The Stone Eater (The Magic Eaters Trilogy Book 3)

by Carol Beth Anderson

  A quick, surprise visit wouldn’t win over every New Therroan. But at least Nora could extend her hand in peace. Maybe that would set the groundwork for a positive relationship with them.

  Nora’s team would need a new approach for entering New Therro. If Sarza and Sharai tried to waltz in and tell the army that Nora wanted to speak to the city’s inhabitants, they’d be arrested. Before leaving the caves this morning, Nora and Krey had spent hours planning. Vin had agreed to fly her into the city tonight. He’d assured her he could briefly carry four people and still fly at a good speed, so she’d asked Krey, Kebi, and Sharai to come along.

  Thanks to a block of ice Osmius had fetched from atop Cellerin Mountain yesterday, Nora and Krey would be prepared to defend themselves with something less lethal than bullets. Krey would also fill up on feathers, and Vin and Kebi would have fire and arrows at the ready. Still, flying into the city presented far more risks than any of them were comfortable with.

  Nora lowered herself from Osmius’s back. Her feet had barely touched the ground when Krey dropped down beside her. “Nervous?”

  “We aren’t leaving for hours. And then all we’ll have to do is fly under the cloak of night into a city occupied by hundreds of soldiers who’d like to arrest me. Why would I be nervous?”

  He came to stand in front of her. One side of his mouth lifted in a smile. “You’ll do great. And you’ll be safe, if I have anything to say about it.” He gave her a wink, then turned to join the others.

  Warmth filled her chest as she watched him go.

  Theoretically, being a feather eater should take away the fear of flying on a dragon. If Krey fell off the beast’s back, he could fly under his own power. Somehow, the knowledge didn’t help. Soaring through the air on a huge reptid—no, a huge phibian this time—was far from natural.

  Vin’s four passengers overlapped on his back, like extensions of his scales. Sharai was in front, with Kebi hanging onto her, followed by Nora. Last was Krey, his chest draped over the princess’s rear end, cheek pressed against her back, arms reaching around her to hang onto the dragon’s scales. Being this close to her would’ve been way too nice at any other time. Now, when he feared for his life, lying on Nora was just awkward. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, trying not to think about how far down the ground was.

  “Sorry I’m sweating on you,” he told Nora.

  She laughed, her back vibrating against his cheek. “With my coat on, I can’t tell.”

  “Good. If I lose my dinner, it won’t soak through.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  Yeah, this was the opposite of romantic. Which is a good thing, he told himself. But such reassurances weren’t working these days. Damn it.

  “Getting close,” Nora said.

  Krey forced his eyes open. New Therro seemed to have an inordinate number of street lamps, probably so the army could better patrol at night. All that light would make the dragon in the sky less visible. But once they landed, Nora would want to be seen.

  Hatlin knew the area far better than Sharai, who’d rarely visited, despite her New Therroan heritage. He’d sent them on this trip with a crude, hand-drawn map of the city. The plan was to land on the rooftop of a low-end apartment building. According to Hatlin, most of the army occupiers stayed in nicer neighborhoods than this one. There might be some foot patrols, but if luck was on Nora’s side, she’d have a little time to talk to New Therro’s residents before getting run out of town.

  They entered the airspace above the city, staying high enough that residents and soldiers were unlikely to see them. The dragon stopped directly over the residential street where they planned to land.

  “Vin says to hold on tight!” Nora called.

  Krey cursed, squeezing his thighs and gripping Vin’s scales tighter with his fingers.

  Vin pointed his head downward and took a nosedive toward his target. Krey bit back a scream as the force of the movement tore his legs off the dragon’s back. His first instinct was to let go and fly under his own power, but he was holding Nora down. If he let go, she and those in front of her might do the same.

  The dragon’s scales felt like slate on Krey’s cramped fingers. A sharp edge broke the skin of the middle finger on his left hand. He sucked in air, breathing past the pain, not loosening his grip.

  The dragon leveled off as quickly as he’d entered the dive. With a jolt, they landed on a flat roof.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, God. Krey scrambled off Vin’s back, sliding down the beast’s hip to get to the blessedly solid surface of the roof. He sucked on his bleeding finger as Nora, Kebi, and Sharai dismounted in quick succession.

  Nora must’ve been talking to Vin, because the dragon stepped to the edge of the roof and painted the sky in orange flames. A couple of voices below cried out.

  “Good evening!” Nora called. “I am Princess Ulminora Abrios. I have a message for you. Please tell your friends and neighbors to come outside or open their windows!”

  She didn’t give them long to obey before she started talking. As she’d done in other Cellerinian cities, she acknowledged her father’s dark magic and poor leadership. However, she quickly moved on to addressing New Therroan concerns. She made it clear she would allow them to govern themselves if that’s what they chose.

  Krey could only half listen to her. He was scanning rooftops and the street below, looking for anyone who might try to attack them. He knew Kebi and Vin were doing the same. There were a couple of soldiers in the street, but they didn’t seem eager to fire on their princess, especially with a dragon standing next to her.

  After a brief speech, Nora asked Sharai to talk to her people. Just as the former minister began, Krey’s eyes caught movement in the air. He squinted. Had he imagined it? His instincts told him he hadn’t. He scurried to the back of the roof and leapt into the air, ascending quickly and scanning the area. There—a feather eater, flying just beneath a roofline, headed toward Nora.

  “Not today,” Krey muttered, pursuing the flyer.

  The man was flying low over the building next to Nora’s perch when Krey caught up. He shot two dense balls of ice in quick succession. Both hit the other feather eater square in the head. A grunt left the man’s mouth before he crashed into the peaked roof. He rolled awkwardly along the shingled surface, clearly unconscious.

  Krey zoomed down and caught the man as he was about to tumble two stories to the ground. It was tempting to allow it, but Nora had repeatedly insisted that violence was a last resort. And she was right, no matter how much Krey wanted to take out anyone who’d try to attack her.

  He incorporated the man into his magic, carried him a few streets away, and dropped him on a roof. With a length of rope he’d brought just for such a purpose, he tied the unconscious man’s hands tightly behind his back. Seconds later, he was standing with Nora again. Sharai was just finishing her short speech.

  “Soldiers are all around the building,” Kebi whispered. “Some go inside. It will not take long for them to reach the roof.”

  Nora had just started speaking again. Interrupting her wouldn’t look right. Instead, Krey approached Vin and asked him to tell her it was time to go.

  Nora wrapped up her speech. A few people cheered as she and her team flew away on Vin’s back. Two gunshots sounded, but none hit their mark.

  Time would tell if the visit had been worth it. But they were getting out alive, and the person who’d gotten closest to reaching Nora was unconscious on a roof. Krey would be happy about that . . . once he got off this damn dragon.

  “You need to go back!” Sarza said.

  Krey had just slid off Vin. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the remaining nausea from the journey. “What?”

  “I had a vision. You need to go back to New Therro.”

  “All of us?”

  “Just you.”

  Nora stepped closer. “What’s going on?”

  Sarza released a short, frustrated groan. “I don’t have time for this.
Krey needs to fly back to the city.”

  “Where?” Krey asked at the same time Nora said, “Alone?”

  “Yes, alone.” She turned to Krey. “I’ll give you directions to the building.”

  “Why?” Nora asked.

  “There’s something important there. That’s all I know.”

  Moonlight reflected off Nora’s wide eyes. “It’ll be dangerous, Krey. Are you willing to go?”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  She gripped his arm. “I’m not wishing or commanding. This isn’t safe.”

  Krey covered her hand with his own. His smile disappeared. “I’ll go. I want to.”

  As he shoved diced feathers in his mouth, Sarza gave him detailed instructions to avoid sentries and make it to his destination.

  He repeated it all back to her, then asked, “How do I get back?”

  “Um . . . go back the way you came? I don’t know, my vision didn’t show me that.”

  Krey wanted to ask if she was joking, but she clearly wasn’t. “I better go.” Unfortunately, he’d have to ride a dragon again. Sarza had insisted the time saved would be worth it. At least this time, Osmius could carry him. Krey felt marginally safer on the gray dragon’s back than on Vin’s.

  “Be careful!” Nora said as Krey mounted.

  Osmius carried him to the grassy hills north of the city. The location brought back painful memories of the concussion Krey had gotten when he’d crashed here before the battle for Deroga. Thank the stone he was rested and fueled up this time.

  He thanked Osmius and took to the air under his own power. Sarza’s directions served him well, guiding him past sentries outside the city, then along quiet, shadowy streets.

  He landed outside a small pub. As Sarza had told him to do, he walked in the front door and got a beer, then sat at a table in a shadowy corner, keeping an eye on a muscular woman at the top of the basement stairs.

  Within two minutes, the woman stepped to another table and bent down to talk to someone. That’s the only time you’ll have access to the stairs, Sarza had said. No wonder she’d told Krey to take a dragon. If his trip had taken longer, he would’ve missed this chance.

  Leaving his beer on the table, Krey hurried to the stairs and ran down them as quietly as he could.

  “Stop!” the woman called.

  Krey brought his hand to the knob of the door at the bottom of the stairs. It didn’t turn. This was where Sarza’s vision had ended. Krey was on his own now. He knocked hard as the woman pursued him, her footsteps echoing on the stairs.

  The door remained closed. Krey turned as the woman reached him, trying to push her away. But she was frightfully strong and quick, grabbing both his arms. Despite Krey kicking and squirming, she pulled him up the first stair, then the second.

  He shot ice from both hands, but with her holding him, he couldn’t aim it. One of the frigid balls hit his opposite arm, while the other smashed into a stair.

  Where the woman gripped his left wrist, his skin lit up with pain. “Fire beats ice, frost eater,” she growled. “Get up the stairs, or I’ll really burn you.”

  He did the only thing he could think of. “It’s Krey!” he bellowed, desperately hoping someone he knew would be in the basement.

  The woman continued dragging him.

  He tried again, loud enough to sear his throat. “It’s Krey!”

  The door opened. Krey craned his neck, seeing a goateed man of average height and build. Oh, thank the sky, it was Wallis, a New Therroan rebel. An ally. Of sorts, anyway.

  “Let him in,” Wallis said.

  “Can I burn him first?” the woman asked. “Just a little?”

  “We’ve got an audience.” Wallis pointed to the top of the stairs. “Let him in.”

  The woman released Krey’s wrists. He fell on his backside, then slid down to the bottom of the stairs, grunting the whole way. He’d be sore tomorrow.

  Wallis helped him up, barking at the onlookers at the top of the stairs to mind their own business. When both men were in the basement, Wallis slammed the door and bolted it. Without a word, he led Krey around a corner into a lantern-lit room.

  There were tables, but the room’s eight residents were all standing, ready to move. T, the slight man who led the New Therroan resistance, pinned Krey and Wallis with an expectant glare.

  “He made a scene!” Wallis nearly shouted. “We’ve gotta get outta here before someone tells the army to investigate!”

  T spoke to the group in the airy, tenor voice that Krey had always found odd coming from a rebel leader. “Location two! Take different routes. Krey, you’re with me.”

  Men and women pushed past Krey to exit the way he’d entered. T grabbed Krey’s arm. “Come on.”

  There was a bit of a logjam on the stairs. As the room’s residents reached the top, they walked briskly through the small space, heads down. Some exited through a side door, while others entered the kitchen.

  “Act casual,” T muttered as he led Krey to the side door.

  As T opened it, a voice boomed from the pub’s front door. “Everyone stay still, by order of the king!”

  T pulled Krey through the door. The soldier shouted again, and rapid footsteps followed.

  “Run!” T said.

  “Fly!” Krey replied, drawing the smaller man into a tight hug and wrapping him into his magic.

  T gasped as Krey lifted about a met off the street and flew into the shadows. To his credit, the rebel leader recovered quickly. “Turn here!” he hissed.

  Krey obeyed, flying between two buildings. “Let’s get you onto my back,” he said, landing. He squatted, and T jumped on. “Where to?” Krey asked.

  “Straight. I’ll direct you. Stay low; the army’s got two flyers.”

  Krey almost laughed. One of the feather eaters was probably still tied up on a rooftop. T’s quiet instructions took them between buildings and down unlit streets. They halted behind a dark house. T inserted a key in the lock, and they slipped inside. He led Krey to a living room, then lit a single lantern, which adequately illuminated the tiny, unfurnished space.

  It also illuminated T’s fierce gaze. “You nearly got me arrested,” he spat. “Why are you here?”

  “A seer told me to come.”

  T’s eyes widened, but he didn’t follow up on the claim. “’We heard that the princess and Sharai visited on a dragon tonight. Were you with them?”

  “I was. Who were you meeting with tonight?

  A rapid knock in an intricate rhythm sounded at the back door. T left the room, returning with a woman from the pub basement. “No names,” he told Krey. “All you need to know is, these are people I trust.”

  The meeting’s other attendees, including the ash eater who’d guarded the stairs, came in over the course of the next several minutes. When the last one arrived, T expelled a sigh. “Thank the sky.”

  They all sat on the floor, and T turned to Krey. “Tell us why you’re here.”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “We heard that the princess claimed she’ll give New Therro independence if she becomes queen.”

  “It’s true. She’s more than willing to negotiate.”

  T snorted. “We’ve seen how the royal family negotiates.”

  “So has Nora. Listen, T, I know you don’t want to trust royals, but you know Nora fought for your soldiers to get released from the army. You have every reason to believe her. If New Therro wants to remain part of an improved Cellerin, she’ll make sure you’re treated well. If your province chooses independence, she’ll make it happen. Either way, she’ll get the army out of here as soon as she takes leadership.”

  T pressed his thin lips together, his neatly trimmed goatee twitching as he did so. His eyes bored into Krey. At last, he said, “I don’t entirely trust her, but I’m inclined to think she’ll do better than her father has.”

  “Good. Then I need to know what’s happening on your end.” Seeing T’s hesitation, Krey bit back an angry retort. K
eeping his voice level, he said, “I risked my life to fly here. Give me something.”

  T nodded once. “We have a robust resistance within the city. Mostly New Therroans, but a couple dozen Cellerinian soldiers are now on our side too.”

  “Are you planning to drive the army out of town?”

  One of the women snapped, “Hard to do when they’ve got the guns and the food!”

  T nodded. “Our resistance never meets in cells of more than ten people. However, despite all our attempts at secrecy, some rebels are invariably discovered. When army officers find them, they kill them and punish the whole city by reducing rations.”

  Krey cursed softly, scanning the group. They all looked thin and weary.

  “We tried sabotage early on,” T said. “We set off explosives at their headquarters—at night, mind you, when no one was there. They paid us back in blood. Lots of it.” He clenched his teeth, the closest thing to an expression of rage Krey had ever seen on him.

  A chuckle broke through the tension. Krey looked towards its source, a young man wearing a full beard instead of a goatee. “I don’t even think we need to sabotage them,” the man said. “They’re doing a pretty good job of it themselves.”

  “What do you mean?” Krey asked.

  “They held a banquet for magic-eater soldiers last week. Almost everyone got the runs for four solid days. Or maybe solid isn’t the right word for it.”

  “Food poisoning?” Krey asked, grinning.

  T wasn’t amused. “We have reason to believe it was on purpose. One of the soldiers loyal to us helped prepare the meal. He saw a fellow soldier making bite-sized rolls. As she formed them, she added a tiny dot of some substance in each one. And there’s a rumor the same thing happened in Cellerin City. On the same night.”

  Krey’s brows drew together. “That does sound suspicious. Do you know anything else about it?”