When She Reigns

by Jodi Meadows

  A whispered wave spread through the imperial court: speculation, amusement, anticipation.

  Maybe she was a cruel person after all.

  “I’m sorry,” I told Zara. Then I hugged myself and addressed the others, tapping and tapping my elbow. “I’m sorry, but you have to go.”

  Hristo started forward again, but Aaru put his hand on his shoulder. “We go.” Aaru wasn’t looking at Hristo, though; his gaze was locked on my tapping.

  The others stared at Aaru, their faces twisted with confusion. How could he—who claimed to love me—be the first to say to go? How could he abandon me?

  But Aaru always respected my wishes. Always.

  “No.” Zara clutched her fists to her chest as she met my eyes; hers were shiny with unshed tears as Ilina wrapped her arms around her. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “It’s all right,” I said softly. “Find Mother.”

  “Go.” Apolla waved them away.

  And with that, my people were escorted out of the throne room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  FOR AN HOUR AFTER MY PEOPLE LEFT, APOLLA CONTINUED holding court.

  Through the petitions and concerns, I stood beside her: a prize won in some indirect battle she believed was the war. Finally, the imperial court began to file out, their gowns sweeping and their suits shimmering in the sigil light.

  When they were gone, leaving only the guards and statues and dragon bones, a team of servants hurried in to clean bits of paper and dirt off the floor. They were fast, nearly noiseless as they worked, and then Apolla and I were alone—except for the statue-like guards.

  “You made the right decision.” She turned to me. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to send them away, but it was for the best.”

  “I made the only decision that ensured their freedom. It wasn’t a fair choice.” My back was starting to hurt from standing, but I wouldn’t let down my guard, even if it was only by sitting.

  “Most choices aren’t fair to someone.” She regarded me with a sad smile. “Tell me, Hopebearer, would you do anything for your people?”

  “I came here, didn’t I?” Even as the words snapped out of me, I knew that getting on a ship and sailing to the relative safety of the mainland was hardly anything. The presence of the first dragon pulsed in my chest, like a second heartbeat, and I couldn’t help but remember the words from The Book of Destruction: it is sacrifice that enables change.

  That was anything. Sacrificing my human soul so the dragon soul could reign. Sacrificing my future with my friends so they could have a home.

  Would I do anything?

  Anything?

  “Are you afraid?” Apolla’s pale eyes missed nothing. “You seem nervous.”

  “I’m worried my friends will drift across the ocean for months and die, because the gods will be gone and there will be nowhere for them to make land.” I turned to her, but even as I spoke, I knew it was pointless. “You’ve sent them out to die. Thousands of people.”

  She clenched her jaw. “You should have thought of that before.”

  “I doubt it would have mattered.” I strode toward the skull of the first dragon, and the throb of power intensified. “No matter what I’d done with those dragons, you’d have decided to keep me here.”

  Apolla watched me, not moving from her position. “I meant what I said about my city being safer with you here. If your people figure out how to hurl another noorestone at us, you’ll be able to mitigate the damage the way you did last time.”

  The way I’d done it last time had nearly ripped me apart.

  “I’m also hoping you’ll bring my dragons back to me. They’re more than creatures. I know you feel the same way. I want them to be my family.”

  That was impossible, but it didn’t benefit me to deny her that dream. “Those are not the real reasons. You already prevented my people from attacking Sunder when you removed the noorestone substance and the catapult. And once the earthquake is over, it will be a simple matter to call the dragons back to the park—although I can’t say what will happen during the next one.”

  Only three more.

  “Tell me the truth,” I said. “You owe me that much.”

  She sighed, not with annoyance, but resignation. She didn’t hate me enough to toss me into the nearest prison, which meant she intended to keep me close. And it would be easier to tell me now than endure questions until one or both of us died of old age.

  “I know what you are,” she murmured. “They call you Hopebearer, and Dragonhearted, but you have a dragon soul. It’s clear to see, and after what I witnessed in the park—both times—I have no doubt that you could be a most important asset to my rule.”

  The Luminary Council had seen me that way, too.

  “I am a conqueror, Mira. No, I’m not interested in your islands, and I wouldn’t be even if they were staying. Your magic is interesting, but powerless away from its source—aside from the gifts you and your friends possess. Your lands have nothing I value, aside from dragons. And now I have a girl who can tell dragons what to do. Imagine what we could accomplish together.”

  I sighed. If she believed she could ever persuade me to join her in conquering other kingdoms, then she didn’t know me at all.

  Seconds ticked away in the back of my head. Every one of them took my friends farther from me, but not fast enough. Not with the limited noorestones.

  “Are you hungry?” Apolla asked. “Should we go to dinner?”

  It hadn’t been long enough—an hour would barely get them out of the harbor—but I had no more time to give them, not without risking more than we could afford.

  “Mira.” Apolla’s tone sharpened. “I asked you a question.”

  “It’s hard to consider whether I’m hungry when you’ve sent my friends and family off to die, and you’re planning how you’ll use me to conquer your enemies.” I drifted back toward the skull, and the thrum of her power pulsed through me, welcoming and eager. “You know, The Book of Love has a great deal to say about forgiveness, as forgiveness is an inherently loving act. It offers peace and resolution to both the person being forgiven, and the person who is forgiving. It’s a love that benefits both parties.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Apolla drew herself out of her throne, but she didn’t approach me, even as I drifted to a stop in front of the skull. My fingers ached to touch it, to complete this connection that had been knitting itself between us since the moment I stepped foot in the throne room.

  “We have many holy books in the Fallen Isles,” I said. “Over the last few months, I’ve come to understand that all our books have more in common than I’d ever realized. We may prize our shadows or strength or silence more than someone from another island, but valuing family doesn’t prevent you from valuing cleverness as well.” I smiled her way. “I suppose I’m telling you this because in spite of our differences, I want you to know that I forgive you, and I think we probably have more in common than we don’t.”

  The confusion began to evaporate from her expression. “Whatever you’re doing—”

  “I am sorry.” I spoke quickly, because her guards were coming to life, slipping through the room as though they weren’t sure whether they were needed, only that their empress was frustrated. “I’d have liked to get to know you better. One day be allies.”

  “Stop.”

  But it was too late. I pressed my palms against the skull of the first dragon, heart beating in triple time, and power flooded into me. It was different from noorestone energy, more like flying into stars, but familiar all the same. Light flared from the place my skin touched bone, and in the alcove beyond, all the sigils flickered and went dark.

  “I hope you’ll decide to forgive me one day.” I looked at Apolla and offered a smile. “You’re going to be angry, but I think you’ll understand why I have to do this. You promised to protect your people; I’ve promised to protect mine.”

  Before she could protest further—before the guards could reach me
—I climbed onto the skull and braced myself. Then, slowly, the first dragon lifted her head for the first time in two thousand years.

  Apolla screamed, then slapped her hands over her mouth, as though she still couldn’t bear to be seen as anything like human.

  The guards drew their swords, but I was high above them, with a nimbus of fire rippling down my body and all along the first dragon’s skeleton. Every pass of flame revealed night-black scales that shimmered with stars—echoes of the incredible creature who led the Sundering.

  In the back of my head, shrieks of joy and recognition erupted, and nine living dragons hurtled toward the imperial palace as fast as they could fly—LaLa, Crystal, and the others who’d been sent here against their will.

  A growl rolled out of me—or the first dragon, I couldn’t tell—and every one of the guards backed away to form a circle around the empress.

  I gazed down at her. “I’m going to take this dragon home,” I said. “And the others as well. They’re already on their way.”

  “How do you know?” The empress’s voice seemed tiny coming from the middle of all those guards. I hadn’t even threatened her, beyond the growling.

  “You were right that I came here for more than I said. And I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have been more forthright from the beginning, although I think you understand my hesitation perfectly well. I’ve trusted the wrong people before; I’m sure you have, too.”

  “Mira, if you leave, we can never be friends.”

  “I told you that already.” I smiled down at her as thunder boomed outside, and rain continued its endless drone against the roof. “We’re going now, and we’re going to keep the Fallen Isles in place. By the time we return your ships, I hope you will have remembered what I said about forgiveness.”

  “You can’t do this,” the empress said.

  “I can,” I whispered. “I told you I would do anything. This is my anything.”

  With that, I crouched low atop the skull, digging my fingertips against the smooth, ancient bone. The first dragon wrenched her body free of its confines, and together we breathed in—sideways, into second lungs—and fire spun up and out.

  Flame burst against the high ceiling, illuminating the throne room in shocks of orange and blue and white. My flame. The first dragon’s flame. They were the same. We were the same, though I still felt my own body—two arms, two legs, one pounding heart. I felt hers, too, ancient and exhausted, but bursting with determination to go home. After two thousand years, she didn’t want to wait anymore.

  Fire tore at the ceiling, and the marble began to crack and crumble, crashing to the floor in clouds of white powder. As the ceiling grew thinner and a hole appeared, rain spit through, and the noise of thunder crescendoed.

  The empress’s guards charged the first dragon, but their blades hit bone with a loud clang that sent them staggering back. More soldiers flooded into the throne room, but they backed away quickly when they saw me.

  And suddenly, the first dragon and I weren’t alone. The other large dragons ripped open the roof, breaking off chunks of marble and glass, widening the hole as quickly as they could. The shredded parts of the building crashed to the floor, causing the guards to raise their shields around the empress—to protect her from debris—and a human part of me felt guilty for ruining her throne room so soon after Paorah’s people ruined parts of her city.

  But then the hole in the ceiling was big enough for us to fit through, and the first dragon stomped over the wet rubble until we could rear back and climb up.

  It was awkward and uncomfortable, squeezing out of the palace through a hole in the roof, but once her wings were through, the rest followed quickly, and we crouched beside the other dragons, all of us on the storm-slick roof.

  Wind grabbed at my hair and gown, but I didn’t struggle to stay on, even when the smooth surface of her skull grew slippery with the lashing rain. I could feel when she was about to move, when she would turn. I compensated for her every motion before it even happened.

  In the throne room below, under the rumble of rain and thunder, I could hear shouts and orders to summon archers and mages. And from the palace grounds and city, terrified screams sounded.

  We had to go.

  Carefully, I climbed down the first dragon’s spine, until I reached the vertebrae directly between her wings.

  Power pulsed through me, a thousand lightning strikes, as I bent low and breathed.

  Fire rippled.

  My back muscles flexed and grew.

  Seven big dragons pushed into the air.

  LaLa and Crystal floated around me, chittering with encouragement and excitement.

  And when the way was clear, my wings—huge and fiery and strong—settled perfectly inside the skeletal wings of the first dragon, and together, we leaped into the sky.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  MY WINGS.

  My wings.

  They were fire and thunder, wind and song, strength and light as they carried me over the imperial palace. Rain sizzled through the flame, passed between the bones, but still we—the first dragon and I—stayed aloft. My wings defied the rules of the world as I’d previously understood them, and yet the fact that we were flying was undeniable. It was exhilarating, terrifying, overwhelming.

  I spun through the sky, shrieking with unadulterated joy at the simple miracle of flight.

  And it was a miracle, because though we were both dragons, neither of us was particularly suited to the task right now: one of us wore frail human skin, and the other was long dead. Yet alive. Mixed up with each other, it didn’t matter.

  And we were going home.

  Wind tangled my hair and dress, glided around the curves of my body. I could feel both the piece of me clutching the knobs of the first dragon’s spine, and the electric flickers of muscle and sinew and scales that shimmered across the skeletal expanse. The effect was fleeting, but from the corner of my eye, it almost looked as though she was struggling to become whole again.

  Soon.

  Very soon.

  The eclipse was only seven days away.

  With a sky-shattering roar, I flapped my wings, echoing thunder as I pushed myself higher and higher over the city. The sight drew memories from both sides of me, and as I looked down on the soft curves of orderly streets, the gentle turn of the River Akron, and the black crater where the noorestone had struck and its conflagration spread out, I saw the past lying atop the present: crowded, cluttered roads with crumbling houses, wild growth on the banks of the river, and everything burning under the brilliant fire blasted from all the dragons who’d come here to defend the Fallen Isles.

  A city razed. A city reborn. A part of me wanted to complete my—her—mission from two thousand years ago, but these were different people, and they’d already been hurt.

  I breathed in the scent of ash that boiled up from the noorestone site, making myself look at the broken buildings and medical tents before moving onward, toward the obsidian dragons that stood at the mouth of the river.

  Even from flight, with the real creatures all around me, the black glass dragons were beautiful, majestic. The people of Sunder were proud of them, and they should be, but they weren’t real. They were the only dragons the Algotti empress would ever own.

  As all of us flew between the black dragons, one after another, lightning cracked across the sky, making the back of my throat tingle.

  I lifted my head and breathed fire.

  We must have looked terrifying to anyone on the ground. As far as dragons went, the mimikus and ignituses weren’t big, but the former kept shifting shades of gray—to blend with the storm above—and the latter looked like a pair of flying suns. And the others—they were big. Their wings made windstorms, and their roars shook the whole sky.

  And then there was the first dragon. Me. Us.

  An immense skeletal dragon who’d been displayed in the empress’s throne room for decades. Centuries. Maybe longer. With wings of fire and a cry that could rip the
world asunder. I imagined anyone who looked up went inside their homes as quickly as possible.

  They couldn’t see me up here, a young woman in a sodden blue gown, or the pair of raptuses clutching to the first dragon’s bones, shrieking with wild abandon. Their wings were tented up, their faces turned high, and hot blue flame poured around their teeth and dragged along their tiny gold and silver bodies. It was safer for them here, where the bigger dragons wouldn’t accidentally knock them around, and the first dragon welcomed her tiny wingsisters.

  And she loved it. She loved all of this as much as I did. Now that she was surrounded by her own kind, a fierce, burning joy filled her. Flying together, wings pounding, and fire burning through the rain: this was everything she’d wanted for two millennia.

  As we flew over the harbor, the first dragon and I dipped low, letting the tips of our wings skim across the surface. Trails of steam rose up behind us, and the raptuses chittered with glee.

  Then: human voices called, and black ships moved into formation. Mages—men and women wearing the same kind of robes I’d seen when I’d first arrived—climbed onto the decks and lifted their hands.

  Through my connection with the dragons, I could feel their curiosity, the stir of fire in their throats. I understood, too, the desire to hurt those who’d hurt them.

  But now wasn’t the time to pit dragon fire against imperial magic. I’d promised them we’d all go home, so I drew myself up and up and up, and the other seven followed until the ships were toys in the water.

  It was from this height I realized the harbor guard and mages weren’t mobilizing against us.

  The Fallen Isles fleet moved west as quickly as it could, but without the noorestone substance, they’d never be able to outrun the imperial ships. My friends had only moments before they were in range of the cannons.

  I pulled down again, breathed into my second lungs, and screamed fire into the water between the two fleets.