Cursed Bones: Sovereign of the Seven Isles: Book Five by David A. Wells

blue dragon landed on the edge of the hole in the ceiling. It was beautiful and terrible all at once. Abigail saw similarities between this one and Ixabrax. Its rider looked down into the room with calm, almost detached calculation.
    Zuhl.
    “Take the girl,” he commanded as Dax released the ball of lightning at him. Zuhl directed his staff toward the streaking, crackling ball of electrical power and instantly formed a half-shell protective shield in front of him. The lightning struck it with thunderous force, shattering the shield and hitting the dragon square in the chest. The dragon reared back and looked like he was preparing to breathe frost into the room, certain doom for them all, but Zuhl commanded him to stop and they launched into the darkness.
    Three of the dragon-men landed around Abigail. All three breathed frost at her and her cordon of Strikers. They all fell in a shivering mass. Abigail had never been so cold. It penetrated into her bones, paralyzing her with numbness. The nearest dragon-man grabbed her and launched into the sky. She held on to consciousness even as the Thinblade slipped from her grasp, burying to the hilt in the stone floor.
    At the same time, two more dragon-men breathed frost at Magda and Corina, forcing them to defend against the attack long enough for the beast carrying Abigail to escape. She watched the ground fall away as the beast gained altitude. It flew to Zuhl, perched atop the guard house on the last remaining tower of the fortress.
    “Very good,” Zuhl said as he took Abigail and secured her over his saddle in front of him. He whispered a few words and she felt suddenly warmer, though she was still unable to move. Zuhl pulled a fur blanket over her and launched into the sky, followed by the remaining nine dragon-men.
    The last thing Abigail saw before she lost consciousness was Mage Dax launching a bolt of lightning at the trailing dragon-man. It hit the creature, lighting it up with crackling power, then arced through the night to another and another and another and another after that, burning a hole through the chest of each as it leapt from one to the next, each falling from the sky in turn.

 
    Chapter 9
     
    She woke in a round room with a single barred window and a trapdoor in the floor. She was lying on a pallet with several furs covering her. The air was cold … she could see her breath in the dim light streaming through the window. Aside from the pallet and furs, the room was completely empty. She checked her boots and found her knives were gone.
    She was defenseless.
    Still wearing the clothes she’d been dressed in during the meeting with her advisors, she stood and wrapped a fur blanket around her to ward off the chill air. From the tiny window, she could see the ocean below, bleak and foreboding, low clouds blanketing the world to the horizon. Light snow was sporadically whipped into a frenzy by sudden gusts of frigid air.
    She went to the trapdoor and tried to open it but it held fast, as she knew it would. She knocked on the door, but got no response, so she sat back down and tried to think of a way out of her predicament.
    An hour later, she heard the sound of boots on stone from below, followed by the scraping of metal on metal, and then the trapdoor opened. One of Zuhl’s brutes eyed her with a menacing grin and grunted while motioning for her to follow him.
    With a sigh of resignation, Abigail wrapped a fur around her and followed the big man down the corkscrew staircase to the level below. There were four guards in the chamber. Each stared at her in open challenge—she ignored them.
    The brute led her through the halls of a keep until he came to a large set of double doors, which opened to a sparsely furnished and somewhat cold room, though warmer than the little tower room where she’d awoken. Zuhl sat at a table with an assortment of foods arrayed before him, all served on fine porcelain dishes.
    “Good morning, Lady Abigail,” he said, dismissing