Chapter Two
Loralie suffered through another round of torture. It wasn’t physical torture, but psychic and magical pain inflicted on her soul that caused agony to swamp her senses in every possible way. The wizard and his human apprentice were very adept at making others suffer. It seemed to excite them in a sick, perverted way.
Ever since the protections around the Citadel had started breaking down, she’d been suffering these agonies over and over again. She thought the wizard particularly liked seeing the hereditary Guardian of the Citadel cowed by his power, even though he was still mostly asleep, and very definitely still physically trapped in his icy prison at the top of the world.
The wizard was able to speak in dreams to his minion, the mage Gebel, who had once worked for Salomar. Gebel didn’t really have that much power of his own, but the wizard had taught him things. Forbidden magics that had not been seen in this world for eons.
Gebel used those things to control Loralie, mostly through her young daughter, Penelope, whom he held prisoner. When Penny was very young, Gebel had used a less powerful version of the ice that kept the wizards imprisoned on her. He’d let her out of the ice for short periods of time to remind Loralie exactly what—and who—was at stake if she didn’t cooperate.
Now that Penny was a little older, Gebel had stopped putting her on ice so much. He had put the girl in a series of foster homes that he controlled in various ways. At first, the people he’d chosen to watch over Penny had been truly awful.
While Penny had been under their control, Loralie had done all she could to watch over the girl and convince Gebel in whatever way possible that he should find a better situation for Penny or lose control over Loralie altogether. For, if Penny died, there was no power in this realm that would stop Loralie from killing Gebel in as bloody and painful a way as possible. Once he understood that, he’d found better people to watch over Penny, and Loralie had complied with his requests, albeit still unwillingly.
She’d done what she could to mitigate the damage of the things he’d made her do. She’d been working against his aims as best she could without tipping her hand. He could not know that she was actively opposing him. She had to keep up the pretense of being compliant. But underneath, she was always looking for allies she could use to counteract some of the things he’d made her do.
It wasn’t easy. She’d done horrible things in his service. Things people—and especially dragons—would never forgive her for. Things she would never forgive herself for.
But that one dragon she’d met a while back had surprised her. The red dragon she’d found injured far from home and needing help had figured out who Loralie was at some point, but she hadn’t gone on the attack. Far from it, the dragon had observed Loralie and Penny, then sprung the news that she’d figured out who Loralie was.
Rather than trying to kill her with a blast of flame, the dragon instead seemed rather puzzled and accepted Loralie’s help in getting back home to Draconia. Loralie had led the dragon to the fair folk enclave where her son and his father lived. The dragon had caught the attention of one of the fair folk’s patrols and been ushered into the enclave while Loralie watched from her hiding place.
After that, Loralie knew the dragon was safely on the way back across the mountains to her homeland. It would take some time, but the snow dragons that lived with the fair folk would help another of their kind. Even if she was bright red, and they were all snow white.
Only the distant land of Draconia—far across the perilous mountains known as the Dragon’s Teeth—had dragons in all colors. Way up here, only snow and ice dragons flew. The snow dragons had allied themselves with the fair folk, and some chose to bond with a particular person and live among them while, until recently, ice dragons stayed to themselves.
The recent activity on the border with the Kingdom of Valdis had brought the ice dragons back to the world of man in a big way. Valdis had expanded its borders after kicking out a ragtag group of mercenaries that had been lured there with the promise of an invasion of Valdis and the right to sack that prosperous kingdom. Instead, the dragons had shown up in force and turned the mercs away.
All except a number of Jinn mercenary companies that had chosen to ally with King Alric of Valdis and settle down in the wasteland that sat on the kingdom’s existing northern border. Alric had expanded his border and brought those Jinn mercenaries into his kingdom with treaties of alliance, shoring up a weak point and increasing the size of his army at the same time. He’d also allied with the ice dragons who were even now starting to bond with select people in Valdis and learning how to work together with humans the way the snow dragons worked with the fair folk, or the Draconian knights worked with their more colorful dragons.
The world was changing in a big way, and Loralie hoped that meant that things would soon change for her and her children. She had given up her boy when he was just a baby, dropping him off at his father’s doorstep with little explanation. It was the only way to keep him safe. Nobody but the fair folk knew about the boy. Even fewer knew that Loralie had birthed twins.
Giving Petr to his father to raise had kept him safe, but there had been no way to protect Penny like that. Gebel had known Loralie was pregnant, and he’d seized on the opportunity to kidnap the child the moment Loralie’s guard was down. She’d been so careful, but the wizard had somehow caused a rumble of instability in the Citadel that demanded her attention, and that diversion had allowed Gebel to swoop in and take Penny.
Loralie had failed to protect her baby girl. As she’d failed at so many things.
Her children’s father hated her. Her little boy didn’t even know her. She was a failure as a mother and a mate.
Dismal thoughts to have while being tortured, but she was adept at torturing herself too. She’d been alone for so long with so much wrong with her life and her family. She couldn’t even really call it a family. She loved them, but she couldn’t be with any of them. She thought her daughter loved her, but Petr and Detlif were probably either indifferent or hated her outright. She was pretty sure Detlif despised her.
Which really hurt because she thought maybe he had been the love of her life. She couldn’t be absolutely sure. They’d only had a short time together before her duties had called her away. Then, she’d discovered she was pregnant and realized Gebel was on her trail, and something wasn’t quite right with the Citadel. It had all spiraled out of control from there, leaving her with this insane situation from which she could not yet see an escape. No matter how hard she tried.
The one little speck of hope she’d had in recent times had been the red dragon. Leasharra was her name. On reflection, the red dragon had not reacted the way Loralie had expected. She’d also made a startling offer before she left. She’d offered to try to help Penny.
Leasharra, it seemed, had felt a deep compassion for Loralie’s daughter. Not for Loralie, herself, she was almost certain. How could any dragon understand why she’d done the things she had done? But if Leasharra could somehow get the word out about Penny’s predicament… Maybe—just maybe—someone would do something to rescue Penny. If any being could manage that, it would be a dragon.
Or, better yet, a group of them. She’d like to see Gebel and his minions stand against a group of dragons bent on freeing and protecting one young girl. They’d be ash in no time. And Loralie would rejoice.
If Leasharra could just convince someone to try to get Penny to safety… Loralie didn’t know how it might happen or even if it could be accomplished, but she had a tiny twinkle of hope for the first time in years. Not hope for herself, but hope for her child. That would be enough.
If Penny were safe, Loralie would go on a rampage the likes of which had not been seen in the lands since the end of the wizard wars. She would burn Gebel and his cronies to the ground, and then, she’d go up to the Citadel and spill her own blood, as had the wizards of old, to reinforce the spells that kept their evil brethren entombed up there.
She would die, glad to know she had done what she could to keep their evil from escaping back into the world of man once more. As long as her children were safe. Both of them.
The pain eased, and Loralie felt that bastard Gebel’s presence leave her mind. He’d done enough to remind her of her place. Or so he thought. It seemed that for tonight, at least, the torture session was over.
The next day, Gebel contacted Loralie. He didn’t have to send a letter or even show up in person. He didn’t need to know where she was at all, in fact. She had agreed—to save Penny being tortured—to let Gebel to form a bond with her. It allowed him to speak into her mind at will, though it did take some considerable magical energy on his part. It was also the bond through which he liked to torture her.
The fact that he didn’t have to see her in person was a safety feature for him. Likewise, she couldn’t retaliate against him via his messengers. The mind-to-mind link he’d forced on her was safe for him. At least, for now. She hadn’t yet figured out how to turn it against him, but she’d been working on just that for years, and hoped someday to figure it out and blast him with enough power to melt his brain from the inside out.
She liked to dream about that when he was being particularly vile. Others might think her obsession with killing him verged on the insane, but it was the only thing keeping her together sometimes. That, and thoughts of her children. Without them to live for, she would have succumbed long ago.
“Have you reconsidered your position?” Gebel asked her, his voice slithering through her mind in an oily way that made her feel soiled.
“I won’t do it,” she replied, trying her best to stand firm.
He wanted her to sabotage the new alliances the dragons had formed. He wanted her to kill at least two dragons and frame the humans of both Draconia and Valdis for the deaths.
More specifically, he wanted her to kill one of the Draconian dragons now visiting Valdis and blame the people of Valdis for the death. He also wanted her to do the same in the opposite direction so the two kingdoms could not strengthen the fragile alliances they had just started to form.
But she was through hurting dragons. She’d done enough harm by separating an ice dragon egg from its parents and allowing Salomar to hatch it in his stronghold. That had worked out against Salomar, eventually bringing about his downfall, but she had intentionally orphaned a baby dragon to do it. That was unforgivable, as far as she was concerned. And she knew the dragons felt the same way.
Children were precious. Deliberately separating a family even before the child was born into the world was one of the most heinous of crimes against dragonkind. Loralie would never forgive herself—or the puppet master who had been pulling her strings.
“Lucky for you I have other interests to keep me entertained tonight, but I will talk to you again tomorrow, and you will have a more acceptable answer for me, or I might just have to pay a visit to your precious daughter. She’s of an age now where she should start learning a bit more about the realities of life. Don’t you think?”
“You leave her alone or you won’t get anything out of me ever again,” she warned in a low tone she hoped sounded as deadly as her intent.
A sinister laugh echoed through her mind as he withdrew. She sagged to the floor and just sat there. She had no more strength to fight at that moment and she gave in to the despair that was her near-constant companion. She had to find a way out of this!