by Jodi Meadows
Thumps sounded on the carriage, but Elbena didn’t react. It was probably the guards climbing onto their riding platforms. Though there was enough space for four more people to fit comfortably in here, it seemed the councilor wanted privacy.
In case I started talking about dragons, perhaps.
“I’m sorry we had to do that to you,” Elbena said. “I didn’t think you’d be there for quite so long.”
“The Pit is a life sentence.”
“Not for girls like you.”
“Does that mean I’m not going back?” Hope and guilt crashed inside me.
“I didn’t say that.” Her smile was dazzling. It was the sort that won elections because people wanted to trust her. She could appear so genuine—but that was Damina’s charm at work.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to give you an opportunity.”
“What sort?” I asked.
As the carriage started to move, Elbena leaned across the table and pried open the curtains, though the tops and bottoms were pinned together, so she revealed only a small sliver of the outside.
Still, even this glimpse drew me.
This was Warrior’s Circle, one of the oldest sections of Khul-tah. In the center of the drive stood an immense golden statue of Khulan with his maces lifted in victory; he had to be three times my height, though I couldn’t see all of him right now.
Paintings always showed the Khulan statue from one of two angles: from the great doorway, to show the height of the city that had grown around the warrior god; or facing the doors (sometimes open, sometimes closed), to show him guarding his temple, the most sacred place of all his island.
“The Fallen Isles are experiencing some . . . difficulties. Therefore, the council wants to show the world that you’re still present. Reassuring the people is a very important duty. It’s what keeps the peace.” Elbena gazed out the sliver between the curtains as she spoke, as though she could possibly need to see the outside world nearly as much as I did.
“Maybe the council should have considered that before dumping me in the Pit.”
“Watch your tongue.” She snapped the curtains shut and leaned back in her seat, one leg thrown over the other, and crossed her arms.
“You didn’t answer my question before. What sort of opportunity?” I said, this time with Mother’s I-don’t-like-to-ask-twice tone.
“You used to be such a nice girl,” Elbena muttered. “But if you don’t want to be nice, we can turn around. I said the council wants to show that you’re still present. But we don’t need to.”
I clenched my jaw and said nothing. Strength through silence.
After a moment, Elbena went on, pleased with my apparent docility. “I have a speech for you,” she said. “All you have to do is read it.”
“What does it say?”
“Nothing unusual,” she assured me. “The same kind of speech you’ve given a thousand times.”
Over my years of reading their words, the Luminary Council had always made sure I was in agreement. But now that I knew better, I was sure they’d done some persuading. I couldn’t remember anymore. Every interaction was tainted with deep suspicion. What had they made me think I believed?
“Do exactly as they say,” Tirta had warned.
“If you do your job well, you will be rewarded.”
If I didn’t, I would no doubt be punished. “What’s the reward?”
Elbena offered a warm smile as she leaned forward and took my hands. “Mira,” she breathed. “You could come home.”
I DIDN’T WANT to be tempted, but the idea of going home consumed me.
Seeing my parents again, Zara, Ilina and Hristo . . . LaLa, because I had to believe she’d come back to the drakarium. Here I was. Out of the Pit. Carrying a promise of freedom. All I had to do was speak a few words.
I didn’t trust the Luminary Council. They didn’t care about me, clearly, but they cared about my title. They wanted to go back to the way things were before, when I did their bidding without a second thought.
Yet, Elbena hadn’t given me the speech I was to recite, which was entirely irregular. I could only guess what she expected me to say. Maybe she’d force me to announce the council’s innocence in the dragon matter, if that was public yet. Or support her reelection. Or . . . it could be anything, I supposed. The mystery woman in the infirmary had suggested the Luminary Council might want me for something; I wished she’d been more specific.
We traveled for five days by carriage, and when we reached Lorn-tah, we boarded the Chance Encounter, the same ship I’d taken from Damina on my way to the Pit. By now, it was easily my least favorite of all sailing vessels.
It was impressive, though: a four-masted barc with red-and-gold sails, three lower decks, and one of the largest noorestones I’d ever seen. This ship was fast. Travel to . . . wherever we were going (Elbena still hadn’t told me) wouldn’t take more than a decan. Unless we were leaving the Fallen Isles.
That thought made me shudder. I’d been to lots of places, but never beyond the Fallen Isles.
THE VOYAGE LASTED only three days, which I spent in a small cabin with Elbena chattering like we were still friends. Whenever she left, I passed my time by exercising until every muscle trembled. Arms, legs, and stomach: I had to be strong. And because my back had mostly healed, I could be strong.
Sometimes, I looked out my porthole and thought about my maybe-friends in the Pit, my family that abandoned me, my best friends somewhere unknown, and my tiny dragon.
Why had she left? And where had she gone?
I missed LaLa constantly, but thinking about her ripped open a chasm in my heart and let loose a tide of grief, and I had to keep those emotions at bay; I couldn’t let Elbena see me weak.
Finally, the Chance Encounter docked. “Where are we?” I asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Elbena flashed a smile, as though we shared a secret. “You’re going to love this surprise. It’s all going to be so grand.”
This felt familiar. Not the uncertainty, but the looming grandeur. Elbena’s delight. The way they’d sneak me off the ship into an inn. This part wasn’t so different from being the Mira Minkoba. I was always being protected, watched, secreted from place to place when I traveled, even before now.
It was for my own good, Elbena had always said. It was so people didn’t see me fresh off the ship, smelling like the sea and in need of a long bath. It was so I remained a pure, untouched-by-nature symbol to the whole world.
Now I wondered if it had been to keep me isolated.
“Stop tapping.” Elbena shot an irritated glance at my hands beating on my knees. I’d been tapping the islands in quiet code, like Aaru had taught me; I hadn’t even realized it. “Try not to be so fidgety during your speech tomorrow night.”
“What is the speech? When will I get to see it?” What was so important that Elbena had come for me herself?
“This evening.”
Finally, a knock sounded on the door: just two raps of knuckles against wood. A masked Luminary Guard opened the door and motioned us outward. “We’re ready.”
Elbena pushed herself off her hammock and pulled in a deep breath, steadying herself before she smiled brightly at me. “Ready to get off this boat?”
The captain and crewmen would probably protest calling the Chance Encounter a boat, but I just nodded and followed her out the door, into the noorestone-lit passageway. My footfalls thumped on the old wood: eight, nine, ten . . .
Slowly, with the ship rolling on the sea, we made our way up a narrow set of stairs and onto the upper deck.
At first, sunlight overwhelmed me. I’d been underground for so long, then trapped in a carriage and ship, that my eyes refused to adjust to the brilliant light. I hid my face behind my elbow and blinked, listening to the sound of ropes creaking, seabirds cawing, and crewmen calling out to one another.
Cool, salty air fluttered across my body, tangled through my hair, and made the red cotton of
my dress flap.
“Come along,” Elbena said. “We don’t have all day.”
I peeled my face from the safety of my elbow and squinted at my surroundings. Sun-darkened crewmen watched me with raised eyebrows. Only one met my eyes.
Then, not quite casually, she placed three fingers against her lips.
What was that supposed to mean?
I risked a faint smile before smoothing my expression. I glanced around, praying no one had noticed her. There was no telling what my keepers would think if they’d seen what she’d done.
Maybe she hadn’t done anything and I was just imagining things.
As I followed after Elbena, I finally lifted my eyes to see where we’d berthed. Above, the sky was mostly clear, though a mass of clouds boiled on the western horizon. And to the north, I saw the Shadowed City, capital of Bopha.
For a place devoted to shadows, the city sang its love to the sun.
The buildings were tall, graceful spires made of white marble, threaded with copper in intricate, spiraling patterns. Twenty-five of these stood in the exact middle of the city, one for every phase of shadow—or so Father had told me when we’d come here years ago.
The central tower stood the tallest, and brightest. In the highest floor, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows that sparkled in the late-afternoon sun, the Twilight Senate met.
Without Chenda. “I am here because I stood up for what was right,” she’d said. She was like me: betrayed by the people she had once trusted to do the right thing.
Elbena nudged me down the gangplank. “Don’t dally.” Her tone was pleasant, but held an edge of ice.
I hastened to follow her orders. “Sorry.”
Smaller buildings surrounded the Shadow Spires, but low hills and broad-leafed trees blocked most of the view from the docks. On the western horizon, the mass of clouds darkened.
Before we’d finished walking off the docks, the rest of the Luminary Guard had joined us (or, at least, ten of them). A white-and-copper carriage waited ahead, standing out against the crowd of carts and wagons on the road. It had the air of importance and authority. Trunks already sat on the stowage areas on top and bottom.
All around us, dockworkers carried crates to and from ships. Sweat poured down their faces and backs; their clothes clung to their lean frames. They had to move around a group of people holding signs that said things like This is our land and They destroy shadows. Were they talking about Hartans? Briefly, I thought of Chenda and the way she’d fought to help Hartans. And how she’d been punished.
And how people were being burned alive here.
For all the beauty of the Shadowed City, it was not without ugliness.
A busker played an unidentifiable tune on a tattered fiddle, not quite keeping a beat to keep the workers moving. People from the ships hollered orders. And a pair of police officers strolled down the boardwalk, batons swinging at their sides. But if they were worried about trouble, they didn’t show it; their faces were bent together in deep discussion.
As for our procession—most people ignored us at first. Then, a few workers looked up, met my eyes, and seemed to recognize me, even as changed as I was. Suddenly my name rode on a small ripple of voices.
“Hopebearer,” they whispered, and the enormity of that duty weighed my steps.
We approached the carriage, and the door swung open for me to enter.
Just as I was about to climb into the cavernous space—black velvet cushions trimmed in copper—an explosion sounded toward the west.
Everyone stopped. Turned. Gasped.
Wooden debris fell onto the docks and ship and into the sea. Calamity reigned as people hurried out of the way, but that wasn’t what held my attention.
From the ruins of a huge galleon, an enormous red dragon erupted.
And screamed fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A DRAGON.
Here.
In the Shadowed City.
But this wasn’t just any dragon. I knew the shape of this one, the flash of brilliant red scales, and even the pitch of her scream as she clawed her way toward the sky.
“Lex!”
Her name tore from my throat, and before I could think better of it, I was running toward the raging dragon. Slippered feet pounded on the dirt, then the docks, and then the thuds vanished under the cacophony of shouts and cries and chaos.
Everyone was running. Dockworkers, buskers, vendors—most fled the spray of fire and rush of smoke. Others stared in wonder and terror, because there was a dragon on the docks.
But I ran toward the flames as they caught on barges and pillars. “Lex!”
Someone screamed my name, but I felt as though I were flying. My whole body was hot with fury, and my thoughts an inferno of anger. Some foreign instinct took over, guiding me through the crush of people trying to escape the fiery wrath, and once they were behind me, I saw her fully.
Lex was coiled around the mainmast of the galleon from which she’d erupted, her talons gouging into the wooden flesh, wings pumping. She hadn’t finished her climb into the air, and now that I could see her more clearly, it was obvious why: jagged rips left the bottom of her left wing in shreds like a decorative fringe. No matter how she flapped, the wing prevented her from scooping enough air to escape. Maybe in time she’d be able to compensate, but not now. Not half-crazed with hunger.
Hot wind made fires jump around her, and the whole ship groaned and shuddered under the violence of an angry Drakontos rex. It was going to sink, and she would fall with it.
Heat gusted, pushing me backward, but I pushed forward. This was dangerous, I knew. Unwise. But there was still some part of me that believed I could help this dragon.
I reached out my hand through the heavy, dry air which tasted of ashes. I reached as though I could touch her. “Lex!”
Still, she thrashed her head and roared at the sky, spitting out flames that sputtered deep red. Her fire was dying, and so was she.
“Lex!” I took another step forward, my arms open toward her.
This time, she heard me. Or she saw me. I couldn’t be sure. But either way, she released her grip on the mainmast and abandoned the sinking galleon. With one heavy pump of her good wing, she leaped to the docks.
Wood cracked and crumbled beneath her, falling into the churning sea. Lex clawed toward me, her gaze locked with mine.
And behind me, screams began anew. Everyone thought the dragon was coming to eat them; they didn’t know Lex would never harm a human.
Well, not before all this. Now? I couldn’t be sure.
My heart pounded as the great Drakontos rex prowled forward, head low and wings arched. Her talons gouged into the docks, and bloodred fire burned deep in the back of her mouth, behind a hundred knifed teeth.
“Lex,” I said, as gently as I could. How many times had I actually met her? Ilina had far more contact with the big dragons than I, but Lex had seen me before. With Ilina. Multiple times.
I kept my hands lifted toward the great dragon. From here, I could see that her scales were duller than they’d been, and her eyes sunken inward. She was ill. Starved. Abused. If she’d been LaLa, I could have taken her in my arms and kissed her nose, but Lex was as big as my bedroom. She was a wild creature, not one who obeyed my commands.
And yet, as she reached me, Lex rested her chin on the docks at my feet, her golden eyes turned upward to me. Her wings pulled in, and the rest of her body lowered as well.
“Hello, my sweet.” Slowly, I began to kneel. Heat rose off her scales in waves, cooling as the shock and anger wore off. A soft groan worked through her throat. “Poor Lexy,” I murmured.
“Now!” a man shouted.
Bowstrings twanged and a volley of arrows flew in from the north, dragging a heavy net behind them.
Latticed ropes crashed onto Lex, and at once, I realized my mistake. All of my focus had been on her, and none on my surroundings. While I’d been distracted—while I’d kept Lex distracted—police and sold
iers and guards had staged themselves at a distance, just out of my peripheral vision.
“No!” The scream ripped from me, but I was too late.
So was Lex. She reared back, but the arrows plunged into the water, drawing the net tightly over her, and pinned her great wings to her sides. Flame curled from the back of her throat, but there wasn’t enough to save her. The fire died at the tip of her tongue.
And then, her golden eyes shifted back to me, and she surrendered. Breaking free of the ship had taken all her effort, and now she was resigned to captivity once more.
“Go,” I rasped, reaching for the net. “Try one more time.” But before I could even touch the net, everyone swarmed in: soldiers and police to Lex, Elbena and Luminary Guards to me.
I was surrounded. The white-uniformed men took my hands and arms, drawing me away from the fray of everyone struggling to contain Lex. I thrashed, feeling as wild as the dragon, but it was no use. The Luminary Guards were bigger. Stronger. And there were ten of them. “Stay still!” one shouted.
“Let me go!” All I wanted was to get back to Lex, but I couldn’t even see her through the wall of bodies. “Let me go!” I jerked my arm free, only to find another’s hands clasped around it.
“Release her!” Elbena shouted.
All ten Luminary Guards stepped away, and I started to run toward Lex again, but Elbena stood in my way. It was over. Lex was lost to me.
I crumpled to the ground with a desperate sob.
“Oh, Mira.” Elbena pressed her hands to her heart. “What a brave thing you did. Are you all right?”
Adrenaline rushed through my veins and my chest squeezed. I was not all right. But what could I do but nod? The movement was jerky, and I was certain that nothing I did right now looked natural.
Elbena extended a hand to me, her smooth brown fingers in a delicate arc. “Let me help you up, dear.”
We were in full view of everyone who could bear to take their eyes off the dragon.
I counted the masked guards ringing us. Still ten. Twenty-five Shadow Spires in the city. Fifty people gathering nearby, gawking at us, and at the display on the docks behind us.
