All of it made him sick.
They called him weak, but his blasphemous belief in one almighty deity barred him from committing acts of rape and murder, much to his mother’s chagrin.
The bugle sounded again, and Evandaine stood, squaring his shoulders and muttering a prayer to the Only. Then he gathered his composure—an actor preparing to step on stage—and strode out of the tent.
Chapter three
Evandaine
Over the Scathmore Barrens
(Previously the Provence of Talwaith)
From the air, the movement of the battle reminded Evandaine of a dying animal thrashing in its death throes.
The dragon beneath him moved with easy grace. The wind bit his cheeks, and battle smoke stung his nostrils. It was a familiar dance—the scattershot tearing the clouds to ribbons, the shotfire balls shearing off his dragonscale vest, the bellows of the dreadnought dragons soaring overhead with their six-person crews. They flew over the enemy line, dropping explosive canisters into the infantry and blowing the ranks to pieces. Sennalaith was taking the beach, but they would not take the forest. Another battle, another draw. Tomorrow, the Scathmore Barrens would be nothing but a bloody shoreline and jagged dunes occupied by a few bored Ashkendoric soldiers.
A scornful captain with a jagged scar across his cheek dropped out of the clouds and hovered beside Evandaine, his lithe little fighter dragon grumbling and snapping its jaws.
“The witch child is here. Don’t embarrass us, Evandaine,” he sneered.
Evandaine’s mother often complained that the gods had wasted a warrior’s skill on a weak-hearted boy who could never inspire the respect of the men.
Evandaine agreed.
The heir apparent to the Ashkendoric throne should be beloved and revered by his army. Instead, the ruthless soldiers eyed him with suspicion at best, derision at worst. He knew they mocked him behind his back, and his mother did not prevent it.
A scattershot ball burst from a cannon below and shattered the air. Evandaine pulled his dragon into a tight dive, curving through the haze, under the pellets. He spotted Tiernan below him, trying to move below the blast, but his dragon bellowed in agony as its wing was torn to tatters. Evandaine's heart stilled as Tiernan spiraled toward the ground, landing in a spray of sand behind the ruin of a hulking manor house on the edge of the dunes.
Evandaine dove after him. Sparksparrows flashed in the darkness. A phoenix wheeled past, its wings streaming flames as it plummeted into the ranks of foot soldiers and land dragons in the writhing body of the army below.
Evandaine ignored it all, diving toward his father, who was struggling to free his leg from his dragon’s corpse.
A movement near the crumbled stone wall caught Evandaine’s attention. A yellow-haired man dressed in a pale blue vest strode across the packed sand toward Tiernan. He held a curved cutlass in one hand, a white shotfire in the other.
Cadmus. The king of Sennalaith.
“Father! Look out!” Evandaine screamed, urging his dragon downward. Something whistled to his left, and he turned his head just in time to see a billow of sparking purple roar toward him. He slipped over his dragon’s side, holding to the saddle, and the magic snarled overhead, narrowly missing him.
Maintaining his dive,Evandaine righted himself on his dragon's back.
Tiernan slid free of his mount and flung up his sword as Cadmus’s cutlass sliced down. Steel sang as Tiernan blocked the blow, but Cadmus followed it with a flurry of quick cuts. Tiernan’s defenses were sluggish. Blood streamed down his face, dripping into his eyes. Blinding him.
Another smoky, sizzling zephyr nearly struck Evandaine, but he dodged it again, pulling his dragon into a tight barrel roll. As he leveled out, he glimpsed his attacker: A young woman dressed head-to-toe in skin-tight purple dragon scales, her dark hair slicked, her almond-shaped eyes smudged with dark powder.
Valeria—Cadmus’s witch child.
Tiernan cried out. Evandaine was forced to arc upward, avoiding another attack.
Upside down, Evandaine saw Cadmus kick Tiernan in the chest. He fell against the trunk of a dead dragon willow, and Evandaine watched in horrified helplessness as Cadmus thrust his cutlass through Tiernan’s ribs.
“No,” Evandaine gasped. He tore toward his father, expecting Valeria to strike his exposed side, but in an unexpected show of fair play, she waited.
Evandaine jumped from his dragon too early and fell onto his knees, then his side, rolling twice before gaining his feet. He drew his cutlass and brought it up to meet Cadmus’s. The king advanced on him, making rapid jabs, but Evandaine was clever and quick. He parried, pushing Cadmus until he was on the defensive, his back to the dragon willow. Evandaine drew his shotfire and pointed it at Cadmus, but before he pulled the trigger, a gust of stinging wind hurled him to the sand.
Like waves crashing against a jetty, blasts of magic struck him over and over. Searing pain pierced hishead from ear to ear, blinded him. He tried to crawl away, but the force cracked his head against the ground. He tasted blood. He couldn’t breathe.
With the last scrap of air in his lungs, he screamed to the Only for mercy.
