“I can’t go any higher. Deal.”
Hubric dealt the cards and Ashana placed the Dominar down.
“Risky move,” Hubric said.
His tower card was laid beside her’s and then she laid a hurricane. His counter was a gate. Was he suggesting that we find another way out? That was the obvious solution to the situation, wasn’t it? But where would we find one? Her two knaves left him chewing his lip.
“Three might do better for you,” he suggested.
“I doubt it.”
“Can I offer a suggestion?” I asked him. His expression was confused as I reached into his fan of cards and pulled out a shadowy figure – the assassin – and laid it on the table.
“You shouldn’t play a card like that without a good reason,” Ashana said coolly. “Take it back.”
I cleared my throat, worried. Did they understand what I was saying?
“I wish I could, but it was already played,” I said, pushing it to the same place on the table that her knaves sat.
Wordlessly, she placed her white queen beside the Dominar card. The lines in her face looked deeper as casually, she dealt out five dragons surrounding them and with a questioning look at me, placed two more beside the assassin. I nodded, my breath in my throat and she laughed, suddenly.
“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever lost so badly, Hubric. But I’d rather lose with you, I suppose.” My mind corrected it to ‘lose to you’ but that wasn’t what she meant, was it? She meant exactly what she said. We were playing a losing hand with a traitor in our midst, the Dominar at risk, and none of us knew how to get out of it alive.
Chapter Seven
“Cards?” Iskaris asked, entering the room as Hubric hurriedly gathered up the cards and tucked them into a neat pile. “At a time like this? I expected more from you, Dragon Riders. My men tell me that we are running out of time. I’ve instructed them to pack basic supplies into whatever we can find to carry them and to construct a litter for the Dominar. I don’t have time for foolishness anymore. What messages were you carrying?”
We are running out of time. Savette is with me. She says the Ifrits are sapping the strength out of the door. It’s three feet thick – but that isn’t thick enough. It will crumble before the day is done.
His eyes were on Hubric, though I felt my own face heating.
“Only one,” Hubric said. “From Cynos Vineplanter of the Red to the Dominar – a verbal message – five ships of Baojang and the far Rock Eaters have invaded our shores where the Feet of the River meets the Eastern Sea.”
“Grim news.” Iskaris frowned and turned to Ashana. “And you?”
“I don’t answer to you, Iskaris,” she said easily. “And my messages have nothing to do with you. As such, you don’t need to know their contents.”
My heart leapt. Perhaps if she could keep their contents a secret she could keep mine safe, too.
“I’ll read them and determine that,” he said.
Forget messages and concentrate on the door. It’s coming down. What other alternative is there?
If the door, thick as it was, was not sufficient to keep the Ifrits out, then what could we do? We were no match for them. But there had been something in the message from Comard Eaglespring about remembering the words of Ibrenicus. Could that help us?
Savette has been feeling through this shelter and she thinks she knows a way. I told her how this mountain was made when the dragons built our underground warrens. One of those warrens is not far from here. She thinks she can punch through the rock and open a path.
Knowing what else Savette could do, I wasn’t surprised.
If she isn’t too weakened from the fight outside.
Ashana and Iskaris’ voices were rising as they argued.
“–haven’t even read them myself,” Ashana was saying.
“All the more reason to check them and if there is no more information in there than we already have it won’t have hurt anything.”
“What information do you expect? A magical cord you pull and then a door spins into existence?”
I wouldn’t want her mocking tone aimed at me. I should interrupt and tell them about the warrens.
No!
Hubric laid a hand on my arm with a small shake of his head at the same moment. Was he speaking to Raolcan, too?
He speaks to Kyrowat. Together we are finding a solution. We will drill a hole through the rock to the warrens, using Savette’s power and our flames. Then, we take the refugees out that way and escape through the warrens with them to safety.
And how far away was safety?
Maybe close, maybe far. I will know more when we enter the warrens. The Silvers can carry the Dominar, and we will help guide the people through. It’s better than the alternative.
It would also give the Ifrits access to the dragon warrens.
We’ll have to take that chance.
And why shouldn’t we tell Iskaris ourselves?
If he really is a traitor, he’ll try to sabotage us. Wait until the way is made and the plan hatched before you tell him.
“I’m not such a fool as you think,” Iskaris said to Ashana, putting his face in his hands for a moment. I shuffled backward. His men stood behind him, looking in that moment, as raw and desperate as he was. “I know what our options are right now. I’m just looking for something – anything – else. The Dominar’s safety is my only concern.”
It sounded like the truth. He really did care about the Dominar. And yet – he was Dusk Covenant, wasn’t he?
“Anything other than what?” Ashana asked.
“As far as I can tell, we can either stay where we are and be slaughtered when the door breaks down in a few hours, or surrender now and beg for mercy,” Iskaris said, grimly.
In the absolute silence that followed the whisper from the Dominar’s bed was as plain as a bell.
“Mercy.”
Chapter Eight
“Dominar?” Iskaris asked, rushing to his side, but the Dominar’s head lolled to the side again, clearly no longer with us. “My liege?”
Ashana cleared her throat. “He’ll be in and out as he recovers. He lost a lot of blood.”
“I’ve seen the wounded before,” Iskaris snapped. “I don’t need a lecture.”
He straightened, and I felt an urge to step backward from the intensity of his movement, but Ashana didn’t flinch at all, she leaned forward as if she wanted to fight. Hubric yawned beside me.
“The Dominar – glory to his reign – has spoken,” Iskaris said clearly and with a determined look on his face. “We will rest for one hour and hope he regains consciousness in that time. Whether he does or not, we will surrender and ask for mercy.”
“Are you sure he was talking about that? Maybe he just wanted relief from the pain. The man does appear to be missing an arm,” Hubric said casually.
“Enough.” Iskaris glared at Ashana. “Keep your riders under control and make sure your dragons are ready to leave in one hour.”
Ashana stared at him for a long moment, as if to prove that she couldn’t be ordered around.
“Let’s go check the dragons, Riders,” she said eventually.
I helped Hubric stand and we hobbled along behind her as she left the room. I stole a glance back at the Dominar as we left the room. Would he be safe here without us? Even though these were his guards, they didn’t seem to care about him as much as he deserved. And I didn’t believe that he wanted us to surrender.
Neither do I. Think about what he said.
He had said a single word, “mercy.” Yes, it could have been in response to what Iskaris was saying, but what if it meant something else? I couldn’t think of what else it could mean, though.
When you wanted to warn Hubric and Ashana about Iskaris, you relied on the card game.
But mercy had nothing to do with cards.
But could it be a reference to something bigger that others would understand?
Why was that note from Comard Eaglespring bother
ing me? It was like my mind was trying to make a connection between the two and it just couldn’t tie them together.
Hubric was oddly silent, as if his thoughts were preoccupied as we made our way to the dragons. As soon as I said that he looked at me and quirked a smile.
“Is that Ashana’s purple scarf I see around your neck, Sworn? Have you been given your colors while I was recovering?”
I felt my cheeks heat with pride. He’d noticed.
“Keep up this pace and Ashana will have to worry about you taking her job. It’s deserved but don’t let it swell your head. You’re still woefully under-educated for the role.” Was that tenderness I heard under his harsh tone?
“I‘m glad you survived,” I said, affectionately. I was worried he wouldn’t.
“I could say the same to you. I thought I’d lost you, Sworn. It made me feel my age – and no one wants that.”
I stifled a laugh. We were almost through the Great Hall despite our slow pace. I didn’t want to urge him to go faster when he was still so vulnerable.
“I have a foggy memory of you reading the Ibrenicus Prophecies to me,” he said.
“You heard me?” And here I thought he was unconscious the entire time!
“Did you read them all?”
I laughed. “At least three times. I thought it was keeping you calm.”
“The Prophecies have a purifying effect. And they stick in the mind. Tell me, do you remember one that starts, ‘Behold, behold in the dark of the night?’”
The words sounded familiar. I wracked my brain to think of them as we entered the anteroom where the dragons shuffled nervously from foot to foot while shudders filled the room from the Ifrit’s attack on the door. There were already too many dragons in the anteroom – packed in too tightly and smelling of something...
Fear. We smell of fear.
Behold, behold, in the dark of the night... something about a light emerging from the ground, right? Something about the dawn of hope and the mercy of the past. Was that right? Maybe this was what Comard Eaglespring meant about remembering the prophecies. Maybe they contained some hint to getting out of places like this.
The Silver dragon’s scales were so sleek that it was hard to tell where one scale ended and the next one began. I paused for a moment when they came into view to look them over. Even Eeamdor’s sleek red scales looked rough in comparison.
They’re royal dragons – beautiful and poisonous.
Not as royal as Raolcan. And he didn’t need poison – other than some of his words, of course.
I resemble that implication.
Hubric practically dragged me to Kyrowat’s side in his excitement, finally releasing me when he was close enough to slump against his dragon. Kyrowat had better not flame me! It wasn’t my fault I was standing so close. I quickly hobbled over to Raolcan. He dipped his head low, looking me eye-to-eye as he recited the prophecy I couldn’t remember.
Behold, behold in the dark of the night,
Surrounded and harried to flight,
Up from the ground through the earth’s veins
Light of light and he who reigns
Dawn of hope through mercy of the past
Arriving to shine over us at last.
Mercy of the past. Had he been referring to that? Perhaps that was too much of a stretch. After all, mercy was probably mentioned a lot in the Ibrenicus Prophecies.
So what? Do you think that’s referring to another time that Savette and the Dominar will be buried under ground together?
What?
Well, who else would you call ‘light of light’ except Savette? And despite the fact that you took off his crown for a while, I think it’s still safe to call the Dominar ‘he who reigns,’ don’t you? I think it’s time to find that mercy of the past.
I swallowed and looked to Hubric. His hoary eyebrows highlighted a stormy gaze.
“Do you believe, Sworn?”
Clearly, he and Kyrowat were having a similar conversation, and knowing Hubric, he was probably dead certain that the prophecy applied to this. Crazy as it was, I thought I might agree. After all, they had applied to Savette so far, and losing her to Ifrits now would be a terrible thing.
“I’m worried about your back. You aren’t fit to be moving around like this.” I was avoiding the question. I did think it was possible. I just wasn’t sure where we’d find this “mercy of the past.” Other than building this place, had anything ever happened around here? Even Savette hadn’t found it and she’d been looking for a way out while I was occupied with the injured.
That hammering in the background was getting to me. It was like I could feel icy cold sapping my strength and making my belly roil.
“I’m fit enough,” Hubric growled. “Now that I’m out of bed I don’t want to hear anything more of it. I know you and Raolcan are talking. Do you have any ideas?”
I wonder if this place was built because it was close to the warrens. Perhaps it was a stop along the way. If that was the case, maybe the warrens were cut off by a shift in the earth. Is there somewhere in this hole where the rock face looks crumbled rather than smooth? Like it wasn’t carved out so much as caved in?
“There’s a place just like that in the storeroom,” I said aloud with a sudden memory of staring at the wall while Savette helped me look for tar and a pot. There had been shelves set up in front of it, but it was definitely there. And hadn’t she felt something pulling at her when we were there?
Chapter Nine
“I’ll stay with the dragons, and tell Ashana,” Hubric said. His eyes told me he had been following our discussion through Kyrowat. He turned, looking for her. She was somewhere near her own dragon. Whispering to Aliss who was tending wounds on her Daieseo. “You go and check that storeroom.”
“Hubric?” I whispered, waiting for him to look back at me before continuing. “We recovered your messages.” I pulled them one by one from my belt and handed them to him. “You should read them while you wait.”
Anger filled his face. “You read these, Sworn?”
I bit my lip. “Just read them.”
“No.”
“What they say is important to us.”
He shook his head. “It troubles me that you broke our honor in this.”
“I wouldn’t know Iskaris is a traitor if I hadn’t read them,” I hissed.
His brow furrowed but he kept silent.
“Just think about it,” I said as I left. Sure, he might be mad, but it was a good thing I read those notes. Maybe they would see that our policy of keeping them secret wasn’t helping anything.
I think you underestimate how irritated he is with you right now. If we didn’t have Ifrits on our back and so many people relying on us, I think you might be sorry you ever admitted that. Good timing, by the way. I need to try that. Admitting to something bad when something evil is after you is a great way to avoid being punished for what you did.
Was he just trying to rub my nose in it?
I hurried into the Great Hall, my crutch skidding on the hard floor in my hurry. Iskaris and his dragoons were eating at one of the tables and a few of the refugees were at the other end of the hall, quietly eating soup. I swallowed down a stab of fear. It wouldn’t just be us who suffered if we didn’t find a way out. Iskaris didn’t mind sacrificing those innocent children to the Ifrits. That couldn’t happen.
“I require those messages now that you aren’t busy, Sworn,” Iskaris said as I passed his table.
“I don’t have any,” I said, hurrying by. His eyes followed me. What if he asked me to stop and prove it? I didn’t have them anymore, but I also didn’t have time to waste. How much of his hour was left?
Fortunately, he didn’t ask anything more and as I entered the storeroom, I breathed a sigh of relief, shutting the door behind me.
“Amel?” Savette was there already! “Lock the door behind you.”
I carefully barred the door and hobbled to the back of the room. Savette was in the back of the room, p
acing back and forth.
“I can feel something close – I’m just not exactly sure where. It’s in this room, though. I have a feeling that there’s a way out through here.”
I hobbled to the back wall, gripping the tool-filled shelf. “Help me move this.”
She strode over and helped me move the shelf. “You know your suspicions about Rakturan aren’t true, right? I have never felt evil from him and his eyes are filled with white light.”
“You’re still thinking about that?”
It wasn’t obvious that the wall had ever been a door. It just looked like a rough wall with seams of lighter rock running through the black.
“What else would I be thinking about? It bothers me that you trust Hubric unconditionally and now Ashana, but you doubted Rakturan. How are we supposed to be friends if you doubt my husband?”
“You know that there are Ifrits about to burst in here and slaughter us, right? And it’s up to me and you to get out of here?”
“You think the way is through here?” she put her hands on the rock but turned to me. “It’s just that it’s very hard to concentrate knowing that I don’t have your full support.”
My mouth dropped open. She cared that much about my opinion?
“It was one thing when you acted like I was a child who couldn’t be let out of your sight, but now this idea that you know everything, and I have to listen to your judgment on this is just too much. I just can’t concentrate.”
“Ummm ... Savette. You could have said something, you know.”
“I’m saying something now.”
“I hate to interrupt you when you’re dressing me down, but do you think you can feel a way through that wall?”
She paused and frowned. “Do you know how hard it is to connect to the truth when you’re full of doubts?”
“No.” What was she talking about? Wait. Her magic ran on truth, right? So, was she saying that she couldn’t operate it to its full potential unless she was being completely honest and so she was revealing her inner frustration to me?
That is exactly what she’s saying. Hear her out. Besides, she has a point. Rak is not our enemy.
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