Staring at the castle, Anders was filled with a sense of insignificance he had not known in eons. Leaving Misty Woods had been an easy decision, not only for him but also for his brothers. Standing before the crumbling mass, he wanted nothing more than to turn back and forget he had ever come.

“Gazing at it like that won’t make it go away,” Max quipped, and Anders glanced up as his brother approached, a lazy grin on his face.

“Are you sure?” he sighed. “Maybe if we stare long enough…”

“Come in,” Max laughed, clapping him on his back. “Father has passed out, so he likely won’t sense you inside.”

It was the word ‘likely’ that bothered Anders the most.

“I should have met you in one of the towns nearby,” he grumbled, more to himself than Max, but his brother heard him all the same and shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “You need to be here to understand what happened.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It is.”

For three days, the brothers had been in close contact, sharing whatever information they had learned. Anders had gone to Switzerland himself, trying to learn more about the mysterious men who had come and gone, apparently with the most innocent of their kind. He had learned as little as Max, but that didn’t stop him from accessing passport records to see if anything popped up.

It was a grueling and futile effort, less than the chance of finding a needle in a haystack, for if they were dealing with a weyr of dragons, they wouldn’t use passports.

The previous night, he had sat, rubbing his eyes, exhausted and ready to scream from his hotel room in La Claustra, near the Sasso San Gottardo. He fought against every fiber of his being, which wanted to call Sawyer, knowing that any contact he made would be met with rebuff. But the longing to merely hear her voice was driving him crazy.

He had caved, reaching for the phone just as Max texted him.

I know who they are now, the message read. You need to come to Misty Woods.

Anders was not sure which sentence bothered him more. Probably the latter. Nothing good had ever come from within the walls of that castle. But he was hardly in any position to argue, not if he wanted to learn the truth and take down the rivals who had destroyed his home and almost killed his lover.

“Where are we going?” he demanded as his brother led the way through the dark chambers of the castle, through the back halls. “This goes to the—”

“I started thinking about what the old man at Airolo said about the strangers who had come to town.”

They continued through the dank halls, and Anders felt a shiver of apprehension slide through him. “Max, why are we going—”

“Blonde, blue-eyed, and built like brick shithouses, I think he said,” Max continued, as if his brother had not spoken. “And it reminded me of something.” He pulled on a heavy door, and he grabbed for a mounted torch before starting into the bowels of the castle.

“Max, I don’t want to go—”

“Who else was in the castle with us that night, Anders?”

“The night that Opal laid the curse?”

“Yes. Who did we have dying in the dungeons?”

Anders froze in his tracks, his jaw dropping in shock. “Northmen! Prisoners!”

Max turned and nodded his head, the eerie glow of light casting a strange shadow on the curved stairwell. “But what happened to them?”

“They died, presumably,” Anders whispered, but he had never given it any thought. He had never given them another thought.

“Why would they have died?” Max asked, gesturing for him to follow, and Anders gulped the lump of sick forming in his throat. “No one else inside the castle died. We were all transformed—the children, the women. Why not them, too?”

“Surely someone must have gone to check on them at some point!” Anders choked, but the words sounded empty to his ears.

“You and I certainly didn’t. If anyone had, someone would have sounded the alarm as to what had happened.”

“This is a ridiculous theory, Max!” Anders tried to argue. “Are you suggesting that they laid in wait for seven centuries? Why would they do that if they have been around this long?”

“I don’t know why,” Max confessed. “I would guess that they lack the same power we have, whether because they were near death or because the ones closest to Opal got the full effect of her wrath. But they are here now, and we must find them.”

“Those damned Northmen! Even after all this time!”

Max snickered, and they ventured into the depth of the castle, his torch illuminating the naked cells, barren of anything but the suffering that had seeped into the walls all those battles ago.

“You see?” Max pointed out. “There are no bones, no remnants of any man being down here. I checked with Marcus. There were six here that night. Just as there are six of us.”

“If they are weaker, we will subdue them,” Anders said reassuringly. “They are sloppy, setting fires at random. At least one is in New York. There must be a way for me to draw him out.”

“Maybe,” Max replied. “But I think there’s a reason they are becoming so confident, Anders.”

“They’re growing stronger? But how—oh, shit!” Suddenly, it made sense why they had taken the women. “We have to find them!” Anders gasped. “We have to figure out what the hell they’re doing and stop them!”

“If it isn’t already too late,” Max mumbled tiredly. “I think we both know why they’ve taken the women. I can guess what they’re doing with the children. If this is what I think this is, they have a year on us already.”

They stared at one another in the eerie darkness, their faces an identical shade of frustration.

“They’re building an army, Max,” Anders choked out, “and we have no idea how to stop them.”

“I do,” said a third voice. “I know exactly how to stop them.”

The men whirled to look into the darkness.

“Who’s there?” Max called out, stepping forward to the light corridor. “Show yourself!”

But Anders instantly recognized the voice. It had been speaking to him in the fitful sleep he’d stolen over the past few days.

“Sawyer!” he cried at the sight of her, barely illuminated by the light from Max’s torch. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You know about the dragons,” she breathed, stepping toward him with wide, scared eyes. “How did you learn about them?”

“What do you know about dragons?” Max asked curiously. “And who are you?”

Anders turned to give his brother a warning look. “You shouldn’t be here, Sawyer,” he said nervously, striding toward her. “It’s dark and cold—you’ll get sick.”

“Really?” Sawyer snapped. “You’re going to pretend you’re worried about me getting the flu right now?”

“Once upon a time, that would be able to kill you,” Max chimed, a note of amusement tinging his words.

Anders glared at him before pulling on Sawyer’s arm. “Come on,” he insisted. “Let’s get out of here. We can talk upstairs.”

“What is this place?” she demanded, wriggling free of his grasp. “Whose castle is this?”

“Sawyer, let’s go upstairs,” Anders said firmly, seizing her arm. “Come on.” He did not release her until they had made their way up the stone steps and onto the main floor of the musty structure. “What are you doing here? How did you even know where to find me?”

“What are you doing here?” Sawyer retorted, folding her arms across her chest defensively. “You just left me at Vander’s without an explanation. You didn’t even have the decency to call?”

“I told Vander to tell you I’d be back in a few days,” Anders replied, casting Max a worried look. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You thought disappearing without a word would make me less worried?” she snapped. “How considerate of you!”

“I’ll just be upstairs,” Max muttered, slipping past the quarreling couple to make himself scarce.

“I didn’t leave you,” Anders replied softly, stepping toward her. He could read the hurt in her eyes, and he wished with all his being that he had not done it the way he had.

“Yeah? It sure looks like you did.”

“You’re wrong, Sawyer. I left to protect you. There are things you don’t understand… or at least I thought you didn’t understand.” He reached out to brush a strand of hair from her face, and she looked away, causing a stab of pain to run through his body.

“What do you know about the dragons, Anders?” Sawyer asked, visibly swallowing back her anger and disappointment, but she didn’t pull away. “Who are they?”

“I—” Anders started to deny that he knew anything about them, but as he stared into her face, he realized he couldn’t lie to her. From the minute he had laid eyes on her, he had known there was something magical about her, something he had never felt for anyone else. He wanted her to know everything about him, about his legacy and their fight, but he couldn’t afford to drag her into the middle of a war, especially not when she had almost died because of it.

What could he tell her except that he didn’t have enough answers, anyway?

“Why are they coming after you and your brothers?” she asked, surprising him.

“What?” Anders blinked and stared at her. “What do you mean they’re coming after us? How do you know that? What do you know about them?”

“If I tell you what I know, you have to do the same for me,” Sawyer said. “Have you been working with Vander, too? Are you part of The Order?”

The inquiries were only confusing Anders further.

“Vander? The Order? What the hell are you talking about? Vander is a dragon?”

“No! I—I mean, I don’t think so. He runs The Order, and he claims he once knew a dragon, but…” Anders inhaled sharply.

“You’re not making any sense,” he told her softly. “You need to take a deep breath and explain what you’re talking about. How do you know that they are coming for us? What makes you say that?”

“All of the fires in New York were in properties that one of your family members owned through one of your corporations. The dragons are coming for you, Anders.”

“Are you sure?” he demanded, his eyes growing wide. He had no reason to doubt that Sawyer knew what she was talking about; it made perfect sense.

“We need to get you somewhere safe before they find you,” Sawyer insisted. “We’ll figure out a plan to stop them. I’ve done it before, and—”

“No,” Max growled, appearing in the hallway, his eyes glowing amber as he began to shift into his inner beast before their eyes. “It’s too late. They’re already here.”

Anders opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the earth-shattering shriek of dragon calls filled his ears.

A flash of fire ripped through the ceiling and pierced the wall inches from Sawyer’s shocked face.

“Anders!” she screamed, her olive face opaque with fear.

And Anders didn’t remember a thing after that.