The Dragon's Kingdom Read online

  The Dragon’s Kingdom

  Book 3 Of the Dragon Prince Series

  Martha Woods

  Contents

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  1. Ynder

  2. Penny

  3. Ynder

  4. Penny

  5. Ynder

  6. Penny

  7. Ynder

  8. Penny

  9. Ynder

  Epilogue

  © 2018 Martha Woods

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Ynder

  “The time has come at last...”

  The thin man stepped from the shadows, flanked by his followers– men once loyal to my father, but having since betrayed their allegiance, leaving their King abandoned and alone in his hour of need. He had given them everything, and this was how they repaid him?

  I stood behind my father, a towering man, or so he seemed to me then. I glared out the traitors, brimming with an unspeakable hatred. Thinking that it was a mere matter of moments before he wiped the smiles from their stupid faces, reminding them that the throne was his, and deservedly so. I can't say for certain that my father felt this same assurance, but at that moment I was sure that he did. I was depending on his certainty, on the knowledge, reflected by his mighty stance, and the intensity of his gaze, that somehow, after everything that had been taken from us, things would somehow still manage to turn out okay.

  Whether he believed it or not, the attitude was further reflected in his booming voice when at last he spoke. “Darkness cannot last forever,” my father said imperiously, his eyes unflinching from Ryl's own, and Ryl's lips curling– into something between a wicked smile of amusement, and a grimace of impatient. “Sooner or later, the sun will rise, and its rays shall illuminate all. Revealing your wickedness for what it truly is. Shining so clearly through your lies that even your most brainwashed followers will be forced to concede the error of their ways.”

  Ryl, either unworried by any of this or wishing to appear so, through his head back and laughed, then began to shake it slowly. “Only words, my dear King. Only words... I, on the other hand, consider myself a man of action. Not one of empty promises, as you have so thoroughly proven yourself to be, time and time again throughout the course of your reign. Driving our people into obscurity, into outright oblivion, to avoid ruffling the feathers of some inferior race...”

  “The humans are not our inferiors,” my father insisted, and I brimmed with pride as his words, tears threatening to well up in my eyes as he spoke. The man was my hero. My inspiration. The kind of father every child dreamed of having, who would stand up boldly for what was right, no matter what the cost.

  Ryl, on the other hand, seemed somewhat less impressed by my father's words. “Then that makes us theirs, then?”

  “It doesn't need to be one or the other,” my father retorted firmly, and I could already see the evil grin spreading across Ryl's face. “Not everything comes down to who's more powerful. Who can crush who. There is an infinite amount to be said of kindness and compassion. Mercy and love, even and especially toward those who differ from ourselves...”

  “The mercy and love that has been shown to us?!” snapped Ryl. “The mercy and love that has reduced our species to the palest shadow of its once glorious state of being, largely under your command? To hell with your notions of peaceful coexistence, and all the violence that has been freely wrought upon our people as a consequence thereof! Power, your majesty, is everything... And the fact that you cannot see that proves that you are no King indeed, no leader of men...”

  “Very well,” said my father, his words having failed him at last, and his stance having become that of one bracing for a fight. “As violence is the only language you seem to understand, then with violence I must respond to your threats.”

  I caught sight of Ryl sneering, his sharp white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. For the very first time, a twinge of worry rose up within me, and I began to wonder whether perhaps my confidence was misplaced.

  “As you wish, your Majesty,” said Ryl, in mocking tones. And an instant later, the man was gone, though his evil, twisted grin seemed to linger in midair.

  His body whipped around through the air like a streamer, like a jet black snake writhing its way through the darkness. His pale white skin turned to gleaming obsidian scale. His frame became massive, and two enormous wings jutted from his shoulder blades, beating through the darkness, causing his vermillion eyes to hover in midair.

  With a forward thrust of motion he swooped forward, jaws parted, and my father leapt into the air, eager to meet him halfway. He ripped through his clothes, his humanity vanished, replaced by a similarly massive serpent, but his flesh a glimmering gold color, gleaming purplish in the dark night, but his eyes glowing as vividly amber as though the sun shone straight through them.

  I held my breath, exhilarated, positive that I was about to see my beloved father kick some serious ass, restoring his claim to the throne in the process.

  The twin dragons collided in midair, their bodies coiling up into one another, their limbs flashing and tearing through the air as they bit and tore, barked and roared, endeavoring to rend one another to pieces.

  The Dark Ones standing behind the fray began to howl with encouragement, egging on their illicit King, and it only caused my heart to beat faster. My fervor on behalf of my father to intensify, and my hatred toward Ryl to deepen.

  “Come on, Dad... Come on... Come on!”

  I hated to admit it to myself, more than anything in the world.

  But very quickly, I found my faith beginning to falter.

  I watched, horrified, as Ryl, a shifter so much smaller than my old man, threw the whole of his weight into my father's golden belly. He knocked him backwards through the air, and sent him sailing into a massive oak tree, the trunk doubling over like a snapped toothpick at the force of collision, leaves fluttering down over the two of them like confetti as my father struggled to upright himself.

  “Get up! Get up!”

  Ryl was bearing down on him again, but my father darted forward just in time, claws outstretched, his amber eyes gleaming. He was going for Ryl's eyes, but before he got the chance to gouge at them, the Dark One's powerful tail flipped upward through the air, its jagged spikes aiming straight for my father's lower jaw, and the sound as they made contact with the bone sickening, even at a distance.

  I let out a yelp as an explosion of blood and teeth gushed from my father's open mouth, his neck bending backward through the air at an incredible angle. Ryl let out a triumphant little grunt, which I imagined sounding quite like a laugh in his human form. Determined, however, and undeterred by what I knew must be incredible pain, my father threw his head forward, sinking his remaining bloody teeth into the Dark One's neck.

  Furious, Ryl wriggled and thrashed, straining to free himself, but my father, savoring the grip he'd obtained, refusing to let go, even as a cocktail of his and Ryl's blood spilled liberally through his fangs.

  Ryl's tail beat vigorously upward as he strained to break free, slamming into my father's chest, legs, and belly, but unable to make it all the way up to his face, where it might do any measure of real damage.

  At last, abandoning this attempt altogether, Ryl settled instead for opening his jaws as wide as he could, and steadying himself as an emerald green glow began to radiate from deep within his anatomy.

  My eyes widened– my father seemed to take no notice whatsoever of what was taking place.

  “Dad! Dad, look out!”

  But it was too late. I turned my head away, not from the gore, but from the astonishing brightness of it as Ryl vomited forth a torrent of green flame, engulfing my father, and forcing him to pull his jaws away from his throat.

  Very slowly I managed to open my eyes again, my vision obscured by the rippling heat of dragon fire. At some point, my father had managed to part his jaws and fired a rival pillar of golden orange flame back at his attacker, the rival infernos colliding in midair and competing for dominance, but not before a significant quantity of Ryl's green fire had enveloped him, my father's golden scales flaking off into emerald ash as his body burned.

  I watched, horrified, though my father seemed scarcely to notice any sort of pain whatsoever.

  I wanted to do something. I wanted to lunge forward and intervene, and stop the train wreck I already knew somehow was approaching. But what could I do? I was twelve years old, watching my father face down the most powerful of all the Dark On
es, as a crowd of his followers cheered him on from the side– they would surely rip me the pieces the moment I tried to intervene.

  But I couldn't just stand there and do nothing...

  The green flames around my father lashed and sizzled, swallowing up more and more of him, and at last a sense of bravado overwhelmed me– the need to do something, anything, even if I knew damn well that nothing I did was going to make one iota of difference.

  Pulsing with adrenaline, I threw a single step forward, ready to sacrifice my own life for my father's, should the need arise for me to do so.

  But then something happened.

  The two figures began to climb. To rise up toward the heavens, very slowly at first, their billowing flames still locked, causing the night to flicker in shades of orange and green. Very quickly, though, they grew higher and higher, disappearing into the night, flying so high up that I wasn't even sure that I could reach them now.

  At last they vanished, no longer visible, evidently so high up in the atmosphere that they appeared nothing more than a flickering star, a pinprick, alternating from gold to emerald and back again, depending on the exact moment you decided to look up.

  I held my breath. Tears streamed from my eyes, and as the minutes ticked torturously on, I found myself once again overwhelmed by the inescapable temptation to act.

  Still an amateur, but certain I had nothing more to lose, I leapt into the air. I transformed, leaving my tattered clothes behind me, and beat my modestly sized wings, to jeers of laughter from the Dark Ones below.

  “God, take a look at this one!”

  “Should we stop him?”

  “Nah, let Ryl kick his ass once he's done with his old man!”

  “Yeah, save him for dessert!”

  I hated these creatures with a passion at that moment, but I swallowed down my emotion, needing desperately to help my father, who I was sure couldn't possibly get by without me. I rose into the air, heart pounding, ears ringing, each foot I climbed seeming an impossible feat, yet no amount of space I covered seeming to bring me any closer to the battle.

  I couldn't have been even a quarter of the way up when it happened.

  The green and gold star suddenly flashed a blinding white. A wicked roar rang out, though from where exactly it originated, I couldn't be sure. Nevertheless, my chest suddenly felt very tight, and the effort it took simply to remain aloft was proving entirely too much for me.

  My eyes widened.

  A figure was falling, moving rapidly toward me. A golden body, its limbs dangling limply above it.

  I let out a panicked roar. Father!

  He shot straight down past me, and I had to dip out of the way to avoid being crushed beneath his weight. He slammed against my tail and left me spiraling in midair for a moment before coming to my senses. Then, determined yet to save him, I shot toward the ground at full force, heart racing, scarcely able to see past my tears.

  There was a loud crash. I could still hardly see him through the dark and the distance, and now a cloud of dust was billowing out around him where he'd landed, obscuring him still further.

  I must have been jetting downward at about a hundred miles per hour, and I transformed again so briefly before I hit the ground that my human legs instantly broke against the ground, leaving me winded for a moment, panting, crying, lying heavily against my father's chest.

  I shook, and convulsed, feeling like I was in some sort of nightmare, the pain nearly unbearable. But that didn't matter at that moment. Nothing I felt mattered, just as long as my father was okay. Just as long as I hadn't failed him. Just as long as he was there to tell me it would all be alright.

  “Father! Father, are you hurt?!”

  But there was no answer.

  The dust was still settling around us, making it even harder for me to breathe.

  “Father!” I repeated, deeply worried now, and I lifted myself painfully toward him, to be able to look him the eyes.

  Only there were no eyes anymore...

  A sensation I can't begin to describe welled up inside me. A sharp, hot pain in my chest. Rising in my throat, making me want to vomit, but my stomach feeling suddenly so vast and so empty that I was unable to do so.

  I gaped, horrified. Certain, now, that this was a nightmare, though it was far more horrific than anything I might have imagined.

  “No... No!”

  My father's majestic body now ended abruptly at the shoulders. The grass glistened beneath the spot where his head should have been, and his neck had been replaced by a shining black hole, which seemed to go on to infinity.

  I was still sitting there, mouth agape, wholly drained of emotion, when Ryl hovered breezily down to the ground beside the two of us. A malevolent grin across his monstrous face. Something resembling a limp, golden snake now dangling between his teeth. The amber eyes I'd been searching for still glowing, staring forever vacantly out into space...

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

  I woke up gasping, burning hot, but drenched in an ice cold sweat.

  “Shit... Shit... Shit!”

  It took me longer than I should have to sort out that the events I'd just witnessed had taken place two decades ago, rather than just moments before, as they had so vividly seemed to.

  No matter how many times I awoke from that same nightmare, no matter how many times I had relived my trauma, I could never get over it. There was no containing my horror. No forgetting the image, or the night, that had been so indelibly stamped upon my prepubescent mind.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to dissolve into nothing. I wanted to disappear from my life, so much tragedy, so much isolation and sorrow. I wanted to have a full night's sleep, without being forced to relive such utter terrors as I had so often for as long as I could remember.

  I sat there shivering for some moments, struggling to collect myself, and was pulled at last from my reverie only by the repeat sound of knocking at my door– nearly having forgotten that it had awoken me in the first place.

  I straightened up, and stilled myself. I thought for a moment in the darkness. Half certain that the figure who greeted me would be the one I'd seen murdering my father, for about the thousandth time in my dreams. Ryl often came to harass me in the middle of the night. Announcing some new restriction on my freedom. Commanding me into some new humiliation when he was in a bad mood. Things had been especially bad over the past couple of years, ever since my two younger brothers had run off and abandoned the clan, murdering Ryl's own brother and one of his top men on their way out the door, as well as setting much of the forest on fire in their wake.

  Naturally, with the two of them gone, much of Ryl's wrath had consequently been directed at me, despite my having had no hand in any of it.

  I didn't dare lift a finger of resistance against Ryl or his Dark Ones, ever since he'd stolen the throne from my father all those years ago. Unlike my younger brothers, Fri and Nol, I had been the only one present on the night my father was killed in battle. I had witnessed firsthand the savagery our new King was capable of, and I knew it was nothing short of a miracle he had allowed the three of us to survive at all. My brothers often chided me for refusing to stand up to Ryl, and for failing to find the necessary courage to reclaim our father's throne. But they hadn't seen what I'd seen. They'd never understood that if our own father, the most powerful of all the Protectors, had failed to take down the leader of the Dark Ones, then surely none of us would stand a chance against him, either. Not with the widespread support of our former followers on his side, especially.

  All I'd ever wanted to do was to survive after that. Not to wind up dead at Ryl's hands, and know the grisly, horrible death that my father had faced. At that very moment, however, after having lived through it all so vividly once again, I thought I might just lose my cool the moment I laid eyes on the King of the Dark Ones. To hell with it, I thought, I really didn't care anymore. I was tired of living like this. Tired of living in solitude, cowering in fear, and waking to these awful nightmares, with no refuge in any facet of my life, no matter where or how hard I looked.