Inferno

by Julie Kagawa

  I stopped in the middle of the driveway, feeling the truth start to claw its way out of my head, unwilling to stay buried. I couldn’t protect them any longer. Everyone here would be drawn into the final battle with Talon and, win or lose, the casualties were going to be tremendous.

  “Dammit,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “Is this what we really have to do? Do we all have to die so the rest of the world can be safe?”

  “Cobalt.”

  I turned. Mist stood a few yards behind me, pale and almost glowing under the light of the moon, her silver hair falling down her back. She regarded me solemnly, the echo of a silver-white dragon watching me from the center of the drive, and my heartbeat picked up in return.

  “What do you want, Mist?”

  She tilted her head, and the echo of the silver dragon became even stronger, watching me curiously across the gravel. “I don’t really know,” she said, walking forward. “I can’t figure you out, Cobalt. You were a Basilisk. You worked for Talon. We’ve been trained to see everything, everyone, as tools. When did that change?”

  I shrugged. “I got tired of it,” I said. “I got tired of the casualties, being expected to turn a blind eye to what I was doing. I got tired of being used for Talon’s dirty work, and seeing people suffer because of me. I guess somewhere along the way I grew a conscience.”

  “That seems very human.”

  “Maybe.” I looked behind her at the house, where lights glowed through the windows and the echo of laughter reached me over the wind. “Or maybe we’re not that different. Maybe that’s something Talon has tried to extinguish, because if we let ourselves care for anything, eventually we realize how soulless the organization really is. Or maybe, over the generations, we really have become more human.” I remembered the words of a certain red hatchling when she faced me in the shadows of the barn, her eyes bright with very human tears. Dragons can love. We are quite capable of every emotion the organization has tried to stamp out. “I don’t know what happened to me,” I said with a shrug. “I can see why Talon doesn’t want us to have attachments—they’re messy and complicated and painful as hell when you lose them. But I’ll take that over what Talon wanted me to become. Ruthless. Someone who didn’t care if their enemies or allies died, if it benefitted the organization. I just couldn’t do that anymore.”

  “And what about me?” Mist asked.

  The question was so unexpected that I didn’t understand it for a moment. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean...” She crossed her arms and looked away, frowning. If I didn’t know better, I would say she was almost...embarrassed. “You said that you don’t want any of your allies to die. Does that include a Basilisk who is only here because she was ordered to help you? Or a former enemy who had every intention of killing you in the past?”

  “Mist...” I gazed at her in sudden understanding. “We’ve both done horrible things for Talon,” I said softly. “Ember doesn’t really get it. Neither does St. George, or any of the hatchlings. Sure, they know I used to be a Basilisk, but none of them really understands what that means. What I used to do.” I thought back to those long years I worked for the organization. The missions that required me to destroy lives, careers and dreams, all in the name of profit for Talon. “Wes is probably the only one who knows about my past,” I went on, “but there are things I haven’t told even him, things only another Basilisk would understand. You’re an exceptional agent, Mist,” I said. “And I can see why the Archivist chose you. But you’re still young. There’s no mission you’ve completed for Talon that I haven’t done several times over.

  “So, to answer your question...yeah, it would bother me.” I caught her gaze as I said this, looking her in the eye. “You might’ve been an enemy in the past, but hell, so was St. George. And Martin. And all the soldiers here, come to think of it. Believe me, I won’t shed a tear if any Order fanatics go and bite the dust, but that’s one less warm body that can hold a gun for our side, so I won’t be dancing in the streets, either.”

  “Hmm. Well, it’s nice to know I’m in the same boat as the soldiers of St. George.”

  “It’s different with you.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, making her cock her head. “You’re one of us, but even more than that, you’re a damn good agent who is probably my equal in everything that matters. You kept your word when you helped us escape Talon. You were essential in getting us to the facility. And I wouldn’t have trusted just anyone to lead the dragonells to safety. Even when you’re driving me nuts, pulling shady shit and never giving me the whole story, I know that you’ll come through for us in the end. If you died...” For some reason, that made my stomach churn a little, and I shook my head. “You’re not in the same boat as the soldiers, I can tell you that.”

  She sighed. “Sometimes, I do hate you, Cobalt.”

  Stunned at the abrupt change of heart, I blinked at her. “O...kay,” I stammered, utterly confused. “That came out of nowhere. Why?”

  “Because I knew who I was before I met you.” She shifted to stare at a point over the distant hills. “I was what Talon required, a Basilisk who didn’t need to know the whys of my missions, I just needed to complete them. No questions, no doubts. Now...” She shook her head. “Now, I have no idea who I am, or what I’m supposed to do when this is all over. You’re making me question everything, and I hate it, because it’s something I can’t seem to control.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Sucks, doesn’t it? Welcome to my world. That’s what happens when you grow a conscience.”

  “No.” She took a short breath, regaining a little of her composure. “It’s more than that. It’s...you, Cobalt. For some reason, my distaste of you has grown tremendously.”

  My brows arched. “Oh?”

  “Yes.” Mist crossed her arms, still not looking at me. “You are constantly on my mind lately,” she said. “I cannot think when you and I are in the same room. Your presence haunts me even when you are out of sight. It is irritating, and I don’t know how to stop it.” She gave a short huff and glanced at me, defiant. “Do you have any suggestions, since you seem to be more adept at these kind of things?”

  I swallowed the sudden dryness in my throat. No, I thought furiously. I don’t want this. I’ve already been through enough with Ember. This can’t be happening to me again.

  But it was different this time. There was no heat in my veins, no fire consuming me from within. No savage, almost painful yearning from Cobalt toward the echo of the white dragon in the drive. Whatever this was, it was nothing like the Sallith’tahn. Whether through time or the knowledge that Ember had chosen someone else, I barely felt the life-mate bond anymore. If I concentrated on it, it was still there, weak and painful. And though my dragon side still keened the loss of his mate, my human self was...almost relieved. I was free. I could finally make my own choice, without following the instinctive pull of the Sallith’tahn. And, maybe, that was what Ember had wanted all along.

  The only question was...did I want this?

  I sighed. “I don’t know, Mist,” I told her truthfully. “I think we both know what’s happening, but I honestly couldn’t tell you where to go from here. I have absolutely zero experience with this type of thing, and really, I don’t even know if I want to try. We’ve both seen it happen. We both know how screwed up it can get. I mean, hell, look at Ember and St. George. A dragon and a human?” I shook my head. “If that’s not messed up, I don’t know what is.”

  “It shouldn’t be possible,” Mist argued. “We’re dragons. We’re not supposed to feel like they do.”

  I almost smiled at how much she sounded like me. And how much I was starting to parrot the exact same things Ember had said. “Maybe it shouldn’t be possible,” I said, shrugging. “But it is. At least, it is for me. I’ve been around Ember long enough to know that it can happen, and that it’s damned hard to ignore. Ember chose the human know
ing what it meant, that they’d only have a short time together. She would rather spend a few years with him than a few centuries with another dragon. That’s how powerful it can be.”

  “I don’t see how they do it,” Mist remarked. “Or why. It’s completely illogical.”

  “Yeah. I guess it is.” We were dancing around the words, as if not saying them out loud would somehow make it less real. The things that dragons did not experience. Emotion. Attraction.

  Love.

  Mist looked down with a sigh. I watched her, noting how the moonlight shimmered off her hair, seeming to glow in the darkness. “So, what now?” I asked, feeling a strange pull in the pit of my stomach, urging me toward her. “What do we do about it?”

  Mist didn’t reply. Her brow furrowed, and she seemed perched on the razor edge of a wire, able to fall either way. I found myself holding my breath, waiting for her answer, hoping that she would... Actually, I didn’t know. What was I hoping for here?

  The Basilisk raised her head, letting out a long breath. Before she could say anything, however, my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket, sounding urgent.

  “Dammit. What now, Wes?” I pulled it out, seeing a new text flash across the screen.

  Did you fall down a rabbit hole? Where the hell are you?

  Well, that was a mood killer. I rolled my eyes and hit Reply on the screen. Bitchy much? I texted back. I took a walk, where do you think I am?

  Certainly not here, was the almost instant reply. Going over the blueprint the bloody Archivist sent us. Didn’t Mist tell you? I thought that’s why she went out there.

  What? I looked up at the Basilisk, narrowing my eyes. “Why would the Archivist know what we’re doing, Mist?”

  “Because I sent him the video from earlier,” she explained, as if that was obvious. “I also gave him full details of what was happening, and that we were planning to assault the lab to take out the vessels. He thought we could use all the help we could get.”

  “And you didn’t tell me this earlier?”

  “I didn’t want to spend a half hour trying to convince you that the Archivist isn’t going to sell us out to Talon,” Mist said reasonably. “Besides...” She shrugged, unrepentant. “I’m a Basilisk. We don’t ask permission. When something needs to be done, we trust our own judgment. You should know that just as well as me.”

  I shook my head. “And this is why Basilisks don’t play well together.” Stuffing the phone in my pocket, I started back toward the farmhouse. “Come on, then. Let’s go see if your boss has any info that will make this less of a suicide mission.”

  Garret

  “An abandoned mining facility,” Lieutenant Ward remarked.

  At the edge of the table, Riley nodded, gazing at the sheets of paper scattered on the surface before him. “Yeah,” he said. “According to the information we received from Mist’s contact, the laboratory is located in what was once a large mining facility in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.”

  “So, deep underground,” Lieutenant Martin mused. “Which is why they haven’t showed up on satellite or radar. And why no one has been able to find it until now.”

  “An underground compound is pretty defensible,” Tristan said. “It’s going to be hard breaking in. And once we’re inside, it’s going to be even harder getting out.”

  I looked at Riley. “But we know the layout of the facility, correct? And where the targets are located?”

  Riley pulled a large sheet of paper from the pile and set it in the center of the table. It was a meticulously sketched map, almost a blueprint, that showed a complex underground facility with dozens of rooms, halls and stairways. “Right here,” the rogue said, pointing to a truly enormous room near the back. “That’s our target, where the vessels are being kept. We have to break in, get to that room and blow the whole thing to hell.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Tristan muttered. “Sounds easy.”

  Riley ignored him. “The main entrance will be heavily guarded,” he said, tapping the paper. “And according to this, they have watchtowers set up so they can see anyone coming up the road. We won’t be able to approach the main gate without tipping them off that we’re coming. But apparently this was a huge mine once.” His finger traced the surface to a different point on the map. “There’s a second entrance into the facility near the back of the mine. There are no roads that lead to it, and it isn’t well used or as guarded. Hell, they might’ve forgotten it’s there. If we take that route, we might be able to surprise them.”

  “Why don’t we just collapse both entrances?” Lieutenant Ward said, pointing a thick finger at the edge of the map. “It’ll be easier to get to, easier to accomplish, and once the roof caves in Talon will have lost the compound.”

  “No.” This from Ember, standing beside me. “This is Talon,” she went on, gazing around the table. “We can’t take any chances. We have to make sure that army is destroyed, and the only way to do that is to get to that chamber and personally bring it down.”

  “You realize that what you’re talking about is basically a suicide mission,” Martin told her. “Once Talon realizes why we’ve come, what we’re after, they’ll send everything they have to stop us. Whoever you send into the compound, if their mission is to blow it up from the inside, that team isn’t coming out again.”

  “I know,” Ember said softly.

  A heavy feeling spread through me as I realized who that team would be. Casting a glance at Riley, I saw he was thinking the same. Three of us, then—me, Riley and Ember—to lead the charge into the laboratory, find the room with the vessels and destroy it.

  “There should be two teams,” Riley said after a moment of silence, staring down at the map. “A large force to assault the main entrance, to draw away as much enemy fire as they can, while the second goes in the back.” He glanced at Ember, a wry grin stretching his mouth. “Hopefully, the infiltration group can sneak through and get to the target room before Talon even knows they’re there.”

  “Seems tactically sound,” Martin said, nodding. “It worked on the island. The challenge here will be dealing with a much larger, well-armed force. How many men do we have to assault the compound?”

  “Not enough,” Ward growled, and Martin looked at him sharply. “We’ve fought Talon before,” he said, not backing down. “To take out even one of their small compounds, we’d need at least twice the soldiers we have now.”

  “Don’t forget about us, Lieutenant,” Ember said. “There are a whole lot of dragons here who are willing to stand and fight.”

  “Kids,” the lieutenant said. “And females. How many of them have even held a gun? How many of those ‘breeders,’ as you called them, have recovered enough to participate in battle? An untrained soldier is more a liability than a help, even if that soldier is a dragon.”

  “Kids?” Riley’s mocking voice drew our attention to the rogue, who stood with his arms crossed, smirking at the lieutenant. “That’s an entirely different tune than what you sang earlier, Lieutenant,” he challenged, making Ward’s jaw tighten. “Which is it? Either they’re helpless kids or soulless demons—they can’t be both.”

  “Riley,” Ember said before Ward could erupt. “We’re not here to fight each other. And he does have a point. Lieutenant Ward,” she continued, staring the man down, “I understand your concern, but our options are limited. None of the hatchlings or dragonells has been trained like your soldiers, but they are dragons. And more important, they are all willing to fight. They’ve seen battle before, and they know what they’re going up against. At this point in the game, with the numbers working against us, we can’t be selective. The question is, will you and your soldiers be willing to work with them? Are you willing to accept that most of your troops will be dragons?”

  I watched her, feeling proud as she stood up to the Order’s most infamous lieutenant. A few days ago, I expected Ward to
argue, just for the sake of disagreeing with anything a dragon said. But that was before Ember had stood between him and the killing flames of an Adult. It was difficult to despise someone who had saved your life, even if they were supposed to be your mortal enemy. As she had done with me, Ember was challenging everything the Order thought about her kind. If she survived the upcoming battle, she would be vital in bridging the gap between dragons and the rest of the Order of St. George.

  Ward gave an annoyed sigh. “Yes,” he snapped. “With how important the mission is, I suppose having dragons fighting alongside my troops is unavoidable. But what of the lizards? Will they accept orders from us?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Riley broke in. His mouth was set in a grim, determined line as he faced the officers. “I’ll be there. No offense, but I’m not willing to leave them in the hands of the Order. I’ll lead the assault on the main gate. You just worry about backing us up.”

  “Cobalt, no.” Shockingly, it was Mist who spoke, the first time she’d said anything at any of these meetings. Pushing herself off the wall, she stepped up to the table, narrowing her gaze at the other Basilisk. “You’re going to die if you charge at Talon head-on,” she told him, and the worry in her voice surprised me. “You’re a Basilisk—you’re better off leading the infiltration into the laboratory.”

  “These are my hatchlings,” Riley said. “My underground. I won’t leave them to die at the hands of Talon.” Mist started to protest, but he overrode her. “I might’ve been a Basilisk, but first and foremost, I am the leader of this resistance. My responsibility will always be to them.

  “Besides,” he went on, his voice softening, “we already have a Basilisk who will go with the infiltration team. And she’ll do just as good a job as me, maybe even better.” Mist blinked, and he offered a smile. “You don’t need me there—Basilisks always work best alone. Just support and help the team like you’ve always done. I know I’ll be putting them in good hands.”