I take a deep breath and summon up the words from deep inside me, and as they leave my throat they reverberate through the air. “Princess, get down from there.Now.”
Mirelle’s sobbing falters, and she takes a gasping breath. She feels compelled to obey me, but there’s too much pain in her heart for her feet to move. She looks me in the eye, and the hopelessness that fills hers tells me that it’s too late. Mere words cannot undo what’s been done to her. I see what she’s going to do a moment before she does it.
“He called me Zenevieve,” Mirelle whispers brokenly, and then she steps backward into nothing.
“Mirelle, no,” I lunge for her, but she’s already falling, her eyes on the skies as though she’s begging the gods to end her pain.
“No!” Onderz screams.
We reach the edge of the battlements at the same time. There’s a dragon’s cry, and the rushing of air over wings. Dianthe soars upward, catching her rider in midair and bearing Mirelle away. We can hear Mirelle’s weeping as the pale yellow dragon streaks away to the north.
Onderz stares after the Omegas’ rapidly shrinking figures until I seize his shoulder and shake him. “We can catch up to her. Get your dragon.”
As we run to the dragongrounds, I shout orders to the other riders. Word has spread about what has happened to the princess, and some mount up to search for Prince Emmeric, and others follow Mirelle. Zenevieve is running for Minta, and she crosses in front of me.
Mirelle’s shattered words ring in my ears.He called me Zenevieve.
Was Emmeric looking for Zenevieve and found Mirelle instead? I picture my ward out there hunting for Emmeric alone, and instead of her finding him, him finding her.
I seize Zenevieve by the shoulders, fear and horror spiking through me. “Do not mount your dragon. Do not leave Lenhale. Do you understand?”
“But I want to—”
“Donot leave Lenhale,” I snarl, and my voice reverberates with command.
This time, the roar works. Instantly, the fight goes out of her, and she nods. “I won’t, dragonmaster.”
There isn’t time for me to explain further. I climb atop Nilak and cast one last look at Zenevieve, who looks very small and painfully vulnerable on the ground. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I call to her, and Nilak and I take to the air.
Onderz and Zabriel are pursuing Mirelle. I want to find Emmeric and make him bleed. Wingrunners are whirring through the sky around me. I hear shouts that Shar was spotted heading to the northeast, and so that’s where I fly.
There must be a dozen dragons and two dozen wingrunners in the skies searching for the prince, but not one person calls out a sighting.
There are flashes of lightning in the sky to the east. We are at the storm’s very edge, and I dare not fly Nilak into it. Storms are dangerous for dragons because being struck by lightning will paralyze their wings and cause them to plummet to the ground. Though we keep away from the lightning, we’re lashed by rain, and the visibility is terrible. My extremities grow numb from cold, but it’s not until the last glow of dusk drains from the sky that we head for home.
As I see the spires of the castle outlined against the sky, a wingrunner dives toward us on his silvery mount, shouting over the wind, “The search for the princess is over, dragonmaster.”
“And Emmeric?” I call back, but the wingrunner has already sped away.
Nilak lands, and I can tell from the dismal atmosphere on the dragongrounds not to expect good news.
Tish and Sundra are crying in each other’s arms, but they straighten up as I approach.
“Dragonmaster, Onderz and Zabriel were too late. When Princess Mirelle reached the northern mountains, she threw herself into an icy crevasse. In her despair, Dianthe crashed into the rocks, and she also perished. The crevasse is deep, and we couldn’t recover the princess’s body.”
I look around. Zabriel has sunk to his knees, and he’s leaning against his dragon with a hand over his face. Zenevieve has her arm around Minta as tears stream down her cheeks.
I turn back to Tish and Sundra. “And Onderz?”
Tish’s face creases in despair, and her voice breaks. “When he saw that Mirelle had died, he flew east into the storm. After it passed by, we pursued him, but Zeith was struck by lightning. The fall from the skies killed both of them.”
A desolate feeling spreads through my chest. Two dragonriders dead. A fated pair, and their dragons with them, for no reason other than the actions of a selfish, barbaric Alpha. What caused the prince to commit such a heinous act against his own sister? He must have known the despair it would drive her to, and that Onderz would follow her.
“Has there been any sign of Prince Emmeric?” I demand.
“There has been no sign of the prince or his dragon,” Sundra tells me, and then she glances at the castle. “Someone must report to the king. He knows the princess was assaulted, and Prince Emmeric has fled, but that is all.”
“I’ll do it,” I say. Prince Zabriel is sunk in too much grief, having lost his sister and his best friend.
