The Dragon Wakes (The Land of Fire and Ash Book 1)

by Sarah Dalton

  “Over a bloody battlefield the two remaining dragons flew at each other, tumbling and slashing with their claws. Dreak’s yellow flame met Nesra’s white flame, and their emerald and indigo wings clashed with each other. They say that common folk could not look up into the sky for fear of being blinded by the bright flames of the dragons. Yellow fire burned forests to stumps, white flame took down taverns. The fight went on for days, and dragon scales littered the fields for years to come.”

  “Who won?” asked Reva.

  “They both died. They defeated each other, changing to men as they fell from the sky.”

  “Then what happened?” Reva knew the answer, or at least she thought she did, but she wanted the end of the story.

  “The hag found a new ear in which to whisper. A man—no dragon—born a Lord with his own castle and men. The hag whispered that he should rule what was left of Estala. He was the one who should take the crown. He had been chosen by the Enlightened God. Together they shaped a new world and a new religion, one that was no longer forged in flame, but was built atop dragon ash. Together they promised to eradicate the magic that had destroyed Estala to begin with. No longer would greedy dragon kings overtax their people to pay for their finery. The common folk pulled down the grand castles and fought over rubies and diamonds.

  “The new king destroyed all the castles but one, Nesra’s Keep, which he kept as a symbol of what once was. He built the Market Road to distribute goods from north to south.”

  “King Mithrin,” Reva whispered.

  “What?”

  “That was his name. King Mithrin I. Ancestor to King Davead.”

  “Yes,” Karine said. “You know your kings. I bet you learned it from your lord father.” She winked at Reva before continuing on with shovelling pig muck.

  When Reva resumed her sweeping, she mused that Karine had been right about the story; there were details she had not known. Their names for one, and the details about the hag for another. She had been taught that the dragon kings were evil, despot kings who ruled Estala into the dirt. In a way, that was all true, but Karine’s story made them seem more… human. It was their lusts for power—their wants as men—that had started the wars, not a mindless dragon need for violence.

  “Karine,” Reva said.

  The girl lifted her head from her task and smiled.

  “You have seen the marks on my stomach.”

  “I have,” Karine said. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how much you miss your child.” Karine bit her lip and shook her head. “Many of the women mutter names in their sleep. I believe almost all of them are children.”

  “There are no names for me to whisper,” Reva admitted. “None of my children ever took a breath. I was never able to bring them into this world—at least, not alive.”

  Karine leaned over to Reva and clutched her hand. It was enough to bring tears to Reva’s eyes, but she blinked them away and let go of Karine’s hand. She mumbled about the Sisters seeing them, but her voice was thick, and her heart was full.

  On the way back to their hall, which was more like a large prison cell than a hall, she noticed the other prisoners turning away from each other. No one talks, Reva realised. Only the washer women chatted as friends, while everyone else avoided eye contact. The girls travelled silently to their bed rolls and the Sisters locked them into their long, windowless cell.

  As the women settled into their slumbers, Reva felt an urge to do something. Karine’s story had moved her. It was not the dragon kings she thought of, but the way she had stood and listened to Karine tell her story. She wanted to hear the voices of all the women in the prison. She longed to know them, to find out their histories. Where were they from? How had they ended up at the Gardens of Anios?

  She sat up from her pile of straw. “I was given to a Lord when I was thirteen years old. I was little more than a child but I was his prize for his work for another man. My husband was a soldier, not a husband. He demanded obedience. If I stepped out of line I was beaten. I was tasked with one duty: to bear him a son, yet I could never do that. I have never brought a child into this world alive. You have seen my body. You have seen the scars I live with. I am a woman now, but I am a woman with losses and with pain. My parents were taken from me when I was young. I have known grief as you all have known grief. I was promised to another for most of my life, until I was claimed by my husband. He was a friend, and someone I kept in my heart. I have known love like you have known love. I am a prisoner, as you are prisoners.”

  When she stopped talking, she was trembling right down to her ankle manacles. She lay back down in her bed and crossed her arms over her body for warmth. It was not the night air that gave her a chill, it was the stretching silence. No one moved, no one spoke. The hall was never silent at night, there was always the sound of people shuffling their bodies, coughs and sneezes, and snoring throughout the entire night. But for what seemed like hours—but was more like minutes—there was no noise at all.

  Until one woman spoke up, smashing through the silence with her tremulous voice. “His name was Sam, and I loved him. We were fifteen and we used to meet behind the stables to talk some and kiss some. Oh, I loved talking and kissing with him. He’d always want more but I pushed him away and told him to wait until we were married. I knew we would be married when we came of age. He was stable boy to Lord Tyca and my father approved. He had a steady job, and we were poor as dirt. Father worked in the tannery and Mother was a servant, but she had so many children we never had enough food to go round. A stable boy was an honest job, they said, for a Lord was good, they said. Lords treated their servants well and appreciated loyalty.

  “Then the rebellion started and the king’s men stopped in our village demanding bread and ale. We put up a soldier in our house, gave him our one bed, and the rest of us slept on the floor or out under the stars when it was warm. I never liked him, or the way he looked at any of us girls, like we were his dinner or something. He liked me to serve him his food and used to make me stand there and wait while he ate.

  “It was a month later, when the rebellion was over, that he made the offer to Father. ‘Five gold crowns for the green-eyed girl.’ I begged Father not to let him take me, but five gold coins were enough to feed the family for months. Mother pushed me out of the door and closed it behind me, while Roberto picked me up and hefted me over his shoulder. He threw me on his horse and rode away with me. I still remember watching my tears fall onto the leather of the saddle as we rode away from my home, my village, and my Sam. I’ll never know how Sam reacted to my leaving, because I never got a chance to say goodbye.” The woman’s voice broke, but no one spoke until she continued her story. “I was married to Roberto for six months before my belly grew. I knew I was with child because I’d seen it happen to my mother time and time again. But no one talked to me. No one told me what it would be like, because I spoke to no one and never left our house.

  “That was when Roberto started to get sick of me. ‘I cannot lie with a fat woman,’ he said, so he went off and found his pleasure elsewhere. I gave birth without him. I yelled for help and the butcher’s wife came to my aid. She cut the cord with a kitchen knife. I cleaned up the mess and got in bed and nursed my daughter, waiting for Roberto to come home and see his child.” She paused. Reva heard a sniff, and a long exhale. Then she continued. “But someone in the tavern told him the child was a girl. Roberto was so angry I’d not given him a son that he left that night with the tavern wench. I waited and waited with my daughter at my breast but Roberto never came home to me.

  “He left me nothing, no food, no money. I went from door to door asking everyone in our village for work but none would employ a mother with a newborn baby. Then, one day, after I had spent all day walking from door to door asking for work, I came home to find my own door barricaded shut. A new family had taken it from me. They’d taken my home and wouldn’t let me back in. I didn’t have the money to travel home to my parents’ village. I had nothing, except for a cryin
g baby and the clothes on my back.

  “That’s when the Sisters found me. They took the baby from my arms and gave it to the family in my own home. They wrapped chains around my ankles and brought me here. Every night I feel a chill at my chest. That’s where Becci is supposed to sleep. That’s where she lays her sweet head when she’s nursing. They took her away from me, but I was grateful, and every night I cry for her.”

  Reva brushed tears from her cheeks before hugging herself harder. The woman’s words moved her, and now her thoughts were filled with her losses. She opened her mouth to say something to the woman, but her voice was quieted when another spoke.

  “Fifteen, I was, when the fever took Mother and Father. I slept on the streets for a time when a young healer’s apprentice of nineteen took pity on me. He said he needed a maid to keep his room clean when he was workin’ with the healer. He gave me a bedroll in the hallway and fed me a good breakfast every morning and I worked hard for him to keep his place in order, cook his food, and wash his clothes. At night we started talkin’ through the door until we fell asleep. He told me of his own parents who had him when they were older and died not long before I met him. I loved him then, for all he’d given me, and for the words he spoke to me at night. We married weeks later and I was happy.

  “But all that changed when I told him my secret. You see, I’d been careful. I wore my iron bracelet day and night to stop the change. I knew I should of told him before we married but I was scared he’d break it all off and I’d go back to the street. I hated it there, I hated begging and I hated the cold, dirty nights. But I couldn’t live with him and not tell him my secret. I couldn’t. So I took my bracelet off and I showed him what I was. I changed into the dog before him and tried to show him that I wouldn’t hurt him. He was taken aback, he didn’t speak to me for a day and a night, but afterwards things started to go back to normal, though I was too frightened to take off my bracelet again.” The girl stifled a sob before she continued. “The Sisters came for me a week later.”

  Reva wanted to reach out and take the girl’s hand but she had no way to know who she was in the dark.

  More stories were spoken that night. They had all suffered. There were beatings, drunken husbands, near starvation, betrayal from loved ones. Many of the women had been persecuted for being Menti, others had suffered purely because of birth, because they were poor. But they all had a story and they talked long into the night.

  Finally, it was Reva who spoke last. “We have shared tonight, and that is good, because we will never be alone again. When you are in darkness, I promise to always be the light guiding the way, and you will be mine. We are the survivors and we must never forget each other. You give me strength, every one of you.” She took the hands of those nearest her, and listened to the shuffling of bodies around her. They are holding hands, she thought. And her heart swelled.

  King Davead

  A goblet of the finest Lanthan wine sat untouched on the king’s desk. It shivered as the great man’s footsteps pounded across the room, rippling the surface of the red liquid. King Davead had been unable to sit still since his third son had sailed from the Bay of Kings to Xantos with a battalion of men. There was still no word and Stefan left almost two weeks ago. He paused by the desk to pick up the goblet of wine before letting his hand fall to his side. It was no good, the wine would not help, and he needed to keep a clear mind for any news from Xantos.

  I must know, he thought. I must know if he is one of them. For if his son Luca was a Menti, he could come to terms with Stefan as his heir. As it stood, he could not stop thinking about Stefan. Had it been a mistake sending Stefan to deal with the Menti rebels? He had let his emotions get the better of him. He had agreed too quickly. Stefan did not make good decisions, and he had discovered after the ship had sailed that Brother Mikkel had travelled with Stefan even after he had requested that Stefan break ties with his Governor. He resumed his pacing. The Order of Insight was a troubling sect growing in power. Three years ago, when the Menti were rebelling yet again and the Hag kept reminding him of his prophecy, he had turned to the Order of Insight, a small but growing division of the Enlightened. They hated the Menti as much as he did and they had ingenious plans on how to control them.

  The females were less trouble than the men. They did not have the same fighting instinct as the men. Most of them hid their powers and tried to live undetected. But Davead knew they were still dangerous, which was why he agreed to work with the Order. They sent their Sisters across Estala imprisoning the female Menti, putting them in irons and putting them to work. They farmed the land with their prisoners, and sent the goods down the Market Road to market towns across the realm. The king took a cut from their profits, ensuring that the deal enriched the Order and the crown simultaneously, while safely segregating the Menti. The thought of them all breeding made Davead’s stomach churn. He had even turned a blind eye to the Order executing Menti, and appointed Stefan with the task of sniffing out any Mentis leftover from the rebellion.

  King Davead paced and paced as he waited for word. At every interruption he moved eagerly towards the door, but each advisor came begging for the royal seal on uninteresting decrees about budgets and taxes. At the end of the day, Davead dismissed them all and left his chambers and a plate of untouched food waiting on his desk. He took one guard with him as he walked up the steep steps to the All-Seeing Tower, groaning and complaining as his joints ached with each movement. There were days where he could not believe how old he was, and the thought of leaving Estala in Stefan’s hands frightened him more than the increasing aches and pains in his joints.

  The Hag’s guard opened the door and he walked into the gloomy tower with the tiny slit of light.

  “It has not been a month.”

  The woman stood with her back to him, stirring something in a bowl. Davead held his sleeve to his nose against the smell.

  “They have not emptied my slop bucket in two days, Your Majesty.”

  “I will speak to your guards,” the king replied.

  “Very good.”

  Still she did not turn to him. He took a step forward with the intention of spinning her to face him. The woman should turn to talk to her king, she should show him respect. Yet he did not turn her. He stopped a few paces short and sighed.

  “You want to know who will kill you,” the Hag said. Her spoon scraped against the stone bowl she stirred. Some of the mixture slopped over the edge, giving the king a view. The contents appeared suspiciously similar to blood and guts, making King Davead swiftly look away. He lifted his sleeve to his nose against the smell again. It had been a long time since Davead had smelled blood, guts, and excrement at once. Not since the battlefield, and he had never had much stomach for war. One of the few perks about being king was getting to hang back and let generals and sons take on the brunt. Once he had put on a show for his men for the sake of comradery, that was what he preferred to do. In truth, he had never had the stomach for it.

  “Will it be my son?”

  The stirring stopped. The Hag set down her spoon in the stone bowl of gloop and the king felt a cold chill run through his veins. But she still did not turn, and she did not answer.

  “Will it be my son?” he repeated.

  “You want specifics,” she answered slowly. “The sight does not work in specifics.”

  Davead exhaled in exasperation. Why must the Hag speak in such riddles? “You came to me with a prophecy that a Menti would kill me and usurp my throne. Well, now I want to know which Menti will kill me.”

  “You have asked that question before, and I had no answer for you then.” There was a note of warning in the Hag’s voice that Davead had not heard before and did not like. Still she stood with her back to him so that he could not see her face.

  “You know something.” He reached for her shoulder to turn her to him, but the Hag slipped away, moving more nimbly than he imagined she could. “I command you to tell me what you know.”

  He followed the
Hag as she moved through the room. I must catch her. I must force her to tell me what she knows. His throat was dry with anticipation. As the old woman slipped through his fingers, he thought of nothing but Luca, his weakest son, his most charming son, a Menti with the rest, and the man to murder him. Do I want to know? Truly? The answer must be yes, a resounding yes, echoing from the mountains with a yes, yes, YES, because he could not stop chasing the old Hag around her room. At one point the slop bucket was tipped over and he gagged from the stench. She turned over chairs and threw her stone bowl to the floor before he cornered her and she slipped down to her knees.

  “What do you know?” He towered over her, leaning forward to grasp her bony shoulders with his large hands. The smell was not so bad now; perhaps he had grown accustomed to it, or he simply did not care anymore. “It is Luca. Luca will kill me.”

  But the Hag did not answer. Her old eyes brimmed with tears. She opened her mouth and the song of the old ones came out in a language that Davead did not understand. All he knew was that this was sorcery. He blocked his ears as the song infected him, moved him. He staggered back away from the Hag and closed his eyes, for his eyes were deceiving him. In the corner he had glimpsed the sight of a beautiful young woman with skin like copper and deep brown eyes. He shook his head in disbelief. It was the Hag, seducing him with wicked deceit. He opened his eyes and Luca sat there, huddled in blue robes with his hair cut short and his face gaunt. He took a staggering step back and almost dropped to his knees. Now it was Stefan, that red tongue of his snaking out between his lips.

  The king could not take it. He would not see his sons like this. The witch was confusing him, breaking him. What if she was the Menti to kill him? He glanced at the door. Where was the guard? Was he locked in? His vision blurred as sweat ran into his eyes. He lurched forward, wrapping his hands around his son Stefan’s neck. He squeezed his fingers together until the Hag’s song ended, until her eyes bulged from her bones, until she sagged to the floor as deflated as a burst bladder. She was dead. The Hag was dead and he had killed her.