Dragon Master (Dragon Collector Book 2)

by Simon Archer

  “Yes,” Raiyna stuttered. “Yes, it will be plenty. What can I offer you, Lady…?” Raiyna trailed off, waiting for the noblewoman to fill in her name.

  “Lady Maria Poulis, daughter of Raina and Helena Poulis,” Maria said with a small bow of her head.

  “The daughter of Minister Poulis?” Raiyna’s voice quivered, not exactly in fear, but something closer to awe. It was like a young fangirl meeting her hero.

  “Who is Minister Poulis?” I asked in a mock whisper.

  “She is the Minister of Forestation,” Raiyna explained excitedly. “She is one of the few nobles who actually ventures outside of the castle. She has shopped with me several times, and I adore designing for her.”

  “She has spoken of you,” Maria interjected. “I would like you to make a dress for me as well. If you are willing.”

  “Willing?” Raiyna’s eyes bugged out of her head. “I would be more than willing. I would be honored.”

  The seamstress stowed the bag of coins in a small drawer in her cart. Out of the same drawer, she pulled a measuring tape made of a white ribbon. She rolled an end around her finger and stretched the rest out tight.

  “If you want to step over here, I can take your measurements,” Raiyna offered with a corner smile.

  “Absolutely,” Maria said as she stepped forward.

  “I will see you soon, Martin,” Raiyna excused me with a giddy smile, ready to get on with her work.

  Martin held out a hand, pausing the seamstress. “You are Martin Anthony?”

  “Uh…” I blinked, unable to think of my own name for a second. “Yeah, I am.”

  “Wow, it is amazing to meet you,” Maria said with a dazzling smile. “You are much taller than I thought you would be.”

  It was true. While I was tall, at six-foot-two, I wasn’t towering, but to someone so tiny, I might look larger than normal. I was broad, with blond locks atop my head. My clothing didn’t match the other residents of the castle. I stuck mostly to pants and loose tunics, the closest I could get to a hoodie and jeans.

  Compared to this put-together girl, I was a hot mess.

  Since living on my own in my van, I learned to care less about my appearance. However, living in Insomier, the desire to impress, to feel good about how I looked, returned. It was to a smaller degree than Maria Poulis, who obviously had a team of servants looking out for her and her style, but it was enough to show I cared.

  I polished my boots myself, washed my clothes without help, and even patched up the ratty holes I ripped into the fabrics. Maria looked like a doll, something kept pristine on a shelf. A weird urge to push her into the dirt, to muddy her up just a little, overcame me. I clenched my fist and bit my fingernails into the palm at my hand.

  “You should see him on his Merkin,” Raiyna added, also commenting on my height. “He looks like a king.”

  “Do not let King Atlus hear you say that,” Maria said conspiratorially. “He is already threatened by you enough.”

  My eyebrows shot to my hairline in surprise. “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, my mother,” Maria said as if deep castle politics was something her family spoke around the dinner table. For all I knew, they were. “The king is not your biggest fan.”

  “No, he is not,” I conceded.

  “Well, my mothers and I adore you,” Maria said as she reached out and touched my upper arm. “You are doing so much for the kingdom. The corruption is a real threat. It is so sad that it took the infection of the citizens for the king to finally take notice.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, encouraged by having someone on my side. “From what Diana says, it has been infecting the landscape long before now.”

  “She would know,” Maria said. “She has been fighting it for almost as long as she’s been in the guard. Since we were practically children.” The noblewoman released a short giggle. She politely raised her hand to her mouth to cover her laugh. “I remember she would rant and rave about the plants. My mother used to joke that she was the only one who could keep up with her when talking about the flora and fauna of the kingdom.”

  “You know Diana?” I asked, surprised again by Lady Poulis.

  “Of course,” Maria said, her shoulders rising giddily. “When she moved here from Absolum, such a terrible tragedy, my family often watched after her and Alona until they were old enough to be on their own. You know, with Rebekah so busy with her duties in the Guard.”

  My eyes widened involuntarily. I couldn’t believe that both Alona and Diana had left out a crucial part of their childhoods. Something like becoming close to the Minister of Forestation and her daughter seemed like something they would have mentioned. And I wouldn’t have minded knowing about her sooner. She was a beautiful woman, after all.

  I knew both of them had their fair share of trauma with regard to their childhood. They were the only survivors when the contamination wiped out their small town of Absolum. With nowhere to go, the two young girls migrated to the main city. They never told me what happened to them afterward, just that Diana joined the king’s guard and Alona became a caretaker in the Zoo.

  “Funny,” I said, wanting to know more about this mysterious, petite girl. “They never mentioned you.”

  “Ah well,” Maria said, her smile dipping ever so slightly. “We have all grown up, have we not? It was a pleasure to meet you, Martin. Keep doing your work. It has a great impact.”

  The young noblewoman turned back to Raiyna, and I got the distinct impression that she didn’t feel like being nostalgic anymore. She held out her arms, straight and to the side, as if she were about to be pinned to a cross. Maria lifted her delicate chin ever so slightly and closed her eyes.

  “I am ready, Lady Raiyna, when you are.”

  Raiyna proceeded to stretch out her measuring ribbon and start at the tip of Maria’s right finger. Feeling intrusive, I pulled back and gave Raiyna a little wave as I left. I bobbed and weaved my way through the carts of merchants until I made my way to the Zoo.

  Before I could approach, someone tapped me from behind. I whirled around and came face to face with Korey. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a severe bun that rested on the top of her head. It yanked her features back, tight and sharp.

  I jolted a little at the sight of her. “Hey, Korey,” I said, trying to mask my surprise.

  “I need you to come with me,” she announced with no pleasantries.

  “I was just about to head into work--” I began, but Korey grabbed my upper arm, stopping me. Her grasp was nothing like Maria’s gentle touch before. This was something fierce and almost painful.

  I yanked out of her grip and stared at her incredulously. “Is there a please in that command somewhere?”

  “The king does not request,” Korey said, annoyance apparent. “He commands. He needs you to see him. Now.”

  “Tell him I’ll see him this afternoon,” I replied, having no patience for the king’s immaturity right now. I wanted to spend my extra free hours in the Zoo with Bailey-Sue and Alona and the animals. Mainly with Alona, so I could ask her about Maria Poulis.

  “No, Martin, you do not understand,” Korey said, her voice growing desperate. “Something has happened.”

  I stared into Korey’s eyes and knew that whatever “something” she was referring to was urgent and dire. I squinted, trying to decipher exactly what was wrong. Instead of pulling it all apart, I decided to trust Korey.

  “Lead the way.”

  8

  I knew the court had plenty of places I had never been. However, I didn’t realize how much of a maze the whole thing was. In one way, it was like walking around an apartment complex. There were different sections of the court belonging to different noble families. Then, in other ways, it was like dipping around back alleys in a sketchy neighborhood. We ran into servants rushing and soldiers marching. Some people tried to greet Korey, catch her eye, but she barreled on.

  I tried to greet everyone and be polite, but Korey’s speed made it nearly impossibl
e. I also tried to get more information out of the soldier, but she remained tight-lipped and continued her mission to get me to wherever we were going.

  So I followed. Korey led me down several flights of stairs and around a couple of bends. The lower we went, the darker and darker it got. Despite it being still morning when we descended, it looked as though we crept into the middle of the night. Torches illuminated our way, evenly spaced along the walls.

  “Are we headed to the dungeons?” I asked, a little scared to venture the question.

  “Yes,” Korey said, answering my first question in the whole time we’d been walking.

  “Why?”

  “I told you. The king ordered you to come right away.”

  “Is he planning to kill me down here?”

  Korey stopped abruptly. She spun around on her heel, and I nearly ran into her. I shuffled a couple of ungraceful steps backward. Shadows flickered on her face, bouncing from the firelight.

  “Look,” Korey said, her intense gaze magnified by the firelight. “You need to realize that while the king may not like you, he needs you. You are the only thing standing between this kingdom and total annihilation. How do you think he feels, knowing that he cannot help his kingdom and has to trust a total stranger to do it for him?”

  “Honestly?” I asked. “I didn’t think he cared that much.”

  Korey scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You obviously do not know him well, then.”

  “What I do know is that he cares way too much about his crown and not enough about the people out there.” I pointed arbitrarily away from the pair of us to emphasize my thoughts.

  “I do not know if you noticed,” Korey said with a low, threatening tone, “but humans tend to be more complicated than you give them credit for. Not everyone is as one-note as you believe.”

  With that nugget of wisdom, she spun on her heel and continued down the dank, descending hallway. I reached out and mock-choked her with tense fingers and a scrunched, irritated expression. I exhaled my immediate anger and followed her.

  I recognized that King Atlus had layers. People were like onions, don’t judge a book by its cover, and all that jazz. Those cliches were true, but King Atlus’s actions had done nothing to prove me wrong. He continued to let the outside citizens suffer, and instead of facing the problem, he hid from it. Well, until I showed up and threw the problem directly into his face.

  The one thing Korey said that kept nagging me was the part about me being their only hope. I recognized that I was the only one with the power to confront Hennar and the corruption, sure, but I didn’t like being reminded of that. Every time it happened, the weight on my shoulders grew heavier. The fear of failure returned and twisted my stomach into knots.

  As much as I wanted the king’s help, the truth of the matter was that he couldn’t help me. Atlus and the rest of Insomier were rather helpless when it came to fighting the corruption head-on. They had been able to find ways to detect the corruption, but curing anyone or anything of it had never happened before my arrival. It was a slow, deadly infection that plagued the land. Maybe King Atlus was doing the only thing he could. He offered the kingdom a distraction from the knowledge that they were all on borrowed time.

  My musings were soon interrupted when Korey led me to a steel door. There was a small square slat near the top, with three cylindrical bars blocking most of the firelight. She rapped on the door with her knuckles and waited at attention next to it.

  A salamander crawled up through the small slat and stuck its tongue out into the air. It shifted its head back and forth like it was trying to find a cell phone signal. A second later, the creature darted back to the other side of the door, and we were left alone.

  The lock clicked, and the steel door swung inward. Korey remained outside the door and motioned with her hands that I should go in. I didn’t move.

  “What are you doing?” Korey said out of the corner of her mouth. “Go!”

  “I’m still not convinced I’m not going to die down here,” I muttered, nerves stealing my voice.

  Korey released a groan that echoed throughout the stone hallway. It amplified not only the loudness but also her clear annoyance. She stomped over to me and shoved me forward with two hands flat on my back. I stumbled into the room, unwillingly, and teetered in an attempt to catch my balance.

  The room behind the steel door was clearly a cell. There was a patch of hay on the floor, an empty chamber pot, thank God for that, and no windows or places for light sources of any kind. The only light blazed off torches held by four guards in a makeshift square. Within the illuminated section of the room, there was a long table where a figure lay on top of it. Circled around the figure were three nobles, dressed in layered finery. Finally, standing at the head of the slab was King Atlus himself.

  He was a young king, only a few years older than me, with a kind face and round eyes. I struggled with looking at Atlus straight on because when I first met him, I was utterly convinced that he believed in his kingdom and wanted it to succeed, wanted it to thrive. However, at a dinner party some weeks later, he showed a completely different side of himself. It was disgusting and elitist and one that I had no desire to serve. It didn’t get much better when he made me public enemy number one and banished me from court. It was only when I showed up with six dragons and some flashy light tricks did he finally listen to me and show some real concern.

  Rebekah tried to convince me that King Atlus was a good king, but also a scared king. Diana did too, depending on the day. She at least acknowledged the king’s elitism. Apparently, Korey believed the same thing about Atlus. I wondered if it was a bias coming from the guards or if there really was more than met the eye when it came to the king of Insomier.

  These thoughts came to me in a rush upon seeing King Atlus cradle the head of the figure on the slab. It was a human woman, pale and shaking. The woman’s forehead was coated with sweat, and she wore only a thin nightgown. She was thin, with bones poking out from the skin. She gasped for air, wheezing like she was trying to breathe in the midst of a house fire.

  King Atlus’s lips moved, whispering encouragements to the young woman, who, I now realized, was younger than the both of us. She looked only to be about sixteen or seventeen, though her hair fell in small strands through King Atlus’s hands. The kid had the fragility of an infant. The sight of her weakened my heart.

  “Sire,” Korey announced our presence.

  The other three people looked at us, but King Atlus kept his concentration on the girl. There were a man and woman who clutched onto one another as if they were life buoys in a storm. An elderly woman also stood there, hunched over a cane, resting both hands atop the curved raven’s head carved into the wood. Her gray eyes pierced through me, as sharp as a knife, and I recoiled from her.

  “Skittishness will not serve you here, boy,” the older woman warned. Her breath was harsh and came out so fast that it whistled a bit through her teeth. “Only courage will do.”

  “I’m not scared of the corruption,” I replied indignantly. That much was true. What I was scared of was having to interact with Hennar again if what he said about our continued chess matches was to be believed.

  The woman crying into the man’s shoulder released another shudder and buried herself further into him. The man’s large hands wrapped around the back of her head and held her with surprising gentleness.

  “Are you Martin Anthony?” the man asked, looking over the woman’s head to meet my eye.

  I heard the hope in his voice and gulped. “Yes.”

  “Then you can heal her?” the man asked desperately. “With your light?”

  “Well, the light isn’t mine exactly,” I answered nervously. “It’s like a gift that’s on loan, but I don’t actually own it…” My voice trailed off when I realized I was getting into semantics and technicalities just to keep from replying to the man and to keep my own fears at bay. Neither was working, so I just straight up answered. “I will try to heal her, certainl
y.”

  My gaze fell to the skeletal girl, who shivered constantly. I wanted to throw a blanket over her and tuck it under burrito-style like my mother used to do when I was sick. Exposed as she was to everything, it was no wonder she was cold.

  “She should be covered,” I suggested. I took off my top layer, a simple sweater to help counter the oncoming fall wind, and laid it over her.

  “Now is not the time to think of modesty,” the older woman snapped.

  “You’re right,” I agreed without looking at the woman. I focused on wrapping the jacket around the top of the girl, covering as much of her as I could. “I am thinking of the fact that she is clearly cold.”

  “She does this sometimes,” the man informed me. “Shakes. It stops after a spell, but we cannot reach her when she is in this state. Sometimes, when he is available, Atlus can calm her, but it is an inexact science.”

  “Who is she?” I asked as I gazed upon the hollow face of the girl.

  “Emerald Julius, daughter of Ravenia and Walnes Julius,” the older woman proclaimed like she was introducing the girl to a ballroom full of people.

  “We call her Em,” the crying woman sniffled.

  “I guess you two are Ravenia and Walnes?” I asked, indicating the two adults.

  Ravenia nodded. “I wish we were meeting under different circumstances.”

  “Same,” I said through tight lips. My prejudice against the nobles flared, but I tried to temper it. I endeavored to view these parents as just that, parents of a sick child who shivered and withered before them.

  “Is that what he’s doing now?” I asked, tipping my head towards the king who still had yet to acknowledge my arrival. “Is he trying to ease her fit?”

  “Yes,” Walnes replied. “This fit has been going on longer than normal, and the minute Atlus tried to calm her, he commanded that we bring her down here.”