by Sarah Dalton
Mikkel paused, and he looked like he wanted to vomit. The Lord fought for patience and began moving metal markers on the map once more.
“I am planning my kingdom, Brother Mikkel. I do not have infinite time for prophecies. Tell me what you came to tell me.”
Mikkel gulped again. “My king, my Lord, I believe there are other dragons. I believe you were the first of a new era of dragon kings.”
The Lord stopped, one marker hovering over the surface of the map. “What?” he asked dangerously.
“Mount Zean has begun to rumble once more.” Mikkel ducked his head. “I received word this morning. There have been reports of other dragons found in Estala. I fear that this means the final dragon has come into its powers, or that it will soon if it has not yet.” He swallowed. “There are once more four dragon kings.”
“Four. You are absolutely sure it is four.”
“Of course, Lord. The old legends were quite clear.”
“You expected Zean to erupt when I transformed!” the Lord roared at him. For a moment, he forgot that it was only his body that carried these powers. “You expected it to erupt when I was crowned! Now you tell me that you are certain there are more dragons instead. You cannot be sure. I know that. So, tell me. What other possibilities are there?”
“It is possible that this is nothing more than a myth,” Mikkel attempted. His face was a greyish white, like curdled milk. “A coincidence only.”
The Lord stalked closer, flinging the marker to the carpet. “You do not believe that,” he told Mikkel.
Mikkel was shaking. “No, Lord. I do not.”
“So, guess,” the Lord said through gritted teeth. “Is it four dragons? Are you sure? Are you very sure?”
“The only other possibility—”
“Think carefully before you speak, Mikkel.”
Mikkel paused and looked down at the floor. His breath was coming raggedly. He thought as the Lord began to pace.
At last, Mikkel said, “Each of the dragon kings begat children. That much was recorded. Those children were hidden away across the world as the war consumed everything. It is likely that not all of them were dragon shifters, and the others may not have wanted any further war, so they did not try to rally armies to their cause. But the four lines survived. We can assume one from each line now, at least. If some of the lines were destroyed, would Zean erupt? I do not know.”
Interesting. At least they were working with sound reasoning now. “So there was one in the royal line of Estala,” the Lord said.
“Just so.” Mikkel inclined his head.
“And we are sure that none of the other royal children possess this power?”
“We cannot be sure, my Lord, no. Prince Luca was a Menti, after all, and we did not know it.”
“True. We must search for the other lines, then. Do we look to the Gold Council for one?” The Lord frowned. “No. You said there were reports of dragons here. Reports from whom? I have heard nothing from the people.”
Mikkel seemed to relax somewhat. “There would not be. No normal human would have seen the signs. The ones who found the dragons are…. Lord, they will be powerful allies if you can persuade them to join us.”
The Lord narrowed his eyes. What was Mikkel getting at?
“Shall I show them in, Lord?”
“First, tell me what this is.”
“My Lord….” Mikkel hesitated. “Have you heard the story of the Ulezi?”
The Lord frowned. “No.”
“When dragons and men mated, they made the dragon shifters, yes? Some of the offspring were all dragon, or so it seemed, and some were all human—though, of course, their lines carried the power to create dragon shifters later. The Ulezi are the fourth branch of the offspring between men and dragons.”
The Lord frowned again.
“Many died at birth, or near it,” Mikkel continued. “They live in terrible pain, Lord. They are halfway between human and dragon, and no mortal form can bear that. Their human parents left them to die, but some survived. Being in such pain, they have resolved that the dragons must be wiped out, and with them, the dragon shifters, so that no more Ulezi might be made.”
“And you have brought them here?” the Lord asked. His tone might sound pleasant if not for the ice beneath it. “You have brought them to kill me?”
“That is why they came,” Mikkel said simply. “It is not why I have brought them to you. Indeed, I began to seek them out when I realised Mount Zean was not erupting. You see, although you may not be the only dragon shifter alive now, I wish you to be the only dragon king. Surely, any other living dragon is a threat to you, yes? And who better to hunt your enemies?”
There was a pause, and then the Lord began to smile. “You have done well, Mikkel. Show them in, and I will bargain with them.”
When the Ulezi entered, they were wearing manacles at their wrists. Guards came to dump the weapons the Ulezi had been carrying in front of the Lord, and then hovered between him and the creatures. The guards were clearly terrified of what they saw, but they were willing to fight for their ruler, so the Lord smiled at them each individually to show his thanks. He felt their relief and their worship and sighed with pleasure as it strengthened him.
Then he stood and made his way to the Ulezi to inspect them. They were, as Mikkel had said, partway between human and dragon. Their skin had an odd sheen to it, and some of it betrayed patches of true scales. Their eyes had the slit pupils of a lizard, their tongues were long, their noses were flat—though he saw a bulge in their faces as if nature had tried to create a snout. With webbing between their fingers and between their arms and their bodies—they wore no sleeves, but instead a sort of cape—it was no wonder they had been cast aside by their parents. They were monstrous.
“You came to kill me,” the Lord observed. They hissed at him, and he smiled. “I can give you more than me, monsters.”
“Ulezi,” one of them whispered in that strange hissing tone.
“You are monsters,” the Lord corrected him. “That is why I call you that. You know it. You wish to rid the world of any possibility that there might be more like you, is that not so? You hate what you are, and yet, it gives you the strength to do what must be done.”
The Ulezi looked among one another.
“I am the same,” the Lord told them. “I abhor the chaos that magic brings. I despise the Menti. And yet, here I stand before you, with the very powers you came to kill me for. Yes?”
The Ulezi hissed again.
“A fire wielder sits on my throne,” the Lord told them. “He gathers other Menti to his aid. He would have them rule the earth. I cannot allow that, so I must retake my place. I will burn magic out of the mortal lines, do you understand me? And that means the rest of the dragons, too. The ones you have smelled. The ones you have hunted.
“We will have an accord, you and I: I, a Menti, will cleanse the earth of all other Menti and magic, save you. You, dragonborn, will cleanse the earth of all others, save me. When this is over, I will choose an heir who is not of my blood. There will be no possibility of another dragon on this earth. Do we have a deal?”
The Ulezi stared at him, flicking their tongues in and out. They looked at one another and came to an agreement, then hissed in response. The Lord understood it instinctively: yes.
They would try to kill him when this was done; he knew that. But they would be dead first.
He was going to tell them to kill the other dragons outright. What use did he have for them? Then the human soul inside him protested. The Lord saw a remembered dream: a copper dragon and a wave of lust. That was interesting. Who was this other dragon? What might it mean to have a dragon for a mate? Surely, if anyone was worthy of the Lord….
Yes. The Ulezi could serve his purposes without knowing it.
“Go to Nesra’s Keep,” the Lord told them. “Prince Luca is gathering Menti from all corners of the earth. The dragons may have gone there. Go, find them, and bring them to me. I will kill
them and drink their blood, and you will know that there is no further threat on this earth.”
Ato
His skin was too hot. His mouth was dry. Ato stumbled and fell onto the dusty ground. He would have cried if he had had enough moisture left in him to do so, but even though he felt the pricking in his eyes, he was too parched to shed tears.
He pushed himself up with the last dregs of his strength. He had to keep moving. He had to be long gone before his family came looking for him. No matter where they looked, no matter how far they went, they must not find him.
He did not have much time before the sickness would take him. He had been making his way home from the market when he first felt the fever rising in him. He had not felt well for weeks, but this was different. This was worse.
Everyone knew of the sickness that was ravaging the two nations. The Gold Council had been careful to impose curfews and keep people in place, but everyone knew it took only one person travelling to bring a plague, and that plague must have reached the market near Ato’s town.
He had left the cart on the side of the road, pulled into a forest clearing where he and his twin sometimes went to escape the heat on the walk home. Aina would find the cart there if she went looking for him, but she would not find him.
He took in the scene before him. This field had been an olive grove once, but it had long since stopped being tended. All that was left of the trees now were short trunks as dead and dry as driftwood, bleached white by the sun. There were not even shadows for him to lie in. He did not remember this place, but at every turning of the road, he had gone toward the places he knew the least, or away from human settlement.
Let me die quickly, he prayed. Let the sun bake me and the animals eat my body, and let no one find me and get infected.
He wished he had been able to explain this to his family, or to Leli, the girl from the village whose father had been bargaining with his over a dowry and a home for them. His chest ached with grief. He was only seventeen. He should be marrying Leli this fall, and have a baby in the cradle by the next year. He had been afraid to leave Aina behind—they had never been so far apart—but this was so much worse than he had dreamed.
He had never imagined that he might not be able to say goodbye, but he knew he could not risk it. They were too poor to afford medicines, and Aina would insist on trying to care for him. That would put both her and their parents in terrible danger, not to mention Leli, if she visited them, and Ato would not let himself be the cause of that.
They might spend their lives wondering what had happened to him, but at least they would be alive to do so.
He had to find somewhere to hide. The sickness was getting worse. It was burning in his gut. Lines of fire seemed to run down every bone in his body, and he could imagine them being as hot as the metal in Teor’s forge. Teor said Ato had a way with fire. He had talked about taking Ato on as an apprentice. That would never happen now.
It was amazing how quickly a life could fall to nothing. Ato’s eyes stung as he walked onward. He imagined that he could see his breath shimmering white-hot in the air in front of him. His skin felt wrong.
His mind began to wander as he walked. His grandparents had died many years ago: first his grandmother, and then his grandfather, only a few months later. They had not been a love match when they were married, but they had become one over the years until they could not live without one another anymore. That was what his mother said, anyway. Though many women did not like living in their mother-in-law’s house, Ato’s mother had always gotten along very well with his grandparents. She said they were kind people, and they held to the old ways.
Ato was not sure what that meant. It was just something grown-ups said, or so he thought. He knew he liked his grandparents, though. His grandfather always held himself like a king—that must be where Ato’s father had learned to do the same—but he was always kind to everyone. He never put on airs, and he doted on his wife and his family every day.
Ato’s grandmother liked to tell stories. She would tell all the old ones: of the panthers that lived in the brush, of the crocodiles in the rivers, or the spirits that lived among the sand dunes in the south. She taught him about witches, and which herbs would take a fever away, and which herbs would ward off evil spirits. She told him stories from the days before Menti were called Menti, when they were able to learn more powers than they had been born with. Ato and Aina loved her stories. They had followed her around and begged her for more.
There was one story that she only told them once. They were little, and they were burning up with a fever. Ato remembered how bad the fever had been, and that his mother had been scared—but his grandmother had shaken her head and mixed them some tea and told his mother to go outside and not worry so much. They’re fine, Seea. This is nothing that can harm them.
When they were alone, she had leaned close to tell them a story they had never heard before and would never hear again.
“You are descended from kings,” she told them both seriously. Ato had laughed a little, but she did not smile. “It is no joke. Ato, you are named for your many-times-great-grandfather. He was that king.”
“Who am I named for?” Aina piped up.
“Your name, your mother chose because it was beautiful,” their grandmother said. “A no less worthy name. You may make your own legacy one day. Perhaps you will be a queen. What d’ you think of that?”
Aina had giggled.
“Royal blood runs in your veins,” their grandmother told Ato. “It comes from your father, and your father’s father, all the way back to the other Ato. He was misled as a king, but he was brave and strong, and he fought for his people. Both of you, listen only to wise counsel as you grow older. Perhaps someday you will need to rule, and you will need to protect your people.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say, because their parents were only farmers in a small village, and surely they had never had any royal blood in their family, ever. But Ato had always remembered that story, and he remembered it now. If he were a king, he would be strong. He would not let himself cry about the plague. He would die with dignity.
He stumbled and fell to his knees, and behind him he heard a low growl. His blood ran cold, but when he looked around, he did not see any giant cat stalking him, as he had feared. He frowned at the heat shimmering in the air. Across the olive grove, there was a stand of rocks. Perhaps he would find shade there. If not, perhaps he could climb high enough that no one would stumble across his body and be infected. He did not think he was strong enough to climb anymore, but he would try.
Then he saw the column of smoke. Ato swayed as he knelt, his eyes fixed on it. It was billowing and black, and he could not think what would make so much smoke. How long had he been walking? What was nearby?
It was only when he pushed himself up that he realised what it must be. It was not a barn or a village close by, but Mount Zean in the distance.
He vaguely remembered stories about Mount Zean. Maybe his grandmother had told them to him. He could not remember the details anymore, though.
He thought of Aina searching for him and seeing the smoke. And then, in a flash, he could see her doing just that. She was on the road near their house, not far from the clearing where he had left the cart. Sometimes they could see where the other one was. They never spoke of it, because their mother had told them that would be dangerous. People might think they were Menti.
Ato stumbled up and away. He hoped she could not see him. He had to get somewhere that she could not find. An abandoned olive grove and a rock formation—she might be able to find that if she asked enough people. He could not stay here.
Now that he had seen the smoke, he realised that he could almost sense Zean’s rumblings like a low tremor in the earth below him. Zean was like him, Ato thought dreamily. It had fire underneath the skin. It breathed heat into the air, and the flames inside it would run down its flanks like the sweat that ran across his skin—or had, before he began to burn up so badly
.
He tripped, fell, and pushed himself up. I am descended from kings. The pain was getting worse, and despite himself, he was afraid to die. I have royal blood in my veins. He knew his grandmother must have been lying, but she had not seemed as though she was lying when she spoke of it. I am named after a king.
He could not take one more step. He stopped near the rock outcropping and tipped his head back to look at the sky. He was not ready to die, not yet, but he could feel it happening. It was building inside him until he wanted to scream. There was something inside that seemed like it was not him at all, yet it was him, and it had been waiting forever for him to notice it.
In a blazing moment of clarity, he saw what was coming, and he threw his head back and spread his arms.
The dragon reared up over the olive grove. Its scales shimmered silver in the sunshine, and when it roared up into the sky, the flames were a deep azure.
I am descended from kings.
Behind him, there was a crack and a boom, and Ato swung his head around to watch as Mount Zean erupted into fire and ash.
Luca
Luca swallowed nervously and tried to keep from glancing at the door for the fifth time. Reva should be here by now. After he sent word that morning asking her to come to the council meeting to speak of her experiences, he had been surprised to receive word back telling him that she would attend. Though he saw her sometimes from the balcony, they had not spoken since their first fateful meeting.
Unbidden, his mind produced an image of her talking and laughing with Sam. She had told Luca that Sam had taught her to use her powers as a dragon, and Luca felt a fierce wave of jealousy. He was not a match for a dragon, so he should be glad to have three of them here.
He was not. He did not like the way the other boy looked at Reva, or the way she looked at him. It had been many long years since Luca and Reva were betrothed, and Luca knew it was unworthy of him to be jealous. He envied Sam, however. Not only did Sam have more and rarer power than Luca, Sam had none of the responsibilities of kingship. Luca wondered resentfully what Sam would have done about the Gardens of Anios.