“And they can do that between worlds?”
“Some can, aye.”
“That’s unbelievable. So, why are you on Zora?”
“Because of the dragons.”
“You want to bring them to your realm?”
He drew in a breath. “It’s a long story.”
“We have a long walk.”
Kendrick ran a hand through his damp hair. “I did promise to tell you about the dragons.”
“I want to know all there is,” she said. “But you don’t look like you wish to talk about it.”
“It isna a good story.” But he would tell her as he’d promised. “The dragons on Zora are descendants from my realm, Earth. There, we once inhabited every corner of the planet. And we thrived.” He thought back to his time as a youngling and finding his way in the clan. “Things were no’ what I would call easy, but they were good. That was how it had been for eons before I was born and for a time after I became a King.”
“Then what happened?”
He twisted his lips ruefully. “Humans arrived on our planet. All adults. And all terrified. Constantine, the King of Dragon Kings, gathered all the Kings together, and we went to the mortals.”
“I don’t imagine that went well.”
Kendrick chuckled despite himself. “It didna. They were terrified. Can you imagine a bunch of dragons standing before you?”
“I know my reaction at just seeing one.”
He was glad that she helped to lighten this retelling. Otherwise, he knew he could get mired in his resentment. “That was the first time any of us shifted to this form. The magic of Earth gave us the ability so we could communicate with the mortals. We offered them shelter, vowing to keep them safe. That pledge was our undoing.”
Chapter Twelve
His words left Esha cold. She almost told him he didn’t have to finish, but she wanted to know. “How?”
“We were foolish enough to believe we could all live in harmony.”
She winced at the anger that deepened his voice. She didn’t need to prod him to continue. He did that on his own.
“At first, things were good. We carved out land for the humans—there was only a handful of them. But they bred so quickly. It seemed as if they were asking for more and more land all the time. Each of the Kings gave up parcels of their domain for the mortals, but it was never enough.”
She noticed that Kendrick’s breathing had quickened. He had his hands fisted at his sides, and a muscle pulsed in his jaw.
“The humans said a dragon started the conflict by eating one of them. Dragons claimed the mortals hunted the smaller ones. No one knows when it began, only that it erupted into dispute after dispute. We know dragons fed on humans. We know humans hunted and killed dragons. Which of those was in retaliation, we could never figure out. We Kings worked out a treaty with them, and peace returned for a short while. Meanwhile, most Kings were helping mortals build cities. Many, I included, took humans as lovers. One of us, Ulrik, wanted to have one as his mate.”
“You make that sound as if it was wrong.”
Kendrick glanced at her, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “A dragon knows its mate. We mate for life, however long that is. In the years since the humans arrived, no’ one gave birth to a live bairn. Most miscarried within days or weeks of becoming pregnant. The few who did carry to term had stillborn babes.”
Esha didn’t know what it was like to give birth, but she could well imagine the agony of a child being born dead.
“That knowledge meant that if Ulrik took her as his mate, he would never have children,” Kendrick said. “We still supported him. Unbeknownst to us, however, Ulrik’s jealous uncle had set a plan into motion that tricked the human Ulrik had fallen for, getting her to agree to kill Ulrik. Con learned of the plan and told the rest of us.”
Esha cringed as she glanced at Kendrick. “What happened?”
“Ulrik was like a brother to Con and one of the best of us. He was kind and generous. Of anyone to be betrayed, it never should have been him. Compound that with the decades of issues we’d experienced with the mortals, and we knew something had to be done. We tracked down the human who was set to betray him, and we…we killed her.”
Esha cut her gaze to him and watched Kendrick carefully, imagining herself in his place if she were told someone would betray Savita in such a way. She knew she would track them down herself—and she would stop them.
Kendrick met her gaze.
“Everyone reaches a breaking point. Even Dragon Kings,” she said.
He nodded slowly and slid his gaze away. “Once Ulrik found out, he became enraged. He was furious at us, but we were no’ the ones he took it out on. You’re right. We each have a breaking point, and that night, we all snapped in different ways. We had blood on our hands. Human blood. But Ulrik’s pain went much deeper.”
“Because he loved her.”
“Aye,” Kendrick whispered. “We thought we had saved one of our own, and in a way, we had. But we’d also started a war that we had been fighting to prevent for many years. When Ulrik took his Silvers and attacked the humans, many joined him. We wanted our realm back. The smaller dragon clans had been decimated to critical levels. We were tired of our lands shrinking and the mortals demanding more. We were just…tired of it all.”
He walked for a bit in silence. Esha had slowed her strides as she listened. There was so much sadness and ire within Kendrick that it made her heart hurt.
“So many died,” he said. “I still hear their screams, still smell their blood. I think I always will.”
Esha didn’t know what to say. Kendrick appeared lost in his memories, and she regretted asking him to delve into them now.
After another quiet period, he shook himself. “Con was the only one who didna go after the mortals. Eventually, he brought each of us back to his side. That was when we saw what we had done. The magic chose each of us because we were the strongest of our clans, the ones with the purest of hearts. And we had done…that. Con reminded us of the vow we’d taken when the humans arrived. So, we ordered our dragons to protect the villages and cities. We were saving the mortals, but they didna care. They…attacked the dragons. And the dragons who were told no’ to harm them did nothing as humans slaughtered them. Those are the screams and cries I hear the loudest.”
A tear fell onto Esha’s cheek. She felt Kendrick’s pain as if it were hers. She might not have been there, might not have witnessed the horror, but she felt it.
“We knew whatever peace we’d had would never return,” he told her. “To the mortals, we were monsters who had to be killed, no matter what. We refused to allow more dragons to die. So, we had a choice. We could save the dragons and rid the realm of all humans, turning us into the monsters the mortals claimed we were. Or…we could send the dragons away.”
Shock reverberated through Esha as her head swiveled to him. Her lips formed the word no, but she already knew the answer.
“We gathered all our magic and opened a bridge into the cosmos.” Kendrick’s face creased with agony. “I’ve never felt anything so horrible as the pain of watching my clan leave. Worse, we had no idea where we were sending them. We hoped they found a place to call their own. Their chances were better than remaining on Earth. Once all the dragons were gone, we Kings returned to our central location, created a barrier that would keep humans out, and slept away centuries, waiting until they forgot we existed.”