The twins glanced at each other and, with a nod, moved.

Talwyn crouched and placed her hands flat against the ground. A spell tumbled from her lips, too fast for Talan to understand. While his twin did that, he caught sight of two knights attempting to mount their skittish horses, the poor animals terrified by everything going on around them.

Talan ran up to the soldiers, pulled out the short sword at his side, and cut the throats of both horses.

The animals immediately dropped, one landing on his rider.

“What have you done?” one of the knights bellowed.

Talan never answered. Instead, he watched in horror as two mountains in the distance crumbled like tiny hills of dirt built by a small child.

He faced the knight. “Go!” he ordered and dropped to his knees beside the carcasses. Talan placed his hands on the neck of each animal, closed his eyes, and let the darkness that lay beneath the land flow into his body until it reached his hands. He unleashed the power into the dead horses and, in a few seconds, watched them struggle to their hooves. Their eyes were blood red now and he could see the inside of their throats from where he’d cut them open.

Talan pointed at the priestess and ordered the horses, “Kill her!”

The dead animals took off running and Talan turned in time to see the power of his sister’s spell spreading through the ground, up through the hill under the priestess’s protection, and out of the green earth.

Talan’s dead horses had also made their way up the hill and the magicks used to protect the priestess were unable to stop the living dead, as vines and limbs burst through the ground and wrapped themselves around the priestess’s legs.

Her beautiful voice was cut off abruptly as the vines began to wrap her from toe to blind face. She tried to fight and started singing again. But the vines, once they had hold of her, began to pull her down. Down into the dark. While Talan’s dead horses attacked her with their hooves, battering her around the head and shoulders.

The twins turned from her but they knew their work wasn’t done. There were now at least five blind priestesses, singing their spell. And more mountains were falling. Mountains that had been there since before the dragons.

Talwyn and her brother stared at each other. Again, no words were spoken between them. They already knew what had to be done. Their mother’s troops had to be saved. Everyone had to be moved to safer ground. Rhian had to be retrieved and healed.

So . . . what about their mother?

They moved away from each other, neither willing to discuss that. They just knew what they had to do. What Annwyl the Bloody would expect them to do, leaving the queen—if she was still alive—to fight her own, terrible battles.

Chapter Two

Annwyl would wake up briefly. Pass out. Wake up. Pass out. Again and again. When she was awake, she knew she was being dragged. But to where or why, she didn’t know.

The fall hadn’t killed her but she also didn’t know why. Because it felt as if she’d fallen for hours. Days. Like she would never stop falling.

But, eventually, she’d landed and lost consciousness. Whenever she would wake up, though, she’d realize that she was being dragged. By something that smelled awful.

Finally she woke up and was able to stay awake, quickly noting that she was in some kind of dungeon or jail. Something had hold of her right foot and was still dragging her along the ground, not taking care to avoid any bumps or holes in their path.

She lifted her head to get a look at her captor and saw . . . a tail. A green-scaled tail with a spiked end.

Annwyl sat up a little more and realized that yes, she was being dragged through a dungeon by a walking lizard. A big, walking lizard.

Before she could really analyze that, the lizard stopped in front of metal bars. He opened the door set in the middle of the bars and threw Annwyl inside by her leg. Her body flew across the room and rammed into the far wall.

She managed to protect her head from the impact but the wind was still knocked out of her by the time she hit the ground.

It took her a bit to get her senses back and by then, the door to her cell had been slammed shut and locked. She struggled up until she was sitting on her ass and could study the beings staring at her through the bars.

There were five of them now. All walking lizards. There was something human about them, though. Like the fact they were all wearing leather kilts to hide their groins and several had on earrings and decorative necklaces.

They spoke to each other in low guttural sounds, their bright yellow eyes locked on her.

Annwyl decided to try and speak to them.

“Where am I? And who are you?”

One of them barked at her—literally—and she knew he was telling her to shut up, even though she didn’t understand his words.

“Piss off then!” Annwyl snapped back.

A lizard wearing a necklace made of animal fangs and human teeth, stepped forward and opened its mouth.

A forked tongue like a snake’s shot out. But unlike a snake’s tongue, it managed to reach across the entire room and flick over a bare spot on Annwyl’s elbow.

She cried out from the searing pain, cupping her wounded elbow with her other hand.

“Bastard!”

He flicked her again.

“Ow! Stop it!”

The other lizard-men laughed as their friend did it again—so Annwyl caught his tongue with both her hands, ignoring the burning pain in her fingers and the palms of her hands. And she pulled.

Eyes wide in panic, he slapped at his friends with his clawed hands and several grabbed hold of him to keep him away from the bars while the others took hold of his tongue, trying to get it back. One or two even used their own tongues to hit her in the face and neck, trying to get her to release him. But Annwyl was angry now. She didn’t really feel pain when she was angry.

So she held on and kept pulling.

Together, the lizard-men dragged Annwyl across the cell floor, using their friend’s poor tongue. But when Annwyl neared the door, she raised her legs and planted her feet against the metal bars. Secure, she began to wind the lizard’s tongue around one arm like a lengthy rope. She wound and wound until he was pressed up on the other side of the bars.

The other lizard-men growled and barked and bared their fangs at her. She still didn’t understand their words, but she sensed they were telling her to let their friend go.

She didn’t.

Instead, Annwyl dropped her legs to the ground and, taking one big step back, turned and yanked. She let out a triumphant scream when she knew she’d torn the tongue from the bastard’s snout.

Slowly she faced her shocked captors and told them, “I. Said. Stop. That.” She tossed the insanely long tongue into a corner on the far side of the room. “Now you know I meant it.”

Blood pouring from his snout, the tongueless lizard grabbed at the bars of the door and Annwyl met him on the other side.

While she screamed and he roared, they reached through the bars and battered each other with punches until the lizard-man’s friends pried him away from her cell.

Annwyl, still caught up in her anger, continued to scream and reach through the bars for her prey. She was so lost in what she was doing, she had no idea how long she kept it up and no idea how long the lizard-men had been gone.

Finally, though, her anger left her. That’s when she yelled, “And if I don’t get any food, I’m going to eat his tongue!”

No one replied, so she released her grip on the bars and dropped back down. She hadn’t even realized she’d been a good three or four feet off the ground, but that’s how it was when her anger got the best of her. It wasn’t her fault. It was their fault for making her so angry. Those lizard-people.

She would not take responsibility for any of this. Just like always.

Letting out a breath, she put her hands on her hips and took a quick look around to see if there was a way out of here. That’s when she noticed the captive men in cells across from her.

Silently they gawked, mouths open.

Annwyl shrugged her shoulders. “What?” she barked and they all quickly turned away or disappeared into the darkness at the back of their cells.

“Yeah,” she muttered, still annoyed and her rage still pulsing through her, “that’s what I thought.”

Chapter Three