Blood and brains covered her from head to claw. Her black eyes were wild—the Cadwaladr bloodlust having taken over.

“We have to go,” he told his sister.

“Go?”

“We have to help Da.”

“What makes you think we’re done here?”

Celyn looked over the dragon pieces scattered around his sister. But when he looked up, Brannie was pointing her blood-covered axe at him.

He turned and saw ten dragons standing behind him, their weapons drawn.

“Well then,” Celyn said on a sigh, “let’s get this over with.”

Then he and Brannie charged forward—and killed everything in their way.

Kachka dismounted from her horse and pulled her sword. “Stay behind me, Bram the Merciful,” she ordered him.

“I think you need to get behind me now, Kachka Shestakova.”

Kachka felt heat on her back and turned to see her horse galloping off and Bram in his dragon form.

His scales were silver, like his hair. And he was large. But, sadly, not as large as the protective unit that had been sent along with these Dragon Elders.

“Run, Kachka.”

“I am Daughter of Steppes. I will not run. I will not yield.”

“Then you will die,” one of the dragons said, laughing.

“Not before you, imperialist scaled scum!” She glanced back at the Southland dragon standing behind her. “No offense to you, Bram the Merciful.”

“None taken, considering the circumstances.”

“Kill them both,” the enemy dragon ordered.

“Wait!” Bram called out, stepping around Kachka.

She winced, worried that the dragon was about to beg for either his or her life.

But, thankfully, he did neither. Instead, he simply asked a question.

“Is this god of yours worth the betrayal of your people?”

“More than worth it,” one of the Elder dragons said as they walked out of Bram’s castle and casually shifted from human to dragon. “Our god will wash the world of these Abominations created by your godless queen and her brood of despicable offspring.”

“But Chramnesind”—and as soon as Bram said the name, the other dragons all closed their eyes, lowered their heads, and wrote a rune in the air with their talons . . . it was stupid—“is not a dragon god. If he comes into full power, you, old friends, will be the first that he wipes from this planet.”

“You will never understand, Bram. You’ve been tainted. And your talking isn’t going to extend your life by another second.”

“Oh, I know. I was just killing time until the ol’ ball and chain got home.”

The Elder dragon blinked, then spun around, forcing Kachka to drop into a crouch to avoid his wildly swinging tail.

The She-dragon called Ghleanna had been standing behind him. She grabbed his hair and yanked the old dragon forward while ramming the blade of her sword into his snout.

Bram glanced down at Kachka and smiled. “Isn’t she glorious?”

Ghleanna pulled the old dragon off her sword and focused on the soldiers. “Kill all of them!” she screamed, and dragons dropped from the skies, landing hard on the soldier dragons.

“The royals always forget,” Bram murmured. “Cadwaladrs never fight alone.”

Elina was riding hard through the trees, nearing Bram’s castle, when her horse suddenly reared back, nearly flipping them both over.

Using her thighs to grip the saddle, Elina managed to keep her seat, but her horse turned in mid-run and bounded forward.

Elina was about to turn him around again when the trees began to shake . . . then fall. Crashing to the ground, they nearly crushed the pair in the process.

Thankfully she was on a Steppes horse and the animal moved with the grace that eons of good horse breeding managed to create, dancing around falling trees until they reached a clearing.

They’d just leaped to safety when the ground beneath them moved again and the horse jumped to the side several times, allowing two battling dragons to roll past them.

Elina let out a breath and sent a silent prayer of thanks to the horse gods that protected her for gifting her with such an outstanding horse companion. Then she lifted her head and realized that one of the fighting dragons was Celyn.

Another dragon burst onto the clearing, his sword raised. Elina didn’t recognize the dragon so she decided not to concern herself with whether it was friend or foe. Instead, she simply nocked an arrow, aimed, and released.

The arrow’s route stayed true, ramming right between the seams of his scaled neck. The dragon jerked to the side, his claw immediately going to the arrow and his eyes searching for where it had come from.

He locked on Elina in seconds.

“You.”

She nocked another arrow and raised her bow, this time aiming for the eyes, but a speeding burst of black scales slammed into the dragon, taking him to the ground.

Brannie caught hold of the dragon’s back leg and dragged him close with one front claw while the other pulled out an axe so large Elina knew it would crush her human body in seconds if it ever landed on her.

Without pause, Brannie hacked at the dragon’s spine, splitting it into two, ignoring the screams of pain coming from her victim. She then moved up and hacked at the back of the dragon’s head until the screaming stopped altogether. She started toward a still-fighting Celyn when she glanced over and stopped.

“Elina?”

Celyn, who had his opponent pinned to the ground and his sword about to plunge into the dragon’s heart, looked up abruptly.