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PROLOGUE
Damyn
Age Ten
As we were ridingout to face the Scourge, I rode on a horse behind Lysander’s. His Royals surrounded him, and Amily rode at his side. But then, Lysander gestured me up beside him, and my heart leapt. No one else was called up to ride alongside Lysander as a mere child.
I kicked my heels and my horse sprang forward to his side.
Quietly, Lysander told me, “Watch everyone today. As you always do. I’ll want to know what you’ve seen.”
I watched everyone, and no one noticed. After all, I was just a boy, just Lysander’s page. But Lysander thought I was clever, and he asked what I had noticed after every meeting where I followed in Lysander’s shadow. His request made me proud.
For now, I noticed that Amily, riding on the other side of Lysander, kept her hand on the hilt of her sword. She always seemed to keep a hand on the hilt when she was surrounded by the other Royals. It was as if she worried she would need to fight them, or thought they would steal her sword.
She noticed my gaze and winked. “You’ve done a good job keeping my sword for me,” she told me softly, because I was the one who kept both their weapons in good condition. “I might have to steal you to make you my page. I would treat you better than he does.” She aimed the mischievous smile at her husband.
He was distracted, having moved up to talk about a matter of state with Pend, and so the joke died there. But I noticed the way Gorion stared at her when she smiled, as if she were the most incredible thing.
And I wondered. And when Lysander asked me afterward, as he always did, I didn’t tell him. Because Amily had smiled back at Gorion in a way that made me think I didn’t understand something yet between the Royals.
But years afterward, I would wonder if I should have, if that jealousy was a part of the terrible things that happened to Honor and her family.
As the Scourge broke from the tree line, racing toward us, Lysander told me, “Stay and watch over Amily.”
I couldn’t transform yet. But they all leapt from their horses, who neighed in relief to be free of the predators, and transformed in midair. Wings unfurled and tails lashed and they were already flying, sweeping toward the Scourge.
And even the monsters reeled back in terror.
Lysander had already had me training with the dragon knights. But there was always a question. Lysander promised my father had been a great dragon knight.
As I looked up and dreamed of what I might one day be, my fingers absently found the little hammered disc I wore on a leather chain around my neck. It was one of the few things I had taken with me when Lysander came and took me away from the house that smelled like sickness, where my mother was cold and still.
I liked to think that my father had hammered the disk with his own hands at the blacksmith forge on the dragons’ island. It was the only connection I had with my father.
Amily rested her hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her; she’d always joined them before, but now she smiled down at me with her hand still on her hilt. Lysander had told me to protect her, and I would gladly die for her. But I was pretty sure she intended to protect me.
As soon as the battle was over, Pend and Lysander swooped down and landed beside me. As always, I felt a rush of pride and fear as the enormous dragon towered over me. The dragon was a deep, burnished red, with gold scales around his dark eyes.
Lysander dipped one wing, and I scrambled up between his wings. I was the only one to ride on the King’s back. Amily joined me, climbing on behind. Not because she couldn’t fly herself, but because this way, no one would look askance at the king’s familiarity with the boy who was barely of noble blood.
We swooped away, doing a lap around the field of battle. Scourge bodies lay scattered and shifters lay on their sides, blood staining their fur. But there were more Scourge than shifters dead.
“There,” Amily said, pointing, and I was never sure how much to believe about the stories about the telepathic bonds the Royals had, but Lysander soared slowly down, turning, and then alighted.
Once we had slid off his back, he transformed back to the tall man.
Amily touched her belly, wincing. And Lysander might not have noticed, but I did, and I touched his cloak. When Lysander looked down at me, brows rising, I glanced pointedly at Amily.
“Are you alright?” Lysander asked.
“Perfect,” Amily promised. “Just as the child will be.”
Sudden shock reeled through me. Amily and Lysander would have a child of their own? Someone who might sleep in the room next to theirs, which Lysander had given to me, so I could bring his coffee and his journal when he woke—and so I would have company when a nightmare woke me.
Pend landed beside them. In front of us were a knot of three Knights who had not been killed, but had been savagely bitten. The Scourge had injected venom into their skin, and it pulsed through their veins, black and horrible.
I had wanted nothing more than to protect Amily throughout the battle, but now I had to fight the urge not to take a step back.
