Page 65 of Mad Dragon of Chaos

Vitor peered at Adrian, his bland expression unreadable. Adrian couldn’t tell one way or the other if Vitor gave a shit about what he was proposing. “I have been sending the king regular updates about what I’ve discovered as well as my assessment of the situation. However, we’ve not had a discussion over a proposed course of action.”

Adrian glared at the shiny wooden tabletop. No offense to Caelan, but Adrian felt like he could guess what his king’s opinion was. Burn down the entire government of what was New Rosanthe. The man lost a mother and father in the initial attack. There were also hundreds of innocent citizens killed in the fighting that followed as New Rosanthe invaded Stormbreak. If Caelan had one flaw, it was that he clung to grudges. Forgiveness was a long way off.

However, Rayne was right there to keep Caelan from giving in to those dark feelings.

Tyche leaned forward so he could stare across the table at him. There was a surprising amount of sympathy in those bright emerald-green eyes. “Adrian, I have lived a very long time. I’m older than this damn castle. That makes me an expert at stepping back and letting humans settle their own problems. This started out as Damardor hunting people in Damardor. Yes, that’s a Damardor problem, and Erya and Caspagir should stay out of it. However, it stopped being a Damardor problem the day Feng handed the powers of the God of Wind to a human and sent him to attack the Isle of Stone. Do you think it’s going to stop there? Erya’s lucky enough to have a live-in god to protect it, but Caspagir doesn’t have such protection. Neither Ilon nor Zastrad does. The gods in the godstones have scattered and don’t give a shit about the humans.”

The queasiness in Adrian’s stomach ramped up until he thought he was going to be sick. He’d forgotten about the man who’d tried to land on the beach. How many dragons had come out to fight him? None of them had reached him. It had taken Tyche stepping in with his luck magic to turn the tide. He couldn’t deal with the idea of someone trying to attack the dragons again and succeeding.

Shey folded his hands together in front of him and rested them on the table. “Adrian brings up a fair point. As the heir to the Caspagir throne, this is a question I take seriously. We have had numerous problems with New Rosanthe in the past and have never taken this route. We’ve also had endless problems with that Kiss of Death drug trickling over our border from Zastrad and never even considered this. Hunting gods and stealing their power to use as a weapon tips the scales. Beyond even the slaughter of innocent gods⁠—”

A noise escaped Tyche, and he held up a hand. “Sorry. Mostly innocent, I’ll grant you.”

Shey rolled his eyes and continued. “They tested these powers out on the Isle of Stone. I don’t want to wait around for them to come after the people of Caspagir. I have some magic, but I’m no god.” He looked at Tyche. “What are the chances that the Order locates and kills another god?”

Tyche flopped in his chair, causing it to squeak, and scratched his head. His features twisted up, making him appear very uncomfortable. “Honestly, pretty damn good. While we never made a joint decision, all the minor gods seemed to make a personal decision to put as much space as possible between themselves and the major gods. Even while they were so-called trapped in the godstones. As a result, we all sort of slowly migrated to Damardor, New Rosanthe, and Uris-Oladul. The only exception was Brightspire in Ilon. Lore was always quiet for a major god, and he acted as a buffer for Zyros. Even so, the godstones haven’t been shattered long enough for us to disperse throughout the rest of Thia.”

“Fuck,” Adrian groaned. His elbows hit the table with a hard thud, and he dropped his head into his hands. “We don’t know how many gods they could have killed already, and if they continue, there will be more. I take back my concerns. These assholes need to be stopped.”

“One good thing in all of this is that, according to my sources inside Aswa, Rati Feng squeaked into power on a wing and a prayer,” Vitor continued, his voice noticeably lighter. “Feng made huge promises about increased power for the politicians and increased wealth for his supporters. Taking control of Damardor was the first step—which was made possible by Ruben Deinum and his cronies. He has promised to conquer Caspagir and force the dragons into being their slaves. For the populace, he’s working the fear angle, stating that Caspagir is plotting with Erya and the dragons to conquer New Rosanthe and Damardor.”

Haru leaped out of his seat, his eyes wide and nostrils flared. “Lies!”

Tyche smirked and pinched Haru’s sleeve, pulling him to sit. “Obviously.”

Haru sniffed and dropped into his chair, causing it to squeak. “If we wanted to conquer those silly people, we would have flown there and burned all their cities.”

“In short, we need to take out Feng and hand their military a substantial loss to convince them to stop their nonsense,” Shey stated. He nodded, his brow furrowing slightly. “We’ve been holding back with our navy. If we cripple and sink enough of their ships, that should cause opinions to sour toward the war. Plus, we can force those ground troops to retreat south into Zastrad. That would isolate the ground troops against the mountains, leaving them with no supplies. Fiona could rally our forces into making them surrender.” Shey spread his hands on the table, palms up. “That would leave us with only Feng to handle. But that would mean going all the way to Aswa.”

“Actually, there’s an opportunity coming up in the next couple of weeks to take out Feng in Bellcairn.”

“No shit!” Adrian gasped, drawing a snicker out of Tyche. Definitely not the most professional reaction. This was why Adrian was happy to remain a royal guard and not be an advisor. He couldn’t talk like proper officials or hide his feelings.

Vitor tapped on the laptop, bringing up the map of Thia on the screen. “We have several allies in Uris-Oladul and Damardor who would very much like to see New Rosanthe return to their borders.”

Tyche clicked his tongue and stared at the map. “Not surprised. Uris-Oladul can read the writing on the wall. They saw how New Rosanthe erased Damardor. It’s only a matter of time before they join Damardor. If they’re going to have any hope of being an independent country again, they need to strike now.”

Vitor grunted in agreement. “Feng is scheduled to go to Bellcairn in two weeks, where he is to be present for a special flag-raising ceremony over the former capital. There are already talks of protests and marches happening during the event. Word has spread throughout Damardor about the missing people. The capital has become a powder keg.”

Tyche grinned and knocked his fist on the table twice. “And we’ll bring the matches.”

TWENTY-FOUR

OMARI HARU

As they’d started making all their plans and discussing the importance of disguises once they were in Bellcairn, one enormous problem had immediately reared its head: How the hell were they going to get to Damardor?

Normally, they would have taken a ship, but the seas were currently crawling with Order ships. The odds of being boarded by the Order or simply sunk were far too high. Any attempt to outrun them or fight back would draw unwanted attention. It was critical that they sneak into the country.

Flying in via dragon was also out. Haru could fly all of them a short distance, but taking all three of them over the mountains that covered Zastrad and parts of Uris-Oladul was out of the question. They’d freeze before they arrived.

There had been one option remaining: A train line ran from Sirelis all the way to the southern border with Zastrad and former New Rosanthe, where it ended in the tiny town of Green Hollow. From there, they could go through the narrow pass in the mountains between Zastrad and New Rosanthe. Unless the Order had gotten greedy, that pass was still in Zastrad and would allow them to cross into Uris-Oladul without putting a toe into New Rosanthe. From there, it was a somewhat safe and fast trek across southern Uris-Oladul to Damardor and the capital.

The bonus was that most of the territory was uninhabited forest. Haru could fly them most of the distance without anyone noticing.

“This plan is insane,” Adrian grumbled from the other side of their private room on the train.

It was their second full day on the train, and Haru was now accustomed to the gentle rocking as it steadily clacked its way across Caspagir. It had been slow progress. Shey had explained that this train line was the main one for the country and connected most of the major cities outside of Sirelis. The first day had been filled with stops, but today had been faster travel with only a couple of stops.