Dragon in the Blood (Vale of Stars Book 2)

by Juliette Cross

  “Valla Moonring, meet Keradine Bloodback.”

  Swallowing hard, having never thought to ever meet a member of the extinct Bloodback clan—allegedly extinct, that was—I bowed my head with as much civility as I could manage. “Pleased to meet you, Keradine.”

  She bowed with a shy smile. “And I you.”

  “Valla is an officer of the Morgon Guard, Kera. She has come inquiring about your sister, Bekka.” The woman flinched, her eyes darting to Thea nervously.

  “It is all right. She and her fellow officers have come to do good with whatever information we can offer. They will fight the evil that is slowly infecting our world.”

  Thea’s eyes glowed with white electricity, her dragon rising to the surface. This staid woman had fire in her yet.

  “I will give you two some time alone and wait for you at the arched trellis, Valla.”

  “Thank you,” I said before Thea retreated. I gestured toward a stone bench nearby. “Shall we sit?”

  Kera nodded. I sat at an angle, unable to stop from staring at her unique wings, only mentioned to me in fairy tales about the once dominant and noble Bloodback clan of old. When I realized she’d caught me, I glanced away quickly. “I’m so sorry. It’s just that I’ve never seen wings like yours before.”

  “Please don’t apologize. It’s only natural. And no one has seen wings like mine, so it is expected when foreigners come.”

  “How often do they come?”

  “Never.”

  She laughed a little. I laughed with her.

  “So your mother brought you and your sister here?”

  “Yes. When I was only twelve years old. When my father died, my mother knew she would die soon after. They were truly heartbound, you see.” I nodded, knowing the loss of a heartbound mate meant the death of the other soon thereafter. I’d witnessed it with my own parents.

  “But why did she bring you and your sister here?” I realized I was asking about things unrelated to our cause, but I couldn’t help but wonder.

  Kera stared off across the garden at a line of women working to pull ripened fruit from their vines.

  “My mother was a lovely woman. You cannot imagine.”

  Actually, I could if she resembled her daughter at all. I found her response odd, but she wasn’t finished.

  “Knowing she wouldn’t be around to protect us, she brought me and my baby sister here, who was three at the time. We lived in Cloven. My father was an important man in the political arena. Being a Bloodback, he was respected, but mostly feared.” She turned to face me then. “It is our dragon gift, you see, that they fear.”

  “You mean the…the poison?”

  She nodded once. “It is the reason our kind had dwindled over time till there was only our family left. Bloodbacks found it harder and harder to find mates. Those Bloodbacks who were able to acquire lovers found fewer and fewer willing to heartbond with soulfire. Rumors had spread of our kind being little more than killers in disguise, needing to be bred out of existence. All of this is what Thea told me when I was old enough to inquire about why we were the only Bloodbacks in the coven. It was quite a shock to realize we were the only Bloodbacks left in the entire world.” Her voice fell with a melancholy tone.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” She tried to smile. “The world is full of fears. And those who are misunderstood are condemned most of all.”

  She was right. Even I had been told tales about the terrible Balsheba Bloodback when I was a child. I was one of the many who feared what she was, what she could do with a single bite—inject a fatal poison that would strike me dead within seconds.

  “Do you know, Valla, that Bloodbacks can inject an elixir as well as poison?”

  “No. I didn’t know that. What kind of elixir?”

  “A few different kinds. The one I’ve used is one of euphoria to numb the senses of one in pain. Sort of like a balm for the wounded. I helped one of the sisters once who was stuck with the barb of a poisonous plant.”

  How fascinating. She held the gift of both poison and healing within her.

  “So you’re a healer, Kera.”

  Lacing her fingers together in her lap, she said with a smile, “I suppose I am. I like to think so anyway.”

  “And how do you know to release the right elixir and not a poison, or the other way around?”

  “I don’t know. How do you know how to fly?”

  “I just do.”

  “Precisely.”

  When she smiled, she was radiant. Even when I caught sight of her slender, pointed fangs, I couldn’t help but think her remarkable. It might be good this kind of beauty was kept behind doors. I don’t think she had any idea the impact she’d have on men. And though wise, she seemed so innocent.

  “I’m actually quite good with antidotes for poisons as well. Once we’d realized there were quite a few poisonous and aggressive plants in Aria, I began working with them to create antidotes for each should we ever be in need.”

  “So you do go outside the compound?”

  “Not regularly, no. But twice a year, a few of us go into the wild to discover new plants we might want to raise within our arboretum.”

  “I see. Thea said that your sister was responsible for gathering the glacier water once a week.”

  “She was. And I noticed one week that she was different upon returning from the glacier pool.”

  “Different how?”

  “She withdrew from me, choosing to spend time in the temple and in prayer rather than with me in the lab where I experimented with rare plants and ways to grow them. My sister and I were very close, even if she always seemed more restless than I was with this life.”

  “She didn’t want to stay with the coven?”

  Kera shook her head. “She had told me more than once that she wanted to see what was out there, what the rest of the world was like. I tried to convince her the rest of the world abhorred us for the power we had, and that it was a dangerous place outside these walls.”

  “And did she agree with you?”

  “I don’t know. She only ever said that it was wrong that our clan should die simply because the world feared us. I agreed with her. It is unfair. But I’d committed myself to a life within the coven. I want no part in a world that would despise me.”

  I wanted to argue against her belief the world would treat her with disdain. But I knew the truth. One look at her crimson wings, and people would shun her. Too many people rely on their fears for judgment. Fears of the unknown and what they don’t understand. Even I have struggled with understanding humans and how different they were from us. “What do you think happened that changed your sister?” I asked.

  “She met him.”

  “Him? The Blood King?”

  “No. Her lover.” Kera swept her hair over one shoulder and folded her hands demurely once more. “Several weeks passed. She pulled farther and farther away from me. I told Priestess Thea, who then spoke with her. But Bekka admitted nothing, only that she hadn’t been feeling well. When I suggested that she forego her trip to the glacier pool one day, she went into a rage, spewing all kinds of wicked words at me for saying such a thing. I knew I’d find my answers there. So I waited ten minutes after she left and followed her through the tunnel from the compound to the cavern. I found her naked in the arms of a dark Morgon. They were fornicating on a fur tossed on the cavern floor.”

  She paused, seemingly remembering that day. Riveted, I wanted to ask everything about this man, to find some mark of identification, but I wouldn’t interrupt as Kera related the story.

  “She sensed me enter the room. She was on all fours with him behind her. She stared at me as I stood there stupefied. She didn’t seem to mind that I’d caught her.” Kera scoffed. “Actually, I believe she was trying to show me what I was missing. I couldn’t move, struck dumb at the sight. Thankfully, they didn’t take too long, groaning the completion of their coupling. She stood and wrapped her gown back on slowly.
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  “‘Now you know, sister,’ she said. Her lover immediately unsheathed a long blade, as if I ever meant her any harm. Though I thought at the time, woe to the man or woman who should try to harm my sister. He would put them at an end, that fierce lover of hers. She said to me, ‘I am glad you have come. For this will be our last goodbye.’ At this, the dark man put away his weapon and draped a cloak around her shoulders, fastening it tight around her wings. The material covered her from neck to foot. That was when I saw two more Morgon men in the shadows, near the exit leading out of the mountain.”

  “What were these men wearing? I might be able to identify them if you can remember.”

  Kera smiled. An odd response, but there was no joy in it. “I can tell you who they were just as she told me that day. They were two of the Sunsting clan, and they were part of the Larkosian Army, run by a man named Barron Coalglass who had offered her the role of High Priestess in their army along with gold in exchange for her service.”

  My jaw dropped. I stood up and paced in front of the bench, my wings itching for me to take flight. I always thought better in the air.

  “Do you know him? This Barron Coalglass?”

  “Know him? We killed him…about two months ago. He was indeed serving who we call the Blood King. But you say Barron was running the army? Could you be mistaken?”

  “Only if they were lying to my sister, but for some reason I don’t believe they were. She told me all. That she’d been given this chance for status, power, and wealth, as well as the company of her lover as her personal guard, and she was leaving the coven. She was leaving me and this world of, how did she put it? ‘Isolation and subservience.’ I suppose I never knew exactly how lonely this life was for her. I’d never seen it that way.”

  Kera swiped an errant tear that had slipped down her cheek, but she seemed to hold back the others, refusing to let her emotions get the best of her. She was strong, this orphaned Bloodback. I imagined her sister was strong as well.

  “How long ago did she leave?”

  “Nearly six months ago.”

  Hmm. The human girls in the Gladium province started going missing about four months ago. We were aware that Barron was in charge, then suddenly this sinister king appeared and started giving orders.

  Was Moira right? Could this king be more than some freakishly huge Morgon set on world domination? “It’s just impossible!” I said, letting out a frustrated sigh.

  “What is impossible?”

  I stopped my pacing and faced her. “This is going to sound crazy, but my sister-in-law was held captive by this king of the Larkosians.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “It’s okay. She made it out all right. But she swears that this king, this monster, is none other than Larkos Nightwing. As in the Larkos Nightwing of legend and history. He should’ve died thousands of years ago.”

  Kera stood up suddenly, her fiery eyes glazing bright gold. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, no, what?”

  Placing her hands to her chest, her breathing quickened.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “What do you mean it’s your fault? What’s your fault?”

  “I—I—I kept some of my mother’s journals. Before we came here, I’d spent months in our family library while Father was ill, just trying to escape the inevitable. I found her journals on the magic of our clan, on blood magic and the Dark Ones.”

  “Blood magic and Dark Ones?” I forced my voice to sound calm while my stomach twisted into knots.

  “Surely, you know of my ancestor Balsheba Bloodback.”

  “Yes. Everyone knows of her. She’s in every Morgon child’s nightmares and mother’s warnings, ‘Be good or Balsheba will get you.’”

  Kera frowned. “Really?”

  “Sorry. But yes. Please go on.”

  “I can understand why, for I knew of the old tales as well. But what only clan members knew was that Balsheba practiced dark sorcery. She was trying to find a way to immortality with blood magic by summoning the Dark Ones through human sacrifice.”

  “Who are the Dark Ones?”

  Kera twisted the fabric of her gown in her lap with her fair hands. “There is no real definition of who they are. They’re the ones who live in shadow.”

  “They are real?”

  “I don’t know,” she said angling toward me. She checked to be sure no one could overhear then whispered, “My mother’s journals, some of them were handed down through our family. Old pages from my grandmother and her mother before her. None go as far back as Balsheba, but there is an entry by one of my ancestor’s recounting a ceremony where Balsheba sealed a rite with a willing sacrifice and called upon the Dark One called Hellsgard.”

  I’d never heard of the Dark Ones or of this Hellsgard, none of them mentioned in our fables. But each clan held their own history relating to their clan gifts. The Bloodbacks held power unlike any other, a mystical connection to the otherworld, which is why they were so feared.

  “This ancestor I speak of was recorded to have lived over one thousand years, longer than any Bloodback in history that we know of.”

  “So what? She made a deal with this Dark One for long life?”

  “I am not certain. The records are not kept that well. And the journals are instructions of actual rites and ceremonies. But there are mentions in the margins, scribbles and handwritten notes after some rites were performed.”

  “So you believe that Balsheba may have found a way to immortality through blood magic and the Dark Ones?”

  She nodded with a cautious glance around. “It is possible. But you know how history tells her story. She was executed after trying to poison King Radomis’s human bride, Queen Morga. So she never reached the immortality she sought. But…my mother’s journals tell of one of the poisons in our blood that can cause paralysis. Coupled with blood magic, allegedly, it can cause a deep sleep, even a centuries-old sleep.”

  “Larkos Nightwing may have been put into a deep sleep rather than die so many years ago. And in order to awaken him, they’d need…”

  “A Bloodback who knew the ritual and had the elixir of revival in her blood. My sister read my mother’s journals, too. I found her studying them relentlessly, well into the night, the weeks before she left.”

  “So it’s true.” A shiver of sinister realization rattled down my spine, leaving me raw and sweating. “Larkos Nightwing is alive. And he’s the Blood King.”

  CHAPTER 18

  T he three of us sat around the blue-light that heated the alcove where we’d decided to camp for a few hours. Still absorbing the shock, Bowen and I hadn’t said a word after listening to Valla’s debriefing of what transpired inside the coven’s compound.

  I tore a loaf of bread into thirds and passed them each a piece.

  “It was all a lie. The report that the Bloodback sisters died in a tragic accident by the lake.”

  “Yes.” Valla tore a bite of bread from her chunk and ate it. “Their mother had hidden them away here shortly before her death.”

  Bowen combed his hand through his hair, which had fallen loose. “And so the younger sister is now in league with…with him.”

  “With Larkos Nightwing,” said Valla. “You might as well get it through your heads that it’s true. Moira was right all along. The beast that had held her captive wasn’t just a freak of nature of Morgonkind. He was the first of our kind. And we heard it last night from Wren Starfell. The son he spoke of who brings war and death, ‘the first Morgon who walked this world.’ It’s him. Larkos Nightwing. I mean, hell, they call themselves the Larkosians.”

  “Yes,” Bowen agreed. “But the Larkosians were a cult centuries ago who were simply followers of Larkos, taking that name to honor their dead hero.”

  “Or not so dead,” I said. “I’m more fearful now than I ever was before.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Valla.

  “According to history, Larkos Nightwing was a maniacal egomaniac set on world domination. Apparently, he s
till holds that ambition.”

  “So the girls who went missing,” said Bowen as he finished off his bread “were used for blood magic to revive Larkos. And the others they’ve captured are simply kept as slaves.”

  “It seems so,” said Valla in a quiet voice and set aside her bread.

  “You need to eat,” I urged.

  “I can’t.”

  She would never say that she was sick to her stomach, a weakness she was unprepared to admit. And pushing her would only make her resist more.

  “You need to contact your brother.” Bowen stood. “I’ll keep watch.”

  “You took first watch the last time,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  His shoulders tightened as he swept his gaze from Valla to me. “She can’t eat. I can’t sleep.” He huffed out a white puff of air. “This place is getting to us.”

  “It’s not this place,” I said with conviction. “You all know it.”

  A pause stretched like a widening gulf between us. I waved my hand over my other palm, producing a gold flame that flickered wildly.

  “Firedancers know the state of their hearts and minds simply by creating a flame in their palm without manipulation. Just letting that flame extend from the firedancer.” The red flame sparked and sputtered, licking higher, then grew small again as if trying to escape an unseen enemy. “Since the first butchered body was found in Devlin Wood, my internal flame has been such as this—erratic, unsteady, unsure. This beast, Larkos, is no king. He is a killer of all things good and beautiful in this world—peace among our races and the freedom to live and love as we choose. But I say, ‘no more.’” The flame in my hand danced from side to side, growing taller and transforming to hues of orange and red. “I say we take back what he has stolen—the lives of the innocent, our peace of mind and body, and our freedom to choose who we love and how we live.” I snuffed out the flame with a snap. “Contact your brother, Valla. It’s almost noon. We’re going to see that blacksmith and find these bastards.”