Chapter 3
Chapter Three
THORNE
My soaring shadow slithered over the barren landscape far below.
The craggy face of Gravestone Mountain raced closer, summoning a tide of dread that threatened to drive me into the stones below.
Every spiny peak and jagged fissure was seared into my brain like a brand.
Memories clawed at the edges of my mind—the ghosts of past sins, unrelenting and vicious.
Wind howled beneath my wings, magic crackling through me like lightning.
I stretched out my taloned toes, bracing for the unforgiving stone ledge.
The shift ripped through me—dragon melting into man—and my bare feet struck the frigid rock.
The impact rattled my bones, but the familiar ache was nothing compared to the suffocating weight of returning here.
He was waiting.
I didn’t slow my pace, storming off the flight deck, through the yawning archway.
“Curse the fates for dragging me back to this filthy hellhole.” Fury churned, and I lashed out, kicking a pile of bones from my path.
A skull, a remnant of some long-dead wretch, clattered and bounced down the stone corridor, its hollow rattle echoing like mocking laughter.
The lost kingdom remained as desolate as when Alaric and I had abandoned it, only now it was suffocating beneath centuries of dust and crawling with vermin.
At least the wards continued to hold, shrouding the ruins from prying eyes. Despite those ancient measures, whispers still drifted to neighboring villages, feeding tales of tortured spirits that lingered in these cliffs.
Those rumors were true.
Inside the hidden castle, the air hung damp and musty, a chill shriveling parts of me that usually filled me with pride.
I seized a pair of pants from the pile I kept near the flight deck and shucked them up my legs.
Warmth beckoned from deeper within, and I sauntered into the massive hearth room, spotting one of the trogg who lived within the mountain.
The arrogant mask I’d perfected over the centuries slid into place, hiding my turmoil. Lips curved into a cocky smirk, I set my fists on the waist of my low-slung pants. “The conditions here are deplorable. Tell the head of housekeeping to—”
“You’re looking at her, Master Thorne,” she cut in, stacking wood against the wall before dusting her hands. “And if you don’t like the state of things, you can take your slovenly dragon and stay elsewhere.”
“Aw, Sweet Myrna. You wound me.” I offered one of my most beguiling smiles.
“Not as much as your brother’s half-digested nerf head nearly wounded me. Threw it at me while I was sweeping,” she snapped, glaring with the one eyeball set in the center of her forehead.
“Merely a dragon’s way of showing his appreciation for a good meal,” I suggested, but she didn’t take the bait.
Green skin wrinkled across her furrowed brow. Braided dreadlocks draped over her blocky shoulders. Her graying head barely reached half my height, lulling the foolish into underestimating her—Alaric being one such fool.
“Know who else used to toss things about in a fit of rage?”
Memories knocked, and I gritted my teeth at the intrusion. An image of a dragon much larger than Alaric flashed in my brain. The crack of its tail as it smacked my brother across the room, snapping bones. Punishment for some minor infraction.
When it came to the king’s successor, there was no room for failure. Alaric took the brunt of his temper.
“I will speak to him.” Without the trogg’s hospitality, we were screwed.
Unlike me, Alaric couldn’t shift, making him rather difficult to hide.
Also, I knew nothing of cooking, healing, or housekeeping.
Nor did I typically need these skills, seeing as how my rakish good looks garnered me most anything I desired.
The trogg nodded. “There’s food on the table for you, too. Got to keep up your strength if you’re going to care for him properly.”
Care for him. Since birth, it seemed my only purpose was to serve the beast. The unappreciative bastard. “Thank you, Myrna. I’ll take it from here.”
I strode deeper into the room. Overhead, a high-domed ceiling glimmered faintly beneath its layer of tarnished gold. Hand-carved arches cut through the aged surface. The space was large enough to accommodate even the biggest of dragons—and several friends. If he had any.
Thick swaths of cobwebs draped the stone walls, the morbid decorations better suited to a haunted carnival display.
One wall held a hearth so large it could roast multiple wild boars at once.
In front of its smoldering fire, rested my brother—his scaly form resplendent on an enormous pile of moth-eaten rugs.
The nest was far from the quality he preferred, but it would have to do while he recovered.
On the other side of the room stood a long table, large enough to host a dozen hungry royals. It was the one clean spot in the place, Myrna and her crew having polished the wood to a rich mahogany hue.
They shouldn’t have bothered. With the grime removed, scars of the past had surfaced. Scars I had no interest in revisiting.
I sank into the dry-rotted armchair at the table’s end, propping my feet on the buffed surface.
My heels found the familiar groove worn into the wood over centuries.
Before me sat a platter of bread, cheese, and some unidentifiable meat I didn’t care to analyze.
After all, the trogg lived below the surface of the mountain.
“Where were you? You’ve been gone for hours,” came a low, threatening voice, registering in my mind instead of my ears.
“Oh, you know,” I said aloud rather than through our mental link, “just visiting the village library. Catching up on some light reading.”
“You dare to mock me while I lie here suffering?” Alaric’s throaty growl rattled the table under my heels. “Tell me you didn’t fly near Nefarr where others could spot you.”
“Me? Flying in broad daylight? Why would I do that when you’ve explicitly forbidden it?”
“Excellent question. Why would you when I gave you orders not to risk exposure?”
“I risked nothing. Nobody saw me,” I said through gritted teeth. At times, I suspected he forbade me from revealing my dragon to others out of jealousy. Since he could no longer walk as a man, he kept me from my other half.
“After disobeying my direct order, did you find them?”
I shoved a hunk of bread into my mouth, chewing slowly, delaying the answer I knew would ruin my meal.
“Well?” Alaric barked, smoke coiling from his nostrils in slow, irritated spirals.
“The birds are gone. Not a single Adarna exists in the area. Their nesting grounds are long since abandoned. Not a feather in sight.” Once, the rare magical bird flourished here. Without a drop of obsidian to be found, they’d either died out or flown away.
Like me.
“Dammit.” Alaric’s tail punched the floor, sending a cloud of dust billowing up around us. “Just a few of their eggs could have fortified me.”
Or not. Lately, I’d begun to suspect his recent weakness and inability to heal were a symptom of his curse. My heart sank.
His illness.
My failure.
“How was your meal?” I asked, steering the conversation away from the subject of his declining health.
“The nerf here are too lean and sinewy. They stick in my teeth.”
“Nonetheless, you’ll need to choke down more of them if you want to regain your strength.”
The massive spiral of ebony scales writhed and rolled as he uncoiled his serpentine frame, the firelight glancing dully off his hide. “Do you think to give me commands?”
“Just stating facts.” I popped a piece of mystery meat into my mouth. Mmm. Gamey. But not large game. Something smaller. Possibly lizard or rodent.
“Facts, you say.” His rumbling growl shook the walls.
“What about the fact that it doesn’t take an entire day to find a flock of birds?
Tell me, where did you go while I lay here suffering?
” The long expanse of his neck unraveled, the horns along his spine throwing jagged shadows on the wall.
“And do not lie. I can smell the lesser beings on you. Did you slink into the village to make use of their whores?”
“Please. As if the Puritans have anything worth paying for. I’d get frostbite from merely parting their thighs.” I faked a shiver.
“You dare mock my concerns?”
His blocky head finally emerged from the shadows, his elongated pupils slits of contempt. Thick, curving horns framed his skull, their razor tips promising to pierce even the toughest hide. He glared down at me, voice dripping with disdain.
“And here I thought returning to this place might jog your memory—make you recall the consequences of abandoning your duty. The pain you inflicted on those who depended on you.” His voice deepened, each word deliberate, meant to bruise.
“But no. You’re just as reckless. Just as irresponsible. Some things never change.”
His words struck with brutal precision, stabbing at wounds that never healed.
Guilt flared, twisting hot in my breast until the pile of ash I called a heart became an unyielding lump of coal.
Still, I gave him nothing. My expression stayed carved in stone, every muscle locked into a facade of indifference.
“Even without shifting, the hunters know your mortal face,” he pressed. “If you were seen in the village, you might have led them straight to me.”
And there it was, the truth behind his concern. His worry wasn’t for me. It never was. Alaric’s fear was for his own hide.
Once, Alaric could devour hunters by the handful, their screams echoing from his gnashing jaws. However, these were no ordinary times.
“You think me that careless?” I sucked rodent grease from my fingers.
“If not out of carelessness, then with intent. Do you endanger me on purpose? Eager to be rid of your burden?” The accusation emerged on a spine-rattling growl, rows of flesh-tearing teeth flashing in the firelight.