The Dragon Rises

by Sarah Dalton

  Carlia regarded Reva, her lips pulled tightly together. “And you are agreed?”

  Reva nodded. “Yes. It is one of…well, one of a few things. But I suppose with Luca taking care of the Gardens of Anios, we can fight the Ulezi.” She felt a stab of guilt and hunched her shoulders. “I wish I had been able to find Karine and the others. I wish they knew I was safe.”

  “Are you safe?” Sam asked. He raised an eyebrow at her, but it was clearly a joke of a sort.

  Reva laughed. It felt good to laugh. “Not in the slightest,” she said, and after the panic and exhaustion of the past few hours, even that seemed funny. “I am alive, though.”

  Firelight glimmered on Sam’s face as he smiled at her. “That is a good start.”

  “Yes.” Reva nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  There was an awkward pause. Sam cleared his throat.

  “I hope they are safe,” Reva said. Whatever the moment had been, it was broken, and she looked away. “I hope they were not captured again. I could not have survived being in the Gardens any longer than I was. If they were—”

  Carlia put her hand over Reva’s. The touch was startling, and Reva jumped, but Carlia’s eyes were grave. “There is enough to fear,” Carlia said. “Do not fear things that have not happened yet, Reva.”

  Reva nodded.

  “You survived in the Gardens,” Carlia told her. “If they have been captured again, they will do everything they can to survive, too. Do not discount them, Reva.”

  Reva straightened herself and nodded. “I will not. But if they are there, I have to get them out. I have to.”

  “Then we go to Nesra’s Keep,” Sam said. For a moment, he sounded like the man he would become, not the seventeen-year-old he was. “It is settled. Everyone, get some sleep. In the morning, we will figure out a way to get in.”

  “We could fly,” Carlia suggested sleepily as she lay down.

  The other two laughed.

  “We could transform into dragons and walk up to the gates,” Reva suggested. “Very polite. I could tell them I am the lady Reva Avalon and see what they do.”

  Sam was laughing now, too. “Would you try to curtsy?”

  “Only if I have skirts on.”

  They began to drift off to sleep, and Reva stared up at the rafters, trying to hold on to the fleeting sense that everything was well, that the world was a place where she could smile. She tried not to think of the Ulezi, and when she thought of Karine, she heard Carlia’s words in her head: Do not count them out.

  “I will find you,” she whispered to the ceiling, a promise. Then she curled on her side and let sleep claim her.

  Karine

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Karine’s entire body ached, but she forced herself to keep raking the muck in the pigpen. She cast a look over her shoulder at the pigs, who were watching her with narrowed eyes, and she bared her teeth at them. Did every one of these places have mean pigs?

  She went back to her work a moment later. She pushed the shovel into the mulch and then flung the waste onto the pile on the cart. “Stu…” she whispered as she stuck the shovel in. “…Pid,” she finished a moment later as she dumped the fragrant pile on the heap. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

  “What’s going on in here?” Sister Silvia appeared nearby. “Who are you talking to?”

  “No one,” Karine said without looking up.

  She hated Sister Silvia. The woman was clearly old, with hair that was almost all white except for a few wiry black strands and eyes that were a watery blue. Though she was old, she was fast. She would not hit the girls with her cane. Instead, she would grab them by the hair and whisper terrible things in their ears, like how she would come into the sleeping hall at night and haul them away to give them to the guards.

  “You think you’re better than me?” Sister Silvia asked now.

  Karine lifted her head sharply. She was wary now. There seemed to be limits to what the Sisters were willing to do, but she did not want to test those limits.

  “No, Sister Silvia.” Karine forced herself to say the words. She tried to smile but did not quite manage it.

  Sister Silvia, however, did smile. That smile told Karine that Silvia knew just how much those words cost to say. She knew that Karine hated playing the part of the humble slave. Unlike other girls, who could be terrified to tears by her threats, Karine was someone who hated above all to humble herself. Silvia had known that.

  She left without another word, and Karine stared after her, full of hatred.

  “I’ll kill you,” she promised. She only mouthed the words, afraid of who might be listening. “I’ll kill every one of you.”

  But it was not true, and she knew it. As she went back to work, she could feel tears on her cheeks. She was powerless here. She had tried to keep her spirits up, and Lottie’s, but without Reva to rally the woman, Karine did not know what to do.

  The truth was, when she thought of taking the risk Reva had, she was petrified. She did not know how to make a plan here, where the cook never misplaced her wooden spoons, where the sisters did not have an obvious informant. This camp was newer, and the women were younger. What if they became afraid? Every night, Karine lay awake, trying to will herself to be courageous enough to escape.

  Every night, she failed.

  Worse, there had been no word of Rohesa. She had been hauled away, still bleeding, and no one had seen her since. Karine knew better than to ask after her friend. The Sisters were quick to play the girls off each other, so it was dangerous for Karine to admit she cared for Rohesa. They would not answer her, anyway.

  Behind her silence, though, she was terribly afraid. She hated to admit it, but she could not imagine a scenario where Rohesa had survived. The Sisters at the last camp would taunt them that there were always new girls being sent here to replace them when they dropped. If that was the truth, then why would they take the time or effort to heal Rohesa? The best Karine could hope for was that Rohesa had been left in a corner of the infirmary and forgotten about, to live or die without any care.

  There was a commotion in the main courtyard, and she leaned the shovel on the cart and climbed over the fence to investigate.

  When she saw the reason for the commotion, her blood ran cold.

  Karine ran forward. Lottie was tied to the whipping post, and the stripes on her back showed that she had been lashed many times already. However small and mousy she appeared, however, Lottie had great determination. She had not cried out, Karine was sure. If she had, Karine would have heard her.

  She was shoving her way through the assembling crowd, ready to stop this barbaric act, when two of the other prisoners caught her to keep her back. The other slaves knew she and Lottie had come here together, and there were whispers that Karine was here to save them all. Even though she had done nothing for them since, the women were not going to let her get into trouble by intervening.

  “What happened?” Karine asked Ellie, one of the younger women.

  The girl brushed blonde hair out of her eyes and hunched her shoulders. “I didn’t really see,” she admitted. “But you know how Sister Aurora can be.”

  Sister Aurora. Karine swallowed. She did know. The Sister seemed to have it out for Karine in particular. It was not surprising, as she had seen through Karine’s face-shifting, but—like all of the Sisters, in Karine’s opinion—Aurora carried a grudge more than most people would.

  And she was whipping Lottie. Karine could not discount that as being a way to get under her skin, not just punishing the other girl for whatever made-up slight Aurora had taken offence at.

  Now Aurora glowered at the gathered prisoners, her eyes narrowed to two mean slits. “Let this be a lesson to all of you. If you think you can disrespect the Sisters, you are wrong. We are doing you a kindness by keeping you here. We have given you a way to serve Estala instead of simply being the kingdom’s enemies. Without the Gardens, all of you would have been put to death!”

  Better death than this, Karine thought resen
tfully, but she did not say it. She would not even mean it, in truth. While she was alive, there was still hope of escaping. It might be one of the cruellest things in the world to feel that hope fade, day after day, but it was true. If she was dead, there would be no chance of anything else. While she was here, and alive, she could at least hope that one day she would be free.

  The lash landed again, and this time, Lottie did cry. Karine saw her hands clench and knew that the girl was near the end of her strength. This was no way to live. Karine felt the pricking of tears in her eyes. She could not let Lottie go through this alone.

  “I have to go to her,” she whispered.

  “No,” Ellie said fiercely. She grabbed Karine’s hand, and her warm brown eyes met Karine’s. “You won’t make it better for her. You’ll only suffer the same.”

  “This is how they win,” Karine whispered back. “They make the rules so we won’t help each other.”

  Ellie looked uncertain. “But what can we do?”

  Karine paused, but the sound of the lash on Lottie’s skin made the decision for her. “What Reva would do,” she said. She untangled her fingers from Ellie’s and marched through the crowd.

  “That’s enough,” she told Sister Aurora.

  There was a sudden silence, and everyone in the courtyard turned to watch them. The captive women exchanged furtive glances, their mouths open in shock. Was this the moment they had been waiting for? Was Karine going to do something new to set them free?

  With a sense of hurtling toward the edge of a cliff, Karine kept her gaze focused on Sister Aurora.

  “That’s enough,” she said again. She gestured to Lottie, though she did not allow herself to look at her friend. If she did, she knew she would cry. “She talked back to you, and you punished her. This has now gone too far.”

  Sister Aurora strode down the steps with the whip in both hands, stroking along the leather in a loving way that made Karine’s stomach turn.

  “Too far?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Karine said fiercely. She pitched her voice to carry. “You say you want us to serve Estala. Well, she won’t be able to work properly for days with those injuries. You always tell us that if we die, another will take our place, but if we’re here to serve Estala, that’s wasteful.

  “And if you’re doing it because you think Menti are abominations, then surely you think we should just be killed. You’re not being true to your faith if you do things like this. So it’s not your faith, and it’s not your loyalty to your king. What is it, then? All that’s left is cruelty. You simply like hurting people.”

  Aurora had come close enough that Karine could see her eyes, and she knew now that she was right. She had wanted to fling the woman’s failings in her face, but she had not counted on the fact that Aurora would agree with her. When Aurora smiled coldly, Karine’s stomach dropped.

  “Untie her.” Aurora pointed with the whip, directing the guards to Lottie. Then she pointed back at Karine. “And put her there instead.” You will find out just how right you are, her gaze promised Karine.

  All of Karine’s courage fled. She began to fight as the guards came to grab her arms and haul her up the steps. She was going to die here. She knew it. Sister Aurora was not going to let her give that kind of speech and let her live through it. Karine was going to be whipped to death, and that was a slow death. It was a bad death.

  “No!” She wrenched at her hands as the guards tried to drag her to the post. She knew the other women were watching her, and she wanted to be brave, but her fear betrayed her. “No! No!”

  But the guards were stronger than she was, and they pulled her hands up anyway. As she was bound in place, Karine thought she heard a sudden noise, but she could not focus on it over the pounding of her own heart. She waited for the lash to fall and felt tears hot on her cheeks.

  Nothing happened.

  As she tried to see what was happening, her gaze fell first on Lottie, who had collapsed on the ground. The girl was only half-conscious, and Karine felt a pulse of anger, but curiosity spurred her to keep craning her neck to look.

  The gates were opening, and a few moments later, a messenger in royal livery entered at the head of a column of soldiers. Next to him rode a man who must be an officer of some sort, given the decorations on his uniform, but Karine did not know what any of them meant.

  As he took in the scene, he pointed straight at Karine. “Take her down.”

  “But, sir—” Sister Aurora began.

  “I said, take her down.” The officer waited.

  Finally, Sister Aurora gave a jerky nod to the guards, and then came to untie Karine. With her hands free, Karine dropped to her knees next to Lottie and stroked her friend’s hair.

  “Go on,” the officer said to the messenger.

  “Greetings,” the messenger said pleasantly. “Who is in charge of this camp?”

  “You may speak to any of us, sir.” Aurora was forcing herself to be pleasant, but her face looked as though she were sucking lemons.

  “I will,” the messenger promised her. “I will speak to all the Sisters in due time. For now, let everyone hear me and carry word to those who are not here. At my side is Lieutenant Gerras. He is here on the order of Prince Luca.”

  A ripple of tense excitement travelled through the crowd.

  “Prince Luca, being once more returned to Reyalon, awaits his coronation in the absence of his brother, King Stefan, who has been declared a traitor to Estala.” The messenger’s gaze swept across the courtyard. “As he reviews the business of the realm, he has become concerned about conditions within the Gardens of Anios. Lieutenant Gerras will oversee Prince Luca’s specific orders, which will be shared with the Sisters, the guards, and the workers of this camp tonight. Until that time, all Sisters and guards are to refrain from harsh punishments.”

  As the guards went running, perhaps to find the other Sisters, the women of the camp descended into whispers. Lieutenant Gerras, meanwhile, jumped down from his horse and whistled to one of his soldiers. The two of them brushed past Sister Aurora without stopping to hear whatever protest she was making, and came to the little stage that held the whipping post.

  “See to her,” the lieutenant instructed the other soldier, who had a medical bag with him.

  He began to examine Lottie’s wounds, murmuring to himself as he did so.

  Karine squeezed her hand. “It’s going to be okay, Lottie. There’s a doctor here. A real doctor.” She lifted her head to find the lieutenant staring at her.

  He dropped to one knee and pulled out his canteen of water, unscrewed it and handed it to Lottie so she could drink. She did so gratefully. He was younger than Karine had first thought, with a face that showed emotion easily.

  “We are to be freed,” she whispered finally. It did not seem real. When his face closed off, she knew it was not real. “Oh, no. No, please. Tell me we don’t have to stay.”

  “What is your name?” he asked her.

  “Karine. Please, sir—officer—”

  “You will not be mistreated anymore, Karine,” he assured her. “You have my word. My soldiers and I will stay to make sure our orders from Prince Luca—soon King Luca, I hope—are carried out.”

  “But we’ll still be captives,” Karine pressed.

  A shadow crossed his face. “Yes,” he admitted. “There is a plague ravaging Estala. The kingdom needs medicines that can be produced here.”

  Karine laughed bitterly. “So Prince Luca is very concerned about our welfare, but not enough to free us, then.”

  Lieutenant Gerras stood. He stared down at her for a moment, and she saw everything in his face. He knew she was right, but he had his orders.

  “No,” he said finally. “Not enough for that.”

  Luca

  “Prince Luca.” Brother Axil stood in the doorway of the king’s inner chambers. “Lord Rokkan is here to see you.”

  Luca felt utterly unprepared. He stood up from his desk and straightened his doublet. “Give m
e a moment. I need my crown.”

  Brother Axil frowned. “Is something wrong, my prince?” Luca could see that Brother Axil wanted to call him “king” but was trying to keep from doing so according to Luca’s wishes. He closed the door behind him so that Luca could speak privately.

  “I do not know what to say to Lord Rokkan,” Luca said, sounding as miserable as he felt. “I have been meeting lords all morning, and I do not know what to ask them. What should I look for in a general? Serena would know. Can we not have her—”

  “You are to be crowned,” Brother Axil said firmly. “Not Serena. Moreover, Serena will not be fighting with the army. You must choose generals you think you would work well with. You must choose generals you feel comfortable fighting beside.”

  Luca swallowed.

  “Prince Luca?” Brother Axil crossed the room to him.

  “This is like a nightmare,” Luca admitted to the Governor. “I listened when Matias spoke of war. I saw what happened at the camp. I do not want another war. The people of Estala do not want another war.”

  “Good,” Axil said decisively. He smiled at Luca’s confused expression. “Your brother Stefan seeks glory in battle and conquest. He does not want to convert those he deems non-believers; he wants to kill them. For Stefan—and Brother Mikkel—the answer is always more blood.”

  Dislike made Axil’s voice heavy and deep. Though the two Governors had never liked each other much, Axil’s dislike had grown by leaps and bounds since he had heard the stories of how Stefan had ruled with Mikkel as his advisor.

  “If you do not want more blood,” Brother Axil told Luca, “you must choose generals who can end a battle swiftly and decisively before it has even begun. There are writings from old sages that tell us that a victory in battle is not the best way to win a war. The best way is to make sure the battle never occurs.”