Chapter 34
Rayna
Rayna and Galadon landed at the ravaged Kandoran camp, where the other battle leaders—Aidan, Lorcan, and Falcon—gathered in human form with grave expressions. While her mate shifted, she took stock of their surroundings. There was mud and blood covering everything. While she could see countless dead green dragons throughout the camp and beyond into the fields and woods, she could also make out smaller red and orange-scaled bodies dotted among them.
The battle she’d asked them to fight had cost them dearly after they’d already lost so many in the war. Guilt ate at her. She knew she couldn’t have taken out this nest on her own or ever reached the Kandoran sorcerer without an army at her back, but they were still lives that could never be brought back.
She spotted Morgan twenty feet away, kneeling next to one of the red dragons and pressing his palms onto its stomach. His shoulders tensed, and with a spark of light, the shifter shrank down to human form sans clothing. The center of his bare chest revealed the tell-tale wounds of how he died. Claws had ripped into him until they reached his heart.
“How did you change him?” she asked. It was something she hadn’t seen before.
Morgan rose slowly, sorrow in his gaze as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “At the end of the war, there were so many dragon bodies, and they’re harder to move in that form for burial. We didn’t want to wait a day for them to transition on their own. I decided to try something—a variation of a spell for something else—and it worked. The other sorcerers at the tower found it easy to replicate, and it allowed the shifters to prepare and bury their dead sooner.”
The emotion in his voice told her that since leaving the coalition last summer and coming to Oklahoma, he’d become attached to the Taugud. They meant something to him. She’d noticed over that time he had seemed more relaxed among them and vice versa.
“Show me, and I’ll help,” she said. There was no point in him suffering through this task alone, as he was forced to look at familiar faces one after another. While she had helped with after-war cleanup, she’d focused on assisting the humans and missed what others had been doing.
Morgan gestured across the camp at several more sorcerers hovering over corpses. “They’re doing it, too, but it would go faster with your help. We’ll also need to wrap tarps around those Faegud who can’t shift so that they can be carried by two dragons for the return trip. Lorcan will bring us those after his meeting.”
“Have they gotten a count of the dead yet?” she asked.
He ran a hand through his slicked-back brown hair. “Yeah. We lost twelve Taugud and nineteen Faegud. Ten of them can’t shift, but you’ll know if the spell doesn’t work right away.”
Then he took her to the nearest red dragon, lying in a puddle of brown and red-tinted water with crumpled wings and most of its throat gone. Rayna listened to the quiet incantation Morgan spoke and felt the weave of the spell. It wasn’t complicated.
After the body transitioned to a nude human, he looked up. “This doesn’t work on shifters who are alive and conscious. We can’t override their free will—just so you know.”
She nodded and pointed toward a scorched field beyond the camp where several red dragons lay mixed among many greens. No other sorcerers had gone that way yet. “I’ll start over there.”
“Sounds good. Thank you for your help,” he said.
She rubbed her face. “They wouldn’t be dead if I hadn’t insisted on attacking this place.”
“Don’t.” He narrowed his eyes through his glasses. “They never would have agreed to this if it didn’t need to be done. Letting Kandoran run loose in small numbers is one thing, but this would have become a real threat sooner or later. They were increasing their ranks quickly, by the looks of it. If anything, you saved lives by convincing the pendragons to act this fast.”
Rayna swallowed, having not considered that point with the loss of dead Taugud and Faegud weighing her down. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
“Yeah, you did.”
She gave him one last grateful look and headed toward the dead Taugud. She could tell the difference because they had a brighter shade of red, whereas most Faegud were either burnt orange or dark red. The first time she tried the spell, she didn’t get the weave of elements just right, but she managed it on the second attempt.
When the dragon turned human, she vaguely recognized him as one of the western border guards she’d seen during her last hunt. They wouldn’t have pulled him from his duties unless he volunteered. Despite Morgan’s words, guilt still flooded her. They would have had fewer losses if she had anticipated the dome trap. She wished she’d seen the translucent magic hovering above them before it came down.
The following two bodies changed easier, and Rayna thankfully didn’t recognize them. Still, the last was a female whose hard muscles and odd scars told of many years of training and battles. With her head pulverized, she wouldn’t be fighting anymore.
She rose from the mud-splattered corpse and stepped back into a warm embrace, having sensed Galadon coming from behind. He turned her around and kissed her forehead, concern in his gaze. “You feel sadness and guilt for these shifters?”
Rayna glanced down at the body she’d just changed. “I always do when I fight alongside them.”
“It’s not your fault.” Galadon lifted her chin. “Until I knew you better, I always assumed you felt nothing for my kind, and we were simply useful allies in your quest to exterminate us. Now, I see you feel the deaths deeply. But you can’t do that to yourself because everyone here volunteered and knew the risks.”
Between his words and Morgan’s, she knew she needed to let it go. “At least we won, even if it was more challenging than we anticipated.”
“Yes, and we even saved some innocent lives.”
Rayna frowned. “What do you mean?”
He took her hand. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”
They walked back into the camp and toward a large tunnel entrance. Several shifters in human form gathered near it with serious expressions as they spoke in hushed tones. They moved out of the way, giving respectful nods with downcast gazes as Galadon passed them. Rayna walked at his side into the darkness as the ground steadily declined. The occasional torch in the wall lit the way, providing a soft glow. Stale scents and body odors permeating the air burned her nose, making her think the place had been in use for a while.
The tunnel eventually opened into a fortified cavern with wooden beams. Shock hit her at what she saw everywhere she looked—scrawny human children mixed with a few uninfected adults. None of them looked like they’d bathed in a long time, and she doubted they were fed more than the bare minimum to survive.
“I’d heard they kept some dragon young, but not…” Words escaped her.
Galadon leaned close to her and whispered, “You didn’t participate in the interrogations after the war, but we heard of places like this and found as many as we could. The Kandoran liked to keep the children for labor and to infect them once they were old enough. Occasionally, some human adults are immune as well. Most of those are killed right away, but they often save a few to manage the children, such as you see here.”
She’d had no idea. After the war ended, she stayed for some of the funerals, as well as Bailey and Aidan’s bonding ceremony, but then, she fled. There’d been so much loss and destruction that Rayna needed time away to come to terms with everything. It didn’t help that she and Galadon had also been in a bad place at that time.
A sorcerer with healing powers was helping a couple of the kids with infected wounds that hadn’t been properly tended. Shifters in human form handed out some of the food they’d found in a storage building. Rayna watched the scene with a heavy heart. It helped her feel better about requesting to attack this place, but she felt sorrow for what these children had suffered.
“What will happen to them?” she asked.
Aidan stepped up beside them. “There is a shelter in Norman that the city council set up. They took the orphans we found last fall and have been helping rehabilitate them. After they’re ready, they find families to care for them or keep and raise them in the facility. A few live in the village outside the fortress now. We’ll handle these children the same way.”
“That’s good,” she said, relief filling her that they had a plan.
Galadon squeezed her hand. “If we hadn’t come now, these children would have continued to suffer, and some wouldn’t have survived. They’ll have a chance at happiness and a normal life now because you brought us here.”
“He’s right,” Aidan said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Every time I lose some of my dragons, I feel the loss deeply, but I must remember the outcome achieved. One look at this camp, and it is apparent it needed to be destroyed as soon as possible.”
Rayna nodded. “Yeah, I see that. How are you going to move them?”
“We have enough fireproof potions for those in urgent need of care so they can be flown. I’ve already sent messengers back to request humans with horses and wagons to transport the rest. That will take time, but Falcon and his mate, Sabryn, will stay here with twenty shifters to watch over and prepare them for the journey.”
That travel method would take about five days, but it would be less scary than riding in a dragon’s arms for hours. Rayna could understand their reasoning. She wished there was something she could do, but her slayer duties didn’t lend themselves to caring for traumatized orphans who’d need specialized attention. Galadon would probably frighten the hell out of them, too, though she knew he wouldn’t do it intentionally. These children were all humans and needed to be looked after by their own kind.
“Perhaps we should help with cleanup outside,” her mate suggested.
There wasn’t anything they could do in here, but she was grateful he’d shown her how she’d helped in ways she hadn’t realized. A little girl who was maybe four years old with dark skin and frizzy hair gave her a shy smile. Rayna waved at her, and the child ducked her head. One of the shifters brought her some bread, which she tore into while scooting away from the others. A clear sign they’d had to fight for scraps of food while down here.
They lingered for a moment longer before she nodded at Galadon, letting him lead her outside. There was plenty to do before they could leave this place and head home. Halfway to the top, he stopped near a torch and turned to her.
“It was worth it, you know,” he said, staring down at her.
She scrunched her brows. “What do you mean?”
“All of it.” He pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in his embrace. “The centuries I endured alone before you came, all we’ve been through since we met, and this battle. I’m already seeing how much better you make my life, and maybe the struggle was necessary, so I’d appreciate you more. You even make fighting our enemies interesting in ways I never expected.”
That last part, he said with a wry grin.
Rayna let her love for him reflect in her gaze. “I agree with most of that, but I think you’re going to spend a few years making it up to me for being an asshole for so long.”
“And how do you wish me to redeem myself?” he asked, cocking his head.
She gave him a saucy smile. “I’m sure I’ll think of something…maybe it will involve you being on your knees. That would be a good start.”
Galadon narrowed his eyes. “My knees?”
“Yes, definitely. Maybe your tongue will be engaged in placating me, too.”
He squeezed her rear end tight enough to make her yelp and laugh.
“Be careful what you ask for, slayer,” he said with a lustful growl.