“Yes,” said Keriya, but she didn’t really. If she’d been more alert she might have been able to comprehend it, but her mind was buzzing with the atrocities she’d witnessed, her body was aching from the necromagic, and her heart was acting up, lagging one moment and racing the next. All she wanted to do was lean against Max’s shoulder and rest.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask what happened to you after we were separated,” she added.
“I escaped the shadowbeasts, but I couldn’t see anything through the fog, so I took shelter. By the time the storm had passed, you’d vanished. I didn’t know where anyone was, so I figured my best option was to head to civilization.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It was all for the best. Because of you, we have him,” he said, nodding at Thorion. His expression softened as he looked at her. “I’m glad you’re okay, Keriya.”
“I am, too,” she mumbled, earning a chuckle from Max. His diamond amulet glinted in the sickly light of the fire, drawing her gaze. His face was dirt-stained and his hair was windswept, yet he managed to look regal and radiant.
A sense of calm stole through her as she allowed herself to admire him. Her heart eased its fitful thumping. The knot in her stomach unclenched fractionally. Things were going to be okay—Max and Thorion would see to that.
Since Keriya wasn’t paying attention to where she was putting her feet, she tripped on scattered debris. She fell to her knees and Thorion let out a warble of concern. He hovered by her side, nudging her shoulder with his snout.
Max knelt and gently gathered her into his arms. Keriya was reminded of the stories in her books where handsome princes carried their princesses into the sunset.
“Where are we going?” she asked, as they passed the road that led to the square where she had left Fletcher and Roxanne.
“Somewhere safe.”
He held her closer, and the rest of her questions flew out of her head. Somehow, despite everything, this was better than all the happily ever-afters she’d dreamed of.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“I have a very optimistic outlook on death, mostly because of my excessively pessimistic outlook on life.”
~ Relwin Anathar, Fourth Age
Cezon had gotten mixed up with a dangerous crowd, and for someone of his profession, that was saying something.
Until this point, he hadn’t believed Necrovar had returned. It was too far-fetched, too frightening. Some said the Shadow had never existed in the first place, that it was no more than a bedtime story used to scare children into behaving.
That bedtime story had become too real for Cezon’s liking. Shadowbeasts were swarming, there was darksalm everywhere, and he couldn’t hide from the truth anymore. Necrovar was back.
And Cezon had given his blood to a man who served him.
Bile rose in his throat as he watched the Galantrian Village burn. The fire was growing brighter and darker at the same time. Black flames licked at the ceiling of smoke that shrouded the town.
“Skyriver!”
He turned to Wyster Raithcloud, his commanding officer. Raithcloud was a big brute of a man with a golden beard and tiny, mean eyes. He was aggressive and vulgar, and Cezon might have liked him quite well under different circumstances.
“That was an order, now get to it!”
“I wasn’t listening,” said Cezon. He was distracted. His brain wouldn’t stop replaying the image of the Water Tower collapsing. He was fixated on the shadow-stained inferno.
Raithcloud grabbed a fistful of Cezon’s shirt, pulling him close. “I don’t like your attitude,” he growled.
“Well, I don’t like your dress,” Cezon retorted, shoving Raithcloud’s meaty hand away. “You don’t need to yell no more. I’m going!”
“Reconnaissance with the commander-general on the Eastern Footpath in half an hour. Don’t be late.”
“Yes sir, Captain Raithcloud, sir.” Cezon offered the man an insincere salute and backed into an alley. As soon as he was out of Raithcloud’s sight, he bolted.
He had no intention of carrying out his commanding officer’s orders—whatever they had been—and he had no intention of meeting Tanthflame. It was time to leave this business far behind.
The Village was teeming with people: King Wavewalker’s servicemen, civilians fleeing the darksalm, the occasional moving shadow, and bands of Imperials. Cezon wasn’t sure whether he was more frightened of the shadowbeasts or the soldiers, so he avoided both with equal care. It wasn’t difficult to hide. If he hadn’t been so excellent at sneaking around and not getting caught doing bad things, he’d have been long since dead.
“Cezon? That you?”
Cezon, who had been busy commending himself on his sneaking skills, hadn’t noticed Iako sneaking up behind him.
“You,” Cezon hissed. “This is all your fault!” He would have hit the rat-faced Galantrian if Iako hadn’t sunk into a sniveling crouch.
“I don’t want no more part of this! Effin’ darksalm all over the everywhere tryin’ to get me murdered, they blowed up the bleedin’ dragon and I en’t seen my share of bringin’ it here—this en’t what I signed up for!” Iako clawed at Cezon, shaking with sobs.
“Shut up and pull yourself together!” Cezon yanked the smaller man to his feet and gave him a good shake to rattle his undersized brain into place. “What’s this about a dragon?”
“The dragon,” Iako wailed. “En’t you been payin’ attention to your commandin’ officers?”
Cezon hadn’t been paying attention to much of anything for the past month—he had been too busy thinking about what he would do with his reward gold. He’d heard whispers of the dragon, but he had roundly ignored them. It was crazy talk. Everyone knew the dragons were gone forever. He hadn’t believed in that dragon any more than he had in Necrovar’s return.
“I’m the one what brung it here, and now they done it in without payin’ me proper—”
“Hang on.” He spoke over Iako’s blabbering. “I thought they wanted that Moorfain witch. That’s who they was paying us to find.”
“She en’t Moorfainian, she’s a dragon speaker,” said Iako, leaning close to whisper conspiratorially. “That’s what them purple eyes is about. They only wanted her so she could call the dragon for ’em, see? They was after him all along. Tanthflame knowed about the dragon long afore the empress did.”
Cezon gaped at Iako. “How in Naero’s name do you know all of this?”
“Cause I’m a good listener.”
“What? You’re an awful listener!” Cezon shoved Iako so hard that he stumbled into the bamboo wall of the shop behind him. “And so help me, if we don’t get out of this town alive, I will kill you.”
“I was ordered to do recomeuppance with Tanthflame on the Eastern Footpath,” said Iako.
“So was I. That’s why we’re headed west.” Cezon grabbed Iako’s arm and dragged him away from the flickering glare of the darksalm. “Need to escape while we got the chance.”
At the corner, Cezon looked both ways to make sure the coast was clear. It wasn’t. A young man—noble, by the cut and fabric of his clothes—trudged toward them, carrying . . .
“Bloody bones of a bastard,” Cezon breathed, crouching behind a wooden crate and pulling Iako with him. It was Keriya Soulstar, the clonch who’d started all of this.
And there, beside her, was a dragon.
Cezon had never seen a dragon before—but there were a million books about them. There were statues and tapestries galore. Every country had tales of Valerion Equilumos, knew stories about the Dragon Empress, told legends of Keleth Stellarion. Why, people half a world away knew about Shivnath. Anyone anywhere would know a dragon if they saw one.
Yet the first thing Cezon said was, “What is that?” Each of its scales was a shiny treasure. Its claws were slivers of ivory; its eyes were
amethyst gems.
“That’s it,” gasped Iako, tugging on Cezon’s sleeve. “The dragon—it en’t dead! We can still get the reward from Tanthflame!”
Those words penetrated Cezon’s fog of admiration, sank through the layers of awe and fear, and activated the deepest and most primal part of his brain, a part that only ever thought of one thing: money.
The gods of Allentria were smiling down on Cezon today, because they had once again thrown Keriya Soulstar at his feet. He would capture her and the dragon both. He would bring them to Tanthflame and receive a reward beyond his wildest dreams!
Cezon embraced his source, sensing rather than seeing his wellspring of inner power. He mentally manipulated strands of invisible energy around himself, preparing a watermagic spell even as he wielded a preemptive airmagic shield. He wasn’t powerful enough to see threads the way some high-Tier wielders could, but he always imagined his water-threads as softly glowing blue filaments and his air-threads as translucent wisps.
His two elements, existing in harmony within him, would be more than enough to wipe the floor with these sops.
A street urchin dashed from a nearby road to intercept Keriya. Cezon hesitated, recognizing him as one of the Moorfainian brats. What was his name? Flemming, or something equally stupid. No, Fletcher! That was it.
“Thank Shivnath you’re safe,” he panted when he reached Keriya. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Roxanne’s injury is getting worse, we need to—”
“Roxanne will be fine,” the nobleman interjected. “There are healers in the Village who can tend to her. Our top priority should be getting Keriya and Thorion out of here.”
“We owe Roxanne our lives,” said Fletcher. “You can’t run while she’s fighting for you!”
“Get ready,” Cezon whispered to Iako as Keriya squirmed free of the lordling’s grasp. Keriya and Fletcher hadn’t ever wielded anything—proving they were Moorfainian—and the nobleman didn’t look like he would be worth much in a fight. Cezon could take them all blindfolded.
“Endrey naler elos sanara.”
The world seemed to shiver, and Cezon went weak in the knees. He lost his mental grasp on his magicthreads and his spells dissipated at once. The dragon had spoken, and the sounds it made were enough to freeze a man’s heart.
Keriya replied in the same language. It transformed her from a lowly guttersnipe into the embodiment of power.
“Thorion says he can heal her,” she announced in Allentrian.
“Oy, Cezon,” said Iako, as Keriya, Fletcher, and the nobleman began arguing again. “We gonna get ’em, or what?”
Cezon didn’t respond. He suddenly knew there was no way he could best that creature in a fight. The dragon could probably kill him with a look, maybe with a word from that fanged mouth.
Keriya and the dragon went with Fletcher, and the nobleman trailed in their wake. Cezon followed, for no reason other than the magnetic pull he felt toward the beast. Iako also followed, for no reason other than that he was an idiot.
Cezon snuck after Keriya, skulking behind piles of rubble scattered about the ruined town, until she came to the ice shuttle square. He slipped into an abandoned store and peered through a broken window.
Galantrian servicemen were swarming everywhere, barking orders, but the clamor died as soon as people noticed the dragon. Silence coiled around the occupants of the courtyard, constricting them like a snake.
A girl with short blue hair pushed her way through the ranks of stupefied servicemen. Cezon knew enough about his home state to know that her nose marked her as part of the royal family.
“Time to leave,” he said, turning to Iako. But Iako wasn’t there.
That was no big loss. If Iako wanted to crawl back to Tanthflame, let him. Cezon was going to find the fastest route out of town and run as far as he could. He would find a safe place, somewhere no shadowbeast would ever find him, somewhere no darksalm could ever touch him.
In the square, the royal girl let out a cry. She knelt, pressed her palms together beneath her chin, and bowed to Thorion. Her soldiers emulated her.
“Um,” Keriya said into the stillness, as Cezon stole away to the west. “Hello. This is Thorion. He’s a dragon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“If you aren’t sure of your friends, they may as well be enemies.”
~ Andrich Karvichr Dreiss, Tenth Age
Even Seba, who’d foreseen his arrival, could hardly believe the dragon was real. He was a nova eclipsing everything around him. People crowded close, straining to touch, crying, praising Zumarra. A group of her father’s servicemen had formed a protective circle around him to keep the rabble at bay.
The purple-eyed girl, Keriya Soulstar, stood next to him with Max and the peasant boy. Effrax Nameless and the wounded girl were admitted past the soldiers because Soulstar insisted on it. She spoke to the dragon and he pressed his snout to the tall peasant’s injury. It vanished beneath his ministrations, the wound scabbing over and turning into a small, shiny scar.
With her friend healed, Soulstar turned to Max. He put an arm around her shoulders and Seba scowled at the pair of them. She clenched her jaw and strode across the square to give Max a piece of her mind.
Rainsword beat her to it.
“Prince Maxton, King Wavewalker has requested an audience with you,” he said. His expression, usually as sharp as the tempered steel of a fighting blade, faded to one of apprehension as he glanced at the dragon. “He also requests that the dragon be brought before him. Immediately.”
Max started to reply, but the rheenar spoke first. “Could we meet him some other time?”
Seba was doing the fish routine with her mouth again, opening and closing it without noise. Who did this farm girl think she was? While it was true that audiences were always ‘requested’ in polite society, it was also understood that requests were commands when coming from any noble ranking higher than a vaecount.
The servicemen shifted their stances. Before, they had been keeping the crowd away from the dragon; now it was evident they were keeping the dragon locked within their loose circle.
“The king has summoned you. You must go,” Effrax muttered to Soulstar. What kind of name was Soulstar, anyway? A stupid, made-up one, that’s what.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll meet with my father in the palace,” said Seba, stepping forward to address the peasant. Maybe if she arrived with the marvelous creature, the king would forget about punishing her for sneaking out unattended.
“I’m worried about Thorion’s safety. What happened to Tanthflame?” The girl trained her red-violet gaze on Seba. “Did you let him go, even after we told you he was working for Necrovar?”
Seba couldn’t believe how brazen Soulstar was, how informal and disrespectful. “You shall not speak to the Princess of the Galantasa like that,” she snapped.
“The commander-general quitted the palace with us after the explosion,” Rainsword told the purple-eyed girl. “He and his officers haven’t been seen since we arrived in the Village. Any formal accusation against him will have to be made in a court of law before a witness.”
“Captain Rainsword, we agree to stand before the king,” said Max.
With a curt bow, Rainsword went to the ice shuttle. He laid a hand on it and a hole magically irised open, widening across the crystalline surface of the orb until it was large enough for a person to step through. “Princess Sebaris, you first, along with Prince Maxton, Lord Nameless, and the dragon.”
“No.” Gasps rippled through the crowd as everyone turned to stare at Keriya Soulstar. “Where Thorion goes, I go.”
“Peasants do not share space with royalty,” said Seba. “You can wait for the next shuttle.”
“Then Thorion can wait with me.”
“Princess, arguing will only waste more time,” Rainsword whispered be
fore Seba could say anything else. “And the king hates to have his time wasted.”
Seba pursed her lips. She didn’t want to back down—especially not in front of a crowd that was listening to their exchange with bated breath—but keeping her father waiting for something as important as this was a bad idea.
Subdued, she entered the orb with Max and Nameless. The shuttle’s opening frosted over seamlessly and they sank into the water, speeding toward the basin of the Galantrian Lake.
“Congratulations,” Roxanne said to Keriya. “The princess hates you.”
“She can join the club,” Keriya muttered dryly, thinking of her growing list of enemies. She’d believed things would be different after leaving Aeria, but it seemed an awful lot of people on this side of Shivnath’s Mountains wanted to kill her, too.
Roxanne snorted. “Yeah, it’s been a rough week.”
“At least in the palace we’ll be safe,” Fletcher said from Keriya’s other side.
This observation did nothing to lift Keriya’s spirits. She bowed her head, flicked an imaginary speck of dust off her sleeve, and did her best to block out the rest of the world.
“Why are you upset?” Thorion asked her, pressing his shoulder against her hip.
She shook her head. “I feel like going to the palace is a bad idea.”
It wasn’t long before the shuttle reappeared with a splash. Rainsword touched the glistening orb and the opening widened once more.
“Lord Dragon,” he said, bowing to Thorion and inviting him to enter. The drackling clambered inside, followed by Keriya, Fletcher, Roxanne, and Rainsword. With a faint, icy crackle, the opening closed and the orb plunged into the water.
The pool in the square connected to an underground waterway. Phosphorescent sea sponges grew on its rocky sides, illuminating the passage as they sped north toward the lake.
The ever-present background rumble of the falls grew deafening and the inky water turned to milky froth. Keriya braced herself as the shuttle passed through the turbulence of the waterfall.
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