Forest of Ruin (Age of Legends 3)

His eyes closed. She leaned down and kissed him.

"I'll take care," she whispered. "You know I will."

She started to rise. Something hit her shoulder. A dart. She pushed up, turned on the emperor, and thrust her bound hands at him. "Was this not enough?"

She bore down on him, her feet tangling under her as the sedative took hold. One of the men moved as if to stop her, but Emperor Tatsu waved him back. He stepped toward Moria and caught her as she fell. As he lowered her to the ground, she said, her words slurring, "I am no spy."

"I know," he whispered.

"You do not wish me to spy on Alvar Kitsune, do you?"

"No," he said, his lips to her ears as she drifted from consciousness. "I wish you to kill him."

THREE

Ashyn stared at the man. Pale-skinned and white-haired, he had tribal tattoos of dragons on his cheeks. Not imperial tattoos like Tyrus's, but rather the intricate art of the North. His eyes were golden with slitted pupils. Dragon eyes. Then he blinked, hard, and the illusion vanished--his eyes were as blue and clear as hers.

"Ashyn," he said gently, when she didn't respond.

"You're my . . . grandfather?" she said.

He nodded. "Did your father not mention me?"

"He did not speak of my mother's family. Or his own. Once, when Moria asked, he said . . ." She swallowed. "He said it was another life. Best forgotten."

"Yes, I can see that he would. Safer for all, given the circumstances."

The circumstances. Their mother's suicide. Taking her own life to protect their father's. To ensure her daughters would not grow up orphans.

Except now they were. Not merely orphaned but without any family at all. Ashyn had spent the past moon trying to forget that. There were other things to worry about.

Yet now . . .

"My grandfather," she said slowly.

"Edwyn, if that is easier."

"Do I have . . . ?" She was about to ask if she had other family. A grandmother. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. But that only made her think of the family she did have--namely the sister who was not here. Her gaze went to Tova, the giant yellow hound sitting at her side. Her thoughts moved slowly, still lost in the fog of the sedative.

Sedative. A noxious-smelling cloth shoved over her mouth and nose. Frantically fighting to b

e free, seeing a boy, slumped on the ground, arrow lodged--

"Ronan." Ashyn looked up sharply. "There was a boy--a young man--with me, felled by an arrow. Did you see him? Did you--?" She stopped short and her hand went for Tova, who rose, growling so softly only Ashyn could hear him. "The arrow. That was you. You shot him and--"

"No, child. We were following you, but Lord Okami's men felled your escort, and we took you before you were hurt."

"Escort? No. I mean, yes. Ronan was escorting me. But he's a friend. A good one." Her heart thumped so hard she could barely get out the words. All she could think about was Ronan, on the ground, that arrow--

"Did Dalain Okami take Ronan or . . ." She swallowed again and forced out the words. "Did you see if he lived?"

Edwyn did not answer. He simply looked at her, studying her expression.

Ashyn turned to go. Then she froze and gaped at her surroundings, her mind still fogged, having forgotten exactly where they were. In a cave. A cave that contained the skull of a dragon.

The skull of a dragon? There were no dragons. Creatures of myth, lost in the distant past, or perhaps never having existed at all beyond collective imagination.

Like thunder hawks and death worms. Creatures of myth, now made real by Alvar Kitsune. And dragons . . . ?