When She Reigns

by Jodi Meadows

  Standing there, dwarfed in the shadow of these colossal bones, I could feel those first dreams—of great wings and burning stars, of fire and screams, of power untold—and I knew I’d reached the one I’d traveled across an ocean to find.

  The first dragon.

  Fire and death and sky incarnate.

  My twin across time.

  “At last.” The words tasted like smoke.

  THE DRAKONTOS CELESTUS

  FOR TWO THOUSAND YEARS, I WAITED.

  From the moment the arrow pierced me. From the moment my body crashed to this strange land. From the moment I closed my eyes and the earth began its long burial. From the moment people dug up my bones.

  I waited for the one who would bring me home. I waited for the one who would make me whole.

  While I waited, I watched everything, letting my mind slip in and out of the clouds, using starlight as my vessel. I watched my birthplace change and grow and begin to eat itself. And now I watched her.

  She was a small creature, human and breakable, but a fire burned at her center. She carried the soul of a dragon. She was everything I needed.

  AT LAST.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  FROM THE CORNER OF MY EYE, I SAW ALUSHA GIVE me a sidelong look. “What’s wrong with you?”

  My mind wheeled, still trying to make sense of what I was seeing:

  The bones of the first dragon—the Fallen Gods’ first and most beloved child—trapped here, displayed for Empress Apolla’s pleasure. To make her look powerful.

  “Hopebearer?” A note of concern entered Alusha’s tone. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like now, just standing here and staring not at the empress, but the skeleton of an ancient and powerful and dead dragon.

  “I’m fine.” I wrenched my eyes away from the skull. “I’m ready.”

  Alusha cast me another dubious look, but then she gave my name to a young man standing on the inside of the door. He, too, shot me a sidelong glance filled with curiosity before he turned back to the empress’s throne room and lifted his voice. “Mira Minkoba of the Fallen Isles, Your Eminence. The Hopebearer, the Dragonhearted.”

  At the far end of the chamber, framed by brilliant light and a great dragon’s skeletal wing, the young woman lifted her hand, and Alusha nudged me into the room.

  “Do not embarrass me,” she muttered. “I have to fetch your friends now, but I’ll know how you did. Remember to bow when you reach Her Eminence.”

  Somehow, I remained on my feet. I registered her words. I remembered how to be the Hopebearer, in spite of the first dragon staring at me.

  I moved forward, my shoulders thrown back and my head high. My shoes sank into the soft rug that ran from the door to the empress. As if the great dragon skeleton at her side were nothing but decoration.

  But I knew.

  With every step, I could feel the first dragon’s presence thrumming through the floor, pounding into my heart, sending pieces of me into the wide-open sky.

  She was ancient.

  She was power.

  She was everything.

  But I couldn’t let myself get lost in her now. I had to focus. Be in this moment.

  I pulled myself together, piece by piece—out of the sky, out of her eyes, out of her all-consuming presence—until I was just Mira again. Just a girl who loved dragons. Just a girl who’d come here to help her people.

  It took all my effort, but I focused my attention on Empress Apolla to find her studying me: my movements, my manners, my preoccupation with the dragon skeleton.

  Aside from twenty or so guards stationed around the room, she and I were alone. No court. No secretaries. No servants. She and I just gazed at each other; I would not be the one to look away first.

  She was younger than I’d expected, perhaps only a few years my senior, but her hazel eyes held a weight belonging to someone three times her age. Otherwise, her brown skin was smooth and unblemished, brushed with dark powder around her eyes and in the hollows of her cheekbones. She wore white brocade silk, with gold embellishments emblazoned across every stitch of fabric. A thin circlet rested on her brow, and jeweled bands were clasped around her forearms. Her posture, stiff and straight, did not change as I approached.

  Ten steps. Twenty.

  I reached the dais and stopped, keeping my expression neutral as I met her eyes. “Your Eminence. I’m glad to meet you.”

  Her head tilted slightly. “You will not bow?”

  “I offer you my respect,” I said. “And my thanks for your hospitality and consideration. But I cannot bow to you, or to anyone else.”

  One heavy eyebrow lifted. “I could force you.”

  “I hope that you will not.” My heart pounded, but I let my mind touch the noorestone in the satchel at my hip. Its fire singed the edges off my anxiety.

  She glanced beyond me—at the grand hall occupied by only her guards—and then nodded. “I am glad I arranged to meet you without an audience.” She stood, her gown rippling around her as she moved. Slowly, like a careful dancer, she came down the steps. One. Two. Three. “Otherwise, I would have had to make an example, and that is not what I want.”

  We stood face-to-face, the Algotti empress and me. We were of similar height, but where I was lean from Mother’s constant fretting over my food, followed by decans in the Pit and fleeing across the Fallen Isles, the empress had a softer figure, filling out her gown in a way I would have described as pleasant if she hadn’t been the most powerful, and therefore dangerous, person in the empire.

  “You’re younger than I thought you’d be.” She had the same accent as everyone else I’d met here—with longer and sharper syllables—although she spoke with a gravity the others didn’t possess.

  No, she probably didn’t have the accent. Not here. In the empire, I had the accent.

  She looked at my scar. “What happened?”

  “Someone tried to bleed the Hopebearer out of me.”

  “That is not a thing that can be taken unless you allow it.” A faint smile eased the weight in her eyes. “It becomes you.”

  I resisted the impulse to touch the ridge of scar tissue. Instead, I nodded, and for a moment more, we just looked at each other, evaluating. What the other wanted. How hard she would fight for it. Our chances of success if neither of us was willing to bow to the other.

  Then the empress turned and inclined her head. “Walk with me.”

  I fell into step with her. She had a slow, stately rhythm, as though nothing could entice her to walk at a normal pace. But it gave me a chance to see the room, the beautiful galleries and gods and marble floor, and I stored away the details to tell the others later. They would like it, and if anyone was truly listening to our conversations, they’d quickly grow bored.

  Then I would tell them about the first dragon, whose presence followed me throughout the wide chamber, twisting into the back of my mind.

  Light sigils flickered as we glided by. What about listening sigils?

  “Nine reports that your high magistrate intends to betray me,” Empress Apolla said at last. There was no accusation in her tone, no hint that she blamed all of the Fallen Isles for his duplicity, but I could still hear a question of my authenticity in there. Would I betray her if we struck a bargain? I hadn’t bowed, after all.

  “He intends to bring armies to your shores.”

  She looked straight ahead as we walked past a guard. “Perhaps he seeks only to defend himself. The Algotti Empire is vast, and he must be frightened of us.”

  I couldn’t imagine Paorah frightened, and I didn’t think she believed that, either. “Your Eminence, the high magistrate is a proud and ambitious man. Perhaps he does fear you, but he won’t be content simply defending himself. He must solidify his power over the remains of the Fallen Isles, and that will require more action than taking a handful of people to safety. No, he must destroy in order to build something new. He sees it as his duty to his goddess—a duty that just so happens to benefit him.”

  “He
would not be content to settle here?”

  “He worships the goddess of destruction, the trickster.” I looked at her, a sharp, dark profile against the pale room. “In the Fallen Isles, we have a saying: Anahera asks answers. She’s always several steps ahead of the rest of us. Her people tend to be clever. Some would say they tend to be schemers. High Magistrate Paorah is smart, manipulative, and a devout believer in destruction. Though Anahera cautions her people to carefully consider the consequences, Paorah will destroy whatever he must to further his own goals.”

  Now she did look at me, a hint of curiosity in her eyes. “Anahera teaches the eternal cycle.”

  “Benevolent destruction is what they call it.” My thoughts tried to flicker back to the passage in The Book of Destruction I’d read on the skimmer den—It is sacrifice that enables change—but I pushed aside my own fears. I needed to focus on this. Here. Now.

  “Ah.” She kept walking, and I had the sense that she was thinking deeply, weighing every word she spoke, every tone she took. We reached the double doors and the boy who’d announced me, then turned to walk up the other side of the chamber. The guards watched us without watching us, standing as still as the statues. Maybe they were statues, and they were yet another example of imperial power.

  Questions teetered on the edge of my tongue. I wanted to ask about their magic, the images of the Upper Gods lining her grand hall, why she’d arranged for this meeting without an audience, and how she’d come to possess the bones of the first dragon, but everyone had warned me against voicing too much curiosity, and—even if I wouldn’t bow to the empress—that was one of Alusha’s many rules I could follow. Besides, I didn’t want to accidentally reveal anything secret through my questions.

  The first dragon grew in the back of my thoughts, ever more present.

  “Nine also reports that you possess the ability to forestall High Magistrate Paorah’s attack.” It was said without question, but hinted at one nonetheless.

  “As long as his attack comes by noorestone. I have no armies of my own.”

  The empress looked at me, her expression inscrutable. “Do you not?”

  “Not as far as I’m aware.” My thoughts fluttered back to my dreams, filled with images of the dishonored, great wings of dragons, and young girls floating in the middle of the ocean. “Even if I did have anything that could be called an army, yours is more than adequate to defend this coast from any army Paorah could muster. As Nine said, it would be little more than an inconvenience for you to retake Sunder or any other coastal city. And he doesn’t have the strength to take them from you to begin with—not without those noorestones.”

  She gave a single nod. “Tell me of your noorestones.”

  “Surely you already know all about them,” I said. “From your spies.”

  “Certainly. But they can only tell me so much. You, on the other hand, grew up with these crystals. Tell me about them.”

  As I reached for the satchel on my hip, a guard came to life—moving toward me—but the empress held up a hand and he fell back into position. I removed the small noorestone and cupped it in the palm of my hand.

  We’d stopped walking, and now she looked into the bright crystal. “It is beautiful.”

  I flattened my hand and held it toward her. “Hold it, if you want. It’s not hot.”

  With her same careful movements, she plucked the noorestone from my palm and turned it in her fingers. “We have no need for these,” she murmured. “Our magic is more than sufficient. But still, such light pulled from the very bones of Noore . . .”

  “Noorestones have an inner fire,” I said. “In stable noorestones like this, energy trapped within is released as light. They’re perfectly safe.” It seemed unwise to tell her about the strange substance Altan’s people had poured onto regular noorestones to make the energy transfer into Aaru. It wasn’t her business, and I didn’t know what they’d used, anyway. “Most people can’t hear it, but there’s a soft hum that comes from within the crystals. It vibrates, imperceptible to most of us, but its frequency causes the energy to release as radiant light.”

  She offered the noorestone back to me. “And that is how you manipulate it? By changing the frequency at which the stone vibrates?”

  That sounded a lot more technical than what I felt when I connected with noorestones, but I nodded, because it was as good an explanation as any.

  “Show me.”

  I glanced at the guards nearby.

  “They will not interfere,” she said.

  With a nod, I opened myself to the noorestone. Immediately, a knot of anxiety loosened and fluttered away; my shoulders relaxed; I breathed in and hushed the stone so that it dimmed and went nearly dark. Only the faintest light glimmered from the cool blue depths. Then I urged it bright—so bright that even when I squeezed my hand into a fist, the light blazed out from between my fingers.

  The empress looked away, blinking to clear her vision. “That is sufficient.”

  I released the noorestone, and it returned to its normal luminosity. The crystal was cool and smooth under my fingers as I placed it in the satchel, my demonstration complete. “It isn’t a trick meant to impress others, Your Eminence. I know of no one else who can affect noorestones the same way. The gods saw fit to give me such an incredible gift—to help my people, not to entertain them.”

  A hint of a frown tugged at her mouth. “I understand. My apologies for imposing.”

  I was actually glad she’d wanted a demonstration. It had given me the perfect opportunity to show my power, and that I wasn’t helpless while I was here.

  And—perhaps—that she needed my help, just as I needed hers.

  “The noorestones Paorah is bringing here are huge. Unstable. The explosive potential is devastating, and if he were to place these noorestones where they will cause secondary explosions . . .” I didn’t need to finish the thought. She already understood.

  “But you would be able to prevent that,” she said, “using this ability you possess.”

  I nodded.

  “That is one possible solution to the threat he poses,” she murmured. “Another, simpler solution, is to ensure his noorestones never make land. If they detonate, then they do so aboard his own ships.”

  “Then innocent people will die.”

  “But they are not my people.” She turned and strode toward the dais and the giant skull next to it, moving at a faster pace than before. “Besides, can’t you prevent them from detonating on the ships? Your task is just as easily accomplished away from my shores.”

  I stared at her, aghast.

  “Hopebearer, you’ve said nothing to persuade me that I need your aid, and nothing to persuade me to come to yours.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Yes, I know why you came here. You want me to give you ships. You want to assume command over the arrangement I made with High Magistrate Paorah. It’s sweet that you want to help, but you’ve given me nothing my own spies haven’t. There is no bargain we could make that would outweigh the one I’ve made with him, and if he attempts to betray me, I will simply destroy him.”

  What? That was it?

  The empress reached her throne, adjusted her gown, and sat. “You are dismissed now, Mira Minkoba. Stay in the palace as my guest for a few more days. Enjoy Sunder. But we have nothing further to discuss.”

  Fury filled me, but I kept it locked deep inside of me where she—and her guards—wouldn’t see it. How could anyone be so callous? The people of the Fallen Isles needed help, and she had so much. Couldn’t she spare just a little?

  No. She hadn’t become an empress by being generous. For all her shows of magnanimity, it was just that: a show. It was a display of her wealth and power. Even her decision to take this meeting without an audience was part of that pretense of friendliness, of intimacy. There was nothing real in her except her desire to take from those of us who would soon have nothing. Our information. Our lives. Our dragons.

  Dragons.

  The first dragon’s skull
stared at me, evaluating, commanding me to be worthy. If I was to be like her, able to entreat the gods on behalf of my people, I needed to be stronger.

  “The dragons the high magistrate sent you—how are they? Healthy?”

  Interest flashed in her pale eyes, but she said nothing.

  “At the summit recently, he told everyone that he’d sent seven dragons to you—as a gesture of goodwill. But you should know that he also plundered the sanctuaries of the Fallen Isles, stealing dragons in the night. When people asked questions, he led them to believe that you were the one behind those thefts. He painted you as the villain of the Fallen Isles.” I glided forward now, my steps long and even. “He kept dozens of stolen dragons in first-century ruins above Flamecrest. I found them. I intended to free them. But what I discovered was sick, dying dragons.”

  A storm passed across the empress’s face.

  “How are the dragons the high magistrate sent to you?” I asked again. “Are they well?”

  “They’ve taken ill.” Her voice was soft.

  I shivered. I could feel them in the distance, faint threads of connection stretching and spinning between us. In them, I sensed the walls of their illness—the same thing that had weighed down the dragons in the ruins above Flamecrest. “I can heal them.”

  “That is unnecessary.”

  “Are you that proud?” I stood before her throne again, no longer the Hopebearer in this discussion, but the Dragonhearted. So close to the first dragon’s bones, I could feel the ancient power rippling off them—into me. “Or did Paorah send people to heal them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And have they been successful?”

  She said nothing.

  “I healed the dragons in the ruins,” I said, stepping up the dais until I stood over her. “I felt their agony, just as I can feel that of the dragons placed in your care. They won’t recover. The people sent to heal them will be unsuccessful. They’re dying, Apolla, and if you turn me away, you’ll be turning away the only benefit of all this business with the Fallen Isles.”