Page 13 of Crown of Betrayal and Blood

Careful not to damage the paper, I unroll the map, my gaze tracing the inked borders and city markers. When I spot a familiar name, I gasp, and my hearts stutters.

The Lost City.

The Chronicles of the Mother Wurmpaints it as little more than legend, yet someone marked the location on this ancient map.

I gape at the parchment. “Is this real?”

Only one way to find out.

I unfurl my wings and launch into the air, hoping the palace isn’t too far away.

ChapterFive

The moment my boots strike the flagstones in the palace courtyard, a shadow sweeps overhead.

I sense the dragon before I even glance up.

Dame, with her reddish-brown scales glinting in the late afternoon sunlight, lands with a thud that sends vibrations through the soles of my shoes. The spade-shaped tip of her tail twists, showing the pale yellow that runs the length of her underside.

There’s no mistaking the urgency in her golden eyes or the swirl of emotions she thrusts into my mind. All four toes on all four feet dig into the ground, like a cat kneading a blanket.

Elation tangles with anger, along with a smug satisfaction that causes the yellow frill protecting her ears to quiver as she crouches in front of me. Her serpentine neck is as long and thick as her tail, allowing her to peer over her own back.

I don’t need words to understand she’s adamant that I climb up and fly with her somewhere. The emotions she’s projecting, combined with her excited posturing, clearly communicates that.

It’s unwise to tell a dragon “no” when they ask something like this, even if I’ve just been kidnapped and handed a state secret to explore.

Swallowing my own emotions—my desire to get back and study the map, to learn more of the city lost to myth—I reach out with reassurance.

When Dame brings her head to my eye level, I pat the massive creature’s scaly nose. “Hey there.”

Though less than a month has passed since my first dragonriding experience, I scale Dame’s foreleg with a lot more ease than I did a few weeks ago. I clamber onto her back, the ridges of her spine pressing against my palms.

Quickly, I stuff the rolled map down the front of my dress, my cleavage holding it in place. I’m going to need both hands.

Muscles coil beneath me like springs ready to release. With a powerful leap, Dame unfurls her pale-yellow wings, thin membranes supported by uniformly spaced tendons running from the leading edge back, like the fingers on a hand. As we become airborne, the wind buffets us, tugging at my dark hair, and stinging my eyes until they water. My court dress is not designed for such rough treatment, and I’d be willing to bet all the riches in Tirene’s coffers I’ll get a disapproving look from Rhiann, the Lady of the Bedchamber, once she sees the state my clothing is in when I return to the palace.

But that’s a problem for later.

Below, the capital of Tirene shrinks, the palace’s high, sky-piercing towers now mere pinnacles of ambition and power.

Dame soars higher, her emotions an open book to me. Contentment because her mate awaits. Anger over the looming threat the drachen pose to her unborn. Confidence in her plan.

And I am part of that plan, whether I like it or not.

I hope and pray her confidence is indeed that and not hubris. No one else has managed to come up with a solid solution for our current drachen problems.

I’ll take any help we can get.

We veer northeast, toward the mountains. Beneath us, the landscape shifts. The neat rows of noble vineyards give way to the wild, untamed forests that cling to the mountain slopes.

She’s taken me on impromptu flights to unknown locations before, but never in this direction.

It doesn’t hurt to ask, though. “Where are you taking me?”

Focusing on our mental connection, I channel my curiosity into my words. My mind brushes hers in a way that’s difficult to explain. It’s simultaneously ephemeral and tangible.

Dame doesn’t answer with words. Instead, she trumpets. Her excitement fills me, and all my earlier worries, even my apprehension over being drugged and kidnapped, fall away. On the back of a dragon, nothing seems as dire or important as connecting with the magnificent creature beneath me and riding the wind.

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