Ryana flung her arm out to stop him. She’d gained weight since Damian had seen her last, and it suited her. It made her more imposing. It felt to him like in his absence, she had come into her own. “No. If you’re his general, then you need to hear this too.” And then she began scanning her bedclothes as Damian realized what she was looking for—the Heart.
“I found it,” he told her.
Her gaze rose up to meet his. “I’m sorry.”
“I am too.” Damian picked up the chair he was sitting in and turned it to face her and then waved Austin back toward his chest to continue his work. “What the hell happened?”
* * *
It was fitting that Austin was intermittently hurting him as she talked. The Realms had always hurt him. Why should now be any different?
“She ruled in peace for a time, Damian,” Ryana told him. Her hands were nervously smoothing the sheet on her lap, and Lyka had created a nearby nightstand for her with ice water and hot tea.
“I find that hard to believe,” Damian said. His stepmother excelled in casual cruelty.
“As do I. And yet…for a time…there was prosperity. Everyone was expecting her to fail, so there didn’t seem to be a need to rise against her. I think the countries of the Realms were waiting, honestly, for someone else to take the risk. Everyone was so divided and had so many wounds to lick after father’s last war. Then, when things weren’t so bad, there didn’t need to be a rush. Father’s generals stayed loyal, and the ones who didn’t, she had the Kagaroth kill quickly.”
“What changed?” he pressed, looking down to inspect Austin’s work. The werewolf’s fine sutures on the muscles he’d torn had brought the edges of his wound close enough for it to begin healing on its own.
“The prognosticators,” she said. “A few cycles ago, they started prophesying the next Conjunction.”
Damian laughed. “You’re kidding.” Prognosticators were crazed men and women who were entranced by the movement of the assorted Realms, who ate little and drank less, sitting and watching their orrerys, reading signs and portents into what was essentially unknowable.
“I am not. It was just one or two at first, but then all of them started babbling about it. They don’t know when it’ll happen, of course…just that it will.”
“As everything will in the fullness of time,” Damian snorted. “You mean to tell me the Kagaroth couldn’t catch them?”
“They caught the first few hundred. My mother had them executed in elaborate ways, but that didn’t stop the rest of them from talking. And once the general populace knew, it was too late.”
“So, then…war?”
Ryana nodded. “Skirmishes on the borders at first. A botched attempt at poisoning, which led to the execution of most kitchen staff. I lost my favorite baker,” she said with a sigh.
Damian felt the free hand Austin was balancing with on his chest tense and was darkly bemused. He’d tried to explain the Realms to his friends—people who he could truly use that word for here on Earth—but it seemed they didn’t get it until you mentioned losing a person’s life casually like it’d been a mere possession.
“But then it escalated, and here we are,” Ryana said. “Wherever here is. Earth, right?”
“Yes. A horrible non-magical place, full of interesting, occasionally magical people,” Damian said, giving Austin, who was finishing up, a nod. “But that doesn’t explain the Heart, Ryana.”
His sister inhaled and exhaled. “It’s what the invaders were looking for. My mother knew where it was, of course, but she wouldn’t show me. When we heard they were making their final push, my mother whispered which vault it was in in my ear, and I ran.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I thought,” she began and licked her lips, hesitating. “I had to touch it. To find out.”
And Damian realized exactly what’d happened. His sister had gone and opened the box it was in and shoved her hand inside and tried to make a pact with the object herself, and it’d denied her in the most brutal way. Damian pushed Austin away and stood. “You thought? It almost killed you, and it will kill me!”
“You weren’t there, Damian!” she shouted back at him, rising to stand herself, teetering. Her injured wings fluttered behind her, what was left of them, as the green of her eyes sparkled in her still-swollen eye sockets. “They were at the gate! If it had worked—”
“If it had worked, you would’ve been cursed the same as me,” Damian snarled, angry at her for taking her chance.
“Maybe we should just calm down,” Austin began, trying to be the voice of reason, and Damian and Ryana both shot him wilting looks.
Ryana readily refocused on Damian, the bruises on her face still sallow in the library’s low light. “Damian, what was left for me, without it?”
Damian inhaled to refute her, but he couldn’t.
“That’s right. You know what would’ve come to me. Either it worked and I sold my soul to a dragon, or I would die horribly in the worst imaginable way. You’ve seen what torments the Kagaroth dream up. I doubt our enemies would’ve done any differently to destroy a potential queen.”
“You could’ve come to me. Earlier.”
“And hidden here, with you?” Ryana scoffed. “My mother was happy to see you go, but we both know she’d move the Realms into a Conjunction herself to reclaim me. She may not know how to love me, but I am her blood.”
“And just where is she?”
Ryana frowned, sitting back down on the bed, flaring her wings awkwardly out around her. “I don’t know. I touched the Heart, and things went black.”
“And it was Lyka’s decision to come find me?”
Ryana looked up and communed with her guardian for a moment, Lyka’s melodious chirps filling the air before Ryana responded with a snort. “Do you remember the time you saved her from Bruud?”
Damian’s eyes narrowed. His stepmother’s guardian, given to her when she married their father, was a horrible skinless hound. Appearing half-skeletal, half-exposed-muscle, whatever The Snake ordered, her beast Bruud obeyed. It was clear the guardians had been fighting, though Damian had never known why, and Ryana had been too young to talk. He’d just walked into a room full of blood and feathers and chased the hound off. “Yes.”
“Well, Lyka did too. Plus, she says things were bad.”
“That they were,” he said, softening. “When Lyka summoned me, I opened up all my mirrors. Each of them showed utter destruction.”
Ryana rocked back. “All…of them?”
“Down to a one. I have not opened my mirrors since.”
“That’s good, though, right?” Austin guessed, interjecting himself. “If it’s so chaotic over there, they may not know what has happened to you or the Heart yet.”
“That’s what we’re counting on,” Damian said, nodding.
“How so?”
“I’ve got another…general, working on something to save you. I should have news of it in a day or so.”
“To save me? But I’m here.”
“It’s complicated. I’ll explain later if she manages to bring it to fruition.”
Ryana’s eyes widened. “How many generals do you have?”
“Many. And Maximillian, too, you remember him, and—” Damian was about to say Grimalkin’s name when the cat bounced in to lay on Ryana’s lap.
“Oh, Grim, how I’ve missed you!” Ryana said, picking the cat up for a hug. Lyka chittered overhead, and Grimalkin chattered back. The bird flew off, and Grimalkin chased her. “I guess some things never change,” Ryana said with a smile.
“It doesn’t seem so,” Damian agreed.
* * *
After Austin said it was okay for both of them, Damian gave Ryana his arm and took her on a quick tour of his home—which would now be her home as well. Lyka and Grimalkin worked on an equitable arrangement and changed the spatial reality of one of the existing rooms so that it became the spitting image of Ryana’s expansive room in the Realms as b
efit her status, plus or minus her actual things, some of which couldn’t be magically recreated so easily.
“I miss my books,” Ryana said, looking at her empty shelves.
“About that,” Damian began, remembering the destruction of the palace library, and how fond his sister was of reading. “The fires…there was devastation—”
“I’m not ready to hear about that, yet.” She shook her head and held herself. “Tell me happier things instead. Tell me about the books that this world has. I haven’t read any of them, obviously. Will reading them all take quite some time?”
While Damian could read, it wasn’t a pastime for him like it was for Ryana…and Andi. “I think so. There are libraries here twice the size of father’s, and,” he said, before pulling out his phone, “you can keep a million books in this.”
She squinted at it. “No. How?”
He grinned, remembering what it was like when he came over, and the world had been a lot less complicated then. “There’s a lot to show you. Earth is different. But, trust me, once you’re feeling up to it, there are things here that you’ll enjoy.” Being in her recreated room was the closest he’d gotten to the Realms in two decades. He sat down on one of the chairs and looked out her window, pleased that the view outside was still the roll of his own familiar hills. “Although Ryana…there are a few things we need to talk about, first.”
“Understandably,” she said, looking at herself in her new mirror. She was still wearing the dress he’d recovered her in, scorch marks and all. She smoothed her hands over the generous curves of her body. “My goodness…I’m a sight. If I went out looking like this—”
“You can’t,” he said gently. “Earth isn’t like the Realms. Everyone here is non-magical, for the most part, so much so that they don’t even recognize that magic exists.”
She sniffed. “How pathetic.”
“They have other charms,” he said. “But…even though Earth may seem safer…it’s not. We’re currently at war with a group of non-magical enemies who know magic exists and want it for themselves. If they caught you, they’d strip your wings for the leather.”
She rolled her eyes at him like he was her mother. “Do they not have leather here?”
“Not that’s inherently magical, brought straight from the Realms.” Her amusement curdled into horror, as he went on. “So, you have to promise me, should you ever leave the house, you can never go without hiding your birthright. And never alone. Not until you’re more used to this world.”
Ryana frowned. She’d displayed her wings proudly her entire life in lieu of a crown. “I would have to be normal?”
“You would never be normal, Ryana. Only appear it. For your own good.” Although that did bring up a good point. Ryana was used to waves of servants seeing to her every need and everyone knowing who she was and catering to her whims. He knew his sister wasn’t evil, but she was spoiled in a way that earth couldn’t accommodate.
“Fine. What else?” she asked.
“There was an attack on me not that long ago. Someone from the Realms paid an earthly assassin to stab me. It didn’t work, but I need to know who you think would’ve tried.”
She frowned even deeper. “It could’ve been almost anyone, Damian. There’s been unrest brewing for a long time—”
“From inside the palace, though?”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know. Not many people had access to the mirrors, or knew how to find you, besides—”
“Well, they didn’t find me. They found someone else who had a mirror and brokered a deal for the assassin to find me. But the man with the mirror claims not to know who they were.” Thoroughly interrogating Rax was one more thing on Damian’s exceptionally long To-Do list. “And since when have there been liquid portals? Lyka used one to bring you through.”
“Oh, you brilliant bird,” Ryana muttered, even though her guardian was nowhere near. “Those are thanks to me.”
“What?”
“No one spent more time in the library than I did, Damian.” She began pacing. “As the unrest grew, it wasn’t safe for me to leave the palace, so I didn’t. I always enjoyed reading, so I indulged, and there were books in father’s libraries with completely unsafe magic to perform. A Kagaroth had to put a fire in my hair out, and I inhaled sulfur more times than I’d care to admit, but, at least, I was doing something. Contributing in my own way. And when I figured out how to create the liquid that could be used like mirrors, I hoped it would change our course. But it takes so long to make even a little, and it can only be used a few times before it loses its integrity. Did Lyka use a bladder of it to bring me here?” she asked him, and he nodded. “Well, then. That was all that I’d made of it over the past several months.”
“Who knew that it existed?”
“Why?”
“Because that was how they tried to kill me.”
Ryana was horrified. “Oh, brother, I never would’ve let it out of my sight if I had known. But…how?”
“In the form of a knife. The liquid was pressed into a blade.”
“Devious,” Ryana said.
“It’s gone now, but who had access to it?”
She winced. “No one…and everyone. I was the only person who created it, but I always had my guard with me, watching. They knew the experiments I was doing, as did my mother and her generals. And I didn’t always have the same guards.”
“So, any of them could’ve learned to make their own?”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I doubt any of them would have the skill, but…” she said, sinking down. “I didn’t weigh my repository. Someone could’ve stolen some from me, easily. It never even occurred to me. I thought I was developing a new kind of spycraft, not an attack on my own family. I wasn’t even done perfecting it yet. How did you survive the attack?”
“They stabbed the wrong man.”
Ryana looked him up and down. “How?”
“Not everyone on earth knows who I am.”
“I find that impossible.”
“Yet, it is true,” he said. “And since it seems like you’ll be staying, eventually that will happen to you, too. You’ll be able to move among them, and no one will notice a thing.”
She looked out the window like she was an explorer surveying new terrain. “I find the idea of that somewhat thrilling. I never wanted to be a commoner, mind you, but I did envy them their freedom.”
“You’ll enjoy a lot more of it here. Not having people bow to you all the time will be an adjustment,” he teased. “But if I overcame it, you can as well.”
Her brow crept up her forehead. “And there’s no phellaran or grodobu?” she asked, naming mythical creatures from the bedtime stories their nannies read them growing up—one a giant bird that snatched bad children up in its beak to swallow whole, the other a thing that crawled out of tunnels it dug beneath your bed at night to bite your head off.
Damian chuckled. “Not that I know of. Just occasional intrusions from Unearthly when rifts open. My people and I take care of those.”
She looked at him again. “Are you genuinely happy? Serving others? Or do you do it just to fight?”
“Maybe it was all fights when I started. But…I….” he began and paused. Was he happy without Andi by his side? Perhaps not, but now he knew what happiness was.
“There’s a woman, isn’t there?” Ryana asked.
He groaned. “You know, people from earth say I’m hard to read.”
“Yes, well, they don’t know you like I do. Even if I haven’t seen you in an age. Does she suit you?” Ryana asked.
“I feel that she does. She is perhaps not so sure yet.”
Ryana blinked. “What?” she asked as he spread his hands. “I cannot believe that.”
Damian knew she was being literal. There was no world in which she could imagine a woman denying him—or a man denying her. “And yet, it is true.”
“No. That’s simply impossible,” she said, trying to make sense of things. �
��Unless…oh, Damian, no.” And even with the swelling around her eyes, she still managed an eye roll. “She’s a human, isn’t she?” She read his face again and exclaimed, “Just like father! Why would you involve a mere human in anything you do? How do they even begin to comprehend you? For all that my mother’s atrocious, at least she suited him at the end. Have you even told her?”
“I had to. You bringing the Heart here forced my hand.”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry about that, but maybe it’s for the best, so she can get out now.”
“She is not going anywhere. Except where she desires to be,” Damian said, his voice going low in warning.
“I may have never met your mother, Damian, but I heard stories.”
“I have not used the Forgetting Fire on her even once, and I never will.”
“And I’m sure our father swore the same,” Ryana said, putting a hand to her head like he pained her. “I don’t know why I thought you’d have more common sense after you were smart enough to leave.”
Damian stood and crossed the room to her. He knew there was no way he could explain his relationship with Andi to her, not when he couldn’t even try to explain that Austin was a friend. “Let’s not argue right now, Ryana.” He matched her hand on her head with his own, affectionately. “I’ll explain more later. You should rest now.”
“I feel like I just got up,” she complained, but she gave him a tight smile. “And I need to bathe, at the least, before sleeping.”
“Please do. And have Lyka consult with Grim regarding any other accommodations you require. Rest tonight as much as you like, and I will introduce you to all of my generals tomorrow.”
“Your generals, and your woman?” she pressed.
“Yes. Late tomorrow night. I promise.”
She sighed, but nodded into his hand, and then rose to see to her bath as Lyka flew in.
Chapter 13
Andi spent the majority of her shift going for ICU MVP. IVs were placed, endotracheal tubes were suctioned, medications were crushed, poured, hung, teeth were brushed, and if there was a patient that needed cleaning, no matter the mess—even that one GI bleed, shitting blood—she helped clean them. She even managed to make sure that there were no expired IV lines in use on the floor.
Dragon Fated: A Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 22
