Page 3 of A Book of Royals and Deities

Liars, the lot of them. For a moment, I feel like we are going to fly right into the silver moon and be lost to the stars for eternity. But the dragon veers to the left of the mansion, and we crash straight into the trees, several branches smacking into me, and I scream on impact. I roll straight off the dragon’s back, down its wing, and I roughly slam onto the muddy forest floor with a gasp. The thick smell of leaves and forest fill my senses as I finally stop rolling, the bleeding hole in my stomach screaming with pain. I feel closer to the end of my life than I have been in months.

With a cry, I roll on my back so I can look at anything but the forest ground as I die. I’m going to die for them to be free. Those liars who don’t deserve it. My rage gives me strength and clarity not to feel frightened as the dragon roars into the sky. I look up at the fierce, striking dragon as it leans over me. Its head is so big that I feel lost in its shadow, and one of its teeth could be the same size as my arm. Its wing crashes into the ground with a thump, and the moonlight shines right through it, onto me until all I can see is silver and red light. This dragon is almost crystal clear to see through, but its body is covered in thick, glittering scales.

Beautiful.

The silver moonlight only makes its scales brighter as it looks down at me, and the heat of its breath blows around my body. I hold my hand over my stomach, feeling fresh blood pouringfrom the wound. Daegan tried to kill me. He used me and hurt me… And everyone else lied to save themselves. Even though the dragon broke the glass ceiling, not a single one of them deserves freedom. My teeth clatter as I stare up at the dragon, who could so easily end my poor excuse of a life.

“You were tested in the Decidere, and I watched. You were brave like your mother when you believed in your soul you couldn’t be; you were a warrior like your father when you have never been trained to be one; you were a survivor when you knew your body was broken; and you are now my rider. You were found to be stronger than any dragon below, and I have waited for your rebirth, Story Dehana. Now we ride to save this world.”

The dragon’s words come back to me as I stare into her purple eyes that burn like actual fire. I’m tired. I’m so, so tired. The ground shakes with every step as she gets closer, and she watches from above me. She chose me as her rider, and she is a girl dragon. This wild, huge dragon chose me, and I don’t think she made a good choice. I don’t have the strength to get up off the forest floor, and I doubt anyone in that mansion is going to help me. I wouldn’t want their help.

Bitterness stings my throat as I picture the Moon king, like he is right here. I realise with a horrid feeling in my heart that he has been telling me the truth from the beginning. I’m a traitor, or a reborn one, in his eyes. Still, he warned me about Daegan, and yet he still left me alone with him in the end to die. Betraying bastard. They all betrayed me. I realise they’ve all got what they wanted—my death. The princess I read about, she died for all of them and somehow signed my death right along with hers. Except dying is not the plan I fought for. It can’t end like this. I want to live. “Your life does not end here, Story Dehana. We haveonly just met, and you are a survivor. We will survive this night, and it will be one more battle you won.”

Her voice is so loud and yet softly spoken in my mind. “How can you speak to me?” I whisper around the pain. I can hear in my mind, and I feel her in my soul like she is part of me now. Like somehow, she has wrapped her claws tight around my heart and sunk them in forever. Like Ziven did, and then he ripped them out when he betrayed me. I fell for him, and he lied.

“We are bonded through time and generations, through birth and rebirth. There is no space, no world, that will ever part a rider and their dragon. You are my rider, Story Dehana and the deities above us. I chose you as mine and you will recover.”

She chose me? “Why? I’m not this princess?—”

I swear she laughs, but I’m in too much pain to care. “No, you are stronger than she ever was. The Princess Atilia was born in luxury and never fought for anything in her life until her death. I have waited for you to come back, and I watched the skies on the night you were born. Encased in stone, I saw you enter the mansion, and I knew our time had begun.”

A gasp of pain echoes from my throat. “I’m sorry then that I’m going to die. I would have liked to get to know you, too.” I look up at the stars and lift my hands to see the dragon markings dancing on my arms. The fierce dragon who chose me leans right over my broken body, her hot breath blowing against my face even warmer now. But she can’t breathe life back into me.

Someone might be absolutely terrified looking up at a dragon, whose mouth could easily clamp over them and kill them in a single huff of fire or bite. But when I’ve got nothing to lose and death is chasing me, something in my soul doesn’t feel terrifiedanymore. I’ve been used as a blood slave, then used as a way for the fae riders to escape their trap, and I don’t want to die on this cold, damp forest floor.Not yet. A tear that looks like silver starlight drips from the dragon’s eye, down her cheek, before dropping straight onto my stomach. I gasp as it feels like it burns my injury from within, and I scream through the pain.

The pain is gone within a minute, and any bad feeling in my body is gone with it. I run my hands across my flat stomach, feeling for the injury that Daegan did but finding nothing but my usual scarred skin and torn dress smothered in blood and mud. My hair is a mess of windblown red and black locks as I push it aside to smile at my dragon. She saved me. “Rise to your feet, my rider.”

I can’t believe what I’m feeling, what I’m seeing, as the dragon looks to the sky. “You healed me.”

“Dragons only cry for their rider. Not everyone has betrayed you, Story. I never will, and not everything is as it seems. One king’s choice was not the other’s.” Her wing nudges my arm. “Stand at my side where I can watch. We are not alone, and an enemy is coming to us on wings.”

I climb to my feet as another dragon flies above us, its huge wings blocking out the moonlight in the forest right before it swoops down and lands with a thump that sends my heart racing. I stand by my dragon’s leg as she roars, and the nasty sound can only be heard as what it is—a warning. It’s a brilliant bright yellow dragon that looks like pure sunlight, beautiful, slender and half the size of my bonded dragon. There is still rock on its legs that is breaking away, revealing the true colour, the true dragon underneath. Daegan sits on the yellow dragon’s back, and he looks right at me. For a second, I actually see some sort of unease in his face as he looks at my dragon and then backto me with surprise. “The rumour is true then. You survived and you’re now a rider of Maeve.”

Maeve.The name rolls over me and I like it. I lift my head high because there isn’t a damn chance I’m showing an inch of weakness in front of him. Daegan looks every inch the king of the Sun Dynasty in gold shiny armour and his gold crown dug into his hair. The golden king here to save everyone by murdering me. It’s ironic that murder will paint him a hero. “What do you want, Daegan? You have your freedom and my hate, wasn’t that your plan?”

Daegan runs his hand through his blond hair and flashes me a charming smile. It doesn’t work anymore. He is a good liar and very good at twisting people’s feelings, but we both know he might be the king of the Sun Dynasty, but his heart is black and rotten. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Story. Let me explain?—”

My dragon roars loud enough to shake the leaves out of the trees before baring her teeth at him, and the smell of smoke from her mouth fills the air. I wouldn’t stop her if she tried to burn him to a crisp. I hate him too. “I don’t want to hear anything from you ever again! You could have told me the truth from the beginning and showed me the book. If I did make the spell in another life, maybe there was a way to undo it without killing me, you fucking monster! You could have taken any path other than trying to make me fall in love with you and then attempting to kill me. Do you want to know something?” I look into his eyes. “Even when I was your friend, I knew something was wrong with you. Something bad. It’s why there was never a chance I would have fallen for you. I doubt anyone could love you when you’re a monster. The deities are said to judge us, and I’ll pray they judge you hard for this.”

I was owned by a royal monster before, and I will never let myself be used by another again. Emyr and Daegan have a lot in common, and I was a fool not to see it.

Daegan blanches and I know I struck somewhere in whatever he has left of a heart. “And you think Ziven loves you?” He laughs at me, and my cheeks brighten. “He left you with me, knowing I wanted you dead. Where is he now?” He cocks his head to the side to listen to the wind and the silence. “Not here. Maybe there is something wrong with you, Story. Maybe you’re the problem and not me.”

“Why are you here?” I refuse to let him show how hard his words just hit. I don’t think there has been a day in my life that I haven’t thought something is wrong with me. Something unlovable. I’ve thought it my entire life, but I refuse to let his actions dictate how I see myself. He made a shit mistake and attempted to kill me. I know I wouldn’t have done the same to him. “I don’t want to talk about Ziven with you.”

“The magic didn’t fully break because you are not dead. There is a barrier over Nightwell city and for miles around it, including here. Ziven will be happy to reclaim his lands, but to get to my lands, the spell needs to be broken.” He tightens his grip on his dragon, who has a saddle of gold on its back, with more gold strapped to its chest. This must be Odemis. “We never asked you to lock us away, princess. You still got us trapped. I don’t know how you just healed yourself, but you have to die. Don’t think I take any pleasure in doing this.”

“That’s a lie, and we both know it. You’ve been using me for months, trying to figure out a way to make me love you. I’m also not a princess, and I’m not her! I wouldn’t choose to save any of you liars.” I wave my hand in the forest. “Go and find thevampyres. You deserve everything they will do, but I’m done. I’m done with everyone in that fucking mansion.”

He sighs, but I watch his hands now, knowing damn well that he’s sneaky with his light attacks. He fights like a coward. “Not all of them lied. I have the book, and whoever has the book is in true control of the mansion. Everybody that entered the mansion was blood bound to the book. It commands them like I. There’s only one other person who is strong enough to resist that command, but I told everyone else to lie, and the book helped make sure they couldn’t interfere. There were a few, like Mazzis, who tried to tell you the truth in other ways. Books and hints. Never breaking the command but skirting around it with wit.” He shakes his head. “I must have a heart, because I’m telling you that for nothing.”

He’s telling me out of guilt.

“Ziven could have told me, then?” He was my enemy to begin with, and now he’s…I don’t know, but I hate him for this. I don’t think there is ever a way we can fix it, and I doubt he cares enough to want to. He knew all this time, and he didn’t tell me. That hurts more than Daegan attempting to kill me. Maybe Daegan was right. I fell in love with him when I shouldn’t have, but the Moon king doesn’t love me. I feel like I’m the same as the princess—obsessed with a man that isn’t mine.

I look up as dragons start filling the sky like a wave of nothing but coloured wings. Most of the dragons are yellow, like the sun, and I know they are with Daegan. Some are more of a burnt orange, but there are hundreds of them pouring out of the mansion now. I drop my eyes back to the Sun king. “You’ve got your war. You’re free of the mansion. Isn’t that enough for now?”

Daegan’s laugh is hollow. “I want the world back, and my lands freed of the vampyres. Your death is the only wa?—”

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