Dragon Speaker

by Mugdan Elana A.

  Seba sat in the plush chair before his icewood desk, clasping her trembling hands tightly in her lap, feeling heat prickle in her eyes. “I had a full vision this time.”

  “What did it reveal?”

  “It was Max,” she wailed. “He was with her, that wretched, foul—father, he kissed her!”

  “This is Maxton Windharte you’re talking about?” She nodded, trying to catch enough breath between sobs to tell him the most important part. “Who was he with?”

  “Keriya Soulstar.”

  “Impossible,” the king said dismissively. “They’re parting ways tomorrow. How far in the future did you see?”

  He still needed to know the worst part of the vision, but now that Seba’s brain was working properly, she was beginning to formulate a plan. If she played her cards right, if she said just the right things at just the right times . . .

  She had to try it. She had nothing to lose.

  “I know it was her,” she hiccuped. “I saw her bloody purple eyes.”

  “Do not swear, Sebaris,” her father snapped. “What else was there? Where were they?”

  “I’m trying to work out what everything meant,” Seba said dramatically, holding her head and squinting. The images were so fresh that she could remember the foresight with utmost clarity, but her father might take more decisive action if he knew how distinct the dream had been.

  “They certainly weren’t in Noryk. There was a canyon with striated stone spires. A black sky above. A glowing river below. A covering of moss on the ground, sprinkled with blood-red flowers.” She shuddered as isolated flashes of her dream sprang back to her one by one, snippets that were irrelevant in the face of all she’d seen.

  “There was a dragon with them. It was in pain. I think it was dying.” Seba could still hear its heartrending cries echoing in her head.

  “Then Max and . . . and that witch started screaming at each other. I don’t remember what they said.” This was the truth. At that point, Seba had been too distracted by the dragon to listen to them. “But she was crying. And she had a sword.”

  “Was the sword a symbol? Did you recognize it from any of your studies? Does it represent something?”

  “It was real. Max knelt before her and . . .” Seba gestured uselessly with her hands, smacking them together, for she could not say the words again: he kissed her.

  “After that he spoke.” Seba had been listening to this. She wouldn’t have missed it for the world. “He said, ‘My feelings for you were never a lie, you saved the best part of me.’ Then—”

  “Cryptic words,” her father interrupted. “It sounds like a symbol. It represents something else.”

  “It wasn’t a symbol!” It was time for Seba to play her ace. “Father, I want to go to Noryk with Keriya Soulstar.”

  Her statement had exactly the sort of effect she’d expected. First he laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m the only one who can stop this from happening!”

  “That isn’t true,” he said, but there was doubt in his voice. Thank Zumarra for all those years of hazy visions. They had shaken her father, made him wary of what her dreams might mean.

  “It is for this vision,” she insisted.

  “Sebaris, please.” His voice was no longer harsh. Now he was reasoning with her, playing to her better senses. “Nothing is as important as you taking my place. Your brother cannot, will not be able to sit on the Coral Throne. His land-sickness set in early. He will be gone before he comes of age.”

  Seba mellowed, and her resolve to leave wavered.

  Her father, smelling blood in the water, sensing the weakness in her, continued. “Soon I will be gone, too. The future of House Ishira rests on your shoulders.”

  He thought he was going to win, but he didn’t know the severity of what she’d seen.

  “I have to do this.”

  “And why is that?” he snapped. His other tactics hadn’t worked, so now he would try to bully her. But Seba wasn’t having it.

  “She killed him! Keriya Soulstar took her sword and stabbed Max through his heart. He bled out on the ground. She murdered him, and I am the only one who can stop her.”

  That wasn’t true, strictly speaking. Someone else would be capable of preventing Seba’s foresight from coming to pass, but she was counting on the king’s lack of understanding of her power to blind him to that possibility.

  “Yes . . . this must be prevented,” he agreed, looking shaken. A steely glint came into his azure eyes as he looked at her. “But you are not the one to do it.”

  “What? Father, I have the chance to do something great, not just for the Galantasa, but for the Erastate. For the Allentrian Empire.”

  “You can’t protect Maxton any more than you can protect yourself. You won’t survive in the outside world, especially now that our country teeters on the brink of war.”

  Seba was hardly about to point out that she’d been visiting the outside world for years, and no ill had befallen her until the night of the attack.

  “You’ve done well in sharing your vision, but it is out of your hands. I will deal with this.”

  The iron in his voice told her that any more arguments would be futile. Seba bit her lower lip, bowed her head, and left the room with as much grace as she could muster.

  She slipped out and found Max standing there, his hand raised as if he’d been about to knock on the door.

  “Max?” she breathed. Seeing him alive and whole brought back the vision of him bloodied and mangled, a sword sticking through his chest, his eyes growing black, dull, and sightless. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have to speak with the king.” His eyes—as clear and blue as the summer skies at present—swept her face. “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine. Are you well?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked with a bemused smile.

  “No reason! You’re leaving tomorrow, and . . .” The words caught in her throat. Unable to help herself, she hugged him.

  “Please be safe, wherever your travels take you,” she whispered, pressing her face into the fine fabric of his tunic. Before he could say anything, she hurried away.

  She rounded a corner and paused to compose herself. It took her a few deep breaths and quite a bit of nervous pacing before she realized that her bodyguards, who’d been latched onto her like barnacles since her father had ordered it, hadn’t returned after he’d dismissed them from the study. For the first time in what seemed like ages, she was alone.

  Another plan began forming in her mind. A dangerous plan. She’d have to get money, and she’d have to find that bogspectre-deterrent—she was sure it was just water and bad-smelling herbs, but it wouldn’t hurt to bring it along. She would need her plainest, most durable clothes, some provisions, her knives . . .

  “No,” she murmured. “It’s crazy. I can’t.”

  The foresight swam before her eyes again, Max’s broken body haunting her. Drawing herself to her full height, Seba nodded once: a silent affirmation.

  She, too, was going on an adventure.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “If you live in the river, you should make friends with the water serpent.”

  ~ Galantrian Proverb

  Thorion padded through a sea of bamboo, quiet as a beam of sunlight playing on a cloud. A bed of water stippled by mangrove trees with rambling roots lay before him. He slid into the pool and glided through it, using his wings to propel himself to the other side, only the crest of his head visible to the world.

  He had taken refuge in the rainforest. Here amidst the jungle trees, in the maze of rocky crevasses and vine-coated cliffs, he was safe from the humans.

  Memories of humans had been passed down to him from his ancestors. All dragons were part of a collective consciousness, a network of united minds that made each individual’s wis
dom available to all the others. Since he’d left the Etherworld he had lost his connection to his kin, but he retained the visions he’d received in his youth. From those shared memories, Thorion had known that to deal with humans meant becoming human. It meant gaining emotions, and surrendering his longevity and his immunity to the base magics.

  Yet when he’d met Keriya, he’d agreed to go with her. He’d thought he could work with her without falling prey to her emotions . . . but he had never imagined how tempting they would be. He’d never thought he would desire them. Now they just tortured him. Loneliness clung to him like lichen on a boulder, his sole companion in the vast rainforest.

  And rainy it was. Torrential downpours hindered his travels. Mud constantly stuck between Thorion’s claws and lodged under his scales, making him uncomfortable and unhappy.

  He wished Keriya were with him. She would scratch behind his ears, clean his bronze hide, and tell him happy stories filled with vibrant images and feelings.

  As he plodded onwards, it began to drizzle. Thorion’s head drooped and he trudged to a tree, huddling between its knotted roots to shelter from the impending storm. He ought to keep moving because there were shadowbeasts in the woods. They stalked the night, searching for something—probably for him.

  The world slowly grew dark. The soft patter of rain faded and was replaced by the sounds of the forest. Tree frogs chirruped and crickets sang as the heavens cleared. The light of the Oldmoon floated down, dappling the ground in silver. With a sigh, Thorion got to his feet.

  He’d barely gone three heights before he stopped again, catching a foul scent ahead. His ancestral memories told him he was smelling a dead carcass, but the way his gut writhed indicated there was something strange and unnatural about the odor.

  Curiosity—something he’d eagerly absorbed from Keriya—needled at him and he headed toward the smell. As he crept closer, the sounds of the crickets and frogs vanished.

  The smell sharpened. He was close. When he peered around the trunk of a mammoth tree, he wasn’t surprised to see a dead animal, but he was very surprised to find it moving about. It was a jungle cat of some sort, though its skin was hanging in ribbons, exposing putrefied flesh and muscle underneath. The striped pelt was covered in festering sores of decay. Its nose, gums, and tongue had decomposed. Only its jet-black eyes were fully intact, glinting out of its skull.

  The cat limped in a choppy manner. Thorion backed into a patch of ferns to hide as he observed it. It wasn’t a shadowbeast—Necrovar’s demon-slaves were creatures risen from the dead, but they were a resolute shade of necromagical black. This creature, although dead, wasn’t a demon.

  Then what is it? Thorion thought, wonder whispering through his veins.

  The cat drew level with Thorion’s hiding spot. He crouched with preternatural stillness, thankful the animal couldn’t scent him with its rotted nose. It paused briefly and shambled past him, continuing on its way.

  That should have been the end of the freak encounter, but something stirred in Thorion’s chest, urging him to investigate further. He had no willpower to resist the siren call of curiosity. Keeping low to the mossy earth, he trailed the cat.

  After some wandering, the creature ducked through a lattice of stranglethorn roots. Thorion, who was trailing at a safe distance, sped up so as not to lose sight of his quarry. He crept toward the tangle of roots and peeked into a clearing beyond. The cat was pacing again, wobbling to and fro. It looked as if it might fall to pieces at any moment.

  Then, with a horrible moan, it did fall to pieces. Its legs buckled and it caved in on itself. Thorion’s stomach lurched at the sight.

  The pile of flesh percolated. Eyeballs rolled away from the skull, followed by a dark, viscous liquid. That liquid coalesced into a monster far more wretched and intriguing than the undead cat.

  The boneless blob drew a few grating gasps. It lurched around, turning its attention to the body it had vacated. It snuffled at the corpse and began slurping up the fetid, atrophied mass.

  Thorion’s snout crinkled and he shook his head. He’d seen enough.

  Though he took care to retreat silently, the creature tensed. An oblong head and neck elongated from its body as it scoured the nearby shadows.

  “Where are you?” It spoke aloud, hissing something in Allentrian. Thorion was impressed that it had the capacity for speech. For something that looked so much like a pile of sludge, it was remarkably advanced.

  As if it sensed his admiration, the creature whipped its slimy head around and locked gazes with him. Its lips curled into a snarl, revealing a toothless, tongueless hollow leading to its gullet.

  It rose into the air and glided toward him. Thorion was suddenly facing a hovering abomination that dripped darkness and breathed in death rattles. Dragon and monster regarded each other.

  “You are trespassing,” the thing hissed. ”This is my forest.”

  Thorion’s eyes widened. “You know my language?” he whispered, slipping through the network of roots to face the monster head-on. A frisson of cold energy rippled through his nerves. “How?”

  “I know many things,” it told him. “All of them worthless.”

  “This talent isn’t worthless! My language has a power that stems from the First Magic, from when the Dragon Empress gave—”

  “I know this,” spat the monster. “And I care not. What I don’t know is who you are or why you are here.” Its eyes flashed with hostility. “You’ve come to steal my treasure, haven’t you? You all want it, but you shall never have it—it is mine!”

  “No,” said Thorion, perplexed. “I haven’t come to steal anything.”

  His words soothed the monster’s fury. Pressing his luck, he asked again, “How is it that you speak my language? It isn’t something one simply learns. There is magic involved.”

  “I don’t know. I knew many things, once. I spoke many languages, and they called me by many different names. Ages and ages and ages ago. I was many things.”

  Thorion tilted his head. There was something off about the monster. He couldn’t put a talon on it, but tendrils of unease began winding through him. “Do you have a name I can call you?”

  “No name,” it snarled. “I am nameless. But the flesh-rats call me bogspectre. You may, too.”

  “I’m Thorion Sveltorious.”

  The bogspectre’s gaze unfocused, its face warping in something akin to thoughtfulness. It shivered and shook its head. When it looked back at Thorion, it was as if it had never seen him before.

  “Who are you? Why are you here?” It spoke in Allentrian this time, and it was then that Thorion realized the creature was well and truly insane.

  He made to leave, but the bogspectre lashed at him with a tail-like tendril. He yelped in surprise, pinning his ears flat and baring his fangs.

  “Arrogant lightbeast! You’ve come to steal my treasure, haven’t you? The Shadow Lord sent you, didn’t he? I can smell his touch on you!”

  It struck again and Thorion dodged. “I’m not allied with Necrovar,” he assured the monster. “Are you?”

  “No,” said the bogspectre. “Never! He thinks he owns the world. He sends his demons across the land to do his bidding. They have infiltrated my forest. They hunt for me, for my treasure, but they have not found my hiding place.”

  “I don’t think the demons are hunting for you,” said Thorion. “They want me.”

  The thing let out a chilling cackle. “Oh, it was never you they wanted. It was me all along. You’re just an extra treat. Listen.” It raised its head and a gleam came into its dark eyes.

  Thorion raised an ear, though he didn’t know what he was supposed to be listening for. The wind was a soft lullaby in the trees. Far away, an oryx called to her young.

  “The demons come. They want my treasure, but I shall never let them have it.”

  “Be careful,” Thorion whisper
ed, as though he thought the shadowbeasts would overhear him. “Necrovar’s servants are dangerous. They won’t hesitate to kill you.”

  “They can’t kill me. But they are closer tonight,” the bogspectre observed in a casual tone. “Perhaps they will find me. If they do, I will be powerless against them. Do you know how I kill my victims?”

  This was an unexpected turn in the conversation, one that Thorion wasn’t sure he liked.

  “I shove their souls out and inhabit their empty bodies, and I rot their insides until they’re dead.” The bogspectre gestured vaguely toward the unfortunate cat.

  Thorion decided it was time to leave. Maybe the bogspectre was in league with Necrovar, maybe it wasn’t—but he didn’t want to stick around to find out.

  “I usually go into villages and take humans,” it was saying to no one in particular. “I’ve had to make do with rainforest animals of late. I’ve had to stay close to my home and guard my treasure. But a dragon? Yes, a dragon would be of good use to me.”

  “I have no quarrel with you,” said Thorion. “Let me leave in peace and there won’t be any trouble.”

  “As if a centureling lightbeast could cause me trouble,” the bogspectre sneered. “You are trespassing. This is my forest, and I know whenever anyone ventures where they don’t belong. I smelled your blood from leagues away. It sang to me. I knew I had to have your body. I knew your power would serve me and your innards would nourish me.”

  Thorion’s gut flooded with something icy, something he could now easily identify as fear. He looked at where the bogspectre had led him: a grove walled-in by stranglethorn roots, providing limited maneuverability and few escape routes. He hadn’t followed the foul creature. It had lured him here.

  “Don’t force me to hurt you,” Thorion threatened, spreading his wings to give the impression that he was bigger. If he could slip through the jumble of roots behind him, he could flee.

  The bogspectre wasn’t deterred by his aggressive show. It lowered its head and stared into his eyes. Thorion tried to run, but his feet refused to move. He couldn’t turn away from the monster’s deathly gaze. He tried to twist his neck, to close his eyes, but he had lost control of his motor functions.