I gritted my teeth, hating the decision I had to make.We’d failed. And now we were going to pay the price. I glanced at Zilon, at how he tried to press up against the net, and how it didn’t budge at all. We weren’t going anywhere, and we were already surrounded by the dragons.
There was no escape for us.
‘Do it,’I finally relented.
Zilon and Landers both shifted back into their humanoid forms.
“I tried, Rayna. I really did try, but this—” Tanja shook her head. “I can’t help you anymore, not after siding with the Fae.” She turned her back on me and stalked off.
“Capture them and bring them back with us,” Captain Corniz said.
More dragons surrounded us, and then we were tied up. I glanced around as they ushered us away, noting that while we were captured along with a few Fae that the fight was still raging closer to the Fae castle, deeper in their territory. Judging by the agonized roars of dragons in the distance, the Fae weren’t totally defeated yet.
A group of tied-up Fae caught my attention, and my gaze landed on a particular Fae without any redeemable qualities about him. He was as plain as plain could get for a Fae, but I knew exactly who he was.
The dragons had captured Neyil.
They definitely didn’t know this; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been treating him like any other prisoner. And I had a sneaking suspicion that this was his plan. I pressed my lips together, knowing not to say anything. Apparently, Neyil was planning something, and I wasn’t going to be the one to ruin the surprise.
Maybe it wasn’t quite over for us just yet.
“Where are we going?” I asked one of the guards as he yanked at us, forcing us to keep walking.
“King Laskis wishes to talk to you before the executions.”
“Executions?” I squeaked out.
The dragon guard twisted around to sneer at us, his face scrunched up in complete disgust. “Yes. After this, do you think it would be worth it to keep any of you traitors alive?”
“We might use them as hostages. They took some of our dragons,” another dragon said.
The older-looking dragon snorted. “Doubt it. The king could care less about hostages. They’re useless to him.”
Bitterness crept into his voice as he turned and stalked away, pulling hard on the rope binding us. I nearly fell forward but just barely caught myself. At least my hands were tied in front of me, though Landers and Zilon didn’t have the same luck. They were completely bound, even their wings bound together to prevent using them. They also had their mouths covered.
The dragons learned how to capture them this time. I couldn’t even give my mates fire to breathe to get us out of this.
Having no idea where Philit was, I tried looking around. Our bond had grown muted after he fell, and while it worried me, it also only enhanced my suspicions. This whole fight had been wrong. The dragons had fought, knowing exactly what they were going up against, and had already put plans in place to overwhelm me and a good chunk of the Fae army.
Someone had betrayed us, and every time I thought about it, Philit’s image kept coming to mind. It was like the dragons had done their best not to attack him. I tamped down my emotions. I had to be overthinking this. I had no concrete proof, even as my instincts kept telling me Philit had betrayed us.
He wasn’t responsive during battle. We had a chance to escape, but because he hadn’t replied, we’d been forced to keep fighting. The dragons hadn’t seemed earnest in their attacks against him. Plus, he’d wanted to change the plans and have me transferred over to him instead.
‘Rayna?’
I shook my head of those thoughts and looked over at Zilon.
‘What are we going to do?’I asked.
‘Survive,’Landers said. ‘It’ll be fine. We’ve been in worse situations before.’
He wasn’t wrong, but it also seemed he wasn’t quite right either.
28
The march back to the dragon’s territory should have taken hours, maybe days, but somehow, before I could process it, we were back at the academy. Students, teachers, and other dragons all did their best to get a glimpse of me. I even saw Coral, the resident bully. She grinned widely as she stared back at me, obviously delighted by my predicament.
We were marched right up to the throne room, complete with even more guards. Even the Fae prisoners were brought there too, including Neyil, who was doing a good job of looking like he was scared without overdoing it. It all seemed like a fun acting project to him, but the emotion behind a person’s fear wasn’t quite there, failed to appear behind the Fae king’s eyes, even as he pretended to shake and kept glancing around like he was nervous.