Yvan’s incoming fire surges hotter and desperation strikes through my gut.

Yvan! NO!

Vogel steps nearer, his tall form eerily backlit by Shadowfire torches placed just inside the mountain’s cavernous maw, several Shadow Mages striding close to bracket him. I meet his intent gaze, quivering with rage. Excitement flickers in his eyes’ pale green depths and I want to spring free and claw them out, barely able to think past my aura’s violent flare.

Naga the Unbroken! Raz’zor’s snarling, defiant call sounds in my mind, his aura spitting crimson and purple sparks. I summon thee, Defender of Dragonkin! Friend of the Bound Wingeds!

“What shall we do with the dragon, Excellency?” one of the Shadow Mages inquires.

“They’re especially cursed, the white ones,” Vogel evenly replies, keeping his eyes pinned on me. “Break him. Then use him as bait for training the larger creatures.”

“No!” I growl against my bindings as Raz’zor attempts to snap his teeth against his gag.

Naga the Unbroken! he blares at the heavens.

Vogel steps toward Raz’zor’s bound muzzle and presses the tip of his boot over it, bearing down, Raz’zor’s enormous chest puffing in and out. Fury explodes in me as waves of Raz’zor’s crimson fire aura lash through my lines and a multitude of soldiers surround him.

Naga the Destroyer! Raz’zor sends out as one of the soldiers raises his wand and hurls a bolt of dark earth magic toward his head.

I recoil against the blow, Raz’zor’s fire extinguishing as he’s knocked senseless, our horde connection blocked as the Mage sends a second tether of Shadow vine around him. Dazed by the blow’s reverberation through my mind, I watch, unable to stop the soldiers as they grip my horde-kin’s Shadow netting and drag him into the mountain with unnatural strength.

I become vicious, biting and hurling every ounce of my strength against my bindings to no avail as Vogel strides to Or’myr. He lowers himself onto one knee beside my gagged cousin, Or’myr’s green eyes blazing back at him with a feral look of rage. Vogel takes hold of Or’myr’s face, his nails digging into my cousin’s temples. Then he lifts Or’myr’s head with bizarre ease, effortlessly stretching his Shadow binding, before slamming the back of his skull against the stone so hard I flinch at the sickening smack.

Vogel withdraws his hand, a trickle of dark blood now flowing from Or’myr’s temple. My cousin’s ferocious green stare is undimmed, lethally focused as if he’s trying to impale Vogel with it.

“Break his mind,” Vogel orders his soldiers as he rises. “Then absorb him into the lesser hive with the other heathens.”

“Your Excellency,” the Shadow Mage beside Sparrow says, a wicked smile on his mouth as he motions toward her. “You said she could be mine.”