Page 149 of Cast By Flames (Dragon's Breath)
Skylar raced up the tower stairs and fell on her knees beside Xanath, sobbing. I crawled over to her, unable to walk yet and put a hand on her back. She leaned against me, muttering something about the sorcerer being an old fool.
“He saved a lot of lives,” I said, hugging her. “It might not seem fair right now, but he died so the rest of us could live. He wanted a better future for you.”
She sniffled. “But I’ll miss him.”
“We all will, sweetie.”
The others gathered around Xanath and said their own goodbyes. A shifter appeared from the staircase opening, and Aidan ordered him to take the body to the sorcerers’ tower to prepare it for burial. Skylar followed him while the rest of us exchanged glances, exhausted.
I gave Aidan a pleading look. “Can we concentrate on recovering the injured for tonight? There are only a few hours left until dawn, and it’s going to take days to sort the rest out.”
Physically and emotionally, I was done and couldn’t begin to process the scale of tragic losses around us. Many others on the field below had dazed looks, too, as they stumbled around the battlefield.
The lines of fatigue on Aidan’s face proved he felt it as well. “Yes, we do what we can until dawn, and then we’ll resume in the afternoon after food and rest.”
“Oh.” Conrad fell back to a laying position with an arm slung over his eyes. “Thank God, Zorya, and whoever else grants mercy.”
Chapter 46
Aidan
The sun was setting by the time they finished gathering all the dead shifters and humans within two miles of the fortress. They were laid out in neat lines on the field outside the walls for family and friends to identify and take for burial preparations. Tomorrow, they would gather the rest that were farther away.
Aidan’s heart ached at the numerous losses. They’d been his to command, and though he’d plotted and planned the best he could, it wasn’t enough. Too many had died.
Then there was the issue of the newly cured Kandoran.
Each toriq and human group had designated teams to help them. The survivors were still weak, dazed, and traumatized from what had been done to them and needed help. Also, they were very dirty, usually injured, and ripe smelling because it didn’t appear any of them had bathed recently. Even the dragons were in poor mental and physical shape. Aidan and the rest of the leaders recognized they weren’t to blame for the atrocities, so they did what they could.
The dragons would recover directly across the western border, where their front line had been during the war. Once the aftermath was settled, he would claim some of that landfor his people, but the remaining Thamaran would be allowed to keep a section for themselves in their former territory. That included the ones who took refuge prior to the war and the ones they cured. Their designated area would need to be cleared of unexploded ordinance first—Colonel Melvin’s precise words—before it could be safely reoccupied, though.
Falcon and Sabryn approached him, each with a parchment in hand.
Aidan braced himself. “How does it look so far?”
The pair glanced at each other before Sabryn spoke first. “As of right now, we have found forty-six dead from our toriq. The Craegud lost thirty-four, and the Straegud lost twenty-nine. That doesn’t include any previous losses from before last night.”
And there were likely still bodies out there they hadn’t found yet. Aidan rubbed his face, despairing over each death of his kind. Shifters were already a small percentage of the overall dragon population, and the war didn’t help matters. He couldn’t have prevented it fromhappening, but he wished he could have done more to protect his people. The full tally of lost Taugud since the start came to eighty-six. He prayed to Zorya that they’d find no more.
“Humans?” he asked.
Falcon cleared his throat. “We separated the locals from the coalition and counted two-hundred and eighty-three from Oklahoma dead since yesterday, including innocents caught in battle in the city. Unfortunately, not everyone took shelter. The NAC gave us their preliminary estimate. They lost seventy-eight last night, and they’re still missing another fifteen.”
Aidan felt their deaths almost as much as his own people, especially with how bravely the human soldiers had foughtagainst a superior force. As for the non-combatants caught in the middle, he was sorry it happened. He’d been told parts of the city outside his territory didn’t have shelters made due to a variety of reasons. Perhaps they didn’t believe the warnings. They were the most likely victims when the Kandoran broke through the shield and swarmed the populated areas. He doubted anyone from Norman would have been above ground during the fighting.
“Do we know anything on the Faegud or pure dragon losses?”
“Ozara returned half an hour ago from checking in with Lorcan.” Sabryn glanced down at her parchment. “The Faegud have found ninety-two dead so far and are certain of one-hundred and forty-three lost over the entire war. Of course, there are still some missing. The Shadowan are the only ones who have agreed to give me a preliminary estimate. They didn’t give specifics for last night, but they have counted one hundred and eighty-two total dead since the Kandoran first attacked a month ago.”
He'd like to say it was reassuring that neighboring toriqan suffered even greater losses, but it didn’t. They’d all spend the coming decades trying to bring their adult populations back up, and even more before they had the same number of skilled and experienced warriors.
Bailey walked up with Rayna at her side.
Aidan pulled his mate close and kissed her forehead. The look in her brown eyes told him she hadn’t had a good day, either. Both slayers were covered in gore and dried blood, likely from assisting in moving bodies. Everyone who’d performed the task appeared the same.
“Tell me,” he said.
Bailey took a deep breath. “We lost one of the Tulsa slayers, six from the coalition died, and one from Texas. There aren’t many of us, so it feels like a lot.”
