The Color of Dragons

by R. A. Salvatore

  They dragged me into the dark stairwell. Two sets of iron cuffs locked my arms behind my back at elbow and wrist.

  “Griffin!” I screamed.

  “Shut up!” Moldark shouted. He threw me over his shoulder, carrying me down the stairs.

  “Put me down!” I squirmed and rolled. He bumped into the wall, but he was too big for it to be anything more than a slight irritation.

  We exited the stairwell, Moldark stumping into the tunnel where he tossed me into the back of a waiting wagon. I kicked, scooting as far away from him as possible. He got one ankle, then the other, holding my legs together while another soldier added leg irons to the mix. A third gagged me and covered me with a thick gray blanket. Weight shifted with soldiers getting in, sitting on the blanket. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Hup!” Moldark called.

  The wagon jerked, moving forward, the driver whipping the horses, whistling for them to go faster. The light shifted from dim to daylight. The wagon tilted, starting uphill. Rendicryss’s heartbreaking bellows carried out of the arena until the sound cut off abruptly. She must have been pulled into the keep. Tears poured down my face. I’d failed her. I’d failed Griffin.

  The wagon continued the steep incline. I could only guess we were returning to the castle.

  Griffin would never make it out alive from the balcony.

  This was all the prince’s doing all along, with Raleigh’s help, but to what end?

  The blanket covering my head, Moldark carried me over his shoulder through what smelled like the kitchens. He lunged upstairs, padded through long echoing hallways, bending right and left, wending a familiar way, heading to where this day had started.

  My room.

  Inside, he dropped me on the bed and left, closing and locking the door. I rolled back and forth until the blanket fell off my face. On my stomach, facedown, all I could do was wait, hoping, praying, Griffin would come through the hidden grate behind the bed.

  But he never did.

  I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, a man stood over me, shaking my shoulder. It took me several blinks to connect the face to the voice. Clean shaven, dressed in a formal black cloak, rather than his usual dirty tunic, Raleigh looked like a completely different person. He wasn’t alone. Six more soldiers I recognized as palace guards were there, standing near the door, in similar tidy cloaks. All beardless like Raleigh, their hair was uniformly cropped short. They stared at me, hands on the pommels of their swords, but didn’t come any farther into the room.

  My gaze fell on the moon outside the window. Night had fallen. I took deep breaths, drinking it in, taking comfort that her power was there for me. As soon as my hands were free, I would wield it.

  Raleigh gave a half-hearted grin, hauling me off the bed. He placed me on my feet, then removed the gag. “I would remove the irons, but your powers have grown to where I consider them too great a threat.”

  My mouth was dry; my jaw ached. “Where is Griffin?”

  “Griffin? Alive. In his rooms. Where else would he be? He has a big match tomorrow. He and Malcolm. The finals, you see, against your favorite draignoch, followed by a celebration of the prince’s wedding.” Raleigh smiled. “We will all be there, you included, so long as you do as you’re told.”

  Griffin was alive, and tomorrow Rendicryss would be in the arena. I needed to be there as well, unshackled. How? What would I have to give up? “What do you want?”

  “Right now? For you to follow me.”

  The leg irons made it difficult to do more than shuffle, especially down steps. His men in front and behind, Raleigh walked beside me the whole time, a hand on my shoulder.

  “Do you think I’m going to run?” I asked at one point.

  His sardonic laugh was expected but irritating. “Your days of running are over. You cannot hide anymore, lass. What you can do is be smart. Take what rightfully belongs to you when it’s offered.”

  “I don’t understand. Did you stage a coup?”

  He laughed again. “No.”

  As we passed the Great Hall, there was no music. No sounds of mingling guests or smells of scrumptuous platters of food.

  “I suppose there was little to celebrate after what happened in the arena today.” I thought of Cornwall and Egrid, and how Malcolm, Esmera, and Sybil were planning two funerals. The three of them rallied around, took care of each other, like the prince told me once he wanted to do for me. Only their love and kind gestures came with no cost. I thought Xavier’s care came from his heart too, but in the end I wondered if I wasn’t simply like one of the bones in his hair, collected because one day I might serve a useful purpose.

  Perhaps that was what it meant to have family. People who did things for you without expecting anything in return. Griffin popped into my mind unbidden. He never asked me for anything in return for his aid. Like Thoma had done for him when he was young. Friends. True friends, I supposed, could be like family. With time, would Griffin and I have that? I hoped so. But we would have to survive what came next.

  Raleigh grew quiet, contemplative, nervous even, which only added to my anxiety. “There is much to celebrate,” he finally said.

  We walked to the end of the hallway, climbed several flights of stairs, exiting where the short bridge led to the king’s tower. I shivered, not because of the cold night air, but at the gruesome scene before me.

  In the middle of the bridge, King Umbert sat on his throne. Arms and legs bound to the chair. Mouth gagged. His nose bent and covered in dry, caked blood, like it had been hit many, many times. One eye was swollen shut, turning yellowish purple. He looked barely conscious.

  Xavier was beside him in the same place he had stood for the past week, only his hands were tied to the back of the throne, and his mouth was gagged. His staff sat in two pieces at his feet. The sapphire missing.

  All horrible, but it was what I saw on the other side of the bridge that caused my heart to skip several long beats.

  Bradyn and Buffont. Bound, gagged, and on their knees. Twenty soldiers in their new black cloaks stood beyond them, filling in the rest of the bridge to the king’s tower.

  I tried to walk to Bradyn, but Raleigh’s firm hand on my shoulder held me in my place.

  The line of soldiers parted. The prince walked down the center, his eyes fixed on me. His cloak was also now black rather than red. A new crown on his head. Not a simple band of gold like his father’s, but ornate, with peaks and valleys, decorated with obsidian stones. He was carrying a smaller version in his hand, the obsidian replaced with sapphires.

  The prince held the crown up as he came to stand before me. “Blue looks lovely on you.” He tried to put the crown on my head. I retreated, bumping into Raleigh. “Did you think I only wanted to bed you?” Jori grinned as he did after the first time Xavier and I performed in the Great Hall, when he’d won a bet with Griffin, taking his Phantombronze dagger. He was gloating over his father’s conquest, and mine. “I thought you would want them on their knees. Paying homage to the real Ambrosius, and my queen.”

  I opened my mouth to speak. He patted my chin sharply, closing it. “I’m speaking. You are listening.” Jori placed his palms on my cheeks, forcing me to look at him. “What you did today in the arena. That was a thing of beauty. A single day of training with Griffin and you’re on your way to using your gift. He has turned you into a weapon, as I asked him to.”

  “You never asked him that!”

  Jori’s lips curled into a mocking grin. “His wooing. Breaking into the Oughtnoch—twice. His late-night visits through the secret passageway underneath your bed. Why do you think I put you in that room? Do you really think my best friend would turn on me for a girl he met seven days ago? Beautiful or not, he’s not that stupid.”

  Griffin couldn’t have . . . wouldn’t have . . . seeds of doubt spread like hot iron, leaving a wake of blistering anger.

  “Oh, I can tell what you’re thinking. But don’t be so hard on him. He only did as I commanded.”

&nb
sp; I spat, hitting Jori in the eye.

  Raleigh grabbed my elbows behind my back, yanking hard, nearly taking my arms from their sockets. “She’s like a rabid dog, Your Grace. You really want to wed her?”

  “I do.” Jori wiped it off, his smile still frozen in mocking perfection. “But there’s wedded bliss and then there’s marriage. We all have choices to make. That’s what pivotal moments are all about. My father taught me that.” He sighed. “Maggie, I don’t want to keep you in chains, but I will. I will cage you just as I have done your Rendicryss.”

  I was stunned into silence by the use of her name. I’d never told him that. Only Griffin knew her name. He’d lied to me. He’d told Jori everything. He’d used me. This castle was a tomb filled with twisted souls grasping for power. With hallways and secret passages, a maze to use for lies and deceit, and I’d fallen for it all.

  I needed my dragon. I needed to leave. I stopped struggling, feigning surrender, hoping Raleigh would let go of my arms, but he didn’t. If anything, he held on tighter.

  Jori padded to the other side of the king, finding a wooden handle. He shifted it and a large square section of the bridge in front of his father dropped. “Do you know what this is, Maggie?”

  Jori untied Xavier. He led him by the rope binding his hands until he stood beside the hole. A fall of more than a hundred feet stretched before him, ending on hard ground. A fall he wouldn’t survive.

  “It’s called a murder hole.”

  “Murder? You intend to kill all these people?”

  “That all depends on you, my lady.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “You’re right. You’re not a lady.” He laughed at my unease. “But you will be a queen.” His penetrating stare searched for reaction, but I gave him none. “First things first. This will be a new start for you and for me. A beginning together, so we must rid ourselves of traitors in our midst and start our journey together with truth. Xavier’s betrayal began the day we met. After your performance, healing that squirrel, I came to see you that night, but first, I spoke with Xavier. I told him what I suspected happened and made a bargain with him. Keep his mouth shut. Bring you safely into the city, and he would be well rewarded.”

  I suppose I should have been shocked. Xavier knew everything from the first, and led me like a lamb to the slaughter. But I wasn’t surprised. A thought that registered on Jori’s face.

  He half smiled. “He fed and clothed you. Kept you alive in the Hinterlands before the curse was lifted, when you were nothing but a helpless child. He could have so easily sold you. So you trusted him.”

  I took a step back, bumping into Raleigh again. “How do you know about the curse?”

  Jori laughed at me in response, pulling Xavier against him. “Fresh start, Maggie. Is he worthy of standing beside you? I think not.”

  Jori wrenched Xavier forward, then drew him back before he could fall. Xavier’s eyes were impossibly wide. His body shook, his face wet with a river of tears. He tried to speak with the gag but only mumbled. If I had to guess, it sounded like an apology.

  I hated him for what he had done, but I didn’t want him dead. “Don’t! Please.” I kicked Raleigh in the shin with my heel. He sucked in a sharp breath but held fast to my arms.

  “I do this for you.”

  Xavier coughed and gagged around the fabric that refused him his last words. Wind swept the bridge. His bones clacked, this time serving a purpose, foretelling his end. Xavier plummeted through the hole. Even after his screams stopped, I could still hear them. A sound that would haunt my dreams, turning them to nightmares forever more.

  Jori stepped back, giving me a resigned pitiful stare.

  “You’re no better than your father,” I whispered.

  Jori’s expression turned to one of disbelief. “A man obsessed with something he could never have. A cruel master. And yet you fight, for him? I offer you a crown. I offer you a place beside me, to rule over these lands, and conquer more.”

  “Tell Raleigh to remove the shackles from my wrist and I’ll show you what you’ll get if you place me beside you on the throne.”

  Jori stamped his foot.

  Raleigh yanked my arms, forcing me to my knees.

  “You’re a coward,” I growled.

  “And you’re stupid. But I can live with that in a wife, especially one as lovely and as powerful as you.”

  “So long as I’m chained like my Rendicryss.”

  Jori padded behind me and took my cuffs from Raleigh. He forced me up and shoved me forward, beside the murder hole.

  “Look at him.”

  I refused, training my eyes on Bradyn’s fidgeting knees. I didn’t want to see Xavier like that. It would be all I would remember if I did. Wind howled over the bridge again. I couldn’t stop shaking.

  Jori removed his cloak, placing it on me. It was still warm from his body heat. His curling breath fell over my shoulder. “He’s nothing. You, you are everything. Don’t you see that?” He pulled me back, shifting to stand in front of me. He grasped my chin, tilting it up, forcing me to look at him. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” He tried to kiss me. I turned away, my stomach heaving. He pushed me into Raleigh, disgusted.

  A beat later, his demeanor changed. His expression returning to arrogant prince. “Would you like to know how I know about your curse?” His big brown eyes twinkled with unspoken secrets. “I can tell you do. You’re quiet, and you’re never quiet.”

  He stepped back and flicked two fingers at the soldiers standing closest to the tower entrance. It took three men to carry whatever was beneath the red cloth out the door.

  They set it down with great care. Jori ripped the tarp off. My hair stood on end. I had seen that before. A true memory returned. Me, with my back bare, holding on to that stone while the banshee beat me with a switch. That came from her cave.

  “The part my father left out of his story was that he went back to find the prophetic woman. It was long after the draignochs were defeated. After he’d been declared king and built the Walled City. He still hadn’t found the magic she spoke of and went seeking more guidance. He never found her, but did find a cave where another woman lived with her deformed son. My father tortured her, eventually killing her when she produced no useful information.”

  Jori gestured at the four-foot-tall standing stone. “Except, he overlooked this.”

  It was a pillar common to the people of my childhood. Carvings on it told of each cave dweller’s story. This one declared me a lost child of the forest and my dragon as the magic that got away. The script was carved into the edges, not in images but in our ancient language. The banshee and her son, Armel, had kept a record of me.

  “He took this even though he didn’t have the faintest idea of what it was. Kept it in the corner of his chambers. I would sneak up, trying to decipher it, but could never figure out what it said.” Jori walked over to his father. He leaned over and whispered in his ear. “But it was the biggest clue of all.”

  His father woke then, struggling against the ropes binding him to the chair, but he wasn’t going anywhere. The prince laid a firm, condescending hand on the back of King Umbert’s bulbous neck. “After it was translated, of course.”

  “You can read it?” I asked in disbelief.

  “No. But I found someone who could. The woman’s son. Deformed. Smashed nose. Hunched over. Eyes not on the same plane.”

  “Armel.”

  “Yes. He had come to the Walled City looking for revenge. I recognized him from my father’s description of him, and his thirst for revenge. He wanted to kill my father. I told him I too wanted my father dead, offered to let him into the heavily guarded tower, escort him personally to my father’s chambers, in exchange for one small thing.”

  The bridge was filled with people, and yet all were silent. It felt like Jori and I were alone.

  “It was on this bridge that I asked him to read this stone for me.” Jori’s fingers traveled from the bottom left of the stone.
“It begins with a dragon called Rendicryss”—his fingers continued upward along the edge—“bringing a baby down from the night’s sky, a baby whose blue eyes would glow with gifts bestowed upon her by the moon.”

  “What happened to Armel?”

  Jori looked down the hole. “He fell. But not before telling me all kinds of things about you. My favorite was how his mother used to punish you. How as a baby when you would whine and cry, she would lock you in the back of the cave, sealing you in a tomb of rock, blocking you from the moon. How you would grow so weak you could barely move, but you would never die, as he wished you would.”

  And just like that, events from the past four weeks made perfect sense. “The practice room you gave Xavier.”

  “Yes. It was a good test. A punishment I will use again and again to my advantage. Keep that in mind.” He patted my cheek. “Armel wanted to kill you too. He would have if he found you. You had no memory of who you were or where you came from. Lost in the Hinterlands.”

  “He could never have killed me whether I could remember how to wield my powers or not.”

  “You may be right. He was weak, and I have seen you fight. But to end my story, not long after Armel told me what to look for, I found the dragon. And then that same afternoon, I found you. It was divine intervention.”

  “Dumb luck,” I mumbled.

  “Fate. Destiny. I found you and Rendicryss. It was me who was meant to rule these lands, not my father. Me. With magic by my side. With you by my side.” He picked up a pitcher beside the throne, pouring over his father’s head, coating his bald head in rose oil. King Umbert screeched and snarled. Jori reached in his pocket and pulled out three crushed wild roses. Jori shifted his father’s gag, shoving the flowers into his mouth. The king coughed, heaving breaths. “I believe my fiancée and I have heard enough, haven’t we, Maggie?”

  I had nothing to say.

  “Wild roses were my mother’s favorite. After her death, he had them pressed into oils, dripped in my baths. He had them stitched into my clothing, all as a way of reminding me of the power he had over me, the power to take her from me. But no longer. I have all the power now, isn’t that right, Maggie? And all that remains for us to be free is for you to kill my father.”