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The lone dragon looked wary at the approach of another dragon.
While they conversed in their telepathic dragon tongue, we walked through the half-open iron gate. I couldn’t hear their dragon talk unless I was also in my dragon form and channeled in.
I stopped in the center of the enormous, pebble-paved courtyard and surveyed the damage: charred benches, blackened façades from abandoned stores and chapels, and withered ivy vines between shattered windows.
There were no voices, no activities, and no people inside the once thriving castle.
My heart sank further, sadness washing over me. I had come back to a home that was an empty shell.
“How can this be?” Iokul asked. “It’s only been three months since we departed.”
“Destruction only takes a minute,” I said.
The three dragons stopped circling one another above the peak and swooped down one by one. They shifted before they touched down on the ground, and my eyes flicked over their human forms. The stranger must have convinced my mate that he wasn’t a threat, or they would never allow him to come near me.
The new dragon stared at me, his gaze raking over my face before he went down on one knee, his fist on his heart. “Princess Danaenyth, Your Highness. Is that really you?” Emotion thickened his voice.
He’d detected my scent, even though we were disguised as travelers.
His face was so scarred and his nose so crooked that I didn’t recognize him at first glance. But I registered his scent as a faint memory swirled back. He was one of my grandfather’s elite guards.
“Jarrod?” I called.
The day I’d gone missing, Jarrod had followed Adrian and me. He’d seen me sprint into the Forbidden Forest. Both Adrian and Jarrod had screamed my name and tried to charge into the enchanted forest after me. I’d ended up in Akem’s jungle alone in the blink of an eye.
Nine centuries had passed between that moment and this one.
My heart pounded hopefully, and my throat grew dry. If Jarrod was here, then perhaps Adrian was, too.
“Welcome home, Your Highness,” Jarrod said, tears welling in his eyes. “We’ve been looking forward to your return for too long, and our hope failed us, until this blessed day.”
I tried to relax my stiff shoulders. I needed to ask about Adrian, though I dreaded the answer, dreaded that he hadn’t survived.
I gestured for Jarrod to rise.
“Where’s Adrian?” I asked as coolly as I could manage, but my face was tight as a whip.
Jarrod stood up and drew a ragged breath. “I haven’t heard from him for half a century.”
“Do you know where he is now?” I asked. “Do you have any means to reach him?”
I needed Adrian. I’d always relied on him. I needed my old team back.
“The day—” Jarrod paused to recollect himself, “—the day you entered the Forbidden Forest, Adrian charged after you, and I followed, but the forest just disappeared with you. We dug into the land. We stomped on fifty acres around where you vanished. Adrian turned every stone over to find you, but you were just gone. When he was sure that you weren’t in the realm anymore, he searched other realms to find you. Sometimes he was gone for a few years, and decades, sometimes a century. He used every contact he had. He tried everything. He came back to the realm only to check if fate had sent you home, and then he was off to chase you again. No one knows where he is now. He can be in any corner of the universe. He’s never given up on you. Others did centuries ago, but he never did. My lady, he is not the same Adrian you knew back then.”
My heart jerked in pain. “What do you mean he isn’t the Adrian I knew?”
“You know what you meant to him.” Jarrod sighed. “Adrian is half mad after chasing you and unable to find you for centuries, just like KingDaghda.It almost destroyed them.”
I’d done this to Adrian and myself. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with searching for the other half of my heritage, he would have been fine and sane, and the curse might not even have touched me.
I was suddenly angry at him for throwing his life away for me.
“He should have gone on with his life instead of wasting it,” I said in a clipped tone. “He saw how I disappeared. He should have known no one could find me.”
“You’re his charge,” Jarrod said quietly. “You’re his future queen.”
While I took a moment to calm myself, Iokul asked Jarrod, “Why is the realm abandoned?”
