The craggy peaks of the Gemond Mountains jutted into the blue sky as we continued our flight to Zivost Forest. The highest points, capped in snow, extended to where the air was thin and unbreathable—even for Drae. The dark rock was interspersed with the sparsest of growth, most of which were gray and sickly cedars. Abandoned homesteads dotted the larger ravines with snaking trails winding between them. The houses were lean-tos, piles of rocks with dried foliage draped to limit exposure to the elements, and looked abandoned.

Without the telepathic connection with Tyrrik, the silence in my head was thunderous and somehow empty. My thoughts rattled, continually turning to him between thoughts of what would happen once we arrived in Zivost. Huffing through my snout, I reminded myself I didn’t trust him and turned my attention to the ground.

We passed over another deserted town of scraggly shelters, though this time I smelled smoke. Gray billows of acrid smog puffed into the blue sky, creating a dirty haze above the settlement. I circled lower and flattened my body as my sharp eyes detected movement in the rocky valley below.

The jutting cliffs made spying hard. I tucked my wings in closer to my scaly body and cut through the air current holding me aloft. A descent of a few feet was all I needed, just enough to see better through the smoke. I’d never ventured out of Verald, though the Gemond Kingdom had often been featured in Mother’s stories. I knew little of the people, beyond their mining reputation, but after hearing the words ‘alliance’ from Caltevyn’s and Dyter’s lips, I assumed an attempt to rally Gemond to their cause was imminent. If they planned to recruit these people, and I was being dragged along for the ride, I needed to learn as much as possible.

In my heart, I hadn’t mustered the strength to throw myself into a rebellion against Emperor Drayden. I was resigned to being hauled through the civil war, regardless, because of who I was and my friends’ roles in it. I didn’t want to just go through the motions, as I was doing, and felt no small measure of guilt about my lack of dedication, but I didn’t feel capable of more. Deep down, I wondered if this realm was even worth all the pain I’d been through, let alone the pain I expected was ahead if I entered into this fight.

I steadied myself at the lower altitude, feeling Tyrrik close by my left wing.

Concentrating on the diminutive forms, several seconds of my attention remained fixed before I could accept what I was seeing. Even in my Drae form, my stomach tightened at the sight. I’d believed Verald owned a monopoly on suffering and hardship. The people below appeared barely human. Their hunched and emaciated bodies were twisted and gnarled. Their long stringy hair, all gray, giving them the look of an ancient community of women. Their clothes hung tattered and ill-fitting off their wasted frames.

I would expect more women present than men, given the Emperor’s War, but something about the community sent shivers running to the tips of my wings. Were there no men?

Tyrrik shifted beside me as a man, distinguishable by his white beard, hobbled from a dilapidated structure in the center of the settlement. The guy was ancient. A woman rushed up to him, and another chased after her, waving her arms.

Ryn, Tyrrik called. He dipped down, circling back until he was alongside me.

His voice felt like warm embers, and a strange sense of longing welled from deep within. Irritated, I shoved the emotion away.

Come on; we’re really close now. See the golden energy by those rocks? I didn’t answer, and his tone dropped and was laced with warning when he added, You don’t want to see that.

How would you know? I shot back, gliding off to the side so I could orbit back around the encampment. The golden energy he referenced radiated into the sky, but this was my first glimpse at the neighboring kingdom’s people. This wouldn’t take more than a few minutes at most. Have you been in Gemond before?

Trust me, you don’t want to see what happens next.

Therein lay our problem. If I could have rolled my Drae eyes at him, I would have because he asked the impossible. Trust was earned, not demanded, and even when earned, trust could be broken rapidly. As he should know.

I kept my gaze on the pocket-sized ancient humans and their pocket-sized problems. One of the women had caught the man by his tattered shirt hem. The man turned and pushed the woman to the ground. The second woman stopped her chase as the man towered over the first. A moment later, a dozen other women came running, and then another dozen shuffled from the tumbledown shelters. They coalesced on the fallen woman with sticks and rocks and even their own bodies, beating her. The second woman hesitated for only a second before joining in.

Why are they beating her? My insides chilled as I watched, transfixed by the horror of the scene below. These were Gemondians? I was certain at any minute, the women would stop, that they would come to their senses or someone would control them, but there didn’t appear to be anyone else. Mother’s stories never mentioned Gemond’s violent culture. Had their society crumpled under the stress of starvation? Or had their ruler, like our previous king, put his needs above his people’s?

Tyrrik’s hesitancy leaked through our connection, and I snapped my fangs together. Why are they beating her?

Because she tried to monopolize him. He is their only man.

You’re kidding, right? He’s the only dude, so he gets all the ladies? For real?

I don’t make their rules, Ryn.

The horror I felt wasn’t Tyrrik’s fault, but I couldn’t dam the emotion when the tendrils of the woman’s screams echoed in my ears. I whipped my tail, a growl swelling in my chest. They’re going to punish her because she wanted to . . . ?

Tyrrik remained silent, waiting for me to finish my question.

They’re doing that because she wanted to sleep with him?

When it wasn’t her turn, he corrected. Yes.

So they’ll torture her. All of them on one person.

He sighed. Yes. Are you happy now that you know?

Would you prefer I bury my head in the sand? I asked sarcastically. Why would we seek alliance with these people? People seemed too generous of a term. This community was filled with the worst kind of animals.

Tyrrik picked up his pace, and I cast a suspicious glance at him and then circled down. My gaze shifted back on the people below as I scanned the settlement anew. Most of the women were dispersing. No, just backing away. Two of them held the unconscious female by the feet and were dragging her across the stony ground toward a ring of large, smooth rocks with a fire pit in the middle.

From the shadowed entrance came yet another woman, though this one had layers of beaded necklaces covering her bare chest. She looked as bad as the rest of the emaciated females, but the way she carried herself indicated rank.

The unconscious woman was dropped inside the ring of rocks, and the leader held her hands high, addressing her horde in a clipped language I couldn’t understand. My nostrils twitched at the thin scent of the women's sweat and adrenaline; their overpowering smell was evident from where I soared.

Let’s go, Ryn. Panic laced Tyrrik’s words, snapping me from my transfixed stupor. Then he added, Please. He began to circle me, his dark Drae eyes wide, and in their depths, I could not only see, but feel, his alarm. His wings beat the air. His tail thrashed in warning.

If he thought I was leaving now, he had another thing coming. Gemondians weren’t cute mining dwarfs as I’d thought; they were terrifying. If the people were like this, what was the king like?

Tell me what’s happening. I batted him with my tail, but he dodged and continued in his tight circles, inching us away from the colony of Gemondians. Tell me what they’re going to do. I could guess they weren’t dragging her to an infirmary. Are they going to kill her?

Please, Princess. I’ll tell you everything, but please . . .

Because your track record is so great. The community disappeared behind a ridge of dark rock, and the ravine and its inhabitants disappeared from view as we approached the gold dome. Through the Phaetyn energy, there were trees, but vision wasn’t the only heightened sense I now possessed.

I inhaled, grimacing at the taint of smoke. So many scents, but one smell overpowered the rest. The scent of searing meat tickled my nostrils, and I gagged. Holy-freakin’-Drae. My stomach roiled as understanding punched me. They were eating her.

My mind blanked, my concentration evaporated, and my energy snapped as coherent thought fled my mind.

Tyrrik, I called through our connection as spots filled my vision. Something was happening. I couldn’t feel my energy. My wings weren’t working.

I tumbled from the sky, roaring in panic.

The wind battered my limp limbs, and my roar became a bellow of pain. My heart stopped, skipping as I looked at my hands. My Phaetyn hands.

“Tyrrik,” I screamed, my voice disappearing into the rushing air.

A splitting roar filled the air. I plummeted toward the rocks below, sensing Tyrrik’s energy blasting toward me as he dove alongside and then catapulted below me.

I shrieked as my body slammed into solid stone. My vision spotted black again, and the pulse of agony made my head spin. The breath whooshed from my lungs, and I retched. A fraction of a second later, I blinked in the darkness. Another fraction later, I understood. I was in Tyrrik’s claws. I hadn’t hit stone . . . he’d caught me. I sagged into the flesh of his palm just as he crashed into the ground. He’d been too close to the ground to stop his trajectory. Holy pancakes.

He screeched beneath me, fire shooting from his Drae mouth into the sky, wings caught between his body and the rocks. One second, I was in his black scaly palm, and the next, I was lying on top of Lord Tyrrik. He gasped, and I scurried off, my mind blank with shock.

“I’m s-sorry,” I said, teeth chattering as I backed away from Tyrrik’s prostrate form. “I’m so, so . . .”

No. No, no, no. I blinked, trying to clear my tunneled vision. I stared at Tyrrik; my chest hollowed out, and a buzzing filled my ears, numbing my lips and rooting me to the spot. I sucked in a breath, but the air disappeared, and I couldn’t catch my breath.

We’d landed a few hundred meters from a lush forest, with golden filaments of energy shrouding the woods, except between us and the trees sat a thick barrier of jutting, stone spikes. Tyrrik lay impaled on a spike on the very edge of the barrier.

I rushed to his side and dropped to my knees as I stared at the jagged piece of rock protruding from above his right breast. I swallowed the sob working its way up my throat and hovered, my hands trembling above the injury. “What have I done?”

Tyrrik gasped again, the wet sucking sound enough to shake me from my stupor.

“Bloody, bloody . . . Tyrrik, what do I do? What . . . ?” My mind refused to catch up. How had this happened? Rocks shouldn’t be . . . they shouldn’t go through a Drae’s chest like that. We were invincible. “Do I pull it out? Do I pull you off?”

His eyes were glassy and unfocused as he continued to gasp with ragged soggy breaths. Stars above. He was drowning in his own blood. The thought of him dying like this, dying at all, threatened to tip me over the edge.

“I’m so sorry, Tyrrik.” I ran my hand over his face, brushing his lips with my fingertips. I circled so I stood at his head and scooped my hands under the back of his shoulders.

The shard of stone was not even two feet tall. I could do this. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

I took a deep breath, and with another whispered apology, I heaved with all my strength. The sickening sound of blood and tearing flesh was all I could hear, and I whimpered.

The blood in his mouth gargled as he wailed. The muscles in his neck tightened, his eyes flooded black, and a moment later, his body went limp. His eyes rolled back in his head, showing only white.

My heart clenched, and I dug my fingers into him as my palms grew slick with sweat. Tears streamed unchecked from my eyes, dripping onto Tyrrik’s pale face.

I shuffled to the side and lowered him to the ground. Scooting to his side, I chanted, “Please don’t die; please don’t die.”

Blood, the color of onyx, gushed from his wound, staining the rocky ground.