Chapter 11
Stesha
Just a few weeks after Zenevieve’s first mission, the unimaginable happens.
Earsplitting, heart-wrenching screams rend the peaceful afternoon air, ones that send an Alpha’s heart racing. Screams that mean someone is in terrible danger or suffering mortal pain.
I’m between the Flame Temple and the dragongrounds, and the screams are emanating from above me. I turn and race upstairs to the battlements, where I’m confronted by a terrible sight.
Zabriel and Onderz have their hands outstretched, pleading with someone to get down from the battlements.
It’s Princess Mirelle, her torn nightgown fluttering in the wind.
The right side of her face is bruised and swollen, and blood drips down her face from her nose and a cut on her eyebrow.
There are savage bitemarks on her neck and shoulders.
It takes me a moment to realize that the blood isn’t only on her face. It’s running down the insides of her legs as well.
“Onderz, no. Zabriel, get away from me.” The princess’s hysterical screams pierce the air, and her heels teeter dangerously on the edge of the battlements.
“Just come here to me, Mirelle. Come here to me, and I’ll make everything all right,” Onderz calls desperately. He wants to lunge forward and grab her, but he’s afraid she’ll flinch back and fall.
I seize Zabriel by the arm, and say in a low voice, “Go and get your dragon. Catch the princess if she falls.”
Understanding crosses Zabriel’s face, and he nods sharply and runs to do as he’s instructed.
“It will be all right,” Onderz says, but his voice breaks on a sob.
“We can never be all right. The things he did to me. My own brother.” She seizes her hair in her fists and wails.
The scent of an Omega’s distress is thick in the air, and overlaying it is an Alpha’s rut.
Emmeric’s scent. Emmeric did this? My stomach twists in disgust. We will hunt him down and bring him to justice, but first we have to make sure that Mirelle doesn’t do something she won’t be able to take back.
I reach Onderz’s side and put a supporting hand on his shoulder.
He turns to me desperately. “Dragonmaster, make her come down from there. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m ruined. Don’t look at me,” the princess sobs.
“Mirelle, please. Mirelle, don’t.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “Tell her to get down from the battlements. Use your roar.”
Every Alpha is able to speak in a tone that’s as commanding as a dragon’s roar. It’s used sparingly when a Beta or Omega needs to quickly be told what to do for their own safety. That’s how it’s supposed to be used, in any case. I know some Alphas are tempted to abuse the ability.
Onderz tries, but he’s too frantic to put any conviction into his words and he merely shouts rather than roars, “Mirelle, please get down.”
I take a deep breath and summon up the words from deep inside me, and as they leave my throat they reverberate through the air. “Princess, get down from there. Now.”
Mirelle’s sobbing falters, and she takes a gasping breath.
She feels compelled to obey me, but there’s too much pain in her heart for her feet to move.
She looks me in the eye, and the hopelessness that fills hers tells me that it’s too late.
Mere words cannot undo what’s been done to her.
I see what she’s going to do a moment before she does it.
“He called me Zenevieve,” Mirelle whispers brokenly, and then she steps backward into nothing.
“Mirelle, no,” I lunge for her, but she’s already falling, her eyes on the skies as though she’s begging the gods to end her pain.
“No!” Onderz screams.
We reach the edge of the battlements at the same time. There’s a dragon’s cry, and the rushing of air over wings. Dianthe soars upward, catching her rider in midair and bearing Mirelle away. We can hear Mirelle’s weeping as the pale yellow dragon streaks away to the north.
Onderz stares after the Omegas’ rapidly shrinking figures until I seize his shoulder and shake him. “We can catch up to her. Get your dragon.”
As we run to the dragongrounds, I shout orders to the other riders. Word has spread about what has happened to the princess, and some mount up to search for Prince Emmeric, and others follow Mirelle. Zenevieve is running for Minta, and she crosses in front of me.
Mirelle’s shattered words ring in my ears. He called me Zenevieve.
Was Emmeric looking for Zenevieve and found Mirelle instead? I picture my ward out there hunting for Emmeric alone, and instead of her finding him, him finding her.
I seize Zenevieve by the shoulders, fear and horror spiking through me. “Do not mount your dragon. Do not leave Lenhale. Do you understand?”
“But I want to—”
“Do not leave Lenhale,” I snarl, and my voice reverberates with command.
This time, the roar works. Instantly, the fight goes out of her, and she nods. “I won’t, dragonmaster.”
There isn’t time for me to explain further. I climb atop Nilak and cast one last look at Zenevieve, who looks very small and painfully vulnerable on the ground. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I call to her, and Nilak and I take to the air.
Onderz and Zabriel are pursuing Mirelle. I want to find Emmeric and make him bleed. Wingrunners are whirring through the sky around me. I hear shouts that Shar was spotted heading to the northeast, and so that’s where I fly.
There must be a dozen dragons and two dozen wingrunners in the skies searching for the prince, but not one person calls out a sighting.
There are flashes of lightning in the sky to the east. We are at the storm’s very edge, and I dare not fly Nilak into it.
Storms are dangerous for dragons because being struck by lightning will paralyze their wings and cause them to plummet to the ground.
Though we keep away from the lightning, we’re lashed by rain, and the visibility is terrible.
My extremities grow numb from cold, but it’s not until the last glow of dusk drains from the sky that we head for home.
As I see the spires of the castle outlined against the sky, a wingrunner dives toward us on his silvery mount, shouting over the wind, “The search for the princess is over, dragonmaster.”
“And Emmeric?” I call back, but the wingrunner has already sped away.
Nilak lands, and I can tell from the dismal atmosphere on the dragongrounds not to expect good news.
Tish and Sundra are crying in each other’s arms, but they straighten up as I approach.
“Dragonmaster, Onderz and Zabriel were too late. When Princess Mirelle reached the northern mountains, she threw herself into an icy crevasse. In her despair, Dianthe crashed into the rocks, and she also perished. The crevasse is deep, and we couldn’t recover the princess’s body.”
I look around. Zabriel has sunk to his knees, and he’s leaning against his dragon with a hand over his face. Zenevieve has her arm around Minta as tears stream down her cheeks.
I turn back to Tish and Sundra. “And Onderz?”
Tish’s face creases in despair, and her voice breaks. “When he saw that Mirelle had died, he flew east into the storm. After it passed by, we pursued him, but Zeith was struck by lightning. The fall from the skies killed both of them.”
A desolate feeling spreads through my chest. Two dragonriders dead.
A fated pair, and their dragons with them, for no reason other than the actions of a selfish, barbaric Alpha.
What caused the prince to commit such a heinous act against his own sister?
He must have known the despair it would drive her to, and that Onderz would follow her.
“Has there been any sign of Prince Emmeric?” I demand.
“There has been no sign of the prince or his dragon,” Sundra tells me, and then she glances at the castle. “Someone must report to the king. He knows the princess was assaulted, and Prince Emmeric has fled, but that is all.”
“I’ll do it,” I say. Prince Zabriel is sunk in too much grief, having lost his sister and his best friend.
As I turn toward the bridge over the dragongrounds, I see a small figure moving toward us through the darkness.
“Dragonmaster?” a voice quavers, and I realize it’s Queen Magritte. “I could wait inside for news no longer.”
My throat locks with grief seeing her tearstained face. Her eyes move past me to the weeping dragonriders and her desolated son, and I don’t need to say a word. Queen Magritte crumples to the ground in a wail of despair.
“My daughter. My little girl. What did he do to you?”
I’m not supposed to lay a hand on her. She’s the queen and another Alpha’s mate, but right now, all I see is a weeping Omega lying in the dust, and after the day’s events, I can’t bear it.
I lift Queen Magritte into my arms and carry her back up to the castle.
Her scent is thick with heartbreak. Two children lost to her, one from death, and the other from his own vile actions.
I wish I could take this pain away from her, but no one can.
I lay the queen on a sofa in her sitting room and leave her in the care of her attendants.
Seeking out the king, I find him in one of his private rooms, lounging on an upholstered chair with a steaming cup at his elbow. I feel my lip curl. How comfortable he seems while all his kingdom is in turmoil.
King Aylard despises when his subjects hesitate, and I’m in no mood to draw this out.
I incline my head respectfully. “I have grave news, Ma’len.
Princess Mirelle has thrown herself from her dragon and perished, and Prince Emmeric has fled.
The dragonriders are in pursuit, but there has been no sign of him yet. ”
There’s a long, icy silence.
King Aylard slowly gets to his feet and approaches me. “Why is my mate’s scent all over you, dragonmaster?”
I open my mouth to tell him that the queen collapsed on the dragongrounds, but before I can speak, the king picks up a heavy gold ornament of one of his ancestors and strikes me across the face with it.
My head snaps painfully to the side. My lip splits, and the salty tang of blood fills my mouth.