by Dima Zales
The guards stare at the intruders with varying degrees of shock—that is, until Nero blurs forward and slashes them all into bits before they can even draw their swords.
The tall dragon steps after Nero and examines the massacre. “Maybe we can split up—the two of us can go one way, and you can go the other.”
“Not yet,” Nero says and walks through the basement-like room they find themselves in.
“We’re in,” he says, examining the silver-tinted obsidian walls. “Unless he moved it, the prison should be close.”
The next room looks like a wine cellar—and Nero and his companions make short work of the guards inside.
They walk through a corridor with high ceilings next, then enter a giant room full of various torture paraphernalia that looks extra sturdy compared to what I’ve seen in museums. I guess that’s what you need when dealing with dragons.
“This room was used for battle training before the usurper perverted it,” Nero whispers disapprovingly.
“There’ve been rumors about what happens to the usurper’s enemies here.” The short dragon seems to pale as he looks around. “I thought them an exaggeration until now.”
“He really is a bastard,” his taller brother says matter-of-factly. “Now, which way?” He looks at the two available doors—one very large and one regular-sized.
“This way.” Nero walks around an open device that looks like a sarcophagus with short swords sticking up from inside—a type of iron maiden, I’m guessing—and heads for the smaller door.
From there, they enter another long corridor, and Nero strides to the very end, then slices off the lock on the door with his sword.
The next room is spacious, like an empty dance hall.
Seven guards are standing around a heavy-duty metal cage in the middle of the room.
Three of them leap at Nero while the rest attack his allies.
Nero dodges the strike of the first attacker, then slices him into two even pieces with his sword.
When Nero strikes at the next one, the man tries to parry, but the gate sword’s shimmering material goes right through his metal weapon, cleaving it cleanly into two. Then, continuing the trajectory, Nero’s sword slices through the guard’s flesh and bones.
The last guard tries to back away from Nero, but doesn’t make it more than a couple of steps before my boss slices off his head.
Nero’s companions aren’t as swift at killing, but they’re holding their own with the guards.
Leaving them to it, Nero turns toward the cage.
There’s a woman inside.
Dressed in a plain dress, she has long reddish-brown hair, a pretty face, and—most tellingly—a birthmark in the shape of a cloud on her cheek.
Despite the situation, she doesn’t look panicked, all her attention trained on Nero’s face.
With a grunt, Nero’s taller companion kills his last guard—then teams up with his brother to get the last one.
“Claudia,” Nero says, stepping toward the cage.
Her unshakeable calm seems to crack. “Nero?” she asks raggedly. “Is that really you?”
“Step away,” Nero orders, and when she backs deeper into the cage, he slices through the cage bars with his sword, making a large hole.
Then he steps inside.
“It is you,” Claudia gasps. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she leaps at Nero and envelops him in a hug just as his companions finish the last guard. “You came for me. I knew you would come for me. I just—”
“We need to get you out of this place,” Nero says gruffly, pulling away. “It’s not safe here.”
“Of course,” she says. “How did you even—”
“We’ll talk later.” Nero turns toward the hole in the cage. “I’ll take you outside, then come back and kill the usurper.”
She solemnly bobs her head, then follows Nero out of the cage, where his companions are already waiting—and staring at her with fascination.
Carefully stepping over detached body parts, she approaches one of the dead guard’s remains, viciously kicks his torso, and picks up his sword.
“You won’t need that,” Nero says.
“Better safe than sorry.” She takes a practice swing, then stabs it in the air. Lowering the blade, she says, “Lead the way.”
Nero heads into the corridor they came from, and everyone follows.
When they enter the torture room again, Claudia looks extremely nervous.
Did Yudo—the usurper—bring her here at some point in the past? What kind of a monster would do that to someone he plans to marry? Unless it was some sort of BDSM thing for him, à la Christian Grey’s Red Room of Pain.
As Nero is walking by the open maw of the iron maiden, the larger set of doors bursts open, and a whole squadron of guards rushes in, followed by a tall man with the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime.
Is that Yudo—a.k.a. the usurper?
The intricate armor and the gold crown he’s wearing seem to imply that, as does the arrogant set of his harsh features.
“Nero, get her out. We got this,” the shorter of Nero’s companions says, readying his sword.
The taller dragon stands shoulder to shoulder with his brother, and they wait for the guards to reach them. Then they start swinging their swords with preternatural speed.
They kill four guards right away, but that still doesn’t make me optimistic about their chances. There’re just too many opponents for the two of them to handle.
In the meantime, Nero grabs Claudia by her upper arm and blurs into motion, getting her to the door that leads to the tunnel in less than a second.
“Go, and I’ll meet you after I’m done here,” Nero growls. Without waiting for her reply, he turns to face the usurper and his soldiers, his glare so supercharged with hatred I half-expect cockatrice-like mojo to shoot out of his eyes.
“You know how I figured you’d come down here and put yourself in my power?” the usurper asks in a voice deep enough to sing death metal.
Ignoring the question, Nero blurs into super speed once again, and before anyone can track him, he reaches his allies. Two slices of Nero’s sword later, four guards are dead. Another flurry of sword swipes from Nero—and six more guards join the rest in the afterlife.
“I’ll tell you anyway.” Standing behind his guards, the usurper unsheathes a monster broadsword and checks the blade for sharpness. “I asked myself what your late father would’ve done in your stead, and that’s exactly what you did.”
His face a mask of rage, Nero wields his sword impossibly faster, cutting through the guards coming at him like a scythe through fresh grass.
But there are still too many soldiers between Nero and the usurper.
With the sound of sword clanking against sword, the short dragon parries a strike from a guard a head taller than him, then stabs another but gets a fist to the face from the third.
Using his momentary confusion, the guard follows his hit with a sword stab, and his blade enters the short dragon’s chest.
Clutching his wound, he falls to his knees—and another guard finishes him off.
Roaring in rage and grief, the taller dragon attacks the man who just killed his brother with even greater ferocity. Within a second, he slays him, then kills the guards to his left.
“Focus on Nero,” the usurper orders the remaining guards, and all but the ones fighting the taller dragon rush to obey.
Blurring like Nero, Yudo moves in the direction of Nero’s ally.
Being so close to his worst enemy, Nero turns into a berserker. He cuts apart the guard to his left, then punches through the chest of another with his fist and rips out a third guard’s throat with his teeth.
Meanwhile, the usurper swings his sword viciously, killing his own guard in order to slice a deep gash in the tall dragon’s back.
The wounded dragon ignores the pain and continues fighting the last of the guards. He strikes him down at the same time as the usurper delivers his
own lethal blow.
Blood gurgling in his throat, the tall dragon falls on the floor next to his slain brother and stops moving.
Nero growls with fury and seems to move even faster as his sword takes life after life. Within moments, every guard around him is in pieces.
“Looks like it’s just us,” the usurper says and steps toward Nero over the bloody remains on the floor.
Except he’s wrong.
It’s not just the two of them.
Though Nero doesn’t realize it, Claudia didn’t leave the room when he told her to do so.
Instead, she’s creeping toward the combatants, clearly itching to use her sword to help Nero—except she’s more likely to get herself killed than to help.
“This is it for you.” Gripping his sword tighter, Nero takes a menacing step toward the usurper, the cold smile on his face reminding me of a cat toying with a bug.
As if to make Nero’s advance even more frightening, a mighty dragon roars outside the castle in Kit’s perfect imitation of Nero’s vocalizations. It seems to say, “Attack!”
Claudia swings her sword.
To my horror, instead of striking Yudo, her blade slices Nero’s right forearm to the bone.
Stupid woman. Why didn’t she leave when Nero told her to?
Nero grunts from the pain, and the gate sword slips out of his grip, hitting the floor with a clank.
At the same exact time, the usurper slices at Nero’s head—a strike that my boss dodges but just barely.
“I told you to go,” Nero growls at Claudia without turning, then sidesteps another strike from Yudo. “I had him exactly where I wanted him.”
Claudia doesn’t look the least bit ashamed. Instead, with cold determination in her gaze, she thrusts her sword forward—burying it right between Nero’s shoulder blades.
Wait. She’s doing this on purpose?
Nero roars in pain and looks back at Claudia uncomprehendingly.
His lips seem to soundlessly mouth a single word.
“Why?”
Not meeting Nero’s pain-filled gaze, Claudia nods at the usurper, and the asshole smiles nastily, then swings his sword at Nero’s exposed neck.
With a sound of tearing flesh and broken bone, Nero’s head separates from his body and drops to the floor.
In a macabre moment of surrealness, the head rolls, only to stop next to the iron maiden, the eyes staring up at Claudia as if still looking for an explanation.
Claudia rips the sword out of Nero’s back and faces the usurper. “So? How did I do?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’m back in the restaurant, the Uzbek delicacies I’ve consumed sitting like frozen cement in my stomach as a single horrific thought circles through my mind.
Nero is going to die.
I leap to my wobbly feet, snatch my phone out of my blazer pocket with a shaking hand, and summon myself a ride.
Nero is going to be betrayed by Claudia, the woman he’s fighting so hard to save.
Luckily, there are a ton of car services nearby, so one arrives before I sprint on foot to JFK. Jumping in, I bribe the driver to hurry.
If traffic permits, we’ll get to the airport in twenty minutes.
My plan is simplicity itself. I’m going to find Nero and warn him—and the sooner I catch up with him, the better.
The question is whether I’ll make it in time.
I know that a day from my perspective is when the second battle is going to happen—assuming I mastered the technique of targeting a specific time. But I’m going to that world, which, according to Nostradamus, makes timekeeping more complicated. I also recall Nero saying that Godiva is a day’s journey from where the second battle happens—but that’s from Nero perspective in that world. Oh, and did Nero mean twenty-four hours, or marching during the day and then sleeping during the night, which would be more like twelve hours? Also, now that I’m thinking about this, when I was focusing on the essence of a day, I didn’t picture sleeping as part of it. Does that mean I got myself twelve hours as a target instead of a full day?
To avoid going insane, I put worries about time out of my mind. As far as what I need to do, it changes nothing. I’m simply going to chase after Nero as quickly as possible and pray that I make it.
With the plan decided on, I do my best to recall the map of the continent on the dragon world, especially the line that represented the route to Godiva.
Then my phone rings.
It’s Felix.
After a moment’s hesitation, I pick up.
“Hey, Sasha,” he says. “Do you still want to talk to this Eric guy? He just came by and asked if you showed up. I said no, but I can still catch him.”
I bring the phone closer to my ear and ponder the idea of involving Eric. Would the teleporter join me to go help Nero, which would be a great help indeed, or would he try to keep me here on Earth?
My bet is on the latter.
Still, since I could use the help, I convince myself I’ll talk to Eric, then go into Headspace to take a look at the consequences.
A cloud of shapes that looks pretty uniform surrounds me there, but since this is an important choice, I sprout multiple ethereal wisps and touch them all.
It’s not good.
In every single future where I talk to Eric, I end up locked in the apartment again. In most of the visions, he doesn’t believe my story about Nero in trouble—even when I ask him reasonable things like “why would I come to you myself and make up such a story?” He thinks I just stubbornly want to join Nero on his quest and the story is to make him do my bidding. Even in the visions where he claims to believe me, Eric locks me up anyway.
“No,” I tell Felix when I’m back from Headspace. “I don’t need to talk to Eric anymore.”
“You know,” Felix says. “Something else just occurred to me about our last conversation. Why did you call right before you went into the tunnel? You knew you’d lose reception.”
I snort. “It took you this long to figure that out?”
“Yeah, well, you so rarely do something illogical that I didn’t realize you suddenly did it.”
“Whatever,” I say. “I’m totally allowed to do something illogical after the day I just had.”
I then bring Felix up to speed—mostly verbally but also by texting when I get to the parts that the Mandate would not want the human cab driver to overhear.
“Don’t go,” Felix says when I get to the end. “Remember how dangerous the path to the dragon world was? Where are you even going to find another spacesuit?”
“I’ll take the much safer path Rasputin showed us,” I say. “The one we took on the way back.”
“And then what? What can you do against dragons?”
“I don’t need to do anything. I just need to warn Nero about Claudia, and he can do all the doing himself.”
“Fine. Then I’m coming with you.”
“I don’t have time to wait for you to get to JFK.” I look at the traffic-free highway in front of the cab. “I’m about ten minutes away from there.”
“You’re going to walk into a literal warzone, and you expect me to let you go alone?”
He has a point.
Could I ask Lucretia for help?
No, that’s a bad idea. Not only do I not want to put my newfound sister in danger, but she has the same problem as Felix—she’s in Manhattan with a client, too far to get to JFK quickly.
Maybe Lilith then? No, she’s too volatile—and I have too many unanswered questions regarding her motives.
“Look, just wait for me,” Felix continues, and I interrupt him with a question.
“Did you get anywhere with Lilith’s phone calls?”
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“It’s related. I’m debating asking her for help.”
“In that case, no. I need more to go on than what you told me.”
“Okay,” I say and text him Lilith’s phone number, as well as the numbers she called. “D
oes that help?”
“Yes, probably,” Felix says. “But I won’t be able to find out anything before you have to decide whether to take Lilith with you or not.”
“Still, if you want to be helpful, please work on that.”
“Sasha, I’m not letting you—”
“Oh no,” I say. “I’m going into another tunnel.”
“There’s no tunnel between—”
I hiss into the phone and hang up on him.
When he calls back, I let the call go to voicemail, then repeat this a few more times until he stops calling.
Really mature, his text says. You’re making a bad choice right now.
I ignore the rest of Felix’s tirade because the word “choice” makes me uneasy.
Darian claimed to have foreseen that I would pay with my life if I chose Nero, and Nero’s truth-telling abilities confirmed this in my vision.
Does me rushing to warn Nero count as “choosing him?” Or did I make the choice as soon as I started having feelings for my bossy Mentor?
Not liking where that train of thought is leading, I let myself ponder something a little safer.
Why will Claudia betray Nero?
To answer that, it would really help if I knew what exactly their relationship is.
Until that betrayal, I would’ve placed my money on her being his sister, or some other close family member. Then again, that could’ve been wishful thinking, since the other option is that she’s his child bride or something along those lines.
Now, though, I don’t know if the sister option tracks. I mean, who’d betray her own flesh and blood like that? I just learned about Lucretia being my sister, and I’m not bringing her on this misadventure—and, obviously, nothing would drive me to kill her.
If she’s his bride, though, it would make a little bit more sense. After all, when a person is mysteriously murdered, the first suspect is the spouse.
Is it possible then?
Was that a draconian way of getting a divorce?
It still seems a little dubious—with her being Yugo’s prisoner and Nero waging world war to save her and all.
Unless she has Stockholm syndrome? Maybe Claudia fell for her captor over the years, and is now a masochist to his sadist. Maybe the marriage thing appeals to her. For all I know, it could’ve been her idea to get hitched in the first place.
