The Last Chronomancer (The Chronomancer Chronicles Book 1)

by Reilyn Hardy

  “Ya have to be selfish to survive.”

  Starving, tired and aching, I almost begged for death. I wanted it, but my body wasn’t ready to fail. It didn’t seem ready to give up even though I was.

  Nearly every time I wanted to die, every time I wanted to give up, Nannu came back to thought at the very front of my mind, and she would flood every inch of me with her hope.

  She believed in me, and I had to believe in me too.

  I thought about being on the platform of penitence and I wondered if that could have been her.

  No, it was impossible.

  There was no way Nannu would have known I was there.

  And she didn’t have an accent like the dragons did — which meant someone else had gotten through the portal I had opened into Mithlonde.

  Unless someone else was already there.

  * * * * *

  I sat in the corner of my cell, near Vihaan’s side, when the guards came for me again.

  They always came for me, only this time it wasn’t for torture. They were different guards, not ones with dark red stains splattered across their clothes, waiting to be greeted with fresh blood.

  These were dressed differently, nicer almost; in uniform, and at the front stood Ronan, the head of the royal guard.

  I was to see the dragon king one more time.

  That was my last chance. I knew if I told the truth, things would be much worse than they already were.

  I was the nephew of the Grim Reaper.

  The man who seized control over their realm and ripped them from our world. I was the son of Father Time, the man who stood idly and let him do it.

  They didn’t need to know that.

  Maybe Vihaan didn’t need to know either, but someone had to. Someone has to.

  Here I am, telling him all of it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  clank and clatter

  Once I finish, we sit in silence while Vihaan soaks it in. He doesn’t say anything at first, so I don’t either. I’m not sure what to say after all of that anyway. I have nothing to add.

  “Do you regret it?” He asks finally. “Leaving Newacre?”

  Do I regret it. I want to say yes. But there is only one thing I really regret.

  “I regret not being able to save my friend,” I say. “It was supposed to be me and him, and now it’s just me.“

  “By the sound of it, Jace wouldn’t’ve been able to live with the guilt if he killed ya.” He shifts a little. “And I still don’t think Rhiannon killed him either, ya know. It’s unusual, but they sound like they care about each other a great deal, and about ya too.”

  He had insisted that for a while, but I don’t believe him.

  “She has no reason to care about me,” I say.

  “Well she cares about him and he cares about ya. A vampire with a conscience? Personally, I think that makes her care by default. He changed something in her, that little boy from the massacre. She saved him. She betrayed her family for him. She wouldn’t kill him now.” Just when I look over at him, he looks away. “All we want is for the people we love to be happy. Whether we’re the cause of that happiness or not. I think she did what she could to make sure he didn’t kill ya, because that would kill him.”

  I make myself laugh, because if I don’t, I’ll cry. I can’t cry, not now.

  Vihaan tilts his head to the side and I can tell he’s observing me. I chew on my bottom lip and avoid catching his gaze. I scratch at my jaw, still looking away from him. I know his eyes are still on me. I think he knows I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve said enough.

  “So — Artemis, huh? The last chronomancer.” There’s slight skepticism in his voice and he shakes his head, in disbelief probably. He chuckles. “Amazing. Ya were right to not tell King Solomon that. Might’ve killed ya right then, might’ve delivered ya on a gold platter to the Reaper in the Underworld himself. It’s a good thing he put it off.”

  I don’t know why he thinks so, but I don’t say anything. Part of me wants him to stop talking, stop acting like he knows me, but I guess maybe I asked for this when I decided I wanted someone to know. I just can’t bring myself to stop thinking about what he said, about Jace and Rhiannon. I wonder if he’s right.

  “Do you really think so?” I ask.

  “About what?”

  “Jace and Rhiannon. You really don’t think she killed him?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense for her to have.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If she wanted him to die, she would’ve let him kill ya and he would’ve done it to himself. Why get involved? But no, she made sure she got ya here instead, even though she didn’t want to. Even though ya two made her do it.”

  “And now I’m going to die anyway. I guess it’s better now knowing he didn’t.”

  “Come on, kid. Don’t say that. Ya gonna make me depressed.”

  I can feel my eyes starting to water and he shrinks down to sit beside me on the ground now. I turn away from him again and pull my arms up to rest over my knees, hiding my face in the bend of my elbow.

  “I don’t mean to embarrass ya, but crying is nothing to be ashamed of, ya know. My dad thinks so, but my ma — she’d tell me it was okay even though I would cry over the dumbest things,” he tells me, but I don’t lift my head. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, crying isn’t a sign of weakness. It just shows ya been strong for too long.”

  I lift my head and rest my chin on my arm.

  “Well, there’s no point in being strong anymore now is there?”

  “Sounds like ya given up. What would Nannu think?”

  I turn to him. He can’t say that to me.

  “What choice do I have, Vihaan? King Solomon is going to kill me. Or did you miss that part?”

  “How could I have missed it when it’s all ya say?”

  I turn away from him.

  “Look, he said he was going to kill me too, yet here I am.”

  “Maybe he won’t kill his own kind after what he did to the Obsidian Infernos.”

  Vihaan laughs. I don’t know what part of what I said was funny.

  “Ya don’t know him at all.”

  “And you do?”

  “Well, he is my king. I know him better than ya do.”

  I stare at my wet sleeve.

  “I don’t want to die,” I mumble, my bottom lip quivers.

  “Few do.”

  * * * * *

  I didn’t sleep that night.

  Not with death waiting for me.

  I get up to my feet. I keep my wrists as still as possible, not wanting to disturb my sleeping dungeon mates, and I slowly approach the window. I’m just tall enough to see out through the open space, where the iron bars meet the edge of the wall.

  I reach out to grab it, to see if I can get a better look, but the bar starts to frost and my hand goes right through it instead. I jump back, my cuffs clanging around. I make no attempts to silence the chains because I can’t look away from my hand.

  What the hell just happened?

  “How did ya —” Vihaan starts, he doesn’t finish. I shake my head, not taking my eyes off of my fingers. I flip over my hand and then turn it back over again.

  “I — I don’t — I don’t know,” I stammer. I glance at Vihaan and his expression is enough to make me do a double take. An expression that’s burned into my memory. One I’ve seen on Jace’s face a thousand times whenever he had an idea he knew I probably wasn’t going to like, and he was always right about that. “I don’t like that look. Jace always has that look. What?”

  “We can get out,” he says plainly, like I should have known. His smirk is plastered across his face, unmoving and carved into stone. “Look,” he adds, nodding toward the bars I had touched. They’re iced over now, frosted. I touch it again and this time my hand goes right through it. The bars are gone. Only frost left in it’s place.

  I can’t believe this.

  “When they were torturing you, you said a Thironde
l charm broke against you, against your body. Maybe you somehow absorbed something from it.”

  I frown. He’s talking differently now. I’ve been in here for over a week, maybe longer, and he’s always spoken like the other dragons.

  “What happened to your accent?”

  “Come on, I still have it. Are ya even listening to me?”

  Maybe I’m just hearing things.

  “Right, so what are you saying? I can — go through things now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how the charms work. I’ve never seen one. But I do see that,” he points at the bars on the window. “And ya eyes turned white. Ya did that. Try it with these.”

  Vihaan takes a step back from the bars that separate the two of us. I hesitate before I reach to touch the iron like he told me to. They start to frost when my fingertips get close, and my hand goes right through it.

  “Well, I’ve got good news for ya, kid,” Vihaan says, as he walks through the residue of the newly frosted bars, and into my cell with me. “King Solomon’s not killing ya today.” He looks back at the glistening bars but I don’t take my eyes off of him.

  He’s standing in my cell now.

  With me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  land of the dragons

  Vihaan was someone I yelled at. Disrespected. He is a lot taller now, now that he is standing right in front of me, with no iron bars between us. With nothing protecting me. I don’t know if I should be afraid. He never gave me a reason to be afraid of him, so maybe I shouldn’t, or maybe those are the types to be wary of.

  “Take off your cuffs,” he tells me as he looks toward the stairs of the dungeon, and my eyes follow. “I think I hear someone. I don’t think we have much time.”

  I touch the bolts of each cuff. They frost and drop to the ground with a loud clatter. Just as Vihaan predicted, someone comes rushing in and he slips back into his side of the cell. I try to reach down to grab my shackles, but it’s too late. The guard has already seen that I’ve taken them off.

  Black smoke begins to flow out of his nostrils as he breathes. He’s starting to unlock the cell, and Vihaan comes up from behind and grabs him by the neck, his hand has turned into a dragon claw. He twists the guard’s neck slightly and his eyes roll to the back of his head before he drops to the floor. Vihaan shakes off his claw and it turns back into the imitation of a human hand.

  “Vihaan! What did you do to him?” I yell, and he motions for me to quiet down while he walks back to my side of the cell.

  “Don’t worry,” he says in a hushed tone and sticks his hand through the bars to unlock the door. “I didn’t kill him. He’s just — he’s knocked out. But he won’t be for long. I only nicked him.”

  As he speaks, the dungeon guard starts to regain consciousness and he stirs where he lays. But he doesn’t get up right away. Instead, scales begin to push their way out of his flesh. My eyes widen, I’m not sure what I’m seeing.

  “Told you,” Vihaan says, “come on, Mae! Move it!”

  Before I know it, he’s shoving me out the cell and we’re running up the steps.

  We make it all the way past the royal hall that I was constantly dragged into, to meet with King Solomon, when I remember the old woman in the cell. I stop suddenly and Vihaan crashes into me, nearly knocking us both over.

  “What the — Mae!”

  “We have to go back! The woman —“

  “Ya can’t be serious,” he groans clutching his hands into fists.

  “We have to! She — we just have to —”

  He cuts me off.

  “Fine, I’ll get her. Ya stay here,” he says and shoves me behind a statue of a dragon woman, the face of a woman with a dragon body. I nod, but I start to get up and follow him anyway. I stop when he turns around again.

  “I said, stay!” He snaps.

  Okay, fine. I’ll stay.

  I nod again and crouch down behind the statue. I press against it and try to scan the area to see if anyone’s coming, not realizing that it starts to frost beneath my fingertips until I look down and see that my hands have sunken into the body of the dragon. I try to pull myself from it, but guards start running past, and down to the dungeons. I struggle with trying to get my hands out without drawing attention to myself but I’m forced to move closer when a guard comes near.

  I give up on the struggle that I’m losing anyway, and let myself sink further in. At least this way I won’t get caught if no one can see me.

  “Mae, what are you doing? Quit touching the lady and let’s go!” Vihaan says suddenly, showing up out of nowhere. I’m only partially sticking out of the statue now, but my hands are free and I manage to grab the chain of Vihaan’s cuffs. I yank myself out of the statue and nearly trip when my feet plant on the ground.

  “But — I saw all of those guards — how did you manage to get her out without them catching you?”

  “Because that’s not the first place I went,” he grins and I think I see something shining behind his teeth. “Ya may not have been a thief before — but ya are one now — or at least I am — well, again. Which makes ya one by association.”

  He’s still grinning and adjusts the woman he’s carrying in his arms.

  “Stay close.”

  I see it now, there in his mouth, behind his teeth.

  He stole the red stone.

  “Wait — why did you steal that? You know what I had to do to get it here! How could you? You have to put it back!” I try to reach for it but he’s too tall. He turns his head and does what I really wish he wouldn’t do. He swallows it.

  I can’t get it now.

  “Look,” he says as he stretches his neck. His eyes cross as it travels down his body. “Someone is playing you, kid. If King Solomon puts that heart into the stone dragon, Mithlonde would return to its place in Aridete —”

  “And? That’s the whole point!”

  “That’s bad. We were moved a long time ago, Mae. Mithlonde is filled with sleeping creatures of the Grim Reaper. Creatures of darkness. Growing. Why do you think there’s no real darkness here? It keeps them at bay until we go back. Do you really want to release all of that? Do you want to be the one who destroys Aridete?”

  I don’t want to believe him. I start shaking my head. He’s lying to me, he has to be.

  “You were tricked, Mae. Whoever told you to come here, lied to you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My father might be partially blind, but —”

  “Your father?”

  I narrow my eyes as I take a step closer to him. His accent is gone again. His eyes, they are identical to King Solomon’s, only kinder and maybe full of regret. Vihaan’s thick eyebrows are pulled together at the center, which he seems to do often, based on the crease that has formed between them. The look of constant concern.

  I used to see that look a lot whenever Weylan would look at me.

  “Your eyes —” I start, but he interrupts me.

  “Now’s not the time to be gazing into my eyes, Mae.” He tells me and looks around to make sure no one’s coming.

  I ignore him.

  “You’re the dragon prince, aren’t you. You’re King Solomon’s son.”

  I can’t believe this.

  “Disappointed?” He asks with urgency in his voice.

  I shake my head.

  “No, I just — I thought you were dead. And the stories, they make you seem, uh, I was expecting someone younger. If anything. Everyone calls you a boy.”

  “Munfolk, when does one become a man?”

  “Two decades,” I say.

  “For us it’s fifty,” he says and starts walking. At first it’s slow, but then his pace quickens.

  I hurry after him, not bothering to look behind me.

  “Decades?” My voice cracks. “That’s five hundred years! How long do dragons live?”

  “Too long.”

  “How old is King Solomon?”

  “Too old. You’re talking too much. We need t
o go, so walk faster.”

  “I want an explanation. How do you know there are creatures here? I haven’t seen any the entire time I was here!”

  But then I remember. The pond I had come across, the carvings in the wall. Maybe I hadn’t been seeing things after all. Maybe there was something in the mountain side.

  “Later!” He shouts at me, tearing me from my thoughts as several dragon guards start closing in on us. “Take us through the wall!” He tells me as they’re gaining. “Quickly!”

  I run in front of him and touch the wall, but instead of frost forming like it had in the dungeon and against the statue, nothing happens.

  Nothing changes.

  “What’s wrong?” He shouts.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know how it works! Maybe it wore off!”

  Vihaan inhales deeply and shoves me out of his way. Using his shoulder, he breaks right through the clay wall of the castle and through the outer layer of stone.

  My jaw drops.

  I stare dumbfounded, unsure of what I had just seen but I’m shaken from my daze when I hear the guards begin to shout, yelling for us to stop. I run after him, through the crumbling wall of the castle. I glance over my shoulder, watching the rubble fall through the hole, starting to block the passage way.

  I can’t stop thinking about who Vihaan is, and why he didn’t tell me who he was in the first place. I glance down at my arms while I run, my bare wrists are caked with dried blood.

  Then I look at Vihaan’s.

  I frown and stop running. He stops when he notices.

  “What are you doing —”

  “You were supposed to spend the rest of your life in that dungeon, weren’t you? It’s why your cuffs are forged around your wrists. That’s why they won’t come off. They aren’t supposed to. That’s your punishment, right? Living as a prisoner. That’s why they feed you. Did they torture you too?”

  “I deserve it, okay? Look where I got us? I have to set things right. I owe it to my colony, to all of the colonies, to my father. I can do that with your help,” he says as he looks past me briefly, before his gaze drops back down to me. “Now, can we go?”