sacrifice me to their gods?”

The adult grunts. “For the girl, a favor is owed.”

The blue looks up at him. “And to her people, nothing.”

“Please,” I say as my feet carry me forward. “I’ll do anything.”

“Alyse.” Kazimir hisses my name as he grabs my arm.

“Anything?” the blue asks, its head snapping toward me.

Its eyes are snake-like, the pupil a narrow slit running down its gray iris. Gray like Kazimir’s. I can see the storm in them.

“You would give me anything?” the dragon asks.

I feel in my gut that it’s going to ask for too much, but that we’ll have to give it anyway. There is no other way forward. We cannot fight two dragons and win.

“Alyse, please…” Kazimir implores and the pain in his face makes my heart reel.

I don’t want to say yes, but I must.

“Anything in my power,” I amend. “It’s yours.”

Lightning shimmers over the dragon’s face and it morphs, disappearing from view. The nest shifts, collapsing and parting as a…

A boy emerges.

He’s no more than eight with brilliant blue skin and hair white as snow. Two leathery wings sprout from his back, and his fingers are claw tipped, but he lacks a tail. He steps forward unabashedly, though he is nude, and holds out his hand. In his palm is a zapping blue scale.

“You will…make a deal…with me?” he asks, his Fynish halting and broken.

“We will,” I say.

The boy looks at Kazimir. “And you?”

Kaz’s thoughts center on the scale, on how to filch it and run.

We could never beat them in the sky, I murmur into just his mind.

He grinds his teeth and nods, his speech device glowing with magic. “I will make a deal with you.”

The boy’s gaze returns to my face, then darts down to my belly. He points with his other hand. “I want her.”

Kazimir steps in front of me with a snarl. “Never.”

But I know the dragon wasn’t pointing at me…

My hands cover the swell that’s been growing for three months.

The boy tsks, retracting the hand with the scale.

“Kaz,” I whisper, my voice breaking with the news I couldn’t share last night no matter how hard I tried to force it out. “He doesn’t mean me.”

He turns his head to look at me, his brow furrowed in confusion. His gaze drops to my hands cradling my stomach, and his eyes widen before looking back to mine.

“You’re pregnant?” he whispers, joy dancing through his mind.

I nod, smiling as tears slip from my eyes.

His face hardens and he glares at the dragon. “You will never have my child.”

“Kaz—”

“ No !” he roars. “She is not a thing to be sold for a purpose!”

The words crack open my chest. The very same he said to me …

The very same, and yet they’re not true.

She can serve a purpose. It is the very reason Zephrom allowed her to grow in me despite our diligent consumption of fertility-blocking potion.

The weight of my daughter’s destiny makes me sick.

I want to spill my guts. I want to choke on my own tongue before I speak the words that will ruin us forever.

“She was made for this purpose, to save our people,” I say.

His heartbreak slams into me and his shoulders slouch. I reach out for him, to comfort him, but suddenly, it’s cold. There is no Kazimir. The room is loud with the thoughts of every being in existence but him.

Kazimir’s voice rumbles from behind his silver mask. “You will not have my child.”

His hand snaps out to the side and the shink of his scythe makes me scream. The boy takes a step back, his eyes looking between us wildly. The green dragon roars, his posture changing to pounce.

“Please, Kazimir, don’t do this,” I cry, tugging on his arm.

He captures me in a swell of air and pushes me away. I land against the wall with a thud and fall to the ground. My heart thunders. My hands tremble. I can’t lose Kazimir. I can’t do this without him.

I scream. I’m not sure what I’m saying. I cut myself, crawling on hands and knees to get to him. He pushes me again and holds me against the wall.

The violence in his eyes makes me cower.

“I will not sell my daughter !”

His other hand snaps out, unsheathing his second blade.

“I will choose death first.”