As she dragged Galina’s limp body the last few shaku to the finish, her eyes locked on Koen Raad then dropped, misting with a veil of tears that confused them all.
She dropped the other First Chosen when Galina moaned pitifully, batted weakly at the hands holding her.
Bitterly cold, Anastasia spoke. “Aleksandr. My katana.”
Frowning, her bother didn’t hesitate to skilfully throw the weapon overhead.
No one dared stop him.
She snatched it from the air, clasped hilt and scabbard to draw free the length of metal with a ringing peal that hushed the petrified onlookers.
“Ana,” Daniil called with quiet intensity. “Talk to me. Tell me what is wrong.”
“There must be justice.” She looked at him, furious, shaking with it. “Know that I never wanted this. From the moment I saw her I knew my time was over. My chance had ended, and I made peace with it.” Her eyes widened then, and she looked a little shocked, a little lost. “I am so sorry, Daniil.” Her voice was truly stunned. “Believe there was nothing I could do.” Her gaze snapped to Koen Raad.
They saw it then.
Pity.
Great heart failing its beat, Koen staggered.
Shaking, blanching as her words penetrated, he clawed at his throat, searching for the invisible hand crushing his windpipe. He couldn’t breathe. His chest was rigid, his lungs locked in a perpetual spasm.
Reddened eyes anxious, Nikolai drew closer to his brother. His arms opened, prepared to hold, keep him steady. When Koen started violently, Nikolai wrapped his arm around his brother’s shoulders and heaved him into a solid embrace. He struggled to help the male contain the raw surges of mystical power whiplashing from his beastly soul as his world shattered.
Anastasia brought their attention back to the battered female blubbering in the dirt. She used the rounded toe of her boot to flatten Galina’s head to the ground. “By default I am Queen of the Fire Kingdom, as was always my destiny. You will forfeit. The Goddess herself knows you are not my equal.”
“Anastasia Vor.” Distraught at the turn of events, the Regent crossly waved aside the guard who tried to waylay his advance on the unstable Chosen, who wielded a sword, terrorized her competitor, and brought news of a most destructive nature. “You panic us. Speak plainly.”
Straightening, Anastasia settled the point of her curved blade at the hollow of Galina’s throat. Her voice lifted to carry strongly over the stormy weather. “Marina is dead.”
Gasps and cries of disbelief rippled through the watching crowd.
“Galina murdered her,” Anastasia finished, gaze haunted. “And I could not stop it.”
Shoulders hunching as if crushed by an unbearable weight, Mikhail fell to his knees, silent, breaking.
The shocked Dragon Courts recovered. Scandalized whispers and outraged bellows demanding an explanation swelled into an anxious uproar.
Spinning to look at Koen Raad, Regent Myron stood rooted, his worst nightmare coming to pass.
“Murder?” Lord Tyr barked. “The charge holds no weight.” His eyes flicked to Galina. “Allow my offspring to finish the quest.”
“The rules of Aver are clear. I know them well.” Anastasia’s malignant gaze speared him with such force many who witnessed it half expected a blade to pierce through the back of his skull. “First Chosen may strike at each other during the tournament proceedings, but not during a quest. To do so is illegal, and the death is considered murder.”
“What she says is true.” Gathering composure, Regent Myron tore his sad gaze from Koen Raad to handle the consequences of fate’s cruel work. He folded his shaking hands under his belt. Fear crept up his spine as his mind comprehended the violence yet to come. He skirted close to panic. “To expedite matters we shall pronounce judgement.”
Yaakov looked confused then scared when realisation dawned of what Myron tried to avoid. “Lady Vor,” the sweating male called brusquely. He unrolled parchment and held a quill at the ready to record the proceedings for entry into the archives. “State your case and present evidence. You may recommend punishment.”
“Punishment?” she replied frostily. “The penalty will be death.”
“Noted for review by the Keeper of the Realm.”
“I am in agreement,” Myron said curtly, indicating with a sharp gesture Yaakov needed to hurry.
“This is madness.” Tyr shoved at the Dragon Men barring his way. “I demand the charge brought before the Dragon Council.”
Usually prepared to take whatever advantage there was to be had when concerning the law, Daniil stared blankly at the middle distance. Shock etched deep grooves into his face, his refined features frozen in a twist of horror.
“A Council Mon kneels not five-shaku from you,” Jakob said hoarsely, and pointed at Mikhail, who had yet to raise his dark head. “You will find no mercy here nor will you find it there, you bastard.”
Twirling in a riot of white hair and resplendent silk, Regent Myron’s gold eyes blazed. He was furious to be opposed at the brink of such peril. “Silence,” he thundered. “Queen Anastasia! Present!” And with those words he transferred the reign of the Fire Kingdom from his hands to hers.
“Lady Tyr pushed the Princess into a lava flow. Marina went to her when she called for help.” Perplexity flickered over Anastasia’s expression before it cleared. “She was distracted by something, I don’t know what I saw exactly. Marina was so odd at times. But Galina placed her hands upon the Princess’ back and shoved.”
“She fell,” Galina protested. Her trembling fingers gingerly touched the blade a flick away from ending her life. “You lie.”
Anastasia hissed, “Murderer,” right in her face. “You have no honour. I will kill you for robbing me of my sister-Queen. Finally the Realm had one who was worthy, who bested me, and was unafraid to be who she was. She stood up to the strong to defend the weak knowing it cost her, knowing she could lose it all.” Terrifying in her rage, Anastasia loomed over Galina and punctured every word with a shove of her boot. “She deserved better.”
A deep, male voice whispered, “She is gone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Eyes eerily vacant, Koen Raad stood rigid in the clasp of his brother’s arms. His brutally handsome face was expressionless, pallor waxen.
“Gone?” he forced through death-white lips.
“Lies,” Galina cried into the lull. Her braid had fallen to hang over her shoulder, curly auburn wisps framing her panicky face. “It was an accident.” Her gaze flickered and she blinked. “My King, you of all people know how far House Vor will go to win Aver. The blood of how many Fallen stains Anastasia’s blade?”
“I have killed, yes, but always with honour. What you did–” Anastasia turned a sickly shade of grey. “What you did shames everything First Chosen stand for. We are the strongest women of our world. Other females look to us for strength. Look what you have reduced us to.”
Breaking free of Nikolai, Koen stalked past the Dragon Men.
They wisely parted without approval from the anxious Regent, who listlessly waved them aside, redirecting their efforts into corralling the burgeoning crowd.
Myron watched the scene unfold with an air of resignation.
Yaakov urged him to move back to safety.
Their attempt to avoid the confrontation had been in vain. Myron knew the storm he envisioned days ago had arrived.
Koen Raad stopped and stared into the Drackai Queen’s clear blue eyes. He looked past her to the path his Treasure would never tread. His gaze dropped to Galina. “Tell me the truth.” His voice was empty. “Tell it all, and I will not kill you.”
“No,” Anastasia said. “The bitch receives no mercy.”
Stiffening, Koen’s fingers slowly curled into fists, a physical representation of exercising control. “Am I to think you see your claim on her life as greater than mine?”
Cowed, Anastasia skilfully swept her blade aside. Her full mouth pressed into a white slash as she subm
itted to his authority.
Koen crouched. He touched a finger to Galina’s flushed cheek, and traced the curve of her face. His expression was void of feeling. “Well?”
Shying from his touch, the First Chosen nervously licked her lips. “My life will be spared?”
No reply.
“Y-You will not kill me?”
“I will not.”
Her rounded eyes darted to and from his. “She said no one would know. They said it would be flawless and that she wouldn’t feel any pain.”
“Names.” Koen clasped her petite hand in his. He turned it over to study it absorbedly. “Who said these things?”
Daniil and Nikolai shared a circumspect look. Koen Raad was not acting as they expected. They’d been prepared to watch him eviscerate the woman who killed his Treasure, not pet her softly as if enamoured. He was acting as if he truly was swayed to a stronger competitor on Aver. It unnerved them. The hairs on their arms, and the backs of their necks rose in warning that something was not right with their liege.
“Who?” Jakob forcefully repeated the demand from where he knelt. A burning light of realisation crackled in the bottomless depths of anguished eyes. “Who?”
“Katya of House Ja,” Galina blurted. “She and my Sire promised no one would know.” She pointed at Anastasia, accusing in the midst of her hysteria. “She was not meant to see. Why did you come back?”
“Because while I was happy to leave you to your fate, Marina’s words filled my heart with compassion. I returned to help her save you.” Anastasia looked upon her with contempt. “It is fitting her last words to me ensured your destruction. Had she not pleaded your case so well I never would have turned back.” Anastasia paused. “She said benevolence is queenly. That you are my responsibility.” Her voice lowered, silken and exceedingly dangerous because of it. “Whatever shall I do with you?”
Koen smoothed his fingertips over Galina’s bloodied plait.
Teeth grinding, Anastasia could no longer hold back. “What are you doing?” she snapped. “Marina loved you and here you sit pawing her assassin.”
“Perhaps our King sees what you cannot.” Sensing an opening, Lord Tyr marched into the conflict. He was reassured by the King’s transfixion with his offspring. “Aver is a tradition we uphold to ensure the strongest Queens lead us. It ensures the Empress will protect the Dragon Land’s greatest hope – our Emperor.”
“I cannot believe you have done this,” Myron muttered bleakly. “You have shamed your House, Artur. “Betrayed all trust.”
“I did nothing Dragon Lords of the Courts have not done since the dawn of our civilisation.”
“She was not natural,” Galina cried, swollen face wet with tears, heedless her feverish rambling sounded crazed. “An abomination.”
“You plotted against a royal and murdered a female whose only crime was to love our King and demand a better life for those who toil beneath us,” Myron said. “You snuffed one of our brightest flames. You dare speak of what is civilised.”
“Lina will be a Queen.” Artur placed a heavily ringed hand on his Galina’s crown. The satisfaction in his was voice sickening. “That is all that matters.”
Koen stirred. Emerald eyes glimmered enigmatically as he stroked Galina’s face from temple to jaw before standing. “You did all this so your offspring could call me mate? So she might rule by my side as Empress?”
Tyr’s hooked-nose jutted up. He was blinded to the reality immortality was a mere illusion of invincibility. “I did.”
Koen grabbed the male by the throat. His speed was an incalculable thing. He lifted the male into the air and throttled him.
When the Dragon Lord’s mouth wrenched open to babble for help the beastly roar that ripped from Koen’s throat forever pressed dragonfear into the hearts of those who heard it.
Artur’s eyes bulged from their sockets.
Blood vessels burst flooding his corneas with red as he fitfully struggled to breathe. His lips turned bluish, body juddered.
His clawed fingers scratched at hand crushing his airway.
Scuttling backwards, Galina wailed, screaming in terror when Koen’s maleficent gaze alighted upon her, a promise of death held there.
“You ask how I could touch her?” Eyes narrowing, Koen Raad focused on Anastasia as he fought the primeval urge to kill. “It confused me.” He explained this haltingly. His voice was dark and gritty as he battled his Dragon’s emergence. “It confused me how this creature could be the one who ended her. How?” His breath sawed harshly. “I thought if I felt the power of her flesh my mind would understand what my heart does not.” His body quaked, a violent tremble that shook him from head to foot. “How?”
“With a cowardly trick,” Anastasia said. “This female was no match. Never doubt it.”
Lips pressed together, he jerked a nod. His bestial aura turned menacing. “I interrupted you.”
Her face twisted with savagery as she lunged and stomped on Galina’s stomach.
The disgraced First Chosen cried out. She wrapped her arms around her middle, attempting to curl into a ball on her side.
Anastasia raised her katana for a deathblow.
Koen angled Tyr towards his progeny. “See your offspring? Good. Listen well. Galina is going to die, without honour, writhing in the dirt like the treacherous soft belly she is.” His shook the male held suspended in his grip. “I am going to kill you. Know that as your blood cools upon my scales, I fly to your home to kill your sons, your brothers, cousins, and your nephews. I will end your entire male line.” Koen brought the male closer, so his face filled his vision. “Your females too, Artur Tyr. All of them are dead because of you.” He pointed at Galina. “And because of that thing you spawned.”
“Please.” The Dragon Lord’s breathless screech filled with dread. “My wife–”
“Will die quickly. That mercy is for her sake alone.” Koen glanced over his shoulder. His eyes were cold fire. It was the Dragon’s growl they heard when he rumbled, “I do not hear her dying.”
Sounding a warrior cry that drowned the sound of Galina’s scream, Anastasia brought the katana down.
Releasing his prisoner, Koen shifted into dragonskin.
Artur’s body blazed light as he was freed. His purple Dragon cowered in the vast shadow of a Phoenix.
The male barely wore his scales before his head flew crown over snout into the crowd with a spray of blood.
Flames razed his corpse to smouldering ash.
Koen’s horned head thrashed, and the subvocal roar wrenched from his soul rocked the world. His wings snapped open to beat wildly, casting an ominous shadow, scattering the swarm of people fighting to traverse the hostile terrain as it shook in a tumult.
A subterranean rumble rose to a deafening crescendo, and a sharp drop in air pressure preceded an eerie deadness of sound.
The Dragon Lords stilled. They became statues in the heaving mass of bodies. They gazed up in expectation of a natural splendour the most feral of their kind felt an inexplicable draw to.
A sinister cloudburst of smoke and brimstone blotted the sky as an ash plume mushroomed over the horizon.
Thunder rolled and lightning struck the jagged mountain peak.
The volcano erupted.
It spewed a vertical cascade of lava, a luminous rust-orange beacon in the cinder-flecked gloom.
Droves of wild ones soared hazardously close to the viscous waterfall of liquid rock. Their ear-splitting screeches fell silent as one by one they closed their iridescent wings and plummeted towards the spitting crater, inescapably drawn to the heat.
A hail of magma orbs came screaming down the mountain.
The great black Dragon raged in the midst of chaos, his roars anguished cries that cursed the world.
Arms flung wide, the Regent commanded the crows to hasten their disperse.
Children were snatched up to avoid being trampled. Dragon Lords shifted, grabbing loved ones in their claws. Shrieking and caterwauling they took
to the blackening skies. Attendants ran as Dragon Men hurried them back towards the fortress.
It was the fleeing purple Dragons that drew Koen’s ire.
Inhaling until his chest burned brightly, he spat shards of ice at their departing forms.
Let them run, he thought. Tonight I hunt.
“Dragon King.” As weaker males fled, Myron held his ground. His snowy beard fluttered in the currents of air stirred up by the mass exodus in flight. “Do not do this.”
Angling his snout to peer at the voice of reason beating back misery’s shade, Koen growled warningly. He wanted the numbing blackness of oblivion.
“Bestow mercy upon them.”
‘Mercy?’ His beast soul raged. ‘Houses Ja and Tyr are poison.’
“Attack blindly and innocents will suffer. Think. Marina would never condone this.”
The silence was fraught with pain.
Flurries of ash covered the bedrock in a filigreed layer of grey, turning it into a forlorn moonscape. Air to breathe was thick and sweltering. The pungent stench of burnt sulphur choked it.
“Come back to the Citadel. Mourn with those who loved her.” Myron’s ancient face creased in pain, grief-stricken. “This will not go unpunished. I vow those responsible will be discovered.”
‘My wrath will not be denied.’ Koen shut his eyes. His sides heaved in vast undulations, and ridged claws restlessly shifted. Flexed. They craved the rending of flesh. There was no forgiveness inside him. None. His booming voice resonated as poignantly as the everlasting sadness in his eyes when they pried open. ‘There is no body. I cannot hold her one last time. Gaze upon my Treasure in her last glory.’ His voice broke. ‘She is ash.’
Feeling power gather behind him, his horned head turned to stare over his spinal crest.
Daniil, Jakob and Mikhail headed the horde amassed at his back. Unblinking. Deathly cold. Transformed into powerful Dragon form, gleaming fangs bared, furious roars exploded from the throats of the impassioned warriors. Smoke and frost heated then chilled the air, adding to the spine-tingling fluctuations in temperature. The ranks of Dragons were enraged, bristling and snarling anger, ready to annihilate the perfidious Houses they once honoured as they did their own.