by Meagan Hurst
She lost track of time. She barely remembered that Nivaradros was standing behind her. Magic continued to try and break her and she continued to respond. Knowing her wounds were undoubtedly bleeding again, she considered giving in; but surrendering wasn’t in her, and she had a feeling it would result in her death. Angry enough to risk destroying the crest Nivaradros had kept all these years, she sent back a final blast of power and roared back a final challenge. If it wanted to kill her it was welcome to, because she was done playing nice.
Instead everything vanished—the magic, the voices, and the fight for control of her or for her death. Nivaradros’s form was comforting to lean against, and she could feel the soaked bandages press against her back. She was drenched in sweat. Glancing at the crest on the wall she found, to her relief, that it wasn’t damaged and the magic within it was still there, although it was no longer attempting to kill her. Her eyes were drawn to her left arm and she grimaced. Blisters had popped, and blood ran down the areas that were not blackened. It would require some healing before she could use it again. Shaking her head, she found she needed to cut her hair again—it had collected sweat, and when she had moved her head, the hair had released beads of it. She was rather surprised Nivaradros was still holding his temper. Then again, the Dragon hadn’t said anything so far.
“Nivaradros?” she croaked as she remembered she had been screaming Dragon at…something.
He didn’t answer, he didn’t even move. Wincing at the possibilities, Z glanced up and over her shoulder. Nivaradros’s eyes were neon, but they were fixed on his family crest. He didn’t even acknowledge her existence. Wondering just what he had heard—what had been said to him alone—she shuddered and moved to try to support her own weight. Hands grabbed her shoulders and caught her as she started to move. Hands that dug in when she shifted her shoulders in an attempt to break free. The grip could easily break her shoulders, and Z wondered if Nivaradros knew what he was doing.
“Nivaradros?!” she called again, clearing her throat and putting an edge in her hoarse voice to get his attention. “Are you trying to shatter both of my shoulders?”
She heard him exhale with care, but his grip began to loosen before her shoulders broke from his continuous pressure. “Give me a minute,” he answered at long last. She said nothing in response, and just closed her eyes. Leaning back against the Dragon, she listened to the out of rhythm beats of his hearts—all six of them.
A few minutes later, Nivaradros exhaled again and shifted his stance so it wasn’t akin to a statue. “You’ve burned yourself,” he murmured with a hint of resignation in his tone. “Let me see—” Picking up her arm with care, she heard Nivaradros cursing ancestors, magic, and her under his breath. “Let’s get this tended to. Is there anything else in the room you want to have a contest of wills with?” he asked in a tone that was a bit uneasy.
“I didn’t intentionally have a contest of wills with anything!” she snapped, but her throat was still raw from speaking Dragon—shouting it—and she began to cough.
“That has to be a first,” Nivaradros retorted, but he was relaxing, although it was taking some time to accomplish, and she could tell whatever he had heard no longer concerned or angered him as much as it had. “You have…the approval of my ancestors, or the pieces of them that are trapped within the crest,” Nivaradros breathed in possible awe. “They like your temper. Your humanity surprised them, but your immortality, your magic, and that temper made you very intriguing. I am no longer the failure to them that I was, but that will not last, of course.” At her raised brow he shook his head and sighed. “My family is a bit more…unique than most of the Dragons. We all added some of our essence to our family and personal crests. It is why you managed to get into the argument with it in the first place. Had I thought such a thing might occur, I wouldn’t have allowed you near it. I am trying to keep you alive, after all. I thought there might be an evaluation of you, but I never anticipated it would be as violent and verbal as it was. Most other remaining crests might have power, but there is no awareness to them, and therefore no danger. Then again, this is you we are discussing, perhaps I should have considered a higher reactivity to your presence.”
He led her to something that was a couch—with more flames, joy to the world—and set her down upon it. Glancing at her chest, he looked momentarily disheartened. “Just don’t pass out on me,” he muttered as he began to tend to the burn that covered half of her arm. His touch was light, careful, and nimble—he touched nothing that he didn’t have to—and soon he had most of the damaged flesh carved from her skin and was carefully binding up the rest from bandages he had evidently shoved into pockets she didn’t know he had. “We’ll tend to it better when we go back to your rooms. Please don’t touch anything else in here. The whole room appears to be ready to pass judgment on something I already knew.”
“Sorry,” she apologized as she leaned her head back on the couch. Thankfully the furniture didn’t feel like testing her or she might have lost her hair. Closing her eyes, she felt Nivaradros’s eyes on her and sighed. “Yes?”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. You’ve done more damage to me yourself after all, and many other things have tried to kill me; some have even succeeded. Really, Nivaradros, it was interesting. Don’t worry about it.”
“You nearly died both times,” was the Dragon’s dry reply. “I think that entitles me to worry some.” She felt something cool—a cloth—touch her forehead, and a minute after that something touched her lips. She couldn’t help it; she jerked away. “It’s just water, Z. Your vocal cords are not fond of Dragon.”
Or magic, she thought in grim humor as she sipped the water that was offered. Her eyes were still closed, and so her senses enjoyed the different flavors in the water. Copper was present within it, and she wondered if Nivaradros had discovered veins of copper in his home while carving. Given his moodiness, however, she didn’t ask. Instead she kept her peace and struggled to make sense of everything that had happened since she had entered this room.
“Why did you test me?” she whispered since speaking louder was a strain. Again, the lack of pain was both a blessing and a curse, she wanted to force her voice to work properly but knew that doing so would damage it later.
“Because I wanted to see how much you have changed. Your immortality still seems to be changing you subtly. What I witnessed revealed I was correct in my assumptions. You are in greater control of your reactions than you used to be. You made no effort to harm me.”
“Only because it is you,” she argued. “I trust you, Nivaradros, and very little will break that trust. I didn’t award it to you lightly, and although, right then, I had a small doubt regarding your intentions, it wasn’t enough to send me into an attack.”
“It’s still far better than you were when I…” Nivaradros’s tone trailed off.
“Died?” she finished with a shudder. Lifting her head, she opened her eyes to meet his before her gaze was caught by the tapestry of scars his chest had become. Grinding her teeth with anger over his scars, she shook herself and moved to stand.
The Dragon caught her hand and pulled her down before she managed it. “Z, I will return you to your room soon enough. I wanted you to see this, all of it.”
She had seen enough already, but she could tell the Dragon was both pleased with everything he had managed to construct in this room, and yet defensive and touchy at the same time. He wanted her approval, and she wondered if her immortality had changed him as well.
“It’s beautiful, Nivaradros,” she told him. Her eyes went back to the crest and she shook her head. “Why is your family’s creature a Sea Dragon?” she wanted to know. The creature swam the length of the crest, and its color was a teal flame against the blue-black. Dragons and Sea Dragons were not—as far as she could tell—related. They looked nothing alike—Sea Dragons were wingless, snake-like creatures with a head that resembled a cobra’s, including the hood, and a barbed tail—and the Sea
Dragon’s element was obviously not fire.
“Because many of my kin had the ability to control water at that time. It was unusual, so they chose the Sea Dragon to represent our so-called higher ability over the others of our kind.” His tone, however, told her he was not revealing the whole story. She did not push him. Plus, Nivaradros had to make his ancestors’ water magic look insignificant to what he controlled.
She raised her brow at him in surprise. “Anyone else able to command everything?”
Nivaradros snorted. “No, it therefore made it difficult to keep my abilities hidden. I didn’t, couldn’t, have someone to teach me the basics, so it was all trial and error. When I gained control of these lands, it became easier, and I ensured sure no one survived an attack so they could not speak of my talents. I would have been slain by a joint effort of all the kingdoms if my true abilities had been revealed; I was already feared enough.”
“The fear was deserved,” she pointed out as she glanced at the corner of the room that still held the part of him that was dangerous. The part of him that had been capable of killing anything and anyone he had decided to.
“That it was,” the Dragon agreed without a hint of guilt or regret over his actions, and oddly enough, that was a large comfort for her to hear. “But come, I believe you have exhausted yourself to the point that you are no longer registering anything in the room besides myself. I will carry you back to yours.”
“I am perfectly capable of walking there on my own, Nivaradros,” she snapped before giving in to a fit of coughing.
“When you can successfully stand on your own, I will believe it,” was his dry and amused reply. He lifted her before she could make the attempt, and she gave in before he had taken a step. When she was well, she wouldn’t put up with this, but for now the fact that she did trust him enough to allow him to carry her constantly—while she was unarmed—was such a surprise that she decided to enjoy it.
She felt like she blinked and found herself under the covers in her room. Nivaradros was watching her with concern though, so she wondered what she had done on the way back. Since it was her, she figured she had stopped breathing. Nivaradros pressed his lips together briefly, as though he was preventing himself from lecturing her, but when the moment passed, he instead began to unwrap the arm she had burned so he could reexamine it and possibly treat it more thoroughly. Fixing it with a black look that almost caused her to ask him if he intended to burn it further—she held on to those words and swallowed them before they managed to escape—he muttered something she couldn’t catch, which was impressive, and then turned his attention back to her.
“I will fetch the Mithane,” he said. “But I am uncertain as to how I should go about doing that, from a diplomatic stand. If Chevello—” and his eyes lightened with sympathy as she winced “—was still alive, I would request his presence, because I could tolerate him. But I am uncertain as to the Mithane’s new guards. They tend to beg to be eaten.” Since he could no longer accomplish that, it was less of a threat than it might have been, but Z knew Nivaradros was still capable of killing them. “But a request for him to come here, even to aid you, after his collapse when he helped you last time, is unlikely to be received well. And, as I am the Dragon known for killing his people and his Mithana, I am uncertain I would be allowed to ask this of him and, even if I was, I do not know if he would be amenable.”
“He will,” Z said without thinking. “When you sent me to see him, Nivaradros, he was pleased to learn of your survival.”
A black brow rose. “Was he now? Probably because he wants to kill me himself.” Nivaradros’s eyes let her know not even he believed that.
If there had been hostilities and unspoken business between the two of them, and there had been, it was now gone from both sides. Nivaradros appreciated the Mithane’s healing and seeing power while also seeming to tolerate his presence, and the Mithane seemed to be one of the few who not only accepted Nivaradros’s part in her life but actually approved of it. The past would always exist, but the Mithane appeared to be more than willing to overlook it.
Then again, the Mithane had seen what Nivaradros had managed to get her to accept and do—most of which no one else could have dreamed to accomplish—so it wasn’t as much as a shock as it could have been. Of course, Crilyne knew as much, if not more than, the Mithane, and he still hated the Dragon with a passion that would have been suicidal if he hadn’t been a Shade. Z was certain she would have to sit the Dragon and the Shade down one day soon and set up rules to keep them from fighting. Nivaradros had never forgiven—would never forgive—Crilyne for his disastrous attempt to try and turn her into a Shade, and Crilyne seemed determined to hold Nivaradros responsible for his past actions, never mind that more than eighty percent of them had happened before she had been born.
“I believe he considers himself indebted to you,” she answered after a pause as she debated how to answer. “After all, I tolerate his healings now. But it’s more than that, Nivaradros. You’ve managed to get further into my heart, if I can be said to have one, than even Nicklyn managed.”
“You have possibly too much heart at times,” Nivaradros remarked though it was clear his thoughts were elsewhere. He headed to the door. “I shall go to Istuion and see if I can be granted an audience with the Mithane. I doubt it, and depending on how many know I live again, we could have a problem, but I believe he needs to tend to that arm if you want to use it again. Rest if you can,” he added as the door opened for him to leave. “It might take me some time to return.” He was gone before she could caution him, and she found it hard to accept the silence the room took upon his departure.
And it shouldn’t have been this hard to accept. Cursing the being who had saved Nivaradros’s life and handed her this enormous problem. She felt his arrival and announced her knowledge by throwing a dagger. It lodged in his chest. His golden eyes didn’t even blink as he pulled the dagger free, and the liquid that the wound wept wasn’t a color any race—immortal or mortal—shed when wounded. If the absence of color could be described, his blood would have been its definition. It wasn’t clear, and it wasn’t white, but it was something. “You’re in a pleasant mood,” he observed as he placed her dagger on the nearest piece of furniture that was out of her reach. “If I didn’t know you as well as I did, I would say you were unhappy with the return of your Dragon.”
“He is not my Dragon!” she snarled, damaged vocal cords be damned.
“He is,” the being countered in a velvet tone. “And you are as much his as he is yours. It balances you out nicely,” he added. Something about his words almost brought her to a killing edge.
“You had no right to ask him to surrender his form,” she hissed as the anger she hid from the Dragon managed not only to rear its head but find a target.
Until he stole it from her. “There was no other way to save him, Zimliya. His native form is magic, and magic is what was required to save him. Had he chosen the other option I gave him, I would have been forced to take some of the magic of his form to heal him. He was dying—he did die, in fact—and that was the only way I could heal him. Would you have preferred to have lost him forever?”
No. Closing her eyes again, she sighed. “What do you want from me? You seem to be winning this so far. I now hold three kingdoms, unofficially.”
“Yes, well that seems to be the only chance this world—and therefore most of the others—have to survive. You need to be a power. There will be a fair amount of work ahead of you, but you’re ready for it. The Dragon will help balance you out as well.”
She decided to ignore that comment. “You owe me,” she breathed at long last. “And one day I will come to collect.”
He bowed to her. His smile was closed and darker than she had ever seen before. “Yes, I do,” he agreed. “And I fear the day you will come to collect is fast approaching. Not even I can see or decipher what the demanded fee for your aid will be, but I acknowledge—gladly—the debt I owe you. Saving Nivaradros d
oes not even pay it back by an eighth.” His eyes went to her chest and her shoulder, where the two arrows had come so close to killing her. “Do not let the Mithane attempt to heal those,” he warned.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” she told him with a frosty edge. “But he is the Mithane, and I only have so much influence over him.”
“You outrank him.”
“That is a theoretical stance to take,” she argued. “I have not yet accepted—publicly—those kingdoms, and therefore any status they would grant me is not yet mine.”
Her visitor inclined his head. “Stay alive, Zimliya,” he advised. “Midestol will do everything in his power now to kill you. He regrets the fact that he did not finish you while he had the chance. He is possibly now more dangerous than he was in the past because he knows who you are. He will seek to destroy you utterly on the battlefield, though he will always honor his agreement to be civil in meetings that are not battle related.”
“I am aware of where he stands,” she reminded him. “More importantly, I know where I do. But thank you for the warning.” She held his gaze and frowned. “You are no longer welcome in this room—or this lair without permission to enter every single time.” As she spoke the words she felt the wards in the mountain respond and her uninvited guest vanished.
Exhausted at the amount of magic she had been forced to undergo today—and because she was still recovering—Z closed her eyes at long last and took the Dragon’s orders seriously. She didn’t manage to sleep, her mind had resumed its rather frantic and unable-to-be-shut-up-and-turned-off skill, but she did manage to remain in the bed. It counted in her books as a win, since she recalled too many nights where even lying still hadn’t been a possibility.
She was still managing to be somewhat quiet when she heard the doors open and felt both the Mithane and Nivaradros enter. “She isn’t sleeping,” Nivaradros said as she felt the Mithane pause. “And even if she was, you are welcome here. I did warn her I was bringing you.”
