House of Dragons

by Jessica Cluess

  “The Imperial University did a recent study on the conquered Wikingar clans.” Her words stung Lucian’s heart. “When we first began our conquest, they had a twelve percent infant-mortality rate. Years later, it was discovered that the twelve percent hadn’t changed. But one number did fluctuate, greatly. Care to guess?” She leaned nearer to Hyperia. “The death rate for people aged sixteen to twenty-five nearly tripled, because our empire keeps shoving them onto the front lines of even more wars. So with the same number of dead babies and fewer new families, how exactly do the Wikingars prosper? We’re the only ones who get anything from it.”

  Hyperia did not respond for a moment.

  “You cannot compare a dragon to a cow,” she said at last. “They serve different needs.”

  Lucian felt as if he’d been struck. Emilia took a hissed breath, but her words remained calm.

  “If a dragon eats too many cattle, the situation worsens for cows and dragons alike.”

  “What would you do, then?” Hyperia’s voice dripped acid. Emilia didn’t flinch.

  She rested her cheek in her hand. A sigh ruffled the curtain of her hair, which had fallen back over her face. “I’m simply saying that this current system doesn’t work. Maybe it would be all right, conquering these people, if we really did make them prosperous and happy, but we don’t. We promise order, but we’re making the world more chaotic.”

  “The empire is the furthest thing from chaos imaginable,” Hyperia spat.

  “All I know is that for anything to get better, something must change.”

  “Be careful.” Hyperia’s voice chilled the room by several degrees. “Be sure you don’t start speaking like the chaos lord, Oretani, or his fanatics.” The girl stood and wobbled only slightly. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you all for the final challenge in the morning.” Hyperia swept from the room, the servants bowing her out the door. Ajax rose as well and set his cup down with infinite care.

  “Guess our happy-family moment’s done,” he grumbled. Vespir followed him, and Lucian stretched. It had to be past midnight by now. If this was to be his last sleep, he felt it would be a sound one. Hopefully.

  He still feared seeing those two charred bodies at the foot of his bed, but after speaking of them, the pain had lessened.

  As he and Emilia walked into the dark halls, he said, “I like the way you think.”

  She gave a weak smile. “I have no idea what’s coming tomorrow. I’ve spent years searching for every scrap of information on this Trial I could find, and there’s nothing on the Truth.” She gazed up at Lucian with cautious eyes. “I have to ask. Have you…seen anything odd?”

  His heart picked up pace.

  “Visions, you mean?” he whispered.

  She nodded, biting her lip. “What do you see?”

  “The burned bodies of the old man and the boy. The ones I told you about.” He frowned, but exhaled in relief. “You see things as well?”

  “Yes. I wonder if that doesn’t have something to do with whatever we face tomorrow.” She spoke low as they walked, checking over her shoulder in case they were being followed. Lucian didn’t blame her. It felt like secret eyes studded this entire gilded palace. “I haven’t questioned Ajax or Hyperia, but Vespir told me she’s seen her family. That’s all she’ll say.”

  “And you?” Lucian stopped them. “What have you seen?”

  Emilia was still for so long he thought she wouldn’t answer.

  “When I was fourteen, I saw a girl executed for being a chaotic.” She began to rub her fingers together very fast. He’d noticed her doing that off and on. “Sometimes…I see her again.”

  “That’s awful.” Even though his flesh crawled at the word chaotic, Lucian felt a surge of sympathy. He’d heard stories—the nails, the blood—but he’d never seen the specifics. Monstrous as those abilities were, Lucian had always thought the practice of putting people to death was vicious. Apparently, Emilia felt the same.

  “If I see that tomorrow, I don’t know what I’ll do,” she muttered. Lucian took her hands in his, stilling her rubbing.

  “You’ll face it. You’ve always been brave,” he said.

  She shook her head, hair tumbling into her face again. “You’re wrong.”

  “If it can’t be me, I hope it’s you,” he whispered. “You’re smart and you’re good and you’re brave.”

  He’d meant it to be kind, but Emilia pulled away.

  “I’m smart, at least.”

  She fled then, her slippers a soft patter as she sped down the hall and made a sharp right. Lucian ran a hand through his hair. Where had that come from?

  As he headed for his bedchamber, Lucian’s foot struck something that skittered across the floor and glinted in moonlight. He knelt and discovered small shards of crystal, picked them up.

  Odd. They were shaped like teardrops.

  Hyperia cleaned her blades with dry cloth. She laid out her best gown, a silken affair with exposed shoulders and gold sequins stitched in five-pointed stars down the bodice. She polished her calfskin slippers until they gleamed with candlelight. A cloak of pure gold cloth with exquisite beading in the shape of flames completed her outfit for tomorrow. On the bedside table, her pearls and diamonds stood in rows like soldiers awaiting a command.

  “Good,” she breathed at last, spotless and ready for her destiny.

  She didn’t need to turn around to know that Julia waited at the foot of the bed. She’d be smiling ghoulishly, serenely, like always.

  “There was a reason for what I did,” Hyperia said, laying her jeweled dagger in her lap. “Don’t worry.” Hyperia checked for Julia’s reflection in the mirror of her blade. “You’re going to be so proud that I killed you.”

  The next morning, the final test waited outside of the palace, deep within the labyrinthine gardens. Hyperia, Emilia, Vespir, Lucian, and Ajax stood before the entrance to a void.

  Whatever they had expected, this had not been it.

  The gate nestled between two sharp cypress trees, with bushes of wild roses crowded on either side. While the blooms were lovely, Hyperia noted the dense snarl of thorns and resolved to be careful. The void, or whatever it was, lay framed by gray stone doorjambs, a lintel on top. If one were passing casually, one would never notice it.

  Through that doorway waited darkness of the most impermeable, inky sort. No noise came from it, not the drip of some faraway water, not the wind. In fact, she got the impression the void actually swallowed sound. Hyperia imagined that, should she set foot inside, she would merely…cease to be.

  Is this truly the magic of order? She nearly pinched herself for thinking such a thing. This world held many mysteries, not all of which could be understood by a person like her. That was why they had priests.

  “We just…go inside?” Emilia asked. It was only the competitors and the priests. The imperial guard was nowhere to be seen.

  “Yes. The final challenge awaits,” Camilla said.

  “We can’t tell you what’s within, because we hardly know ourselves,” Petros explained. “When Emperor Erasmus returned, he merely said he’d seen the Truth.” The priest nodded. “I’ll give you this piece of advice. Most of the emperors or empresses who have been selected passed this challenge.”

  “Passed? Not won?” Emilia asked.

  “So far, you’ve competed against one another. In this challenge, it is said that you will compete against yourself. There is no ranking. You either pass, or you don’t.”

  The Truth, it seemed, was more important than anything prior. Hyperia felt her shoulders relax. She had never avoided facing unpleasant truths head on.

  “How do we know if we pass?” Lucian asked. He took a deep breath, his gaze unwaveringly straight.

  “You’ll know,” Petros replied. Hyperia pursed her lips. Not terribly helpful.

  “Go.”
Camilla waved the competitors forward. “One at a time, but you can all be inside at once.” Hyperia watched Emilia enter first—even the relatively thin girl had to turn sideways and squeeze. Then Ajax, then Vespir. Ever the gentleman, Lucian gestured for Hyperia to go, but she shook her head.

  “I’m happy to be last,” she said. Hopefully, she didn’t sound frightened. Shrugging, he squeezed his muscular frame inside. Hyperia crouched and turned herself. She feared nothing, but she hated tight spaces. Those were the opposite of what a dragon needed.

  But she inched into the dark bowels of that doorway. The five shuffled forward. The air here was still, almost…blank. Hyperia peeked back and discovered that the doorway’s light had grown watery, even though they hadn’t gone that far in.

  “Where are we?” she asked. Her voice didn’t seem to carry, as though there was some presence close on every side, trapping her and her words. Her flesh beaded at the thought. “Hello?” Hyperia whispered. The others did not respond. They’d vanished.

  The world around her was darkness and silence. Hyperia rocked on her heels and gripped the dagger’s hilt at her side. She would wait for something to come for her, and then if need be she’d kill it. She always felt better with a plan.

  Something breathed in the dark.

  Hyperia turned, and her hand fell from the hilt.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered.

  Ajax stood in a room filled with gold. From nothing to everything, dark to bright in two damn blinks. He kicked at a pile of coins, which fell in a shimmer. On his knees, he picked up a handful and found them imprinted with his own face. Ajax Sarkonus. He slipped them through his fingers, waterfalling them back to earth.

  Sapphires, emeralds, daggers encrusted with diamonds, golden chairs in the shape of dragons with velvet cushions red as blood…all the wealth he’d ever wanted sprawled before him. Ajax felt ravenous, ready to gorge himself on every pleasure he’d ever craved. He wanted to roll through the piles of treasure but had to restrain himself. No, he must be an emperor about this.

  Ahead loomed a large, four-poster canopied bed with red velvet coverings and silk drapes.

  In the bed…

  Ajax froze at the screams.

  She screamed and battled him, their forms shuffling in that bed, defiling it…

  Defiling it with him. Ajax recognized the red velvet of his father’s bedchamber.

  Something stuck out in the midst of the treasure: a sword with a dragon’s head as its hilt, the mouth open, a gleaming ruby for an eye. Ajax wrested the sword out of the mountain of coins. The blade shone in the candlelight, the hilt warmed his hands. He could imagine pulling back those hangings, bringing the sword point down through the old man’s back. Stab and end it, end it, end it, make it all stop…

  Ajax froze as he listened to those wails and grunts. The shame of it, the dirty shame…he couldn’t look at where he’d come from.

  What he was.

  Evil. Hateful. A smudge on the sheets.

  “Stop,” he gasped, dropping the sword into the coins and falling to his knees, fingers weaving behind his head as he rocked back and forth.

  “Stop,” he moaned, but he could not move to stop it.

  And then—

  Lucian discovered the old man and the little boy unburned and alive. He’d anticipated coming across their smoked corpses and choked in relief.

  “Hey!” he yelled, but they did not notice him. Instead, they looked to the sky, the old man sheltering the child in his arms.

  Lucian’s stomach seized to find his dragon, his Tyche, flaring her wings midair in perfect battle stance. She stretched out her blue-and-black neck and gave an unearthly shriek, her war cry. Her tail lashed, her wings beat heavily. Lucian felt his hair move in the wind she created. His tongue lay swollen in his mouth.

  “Tyche! Girl, stop! Stop!” Lucian waved his arms, desperate for his dragon’s attention, but she kept her focus on the huddled man and boy. Her jaw dropped, heat rippled from her mouth. The first sparks of fire began. She was preparing to burn. To kill.

  No. Not again. Lucian ran for his dragon, and his foot struck something heavy. Looking down, he found a golden sword, hilt in the shape of a dragon’s head. A red ruby eye gleamed up at him. Take me, it seemed to say. Lucian reached…

  But he had sworn never to pick up a blade again, and why should he take up arms against his own dragon?

  Lucian shielded the man and boy with his body. Tyche glowered down at him, smoke streaming from her nostrils. She smelled of autumn bonfires, a scent he’d always loved.

  “Stop, girl! It’s me!” Lucian cried.

  When Tyche opened her mouth and the flame billowed toward him, Lucian fell against the man and boy in his panic. As their bodies roasted together, as the agony of dragonfire obliterated his senses, his last thought was that he had saved none of them.

  And then—

  Vespir was not permitted to raise her eyes. Here, on her hands and knees alongside her family, she was in her natural state. She glanced to the side and noted that Casca was among them. He smiled at her, that gap-toothed grin from their childhood. Vespir allowed a small shake of her head. No fooling around. The fact that he was dead didn’t trouble her; they had bigger worries.

  The Pentri regarded them, and she had to remain silent.

  How…how had she gotten here, though? Vespir blinked, something tickling the back of her mind. Her mother nudged her—apparently Vespir wasn’t being obedient enough. She bowed her head again.

  “You.” Lord Pentri’s boots stopped before her face, and Vespir touched her forehead to the ground. “You nothing,” the lord said, kicking her. Vespir grunted as a sharp pain lanced through her body. She crumpled in on herself, preparing to succumb to a shower of blows. What else could she do? There was relief in this submission.

  But more blows did not come. Peeking up through her hair, Vespir watched as Lord Pentri pulled Casca to his feet. Dusted him off. Horror froze her blood as the lord selected more of her brothers and sisters to stand. Vespir crawled back to her knees, shivering while her mother wept and pled with her not to do anything. Keep small. Don’t let them see you.

  It’s the best we can get.

  But Vespir could not look away as the lord kicked her brother’s knees out from under him, as he slumped to the ground. As Lord Pentri bent her brother’s neck, unsheathed his sword.

  He was a deserter.

  And who was she to say no? What was she? Lutum. Dirt. She was nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  But…

  As the lord lifted his sword above her brother’s neck—despite knowing that there was no bringing Casca back—Vespir lurched to her feet. While her parents gasped, she threw herself forward. It was pointless, she had no weapon, and her mother shrieked when Vespir knocked Casca aside and raised her empty hands—

  Clang. Steel met steel.

  Vespir found that she’d parried the lord’s blow with a sword of her own. The blade shuddered in her hands and nearly slipped from her grip. But she managed to hold it.

  Lord Pentri stepped away, the rage melting from his face. He was rendered doll-like as Vespir rose, hefting the sword. Knowledge flowed into her muscles. Suddenly this weapon felt so…so right. Easy. A dragon’s face snarled up at her from the hilt, a ruby glinting in its eye.

  Vespir pointed the sword at the nobleman’s gut. Lord Pentri fell to his knees as she approached him. So easy to slice his throat, watch him bleed out.

  But he was Antonia’s father.

  Should she drop her sword and beg forgiveness? Or gut the man?

  A choice. Vespir had to make a choice.

  She made it.

  And then—

  Julia. Hyperia had found Julia in this darkness.

  Not the one with the slit throat and the vacant smile. This was the real
Julia, with soft, chestnut hair and softer hazel eyes. Her little sister gathered breath for a shriek of relief. Her shoulders lifted.

  Hyperia prided herself on never acting impulsively, but she launched herself onto her sister. Julia sobbed against her shoulder. The strawberry-and-vanilla scent of her, the lavender oil of her hair. Julia was a physical weight in her arms.

  Hyperia hadn’t killed her.

  “My baby, you’re here.” Hyperia sobbed. Why stop her tears? They were alone in this darkness. Somehow, even though she could see Julia perfectly, there was no source of light in the cavern. Hyperia didn’t care. She didn’t care. Her mind spun, relief coursing through her veins. “I missed you. Really missed you.”

  “Can we go home now?” Julia wept.

  “Of course. How long have they kept you here?” Hyperia stepped back to cradle Julia’s face, wipe her tears away.

  Something clattered to the floor, right alongside Hyperia. She crouched to inspect it and lifted it up.

  A sword, with a golden pommel, the hilt fashioned to resemble a dragon’s head. The emperor’s sword, passed from one serene imperial hand to the next.

  “I won.” Hyperia beamed, giddy. All the misery of her childhood, the pain of the past weeks, all worth it now. “I won!”

  But nothing changed. There were no celebratory trumpets, no beating of drums. The two sisters remained in nothingness, and Hyperia did not understand.

  Until Hyperia realized, with dreadful and creeping certainty, that she hadn’t been set free after all.

  Julia watched with haunted eyes. Her lip quivered. Did she remember?

  Hyperia screwed up her face, trying to remind herself that this was fake. Her sister wasn’t in front of her. This was a phantom. Not real.

  Killing her would mean nothing, because Julia was already dead. Hyperia had been a frightened fool to think otherwise. She hefted the longsword over her shoulder, so easy in her grip. The next Volscia empress, hers for the taking.