Betrayal
“Wake up, Cassarah. Come on, we need to go. The castle is on fire,” Payson shouted at me, shaking my shoulders.
The groggy, disoriented feeling of being out of my own body seemed worse than usual as I tried to focus on what was happening around me. Finally, I could open my eyes without the world spinning, but everything seemed so hazy, and the air was caustic, making it hard to breathe.
“What’s going on?” I croaked before falling into a fit of coughing.
“The castle is on fire. We’re under attack, and we need to get out of here now,” Payson explained as he bundled me into his arms. “Come on… the others are already heading for the roost and holding them off so we can get out.”
I was still having trouble seeing or controlling my body, almost as if I still wasn’t fully back in my own brain.
Payson burst through the doors and out into the hallway, and I could hear the sounds of battle all around me.
I fought Payson’s hold, trying to see what was happening, but he held me tightly to his chest, my face pressed against his shirt.
“Stop fighting me, Cassarah. I need to get us out of the castle. It’s full of smoke, and I can’t risk you breathing it in,” he snapped.
Payson dodged and kicked out at someone, who grunted at the blow, but he kept moving forward. “Dayson, I need a little help over here! They’re trying to cut us off from the balcony!”
“I’m on it,” Dayson answered, as I heard him rushing past us with a battle cry, followed by the sounds of people dying.
“Cassarah, I need you to hold on to me as tightly as you can. I’m gonna have to jump off the balcony into the pond below. They’ve cut off all other exits, and the fire is getting worse.”
“What about the others?” I cried, twisting my arms and legs around his body.
“They are right behind us, but they won’t do anything until you are out of harm’s way.” His grip on my body was so strong I thought he might break a rib. “Are you ready?”
“Does it matter?”
“Guess not. Here we go and remember to hold your breath,” Payson reminded me as I felt him leap off the balcony.
As we fell, I could lift my head to see what was happening around me.
The castle was aglow with a haunting orange color from the flames inside, smoke billowing out as if it was a dragon blacking out the moon as it looked down at us from above.
I could see my other guardians fighting off a mixture of palace guards and other unknown assailants dressed in all black.
Then I was engulfed by cold, dark water.
I had to fight the urge to gasp at the shock.
Payson kicked out and brought us back to the surface, but he was struggling to swim and hold on to me.
“Let me go, or I’ll take us both down!” I yelled to be heard over the fighting.
“You can’t swim, though,” Payson argued. “Here, get on my back so my arms are free, and I’ll get us out of here.”
I did as he said, and it allowed me to help keep myself afloat like Abbott had been teaching me, making it easier for Payson to pull me to shore. Once we got out of the water, Payson pulled me up, wrapped an arm around my waist, and dragged me after him.
“No, we need to wait for the others,” I demanded, dragging my feet. “They won’t know what happened to us if we leave them.”
“It’s fine. We made a plan to meet at the roost if we got separated. Let us do our job and keep you alive. You can always get new guardians, but we can’t get another queen,” Payson growled out as he tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
I knew he was right, but my heart cried out at leaving them behind.
What if they got hurt or killed? I never wanted my life to mean more than another’s, but they weren’t giving me a choice in the matter.
Payson ran, bringing us out into the open fields of the stable area where horses calmly grazed, totally ignorant of what was happening back at the castle.
We came to a stop, and I was dropped unceremoniously onto the ground as Payson watched the sky for something.
Now that I wasn’t touching him, my brain started to clear, and I noticed there was no longer smoke in the sky or the acrid smell of soot burning my nose. Something was wrong…
“Payson, how did you know I couldn’t swim?” I asked, brushing my wet hair out of my face.
He glanced down at me with an irritated frown. “You don’t think the others would have shared a fact like that? How can we protect you if we don’t know your limitations?”
That sounded like it should make sense, but my gut was telling me otherwise. “What are we waiting for? The roost is in the opposite direction from here. I thought that’s where we were meeting the others?”
“Took you long enough,” Payson said, letting out a cruel laugh. “No one is coming for you, Dragon Queen. They are back in the castle, sound asleep and ripe for the killing.”
I scrambled to my feet and lunged at him, but whatever he’d done to me to make me more lethargic still wasn’t out of my system. He backhanded me, sending me sprawling to the ground like I was nothing.
“Vasin, they’re going to attack,” I screamed as Payson withdrew his sword. “I think they might have been drugged or had some sort of spell put on them. They need to wake up!”
“Where are you? I feel your fear. I will come get you.”
“No, deal with the castle. We can’t let everyone die.”
“I’m not going to let you die, either.”
Payson lunged at me, and I rolled out of the way. “That’s enough talking with that lizard of yours, the self-entitled bastard. I’m to keep you busy until the rightful king can come and deal with you.”
Shock froze my body for a moment too long, and I couldn’t dodge the next attack. I gasped at the burning pain as his sword sliced my shoulder. “No, you are my guardian. There is no way that you can be working for the Lost King. My powers would have never chosen you!”
He tossed back his head and laughed. “You stupid woman, for all that you claim to be so smart. I wasn’t chosen to be one of your guardians, but you fell for it so easily that I used it all to my advantage.
” Yanking back his shirt sleeve, he bared his arms to me, which were now clear of any guardian mark.
“I’m blessed with the power of illusion.
It was child’s play to replicate the mark.
Then, all I had to do was play the part of doting helper, and you ate it up, allowing me to be a part of all your secret meetings and plans.
I was already a spy for my king, but you made it so much easier to get what I needed. ”
The realization of what that meant sank like a rock in the pit of my stomach.
The Lost King knew everything—where we were hiding, what we knew about him, and that we would be making an alliance with the king and queen.
“That’s why you wanted to guard the rooms…
you needed time to tell one of your men in the castle what was going on!
I figured it out, and you couldn’t wait any longer, which is why you’re attacking tonight. ”
“Cass, they locked up the roost, and this time they made the doors out of metal instead of wood. I don’t have fire, so I can’t melt them to let the others free.”
“How many of you are free?”
“I’m the only one outside. It was my turn to scout. We didn’t want them to notice abnormal dragon activity.”
“By the crestfallen look on your face, I’m guessing your pet just told you we made a few changes to the roost since the last time you visited.
It’s sad that the king is so easily persuaded when the queen isn’t there to make the choices for him, but then again, slaughtering people in the city is a valid distraction. ” Payson grinned.
Wing beats sounded above, and I spotted a purple dragon circling before it started to land.
“The king has arrived to take his throne. Too bad you won’t be able to enjoy the perks of being a part of it.
Those who he takes control of rarely remember who they are after a while,” Payson sneered as he reached down and grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking me to my feet and lifting his sword to my throat.
“Do be a good girl. I’ll get into trouble if I end up killing you. ”
Too bad for him that I would rather be dead than a mindless slave used to further a mad king’s plans.
Lifting my arm, I slammed my elbow into his gut, then gripped the arm around my throat, leaning forward and tossing him over my shoulder.
Payson landed on the ground with a grunt, and I took off back toward the castle, pushing away the pain from my leg, using it as a reminder that I was still alive.
“You bitch.”
I heard his pounding footsteps as he took off after me, and I pushed myself harder to get away from him.
My foot caught on a stone hidden in the grass, and I went sprawling to the ground.
As fast as I could, I picked myself up and lunged forward, but a body tackled me, sending us both into the grass.
Payson no longer held his sword, giving him both hands to grapple me with.
This had always been one of my weaker skills, being so much smaller and having less muscle.
I tried to remember everything Cole and Abbott taught me as I kicked, bit, and scratched anywhere I could to get him to loosen his hold on me.
Nothing I did could free me from his grasp, and he managed to get his legs wrapped around mine.
He wrapped his arm around my throat and tightened.
The feeling of him crushing my neck sent me into a panic, but he hid his face and didn’t budge.
“No matter how hard you fight me, I will always win. How do you know that this is even happening to you right now? What if it’s all an illusion?
” Payson whispered in my ear. “How do you fight something if you don’t know it’s real?
The Lost King is coming for you, and when he does, the fabled Dragon Queen will be brought to her knees. ”
He was right. What if none of this is real?
What if he allowed me to believe he’d freed me from his illusion but hadn’t?
I closed my eyes, and in a last-ditch effort, I let myself slip away, reaching out to Vasin, allowing our minds to meld as we harmonized.
When I opened them, I found the castle was indeed on fire and swarming with men.
The dragon riders were attacking the wave of men pouring out of different tunnels coming from all directions.
“Cass, where are you? Why can’t I feel you?”
“Payson is a mole. He isn’t one of my guardians, and he’s working with the Lost King. I don’t know where he has me or what he’s really doing to me. I’m trapped in his endless loop of illusions.”
“Now that you are with me, I should be able to locate where your body is.”
“Are the others all right? What about Gavin and the rest of the royal family?”
“Tahir and Ifra tell me their pair-bonds are fine, but I haven’t seen any of your guardians with my eyes. When I checked your rooms, they were on fire but empty—”
“That is something at least.”
Vasin flew around the castle, trying to pinpoint where I was and circled out wider when he didn’t find a trace inside the castle. As he ventured out farther, still finding nothing, he returned to the battle.
“Something about having you trapped in an illusion is keeping me disconnected from you. There has to be a way to break free from it.”
“Can I die in an illusion?”
“If your brain believes that you’ve died, then yes, it could truly kill you. The power of suggestion is no small trick.”
“Then I will do my best not to get killed. I’ll have to find another way to shock myself out of his hold.”
“Please be careful, my dear Cass. You already know the pain of losing one’s pair-bond.”
My mind flashed back to my first memory I had of Miranda, the Raven Queen, and experiencing her losing her men and dragon. The pain had been unbearable, ultimately leading to her choice to take as many soldiers down with her before she lost her life.
“I’m not giving up, Vasin. There is too much that I still need to do in this life.” With that, I pulled myself back into my body and opened my eyes, renewed with determination.