Agents of the Crown- The Complete Series

by Lindsay Buroker

  Everything seemed different from when they had first arrived at the sanctuary. He no longer smelled the appealing floral scent that had put his mind at ease earlier. The first hint of morning light seeped through the canopy, and he could make out the pool, but it wasn’t the pool he remembered. It was no longer clear with a gurgling stream feeding it. Now, it looked like an overdeveloped mud puddle.

  Had he and Zenia swum in that? Kissed in that?

  He tripped when he spotted the elven communication stone—what remained of it. It was little more than a three-foot-high gray stump with foliage growing all over it, the vines and leaves hiding what it was—what it had been.

  Jev’s stomach sank as he realized they had been fooled with magic. An illusion. If this place had been an elven sanctuary once, that must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

  “She tricked us,” Zenia whispered, shifting to walk as close to Jev as she could with the orcs hemming them in on all sides.

  “The unicorn,” Jev said numbly.

  The orcs’ friend. He should have realized it immediately. He certainly never should have relaxed around her.

  “But why?” Zenia asked.

  “I don’t know why, but she must have been working with the orcs all along.”

  Zenia shook her head. Jev felt just as puzzled. Unicorns weren’t supposed to align with anyone, but he’d always considered them far more likely to work with humans, elves, or dwarves than orcs and trolls.

  The orcs in front shifted their route to walk around something. Jev gaped as the obstacle came into sight.

  Horti. He lay face up with an axe embedded deep in his chest. His eyes were glazed in death.

  “No,” Zenia whispered, stumbling.

  The fury simmering inside of Jev threatened to boil over again. An orc shoved him to get him moving, and he almost launched himself at them, almost forgot all rational thoughts in a desire to lash out and hurt them.

  Zenia touched his arm. Tears glistened in her eyes but wisdom as well. Wait, she seemed to say. They had to wait until they had a better chance.

  Jev hung his head and let their captors push them away from the clearing, away from what he feared was the first of many dead friends.

  16

  It was almost noon when the orcs marched Zenia and Jev into their valley, through their city, and to the lake with the island mountain in the middle. It was exactly as Zenia had seen in the vision the dragon tear had shared with her, the dragon tear now being carried by a large orc with yellowed tusks that matched his yellowed hair.

  He appeared far older than the others and, instead of the swords and bows his comrades carried, wielded a staff with a human skull mounted to the top. More smaller skulls alternated with beads on a long necklace that hung to his belt. Zenia wasn’t sure what animals they had come from but guessed lizards or snakes.

  “Into the boat,” the orc who spoke their language said, shoving Jev hard.

  With his wrists now tied behind his back, he couldn’t do anything to keep himself from falling in, and he landed hard on his knees. Zenia shifted her shoulders, as if she could lift a hand to help, but she was bound in the same manner.

  Jev recovered before he tumbled into an open metal brazier burning in the bow of the craft. It seemed a strange addition to a boat. Why worry about keeping a fire burning for a short ride out to an island? Maybe it had some religious significance. Zenia remembered the orcs from the day before who had carried fire starters.

  “We don’t want to delay feeding the dragon,” the orc added. “It’s been days since it ate.”

  He snickered, as did several of his comrades, whether they understood the words or not.

  The old orc—Zenia had started to think of him as a shaman—never laughed, and he didn’t now. He merely gazed toward a cave at the top of the island mountain.

  Zenia followed that gaze, wondering if that was the one that held the dragon. She had a hard time imagining the young playful soul she’d come to know eating her or Jev, but she no longer carried the dragon tear. What if the dragon failed to recognize her without it? Or what if she simply felt nothing for Zenia without the magical link? Maybe she would now incinerate the clothing of the shaman’s enemies instead.

  “Why do you need the dragon tear when you have the dragon?” Jev asked, shifting out of the way so Zenia and several others could get into the boat.

  He’d been asking questions of their captors all night, trying to gather information about their enemies and learn what happened to the rest of their friends. Zenia was less certain she wanted to know. The memory of Horti lying dead with an axe in his chest haunted her, and she feared the others had succumbed to the same fate.

  For the most part, the orcs ignored Jev’s questions, but sometimes, the one who spoke their language answered, usually only if the answer allowed him a chance to be smug.

  “With the dragon tear, I will control the dragon,” the shaman answered, startling Zenia not only by speaking, but by speaking in their language. This was the first time he’d said anything to them. “Then I will lead my people away from this valley where we barely have room to breathe. We will march on the human kingdoms, not like those foolish trolls who scarcely have the magic and might to contest you, but with an incredible new ally on our side. A dragon ally.” He thrust his skull staff toward the sky. “I have waited many moons for the artifact to make its way back to us.” He gave Zenia an icy stare, as if she had inconvenienced him terribly by not making the journey sooner. “Ever since I tricked the dragon into locking away a portion of its soul into a dragon tear.”

  “How did you trick her?” Zenia asked.

  “Her?” The shaman snorted.

  “What,” Jev muttered, “all those months you had her chained up in your cave and you never thought to look?”

  “Dragons do not have genitalia like mammals.” The shaman waved his skull-headed staff dismissively at Jev, then looked Zenia up and down, his beady eyes narrowing to slits. With speculation?

  By the founders, she hoped not. A few of the orcs had groped her while the group had walked during the night, and she shuddered with the memory. She’d been careful not to react, lest it incense Jev into doing something foolish, but it had reminded her how very powerless she was without the dragon tear.

  “It is a young dragon,” the shaman said, turning to look back toward the town full of thatch and lava stone dwellings instead of giving the order to launch the boat. “It was easy to plant the idea that some noble warrior might rescue it if it found a likely dragon tear and linked with it.”

  “Rescue,” the other Korvish-speaking orc said, then grunted. Or maybe that was a laugh.

  Zenia must have received the dragon tear from Targyon at the same time as the dragon had been seeking one to link with. There couldn’t be that many suitable gems in the world. Cutter had been surprised that she had received one with a dragon carved on the front, and Zenia had never seen one like that in her years working with mages from the city’s temples.

  So, the dragon had chosen Zenia, hoping all along that she would come rescue her. Instead, she’d stumbled into a trap and been captured before even reaching the orc valley. A noble warrior, she was not.

  Zenia hung her head and almost missed the approach of one more person.

  A couple of the orcs grunted, and the shaman’s roving gaze locked onto the newcomer. The unicorn. Eysinor.

  Jev surged to his feet, indignation flashing in his eyes. An orc behind him, one that towered a foot taller than he and had the muscled arms of a smith, shoved him back down on the bench.

  I have done my part, as you demanded, the familiar voice of the unicorn spoke into Zenia’s mind—into everyone’s minds, she realized. Now, you will free the spirit of my mother so she can find Shakayra and rest peacefully in the next world.

  The shaman responded by speaking out loud in his own language. Then he bowed low, his staff extended. He pointed into the boat, as if offering her a seat.

  To Ze
nia’s surprise, the unicorn entered the craft, though she did not sit. She seemed to levitate over the bottom of the craft rather than to stand on anything solid.

  Why did you betray us? Zenia asked silently, trying to draw Eysinor’s gaze. We would have helped you. The same as we wanted to help the dragon.

  The unicorn fastened her gaze on the cave at the top of the mountain instead of meeting Zenia’s eyes. If Eysinor heard the silent question, she did not acknowledge it.

  Two orcs on the dock untied the boat and shoved it. The craft wobbled, and Zenia sank down onto a seat facing Jev. He was looking at the unicorn, maybe also forming silent questions in the hope of receiving an answer. Or maybe trying to convince her to switch sides. He would keep fighting, keep trying to find someone he could negotiate with, until the end, Zenia was certain.

  She ought to do the same, but it was hard not to feel bleak and defeated as orcs grabbed oars and rowed them toward the mountain. The entire party of forty-odd warriors wasn’t coming along—they wouldn’t have all fit in the boat—but twenty had piled in, all big and strong. All armed. The odds were still daunting.

  The shaman sat next to Zenia on the bench and opened his hand, revealing the dragon tear.

  If her wrists hadn’t been tied behind her back, she would have lunged for it. Not that it would have mattered. She’d had it before, and they had easily taken it from her. The dragon tear lay dark and dormant, her poor dragon ally too traumatized to use her magic with orcs around.

  “Why do you think it will allow you to control the dragon?” Zenia eyed the shaman as he rubbed his thumb against the gem. It appeared tiny in his large, calloused hand.

  “Because I have the strength to use it so. I have studied for a long time and possess power granted by the volcano gods themselves. Many forgot that such power existed here, forgot how to ask for it.” He twisted to look over his shoulder at Eysinor. “But not I.”

  If Eysinor answered, the words were not for Zenia.

  Halfway through the crossing, water rippled off to their left, and something large caused a startling splash. Zenia didn’t see what the source was, but she was positive it hadn’t been a fish.

  Three of the orcs set down their oars and picked up bows. One pulled an arrow out of a quiver, the tip dipped in something that looked like tar, and leaned close to the brazier as he squinted at the water. The others rose to crouches, arrows also ready to stick into the fire.

  Ten feet away from the bow of the boat, the water rippled again. The top of a reptilian head appeared, cold eyes pointed in their direction. At first, Zenia thought it was an alligator, but recognition slammed into her as more of the head became visible. It looked exactly like the heads of the hydra they had faced on the way to Izstara.

  Fire. Zenia glanced at the brazier. Her book had said fire was the way to kill hydras.

  If that was what this truly was. Only part of one head and neck was visible so far. Did the rest of a giant monster swim below the surface? Perhaps right under their boat?

  Jev stirred on his bench, craning his neck as he stared at the head. He turned, meeting Zenia’s eyes with a knowing stare. He recognized it too.

  One of the orcs stood and placed the tip of his arrow in the fire until the pitchy substance caught fire. He nocked his bow and took aim at the head.

  The hydra will not attack, Eysinor spoke into their minds. It knows I am here and that it would not win a battle.

  “You’ll defend us, will you?” the shaman muttered. He remained seated, not appearing alarmed by the hydra’s appearance. “It covets our flesh, you know.”

  Given the opportunity, the hydra will eat the flesh of all land-dwellers. Eysinor’s horn glowed a silvery purple. But not today.

  The hydra’s head sank below the water again, and the surface grew still, save for a few ripples from the boat’s passing.

  Zenia had never thought she would want to see a hydra again, but she wished it would attack, so she could somehow escape while the orcs were distracted. But the boat reached the island without further incident, its wooden bottom scraping on the rocky beach.

  Orcs shooed Zenia and Jev out, then pulled up the craft. The shaman ignored the handful of dwellings near the beach and headed for a winding trail that wound its way up the slope toward one of the caves—the one he’d been eyeing earlier.

  Eysinor followed him, and orcs with swords prodded Jev and Zenia into motion.

  “Do you really think she’ll eat us?” Jev whispered in a spot where the trail was wide enough for them to walk side by side.

  “I hope not.” Zenia forced a smile and didn’t confide her worries that the dragon might not, without the gem, recognize her. Dragons were predators, and if she truly was being starved, maybe she would eat first and ask questions later. If dragons asked questions. Unlike the unicorn, the dragon had never spoken into Zenia’s mind. “I don’t suppose you have a plan?” she murmured.

  Jev blew out a slow, wistful breath. “Not unless we somehow get an opportunity to convince Eysinor to turn against them.”

  Zenia feared it was too late for that. If she’d realized earlier what Eysinor had intended, maybe they could have tried to talk her out of it, but her horn was pointed toward the cave, and she didn’t look back as she climbed closer and closer.

  Zenia gazed toward the towering volcanos lining the far side of the valley and thought of her earlier plan. Some of the volcanos looked like tree-covered mountains and nothing more, but she spotted the one she’d seen in the vision, its slopes bare, the top having been blown off sometime in the not-too-distant past. She believed her plan could have worked—if she’d avoided traps.

  She shook her head, looking sadly at Jev, who appeared as glum as she felt, his shoulders hunched and his head down as they marched higher up the mountain. She wished she could reach out and touch his hand to let him know… more than she felt she could with enemies all around them. She lamented that their night together had ended liked this.

  As she considered her actions in the sanctuary—in what she had believed had been a sanctuary—she suspected the magic the unicorn had placed on the area had affected her, making her believe it had been a good time to flirt with Jev and invite him into her arms. Even if that was true, she didn’t regret being with him. It was something she had longed for, and she had enjoyed their hours together. She didn’t believe it had been a mistake. The orcs could have captured them just as easily if they had been sleeping in the camp, since whoever had been standing watch had been fooled by the illusions the same way she had.

  As they rounded a final bend and the cave came into view above them again, a faint odor drifted out of it. It reminded Zenia of a stable mingled with a poorly sanitized hospital from the poor part of the city, such as the place where her mother had died.

  A figure stepped out of a hut outside the cave, and Zenia grimaced. She recognized the hulking orc and the long sword gleaming in the sun. It was the heartless bastard who had tormented the dragon in her nightmares.

  Those nightmares flashed before her eyes now, the dark cave and the chains holding her down, the orc advancing and slicing into her flesh with that sword, eliciting pain to keep her meek and afraid. To—

  A shove to her back brought her back to reality, though she couldn’t keep from letting out a distressed gasp when the orc looked at her. He squinted at her for several long seconds. Could he somehow recognize her?

  “Zenia?” Jev maneuvered close enough to brush his shoulder against hers. “Can I do anything?” His eyes were as bleak as ever since he must have known there was nothing he could do, but he empathized with her. She could tell. He could probably guess what this meant to her.

  “Feed it first,” the shaman said, waving at Zenia and Jev.

  An inhuman snarl came from the cave, and a shiver ran down her spine. The dragon? She sounded angry and frustrated. And hungry. Zenia was terrified the dragon wouldn’t recognize her or Jev and would tear into them, not out of malice but out of sheer starvation.
/>   “No,” Zenia whispered in response to Jev’s question. “I’m sorry I got us into this.”

  “I volunteered to come along of my own accord. I wouldn’t want you to be facing this alone.”

  “I wish I’d had the foresight to keep either us from facing it.”

  An orc shoved her forward, toward the dark, yawning entrance of the cave. Another pushed Jev along beside her.

  “Foresight is hard to have in advance.” Somehow, Jev found the will to smile at her. “I love you, Zenia.”

  One of the orcs snorted.

  “I love you too,” she whispered, glancing at the cave as they were forced closer. “And I’m glad we had last night.”

  “Me too.”

  With that, she strode ahead of her own accord, wanting to step into the cave first. If the dragon was going to recognize either of them and fight down her instincts to eat, it would be Zenia. They’d had a bond for months now. Zenia hoped it would be enough, that the bond hadn’t automatically transferred to the orc holding the dragon tear.

  The shaman stood next to the foul guard with the sword. They chatted amiably, about the weather, no doubt.

  Zenia scowled when she saw that the shaman had fixed Jev’s broken chain enough to wear the gem around his neck. Her only satisfaction was that it didn’t glow for him. No magic emanated from it at all. She hoped it would be worthless to him.

  If only the shaman didn’t have magic of his own…

  As Zenia stepped into the shadows of the cave, the temperature grew cooler. Chains rattled a few yards away, and the scent of animals and pain grew stronger.

  She expected to have to wait for her eyes to adjust to the dimness before she could see the dragon, but a faint green light emanated from the chains wrapped around the prisoner. The dragon prisoner.

  The chains crisscrossed her back, pinning her down and secured to giant iron stakes hammered into the floor of the cave. The stakes also glowed, magic giving them more strength than they would have typically had, enough to hold a dragon prisoner.