by Jodi Meadows
Chenda stood in the doorway when I arrived, holding out LaLa’s tether for me. I took the worn leather—and LaLa—and stroked my little dragon’s head. Together again.
“Where is Gerel?” Worry twisted Chenda’s words into a sharp knot. “Is she hurt?”
“I’m not sure. We were separated during the stampede. What about—”
I didn’t have to finish the question. Hristo pushed past her, into the hall, and took in my torn dress, the bitter stench of explosives clinging to my hair and clothes, and the shortness of my breath.
“I should have gone to look for you.” With his good hand, he took my arm to steady me. Beyond him, Ilina watched us from the parlor, relief clear on her face. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said, pulling LaLa closer to me. “It’s good you came back here. We’d never have found each other out there.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t press.
“We have to go find Gerel,” I said. “I just came up here to get one of you.”
Hope lit Chenda’s eyes, but Hristo was already guiding me into the suite. “Not like this. Rest for a minute and give her time to get here. If she isn’t back in half an hour, I’ll look for her.”
“But—”
“No.” He spoke firmly. “Give her half an hour. This is Gerel. If anyone can handle themselves out there, it’s her.”
Exactly. And if she wasn’t back yet, then something had clearly happened.
But there was no use arguing with Hristo when he was acting as my protector, and for ten years I’d been told to obey Hristo in emergencies. It was hard to ignore that kind of training. “Ten minutes.” My knees buckled as I walked. Not much, but Hristo’s grip on my arm tightened, and LaLa squawked with renewed concern. “Ten minutes,” I said, “and then I’m looking for her, with or without you.”
He sighed but nodded. “Fine. Sit, though. Before you fall.”
Chenda flashed me a tight smile as she shut the door after us, but she didn’t move far from it.
I sank into one of the cushioned chairs and focused on breathing. Knots loosened. My heartbeat eased. When Ilina knelt beside me with my bottle of calming pills, I shook my head. “I’m all right now. It’s passed.”
She squeezed my arm, then went back to her own chair, where she’d fastened Crystal’s tether. The dragons must have been terrified by the noise if Ilina had put their hunting gear on them, but it was probably the best choice.
Zara stood by the window, holding the gauzy curtains closed. She’d been looking outside again, most likely, even though she knew how dangerous it was. But I couldn’t be mad at her, not knowing how relieved she’d be to learn that Mother had arrived on one of those ships and that she wasn’t completely alone after all.
“What?” Zara wrinkled her nose at me. “Why are you staring like that?”
I breathed deeply, letting the fuzz of adrenaline slip away. Quickly, I told the others about the noorestones, the ships, and the government officials marching down the street. “And then I saw her.” I looked at Zara. “I saw Mother.”
My sister’s jaw dropped, and a second later, she sat on the floor. Hard. “You saw Mother.”
I nodded.
“Liar,” she whispered.
“I’m not lying.”
“Mira, are you sure?” Chenda’s tone was gentle. “You said everyone was far away. Maybe you only thought you saw her.”
“Did you see Father?” Zara’s eyes were wide, eager. “Was he with her?”
“What about my father?” Hope deepened Hristo’s voice.
I shook my head. “I know it was her. I’d know her anywhere.” I looked at my sister, then Hristo. “But she was alone. I’m sorry.”
His eyes went glassy with tears, but he just swallowed and gave a single nod. Both of us knew that our fathers’ absence meant they were likely dead.
“Mother is here.” Zara pulled her knees up to her chest. Tears trickled down her cheeks, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. “How do you think she ended up on that ship? Do you think the warriors let her go because of her charm? Do you think the high magistrate went to save her? Do you think the explosions were meant to hurt her?”
“I don’t know.”
“When are we going to get her?”
“I don’t know,” I said again. “She’s with High Magistrate Paorah.”
“Did you even try to get to her?” Zara scrambled to her feet. “Did you even want to get her? All the gods! You care about everyone else more than you care about Mother and me.”
“That’s not true.” But my protest was too slow. Too late. Before I could say anything else, she’d stormed through the door to the room she and I shared.
Slam. She let out a muffled scream, and something crashed, but then the washroom door slammed, too.
I started after my sister, but Ilina took my elbow and pulled me back. “She’ll come around when she’s ready.”
My sister hated me. She would never come around.
“What’s happening out there?” Altan’s bellow came from his closet in the boys’ room. “What were those explosions?”
“He’s been yelling for an hour.” Chenda glanced at the door. “Just ignore him.”
That was what we usually did.
I dropped my face to LaLa’s and breathed in her smoky scent.
“Let’s find Gerel,” Chenda said. “I’ll get the medical kit. She might be hurt.”
I stood, looking for a place to fasten LaLa’s tether; she would not be coming with us. “I’ll see if Aaru can listen for her.” It seemed unlikely, since he’d barely moved for five days, but maybe he could hear her and give us a direction, or—
Thuds sounded on the stairs, coming all the way up to the third floor. My heart wrenched up into my throat as Chenda rushed for the door and threw it open just as Gerel reached the top of the stairs, her face dark with unease. Dust coated her clothes and skin, but she was whole.
“Gerel!” Relief soared through me. Thank all the gods she’d made it back. “We were just coming to look for you.”
“No need.” She glanced through the room, making sure everyone was accounted for—although Aaru was still in his room, Zara was in hers, and Altan was locked inside a closet. “Everyone’s safe?” she asked.
“Yes, we’re fine.” More or less. I turned my chair—now with soot smears marring the cream fabric—so that she could rest, but she waved it away.
“What about you?” Chenda took Gerel’s hand. “You’re all right? Not hurt?”
Gerel scoffed and lifted her chin, as though to say she was above getting hurt. But she squeezed Chenda’s hand nonetheless. “I’m fine. Sorry to worry you.” Those last words were for Chenda, mostly. To the rest of us, she said, “I took a detour to find out what happened.”
“You left Mira alone,” Hristo said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Trust her a little more, will you? I knew she’d come straight back here. No one was looking for her out there. They were all too busy trying to get themselves to safety.”
“I was all right.” I touched Hristo’s arm. “I was more worried for Gerel than myself.”
“You’re always more worried for other people.” Hristo looked down at me. “That’s why I worry.”
I couldn’t make myself smile, because Gerel’s expression turned grim.
“People were killed in the explosions,” she said. “And others were injured during the panic after. I don’t know how many, but I know it’s bad out there. People are terrified.”
Of course they were. They should be. Back in Crescent Prominence, Altan’s warriors had caused a massive explosion that had taken out the council house, and my noorestone power had almost destroyed the Lexara Theater in Val fa Merce. How could people have known whether this one was connected to the others or not?
“Everyone thinks High Magistrate Paorah will put the entire city under martial law.” A muscle ticced in Gerel’s jaw. “Curfew, c
heckpoints, and limited movements. The last time they were under martial law, people were discouraged from leaving their homes except in emergencies, and even then a guard might detain them for looking suspicious.”
A chill ran through my entire body.
“What do we do?” Ilina blew out a breath. “What can we do?”
“Did you have any luck finding Nine?” Gerel asked.
“No.” Hristo frowned and readjusted his sling. “Nothing. Nine is so well hidden they may as well not exist. And it’s going to be even more difficult to find them with martial law.”
The high magistrate was in control now, not just of Anahera, but of all the remaining governments of the Fallen Isles. “He brought them here for a reason,” I muttered. “For hope, he claims. Everyone thinks he’s going to do something to prevent the Great Abandonment.”
“How?” Chenda shook her head. “The gods are already rising. Is it possible to make them stop? Is it possible to make them lie down again?”
“I don’t know.” A memory tugged at me. Or a dream. Fire and bones brimming with power. I shook it away, even as LaLa nudged at me with keen excitement. “If he brought all the other governments here, he has a plan to share with them. We need to be there, both to hear firsthand what he tells them, and to find Nine.” Not to mention, my mother would be there. She was alive.
“Because an imperial spy wouldn’t miss that kind of meeting for anything.” Ilina nodded. “All right. Then we need to figure out when they’re talking, and how we’ll get in.”
“That’s the easy part, isn’t it?”
Everyone looked at me, question in their eyes.
“I’m the Hopebearer. I’ll announce myself and walk in through the front door.”
THE DRAKONTOS CELESTUS
SOMEWHERE—
Sometime—
In a deep and distant memory—
Great bones slept beneath the earth.
The anatomy was unusual, at least to anyone who’d studied dragons before. The shape of the scapula, the length of the ulna, and the curve of the keel: all were different from any other dragon on record. Indeed, in a certain light, these bones even seemed to have iridescent scales.
Such a strange dragon, locked away in the crust of the earth, buried under layers of mineral-rich strata. She didn’t belong there. Her place was somewhere else, in a land made of fallen stars and undeniable gods.
But across time and distance and death, the first dragon reached.
“BRING ME HOME.”
CHAPTER THREE
“DEFINITELY NOT.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Why would you even suggest that?”
I waited until their comments were finished before I said, “It’s the most straightforward plan.”
“It’s the worst plan,” Gerel muttered. “You’ve been hiding your identity for decans. Why expose yourself now?”
“We want to find Nine, don’t we?”
“Not at the expense of your safety,” Hristo said.
I smiled a little. “We were running from Altan. Now he’s locked in the closet. Anyway, I don’t think my identity is as secret as we thought. Tanhe knows who I am.”
“What?” Ilina’s mouth dropped open. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
“We’ve been using the papers we bought in Val fa Merce.” Chenda crossed her arms, and she had the look of someone already composing a letter of complaint.
I perched on the arm of the sofa and sighed, pulling LaLa toward my shoulder. She started licking my face, as though to wash off the stink of explosions. “He didn’t outright say anything, but it seemed like he was hinting that he knew.”
“Then we can’t be sure,” Chenda said.
“I can get answers.” Gerel’s tone was dark.
I held up a hand. “No, it’s all right. He clearly understands that we’re trying to keep our identities secret. We used false papers, and he said it’s important to protect his guests. It shouldn’t be a surprise, though. Zara looks similar enough to me. And my scar doesn’t make me look like a different person.”
“And we paid with dragon figurines.” Ilina dragged her hands down her face. “That was stupid.”
In addition to Captain Pentoba’s influence (she knew everyone in every port, and they all seemed to owe her favors), we’d given him a few of the dragon figurines I’d brought from my home in Crescent Prominence. They were worth a small fortune, as some had real gemstones embedded in them, while others were made of precious metals. They were exquisitely detailed, crafted with care, and on Anahera, they were worth thousands of lumes.
“I agree with Feisty,” Gerel said. “It was a poor move on our part, but we were in shock after the earthquake.”
We were still in shock.
“Which is why we need to think about this,” she went on. “Mira, regardless of Altan’s whereabouts, you were still a prisoner in the Pit. We were all prisoners there. Exposing yourself puts everyone at risk.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. “You’re right. But if we want to make a difference in the world, we have to take risks. We can’t put our own safety above the survival of the Fallen Isles, and Nine might know how to help us.”
“How so?” Gerel leveled her scowl at me.
I couldn’t answer that without sounding crazy, but I knew that finding Nine was the first step. I dreamed of dragon bones and eclipses every night, and even if my human self couldn’t put together all the clues—not yet—this dragon side knew something important.
LaLa clicked urgently and thumped her nose against my jaw. She knew, too: we had to find Nine to find the bones.
“If we knew there was a way to prevent the Great Abandonment from progressing, I’d agree with you.” Chenda’s tone was gentle. “But we must consider our own safety.”
“No one else has to go,” I said. “We can take measures to protect everyone, but sooner or later, someone—not just Tanhe—is going to recognize me and ask questions. I’d rather do this on my terms.”
The others were quiet a moment, and finally Ilina nodded. “All right. We’ll find out when the meetings will be.”
Hristo just sighed, but he didn’t fight me again.
“One problem.” Chenda studied my face. “There’s a false Hopebearer somewhere out there.”
Tirta. When I’d refused to follow their orders, the Luminary Council dressed her up as me. And people had believed the charade.
“Then we find her,” I said. “We’ll put her in a closet, too.”
“Our closets are getting awfully crowded.” But Gerel smiled a little, clearly pleased to have a task. Without waiting for anyone, she marched into the boys’ room and threw open the closet door where we’d been keeping Altan.
The rank odor of unwashed warrior filled the room.
Ilina made a faint retching noise. “Don’t you let him bathe?”
Hristo shrugged. “We let him out to relieve himself, but this is a desert. The sign in the washroom says not to waste water.”
“Consider this a necessity,” she said. “Tanhe is going to kill us when he finds out we’ve been keeping dragons here, and a stinking warrior.”
I followed behind the others, while Ilina and Hristo talked, and Gerel pulled the gag off Altan.
Aaru was sitting on his bed, motionless, same as he’d been since we’d arrived. As far as I knew, he got up to use the washroom and bathe, and sometimes the food we left for him disappeared, but he was losing weight. His skin, once a warm brown, deeper after all the sunshine, had a gray cast to it now. I sat next to him every day, just being present, but I could never tell if it made a difference.
“Fancy.” Gerel glanced over her shoulder. “Your turn.”
I passed LaLa to Chenda, then squeezed around Ilina and Hristo to stand next to Gerel. She had a hand resting on her knife, but she didn’t draw it. Not yet. Altan’s wrists were cuffed behind his back, and the burn scabs on his face were freshly bandaged; they’d come open during the f
ight in the ruins and begun oozing something foul. Still, somehow, he stood inside the closet as though he was the one in charge.
“Hello, Hopebearer.” He grinned. The reek of his breath was almost unbearable.
I didn’t waste time with niceties. “Where are Tirta and Elbena?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you? You can have them when I get what I want.”
“You’re not one of us,” I hissed. “You don’t get to know the things we know. You are a prisoner.”
His shoulders lifted slightly in a faint shrug. “Very well. Then I suppose you’ll just never know where I’ve put them.”
Fury blackened the edges of my vision. “You will tell me,” I breathed. “You will tell me now.”
“Will you torture me, Hopebearer?”
No, I wouldn’t. He knew I wouldn’t. I wasn’t like him. I wouldn’t hurt people to get what I wanted. But maybe I could give him an incentive. “What about a bath?”
“I’m not interested in you like that,” he said. “But it’s thoughtful of you to offer.”
Gerel drew her knife halfway from its sheath. “Watch your tone.”
“Tell me where they are,” I said, “and you’ll have a nice half hour to bathe. The hotel has a lovely jasmine-and-honey soap you might consider using. We’ll even make sure your closet is aired and cleaned.”
He lifted his shoulders and sniffed. “I don’t mind a little bit of filth. All I want is to know everything you know.”
I sighed, regretting it instantly. We all knew he was getting a bath no matter what.
“High Magistrate Paorah has gathered up all the remaining island governments. Since your warriors killed the rest of the Luminary Council, the high magistrate will be searching for Elbena. It wouldn’t hurt him to have Tirta, either, since she’s pretending to be me.”
If there was anything redeeming about Altan, beyond his devotion to dragons, it was that he was smart. He put things together. He knew what I wasn’t saying, even if he didn’t understand that Anahera was behind the Mira Treaty, not the Algotti Empire like he believed.
“You don’t trust the high magistrate.”
