Page 2 of Of Scale and Blood

I leaned sideways to get a view past her spines, and the wind hit me full force, the hail hiding within the rain slamming into my face and drawing blood. I swore and tugged the collar of an undershirt farther up in an effort to gain more protection.

Not bright move,Kaia said, her mental tones dry.

No, I agreed with a smile.It was not.

Perhaps need sleep not mating.

My smile grew.But mating is fun.

And however much I might not have wanted to marry Damon, the man was certainly made for fun. Our compatibility in the bedroom was the one bright spark in the sea of desolation and sadness that hit whenever I thought of my impending move to his home city, Zephrine. It wasn’t only the fact that I would no longer be the captain of a scouting team—a position I loved—but also leaving my family, my friends, and, perhaps worst of all, the drakkons.

But I’d married Zephrine’s heir. There was no other choice for me.

Body two sweeps away, she said.

I leaned out again, this time a little more prepared for the wind blast. Though we were close to the ground—or as close as a drakkon her size could be without actually landing—I wasn’t seeing much.

Is the armor intact?

Instead of answering, she dipped slightly to one side, then tucked her wing back to give me a better view of the ground and the body that had obviously become a meal for the scavengers that roamed these plains. The armor was nowhere to be seen.

I swore softly, though in truth its absence was unsurprising. Gold was rare in our part of Arleeon, and though the armor wasn’t actually made of that valuable metal, it certainlyappearedto be. It would have been handy to have a full suit rather than the bits and pieces we’d managed to retrieve from the remains of the riders that had chased us into Esan, but it appeared the goddess of good fortune was not favoring us today.

Fly on?came Kaia’s thought.

Yes.We still needed to check the rest of the coastline for new sentry points and then sweep past Hopetown to ensure our main fishing port was making the necessary preparations. My father had sent orders to anchor the fleet well out to sea and to prepare for attack, but there’d been obvious incredulousness in the initial missives we’d received back from them. That had definitely changed once the port’s governing body had received the news of Jakarra’s destruction, but I suspected they’d have a hard task convincing those within the city to evacuate. Especially given we had no idea if moving inland would be any safer.

Kaia did a lazy turn and then rose, heading once again for the forbidding sweep of mountains that were visible even in conditions such as this. The higher we got, the more intense the storm became, until it was constantly buffeting us sideways. She didn’t seem to care—in fact, the happiness rumbling through her thoughts suggested she rather enjoyed the wind’s fierce play across her wings and was making something of a game out of keeping us in the air and on track—but I was getting colder and wetter by the hour. I could of course ramp up the inner fires to keep the chill from my skin and dry out the increasing dampness of my clothes, but I was wary of doing too much in case we were once again spotted and chased. No matter how unlikely that might be in these conditions, Túxn did like throwing out challenges to those wishing good fortune rather than bad, and she’d certainly seemed intent on sending more than a few such challenges our way recently.

We followed the mountain’s spine for who knew how many hours, but given the unhappy rumbling in my stomach, it had to be well after midday when we got the first inkling of trouble. It was little more than a flicker of red and gold in the dark heart of the expansive if barely visible sea far to our left, but it nevertheless had my pulse rate leaping.

In weather this bad, that fire had to be pretty fierce to be seen from this height.

Go check?Kaia asked.

I hesitated, my gaze scanning the sharp mountain shadows that pierced the swirling gray of the storm surrounding us, and caught site of a landmark the fleet—be they from Esan or Hopetown—used as a navigation marker in better weather. We were near the Sinopa Pass, the valley that split these far reaches, and whose long right “leg” ran down to the very edges of the sea, providing a sheltered harbor for Hopetown while protecting it from the worst of the winter storms that crossed the eastern seas. Which meant these boats were roughly at the midway point between Hopetown and Kinara, the only island onthisside of Jakarra. We’d lost contact with all five islands when the gilded riders had swept in, and so far had only been able to reestablish it with Jakarra and Zergon—the latter being the smallest, and the closest to Jakarra—and only then because they were within easy reach of our cutters. Sending out galleons was pointless, because they did not have the speed to reach the islands within daylight hours, and that made them an ideal target for the riders who’d set up camp within the ruins of Illistin, Jakarra’s capital. We were currently in the process of evacuating both those islands during the day, but with the cutters being the only practical option, it was a painfully slow process. Survivors on four of the five islands did at least have shelter in the form of volcanic caves that riddled their mountainous regions, though as far as I knew, this was the first time they’d ever been used as refuge against an attack rather than a tropical storm and tsunami.

If what burned out there in the seawereboats from Kinara, then either something truly bad had happened on the island to drive them out of the caverns, or they’d simply decided help wasn’t going to get to them soon enough to ensure survival.

Yes,I replied eventually, but keep high, in case it’s a trap.

No see gilded ones.

Yeah, but would you, in this weather?

Not old, sight good.She sounded more than a little put out that I would think anything else.

A laugh escaped, though it was seriously muffled by the wet undershirt collar protecting the bulk of my face. I really needed a better solution to keeping my face warm and dry.I never meant to imply you’re an ancient one.

Though in truth, she wasn’t exactly young either and had at best only one breeding cycle left. Which still meant she’d likely be around long after I was dead, given how long drakkons lived.

She harrumphed, though amusement ran through the sound.Flicker is fire. Smell.

In this weather?

Nose good. Smell bad.

Any idea what burns?

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