Ravages Read online

I’d told Cassius there was a potion being created to stop him; clearly, there was quite a bit of it behind those walls.

  Cassius was yelling something to me, but I didn’t hear him.

  Fury flooded my veins as my dragon roared, needing to be unleashed.

  My body shuddered before I twisted and turned, shifting into my dragon form with a roar that shook the very foundations of the wall itself.

  The runes flared to life, covering my scaled body as I stood back on my hind legs, glaring at the wall and those on it.

  Arrows ricocheted off my scales, and smoke trailed out my nose as I felt my fire churn hot within me, waiting to be set free.

  I drew back, pumping my wings hard to pull my body into the air. I circled once, dodging fire from the other dragons as well as the arrows before I opened my jaws and shot a burst of bright blue crackling fire at the wall and those atop it.

  The stones exploded, and dragons hit the ground hard, their bodies not moving again.

  Archers jumped, trying to avoid my attack, but I didn’t let them.

  Red filled my vision, and all I saw over and over again was my mom’s dead body, hearing my dad’s dying roar before he was killed, too.

  Again and again, I attacked until finally the wall cracked right down the center of stones and silence fell over the battlefield as everyone paused to see the destruction of the wall that had stood for centuries.

  Now, it was nothing, but dust and rubble.

  I landed and let out another fierce roar as the plagued army, led by Allis, broke into action and charged over the debris into the courtyard of the dragon castle.

  “Well done,” Cassius commented as I shifted back, already reached for the Executioner and opening the shield. “Well done, indeed. I fear I may have underestimated you.”

  I was about to agree, but we were in the middle of a battle, and I itched to dive right in.

  I didn’t wait for him, but took off with the others, fighting my way into the courtyard.

  Bodies were everywhere, swords clashed, and men screamed.

  Kate… you can’t… please…

  The voice disappeared as soon as I attacked my first dragon soldier.

  And I didn’t hear it again for a very long time afterward.

  3

  Craig

  “What the bloody hell just happened!” I bellowed, yanking hard on the bars.

  “The darkness,” Celandine whispered forlornly from her cell, sitting on the dirt and straw looking defeated already. “It has taken hold deep within her.”

  “No,” I growled fiercely, feeling my face shift. “No, that’s not possible!”

  I refused to believe the Kate that stood here and willingly locked us away, the Kate who had come here specifically to fight the darkness on her own to save us, would just give in as she did and let the plague take control.

  She had left with that bastard to attack the realms, to kill innocent people.

  “What happened to her?” Forrest asked. “Celandine? Help us understand.”

  I was too busy frantically finding a way to bust out of the cell.

  I didn’t bother looking over at the woman, still working at finding a way to bust out of these bars. I heard her wince in pain as she shifted and finally started talking.

  I paid attention with one ear as I tried to listen for anything else, half of me praying Kate had been putting on an act for Cassius, and she was making her way back to us as soon as she could get away from him. That had to be it.

  But the longer I stared at the doors, the more my heart sunk, and my gut rolled.

  Kate wasn’t coming back.

  “Cassius, he found a way to drag me from her mind,” Celandine told us quietly. “I did not even know he was still alive. I thought… I thought he had been killed in the battle, but it appears I was wrong.”

  “What truth was he talking about?” Forrest asked.

  Celandine blew out a heavy breath, and I couldn’t help but turn to stare at her this time.

  Guilt flitted across her face. She gripped the bars as if needing to hold onto something. “You have to understand, everything he showed her… he replaced himself with me as the enemy in those memories.”

  “What did he show her, damn it!” I snarled. “We don’t have time for you to hold back, not now! Kate is out there, possessed, and we have no idea what she’s doing!”

  “She’s leading the army alongside Cassius,” Celandine shot back fiercely, managing to pull herself to her feet. “She thinks… she thinks I’m the reason the darkness came to our land in the first place.” She hung her head before she whispered, “There is a much darker part of our history that very few know… that the council didn’t know about, or at least, not how it all started.”

  I exchanged a confused glance with Forrest. “What are you talking about?”

  “Orcs, what happened to the orcs,” she muttered bitterly. “And how my brother pushed my father into starting a war with them we could not win, all to convince my father that the only way to save us all from any future attacks was to use magic. Dark magic.”

  “Orcs?” I shook my head. “What are you talking about? They were destroyed by their own actions.”

  “No, no that’s not true at all. That’s what the council was made to believe.”

  “I don’t understand then, what happened?” Forrest asked. “You’re saying all of this, the plague, everything, started that long ago?”

  Celandine paced to the back of her cell, then to the bars again. “Let me tell you a story, gentleman, a story that was never meant to be told.”

  By the time Celandine finished speaking, my mind warred with what actually happened that brought the plague here in the first place.

  It seemed Zohar was always a paranoid dragon and feared the worst would come for his clan. The orcs poised no immediate threat, but Cassius fueled his paranoia, and though Celandine was his most trusted commander, he refused to listen to her and turned to his son instead.

  A son bent on acquiring more and more power through dark magic that required sacrifices.

  “He destroyed an entire race,” I said, still in disbelief. “All that death and suffering… that’s what started the plague? What brought it to life?”

  “Yes. Thousands were killed… so much blood… so much screaming,” Celandine sighed. “Those days of battle haunted me for years after. And when Cassius and my father started locking themselves away again, I knew they could not quench their craving for more power. And the only way to get it… was to kill more innocents.”

  I choked on my rage, thinking of what Raghnall had been doing as one of the possessed. Killing off villages full of our people for this… this darkness. “How do we stop it? How did it take over Kate?”

  “Kate’s mind is darker than you believe,” she started, but I cut her off, angrily slashing my hand through the air in front of my face.

  “No, no it’s not possible!”

  “Yes, it is. Everyone has a darkness in them, and if they do not find a way to let it out, it can fester and grow. That is what happened.” Celandine shrugged as she tilted her head to the side, watching me closely through narrowed eyes that reminded me so much of Kate it made my chest ache. “She wanted revenge for what happened to her parents, and that is how it starts. One single moment in a person’s life where they consider doing the unthinkable.”

  I wanted to argue that she would never, but then I heard Forrest curse under his breath. “What?”

  “Back in Gregornath, she nearly killed Kadin and Raghnall. That was the moment.”

  She was supposed to be the Vindicar, pure of heart, and ready to fight for the innocent. Not murder the people she blamed for the death of her parents. She wasn’t supposed to spill blood like that and now… now we had no idea where she was, or how much darker she was making her soul.

  In a burst of anger, I charged the bars, yanking on them until my arms threatened to tear from their sockets.

  Forrest was yelling at me to calm down, b
ut I couldn’t do that, not now. I had to get out of this cell, had to get to her!

  I heard a groan and froze as Forrest fell silent.

  I blinked then stared at the bars in my hands and smirked. They were bent, just slightly, but it was enough to tell me there was a way out of these cells.

  “Wait, we need a plan before we just bust out of here,” Forrest argued quietly.

  “The plan is to get out of here and get to Kate,” I snarled and went back to tugging on the bars.

  “We need to know how to save her… if we can save her,” he whispered.

  My hand shot through the part of our cells that joined, grabbing his throat as I growled, feeling my face shift even worse.

  To his credit, he didn’t even flinch as a continuous growl echoed from my throat.

  “Craig, I understand your fury, I do. Do you really think I don’t feel the exact same?” he said, his voice measured.

  I heard the unsteadiness of his own raw emotions over the knowledge that after everything we’ve been through, we might be losing Kate.

  One by one, my fingers peeled away from his throat, and I breathed heavily, in and out, through my nose until I managed a nod.

  “Celandine, that shield Kate had, that was the shield, wasn’t it?” Forrest asked.

  I envied him at that moment for being able to think so clearly when all I wanted to do was rip this place apart stone by stone with my bare hands and kill anything that got in my way.

  “No, it was not.”

  “What do you mean?” I saw the same gauntlet as Forrest on her arm. “It has to be.”

  “No, Cassius created that shield out of dark magic, twisting the powers of the Vindicar for Kate. It is not the true shield.” Her gaze slid upward. “The shards, they’re still here, and you will need them if you are to save her.”

  “And the other shield?” I asked, already wrapping my hands back around the bars.

  “It must be broken by her, or she will never be free.”

  I braced myself for how much it was going to take out of me to break through these bars.

  “Be ready for a fight,” I warned Forrest and with a mighty roar, putting everything I had into it.

  I attacked the bars with only one thing on my mind: get to Kate and save her before she dragged herself too far into the darkness to get her back.

  4

  Forrest

  I stared at the bent and crooked bars as Craig slipped out of the cell, sucking in deep gulps of air.

  He was drenched in sweat, and his arms shook, but he didn’t stop to catch his breath before he crept through the dungeon and toward the steps, searching for keys to get me and Celandine out.

  No guards had come running yet, and I hoped our luck would hold out a bit longer. If we could find the shards and a way out of here without having to take on whatever plagued were left behind, we’d have a few needed moments to gather our strength before setting off after Kate.

  The seconds ticked by and I grew anxious, waiting for Craig to get back when something heavy thudded down the stairs, groaning in pain.

  A body rolled into view a second later followed by Craig jumping over it, keys in hand.

  “It dead?” I asked as he worked the right key into the lock.

  “No.” He shoved the key in the lock, and it grated loudly as he yanked the cell door open. “Take care of him, would you?”

  “With pleasure,” I growled, and as the plagued demon was just regaining his feet, I drew on my fire and pulled just enough to set it alight with a puff of air. Its skin ignited immediately, and it screamed as its skin burned away as Craig let Celandine out of her cell next.

  “How many guards did you see aside from this one?” I asked, kicking the burning body for emphasis, and to let out a bit of pent-up anger.

  Craig raised a brow at my action, but said nothing about it. “I heard more than I saw.”

  “And the shards?” I asked, turning to Celandine. “Do you know where they are?”

  “I have an idea. There is a hidden vault within a room off the main hall. If I know my brother at all, they will be there.”

  I threw my head back in an annoyed laugh. “Right where they were in the Darrah ruins. Kate, she had the other shards with her, too. Think they’re there?”

  “Won’t know until we reach the vault, but pray they got left behind,” Craig muttered and moved for the stairs. “Come on, let’s get moving. We’re short on time and Kate, I’m not sure how long she can hold out.”

  Craig crept up first and once at the top of the short set of steps leading into the main part of the fortress, he waved for us to follow.

  “If you are truly worried about Kate, speak to her,” Celandine whispered.

  “I can’t,” I replied confused. “We have no way to reach her.”

  She closed her hand around my arm, and a jolt of warmth shot into me as her eyes flared blue, just as Kate’s did. My mouth fell open as suddenly she was standing beside me, wearing that look of determination in her eyes and the smile that drew me in the first time she ran into me. Underneath the raging chaos that were Craig’s emotions were mine, striving to be let free. Anger, fear, that I would never see her again. That we would be too late.

  “Kate,” I whispered, and as I closed my eyes, I reached out, pushing across realms to find her.

  It wasn’t like normal when I reached out for her.

  The blue light I associated with Kate’s mind, her soul, was tainted by shadows. It crept in around my mind as I pushed further, straining to get to her.

  I urged myself to go past the darkness, needing to see a glimmer of Kate, the one I knew who was willing to fight and maybe even die to protect the innocent.

  I winced when the loud sounds of battle, screams, and swords clashing together met my ears,. There was roaring, so much suffering… and in the midst of it all was the blue light of Kate, being strangled by the plague.

  It hissed when it felt me, lashing out, and before I could do more than whisper her name, it thrust me back, and I slammed into the stone wall, sliding to the floor as Craig gripped my shoulder hard.

  “What happened? Did you find her?” he asked, an edge of desperation to his words.

  I held my forehead, wincing at the annoying pain there, and feeling as if the plague had nearly wrapped its tendrils around me and dragged me down, too.

  “Yes,” I replied, and met his worried gaze with my own. “We have to hurry.”

  “Shit,” he muttered, hauled me to my feet, and before I could say anything, he disappeared around the corner.

  Shouts and yells of pain echoed back to me and Celandine. By the time we poked our heads around the wall, Craig stood atop a pile of unconscious bodies, holding another plagued demon by the throat as the thing kicked and clawed at his grip.

  Craig grunted and threw the thing into the nearest wall where it cracked its skull.

  I flinched at the violent sound, but didn’t have long to linger. I set the pile of bodies alight as I passed, then a plagued still trying to find its feet.

  Celandine jogged after Craig.

  Wide-eyed, I glanced around at the destruction he’d caused, then rushed to catch up as the two of them disappeared out of sight.

  I didn’t want to lose them in here, then a body sailed out from the corridor, nearly taking me down.

  “Let’s move, Forrest!” Craig bellowed.

  “Remind me never to piss you off,” I muttered when I finally reached his side, where several more plagued were knocked out next to a set of double doors. “Where did this come from?”

  “With the right motivation,” he grunted as he pushed on the doors. They creaked and groaned in protest before finally giving way, and he smirked. “You can do anything. And this… this is the war room, right?”

  Celandine nodded. “The maps, check the maps on the table,” she urged, and we ran into the room, scouring the maps.

  “Gregornath,” I breathed. “They’re attacking from the Darrah lands.”

&
nbsp; I ran my fingers over the hand-drawn battle plans, trying to sense anything of Kate left behind, but the darkness was too strong here, and I growled, smoke flowing out of my nose in annoyance.

  Craig was already on the other side of the room, breaking through the doors that would lead to the room we found before, where the vault was, hopefully.

  Each step I took started an anxious feeling in my gut I couldn’t shake. I grit my teeth, and my vision almost blurred with worry.

  Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but I wasn’t about to slow down for anything.

  A voice, deep in the back of my mind told me we had to get to Kate, but it wasn’t just to save her. Someone else was in trouble, other people we cared for.

  My feet tripped over each other, and I sagged against the wall as images from Malcolm’s past flashed through my mind, and I realized it was his voice I heard now, urging me on, to succeed where he failed.

  “Forrest?” Celandine’s hand rested on my shoulder, but when I lifted my gaze to hers, there was no doubt on her face she saw Malcolm within me, and it broke her heart the same time it lifted her spirits. She took a shaky breath then grabbed my hand and pulled me along faster. “Craig. He’s found the vault.”

  All I did was nod and let her pull me along until I spotted Craig standing near the wall, an open section before him.

  He had already reached in and pulled out his blade and my daggers, stuff that had been on us when we dove through the clouds on our mission to rescue Kate.

  He reached in further, and I spotted a familiar knapsack in his hands.

  “The shards?” I asked, wondering why I was still so on edge about something happening.

  The fortress was so quiet around us. They’d probably taken most of the plagued with them, so what was I feeling?

  I frowned. “Craig?”

  He opened the front pouch and sighed in relief. “Shards, they’re here… and so is this.”

  When he pulled out the coin Kate used to get here, the anxiety within me nearly exploded.

  I felt my body shaking. “We have to go, right now.”