The Dragon Rises Page 25

  “He offered himself in sacrifice. What greater service is there?” The Lord smiled at the body.

  “Ah, my Lord, he struggled.” Mikkel sounded at once sorrowful and deeply satisfied. “He was most devoted in his worship, but unwilling to take the final step. Still, I knew that such faith, once complete, would be particularly powerful to you. We gave him a greater taste for the pain he had given himself.”

  “Mmm?” The Lord circled. The warrior, as if sensing the predator in the room, yanked half-heartedly at the bindings on his hands and moaned.

  “Do not fear,” the Lord told him. “The human spirit has been infected with heresy. It is not your fault. You sought to make things right, didn’t you? You sought to make yourself worthy of me.”

  The warrior whispered something through cracked lips. He flinched when the Lord laid his hand against his cheek.

  “And so you did,” the Lord said. “You have been brave to fight the heresy inside you. Your soul called out to mine, and Brother Mikkel heard it. He has given you a gift, allowing you to take the punishment I demand. The seed of heresy fights it, yes, but do not be afraid. It will be burned away, and your soul will be mine entirely.”

  The warrior began to fight with a feverish strength.

  “Yes,” the Lord whispered. “Yes, it seeks an outlet. It wants you to fight to survive, when what I require is your life. There is no shame in this. I will purify you.”

  He shed his clothes as the man struggled and, at last, began to scream.

  “Gag him,” the Lord said carelessly. He waited while Mikkel lifted a careless hand and two masked followers rushed forward to stuff cloth in the man’s mouth and bind it in place. Then the Lord came forward once more, removing his mask. He frowned when the man recoiled from his face. “I am your king by right of godblood and by right of this body, which was the son of King Davead. These scars were gained in pursuit of our greatest enemy. Your blood is my strength, supplicant. You offered it, and I heard.” He dragged his fingers across the body and brought them, bloody, to his lips.

  It was so sweet, that blood. The Lord’s chest rose and fell faster now. He had needed this for so long. In the immortal realm, his power was limitless, but he could only hear prayers, not taste them. Now that he was here….

  He transformed and lowered his jaws close to the body. The man was screaming again in desperate fear, and he struggled with inhuman strength. Heresy, but the Lord did not hold that against him. All humans wished to take the first steps toward purity and resisted the last. It was their nature.

  A single tooth scored a deep line down the man’s chest, and he screamed in pain around the gag. The Lord let his tongue follow the wound. Yes, this one would serve. His jaws snapped and his claws raked, and the body was gone within seconds. The man’s terror only heightened the rush of power that rushed through the dragon’s blood.

  The Lord reared back on his hind legs and beat his wings, his mouth open in a silent call. I am Anios. I am the last of the dragon kings. I am every one of your legends and more.

  He transformed back and stumbled on human feet, then knelt on the muddy, seaweed-slick floor of the cave while his body accustomed itself once more to humanity. He was ready now for the first of his conquests. The city was vulnerable now, ripe for the taking. He had seen the fleet sail.

  Now was the time of his triumph.

  He stood and let his followers dress him once more.

  “We go,” he told them. “Give me the first of my crowns.”

  Luca

  Luca stared after Reva with his heart twisting. I must do whatever I can. She had agreed with him, he told himself. He was afraid of the choice that lay before him, and she would hate him for it, but she had agreed.

  He turned the thought over and over in his head. Was it a greater good to revile those who might otherwise be his enemies, to lead out his army and let his friends and his people bear the danger of Stefan’s coming invasion?

  Or was it the greater good to ally even with those he had once despised?

  He sat as twilight fell outside, knowing the answer and yet afraid to make his choice, and it was not long before Josef appeared. He came as he always did, from the servants’ stair, so that not even the guards could have said when he appeared. Luca looked over at him wordlessly.

  “What have you chosen?” Josef asked.

  “You read minds,” Luca said dully.

  Josef only smiled. “I sense a choice, and the struggle of common morality against a greater soul.”

  “I am afraid,” Luca said bluntly. “I am no king.”

  “Do a crown and a ceremony make a king, then?” Josef knelt and began to draw his runes. “No. It is the choices you make, King Luca. Your father understood what it was to make desperate choices, but even he clung to what he had once been. You are taking greater steps by far. The fear inside you is only the last vestiges of what you were.”

  Luca stood and went over to the runes. He stepped into the incomplete circle and waited while Josef drew it around him. There was safety only in power, he thought. His enemies were circling him and while they lived, he was vulnerable. He required their deaths. Therefore, he needed power.

  He lifted a hand and let an orb of fire float there. It spun lazily. Once, such a task had drained his strength. Now, he did it easily.

  He performed all the challenges Josef had set before him over the past several weeks. He made the orb as tall as a man. He cloaked himself in a fire that hurt no one else and made the air around it shimmer. He turned the cloak into a series of darts, each hovering and spitting sparks in the air as it waited for a target. When he let them go, they hurled themselves at the far wall with enough force that Luca heard the stones creak with it. One, along the lintel, cracked.

  He made a rope with his power, and then a net. The power obeyed him easily now. He need only guide it, not grasp it desperately as he had done at the start. He understood what it wanted, so he understood what to ask of it.

  When he was done, Josef was smiling. “You are ready,” he told Luca. “If Stefan comes for you—”

  “If he does, I will be ready.” Luca returned to his chair. “And yet, he has a weapon I can turn against him.”

  Josef drew closer, his brow furrowed. “Your Majesty?”

  “You have heard of the Ulezi,” Luca said. “Yes? They captured Reva and one of the other dragons she came here with. They seek annihilation of the dragon bloodlines, nothing less. There is a battle coming, but if Stefan were delivered to me wounded, if he were no longer a threat to my city or my troops, I would take that option rather than battle openly for the legends to remember.”

  Josef folded his hands inside his sleeves and nodded. “You are wise, King Luca.”

  Luca had not expected Josef to agree with this plan. Perhaps that was why he had suggested it. He had hoped that the other man would dissuade him.

  He poured a cup of wine for Josef and gestured for him to sit. “Tell me honestly,” he said. “Tell me what you really think of this plan.”

  Josef lifted the cup thoughtfully. He gazed over at the servants’ door and narrowed his eyes as he heard footsteps. A moment later, one of Luca’s attendants entered and bowed.

  “Prince Luca, you have not called for dinner.”

  Luca smiled. No crisis, then. No spy. Just the mundanities of life.

  “Bring up a platter,” he instructed. “For myself and Josef, but not now. In two hours.”

  The servant bowed deeply to Luca, nodded to Josef, and withdrew.

  Josef turned back to Luca with a contemplative look. “I foresaw the need to train you,” he said. “I saw a battle, and you with your magic. When I spoke to you, you told me of Stefan, and I knew that you would be triumphant against him. Perhaps it will be because you must face him in person, but perhaps not. Perhaps it is his army you will face. Perhaps a show of your power will be enough to remind his troops that you are the rightful king. Who can say? I know that I am your loyal and humble servant, and I know tha
t our power combined is great enough now to fight Stefan and win. I am not a king, however.”

  Tell me what to do! Luca wanted to shout, but he knew Josef would not. Josef could not. He was correct: Luca was becoming more than a common man, defined by common morality. No one could advise him now.

  “Bring me the Ulezi,” he said. “Clear the guards on the stairs, and bring them to me. They are waiting outside the gates. I know this. Bring only one. Make sure the servants’ corridors are clear. No one can know of this.”

  Josef bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.” And with that, he faded into the shadows and out of the room.

  Luca waited and paced while Josef did as he had asked, twitching at the sound of every footstep coming from the corridor. An hour passed. Luca tapped on the wood of his desk, wondering if his task had caused problems for Josef. But at last the mage reappeared from the servants’ door. One of the Ulezi slipped inside and laid back its hood.

  Luca could see the creature’s pain at once. It cringed and hissed with every movement. Its tongue slid out to taste the air, and he wondered what it thought of common Menti. What would the Ulezi do if ever they had cleansed the earth of their enemies?

  He did not mean to find out.

  “I hear you allied yourself with my brother,” he told it. “A dragon. How did that come about?”

  It said nothing, only watched him. Luca could feel its hatred. It knew Reva was here. It could likely smell her.

  “Let me guess,” Luca said. “My brother, who is a dragon, promised you that he wanted to kill all other dragons and Menti, and that if you allied with him, you would come closer to your goal than any other way. He sent you after his enemies. My guess is, you always intended to kill him when it was all said and done.”

  The Ulezi smiled now, and Luca felt a chill. Could he ever truly control an alliance with these beings?

  He had to try.

  “You do not know Stefan,” Luca told the monster. “He has craved power since he was young. He drank blood. He executed the Menti and drained them. It does him no good, but even the chance of more blood is enough to will him to murder to advance himself. He killed our father. Perhaps you do not think so poorly of patricide, given your situation, but for us….”

  It laughed slightly at this. “He issss evil.”

  “He is,” Luca agreed. “You seek the dragons because you want to cleanse the world of such pain as you have endured. So I understand it, anyway.”

  It inclined its head.

  “Which means, I think, that you seek to build a better world,” Luca said. “As do I. Stefan, however, does not. While you may not care at all for plagues and for poverty, I ask you to align yourself with the one of us who cares for others. Who seeks to protect the world, not make it into their personal toy.”

  The Ulezi hesitated. “You will give usssss the dragon here?”

  Luca swallowed. The Ulezi was across the room in a moment, its claws poised at Luca’s throat. Josef had shouted and was reaching for Luca with horror on his face, but there was no way he could get to Luca in time to save him from the Ulezi. Luca grabbed for his sword, and the being wrenched it away. It held Luca effortlessly in place.

  Ulezi were born of dragons and men, and were beyond men in their strength and their speed. Its claws sank with surprising ease into Luca’s skin. It was only the merest fraction of an inch, but enough to make a point.

  “Allll dragonssss,” it hissed at him.

  Now, at the worst time, Luca wavered. He turned to Josef.

  Josef was staring at him with a guarded expression that Luca had never seen before. It was almost betrayal. “You must do as your conscience bids you,” Josef said. Only that.

  Was it worth the chance? Luca cursed himself for asking Josef to fetch the Ulezi. He had never wanted this choice. He had believed that he could use the bargaining and the silver tongue his father had used to charm enemies into allies. He had believed he could lie.

  And now he stood to lose the one person he wanted to protect more than anyone else in the world.

  Reva.

  She was a dragon and a warrior. She had become far more than a lady of the court. She had offered to fly Luca to Stefan, and fight with him, even knowing that such a thing could lead to her death. She had offered, even argued, to be allowed onto the battlefield as his asset.

  If he faced Stefan alone, he could lose. If he allowed the battle to commence, others would lose their lives, and he might still fail. But this could work. This could reduce the death toll. It could end the war.

  None of this seemed real.

  “All dragons,” Luca said. “My brother first.”

  The Ulezi narrowed its eyes. Then it stepped back and was gone with a flick of its cloak. When Luca looked around, Josef was at the door of the servants’ staircase. He nodded to Luca once and disappeared as well.

  Luca sank down into his chair, trembling. What had he done?

  What he had to do, he told himself. No more, no less. He was not a man, but a king. If it was possible to protect Reva, he would do so. He would spend his life, if necessary. He swore that.

  If not….

  He closed his eyes and shut his eyes tightly against a flood of tears. He could not let any one life stand in the way of justice and peace.

  Karine

  Karine ran down the servants’ stairs, almost tripping in her fear. She was crying, she realised, tears streaking her cheeks and blurring her vision. The tears, and the pain, came with hot rage. How dare Luca do this? How dare he?

  She passed the true Josef, lying bound and senseless on the ground, and fought the urge to lash out at him. Never before had she wanted so badly to hurt someone. You told him to do this. You did not make him back away. She had nothing but contempt for the mage. He had drawn runes on the floor and convinced Luca that they helped him. He was here only for the prestige. He was nothing.

  Karine ran along the passageways, heedless of the stares of the guards. Some tried to call greetings to her—they loved Reva, so they greeted her friend with warmth as well—but she did not answer them. She had no breath for it, and there was no time.

  She burst through the door of Reva’s rooms to find Reva pacing, white-faced.

  “They’re close,” Reva said. “The Ulezi. Karine, I know you will think I am crazy, but I swear I can sense them—”

  “They are here.” Karine rubbed at the tears on her cheeks. “Reva.” Her voice trembled on the name. “Reva, I saw something terrible, and you have to believe me.”

  Reva came to her side. Even in her fear, she took Karine’s hands. “What is it? Come sit. Karine, what has happened?” She directed them over to a bench where the two women sat.

  Karine bowed her head. This was going to break Reva’s heart.

  “I went to talk to Luca,” she said. “I thought I could persuade him about the Gardens. I know he thinks he needs them, but I thought perhaps if it was someone he did not know, he might really see what had happened. I wanted him to be the king you deserve, Reva.”

  Reva smiled. “He is.”

  “He is not.” Karine shook her head and bit her lip against a further flood of tears. “Reva, please, you have to believe me. I saw what he did with my own eyes. Reva, I tricked him. I pretended to be Josef.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he said he was going to do something terrible—Luca said, I mean. I needed to know if he would. If he would be so wrong as to make the alliance he did. If he was even on the brink, if he even considered it, I knew that no persuasion could change his mind. So I pretended to be Josef. And, Reva—he allied himself with the Ulezi.”

  Reva went white and swayed. She swallowed thickly, and a rasping sob escaped her throat. “Karine, tell me this is not so. Tell me this is a horrible joke.”

  “It’s true,” Karine said. “He told them to kill Stefan first, but they said it had to be all dragons in the end, and he agreed, Reva. He’s willing to sacrifice you for Stefan.”

  She bent her head onto the oth
er woman’s knees and softly began to cry. Seeing her friend in this way tore at Karine. Reva was the strongest of them both. She never cried. She never gave up. But now….

  “You have to stop,” Karine told her. Suddenly, her mind was clear. “You have to get up, Reva.”

  “Why? What does it matter if I—”

  “We have to run,” Karine told her. “Right now. Tonight. Before they come back.”

  There was a sound from the doorway, and both of them whirled. Karine screamed, and Reva turned her head toward what she seemed sure was her death. But it was Serena who stood there, her blue eyes filled with grief.

  “I heard you speaking,” she said. “Karine, you swear my brother did this?”

  Karine nodded miserably.

  “Then I will help you,” Serena said. “I can command soldiers to go with you, and provisions, and give you the royal seal so you can hide in our houses. I will help you run—and, Reva, I will not rest until this is put right. Come. We need to go now.”

  Tinian

  “Is it very much farther?” Alberto piped up.

  Oriana and Alberto had proven to be an unholy double act, forever running around where the sailors were trying to work, causing mischief and engaging in dares that Tinian strongly believed had given him more grey hair than he had had at the beginning of the trip. Now, however, the boy seemed exhausted and had returned to more princely behaviour.

  Children. Tinian was glad he had none of his own anymore.

  “Not much farther,” he said, trying not to sigh. Alberto was only a boy, and he was behaving as children did. He should not be chastised for that.

  Tinian had no quarrel with Alberto, after all. Serena’s offer had been a wise one: give them Alberto as an assurance of their goodwill. He would hold them to that, nothing more. Alberto would prosper or not, by their own choices. He would certainly not be hurt or killed. Tinian was not a monster.

  “Lord Tinian.” A soldier stepped into Tinian’s path. “You must go at once to the council chamber.”