“I’m happy, too,” I said. I circled my arms around his neck and placed a kiss on his cheek.
“So give Bianca a chance.”
Immediately, my stomach sank. “What?”
“Your sister is trying. She’s trying really hard. It’s obvious to anyone. Don’t let your past ruin you.”
“Is she getting to you, too?”
“You’re the one she wants to get to. Familial relations are important, especially if your family isn’t a huge twat. You both can support each other. If you let the hatred simmer, it might fester and grow, until you’re left with nothing but regret.”
“Why’d you have to bring this up?” I sighed. “We were enjoying a wonderful moment underneath a starry sky.”
“Because I want you to be happy, Sera,” Micah said. “I can see your pain and I want your wounds to heal.”
“You being here is enough.”
He grinned. “Think about it. You don’t have to open your heart so quickly. There is the expedition to take our attentions away. My father will not be pleased to hear us going against his word tomorrow. Rylan still wishes to search through Gaia more, just to make sure that there really isn’t anything for us to find.”
“Do you have feelings for Bianca?”
Abruptly, he laughed. “That is ridiculous. You’re worrying over the wrong thing.”
He pressed his mouth on mine once more. We kissed and kissed, until Micah made it clear his heart belonged to me and just me.
Silence joined us after, but it was no longer as comforting as it had been just moments ago.
I wasn’t jealous of Bianca for wanting to take away my princes. It was my past, swarming in my thoughts, making it difficult for me to forgive. Right then, when I saw it, it was impossible to ignore the ugliness in my heart.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I am right,” Gisiroth said with a bored look. “And yet you fools refuse to listen to me.”
Our entourage stood on a sharp cliff overlooking the setting sun. The sun and moon still worked perfectly fine here in Gaia, but everything else did not. We spent the last few days searching the new frontier. We found multiple ruins, all made with dragon stone like Dragon Keep. I assumed from my geographical knowledge that most of the structures built by men had been weathered away by natural processes centuries ago.
The landscape wasn’t all dry grass. Some of it seeped into gray sand or arid drylands. The environments always shared one trait—emptiness. We gave up searching for humans. We were happy to settle for crops, animals, or even inedible plants with potential to contribute to an ecosystem.
Nothing.
Dragons flew quickly, so we covered most of Gaia. We tried to use ancient maps from Beyestirya to juxtapose it to where we traveled, but the continent had changed too vastly for us to make any sense of them.
It was time to go home. Gisiroth was right. There was nothing left for us here.
At least we weren’t going back empty-handed. We took the old king back with us. I imagined the uproar this would bring. Both councils were going to get thrown into chaos, and then there was the whole issue of who was going to be the reigning monarch. Rylan told me it’d be regrettable, but he wouldn’t mind stepping down for his father, if only to spend more time with me.
Bringing Gisiroth back seemed more like trouble than a solution. But what else were we to do? Leave the king here in this decrepit land?
I wondered how he managed to survive this long in the first place. There was nothing to eat. We tested the dry grass, and it had no value or sustenance.
“We wasted a whole week to find absolutely nothing,” Gisiroth said. “I told you all. I have the answers.”
“And yet you refuse to tell us what we should do when we head back to Constanria,” Rylan said. He clenched his jaw.
Gisiroth smirked. “If I give you everything, you might just leave me behind.”
Gaius scowled. “You’re our father. Why would we?”
“Familial relations can be unpredictable.”
I exchanged a shifty glance with Bianca. I hadn’t spoken to her since our last confrontation. Should I apologize? But what had I really done to her besides be a little rude? I saved her from a life of hardship by inviting her to the palace, didn’t I?
The ingorias stalked behind me, no longer showing signs of aggression to Bianca. I was thankful; their constant fighting was getting tedious.
The servants took out our remaining hoard of soul beads and splayed them out on the ground so we could chant out the spell again.
“If this doesn’t work,” Kael said in a jesting tune, “we’re all going to die.”
“Brings up the timeline a bit,” I replied dryly.
Repeating the spell was both easier and harder this second time. Easier because I’d said the words before and knew them better, tougher because I knew we were going back with far less riches than I’d imagined.
The words left our lips in the same, layered manner. I got the same sensation of panic I did the first time when the spell took too long to kick in. But it worked, just as we had expected and practiced, and the portal opened in front of us.
The winds of Gaia played a cold, whistling tune, masking the hum of the portal when it was ready.
“Back to Constanria,” Rylan said, sliding his arm around my waist.
Gisiroth was the first to jump through the portal to return. I figured he’d be eager since he hadn’t seen his home in at least a year. He’d always been a man of mystery, but not as the enigma he portrayed now. One would think him almost as flamboyant as Kael, and I recalled the way the old king had chided his son for not taking things seriously enough.
I watched Gisiroth as he faded through the bright glow of magic to reach the other side. The brightness swallowed him whole.
And then I saw his face.
A sly smile sliced across it, thin as edged glass, and for some unspeakable reason, it made my blood run cold.
Chapter Twenty-Two
At first glance, Gaean’s pit in comparison to Constanria seemed just as empty with its stark, jagged walls and gray slabs of rock. The spell led us back to the spot where we had left. Another eagle cawed in the distance—the eagles around here really had nothing better to do—and I hadn’t realized how much I missed life until then.
A group of people, smaller than when we departed, waited at the top of the cliffs. Most were servants to check up on us. Some were reporters eager to get the latest news on the king. A few younger men immediately summoned their wings and flew off, eager to be the first to spread the news of Gisiroth the moment they glanced at him.
Gisiroth placed his hands on his hips and sucked in a deep breath. “Ah, the smell of sweet Ayesrial.”
Ayesrial? Nobody had called the Drae Lands by that name in thousands of years. It was the name of the continent during the reign of the Dragon Mother, when horrors abounded and people lived in a constant state of misery.
Gisiroth spread his wings from his back. They were white, but not as I remembered them. An opalescent glint shone when its leathery surface caught the sun.
“Are you sure that’s Gisiroth?” I asked Rylan.
Rylan crinkled his brow. “Who else would he be?”
“He’s nothing like your father.”
“Nonsense. He looks just like him.”
“Looks. And he’s missing the tattoos. What if bringing him back was a mistake?”
“We couldn’t have left him behind.”
The portal continued to glow and swirl, and the rest of our expedition members slipped through.
Gisiroth turned around and waved. “You lot are miserably slow.”
“Will you tell us how to save Sera now?” Rylan said, projecting his voice loudly.
“Is this a way to welcome your father? Let me wine and dine first.” He cackled and took to the skies, surging upward quicker than I’d ever seen any dragon-kind fly.
I thought we might lose him, but when I slipped off Rylan’s back and landed
in front of the massive audience awaiting us at the front of the palace, he was there, accepting his warm welcome.
People cheered and clapped, happy to receive their old king.
“They almost look relieved,” Gaius muttered.
“Do they?” Rylan said darkly. “I must have been a terrible king.”
“No,” Micah added, sighing, “just an unpopular one.”
The crowd parted, and Miriel Everborne, Gisiroth’s wife, waded through it. Disbelief was written all over her face when she reached her hand to cup her husband’s cheek. He kissed her and lifted a hand, greeting his people.
Members from both councils, palace staff, even the children some officials brought along and into the palace, erupted into loud cheers. One woman even broke into tears and almost fainted. Their cries were so deafening, I stepped back and bumped into Rylan.
“Can you believe it?” Frederick asked.
“No,” I replied. I had trouble believing anything these days. Everything around me boiled in endless chaos. After a while, it was easier to let things be and stop trying to decide what to trust or hate or think.
Frederick pointed to his chest. “Me! I am the head of the Council of Intelligence.”
We sat Frederick’s new office. It was the same one Tindyll had. I recalled the way she’d given me my letter of resignation here, and how devastating it had been. I’d been pining for this room for a long time, but now that Frederick had it, I realized how happy I was for him.
I smiled. “It’s a little bit surreal.”
Frederick slumped into his new, big, comfy chair. He picked up a quill and tapped it on a paper, marring the paper with a few scratches of almost-dried ink. “I can’t believe it. Remember that time when you and Mei were vying over this seat? And now I’m in it.” His jaw dropped. “Instead of you!”
I rolled my eyes, keeping the smile on my face despite Frederick’s bluntness. “We need someone trustworthy in the position, and even though Mei is secretary, you’re both qualified and trustworthy.” Rylan had considered Gaius, but Gaius declined the position. Gaius didn’t like dealing with politics and preferred being an advisor.
“My brother isn’t going to stop yapping about this.” Frederick turned a questioning gaze to me, looking at me from under his ginger hair. “And how am I qualified again? I must be the laziest person you know.”
Actually, that would be Kael. Or maybe my ingorias.
I pressed my jaw with my index finger in thought. “You get contented easily but I wouldn’t call that lazy. You put in the effort. You spent an entire year leading not one but two teams in the Agriculture Department, and with food being this scarce, the department is by far the busiest. Despite that, you handled it brilliantly.”
Frederick gleamed. I knew he still wasn’t sure about the position and needed a pat on the shoulder, plus a little nudge to push him to greater heights. He learned fast. I was glad my friend was climbing up the ranks. I wanted to be there to support him.
“I can set rules! I can make people listen.” Frederick tapped his chin. “I can force the scholars to fulfill a daily quota of vegetable puns. Their friends could mark—”
“No,” I said.
“It would be a-maize-ing.”
“No,” I said again, laughing. “You’re supposed to lead people, not make them fumble over silly things.”
“Silly is a way of life.”
I screwed my nose up. This was why Kael and Frederick got along so well. Their nonsense bounced back and forth and grew into happiness. I pushed myself off from my seat. I didn’t have much time to accompany Frederick, even though time spent with him could be almost as enjoyable as time with the princes. “All right, silly, I have to go check with Rylan about Gisiroth’s announcement tomorrow. He’s officially stepping down from his position to pass it to Rylan.”
“He really doesn’t want to rule anymore? I don’t think the people are happy about that.”
“He says it’s troublesome.”
Frederick screwed his brows together. “That doesn’t sound like the king.”
“No, it does not.” I gripped my wrist. “There’s something weird about him. It’s like he’s someone else in Gisiroth’s skin, and now I’m starting to think that we shouldn’t have brought him back here. It might have to do with Aereala’s warning.”
“But he said he’d tell you about your curse and how to fix it.” Frederick ran his quill over his chin in thought. He’d forgotten he was using the inky bit and stained his ginger stubble.
I hoped his slightly unkempt persona didn’t make the council members disrespect him. “That was what he said in Gaia, but so far, nothing. He’s been asking us to be patient, and he’s being awfully questionable about it. First, he said he wanted to get to know his queen better. Then he said Constanria has different air, which gives him lightheadedness, so we should give him more space before he tells us what we need to know. I feel like he’s just playing with us.”
“He seems friendlier.”
“More annoying,” I replied. “He keeps dancing around the truth.”
And our next meeting with him was to wring more information from him.
He was our last resort, which didn’t settle well with me. A year ago, he was my enemy. Anatolia’s vision had sentenced me to death, and now I counted on a man I didn’t trust to throw me a lifeline.
The sinking sensation in my stomach threatened to make me sick, but at least Frederick had a comfy seat now.
“He’s acting strangely,” Rylan told me as we walked toward Gisiroth’s new room. We strode through the glistening corridors of the palace. Gisiroth’s lodgings was right below our rooms, on the second floor of the main building.
“We’ve known this for days,” I said. “I think we’ve established that already.” I was becoming increasingly eager to hear what Gisiroth had to say about my curse. What had he found out in Gaia? What if he knew how to completely rid me of my inability to touch people? I placed hope in him, but the strange way he acted didn’t give me much confidence.
Rylan sighed. “I thought it might be the air in Gaia. Perhaps being in the human realm for so long made him lose his mind. I keep asking him how he got there, but he keeps giving me answers that make no sense.”
“The air?” It seemed like pretty normal air to me.
“He might be full of it.”
I grinned. “Aren’t you afraid your father might hear you say that?”
“I’m not afraid of him.” Rylan shook his head. “I wish I could be. Gisiroth used to be an imposing figure. Now, he’s just off.”
Gaius, Kael, and Micah stood outside the door, waiting for us. Kael’s expression lit up the moment he saw me, and a cheeky canine poked from beneath his upper lip. He raised a hand and grinned widely.
Rylan pushed the door open and as he did, an angry shrieking sound startled me.
It was Queen Miriel. She ran out of the room, eyes and cheeks wet with tears.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen her this distraught. Her skin was flushed with anger. Furiously, she pointed at the door and shook a finger. “Your father . . . He’s lost his mind!”
“Is this about him not wanting to share your bed?” Gaius asked.
Miriel huffed and stared daggers at her son. “It’s worse than that. It’s not that petty detail that worries me. Try and talk some sense into him and figure out what exactly made him this way. I feel like I’ve still lost my husband even though he’s back.”
We shared confused looks and stepped into Gisiroth’s new chambers. Miriel shoved past us. What exactly made her this livid?
Rylan had given Gisiroth a huge bed—almost as large as the one we all shared. The balcony was open and bright light streamed through it, reflecting off the shimmery trimmings of Gisiroth’s bedsheets. Where was the old king? The room was neatly furnished with the usual—false golden flowers and silver candelabras. But despite the rich decorations, the place looked like a sty, with torn curtains and sheets strewn all across th
e ground.
Gisiroth sat in front of the dresser.
And he was . . . braiding his hair? “You boys don’t have to be sneaky about it. Coming in and saying ‘hi’ to your father shouldn’t be treated like a procession. What is this, a preparation for a morbid march?”
Had he known they were waiting outside?
“You were always one for propriety,” Micah said, showing confusion.
“Why are you braiding your hair, Father?” Gaius asked. Come to think of it, Rylan had his braided often, but I’d never seen Gisiroth in a hairstyle different from the straight one he usually wore.
“It was getting a little stale,” Gisiroth replied. “I can’t believe I stuck with this same hair for so long. I want to dye it a different color. How about pink? Or purple? How about a rainbow array of colors?”
“Pink?” Kael asked. “What’s wrong with white?”
“It’s boring. Just like everything in the world today.”
Kael scrunched up his features. He tipped an edged jaw at Gisiroth and pulled his arms around his chest, obviously not agreeing with his father.
Gisiroth chuckled and turned toward us. I stiffened, and a sharp gasp tore out from my lungs. The sight of his chest made a chill run straight down my back. There were gashes all across his pectorals, carved in tiny, blood-curdling patterns difficult to look at. Trickles of blood marred the puckered flesh. It was already beginning to heal, and the movement of the skin made it even more grotesque.
Had he does this to himself? But why?
He must have seen the question in my confusion. “The body needs carving every so often.” He smiled. His eyelids crinkled beneath his eyes, which looked beadier and more snake-like than hawkish. “Makes it strong.”
My jaw fell open. He had mutilated himself? I shared disconcerting glances with the princes. The king was clearly out of his mind. How had he managed to make that wound in himself?
I searched the room and my gaze landed on the knife on his table. It wasn’t big—the size of a butter knife—but had a serrated side and jagged hilt. Blood stained its blade and dripped onto the dressing table.
Fall of Dragons (Sera's Curse Book 3) Page 18
