Page 436 of Kingdoms of Night

Attor had been at the head of all that battle. He was all too pleased to destroy any who threatened him or his people. While she understood it had been necessary then, she feared his hatred for anyone other than their own kind had begun long before this moment.

He flared his wings wide, holding onto the edge of her cliff with nothing but his talons. “I will take a group of our best warriors to Umbra. We will destroy all those who dared touch our women and our children. I will feast upon their flesh.”

The words ran through her with an electric shock of fear. These were words of war, and she feared what would happen next. He could take it too far. He could kill so many that they followed the dragons home and ruined all that they had built here.

But it was not her job to advise those who protected them. The crimson dragons knew the history just like her.

Tanis lowered her head, baring the back of her neck to the much larger dragon. “I will record this memory, Attor of the Blood Clan. I will hold your memory with the highest importance and your crystal will glow blood red for all to see what has occurred this night.”

“Good.” He stretched out his neck and gently bit the back of hers. “Record this moment well, Memory Keeper. It may very well be more important than you think.”

Attor pushed off the edge of the cliff and soared on the winds away from their home. Ten dragons joined him. Ten crimson dragons with wings outstretched, seeking vengeance for what had been done to their people.

She feared they might never return. What curse or magic was powerful enough to kill their kind?

A warm, tiny hand pressed against her shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” Rowan said. “I can feel your worry.”

That was quick. If he could already feel her emotions, then they’d created a tenuous bond between the two of them. She hadn’t expected that to happen so fast.

Tanis looked down at him and tried her best to be brave. “I’m not sure what they will find in your kingdom.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know either.”

They both turned their gaze to the horizon and the dragon silhouettes that disappeared in the distance. In her gut, Tanis felt as though this moment would change both of their lives. Forever.

CHAPTERFIVE

CHAPTER 5

Rowan spooned a mouthful of decadent soup down his gullet before anyone had even finished filling their bowls. He was starving, and he didn’t care if they all tried to wait for everyone to be served. This wasn’t his family, even though the other dragon helpers were quickly becoming like siblings to him.

They knew how hard he worked. The others took breaks during their day to nap or get some sunshine. He spent every waking minute with his dragon, moving through the memories of their people and trying to keep them all from tangling.

It had taken him two weeks to figure it out. Two weeks too long, in his opinion, although Tanis had told him countless times that she hadn’t thought he would ever get it. Two weeks was impressive.

The entire camp had been filled with a rushed energy, though. First when the crimson dragons had let ten of their best go to fight in Umbra. And then again, when more dragons had decided to follow them. Trouble brewed throughout Dracomaquia, and none of the dragon helpers knew what to do.

“I heard the last of the greens have fled,” a woman to his right said. He thought her name might be Lydia. She was one of the few mortals amongst them, a human woman who had been kidnapped from her village when she was just a child.

“You heard right.” The man who spoke was Charger, a leftover from another time. He was an ancient orc, even by elven standards. Rowan had heard the man was two hundred and three years old. “The forest dragons have decided that there are too few of them to protect any nests. They have moved deeper into the forests.”

Aster joined them at the table, setting down her bowl of soup with a loud thud. “The sapphires have decided to send more of their own. That leaves us with only three of them.”

“Is the war failing so badly?” Lydia asked. She shook in her seat, trembling like a leaf.

War? He hadn’t heard anything about a war?

Rowan finally looked up from his bowl of soup and met Aster’s gaze across the table. She eyed him with some sort of expectation and he had no idea how to answer that. “What?” he asked around a mouthful of food.

“You serve the Memory Keeper,” she said. “What news from the battlefront?”

Suddenly, they were all looking at him as though he had some omen to blurt out. Rowan didn’t know anything about any of it. Tanis had plopped him down in front of countless memory crystals, but they were just memories. The crystals couldn’t predict the future, and they certainly weren’t capable of connecting dragons from across continents. That’s why the gold dragons had traveled here to deposit their memories.

Right?

“I don’t know,” he replied, swallowing hard and grabbing his drink to clear his throat. “I know nothing about the war or the battle. I’ve just been helping to untangle memories.”

“But there are crystals in Umbra. We know that for certain because we have seen their memories.” Aster frowned at him like he was an idiot. “How have none of the other dragons sent messages through the crystals to Tanis?”

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