“If she’d chosen not to orphan you, we might have selected different parents instead of saving yours from that accident. Had we, the dreamer standing here would not be you. He would be biologically different. Culturally different. Perhaps he would have fought Dracon and remade Rune as well as you—I doubt it, but perhaps. But he would not be you. And… I’m partial to you.”
I was tempted to order her to slap herself, but the damned ring felt itchy on my finger. I thought of Dracon’s Fugue, the strings Cassandra and Ronin had pulled, and I was sick and tired of everyone trying to control other people. I was disgusted by my own choice to use the collar. “I release you from the collar.” My voice was hoarse and the tears streamed, coming from a deeper and sadder place than before. Sad because even though Ronin felt bad, even though her words mitigated my horror, even though I knew we both had strong feelings for one another, whatever was between us was destroyed now.
Ronin held out her hand. “The key?”
I tossed it to her.
“Do you trust me now?”
I nodded. “Yes. We can fight Dracon together. But that’s all it’ll ever be.”
“Isaac…”
“No. I can hardly stand to look at you. How could we be together?”
“Isaac, you don’t understand—”
“Don’t. Just don’t.”
“Listen! The key. It doesn’t fit.”
I frowned. “Let me check with Eliandra. Probably gave me the wrong one.”
The door melted and Eliandra stepped through, as though her name had summoned her. She must have been eavesdropping outside. Stupid rogue levels.
“I gave you exactly the key I intended.” The Queen’s sedate expression set my fine hairs on end. It was Royal Eliandra, by far her most duplicitous role.
Having figured it out first, Ronin flew for her sword, but before she got there, Eliandra lifted her hand—a hand with a familiar silver ring on it. “Don’t move.”
The words pinned Ronin in place.
“Uh. Move all you want?” I waved my own hand, but it had no effect. A creeping sick feeling settled in with the reality of what was happening. “Shit.”
“My ring overrides yours.” Eliandra tossed me another collar. “Put that on.”
“Don’t you dare,” Ronin growled.
“You’ll never get away with this, Eliandra.” Back to stalling Lois Lane–style, at least until I figured out the Queen’s game.
“Ronin. Draw your sword and press the business end to Isaac’s carotid artery.”
“Putting it on.” I snapped the collar around my throat. It shrank taut.
Eliandra stayed Ronin just short of my neck. “Excellent.” She went through a litany of commands she’d clearly thought through: no fleeing, no removing the collars, no alerting other people that we were in her thrall, and ordering us to follow along with any lies she told in our presence. Only when she’d finished did she exhale and seem to relax. “You may ask questions,” she said in a gently diplomatic voice. “It’s important you know why this is happening.” Like a teacher willing to explain why she was flunking us.
Ronin stared at her daughter in horror. “You’re betraying us to Dracon. Aren’t you?”
“I am.”
My whole body numbed. “Why?”
“While I long ago changed my birth name, and was believed dead by my people, Captain Tivarra recognized me once we were up close. She knew I was my mother’s daughter the moment we first spoke aboard the Leviathan. She informed Dracon that one of his slaves was parent to the Queen. Then she put me in contact with him while I was her captive. He showed me my mother; let me see her for a few moments. He described, in detail, all the torments he was prepared to inflict on her. At the end of these abuses, he would kill her. Unless, of course, I delivered Grawflefox.”
I was reorienting to the fact that Eliandra had plotted against us since the Leviathan. The whole conversation about trust had been a trap, a method of getting me to neutralize the only thing that could stop her: Ronin.
“You’ll never get her back this way,” Ronin said.
“Oh, he’ll want to betray me.” Eliandra presented the oath stones. “But I’m a step ahead of him.”
“You don’t understand. You’ve no idea what you’re doing! Your mother won’t—”
“I can do this and I will!” Eliandra shouted. She waved her control ring. “And you may not try to talk me out of it again.”
Ronin’s jaw sealed, but there was a scream in her eyes for whatever hadn’t been said.
Eliandra tossed another collar at me and I caught it. “One more for the orc and we’ll be ready to make the exchange.” She glanced at me and said, somewhat sadly, “I can’t promise your safety, of course, but Ronin and your friend will be left unharmed. This trade is strictly you for my mother. That’s all.”
“Please don’t do this. I gave you character and morals and wisdom. I wrote you good.”
“Did you?” she asked.
I thought back to our battle in the Mirror Room, to the words of her doppelganger: I’m not evil, she’d said, just before Eliandra snapped her neck. I shook my head. “I did. I wrote you good. Whatever you do from here forward? It’s on you. It always has been.”
“So be it.”
***
I trod through snow on the Citadel’s rooftop, past glistening sculptures of angels and demons, iron collar in hand. It was heavy. Dak sat on the edge of the roof, back to me, listening to the soundtrack from Frozen on iSword.
“Do you want to build a snow-Ronin?” he sang, dangling his legs. Tapping off iSword, he added, “Ten bucks says I can pee on the courtyard from up here.”
“Fool’s bet.” The words leaped out of my mouth, the collar preventing me from barking a warning or even acting out of character. Every step betrayed my friend, and my mind flailed for a loophole.
It found none. You will snap the collar to his throat without ever alerting him to the ruse or acting out of character. The instructions were stamped in my spine, reflexive. Eliandra waited out of sight with Ronin.
Fighting the collar sent a burning sensation through my limbs, like hot wax dripped onto my bones. I fought it anyway, and the heat swelled until I felt sure I’d been thrown in an oven. I couldn’t even scream.
Puns, I realized. Dak hates puns. But making them is still in character for me. If I can just annoy him into punching me, he might notice the collar.
“How about we just chill?” I asked.
He groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I hate you.”
Look up! Punch me! Swing for the fence! “Aw. Why the cold shoulder, pal?”
“I hate you so hard that it’s burned into my DNA. You’ll haunt the ancestral memories of my grandchildren, who will one day spontaneously drop-kick anyone who looks like you.”
I lifted the collar to the back of his neck, hands trembling. Pain seared through my marrow until it was my whole world. Yet all I could do was still my hands for the briefest of moments. Turn! Please turn!
My betraying hands closed the collar around Dak’s throat.
Mostly.
Fully closed around his huge Conan neck, there was still three inches of green skin between the male and female end of the collar’s clasp. It was too small.
He reflexively swatted the collar away, sending it skittering over the ledge into the dark depths that encompassed the Citadel’s highest point. “The hell?” Jerking my shirt down, he spotted the collar there and stood. “Piece of advice to whoever’s mind-controlling my friend with BDSM magic: you want to work me over, you’d best shop at Big & Tall.”
Eliandra stepped from behind an ice angel. “Surrender and no one will hurt you.”
Dak narrowed his eyes. He hefted iSword, shield still fastened to his broad back. A twangy old song started and a guy warbled, “Your cheatin’ heart will make you weep…”
“I cannot let you follow us, Dakrith.” Eliandra kept her voice even. “Agree to be bound. There’s too much at s
take for me to hold back. Fight me, and I’ll kill you. Don’t compound this tragedy.”
“iSword, play me something with drums and Vikings.” Scandinavian death metal roared from the blade and Dak charged the Queen.
Eliandra flung her ringed hand forward. “Ronin! Dispatch him.”
Fear jolted through me as Ronin flicked from behind a statue in full armor and demon mask. Her longsword flashed. Dak’s blade twisted through the air, ringing against it. Orc and samurai spun, faced one another, and their blades clashed again and again, a furious contest of singing metal.
“Stop it, Eliandra!” I shouted.
“He made his choice.” She watched with fists clenched.
Somehow Dak kept pace with Ronin’s invisibly quick strokes. She lunged, he managed to trap her arm and head-butted her. Her head lulled, then cracked back into his skull. The blow staggered Dak and she followed with a splintering kick to his knee. His leg bent wrong, but Dak snarled and somehow caught a decapitation chop before it struck its mark.
Sparks hissed from their swords, a lightning arc of magical energy as two unnatural edges connected. When her mirror-bright blade scraped free, Ronin whispered: “I’m sorry.” Her body stilled for just an instant, all her willpower bent on not delivering the blow—the pain must have been unimaginable, because she screamed.
She booted Dak in the chest.
“No!” I heard myself shout. But I was watching it happen from outside my body.
Dak toppled backward off the rooftop.
I rushed forward.
“Stop!” Eliandra cried before I could go over the edge after him.
My muscles seized, locked me down, and I skidded on my knees in the snow right up to the lip. Dak was already small, already falling into the deep black of the chamber. Down, down he fell, past the next-highest spire, accelerating as he went.
He hit a low palisade. I watched his neck snap, head twisted around unnaturally. He tumbled off and fell another eighty feet into the jagged ice spears around the base of the Citadel.
His body caught in the spikes. They glistened red where they’d driven through him.
I looked away. God, no. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to wake up.
“Is he dead?” asked Eliandra.
“He is.” Ronin’s voice trembled. “What did you make me do?”
“Knock him out,” Eliandra whispered.
Pain exploded in the back of my skull and my vision went black. All except the image of Dak’s neck snapping when he hit the palisade, burnt into my retinas forever.
Chapter Nine: Under Control
I roused into half-awareness while being dragged somewhere, with only the faintest impression why. There might have been a ladder. Shouts surrounded me, and my body was hoisted upward. Groaning, I fought—not against the pull, but against consciousness. I didn’t want to return. A whisper of intuition told me nothing good waited for me there.
Stupidly, I disobeyed, opening my eyes and confronting a world where my best friend had just smashed into the ground from a dizzying height.
Akarri had dragged me from the submersible onto the Nell and I was on my knees on the weather deck. Our vessel rose from the water and an anxious Captain Tammagan hovered nearby, gesturing to me with concern.
The joints in my arms ached. I couldn’t move them and realized both wrists were in irons behind my back. Why were the Akarri staring, aghast?
The ringing faded from my ears in time to hear.
“…and then the magister’s plan became evident. He intended not to defeat Dracon, but to supplant him,” Eliandra said. “Ronin had shown him how to manipulate the Citadel’s magic, and unfortunately, Grawflefox’s betrayal cost Ronin his life.”
“Dak too?” Quinny asked, her face pallid. “What happened to Big Green?”
Eliandra bowed her head. “The orc only meant to defend his friend. He seemed unaware that Grawflefox’s power would have been absolute from within the Citadel. In the melee, Ronin was forced to cut him down. I’m sorry, Quinny.”
“Bollocks!” she spat, wheeling for someone to fight. She settled on me. “Give me ten minutes with the fucker, Captain, and I’ll find whatever’s wrong with these wizards and rip it out of him.”
Tammagan looked at me. “What’s your account of this?”
Eliandra stiffened. She was Queen, after all, and Tammagan took orders from her.
But the collar burned beneath the cloak Eliandra had draped on me. I could do nothing to contradict her lies and merely lowered my gaze without a word.
A shocked cry worked from behind the crowd of Akarri, and between them, I saw its source: Elsie. The realization overwhelmed me with sickness. My best friend was dead, my allies had betrayed me, and the only living friend I had in Rune thought me a traitor. In seeing Elsie’s horrified stare, my misery was complete.
“A traitor’s death?” Quinny asked.
“He has value yet,” Eliandra said. “Dracon will want to execute him personally. Take us north, toward the Broken Valley. I’ll need the prisoner secured in the command pod so I can negotiate via messaging stone.”
Tammagan’s lips thinned. “Are you certain that’s wise?”
Eliandra squared her shoulders, and a hint of ire laced her words. “I am. Please see to the navigations, Captain.”
“Of course.” Tammagan saluted and headed for the piloting pod.
She dispatched the rest of the Akarri with summary orders and turned momentarily toward me.
I searched the Queen’s eyes for something. For feeling, for remorse, for an apology—instead, she drew Ronin’s sword with businesslike efficiency.
“What did you do to Ronin?” I asked, unable to keep the disgust out of my voice. She couldn’t have killed her own adoptive mother. Could she?
“I ordered her to take a submersible to the other side of the lake and wait on the shoreline one week before removing her collar.” Cool wind blew through the open hatch on the side of the rising sky ship. Eliandra stepped onto the ramp and lifted the sword. “Dracon might torture you and discover the Citadel. Can’t have that, so I forced Ronin to teach me how to… lock the door behind us.”
She was hitting self-destruct on the Citadel of Light.
Ronin’s blade hummed, as before. Looking out through the hatch, I spotted the green island in the distance. A thunderous crack filled the air. Trees shivered, rocks shattered, and bit by bit, the island sank beneath frothing water.
“Dak.” I leaned forward and might have gone out the hatch had Eliandra’s palm not blocked me, pushing me back. The Citadel wasn’t just my way home—it was where my friend’s body was. With the sinking of the island came the realization: even if I survived, I couldn’t come back or bury his remains. He was just gone.
When it was done, Eliandra tossed Ronin’s sword out the door, where it whirled until planting point-down in an old gray rock at the shore’s edge. “You’ll want that back when you break free and come after me,” the Queen murmured, eyes fixed on some distant point. Then she summoned two Akarri to drag me below deck. I lunged for the rail to look at my friend’s watery grave, to see it just once more. Instead, the Akarri drove me facedown onto the boards, found secure holds under either arm, and dragged me to the command pod.
The narrow chamber was just behind the piloting pod, the door between sealed shut. The Akarri bound me to a chair that folded out from the wall. There was a round table with an amber rune stone inlaid at the rim, projecting a similarly hued hologram of everything surrounding the Nell for several miles.
Waiting for Eliandra, my thoughts drifted to Ronin. I found myself hoping she’d be all right. It was weird. I should have still hated her, but in truth, she was the closest thing I had right now to an ally. What had happened to my parents was an old wound, one that could rip open again and feel fresh and new, but it had a shorter emotional half-life. And it paled in comparison to losing Dak less than an hour ago.
I shut my eyes and willed myself back in time. I’d transp
orted myself across realities. Surely the distance of sixty short minutes shouldn’t matter. All I needed to do was not make Ronin wear that stupid collar.
“I’m an idiot.”
“Is that your excuse?” Elsie asked.
I glanced up and realized the guard had changed. It was me and Elsie, alone, and she stood across the room with hand on hilt, her expression haunted.
“So it’s not that you’re evil,” she said. “Or a scumbag. Or a liar who makes people believe you’re a decent guy, but the real problem is you’re incompetent?” The words sped from her mouth and angry tears already blazed down her cheeks. “I think you’re goddamn brilliant. Only a mastermind could have me so thoroughly fooled.”
Everything in me wanted to counter Eliandra’s lies, but the searing of the collar into my jaw kept it from opening. So I stared, helpless.
“Just tell me one thing,” she said, inching closer.
God, her look. I’d seen it before on Dak—the look of someone about to do something self-destructive, someone ready to light their world on fire so they could warm their coldly furious hearts over the embers.
“Did you draw us to fall in love?” Elsie asked. “Did you draw us to have this affair, so you could watch?”
I blinked. Realization set in. Dracon’s Fugue had forced women into sexual slavery, and this world was still imprinted with that memory of forced lesbian orgies as a source of entertainment. “I didn’t.”
“You’re a damn liar.” The tears ran freely down her face. “I know it and so does Tammagan. You made her. Probably me too. I know what’s going to happen. Tonight she’s going to take me aside and say, ‘It’s over.’ Because how can she ever like being with me if it’s something you made us do?”
“I never made Tammagan gay. She just… is gay.” Or maybe my own preference for women leaked into my art somehow—hell, what did I know about how the magic worked?
“Burn in Hell.” Elsie slapped me firmly across the cheek, once. She turned to leave.
“Wait.” When she paused, I searched for the words. “Don’t give up on her. Don’t let her go. I didn’t make you to be pornography. But your love—yours and Tammagan’s—it’s a precious thing. It’d be a shame to let something so right fade away because the wrong person got excited about it in the wrong way.”
Only Broken Things Are Free (A Pygmalion Fail Book 3) Page 11
