Shadow Cursed

Prologue

Second Age, Year 899

Ghokarian spiraled over the smoking wreckage of a human colony, scanning burnt dwellings and charred bodies. The fire hadn't just demolished this settlement, it had also killed a dragon.

And when something killed a dragon, it had to be destroyed.

Wintry wind lashed his pale-blue scales. Acrid odors rose from the ruins, and he shut his nostrils against the stench. The only sound was the whistle of air past his leathery wings. That, and the faint cry of some strange animal. Its keening voice rose and fell in odd patterns—piercing at times, low and throaty at others.

Dragons had no interest in human affairs; he only knew this tribe because a former member of his dragonflight had bonded to one of the flesh-covered mortals. She'd perished in the fire that had wiped out the rest of the colony. As the archon of his flight, it was Ghokarian's duty to cleanse the death-site and investigate the disaster.

He would also decide if retaliation was necessary.

He spotted a large carcass and glided down to land. Lingering warmth from the fire seeped into his paws as he plodded toward the corpse. Lyreth Equilumos lay half-buried in debris. Ash and soot stained her once-green hide.

Faraway, the animal's cries rose in pitch. Ghokarian flattened his ears against his skull, shutting out external stimuli as he examined the deceased.

An alien expression twisted Lyreth's visage. Ghokarian wasn't an expert on expressions, for sovereign dragons had no emotions—only when they formed a bond could they come to know such things. Still, he was better informed than most of his kin. As he bent to examine his ex-flightmate, Ghokarian decided hers was not an expression of pain. Her slender brow ridges curved in a shape that he might have described as mournful, if he could have understood what it meant to mourn.

Lyreth looked strangely contorted. Ghokarian peeled back one of her blackened wings to reveal a broken body clutched against her chest.The smaller creature was burnt beyond recognition, but it could only be her bondmate.

He suspected Lyreth had died in vain, trying to save the mortal. The position of the debris indicated she'd barreled into the dwelling after the inferno had compromised its integrity. From a technical standpoint, the death was no one's fault but her own.

Ghokarian considered his options. His eyes weren't glowing, which meant the death-site didn't require cleansing. He could leave now, report his findings to the Eminarchs, and that would be the end of it.

But what had started the fire?Though bonded dragons were weaker than their sovereign counterparts, it would take an unnaturally strong blaze to kill one. Some of Lyreth's scales had flaked off in the heat, and the flesh beneath had blistered. All her blood had boiled, so there was no need to purge the body . . . yet the boiling point of dragon blood was higher even than silver.

Ghokarian wasn't able to be curious, but dragons lived by high standards, and he therefore needed to be thorough. Even if the fire hadn't been intended to kill Lyreth, something so powerful was a threat to his kin.

He turned from the entwined corpses and picked his way through smoldering rubble. Observing the crumbled settlement, he noticed a pattern in the burn marks. The fire had eaten its way outward from a central point somewhere to the north. This told him it had been magic, and it had been deliberate.

The wailing animal grew louder as he marched on. It didn't sound like anything he'd ever encountered. Perhaps some opportunistic scavenger had arrived, hoping to feast on the dead. There might be a meal amidst the devastation.

Ghokarian passed between a pair of scorched rock arches and stopped. He couldn't feel horror or shock—he couldn't even feel interest—but he'd never seen anything quite like the sight before him, and it took a moment to absorb.