Dragon Emperor 6

by Eric Vall

  The two architects blinked in shock, and their mouths popped open.

  “Wait, the king spoke to you?” Raisa gasped as her brown eyes went wide. “When?”

  “You two haven’t talked to Nike, I assume?”

  “No?” Azra replied with a furrowed brow. “We’ve been out here all day. Why?”

  “King Rodion was here,” I replied simply and chuckled as the architects froze in place.

  “The king … ” Azra gulped as Raisa grabbed his arm. “The King of Rahma was here. In Hatra?”

  “Yeah,” I laughed, “but it wasn’t for too long. He just wanted to talk to Alyona and I for a bit.”

  “What did he say?” Raisa demanded as she clasped her hands beneath her chin. “About the city, I mean.”

  “He was impressed,” I admitted with a grin. “Really impressed, actually. He offered the two of you jobs in the capital.”

  Azra’s jaw dropped, and Raisa shook his arm that she was still clinging to.

  “Azra!” the crimson-haired woman screeched. “The king wants us to work in the capital!” Then she dropped her companion’s arm and spun in a tight circle. “This is what we have waited for!”

  “This is our chance,” Azra gasped as he stood there frozen. “We can make a name for ourselves, Raisa.”

  “We can design a new palace for the king,” Raisa squealed, and clapped her hands. “Can you imagine, us, designing a palace for the King of Rahma?”

  “It’s what we have always dreamed of,” Azra agreed breathlessly, “but we have to finish our work in Hatra first. Then we can look forward. For now, we must remain here and finish what we have started.”

  “Of course,” Raisa agreed as she nodded vigorously. “We would never leave any jobs unfinished. But once we are finished with Hatra, there are no other jobs we have to do. We are free to do what we’d like.”

  “Once Hatra is finished.” Azra nodded in agreement.

  “So, let’s get to work,” Raisa demanded. “We still have a lot to do.”

  “I can help,” I offered. “I want the city to be in the best shape possible when I leave.”

  “You can help us with the dryad sisters’ room,” Azra suggested. “You know them better than us, and the job shouldn’t take too long since we’ve already built the room. We just need to decorate and customize it to fit them. If we start now, we could be done within a few hours.”

  “Perfect.” I clapped my hands together. “Are the two of you ready to start now? I need to meet up with Alyona later for some research, but I’m free until then. We could get it out of the way so I will be able to show the sisters before I have to leave.”

  “I trust my men,” Azra commented with a nod, “they can handle this. The foundation for the new mill is much more secure this time around, so we shouldn’t have any weaknesses or issues with cave-ins.”

  “And my storage shed is practically finished now anyways.” Raisa shrugged. “My men can handle a few hours by themselves.”

  “Thank you.” I grinned at the two of them. “You’re the best.”

  “Oh, we know,” Raisa laughed, and her brown eyes glittered with glee. “Come on, then, we should get started.”

  Then Raisa spun on her heel and skipped away from the mill back toward the city, and Azra and I chuckled as we followed after her.

  As we walked toward the Lunar Palace, Raisa fell back to walk with us, but there was a skip in each of her steps.

  The way back to the palace was crowded with people, and each of them was busy with their own errands to run and jobs to do. Most of them barely gave us a second glance as we walked by, but the few who did notice us chirped out cheerful greetings or bowed toward me. When we finally stepped through the gates of the palace and into the grounds, Raisa and Azra fell in step with each other behind me and began to whisper about various ideas for the dryad sisters’ room and the palace.

  We quickly ascended the stone stairs and entered the palace, and I led us up more stairs, toward the bedrooms, and down the hall of doors. When we reached the end, I stopped and turned back to the architects.

  “Alright,” I began, “which room do you two think we should use?”

  “Hmm,” Azra hummed and tapped a finger against his chin before he walked past me and contained down the hall. He passed several doors, and then he finally stopped and nodded. “This one. If my memory is to be trusted, this room is the best one to give us the most sunlight and the most room.”

  “Alright, then,” I answered. “Let’s get started.”

  Raisa and I followed Azra into the room and quickly looked around. The room was a little smaller than the other rooms I’d designed for my women, but it was still spacious and well lit. Long, wide windows encircled the room entirely, and a large window sat above us in the ceiling. The room was bare of any furniture, but a small hole was cut out of one of the stone walls which led into the bathroom, and it was covered by a large oak door.

  “Good choice,” Raisa praised Azra, “this room is perfect.”

  The scarlet-haired architect walked deeper into the room and began to scribble more notes onto her piece of paper. Then she tucked the pencil she used behind her head and pulled out a measuring tape from one of the pockets of the pants she wore. Next, she waved Azra toward her and handed him one end of the tape, and they silently began to work with each other as they started to measure different areas of the room.

  I just stood back and let them do their thing, and I smiled as the architects muttered to and over each other.

  “Okay,” Raisa’s voice echoed through the empty room a few minutes later, and her hand ran across the stone wall in front of her. “Here we can build a shelf. And here,” she pointed toward a spot along the floor, “is where we can place the storage cupboard.”

  “I will be in charge of the shelves, I would assume?” I gave them a confident smirk.

  My stone magic had been very useful during the past few weeks. We only used wood on the furniture that couldn’t be carved from stone, like the beds or wardrobes.

  “If you don’t mind,” Azra responded. “We can have wooden shelves made if you’d rather?”

  “No, we don’t need to add anymore stress to the few carpenters we have,” I replied, “they have a lot to do already. Only give them things that I can’t make.”

  “Of course, Lord Evan.” Azra bowed his head. “As you wish.”

  “For the plants,” I quickly changed the subject, “we should talk to Moskal. He is an herbalist, so he should have a variety of seeds for us to use. I’m sure he’ll let us have whatever we’d like. We can ask Afra too, though she is mainly in charge of crops. I don’t know how many plants she’d have that could survive indoors besides a few herbs.”

  “We have an herbalist, too,” Azra reminded me. “We can ask if we can use some of her seeds as well. Some of the plants she has are only known to grow in Leyte, so the sisters might like one or two.”

  “Great idea.” I punched Azra on the arm, and he winced and rubbed his sore limb. Then I laughed before I shrugged my shoulders. “Alright, so we need a shelf right? How long do you want it?”

  Raisa drew two lines across the wall about ten feet apart before she nodded and measured more lines along the walls.

  “Just make each set of lines connect,” she ordered. “These will be used to hold plants, so make sure they are about two feet wide.”

  “Got it,” I answered and stepped forward.

  I looked between two of the lines Raisa had drawn and focused on my stone magic. A moment later, I could feel it react to my commands as it rushed through the wall in front of us. The stones in the wall began to shift around like a liquid before I began to pull and form the rock into a long, flat shelf that jutted out of the wall about seven feet from the ground. After a while, I could feel my magic begin to weaken, so I released my hold on the stone. The energy returned to my body and seemed to reabsorb into my spiritual sea, and I could feel sweat drip down my face as I stepped back to examine the long s
helf.

  “How’s that?” I panted out. I’d managed to create shelves along the room, and they looked pretty solid.

  “It looks great,” Raisa praised, but worry tinged her voice, “but we should be done for today. You need to rest.”

  I was prepared to argue, but I figured I should listen to her. I didn’t want to exhaust my magic right now, since I was so close to my campaign.

  “You’re right,” I agreed with a nod. “I should take it easy for a few days. I need to make sure I’m at full strength when I leave.”

  “You should go rest,” Azra echoed his fellow architect. “Raisa and I got this handled. We just need to figure out the decor from here.”

  “Thanks,” I sighed. “Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be in Alyona’s room. I still have to help her with some research.”

  “We will,” Azra promised as he began to follow Raisa around the room. “We will let you know when we need your help with the stairwell down into your room.”

  I offered them a small nod before I walked out the door and retraced my steps down the hall toward Alyona’s room, since I could hear her heartbeat thrumming steadily inside. Then I knocked loudly on the door a few times.

  “Come in,” Alyona’s muffled voice rang from inside the room.

  When I twisted the knob and slipped inside, Alyona sat at her desk with her feet pulled up beside her in the chair. Her white hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and her eyes were narrowed in focus as she stared down at her books in front of her. Several books were placed along the desk, and each of them was opened to random pages about dragons.

  Alyona’s gaze lifted from the words of the book she read for a moment, and she gave me a soft smile.

  “Hi,” she greeted. “I wish I had some better news for you, but I haven’t found out anything so far about dragon eggs.”

  “There has to be something here.” I glared down at the dozen or so books sprawled across the desk and along the floor. “Someone at some point had to know something about dragon eggs.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Alyona sighed. “Or else we will have to wait for thousands of years to meet your child.”

  I clenched my jaw at the thought. Alyona and Valerra would probably still be alive, since dragons had long life spans and Alyona’s father was one of the oldest beings in the world of Inati. Ravi could be alive as well, she had told me once that phoenixes were practically immortal as long as they burned themselves and rose from the ashes once a century or so. Laika and my parents, however, would no longer be with me by the time my egg finally hatched. I would have many other children by then, but I still wanted my adoptive parents to meet their first pure dragon grandchild.

  “We have to find something,” I muttered, and my scales crawled up my skin in unease. “Valerra said she knows for a fact that her older siblings were not thousands of years old when she hatched. There has to be something in here that explains how that happened.”

  Alyona reached out a slim hand and placed it on top of my own in a show of comfort.

  “We will find something,” she promised. “We will scour every single book in the library if we must until we figure out a solution. Don’t worry.”

  I squeezed her hand, and the scales along my arms retracted as I calmed down my emotions.

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “So, have you learned anything that could help us?”

  “Not really,” Alyona admitted with a wince, “but we can’t give up. I’ve only gone through two books so far and as you can see,” she waved her arms over the books around her, “we have plenty of more options.”

  I pulled a chair up next to her and settled in. Then I grab the first book I found, which was titled, ‘Dragons and Phoenixes: The Great Creations of the Sun God.’

  I snorted a laugh at the book before I flipped it open and began to read.

  Several hours and many books later, Alyona huffed in agitation as she tossed a book on the floor.

  “I can’t believe this,” she grumbled. “Why has no one ever done research on a dragon egg before?”

  I suddenly thought of Valerra and her intense mama bear attitude.

  “They probably couldn’t,” I replied with a frown. “Dragons are very protective of their young, I doubt they ever allowed humans near their eggs.”

  Alyona sighed, pulled out another book, and quietly began to read, but the agitated crease in her forehead remained.

  I tossed the book I was skimming to the floor as well before my eyes drifted to a familiar spine along the desk. The bestiary. I quickly grabbed the book and flipped through the pages until I came across a drawing of a dragon. Then I read down the first few paragraphs before I finally found something.

  It is said that dragons were created by the Sun God in a contest given to him by the Moon Goddess. He was to create a life that would never die, and with clay and fire of the sun, he created a dragon. Though the beast eventually decayed back to the clay that formed it and thus the Sun God failed with this creation, he was so impressed with the creature that he created two more: a male and a female. The two dragons soon laid an egg and from that egg a hatchling was born. The stories say the first dragon egg hatched in three moon cycles, and the baby dragon emerged under the fire of the sun.

  “Hey, Alyona,” I handed the book to her, “I think I found something.”

  She read quietly for a few seconds before she snapped her head up with a look of excitement on her face.

  “Three moon cycles,” she breathed with wide eyes. “Your egg could hatch in three months, Evan!”

  “That’s what the myth of the first dragon said,” I reminded her. “It also said it was ‘hatched under the fire of the sun.’”

  “Maybe that just means it was hatched during the day,” Alyona suggested. “It could have hatched at noon, when the sun is at its hottest.”

  “Maybe,” I replied, but I was unsure. “So, in three months all I have to do is place the egg outside at noon, and it will hatch? That doesn’t make any sense. I’m sure Valerra’s sister’s egg was under the sun at noon at some point in her three thousand years.”

  “Maybe it’s a riddle?” Alyona offered. “It could be a puzzle of sorts that we have to figure out. There could be more information somewhere in these books.”

  “We need answers,” I sighed, but nodded as I accepted a book Alyona handed me, “and we need them before we leave. I don’t want to leave Valerra behind clueless on what to do.”

  Alyona nodded and gave me a soft smile. Then she turned her attention to her book with purpose and used a finger to keep track of her place within the words.

  After a few more books and more time, Alyona gasped and sat up.

  “Evan, look!” She passed me the book and pointed to a paragraph on the left page. “Read here.”

  I looked down at the passage she indicated.

  Dragon eggs have long been a mystery to humans. It seems that while some eggs hatch after a year or more, some eggs can incubate for an indefinite period of time. It is thought that eggs will know when it is safe to hatch, and some dragon hatchlings will refuse to hatch until all their needs are met. The longest known incubation time for an egg has been five thousand years and counting. The mother of said egg was willing to allow human mages to examine the egg for signs of life, and they were happy to report the egg is fine.*

  The shortest egg on record is one year and three days. The egg hatched while his mother and father stood guard in their cave. A fire burned near the egg at all times during incubation, and the flames are thought to help speed up his hatching process.

  My eyes trailed to the bottom of the page where a note had been added.

  *Said egg has finally hatched after five thousand years, four hundred and thirteen days. The hatchling was no different from any other newly hatched dragon infant, even though it had a very extended incubation. The mother passed away due to an unknown illness, though, a year before the egg hatched. The egg was moved to a new home, with her uncle and his mate.
Rumors of the mother spread around the city where the dragons dwell, and it seems like she was a cruel and ruthless monster. The egg may have felt unsafe with its own mother and refused to hatch until it was free from her.

  I reread the words a few times before I passed the book back to Alyona.

  “So, outside influences can alter the incubation time of an egg,” I quoted in surprise.

  “It seems like it,” she agreed with a nod. “I wonder if that’s what happened to Valerra’s sister’s egg. The trauma of Valerra’s family being slaughtered has triggered the fetus into stasis. Until it knows it won’t be harmed, I don’t think it will hatch.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  So, what did this mean for my egg? Would I have to wait thousands of years to meet my child?

  Fuck that. If the egg needed to feel safe in order to hatch, then I would do everything in my power to make this happen.

  Even if I had to burn every evil bastard in Inati to ash.

  Chapter 7

  Alyona and I searched through the books for a few more hours, but we didn’t find anything else related to dragon eggs. We finally gave up the search, retired to bed, and cuddled together since we were too tired to do much else.

  When I woke, the sun shone down on my face, and I groaned and rolled over.

  Alyona shifted next to me before she let out a few tiny yawns and sat up.

  With a purr, I joined her and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

  “Good morning,” she replied with a smile.

  “Morning.” I stifled a yawn and swung my legs out of bed. Then I stretched my arms up over my head and let out a groan as my joints popped.

  Alyona delicately pulled the blankets off her and stood from the bed as well. Her nightgown was crumpled in places, and several strands of her hair had fallen from her ponytail during the night.

  “I have plans to meet up with Laika to return some of the books to the library,” Alyona announced. “I’ll see if I can find more books that I missed about dragons while I’m down there.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement. “I’ll need to go help Valerra move her hoard over today, so I probably won’t be available for a few hours. If you need me for anything, send a message.”