Charm pumped her wings to gain speed through the air.

Down below, Corvus heard Roan give a shout and CloudStrike increased her speed too.

Charm made growl of dissatisfaction and increased her speed. Down below, the horse did the same.

“Is that nag trying to outpace me?” she squawked, outraged.

Corvus wisely did no point out that CloudStrike was of the Mountain Heavy breed — one of the most prized of all horse breeds. “They’re stretching their legs,” he said.

She snorted her displeasure and increased her speed, faster and faster until the wind was fairly shrieking in Corvus’s ears. He checked on her stamina bar and saw it dropping at a steady rate.

“Really?” he asked, dry.

She didn’t answer

Down below, Roan and CloudStrike were doing their odd skipping gallop so fast that it was as if their image was stuttering across the ground.

“They’ll run out of mana soon,” Charm grumbled.

Corvus winced.

Yes, Roan and CloudStrike surely couldn’t keep up at this pace for long, but Corvus had promised to affix a mana tattoo Roan and his sister, Gwen.

CloudStrike started to fall behind and Charm let out a bellow of triumph, opening her jaws to send burning light through the air. “I won!”

Ding!

You have received an incoming message from: Roan.

Oh, were we supposed to be racing?

Corvus got an inkling of what was about to happen.

“Don’t—“ he yelled but there was no point. He and Charm were up in the air and besides, good sense had never stopped Roan in the past.

Between one foot fall and the next, CloudStrike skipped spaces, the spell bringing them not several feet, but several hundred feet forward which put them well ahead of Corvus and Charm. Right in front of the oncoming Kale and CometChaser.

Charm bellowed in anger. “Cheater!”

It took them several precious seconds to catch up to them all. Roan and CloudStrike were both sweaty and breathing hard. Roan had dismounted his horse and had his hands on his knees as he regained his breath. They’d both bottomed out their mana with that little stunt.

Kale looked torn between alarm that his son had popped up right in front of him… and alarm that he and his horse looked to be on his last legs, combined with generalized alarm over whatever had brought him here.

As Charm landed, growling her displeasure, Corvus heard the man speak sharply to his son.

“Have you winded your horse?”

“Nah, it’s just our mana reserves, Dad. We’ll be right as rain in a few.”

Trust Kale to be primarily concerned with the health of Roan’s horse over his son. Kale was one of the best father’s Corvus had ever known — thought admittedly his own father had set the bar low— but he was the Horseman of the clan for a reason.

Dismounting his own mare, he walked up to CloudStrike and started running his hands over her sweaty fur, likely looking for overstressed muscles or signs of tendon strain.

Gwen and Roan had explained the Paths to Kale a few days ago, but Corvus was unsure how much he fully grasped the concept.

“I would never put CloudStrike in danger,” Roan said, shooting a look at Corvus. “We both wanted to show the competition what we were made of.”

Corvus rolled his eyes as he came up to them. “Kale, I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

The Horseman didn’t reply until he had checked all four of CloudStrikes hooves and found them sound, though he frowned at the disfigured hind foot. They had explained mana to him, though his instincts from a lifetime of horsemanship told him the mare shouldn’t be able to get up to a trot, much less travel this far.

Finally he looked up and nodded to Corvus. It was a stark difference from the elaborate bows and courtesies he experienced from the city nobles.

“There’s trouble on the road,” he said simply.

Roan perked up. “The clan?”

“All accounted for,” Kale replied. “I’ve sent word for them to rejoin us near the city meadowlands. This is outsider news.” He looked directly at Corvus now. There was the glint of pity in his gaze. “There are many rumors. Some say the King is dead, others that the Capitol City has been razed to the ground, or simply the palace. Some say we have a new queen, or a new king.”

Corvus felt like he was very far away from the moment. He stared at Kale, waiting for the emotional impact to land… and felt nothing.

Ding!

You have gained a level in Emotional Control

New level: Intermediate 15

Is this emotional control? He thought. Or is it shock?

Perhaps it was callousness. The majority of his blood family was in trouble and he felt... nothing.

Still with that sense of curious distance, he heard Roan swear and spit to the side.

“I pressed onward to the North,” Kale continued, “I’d hoped to at least see the Capitol myself and have something concrete to report back.”

Something very large nudged the small of Corvus’s back at the same time he felt Charm’s warm breath wash over him. Through their bond he felt a pulse of warmth and love. It was enough to melt the edges of his icy shock.

“But?” Corvus rasped.

Now Kale’s eyes darkened with concern. “I was waylaid by men on the road coming directly south. An entire phalanx of them, flying the royal flag.”

“They’ve come to retrieve Starella,” Corvus said.

“Or you,” Roan said.

“Or me,” Corvus admitted.

If his father was king, the men likely had orders for execution. If his Aunt Sunli had taken the throne, he judged there was fifty-fifty chance it was the same. If King Orphus still held the throne, Corvus counted his chances as better, but not much.

But it was unlikely any of them knew he had hatched a dragon… or that his cousin, Starella, had done the same.

Roan surprised him. “I’ve had enough of the city life for a while. Let’s get Gwen and ride out of here. The clan’s been hiding you for years, Corvus. Yeah, Charm’s a little bigger now but she still has those illusion spells.”

“You want me to run away?” Corvus asked, turning to his friend in shock.

“No, you outta go through the dungeon once or twice, load Charm up on as many essences as you can buy with tickets, truss up Starella so she can be properly deprogramed from the palace life and then run,” Roan said. “She’s just starting to become a human being and you look about ready to tear your hair out from running a city for a week. Do you really want to throw your hat into the ring for a kingdom?”

Corvus stared at him. Roan liked to play stupid, but he could occasionally surprise with deep thoughts.

“Deprogrammed?” Charm repeated.

Roan held up his hands. “CloudStrike’s word. Not mine.”

“You’re telling me the prey animal said 'deprogrammed'—“

“I’m not running,” Corvus said, cutting across the two before they could start bickering. How was this his life that his best friend and his dragon enjoyed snipping at one another? “Especially not before I have all the information.” He looked to Kale. “You didn’t say what caused all of this.”

The man nodded looking sober. “Because the rumors are varied as who is in charge of the kingdom. Some say a yellow fiend of a dragon, some say a cataclysm came down from the sky and some…” He hesitated, “They say it was a demon attack.”

“It was Daffodil,” Charm said. “What else would it be?”

Corvus frowned. He didn’t disagree with her, but why were there such varied rumors? Confusion over who held the throne, he could understand. The monarchy held itself rigidly from the rest of the population. But a dragon sweeping down to rain chaos from the sky would be fairly straightforward.

“How much time do we have before the royal soldiers arrive.”

“A day,” Kale replied. “They were riding hard, but none can outride a Horseman.” He flashed his teeth in a smile.

“Damn right,” Roan said.

Corvus didn’t reply. He turned to look over his shoulder back towards the city. At this distance it was no more than a heat haze against the sky.

Charm nudged him. “You’re closing yourself off to me. What are you planning?”

“I’m not planning, I’m wondering.”

“Wondering if you should raid the city’s coffers before you leave?” Roan asked. “The answer is yes. You have those Bags of Holding, right?”

Corvus ignored him. He’d had a lot of practice. “I’m wondering if there’s any coincidence that the palace has fallen at the same time a demon showed up on our doorstep.”

Charm rumbled unhappily. “Daffodil spoke to Starella about demons.”

“It’s a stretch,” Roan said.

Kale spoke up. “The rest of the clan are due to arrive in the meadowland before the sun sets today. If we leave, we should do it before the morning of the next.”

Did Corvus want to go with them? He’d lived among the Horse Folk for two years, and it had been some of the happiest time of his life. But he didn’t want to return as a healer. It was a role he had outgrown.

And with that, he realized he had made his decision.

“I’ll meet you back at the Grand Palace,” he said. “I need to have a chat with the demon.”