House of Dragons

by Jessica Cluess

  Emilia felt as if she were standing at the precipice of an endless fall as the priest rose.

  “Pray to the Dragon to protect your soul, if a demon like you knows how to pray.” Petros left, slamming the cell door behind him. As Emilia lay in the blood-scented darkness, she whimpered.

  Nothing. There was nothing to be done now.

  She had exploded every scrap of bone, blood, and muscle inside three living bodies with a mere thought and the will to guide it. She’d grown so distracted by the shiny novelty of her gift that she’d ignored the destructive limits of her power. She’d done it to save Lucian, yes, but was that an excuse?

  Petros was a murderer, but he was also right.

  Evil had to be purged from this world.

  Hyperia paced her cell, from the pitiful cot to the barred door and back again. She was a dragon in a cage. This insolence would not go unpunished, no matter whose throat she had to crush beneath her foot by the end of the night.

  “What is going on?” she bellowed, kicking at the door. It rattled but did not budge.

  She had been dragged from her bed by several of the imperial guard, not even given the opportunity to dress or find shoes before they hauled her through the palace and escorted her down a twisting flight of stairs. Her nightgown of pale golden silk was useless against the cold of a dungeon. Hyperia’s feet were ice, her skin rippling with gooseflesh. But she would not give her jailers the satisfaction of watching her shiver.

  The imperial prison lacked the ostentatiousness of the palace’s other areas. No gold or pearl decorations down here. Instead, a long, dimly lit corridor of twelve metal cages, six on either side. Hyperia had been thrown into one, and the guards had left her alone to pound and scream.

  Except that Hyperia was not alone down here.

  To her right, Lucian paced as well, his anxiety matching hers, though the focus of his concern was different.

  “Emilia!” He kept yelling the girl’s name, hands gripping the bars as he peered into the cage to his right. While Hyperia couldn’t see the Aurun girl, it concerned her that she hadn’t heard anything out of her.

  Across the hall from Hyperia was Ajax, and beside him sat Vespir.

  “Why are we here?” Hyperia roared.

  Vespir threw up her hands. “I don’t know! They dragged me out of bed!”

  Hyperia noticed that she and Vespir were both in nightdress, while Ajax and Lucian were fully clothed.

  “What did you two do?” she growled.

  Ajax merely sat with his back against his cell’s bars and gazed into the distance. Hyperia knew in a keen, animal way that this was his fault. Whose else could it be?

  “Do they know what we discovered?” Hyperia called to Lucian. Finally, he turned from yelling for Emilia and spoke to her.

  “I think so.” Lucian’s voice trembled.

  “Because of him?” Hyperia pointed at Ajax’s lumpen figure. Lucian winced but nodded. That little bastard. Hyperia kicked at the lock, a high kick that rattled the cage door to its foundation. Her heel smarted. “You idiot! I wish we’d let that basilisk poison you.”

  “Don’t yell at him!” Vespir slammed against her own door. “We don’t know what happened yet.”

  “He tried to make a deal with the priests so he could become emperor. Didn’t you?” Lucian asked, his voice hoarse.

  Ajax nodded, his shoulders slumping lower.

  “You idiot!” Vespir wailed.

  While the servant girl shouted at Ajax, Hyperia sought Emilia once more. Lucian stepped back farther into his cell, lending an unobstructed view. The girl had been chained to a cot in the center of her cage. Hyperia gaped at…What was on her head? Why had they chained her, and not the rest? And why did that helmet appear so unsettlingly familiar?

  “Lucian. What happened to Emilia?” Coldness grew in her stomach.

  “It’s my fault,” he growled.

  “That helmet…” Hyperia could not bring herself to say it, so Vespir did.

  “A chaotic?” The servant girl shoved her face up against her bars to get a better look. “I saw an execution when I was a kid.”

  A pinched, sick feeling radiated outward through Hyperia’s body. The explosion of chaos at her family home during the Game; the cracked ceiling, the screams; the dead lord, bleeding out at Hyperia’s feet. Granted, she had killed that man herself, but only as a reaction to the attack. She just couldn’t believe it. It had all been Emilia?

  Chaos. Damnation. The embodiment of evil, with wild red hair and sorrowing eyes. That bitch had tricked her. Hyperia had even liked her better than the others. She went blind with fury.

  “The Aurun will pay for this. They had to know,” she growled. Then she paused. “Lucian. Why do you say this was your fault?” It couldn’t be what she was thinking. “Did you know?”

  “You’re wrong about her! If I’d only picked up that sword, she wouldn’t have had to protect me!”

  Hyperia focused on what was key. “How did she protect you? What did she destroy?” She gripped the bars. “Did she kill anyone?”

  Lucian buried his face in his hands. Yes. Yes, she’d killed. Monsters always sought blood.

  “If I must die to prevent a creature like that from ever drawing another free breath, I’m glad,” she snapped.

  “That creature saved Ajax against the basilisk.”

  Good, finally that noble monk bullshit was falling away.

  “And wreaked havoc on my family’s lands. After we left the Game, do you think that the guests were simply allowed to leave? I’d be surprised if most weren’t thrown in dungeons, awaiting trials to test for chaotic ability. She is like all true chaotics: clever, deceptive, and rotten to her core. She is evil.”

  “You of all people shouldn’t give lectures on good and evil.”

  Footsteps approached. Hyperia stepped back as the captain of the guard opened her cell door. He wore no easy smile now and would not look in Lucian’s direction.

  “My lady, you must come with me,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Their Graces request your presence.”

  Was she first to die, then? If so, Hyperia would meet her fate with the calm of a true Etrusian. She walked out of her cell, the captain and two others at her back. While Lucian called out, desperate to know what was happening, Hyperia centered her soul.

  Julia. My baby. I’ll be there soon.

  They marched her up several floors. She assumed they’d be taking her to the throne room, but instead they guided her toward the priests’ bedchambers, situated on the other side of the palace from her own. Hyperia frowned. Why were they going here? The captain knocked and led Hyperia into a sitting room papered with golden silk. The furniture consisted of overstuffed couches upholstered with orange-and-blue satin in fine Karthagon style. Camilla was perched upon a settee, a cup of coffee before her on the low polished table. The priestess waved Hyperia over.

  “Sit, my lady.” She gestured to a couch.

  “Where am I to die?” Hyperia asked simply.

  Camilla blinked. “Well. Not here. Have some coffee. Some cherry-and-walnut cake, perhaps?”

  Hyperia did not appreciate games. A door off to the right opened, and Petros entered.

  “You know, then?” Petros asked. He dismissed the captain and the guards with a nod. Soon, it was only the three of them. Hyperia had no weapon upon her, no way to defend herself. “What Ajax discovered?”

  No need to dissemble. That was weakness.

  “You killed Emperor Erasmus.”

  “Yes, because he had a chaotic spirit. Chaos is the great cancer upon civilization.” Camilla sipped, her pinkie in the air. “Thankfully, you display no such affliction.”

  “So. You are not going to kill me?” Hyperia was puzzled.

  “Perhaps not. That depends.” Camil
la replaced her cup. Petros stood behind her, his hands gripping the couch’s back. “On your obedience.”

  “How so?” Did they wish her to become their servant? A spy?

  “Become the empress,” Petros said.

  Hyperia blinked. “I don’t understand. I won the Trial?”

  Camilla looked back at Petros, and the priests exchanged glances.

  “A winner has been selected.” Camilla sighed. “You, alas, were not chosen.”

  “Ah.” Then it was over. After a lifetime of having it drilled into her—win, win, win—this should have dragged her into the deepest chasm of despair. She felt oddly light. Perhaps she was numb to the pain, the adrenaline overpowering her senses like having a limb lopped off on the battlefield.

  “But…” Petros stepped nearer. “The choice was unacceptable.”

  Hyperia frowned. “Who was chosen, then?” She hated to question anything—she would not be like Emilia—but she couldn’t help herself. “And how were they chosen?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You are our choice, my lady. Or should I say, Your Excellency?” Petros stroked a thin finger along his cheek. “Our bargain is simple. Keep our secret regarding Erasmus and be the orderly empress we all know you were born to be. In exchange, we shall crown you and kill the others. No one will need to know—”

  “That Emilia is a chaotic?” she growled.

  “Yes. She goes away. They all go away.” Petros spread his hands. “All hail Hyperia Sarkona. Does it not have a fine sound?”

  “But…” Hyperia struggled to wrap her tongue around the word. “It is a lie.”

  “Are you so ready to die for the truth?” Camilla asked.

  Hyperia imagined the first rider, Aufidius, charging on dragonback against usurping nations. She pictured him carving out the heart of his friend, his enemy, Caius Martius. Weakness must be purged. She thought of Erasmus, scribbling away his mad heresies in a dingy room beneath the aerie. She conjured an image of the imperial city’s walls crumbling with a massive tremor of the earth, the buildings falling under mountains of flame. Her own body, gored and lifeless, resting atop a heap of corpses.

  Hyperia pictured Julia’s laughing face as blood gushed from her neck.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “I will be your empress.”

  Ajax sat and thought about Dog. For a while now the others had been shouting at Ajax, but he barely heard. What did it matter?

  Please, just tell me that someone went out to throw a blanket over him. Dog got so cold in the open air at night.

  Dashing traitorous tears from his cheeks, Ajax stood and walked to the wall, wishing like hell he had a window. He wanted to see Dog one last time. Dog wouldn’t be able to go back to the aerie now; he couldn’t fly without sight. What if, to put him out of his misery, the guards had already taken their swords and…

  No. Ajax shuddered with the thought. His soul would have died with Dog. That’s what the bond between dragon and rider was, right?

  Ajax rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes, envisioned the infinity of stars blanketing the sky. Dog would never see the sky again. He’d never fly again. And if Ajax could just tell him…just tell him he shouldn’t have come to protect Ajax’s sorry ass. Dog never thought about himself; that was his biggest problem.

  Guess I screwed us up. Ajax imagined saying that as he ghosted his knuckles across the dragon’s snout, right between the nostrils. It was soft as velvet there. Dog would hmph in contentment and wrap his tail around Ajax’s left leg. Dumb dragon.

  Idiot dragon. The others are right. You’re stupid! Useless! The words burned in Ajax’s throat. He’d never felt hate like this, a cancer that knit his bones together, snaked through his innards like a parasite. Made him whole. Why Ajax? Why Dog? Why? Why? What’m I supposed to do with a blind-ass dragon? He could just picture Dog listening to the torrent of abuse as he faced Ajax calmly with blind eyes.

  By the black depths, such feelings weren’t worthy of an emperor. They weren’t worthy of a shitty child.

  Ajax was a feral, nasty thing, all bad angles and ugly teeth. Every day he looked into the mirror and anticipated that great man who was only a growth spurt and spray of stubble away.

  But now he imagined hurling abuse at the only thing that—

  That…

  At twelve, Ajax had been embarrassed when his egg hatched to reveal a misshapen, thoroughly bizarre-looking dragon. He’d kept his eyes down as the runt trailed him through the dingy castle halls, squeaking and gawping and flapping its batlike wings. The Tiber bastards had teased him for it relentlessly. He’d finally tied the dragon up in a burlap sack and hung it from a tree branch, hoping something would come along and swallow the damn thing.

  Dog had chewed his way out of the sack and waddled home, chirping and desperate to play.

  And when Lysander had beaten Ajax’s ass and left him crying in a corner, Dog had crawled over, plopped himself into Ajax’s lap, and licked the boy’s tears away with those flicking dragon kisses. Dragons couldn’t abide salt water, but Dog had done it to make Ajax smile.

  The only being in the castle that cared whether he laughed or cried.

  Ajax had always grumbled that they were an uneven match, and he’d been right. He’d been right. Dog was worth two of him.

  Misery swelled in his chest, lumped in his throat. Ajax fell to his knees, clasped his hands on either side of his head.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to a dragon that couldn’t hear him. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over.

  “You should be,” someone snapped.

  Vespir watched him with volcanic rage. Lucian glowered from across the corridor.

  Ajax could barely stand feeling anything, and he wouldn’t let anyone see his pain. He stood and put his back to the wall, gritted his teeth.

  “Just go away!” he howled, wrapping his arms around his body, closing himself like a fist.

  “I’d love to, but I can’t, because I’m in prison!” she shouted. “You just had to screw us over, didn’t you?”

  “At least you won a damn challenge!” He put his face near hers. Granted, Vespir loomed over him by a few inches, so it wasn’t as threatening as he wanted. “You had a shot! I had to take what was mine!”

  “The throne isn’t yours!”

  “It should be! I want it more than you!” No, he needed it. He needed to occupy a space only he could fill. He wasn’t an extra, a by-blow; no, he was indispensable.

  “You brat,” Lucian growled. All this time, he’d kept pacing and watching Emilia—who looked terrifying, incidentally. The helmet gave her the appearance of some nightmare beetle. Ajax had never seen a chaotic chained before.

  But first, back to Lucian and his insufferable smugness.

  “And you. If you’d picked up the damn sword, your girlfriend wouldn’t be like this right now!” The larger boy gripped the bars. Veins corded in his bull neck; he looked ready to tear the place apart. But of course he didn’t. Lucian shuffled away, like a good boy. Ajax’s lip curled. “Why don’t you just admit it? You’re shit at this peacekeeping thing!”

  “Don’t yell at him. This is your fault.” Vespir kicked at him through the bars. “Why did you do it? You can’t possibly be this stupid.” She scoffed. “You should’ve thought about your dragon if nothing else. Who knows what they might do to—”

  “Shut up!” he howled. Ajax began kicking and kicking at the cell door, imagined mashing the priests’ faces to pulp. Through the clanging, he heard Lucian tell Vespir what’d happened. His fault. His fault his dragon would never see the stars again. His fault. His.

  “Ajax. Ajax.” Vespir sounded calmer now. He stopped kicking, wiped his arm across his eyes. Couldn’t see through the stupid tears. “I’m sorry. They should burn to ash for doing that to Dog.”

  Trust Vespir to take a dragon�
��s side, if nothing else. But he appreciated it.

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” Ajax muttered. He wiped his nose on his rough sleeve. “I know I screwed up. You just…” He couldn’t think of what to say. What he felt was enormous, a gigantic monolith he had to describe while blind. “You two…You don’t know what it’s like to be born like me.”

  “To be born low?” Vespir drawled.

  “To be born bad.” Her silence egged him on. “Those images from the Truth doorway? I mean, before everything got weird. They were pictures from the past, maybe?”

  Vespir and Lucian both grunted in understanding.

  “I…I never met my mother.” Ajax’s thoughts were scattered, beads from a broken necklace rolling across the ground. “She left right after I was born. And my father, Lord Tiber, well, he’s a prick. A monster. He…Sometimes if he can’t get a woman who wants him, he just…”

  Vespir made a soft noise.

  “I kept seeing it over and over. On the island, in the halls around here. It was driving me crazy. And he, my father, he must’ve done it to her, because why else would she leave me?” The heavy weight kept pressing on some tender, invisible nerve. “I just wanted to win, you know?” His chin quivered, and his voice broke. “Because then at least what she went through wasn’t pointless. Then at least I’m not just some grimy bastard who’s alive b-because of evil.” The tears fell, and he didn’t try to stop them. His entire body convulsed with his sobs. No one had wanted him. His father had been looking for pleasure, his mother not looking for anything at all. Ajax wanted to coil inside of himself like a snake and disappear. “But now I screwed up, and Dog’s blind, and…” His voice broke. “I’m sorry. I screwed it all up. Please. Please. I’m sorry.”