Page 6 of A Book of Royals and Deities

It’s burning.

There’s fire everywhere, and the beauty of it is lost in death and chaos. The smoke fills the air like a grey cloud, choking and killing, but the fire is like a wave that has crashed into the city. Dragons are everywhere in the sky, some diving and catching vampyres in their mouths, and others are on the ground with their riders, fire pouring out of their jaws. This is what Daegan wanted. Revenge. War. The end of the vampyres. The revenge of the dragons and their riders…and it won’t stop. I let them out; I did this, and how many are dead already? The dragons are like a storm, endlessly swirling around the city and leaving nothing but screams and death in their wake.

Ziven is easy to find ,but maybe that’s because I can find him anywhere. His massive dragon outsizes every other dragon here except for Daegan’s, but Daegan’s dragon looks the same colour as the others. I don’t have to instruct Maeve to fly to him. She takes off to the other side of the city by the coast, where vampyres are desperately getting their families into the boats like that might save them. It won’t.

Ziven is burning a row of houses before he lifts his head, and even in the distance, I know he has seen me. The Moon king looks every inch the powerful man he was born to be as he rides his dragon in the night. His dark hair is a mess of ash, and his silver eyes are glowing like stars. Moonlight is wrapped around his dark, tight leather clothes, and the sword on his back catches the silver light so it almost glitters. Ziven is as beautiful as the moon, even when he is riding through flames of death.

He lifts the reins, his dragon moving with him like they are one, and he turns to face me. Maeve heads to the cliff side, landing right on the edge where the smoke isn’t too thick. It’s silent up here, but the screams of the burning city are a sound I never want to remember. Brythan lands with Ziven, and he climbs off as I slide down Maeve’s wing, ripping my dress even more. I must look a mess, but Ziven doesn’t look at me like I am. He looks at me like I’m his salvation. Ziven waits for me on the edge of the cliff, moonlight pouring over its king as he watches a city burn. The moon mark on his cheek seems to reflect the flames.

I touch his arm, but he doesn’t pull his eyes from the city. “You’re going to burn the entire world to ash. Stop.”

Ziven turns to stare at me, and for once I can read his every emotion. Protective, possessive, and pure merciless love. “For you, it burns. For you, there is going to be no world left to ever hurt you again. I once asked you who hurt you, and your answerbroke the part of my soul that would ever show the world mercy again.”

Loving Ziven was never a choice for me, never something I could escape, even when I wasn’t sure we could make it. Loving him is hard, messy and dangerous, but no one can make me feel like he does with just a sentence. He will burn the world for me, and I know I’d burn it for touching him, too.

I step closer until our bodies are touching, locking my eyes with his until I feel like our souls are watching each other. Every bit of my body that touches his feels alive, and I want to stop him. Calix is right, he will regret this, even if he doesn’t feel like it right now. “You’re right, most of them deserve to die, but not all of them are monsters. My first master wasn’t a monster, and he was a vampyre. He never hurt me, not once. We can’t judge everybody, and there are vampyre children in this city who are going to burn. You want the king who took this world from you all, and he isn’t here. He doesn’t care if you kill every vampyre here, and he will use their deaths to fuel a war against the dragon rider race. There are hundreds of thousands of fae slaves in Nightwell; be their saviour and not just another king.”

Ziven presses his forehead against mine, breathing me in. His voice breaks and my heart does too. “I nearly lost you. I fucked up and nearlylostyou, Story.”

“I’m not gone,” I breathe, my eyes filling with tears. “But I can’t watch you burn them for me. Stop.”

He kisses my forehead before stepping away from me. Moonlight bends to the command of its king as it falls from the sky like falling stars. Pure silver light floods the city and stops every fire, stops every dragon, and within a few minutes, there is silence and smoke. The dragons take to the skies, and Daeganflies past us, his eyes locking with Ziven in a silent challenge before landing on the cliff edge. “What the fuck are you doing? We?—”

“There is nowein any of this, Daegan. You come a step closer to Story, and I will fucking kill you,” Ziven growls. “Now fuck off. These are my lands, and we are done burning them. You have no power over the night lands.”

Daegan grits his teeth, wiping ash off his cheek. He looks a beaten wreck, and everything pretty about him is damaged. I like it. “You’re a fucking fool, Ziven. She is just?—”

“Mine,” Ziven snarls. “And you don’t get to say a word about her. Fuck off. Last warning.”

“We both know that isn’t the whole truth,” Daegan snarls right back, looking once at me with pure venom before turning and getting back on his dragon.What did that mean?Ziven turns back to the city, watching it like a guest, and I forget about Daegan. I hate him for trying to kill me and trying to use me. I fell for his charming smiles and lies. I should have known that the king I couldn’t stop thinking about, who became my best friend and lover all in one breath, was the only one I could trust the most in that mansion. I’m not sure I trust him, and I still want to know what happened, but Calix’s words have gotten into my head. Ziven could have killed me at any point. I think I only pretended to hate him, when the truth was, I didn’t. Ziven always saw right through me. “My lands once held the most beautiful city in the world, and now look at it…it is a burning disaster. A shell of what it once was when my father ruled. It feels like only yesterday I stood here with my mother and watched the festivals for the moon.”

But that’s all gone now. I almost forgot this is the first time he is seeing this in hundreds of years. I haven’t gotten my head around the fact he is hundreds of years old…they all are except Hettie.

“They need a leader.” I wave to the city, to the fae and vampyres who will be fighting down there. “And everything can be rebuilt. We are safe in here. You can tell the surviving fae what we used to be, and we can dance at festivals again. We can get it all back with the dragons and a new king.”

“And queen,” Ziven agrees, touching my back and leading me back to our dragons. Queen? Ziven really has a one-track mind, and I can’t be his queen. I’d be a disaster. “We will return to the mansion and make a plan. Until then, I will make some dragons stay to keep the people calm. I need to see that Hettie is okay after what Daegan did.”

“What did he do?”

He parts from me. “Used her to distract me from you. He knew there were only two people I care about, and he used them both to get what he wanted. That’s why, by the end of this war, the Sun king is going to die.”

We both know killing Daegan won’t be that easy, but I’m done defending him. Ziven can kill him for all I care. As I look over my shoulder, I pray that Kyrell’s mother isn’t in that city. That my own mother isn’t either. As much as I want to see them…I know the city will be a home for death and death alone.

Chapter Four

Page Four?—

They said all who hail from the Twilight Dynasty

have the power of fire in their blood…

Ziven lands first in the clearing, and he knocks over every bit of forgotten gardens left. His dragon digs his claws into the dirt at his feet, roaring at the fae in front of the mansion. Maeve smoothly lands next to him, half on the gate I once ran through before getting trapped in the mansion. Our dragons fly well together, and I found it easier to hold onto Maeve as she kept up with Brythan. I know Ziven and Brythan were friends, and their dragons must have flown together before, because they act too natural in the sky. Am I jealous of Atilia? Am I jealous of a dead woman? I don’t know, but something feels horrid in my stomach at the idea of them spending any time together. I keep thinking of the diary, of how she was so in love with Ziven, andhow he turned his back on her. Or at least, that is what she felt happened. Will he do that to me? Did he already?

Daegan abandoned her altogether, and I think they had a relationship.

I manage to dismount a little bit easier this time with my torn dress before she takes off and Brythan joins her in the skies. Watching them, I still can’t get over the amazement of seeing dragons in the sky. I need some training on how to be a dragon rider, but something about it feels natural, and I wonder if my connection to the princess is that reason. It might explain why I learnt to fight quicker than Ziven expected, why the stones glowed red for me and not yellow like everyone else. I need to ask Ziven or Maeve about the stones.

Outside of the mansion is filled with fae, and so many of them are touching the ground, staring at the sky and just breathing in the air. They were trapped and even if it was my blood spilled to get them out, I like seeing them happy. Even as fucked up as that is. Calix and his dragon are still on top of the mansion, watching everything, and he nods to Ziven. Ziven pulls his eyes down and watches the fae with a coldness I’m used to seeing from him. He moves to stand on a rock and claps his hands once to attract attention. I know if I stood up there and clapped, no one would bother stopping what they are doing, but when Ziven does it, his natural commanding presence draws every pair of eyes to him like a moth to a flame.

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