The Dragon Rises

  The Dragon Rises

  The Land of Fire and Ash

  Book Three

  By

  Sarah Dalton & Moira Katson

  The Dragon Rises

  Sarah Dalton

  EBOOK EDITION

  Copyright © 2019 Sarah Dalton

  Cover design by Damonza

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations, and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  Map of Estala and Xantos

  The Lord

  “Anios, Anios, Anios.” From inside the cave came the shuffling sound of many feet. The Lord’s followers swayed, palms held up as if to receive a blessing from heaven. “Anios, Anios, Anios.”

  The Lord, masked and hooded, turned to Brother Mikkel. He saw a shiver of fear pass over the man’s face. You wanted to meet your god, did you not? The Lord felt a wave of contempt. Brother Mikkel was weak. He was a zealot, constrained by arbitrary rules and hatreds.

  But the Lord had to admit that Mikkel had found a good candidate for the Lord’s rebirth, and in so doing, he had given the Lord a body with more powers than Mikkel could dream. The Lord flexed his fingers under the leather gloves he wore and clenched them into a fist. This body was still weak from its illness, though the illness itself had been burned away with his transformation.

  Strength would come in time.

  “You have done well,” the Lord told Mikkel. He tasted the greed and anger of the man who had once held this body, and he savoured both Mikkel’s fear and the chanting of the masked followers in the cave. “You have done very well.”

  Mikkel bowed. “My Lord, I seek only to serve you.”

  “And so you have, Mikkel. So you have.” The Lord cast a look at the wall of the cave. Truly, he sought to look past it. Outside were the fleets of Xantos, with their Menti leader, the weak little boy who had never been meant to be a king. “Estala is ripe for the taking.”

  “My Lord….” Mikkel’s throat worked. “An assault now—”

  “We will not assault now,” the Lord said strongly. He drank in the adoration of his followers as they swayed. Anios, Anios, Anios. “We will wait. The boy king is untried. He will stumble and fall even without our help.”

  Mikkel’s face betrayed his dislike, and the Lord could feel the memories left over from this body. The hatred for Luca. He saw a sword. He saw fire.

  “Do you not think Luca is a worthy adversary, Brother?” He believed that Luca would fail, but he had another point to make as well.

  “He is a Menti,” Mikkel said with open hatred.

  “As am I,” the Lord observed.

  “Not like you, my Lord. You are the last of the Dragon Kings. You will bring about peace and an end to the Menti.” Now the Brother’s face shone with devotion. “You will endure forever, and with your powers, you can wipe out any other Menti who are born.”

  The Lord repressed a shudder at the thought of spending all of eternity in this prison of a body. He was a god, not a mortal. Mikkel should know that.

  “That is not how we will triumph,” he told Mikkel. “Our triumph will be in the hearts of the people—all the people. When I rise, the Menti will be cast down, because every time such an abomination is born, any person who sees it will purge it. Davead told the people that the Menti must be destroyed. They obeyed him because he was the king, but they did not understand why they must do what he asked. When I rise, they will know.”

  “Yes, my Lord.” Mikkel ducked his head. He was breathing fast. “My Lord, will you address your followers?”

  “Yes. Soon.”

  He walked down from the rough dais and into the crowd of his followers, spreading his hands out so that they might touch him. They crowded around him, reaching out to lay their hands on his body. They cried out his name as he passed them.

  My Lord! My king! Anios, Anios!

  He murmured his thanks. Stefan had been weak, too obsessed with the trappings of power to understand how to capture the hearts of the people—and it was in their hearts that one would find true, unshakable power. People did not revere the crown, they coveted it.

  What they wanted was to know they were beloved of their God. That He appreciated them.

  “You are blessed,” the Lord told them as he passed. “You are the most faithful of my followers. We will build this kingdom together.”

  They wept openly at his words.

  “You.” The Lord pointed at one of them. “What has brought you here?”

  The man’s face twisted with rage. “The plague took my daughter. Those filthy Menti stained the earth and my daughter was taken!”

  For a moment, the Lord wondered if perhaps this was an assassin. He smiled coldly to himself. Let the man try, if so. They would all learn a valuable lesson.

  But the man had no such designs. He looked around the cave, meeting the eyes of anyone who was watching him. “Their magic has been used to terrorise us, and we have bowed before them like whipped dogs! Even Davead did not chase them down as he should have! And because we bowed to them, we must suffer a penance. I say no more! No more children taken, because today is the day we prove our loyalty to our Lord! Today is the day he knows we follow his laws! Today is the day we rid the earth of Menti!”

  The Lord embraced him and felt the man shaking with tears.

  “You have done well,” he told the man. “You have shown me your heart, and it gives me hope. If all men and women of Estala follow me as you do, the world will be cleansed.”

  “My Lord, nothing would please me more.” The man drew away, still sobbing.

  “What is your name?” the Lord asked him.

  “Josef, my Lord.”

  “Behold Josef, a man whose faith is a beacon to us all! Let his example give you strength in dark days—for there are dark days ahead. The Menti will fight. They will try to keep all their ill-gotten gains. They will pretend to be like you and me. We must all be vigilant. But we will not let them win.” He raised his voice to shout the last few words.

  The crowd yelled and stamped their feet. Hands reached out to touch him as he turned and welcomed their praise.

  They called out their names and stories, and he listened to them, soothed them, prayed with them. When at last he returned to the dais, they were in a frenzy. Some had taken out their whips and were screaming both in pain and joy as the lashes landed.

  “They love you,” Mikkel told the Lord.

  The Lord did not bother to respond to this. Who had this body been, before, that Mikkel was such a sycophant? The Lord was their God. Of course they loved him. He needed no reassurance of that.

  After a time, he raised his hand and waited for them to become quiet. “You are the first among my followers, and so you must see me as I am,” the Lord told them.

  “Lord, is this wise?” Mikkel’s voice was a frantic whisper.

  The Lord looked at him and met his eyes until Mikkel looked away. He should be ashamed.

  The people were easily led and commanded to obedience, afraid to speak out, but loyalty that was simply cowed obedience could snap in a moment. What they needed was a figure who inspired awe, yes, but who also fit within the mortal strictures they had created. A man who said he was a God reborn in mortal flesh, yes, that was good. That same God in the body of the crowned King of Estala—that was better.

  Those who were loyal to the rule of law would know that Stefan had been crowned king, and they would be honour-bound to support him against the imposter, Luca. Those who were loyal to Anios would not be torn between love for their God and the rightful king. Those wh
o were not sure whom to support—well, what could be better than a king and a God in one body?

  Especially when the rest of the Lord’s plan had been put into action. In the meantime, he had no qualms about pretending to be Stefan. The boy’s soul had hardly put up a fight when the Lord took his body. All of his memories were there for the taking.

  The Lord removed his mask and welcomed the collective gasp of surprise. They were still transfixed by him, but they were horrified by the scars on his face and scalp.

  “I received these scars in battle with the Menti,” the Lord told them. “You are the first to hear this story from my lips, and soon, all of Estala will know it. My father, King Davead, sent me after Prince Luca, who committed fratricide and killed Prince Matias. When I came to apprehend him, he used his Menti powers against me.”

  There were cries of horror among those assembled, and the Lord nodded in appreciation, raising his hand to still the crowd.

  “He would have committed fratricide twice over, seeking to kill anyone who stood between him and the throne. He has in his palace, even now, three siblings whose lives are in terrible danger: the princesses Serena and Carolina, and the prince Alberto. All that has been done to me, all that was done to Matias, may be their fate as well if we do not save them.”

  The cries of his followers were angry now. Prince Alberto was so young, and how could anyone hurt the princesses? It was unconscionable. The Lord smiled as the followers in the cave hurled curses at Luca’s name.

  When they quieted, he told them, “Perhaps some of you will be wondering: how can we defeat Luca and his army from Xantos—not to mention his army of Menti?”

  There was silence this time, save for awkward shuffling. They did wonder. They were afraid. What if their Lord could not give them victory?

  “Luca is a fire wielder,” the Lord told them. “He incinerated his own brother in barely a moment. Why did he not do the same to me, you wonder? Because I have powers far, far beyond Luca’s. Yes, in a moment of weakness, I allowed my brother the chance to explain his actions. I thought perhaps Matias’s death had been a terrible accident and no more. It was weak of me.”

  He hung his head artfully and heard their sorrowful whispers trying to comfort him. Inside his breast, their adoration flowed through him like ichor. He was a God, after all. He thrived on such things. He knew just the words to say to make them love him, and he said them all.

  He lifted his head to smile at them. “But I am not weak, and now I know Luca’s murderous intentions. I came back to Estala to safeguard it, and when the time is right, I will sweep into Reyalon and take back the throne that is mine! I will fight Luca, and I will destroy him! I will destroy all Menti. Do you know how?”

  Their cries echoed off the walls now.

  The Lord stood and spread his arms. Mikkel unfastened his cloak, and even as the Lord let his robes drop to the floor around him, he transformed. He reared back, giving a bellow that reverberated around the cave.

  “I…” It was hard to shape human words with a dragon’s mouth, but the Lord was no ordinary mortal. He forced the form to do his bidding. “…Am the last of the Dragon Kings!”

  Many of his supporters were weeping, falling to the ground and touching their foreheads to it. The Lord lashed his tail.

  “We will hunt down the Menti and destroy them,” he told his followers. “Starting with the usurper and his followers.”

  Anios! Anios! Anios!

  “You are my strength!” The Lord swung his head, looking around at them. There was a beautiful woman on her knees toward one side of the cavern. The curtains of her brown hair parted just enough to reveal her perfect features. Yes, she would do. “Your loyalty and sacrifice will save Estala!” He lifted a talon to point at the woman. “You. Come to me.”

  “Yes, my Lord.” She was trembling as she walked closer. The Lord could faintly see the marks of lashes at the shoulders of her robes. A true believer. Her adoration gave him strength.

  “You are one of the most devoted of my followers,” he told her, his voice a low rumble. “Would you not say that is so?”

  “I would, my Lord.” As she raised her chin, the Lord saw that her eyes were almost mad with her fervour. “Every day I punish myself, hoping to be cleansed…hoping to cleanse the world.”

  “And so you shall. You have sacrificed greatly to give me strength. Now you will make the greatest sacrifice—without hesitation. I know this. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She stared up at him, her face blank as he reared above her.

  He came down with a snap of his jaws, and her head was severed from her body. Blood, rich and warm, poured into the Lord’s mouth. He drank it down with a fervour, then gulped down the rest of her body as the supporters fell silent—and then roused themselves into a fervent cheer once more.

  Anios! Anios! Anios!

  “Now,” the Lord told them. He could hear the blood dripping from his jaws. “Let us go forth with our sister’s strength and cleanse the world.”

  Reva

  Reva half-woke in the darkness. Out of habit, she kept herself to the very edge of the bed even though her muscles were screaming. She must make room for the others.

  But the others were not here.

  Her eyes opened. The moon was only a pale sliver, but it cast enough light for her to see the empty room and the empty bed. The curtains, which she kept pulled open so she could wake with the dawn, stirred in the drafts from the small window.

  This was a miserable place, but to Reva, after all she had been through, it was everything she needed and more. She eased herself into the middle of the bed, trying not to let the ropes beneath the mattress squeak, and spread herself out with a tiny sigh of pleasure.

  A whole bed to herself. A bed that was not on the ground, with rocks poking up from beneath it. A meal that had included more gristle than she liked in the watery soup, but that had filled her stomach. She thought of the homes of her childhood, Avalon Towers and Nesra’s Keep, and she wanted to laugh. That girl would not have appreciated this bed, or the torn, dirty clothing Reva wore, or the food.

  Her smile faded away as she thought back to those days. She had once been sure that everything in her life would turn out well. She had not considered any other option. As she ran around her family’s castle, basking in sunlight and the smell of the flowers, she had believed that nothing would ever change: not her family, not Estala.

  Even when her parents were brutally murdered, Reva’s core beliefs about the world had not changed. She had been brought at once to Nesra’s Keep and engaged to Prince Luca. It was a good marriage. She would be a princess. She missed her family, but she did not have clear memories of that night, and she still saw the world as basically good. Estala was ruled by a wise king, and Reva had a secure future.

  And then everything had changed again. The wise king, in all of his infinite wisdom, had broken Reva’s betrothal to Luca and given her instead to Francis like a piece of chattel. What Reva wanted, what she had been promised, did not enter into it at all. She was only a pawn, a gift to make a general happy, and she had lost the will to do anything more than simply endure the beatings Francis gave her and the failed pregnancies that had scarred her body and her soul.

  She pressed her lips together and tried not to cry. Every one of those pregnancies had ended in a mess of blood and tears, and at least one had ended with a monstrously deformed baby, but she still carried those four children in her heart. It was an ache she knew would never go away.

  She was not sure why she had come back to Reyalon, truth be told. She had fled the cave where Aron had tried to kill her, to finish the massacre of her family that he had started so many years ago. Sam and Carlia had tried to follow, to call her back, but Reva had transformed and fled into the night, lashed by rain and wind.

  Not far from Reyalon, she had transformed back and changed into the clothes she had clutched in her talons while she flew. She had a few coins she had managed to secret away, and with the city in ch
aos after Luca’s defeat of Stefan, the inn room had been cheap. There had still been blood in the streets.

  Reva was not sure why she had not gone to Nesra’s Keep at once when she heard that Luca held the throne. It was something she was unwilling to think about just yet.

  Coming here in her dragon form had been a terribly risky move. She knew that. The Ulezi, a terrible hybrid of humans and dragons, were driven to seek out any dragon shifters and destroy them. The madness in their blood, their hatred of the dragons for creating them, would never cease. That was what had driven Aron and Diana to take their children and hide away—and, when Reva’s parents had not agreed to do the same, Aron and Diana had killed them rather than leave any trail for the Ulezi to find.

  Reva hugged her arms around herself. Learning the truth of her parents’ death had been a blow. She had not agreed with Aron’s outlook on the world, but she would never have guessed that he had murdered her parents, and that he would have murdered her as well that day if he had found her.

  Of course, that was only one of many unpalatable truths. She had not believed that King Davead would do something as terrible as creating the Gardens of Anios, even though she knew he hated Menti fiercely. She had not believed that anyone could be as cruel as Francis was. She had not believed that Stefan would be so poor a king as he was. Instead of helping his citizens with the plague, he was building more temples to the Order of Insight and driving the people into a religious fervour.

  Reva shook her head in the darkness. How had she been so wrong about the world?

  Still, she was proud of herself. She had freed all of the slaves from one of the work camps, using cleverness and a strength she had not known she had. She was not the girl she had been before she was given to Francis. She would never be that girl again, but she was proud of the woman she was.