100. Raengar
Raengar watched as the Frost Dragons riders banked their beasts, slowing their dragons as they circled the air before landing systematically in the clearing around them. He was casually leaning against a tree, but the tension beneath his skin made him feel like a tinderbox waiting to explode.
When Ye-Jun and his dragon Frostflight landed, the commander slipped off and immediately came to clasp Raengar on the arm.
Ye-Jun grinned and the piercing in his eyebrow glinted in the sun as he looked Raengar over. “Your Grace, trying out a new lotion?”
Raengar grinned back and resisted the urge to rub his hand over his blood-soaked face. “It’s been a long day.”
The border skirmishes had picked up in intensity. The monsters hadn’t surfaced yet, but there were more soldiers than ever, and it had been a massacre. Raengar had lost only a couple of men to arrows, but Lyondrea was losing men by the dozens now every day. He didn’t know how long Lyondrea could sustain this pace and didn’t know what they would do when they became desperate.
“Tell me, how is the Choosing going? What’s going on at the Northern Castle?” Raengar didn’t need to ask about Rorax. Ye-Jun knew Raengar well.
The smile on Ye-Jun’s mouth fell, and he reached up to tug on one of his tiny hoop earrings. “You didn’t even wait for five minutes.”
A muscle in Raengar’s jaw flexed. It was a miracle he’d waited this long.
Ye-Jun crossed his arms over his chest and studied Raengar from head to foot. “Do you have any weapons on you?’
Raengar cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
Ye-Jun squinted back. “Rorax is . . . excelling. Kiniera didn’t want to say anything in front of her, because Rorax isn’t on board yet, but Kiniera fully expects Rorax to assume the Guardianship.”
“What do you mean . . . Rorax isn’t on board?”
“Rorax has recruited the whole House of Death and convinced Kiniera to have all the ancient libraries searched for information on how to free themselves from the Choosing.”
Raengar stared. “She . . . wants to free herself? She doesn’t want to be the Guardian?”
Ye-Jun scratched his chin. “After what happened in Surmalinn, she doesn’t feel worthy.”
Raengar felt his temper flare as hot as the New Volcano. The abuse Rorax had endured—been enduring when they found her—was some of the worst kind imaginable. It was a miracle and a testament to her strength that she hadn’t come out of the crucible more twisted than she was. In Raengar’s opinion, no one deserved a safe and peaceful life more than her and one day he was going to give it to her.
“Also, there is something else you should know.” The hesitation in Ye-Jun’s voice made Raengar narrow his eyes in suspicion. “Rorax has taken a lover.”
Raengar would kill any man who touched her. He stared for a long moment, trying to rein in his temper before he growled, “Who?”
“Ayres Sumavari.”
A surname almost as infamous as his own. Sumavari. A Death Prince.
Raengar rolled his jaw, trying to refrain from turning the tree next to him into an explosion of ice shards.
Raengar had never met this prince. House of Death was famously private with the identity of their heirs. Raengar had only ever met Erich—the general of House of Death”s army—and Rosalie Sumavari, who at the time was the crown Princess, and who was now their Queen.
“That’s not all, Raengar,” Ye-Jun said carefully, “He’s the Death Harbinger. I saw it in a vision.”
Raengar went blind with rage, he could vaguely feel ice crawling up his wrists. Gods, Rorax never made it easy. Now he was going to have to find a replacement Death Harbinger for after he killed him.