A Day of Dragon Blood by Daniel Arenson

Author:Daniel Arenson [Arenson, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1927601002
Amazon: B009WBSLIG
Publisher: Moonclipse
Published: 2012-10-23T05:00:00+00:00

LYANA

Pain burned across her like scarabs ripping flesh from bone. Every flap of the wyvern's wings shots bolts of fire through her. She sat in the saddle, chains clutching her in an iron embrace. All around her, the army of wyverns flew, a storm of scales rising and falling. Wind gusted, rain fell, and the wyverns soared. Lyana winced, her stomach rising and falling like a dead jellyfish on a storming sea. She felt a stitch on her back open and blood trickle to her tailbone. She closed her eyes and let out a soft moan.

"Silence," said Mahrdor. He sat in the saddle behind her, his arms reaching around her as he held the reins. "Make another sound, and I'll cut off your hand and gag you with it."

She fell silent. They had stitched the raw, bloody lashes across her body, but not before rubbing ilbane into them. The poison still burned, spreading through her. Every jostle in the saddle felt like whips beating her anew. She opened her eyes once more, saw the wyverns rise and fall in the rain, and swallowed to stop from gagging.

Oh Elethor, she thought and her eyes stung. I failed you.

He was waiting at Ralora Beach, she knew—hundreds of leagues away. Because of her... because of her. She grimaced and cursed herself, the anguish a claw inside her. She had fallen into Mahrdor's trap so easily. She had doomed her people to death—sweet Princess Mori, her dearest friend; her family, whom she loved more than life; Elethor, her betrothed and king. I doomed them all.

A gust of wind blew rain across them. The wyvern bucked and howled, and Lyana dug her fingernails into her palms. She felt another stitch open, and she trembled with the pain. What I must look like now... Her face felt swollen; she could barely see through her puffy eyes. Her torso bore a network of long, raw welts still oozing blood between the stitches. The chains dug into her, working their way through her skin. Her scalp still felt raw and bare. If her family saw her now, would they even recognize her, or see only a bloodied, beaten wretch?

A thunderbolt crashed and the wyverns screeched. A few spewed acid into distant forests below; where the foul liquid landed, the trees crumbled. Lyana looked around her, trying to place her location. She could see almost nothing through the storm: trees below, the shadow of mountains ahead, a river to her west. They had crossed the Tiran Sea yesterday, but Lyana did not know this land.

This is not Requiem, she thought. She had flown over Requiem countless times, traversing it north to south, east to west. She knew every mountain, river, and forest in Aeternom's Kingdom. She breathed out sharply through her nose.

Of course.

She shook her head. How had she not guessed it? Solina's army would not invade Requiem's southern border; a thousand dragons patrolled it, from Gilnor's swamps in the west to Ralora Beach in the east.

"We're flying over Osanna," she whispered as thunder rolled.

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