by Melissa Grey
“After your previous experiences with Drakharin hospitality, I didn’t think you’d ever want to set foot within those walls again,” Caius had said, the pouch of shadow dust heavy in his hand.
Ivy had tipped her chin in Echo’s direction. “Where she goes, I go.”
And that was that. The four of them had escaped the keep all those months ago, and now they were waltzing right back into it. There was a beautiful symmetry to it, rounding out the madness of Caius’s plan.
Caius stood, his hands at his sides. The knives Dorian had given him were strapped to his back, but they remained sheathed. The guards were startled enough; it wouldn’t do to start a fight before he’d even set foot through the door. That would vastly complicate his plan to get to the great hall—and the throne it contained—with minimal bloodshed.
“Halt,” said the guard in Drakhar. She wasn’t wearing Firedrake armor, which was a minor blessing. If she had been one of Tanith’s, then Caius likely wouldn’t have lived long enough to see her cast a look over his shoulder, where Dorian and Echo stood, the former with his sword drawn, ready to fight. Anything less would not have befitted the captain of his guard.
“I’ve halted,” Caius said, in Drakhar for the guards’ benefit. “Though I can say this is a warmer welcome than I expected. Much appreciated.”
The second guard circled to Caius’s left side, where Dorian stood. Neither one of them would have been much of a match for Caius or Dorian alone, but they were Drakharin soldiers, and they would do what they had been trained to do. If Caius started slashing, they would stand their ground or die trying. Perhaps they weren’t as hopeless as their initial bewilderment suggested. Fortunately for them, Caius had no intention of decorating the chamber’s tiles with their blood. Not if he could help it.
The sharp steel against his throat was a steady presence, neither pressing down nor retreating. “I…You…What…?” The guard’s sword was steady, but her words were not.
“Let me guess,” Caius said. “Your new Dragon Prince didn’t give you specific orders about what to do if I sauntered through the keep’s front door as if I didn’t have a care in the world?”
The guards shared a look. It was clear the answer was no.
“Caius,” Dorian breathed behind him. “We have to keep moving. Let’s dispatch them and go. The longer we remain here, the more likely it is we’ll be discovered by—”
Caius held up a hand and Dorian fell silent. The sword at his throat quivered. He met the eyes of the guard before him, and her brow furrowed. The blade steadied, but her expression betrayed her. Every ounce of indecision she felt was written across her face as plain as day.
“Tell me, soldier.” Caius pitched his voice low and even. “Do you plan to slit my throat?”
The guard swallowed. She was young and untried and hadn’t been in armor long, judging by the metal’s distinct lack of scuffs or dents. Even the most lovingly maintained armor showed wear as time went on. Hers gleamed brilliantly in the light of the braziers.
“I’ve watched you in the training yard,” Caius continued when she didn’t answer. “You drop your right shoulder when you lunge. It leaves you open.”
“Is that a threat?” asked the second guard. He was a burly fellow, much larger than his partner but just as young and inexperienced.
“Hardly,” Caius replied. “Consider it a bit of helpful advice. If we’re going to fight here and now, I want you at your best.”
The first guard shook her head, perplexed. “Standing orders are to detain you if you’re sighted.” She nodded at Echo. “Same with her.”
Echo’s willingness to remain silent reached its limit. “What did Tanith say about me? Tell me. Was it mean? Is she talking smack?”
“Her orders are to capture you,” Caius explained. “And me.”
“Oh, I’d like to see her try,” Echo said.
“I’m sure you would.” Caius chanced a look at Echo, willing her to put away her claws. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.” He turned back to the guard. “And what of Dorian?” he asked, mostly out of curiosity. “What was to be his fate?”
“Standard kill order. No detainment. No interrogation.”
Naturally. He heard Dorian scoff behind him.
“Then we are at a crossroads, are we not?” Caius held his hands out in front of him, wrists pressed together. “Clap me in irons.” He let a whisper of a smile dance across his lips. “If you can.”
Again, the guard shot a helpless look at her partner. She licked her lips nervously. “We heard about the dragon,” she said.
Just as he had hoped. Dorian had made sure to spread the word to their contacts within the keep. The gossip mill worked overtime in a world as insular as theirs. Even the simplest stories could grow to be myths, given enough time.
“What exactly have you heard?” he asked.
“That you tamed it,” the guard said. “That it listened to you.”
“Ah, that sounds like the stuff of legends, does it not?”
She nodded. Her blade lowered an inch so it was hovering closer to Caius’s collarbone than his jugular vein. A marked improvement.
“It’s said the princes of old called dragons to do their bidding,” said the guard. “That they used to be chosen by the dragons to rule.”
“Divine mandate from a dragon god,” said Caius. “What a thing that would be.”
Another nod. Slowly, the blade lowered until it was pointing at the floor.
“What are you doing?” hissed the second guard. He took his eyes off Dorian to glare at his partner. It was a mistake he would make only once.
Dorian was on the man before he had time to react. A standard-issue longsword clattered to the floor as the man’s knees thudded to the ground, the sound of armor hitting marble cacophonous in the high-ceilinged chamber. Dorian had his own sword to the man’s throat, cutting off the shout of protest before it fully left his mouth.
Caius tsked.
“I’m not going to fight my prince,” the first guard told her partner. “The dragon chose him, Amon. I’m not stupid enough to ignore that.”
“It’s just a story, Kora.”
“I suppose,” Caius interrupted, “you have to ask yourself how much stock you put in the old stories. And how much faith you put in me. Or in Tanith.”
At that, even the second guard quailed.
“You have seen her,” Caius said. “You know what she has done. And what she’s doing right now.”
The first guard—Kora—nodded. There was a haunted look in her eyes, as if she’d seen some of Tanith’s more gruesome acts closer than she ever wanted to. Perhaps she had exiled herself to gateway guard duty, the farthest from the throne one could get while remaining in the keep.
“You have a choice,” Caius said. “Let me pass, or die fighting for a prince you never elected and don’t respect.”
Kora took a tentative step back, but she didn’t put up her sword. It remained in her white-knuckled grip. “She’ll kill me if she finds out.”
Of that, Caius had no doubt. His sister had had little capacity for forgiveness even before she’d bound herself, body and soul, to a beast of shadow and suffering.
“If you fail,” the guard continued, “we die.”
Caius took a few brisk steps toward the chamber’s exit. Neither guard made a move to stop him. He gestured for Dorian and Echo and Ivy to follow. When he reached the door, he turned and met the guard’s gaze. “Then I will not fail.”
The guard inclined her head in a shallow nod of acknowledgment. Almost as an afterthought, she clapped her right fist to her heart. It was an old gesture, rarely used among the Drakharin but known to all of them. It was a salute. A sign of recognition, of respect. Of fealty. Of faith.
Caius accepted it with a nod. As he threw open the heavy wooden doors leading deeper into the keep, he prayed to the gods that he would be worthy of all that gesture meant.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Caius knew the hal
ls of Wyvern’s Keep as intimately as if a map of the fortress had been etched into his bones. He had come to know its labyrinthine corridors as a child, chasing his sister and being chased in return. He had carved his name into the foundation, like so many young nobles before him, hoping to steal for himself a slice of its timeless strength, its eternal solidity.
That knowledge served him well now as he slunk through the keep’s halls, silent as a mouse, danger humming through his veins.
“That was easy,” Echo said, trotting to keep up with Caius’s long strides. The corridor leading from the central gateway was empty, but their run of luck would not be infinite.
“It won’t be, going forward,” Caius said. “If they’d been Firedrakes, they would have sounded an alarm and put up a fight. We were lucky. Astonishingly so.”
“And we won’t be for much longer,” Dorian said. He stopped and tilted his head, listening. “Boots. Three pairs. Heavy armor.”
Firedrakes.
Caius drew his knives and strained to listen. He could hear them now, approaching from one of the service corridors branching off the main hallway. They were walking slowly, in no great hurry, unaware that the most wanted Drakharin in all the land was yards away. They would be in for an unpleasant surprise. “Echo, Ivy, stay out of the fight if you can.”
His words were met with an unladylike snort. “Yeah, okay,” Echo said. “Sure. No problem. I’ll just pull up a chair and watch you slice and dice your way through the keep. Maybe make some popcorn. You don’t happen to have a microwave in this musty castle, do you?”
She was rambling. She did that when she was scared. Caius wasn’t sure she even realized it.
“Defend yourself if you must,” said Caius, “but leave the fighting to us.”
Echo opened her mouth to protest—as he knew she would—but he silenced her with his best stern look. He was only a little surprised it actually worked to quell her indignation.
“I’ve seen you in battle, Echo,” Caius said. “I do not doubt your abilities, but I didn’t bring you here to shed Drakharin blood. This has to be done a certain way.”
It wouldn’t do to have the firebird’s formal introduction to his people involve her cutting them down with a magic they had believed was the stuff of fairy tales.
An unhappy frown stole across her face, but she nodded. “Got it. Consider this bird’s wings temporarily clipped.”
The trio of guards rounded the bend. Red cloaks. Golden armor. Firedrakes indeed. They charged, and Caius was ready.
They were disarmed easily enough. One fell beneath Caius’s knives, the second succumbed to Dorian’s brutal strikes, while the third threw down his sword and clasped his fist to his chest once he had seen Caius’s face.
“She is in the throne room,” the guard said in a quiet, tremulous voice. Fear flickered through his eyes. “Help us.” And though begging was not the way of his people, the guard added, “Please.”
Caius had simply nodded and accepted the man’s surrender. With Dorian, Ivy, and Echo following close behind, Caius traversed the halls he knew so well, the guard’s words an unnecessary guide.
Crumpled bodies—wizened with age and depleted of magic—lay strewn throughout the corridors and slumped over in stairwells. Servants and soldiers. Peasants and courtiers. His sister had not discriminated in her cruelty.
She had taken what she craved and left in her wake the empty husks of the people she should’ve protected.
Dorian whispered a prayer for the dead under his breath. Echo and Ivy fell into a sickened silence. Caius could only hope that when they reached their destination there would be someone left to save.
—
The throne room was awash with blood.
The bodies of the dead lay scattered about like a child’s toys after a violent tantrum, while the living huddled against the walls, as far from the dais as they could get.
A trail of corpses led from the door to the gilded throne upon which Tanith sat, her bare arms crimson with blood, her smile as sharp as a blade. A figure knelt at her feet, its back to them. All Caius could see was a head of black hair and the red cloak of a Firedrake. Tanith raked her nails through the kneeling man’s hair, the way one would absently pet a dog. A dozen Firedrakes stood at the foot of the dais, their faces hidden behind golden helmets.
“Hello, Brother,” she said. It wasn’t Tanith’s voice. Something lurked behind it, something dark and awful. “Fancy seeing you here.” She threw her arms wide. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place? I always thought it needed a splash of color.” She canted her head to the side, her smile ticking farther up. “And you’ve brought friends. How lovely.” She waggled her fingers in a mock wave. “Hello, little dove. Did you miss me so terribly that you simply had to come back?”
To her credit, Ivy didn’t shrink from Tanith’s unnerving gaze. Shadows shifted in Tanith’s eyes, overwhelming the red of her irises. The monster within was chipping away the last vestiges of Caius’s sister; it wouldn’t stop until there was nothing left. Soon, Tanith would be as much of a husk as the broken bodies she’d left around the keep.
Tanith stood, sweeping her scarlet cloak to the side as she descended the dais steps. The hem was darker red than the rest of the cloak, and damp. Blood, probably. The Tanith Caius knew wouldn’t have been caught dead in soiled armor off the battlefield. But now she was unkempt. Her hair was a tangled mess of bloody blond curls, her armor scuffed and stained. “How heroic you must feel, Caius. Coming to the rescue of this lot like some valiant prince straight out of a children’s story.” She stepped over the crumpled form of their former treasurer, Oeric. The medal of office still hung from his neck, resting against the fur lining of his tunic. They’d been a pair once, Tanith and Oeric. Now she moved around his body—Caius couldn’t tell if the man was dead or just close—as if he meant nothing to her. “I had a feeling you might come.”
“Is that so?” Caius tightened his grip on his knives. His magic had been returning slowly, but he was nowhere near fully recovered.
“Indeed.” Tanith toed Oeric’s boot. His foot flopped limply to the ground. “I knew there were holes. Places where information leaked. Spots where it filtered in, like an annoying drip that won’t stop drip, drip, dripping. I tried to find out who our traitor was, but no one wanted to talk.” She gazed at the mess she had made in the hall, at the lives she had ended in a fit of pique. “And I tried so hard to be persuasive. Fortunately, I had help.”
She continued her approach and Caius stood his ground. The crowd behind Caius shifted in expectation. Anticipation clogged the air like a heady scent. When Tanith was about fifteen feet from him, she stopped, her brow furrowing. “It was a mistake to leave you there. To let you be found. Weak. Weak, weak, weak.”
She turned away, raking her hands through her unruly hair. “But I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. Shouldn’t do it. But it must be done. My last distraction. The final thread. The anchor. Not right. Wrong, all wrong.”
“She’s not talking to us, is she?” Dorian wondered aloud.
Caius shook his head. “Tanith!” he called.
Her head snapped around and she blinked, as if she’d forgotten they were there. Her eyes narrowed.
“Come here, pet,” she said, snapping her fingers. A gold chain dangled from her other hand, a pendant swinging slightly with every movement she made. The kneeling figure, who had remained by the throne when Tanith had risen, stood and turned to face them.
Dorian let loose a string of curses in Drakhar, vicious enough to scald. Helios kept his eyes lowered, but there was no mistaking him. There he stood, in full Firedrake regalia. Those proud shoulders slumped in shame, and he refused to meet Caius’s gaze. In the rush to leave for the keep, Caius hadn’t given much thought to Helios’s absence. There had been other things to consider, far more important than the whereabouts of a single soldier. When had Helios departed? How had no one noticed?
The same way you didn’t, Caius’s mind supplied.
You thought he was insignificant.
“Helios?” Ivy’s voice was so small, she doubted it carried far enough for him to hear her, but his head bowed, eyes closed, as if he had. “Tell me it’s not true.”
Helios opened his eyes and raised them to meet Ivy’s. The guilt in his expression was unmistakable. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged, as if he was too much of a coward to offer a response.
That unbelievable bastard.
“I trusted you,” Ivy spat.
A cruel laugh erupted from Tanith. “That was rather the whole point,” she said, her sharp voice slicing through the heavy pall of betrayal that had settled over Caius. “Do you think I was stupid enough to simply let you waltz out of my fortress with nary a scar to show for it? Did you honestly believe I was that startlingly incompetent?”
Tanith turned to Helios. A black-veined hand stroked his hair as if he were a well-behaved dog that had just performed an impressive trick. “You must have done an even better job than I anticipated. I had made it through only half the courtiers when he showed up, fresh from the little Icelandic hideout you thought I didn’t know about, and told me everything.” She held up the small pendant Dorian had sent Ivy into the keep with all those weeks before, one side mirrored and smeared with blood. “He even used this trinket that the little dove smuggled in to send you that message.” She cupped Helios’s cheek with one hand, her nails digging into his flesh. “Perhaps I was wrong to doubt you.”
“No,” said Helios, shaking his head. He shuddered at her touch, and even from a distance, Caius could see the resolve harden his yellow eyes. “You weren’t.”
Caius saw only the briefest flash of steel in the dim light before a knife plunged into the vulnerable sliver of exposed throat above the collar of Tanith’s armor. Helios held on to the blade even after it sank to the hilt.
