The Scale Empire

by Cate Farren

  I laughed. I’d learned to be paranoid, but that didn’t mean I had to be on alert all the time.

  “What is it?” Bram asked.

  “I mistook hope for something insidious,” I admitted, feeling like a fool. “Am I that jaded?”

  “When you’ve experienced as much pain as we have then sometimes a little bit of hope can seem like something suspicious.”

  I felt like an idiot. I’d escaped an attack where everyone else died, and Dorian was within reach at long last. I was happy. I had survivor’s guilt, sure, but I was alive.

  I was going to die soon. I’d be with my Leopold, together for eternity.

  “Who’s Leopold?” Bram asked.

  I looked up, curious. “How do you know about him?”

  “You said his name a lot when you were asleep,” said Bram. He appeared uncomfortable, making me smile. Bram was a large man. Seeing him awkward was sweet.

  So I told him my story, starting with Queen Victoria’s job offer to the day the queen cursed me. I left out some of the more intimate details of my affair with Leopold, but I couldn’t keep out the emotion that entered my voice whenever I talked about my lost love.

  “So when you kill Dorian you’ll die,” Bram stated.

  I nodded. “It’s what I want. I’ve been chasing him for a long time. I want it to be over. I want to be with Leopold again.”

  “And if you die, or if you don’t kill Dorian with your bare hands or somebody else kills him, your daughter’s descendants will die.” Bram pushed his hands through his silky jet black hair. “That’s a harsh curse. I didn’t know Queen Victoria was such a bitch.”

  He’d obviously never met the woman. Sometimes I liked to imagine she was just grief-stricken. Other times I actually thought Victoria got a kick out of cursing people.

  “So there you have it,” I said. “That’s my story.”

  “I’m not sure I want to see you die, not when we’ve spent so much effort in keeping you alive.” Bram started to pace back and forth. “But this is your quest, and I won’t stand in your way.”

  “You couldn’t stand in my way if you tried.”

  I knew dozens of different martial arts. I’d studied every spell written down and invented hundreds of my own. I knew a thousand ways I could kill Dorian with my bare hands and make him suffer at the same time. Bram couldn’t stop me. Yet I had to believe Dorian was just as powerfully trained. I wouldn’t know until I actually had to fight him.

  Something suddenly occurred to me.

  “Your voice sounds familiar…”

  He grinned. “That’s because I was the one trying to get your attention in Alaska.”

  “That was you?”

  If I hadn’t been so scared I could’ve joined up with Bram all that time ago. Maybe we could’ve saved the people of Chapel Green. Maybe Essian and Rebecca didn’t have to die.

  “What can I say?” he said, smiling. “I can be a big scary dragon when I want to be.”

  “You’re a weredragon.”

  “Well, I am King of the Scale Empire.”

  Maybe I’d been in too much pain before to really think about it.

  Bram is a fucking weredragon.

  “Can you…can you change into a dragon for me?” I blushed, feeling like a stupid girl. “I’ve never seen a weredragon before. They’re extinct on my world.”

  “I’m too worn out. It takes a lot of energy to transform into something so huge. Maybe in a few days.”

  He was lying. He could change into a dragon right now if he wanted. I knew some shifters didn’t like to change in front of people. It was an intimate experience for them and they didn’t like to share it with others who weren’t family.

  “So when do we leave?” I asked.

  “You’re not ready,” Bram insisted.

  “I can’t sit around doing nothing. Dorian could have left by now. I have to get to him.”

  “It’s not that easy. The whole country is protected by powerful magic, so teleporting to Australia is impossible. We have to go to Palau Jamdena, which is an island south-east of Indonesia. We have a hidden base there. From there we head to Australia by boat.”

  I felt like screaming. I thought this would be over soon. A boat trip would add days, maybe weeks, to my plan. And where the hell was Palau Jamdena? It was difficult keeping up with all the different names the other realities called the countries of the world.

  “We could fly there,” I suggested.

  Bram shook his head. “You don’t fly into a country protected by things that scout the skies. A plane would be brought down within seconds.”

  “So we have to go by boat?”

  He nodded. “Sorry.”

  I sank back onto the bed, resting my head on the pillow. I could hear machinery grinding and men shouting outside.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  I assumed we weren’t in Chapel Green any more. It would be suicidal to have stayed there.

  “We’re in China,” said Bram.

  I closed my eyes, feeling sleep overcome me once again. It seemed I wasn’t as healed as I originally thought.

  ***

  I was woken up some time later by a pair of hands tightening around my throat. Someone was strangling me!

  I looked up into the eyes of Rebecca.

  “I have to kill you,” Rebecca shouted, squeezing harder. I couldn’t move. She’d put a spell on me. “I have to kill you.”

  I tried to scream but nothing would come out.

  Rebecca grinned. “Sweet dreams, sister.”

  Chapter 7

  Rebecca’s grip tightened as her words echoed around my head. Why had she called me ‘sister’?

  She stopped, indecision written on her face.

  “I…I can’t do this,” she mumbled, her hands shaking as they clutched at my neck. “I don’t want to…”

  She laughed hysterically and was about to continue strangling me when she shrieked in pain and slumped to the floor. Circe was standing behind her.

  “Circe?” I asked, my throat raw.

  She regarded me with impatience. “No. I’m this Earth’s Circe.”

  “Thank you for saving me.”

  She sighed and walked away, as if wishing she hadn’t bothered. I knew my Circe could be cold at times, but she was positively tropical compared to this one.

  I climbed out of bed and followed her. We seemed to be in some type of apartment. I passed a window, looking out. It was an abandoned, decaying modern city, mostly made up of apartment buildings, skyscrapers and overgrown park areas. It was a little eerie.

  I gasped when I saw something swoop out of the clouds. It was a dragon. It was jet black with a hint of turquoise, its skin a sea of glistening scales that reflected the scant sunlight. It hovered in front of the window, staring at me with eyes that could only belong to Bram. I smiled and placed my hand on the glass, mesmerised by his sheer beauty. He was as big as two elephants, but I didn’t feel any threat from him.

  “Beautiful, isn’t he?” Circe whispered.

  I nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Don’t be too mesmerised,” said Circe. “He doesn’t have time for people like you.”

  I ignored Circe’s words, concentrating on the scaled wonder that hovered in front of me. Nothing could take me away from this moment. Nothing.

  ***

  “What am I doing here?” Rebecca demanded.

  We had her tied up in the bathroom, or what would’ve been a bathroom if they’d actually finished building it. There was just a bath and a sink, minus an actual toilet.

  “Do you remember what you did?” Bram asked.

  I couldn’t look at him, not knowing what he could turn into. I’d known weredragons were huge but not that they were stunning and fearsome and downright terrifying.

  She shook her head. “The last thing I remember is the attack on Chapel Green. What happened?”

  Bram sighed sadly. “You and Kezia were the only survivors.”

>   Rebecca struggled against her bonds, screaming in misery. We left her to it. I’d never intrude on someone else’s grief.

  We untied her, knowing she was harmless now. Circe had checked her over while she was unconscious, revealing she was clean from any magical influence.

  “What happened?” Rebecca asked. “How did I get here?”

  “I thought you were dead,” I admitted. “And then you just turned up out of the blue and tried to kill me.”

  “I’d never do that!” Rebecca protested.

  “I think my brother was somehow controlling you, or at least using a witch to help control you. You were being used.”

  Rebecca screamed again, throwing a fireball against the sink, which exploded. She charged out of the bathroom, ignoring the curious stares of Bram’s band of rebels.

  “Rebecca!” I shouted, catching up with her. I told Bram to stay back. I’d deal with this.

  She stopped at the door to the stairs. The rebels got back to what they were doing, which was presumably getting ready for their trip to the island whose name I’d already forgotten.

  “I feel violated,” said Rebecca, pulling her fingernails across her neck, drawing blood. “I can…I can feel him inside me!”

  “What do you remember?” I asked.

  “Nothing, just…just a feeling.” She looked at me, her eyes orbs of anguish. “I’ve seen bad things in my time. I’ve done bad things. I thought I’d seen every facet of evil. But I was wrong. Dorian, your Dorian, is…pure, intense evil.”

  She turned and vomited on the floor. I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but she pushed me away.

  “I never should’ve come for you!” Rebecca cried. “I should’ve left it alone! Now I’ve had that thing in my head and I’m not sure I can ever cleanse myself enough to get rid of the stain he left behind. Kezia, leave him be. You can’t comprehend how evil he really is.”

  “I know how evil he is.”

  “No! You’ve never had him inside your head. You…you don’t know.”

  My Dorian had broken her, just by pushing his presence inside her mind. How could he do that to such a confident person? How could Dorian hurt someone so much without even trying?

  I need to know. I need to know my enemy. I thought I knew Dorian. I’d been hunting him down for a long time. But I needed to be prepared. I needed to know how truly dark and malignant my precious brother truly was.

  “Show me,” I asked.

  She looked at me like I was mad. “I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “I’m not asking. Show me. Now.”

  Rebecca took a deep breath and performed a spell. She placed her hands against my forehead. At first all I felt were her hands, colder than a frozen corpse.

  “I don’t feel anything,” I admitted.

  [NJA5]“Wait for it.”

  The memory of Rebecca’s possession hit me like a fireball. I staggered back and screamed as the force and intensity of Dorian’s hatred and evil overwhelmed me.

  I didn’t know. I couldn’t know.

  I looked at Rebecca, shocked. “I need to sit down.”

  I passed out.

  ***

  I’d always known the demon that possessed my brother was bad. It took my brother and killed Leopold. In my mind I’d always thought of it as evil. Yet now I knew how the demon really felt it changed everything.

  I sat up, hating the feel of this damn bed. I’d spent enough time recuperating in it.

  “You realise now why I didn’t want you to know,” said Rebecca.

  She was standing by the closed door, watching me, guarding me. She actually looked concerned.

  “I’ve met bad people over my long life,” I admitted. “I’ve met crazy people. I thought I’d met evil. But the demon in Dorian is true evil, a being of pure malevolence and hate. How can anything be so…so dark?”

  “We have to kill him.”

  “We’ve got a long journey ahead of us yet.”

  Rebecca sighed with impatience. “I detest boats. I detest water even more. But getting to Australia safe is the important thing.”

  She left, still visibly shaken, as was I. The nearest thing I’d met in my long life to true evil was a demon warlord called Degog. He rampaged and killed and ate his victims because it was fun. I hadn’t been able to kill him, and I wished I had. He was still out there somewhere. Yet Degog was nothing compared to the demon inside Dorian. It was a pure concentration of evil. There was nothing else to describe it.

  I wished I knew more about the demon. My lack of information on what it was and what it wanted could kill me.

  “Can we talk?”

  It was this Earth’s Circe. She looked so much like the woman who was a mother to me it broke my heart.

  “Thank you for saving my life,” I told her.

  She closed the door behind her with a slam. “There’s something you need to know about me, child. Something your Circe should have told you a long time ago.”

  I knew Circe kept secrets from me. She was ancient, and I didn’t need to know everything. Yet I was intrigued.

  “I am in…contact with your Circe,” she admitted. “I have limited contact with all five of us.”

  I was confused. “There are only five Circes out there?”

  She nodded. “And we can talk with each other. We plan. We gossip. We fight. But we take care of things and we take care of each other. I admit I missed the ball when it came to this Earth, but I can’t be expected to do everything. I’m glad you’re here. You can help change things.”

  How could there only be five Circes out there? Shouldn’t there be millions, maybe even an infinite number? How could she be so sure?

  Who is Circe?

  “I’m only here to kill Dorian,” I said honestly. “I’m not sure there’s much else I can do.”

  “The Scale Empire has plunged this world into chaos,” said Circe. She stared at her long, pale fingers. There was a gold ring on her wedding finger. “I’ve tried to temper them but to no avail. Bram was going to change this world. He was going to bring peace. Then both Dorians teamed up with his vile sister and ousted him. He failed.” She stared into my eyes, into my soul. “This world needs stability, and we cannot have that with them in it. We’ll take the palace back, kill your Dorian and mine. We kill Bram’s sister…and when he least expects it I want you to kill Bram.”

  Chapter 8

  “No,” I protested. “I can’t kill Bram. He saved my life.”

  “He and his kind are chaos,” said Circe. “Our world would be better off without him in it.”

  “Even if Bram were dead there’d still be weredragons and weresaurs. They’ll just elect another king or start a government or something. Killing Bram will solve nothing.”

  Circe grimaced, as if my mere presence disgusted her. She knew my answer, and I wouldn’t let her get away with her plans. Bram had saved me. I could never betray him.

  “My Circe would be horrified,” I told her.

  She grinned. “You don’t know her as well as you think you do.”

  “She’s practically my mother. I know her better than I know myself.”

  “Naïve girl.”

  She opened the door and left. I charged after her, determined to find out what she was up to. Bram and his rebels didn’t stand a chance with someone sowing discord among their ranks.

  Circe had seemingly vanished.

  Bitch.

  “Having fun with Circe?” Bram asked.

  He was sitting on a tatty old armchair by a broken window. He had what appeared to be a map on his lap and a cheeky grin on his face.

  “She concerns me,” I admitted.

  “She asked you to kill me,” he stated.

  I was shocked. “You eavesdropped?”

  “No. She does this to anybody who gets close to me. She’s very protective.”

  The woman had seemed to be serious. What would Circe have done if I’d agreed to kill Bram? It didn’t bear thinking about. Even my Circe’s enemi
es knew that to cross her would be tantamount to suicide.

  He laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” I said, annoyed. “I thought my Circe was scary.”

  “She’s protected my family for a long time,” said Bram. “She sees it as a personal attack that she failed to stop my sister taking over the throne.”

  “How did they best her?”

  Bram shrugged. “I don’t know. She won’t talk about it. All I do know is that she really, really wants revenge.”

  I shuddered. Circe on a mission was a sight to behold. She had powers that rivalled a dozen witches put together. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure she was actually human. Judging by the information I’d gleaned from this Earth’s Circe, that were only five of them in the multiverse, I could be right. But what was Circe if she wasn’t human? What else could she possible be?

  “Do you want to get something to eat?” Bram asked.

  He was smiling at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. I forced myself to look away.

  I shuffled nervously. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  He opened his mouth in shock. “No! No! I’d never…”

  “Neither would I,” I insisted. “I just…”

  I’d not exactly been a nun since Leopold, but I’d never been in a serious relationship either. How could I love anyone else? There’d been men and women over the years, but they’d been merely one-night stands and brief flings. I hadn’t loved any of them.

  “I just thought you should get something to eat before we set off,” Bram suggested. His handsome face was going bright red. “The food on board the boat is mainly fish.”

  “I thought you were asking me out on a date,” I said nervously.

  “There can never be anyone but Lana.”

  He stalked quickly away, almost as if trying to put as much distance between the two of us as he could. I was glad. I liked looking at him. He was pleasant to the eye. It was like staring into the face of true handsomeness.

  When I killed Dorian I was going to die. I didn’t want to die happy.

  ***

  I sat down by the fireplace, my mind exhausted. I’d spend the better part of two days creating wards around the palace. If anything magical tried to enter I’d be warned. If anything evil tried to attack the queen I’d be warned. I was quite sure Victoria was safe.