Only five of the original ten clutches had endured. Among those five, three hurled forth virulence from the pits of their stomachs: the fire-breathing Crimson Clutch, the ice-breathing Bluesoul Clutch, and the plague-hurling Wryth Clutch.
The Evanescence Clutch breathed into existence not pernicious elements but rather gateways that warped time and space, permitting them to travel vast distances in small amounts of time.
Lastly, there was the Iron Clutch. They breathed in air and they breathed it out, nothing particularly special there. They were from a line of dragons whose ingestion of metals and rocks augmented their strength.
Theories abound on why dragons can summon a breath of fire or ice, a plague of toxins or a gateway that bends time. Some believe there’s a separate stomach-like compartment that produces the primordial elements. Others believe a tiny wizard lives within the belly of each great beast, lighting fuses, turning gears, sticking his tongue out and shouting “A-ha!” as he shoves a fireball up through the dragon’s esophagus.
Wherever the truth might lie—and it most certainly does not lie in the hands of a tiny wizard smooshed up against some dragon intestines—it doesn’t really matter. The fact is a dragon’s breath is quite harmful to anyone and anything in its conal reach, and if you’re caught within that radius—or are near an Iron dragon as it devours a smithy’s forge—you best steeple your hands and pray, because your existence on this world is about to end.
Much like the existence of an archery target fifty yards thataway was about to end.
Sarpella drew in such a deep, invigorating breath it felt to Oriana that her little girl was inhaling all the air of Avestas. She felt the dragon’s chest inflate, and its stomach too.
And then, nothing. Sarpella did not breathe. She did not move. She sailed like a kite who depended entirely on the whims of the wind.
But Oriana soon sensed change. The bad kind of change, the foreboding sort. Oh, sure, she felt a coolness against her thighs that grew colder by the second. She expected that; it was Sarpella readying her breath, preparing to funnel it up her chest and through her throat.
The impending sense of doom, though? No, that wasn’t quite expected. It slammed into her like the fetor of a landfill: unmistakable and unavoidable.
Clouds poured in, heavy and gray. Beneath them Sarpella dashed downward, wings tucked neatly against her body.
An unseasonably warm breeze stripped the chill out of the autumn air. Funny timing, that, since a polar blast of gaseous ice jettisoned out from the roaring maw of Sarpella. It smothered a ten-foot strip of mud and chewed-up grass lying before the archery target in an impeccably smooth layer of ice that inched up and swallowed the target as well, stretching several feet behind it.
The smell and dampness of a fast-approaching rain settled in. And a low, almost imperceptible thud lingered somewhere in the far, far distance. No, Oriana thought, a bang. The sound announced itself once more, this time with a crackle that seemed to spider across the sky in every direction, slowly receding before it struck again.
“Get down!” Oriana screamed.
Sarpella pulled up, angling herself away from the frozen archery target she had been told to shatter. She looked back at Oriana, confused.
“Sar,” Oriana said, in as calm and soothing a voice as she could manage, “you need to land, now. Please. It’s very important.”
The dragon’s pupils thinned to a vertical strip as it attempted to work out the implications behind its master’s words. Language, after all, is meaningless without understanding the underlying emotion of each word.
Sarpella sniffed the air. Her pupils widened then, and her body stiffened. She plunged toward the surface, talons extended.
Approaching the lemony-colored grass in the same impending way an apple falling from a tree does, Oriana pressed her thighs tight against the saddle fenders and held onto the saddle horns for dear life.
“Ough,” she cried, her neck snapping forward as four claws and twenty talons tore through grass, dirt and rock. There was something to say about Sarpella’s landings, and that something was not generous. Oriana would have to work with her on that, but for now she was thankful she had obeyed her command; young dragons—much like young children—sometimes choose to defy you at the most inopportune of times. And this was the most inopportune of the most inopportune of times.
Oriana kicked her feet out of the stirrups and leaped off Sarpella. Her knees buckled as she landed in the knee-high grass. She went around to the front of Sarpella, touching the dragon’s broad skull.
“Go,” she said, pointing. “Into the den.”
The world rumbled and both dragon and human looked up. There was something unusual about the sky. Something not quite right. The color was all wrong, for starters. It was tinged with a violet hue, the pigment bleeding through opaque clouds. Chaotic bursts of bluish-purple lightning sparkled across the sky as the thumping and thudding and crackling rippled across Oriana’s estate.
A copper weathervane atop the barn tumbled off and clattered on a jut of slate. Distressed clucks and crows filled the chicken coop, and cows voiced their concerns as they took a break from munching on grass.
Animals know when the end comes much sooner than people do.
“Go, Sar!” pleaded Oriana.
“Oriana,” Rol called, running toward her from the mouth of the den. He shielded his eyes from the intensifying violet light. “What the hells is happening?”
She glanced his way before ignoring him and turning her attention back to her dragon. “Please, Sarpella. You can’t protect me right now. You must get to safety. I’ll be okay. Trust me.” She soothed her hand along Sarpella’s jaw. “Trust me.”
Sarpella grunted and her eyes thinned and closed and opened again. She stared at the sky. It seemed to be falling.
On the verge of tears, Oriana cupped both her hands around the dragon’s snout. “Sar, I’m begging you, please—”
The dragon snapped her head away. It trudged toward the den and vanished into its black halls and down its descending tunnel.
Thank the gods, Oriana thought. Now she had to convince a nearly hysterical Rol to follow suit.
The wind had picked up. It thrashed the ancient branches of button trees and uprooted a cloakwood. Leaves the color of ginger and honey and rust sailed past Oriana and into her, sticking to her hair, which stuck to her face and neck. She took a step toward Rol, then hunkered down and prepared for the last but most potent leg of the storm.
Most storms aren’t predictable—that’s just not nature’s way. But this wasn’t a storm born from the hands of nature. Whirlwinds, cyclones, rising seas, the fissuring of the earth—none of those disasters are particularly pleasing, but Oriana would have welcomed each and every one of them if it meant she wouldn’t have to endure this tempest that had unexpectedly arrived.
“Rol,” she said, cupping her hands around her mouth, “get back!”
He shook his head, unable to hear her. He mouthed a Huh?
She waved him away. “Get back!”
Another shake of his head, this one stemming from confusion. He pointed a thumb toward the den and looked at her for confirmation.
She nodded. “Yes! In there.” She stabbed a stern finger at him and yelled as loudly as she could, “Don’t question me on this, just do it!”
Rol didn’t like that order. He didn’t like most orders, but he especially hated those that put Oriana in danger. He wasn’t a stubborn man, only a proud one. But he also knew when to cross the line and challenge her, and this clearly was not one of those times.
With creased brows and a puckered face that said I don’t like this, he reluctantly hauled himself around and jogged headlong into the ferocious wind.
He reached the den more or less at the same time that the sky shattered. It sounded like a mountain-sized icicle had fallen from the tallest peak into the lowest valley. Deafening was one way to describe it. A jumping-out-of-your-skin-and-soiling-your-knickers kind of sound wa
s a better one.
The violet canvas was sucked away. Or perhaps it fell into an invisible void. Wherever it went and however it got there, Oriana didn’t know, and she didn’t care. The sky was blue again, the wind had retreated, the thunder had receded, and all was right and good once more.
Except for the thirty-foot-long dragon who casually swooped in and landed before Oriana.
Violet colored the beast’s scales. Its enormous head was scarred with fat, unsightly nodules beneath the skin, and its breath smelled—interestingly enough—like ginger.
Oriana would have preferred not smelling its breath, because that meant she had to see its teeth. She felt cold, alone and in the shadow of something far greater than herself. But now wasn’t the time for fear to come slinking in as if it was an expected and long awaited guest.
“The clutch of Evanescence,” Oriana said, standing her ground as the dragon laggardly swung its head side to side and then jabbed it toward her. “I didn’t anticipate your arrival.”
Few do, the dragon answered, imprinting the words on Oriana’s mind.
She had never met or heard of a dragon who could speak aloud, which was unfortunate. Nothing unsettles you faster than an enemy who doesn’t speak your tongue, or worse, speaks only to your mind.
The clutch sent me to inform you that they are willing to come to an agreement. The dragon’s eyes broiled with sparks of lava and streaks of blackness.
Oriana both held his gaze and searched in her peripheral vision for something, anything that could help her if push came to shove. She again wished she could tap into force sorcery—she could have ripped the barn roof off, launched it at the dragon’s skull. But all she had were her illusions, and those wouldn’t be of any help now—the Evanescence Clutch saw through illusions, tore them down.
Diplomacy was the better route, anyhow. But the thing about diplomacy is you’ve got to be willing to give and take. And she doubted the clutch of Evanescence would be willing to give.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked. Evanescence dragons could sense nearby illusions better than most, and their time-twisting breath could rive even the most complex of illusionary loci—but this dragon hadn’t been nearby. It also hadn’t torn apart Oriana’s illusion. It had entered it. For that to happen, it had to have known the locus’s precise location.
The agreement, the dragon said, ignoring her question, will be beneficial for everyone.
Clearly the dragon had come with a prepared script. Oriana wondered how far he’d deviate from it, if at all. That’s good information to have in negotiations. “Who are you? I mean you individually. An emissary?”
My name is Ristocholus. Lapping back around to the beginning of the script, Ristocholus said, The agreement will be beneficial for everyone.
Oriana frowned inwardly. His name was clearly all she’d get out of him. “Then tell me the agreement.”
Return our whelps. In exchange, the clutch promises to forgive and forget your grave misstep.
Had Oriana been her sister—that was a horrific thought she hoped to never have again—she would have told the dragon to fuck off and, while he was at it, to tell the entire clutch to fuck off too—and he best make damned sure that they know those words came right from the mouth of Oriana Gravendeer.
Thankfully, Oriana did not share her sister’s malevolence and stupidity. She had class. Also, more importantly, tact.
“I’ve never once touched a whelp from your clutch. How could I?”
Ristocholus wrinkled his wings. Additionally, the clutch will keep your location secret from all other clutches. You will not hear from us again, and if you are careful enough, you will not hear from or see another clutch for the rest of your life, however long that may be.
Oriana had to admit that part of the deal was tantalizing. Very tantalizing. In fact, it was so attractive that it waded into too-good-to-be-true territory. Dragon clutches generally do not form alliances. They’re ferociously independent, and each clutch’s interfamily politics and culture do not play well with others. Most living things are like this, to some degree. But if you threaten a species as a whole, no matter how small or insignificant—from dragons on down to lowly mice—you’ll find life is remarkably resilient and does not like to die. Enemies quickly become friends if necessary.
People had certainly discovered this with dragons six hundred years ago, and dragons in turn had discovered the same held true for people.
Oriana might not have explicitly threatened the existence of dragons, but stealing their precious few whelps, well—it doesn’t take much straining of the mind to see how that could be construed as such.
So why would the clutch of Evanescence offer her such a sweet deal? Actually, the better question was why, if the clutch knew of her location, hadn’t they come for her? Why send a dignitary? None of this made any sense.
Oriana edged a thumb along the inside of her tunic neck. “Someone fed you the wrong information. Do you really think I—”
The dragon touched its leather snout against the spot between her eyes. We know who you are. You should know the Conclave has fallen.
Oriana had spent most of her life hiding pesky emotions that always threaten to show your hand. So when those words chewed through her skull and were stamped on her mind—the Conclave has fallen—she did not flinch. Didn’t even blink. Hell, the color of her cheeks stayed a nice rosy red and those narrow nostrils of hers never flared.
With enough practice, anyone can keep as still and calm as the sheer face of a mountain. But your insides? Your rumbly gut, thump-thump-thumping heart, sandy throat—those aren’t in your control. Oriana was reminded of this uncomfortable fact as she stood before a hot mist of dragon breath and felt like someone had sliced open her innards. Her blood ran cold and seemed to puddle like ice water in the tips of her fingers and toes.
And there was that awful, terrible squeezing of her chest. The kind of squeezing that makes your knees go wobbly and poisons your thoughts with consternation.
If the Conclave had indeed fallen, then…
It’s a trick, she told herself. He’s playing you for an idiot. She stepped back, putting a gap between the dragon’s snout and her face. Then, with a firmness in her voice, she said, “I’m afraid you will have to return to your clutch without the prizes they sent you for.”
Ristocholus swished his tail, then dug his talons deeper into the soil, crushing rock and roots. I smell them.
“Maybe you do. But you won’t see them. And you’ll never touch them again.”
Oriana felt her breath getting caught up in her tight chest. She’d wagered that this Evanescence diplomat would only react violently if physically provoked. She hoped she was right.
Ristocholus relaxed his talons and put his weight on his back feet as if he were readying himself to take flight. Why are you doing this? he asked. What do you want?
“I want my friend back,” Oriana said. “William Edmund Grees was my best friend. My earliest memory is of him beside me in Uncle Titern’s scullery. We would sit beneath the sink, reading whatever book we managed to borrow or steal from the library or from the shelves of my father’s study.” She smiled at that, at the image of William’s fuzzy round face that formed in her mind.
“When we weren’t reading, we would play in the snow or chase bees and butterflies. We built a fort once; that’s how William lost his finger. I was very sad when he couldn’t play for several weeks after that, but I was even sadder when he died many years later.” She felt the hotness in her eyes, but tears wouldn’t do right now. There’s a time for sadness and reflection and mourning, and there’s a time for work—to move on and to make things better. Oriana was proficient at the latter—maybe even gifted—but had never had a firm grasp on the former.
“When he was fifteen,” Oriana said, her voice distant and clinical, “he told me he liked boys. I didn’t care, but his father did. William was always careful, but one time… well, eventually you get caught. And when his father cau
ght him, he said if his son did not want to be a man, then so be it. He cut William that day. Mutilated him. The blood loss, eventual infection, it was too much for my friend’s broken body and mind to handle. He died, and his father—he’s still here in this world. He’s Captain of the Jackals now. My father promoted him because ‘he gets things done.’ Well, I am going to show that I too get things done.”
The dragon’s eyes flickered.
“This world,” Oriana said, “is filled with hate. Hate for good souls like William, for brave thinkers, for architects of change. For people like me. My own father would have the Daughters of Silderine flay me alive if he knew what I truly was. This world needs to change.”
And you will be the harbinger of that change? Ristocholus did not ask the question sardonically or with a patronizing tone. Good diplomats don’t sink that low; they simply want answers.
“I already am,” Oriana said. “I’ve been planning this for a long time. All I needed was an army.” She smiled. “And now I’ve got one. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to keep looking for your whelps. Another time, perhaps.”
I will inform my clutch. Know that you are playing a dangerous game, Oriana of Liosis.
Of Liosis, Oriana thought warmly. She always had preferred that name. Gravendeer was so… rough. Coarse. It lacked the beauty her name deserved. One day the world would know her without all the facades and walls that surrounded her.
One day the world would be different. One day the world would change.
Chapter Fifteen
A rawboned young man with a shiny bald head stood before Maren O’Keefe’s desk. He wore a golden pin featuring the eye of the Valiosian Umbras, but he was no spy—rather a mere clerk who organized papers and information for Horace.
“Where is your spymaster?” Maren asked.
“Sir, he is not here.”
Maren massaged the three-day-old scruff on his chin. “Yes, I’ve gathered that from a steward who went skipping across Valios looking for him. My question was not if he’s here, but rather where he is.”
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