How is this possible?
Adrenaline surges through me. My expression darkens.
Instantly, I slip back into my role as the Supreme Commander of the Eternals who has stood strong for years against the most powerful army in the realms, Aurelius’.
If not for my Omega, I would never have bent the knee to the dragons.
My mind races with strategies and tactics. Inside, however, my dark heart is shattering.
By my blood, are the dragons truly breaking the peace treaty already?
Attacking my sacred village? The only one in my kingdom that is under my personal protection, where the weakest fledglings live? Where I was once trapped myself as an outcast?
But still, I lived here with my twin. I was happy and naïve and a fool.
For a few years, I was loved.
My breathing quickens. I snarl.
The sweet, honey scent of lotuses is thick around me.
How dare anyone try to take White Lotus away from me?
I drop the flower, which the innocent fledgling gifted me, before leaping back onto Devil.
Shadows curl in furious tendrils from Devil’s mouth.
She is ready to devour someone. I can sense it.
I wheel around on Devil, who rumbles warning growls. Her ears are flattened to her head, and her tail is whipping rapidly from side to side in agitation.
Ruby dragons and their dragon riders from the military outpost in the Borderlands are racing like trails of blood across the moon toward me.
A huge silver dragon leads the formation. His horns curve from his head. His neck weaves sinuously. Shadows coil around his back and disintegrate from the tips of his wings like ash.
My pulse speeds up.
It’s Propraetor Rustica Atticus.
He is the harsh governor of the dragons in the mountainous region on the Draca side of the Borderlands.
I will pull out of his spine and make him choke on it for attacking me tonight.
I don’t have my full Eternal army with me, merely a single unit.
Aurelius knows this. Who else does?
Betrayal.
Shouldn’t I be used to it by now?
Yet devastation still bubbles through me, thick and poisonous.
I trusted Aurelius…again.
On my blood, we shall never betray each other…
We promised, on blood and Aurelius’ horns.
