The Dragon Mistress 3

by R. A. Steffan

  There were really only two reasonable options, and one of them was only reasonable in comparison to staying in Utrea or risking Alyrios. Beyond the front-range lay the Great Southern Desert, and beyond the desert lay… Kulawi. My homeland. The one from which I’d been expelled years ago, on pain of death.

  If it came down to safety for my friends, I would risk it, of course. There were many places in Kulawi where it was unlikely I’d be recognized, and at least I’d been spared a murderers’ brand before being exiled. But I was pinning my hopes on our final option—Eburos.

  Frella’s northern homeland.

  She always spoke of it fondly, and her family was well placed there. With luck, she would agree that her island home was a safe place for us to flee, and we’d have an expanse of saltwater buffering us from Utrea’s wrath.

  But before any of that could happen, we needed to agree on when our attack on Safaad would take place.

  When we’d originally smuggled Frella up to the valley, we’d taken a rugged and dangerous route through the river canyon and over the karstlands. It was, frankly, not a course that sane people would choose to follow on foot or horseback, which was why we’d chosen it in the first place. The river route took a day and a half—less with hard riding and little sleep.

  The scouts, however, would take the route through the town of Dhakar—a less hazardous way that skirted through the foothills on the final stretch between Dhakar and Safaad, and that took three days at a minimum. It was the ‘at a minimum’ part that was the problem.

  If we mistimed our rescue mission and arrived before Frella was delivered to the palace, it would be a disaster. The element of surprise would only work in our favor once. After that, the battlements would be covered with dragon harpoons aimed at the skies day and night. But every extra hour we delayed to ensure that our girl was where we expected her to be, was another hour that Frella would be in Oblisii’s hands.

  Rayth was adamant that the risk of the entire rescue failing held more weight than the risk of Frella undergoing interrogation and possible torture while we twiddled our thumbs, waiting for the right moment to go in. Aristede argued for a shorter timetable, in hopes of saving her before anything too terrible was done to her. My head knew that Rayth was right, but my heart agreed with Aristede. Nyx just looked ill over the entire discussion.

  Ironically, though, it was Nyx who finally decided things. Through no fault of his own, he was going to be the weak link in the mission. Not because of any personal shortcomings, but because he was nursing cracked ribs and a moderately serious concussion. Waiting an extra day to go in meant giving his injuries an extra day to heal.

  While we were waiting, we packed up everything that would be practical for us to take when we left for either Eburos or Kulawi. There would be time—several days at a minimum before troops could get to us in the valley. But we wanted to be prepared, so that our focus could be on Frella. The ancestors only knew what state she’d be in when we found her.

  Meanwhile, one final, missing puzzle piece loomed large as our preparations commenced. On the evening of the second day, Aristede took me aside and looked up at me intently.

  “Come with me,” he said. “I’ve realized something important. I need to see the red dragon, and I want you there as well.”

  * * *

  “What did you realize, Ari?” I asked, as we strode out into the valley beyond the cave. Aristede walked with purpose, an intent expression drawing his features into hard planes.

  “I know what the connection is between Nyx refusing to abandon Lisha when she was injured in the rock fall, and Rayth thinking that he was about to die in the battle,” he said.

  I shot him a sidelong look. “And that connection is…?”

  “They were both willing to give up their lives to save the dragons,” he explained. “Nyx knew that if he stayed with Lisha and made a commotion by pulling the boulders off her, he was increasing the chance that Rayth would find him and succeed in putting a crossbow bolt through his heart.”

  “Right…” I said, drawing the word out. “I can see that, yes.”

  “And during the battle, when things started turning against us, Rayth figured he was about to die in defense of the dragons, but he still faced that death head-on.”

  I pondered that for a moment. “I suppose that makes sense as far as it goes…”

  Aristede was still making connections, though. “Yes. And I’ll wager that you were thinking more or less the same thing, even if you can’t remember the details.”

  My brows drew together. “But it still doesn’t make sense. If that’s the case, then the red dragon and the white dragon should have bonded with you and Frella at about the same time. We were all about to die for them.”

  I turned, realizing that Aristede had stopped walking and was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t translate.

  “No,” he said slowly. “Because Frella and I weren’t thinking about our imminent noble sacrifice for the dragons. You’d just been struck down. You were helpless, and we were about to die trying to protect you.”

  Something invisible hit me in the chest like a punch from a vengeful ghost.

  “Ari…” I breathed.

  Aristede’s smile was wan, and didn’t match the haunted look in his eyes. Unable to resist the pull dragging me toward him, I moved to stand in front of him—separated by less than an arm’s length and with no idea what to say. He reached up to rest his hand against the side of my face, covering the fading bruises from the blow that had felled me during the battle.

  “Don’t look like that, Riss,” he said, holding my eyes with a level gray gaze. “Because if I’m right, it means all our problems are solved. You’re soul-bound to Iyabo. Rayth is soul-bound to Cheen, and Nyx, to Lisha. You already know I’d give my life without question to save any of you, and that means I’d give my life to save them. It’s the same thing now—your deaths are forever linked.”

  An unaccustomed tightness welled up in my throat, cutting off my ability to speak. Aristede’s other hand rose to cup my cheek, framing my face. He used the light grip to guide me down until I was resting forehead to forehead against him. I grabbed a handful of his tunic and squeezed my eyes shut, not sure why they suddenly seemed to be burning so badly.

  “Besides… it goes both ways,” he continued in a gentler tone. “You’d do the same. Now come on, you great softie. I have to go bond with a dragon so we can all save Frella from an evil prince, and then fly away together to an exotic foreign land.”

  Iyabo’s protective presence stirred in my mind, questioning if I was all right. I sucked in a ragged breath and dragged my emotions back under control, nodding against Aristede’s brow even as I sent reassurance to the sapphire dragon with whom I shared a soul-bond. A rustle of wings announced the red dragon’s arrival, as though she’d somehow sensed what was about to happen.

  And who knew? Maybe she had.

  Ari and I stepped back from each other, and he turned his attention to the massive creature. A gentle smile graced his lips, and he cupped her scaled jaw much as he’d cupped mine moments ago.

  “Hello, again,” he said. “Sorry it took me so long, but I think I finally understand. I’m ready now.”

  The dragon blinked ruby eyes at him, tilting her head in interest. Aristede let out a small gasp, and I reached forward to steady him by the shoulders as he swayed in place. His craned his neck to meet my gaze a few heartbeats later, red dragon flames kindling in the steel-gray depths of his eyes.

  Chapter 9: Captive

  Frella

  ON THE POSITIVE side, at least the cell where I was being kept wasn’t damp. Had we been on Eburos, it would have been. The stone at my back would have been chilly and beaded with moisture. The air would have smelled of mildew.

  That was what I told myself as I sat in the darkness during my first night in Oblisii’s dungeon. I thought about the stories I’d overheard from some of the warriors in Draebard regarding the time my guardians Carivel an
d Senovo had been abducted… held at an old hill-fort by an Alyrion detachment of soldiers sent to intimidate the northern tribes into bending the knee.

  Their capture and subsequent rescue had taken place when I was very small—even before my father died. When Andoc, Senovo, and Carivel became my adoptive parents, they never really spoke of the events in any detail, but I’d eventually gotten what I suspected was a rather sanitized version from Keenan, one of the warriors who’d helped rescue them.

  Now, I couldn’t get the story out of my head.

  As a youngster, I’d been starry-eyed over the idea of Senovo and Carivel bravely resisting days of exposure, starvation, and bitter abuse at the hands of the Alyrion commander as they awaited their inevitable rescue by Draebard’s coalition of fierce warriors. As I grew older, however, I lent more weight to Senovo’s refusal to speak of it, and to the haunted look in Carivel’s eyes on the handful of occasions I’d begged them for the full story.

  I could not expect an army to descend and rescue me. At best, I could expect Eldris, Aristede, Rayth, and Nyx… assuming Nyx hadn’t died. Three of them had dragons… again, assuming Nyx and Lisha weren’t dead. Would Rayth risk exposing the beasts to Safaad’s soldiers by bringing them here? Could three adolescent dragons with inexperienced riders overpower an entire city’s worth of guards to break me out of the palace dungeon? I had no idea.

  I also had no idea if Oblisii would be more interested in punishing me for humiliating him by fleeing his harem a few weeks ago, or in pumping me for information related to the dragons. So far, after the scouts turned me over to the palace guard, I’d been dragged to the dungeons, shackled to the wall with iron chains, and given bread and water. That was all.

  As unappetizing as the rations were, it was the first solid food I’d had in days. I ate it despite the pain in my stomach from being jounced across the back of a horse for the entire way here, knowing I’d need my strength. My head had begun to ache less on the final day of the journey, thank the gods, and the swelling on my temple had gone down to the extent that I could at least open my left eye now.

  Not that there was much of anything to see except blackness. A draft from above marked the location of a small, barred window at the top of one wall. The straw on the floor was dry, the dust from it tickling my nose. I could hear the rustling and occasional moans of other prisoners locked in nearby cells. The chains attached to my shackled wrists and ankles allowed me enough freedom of movement to walk the couple of steps to a stinking hole cut into the stone floor for piss and shit.

  I knew I should sleep while I had the chance, but there was about as much likelihood of that happening as there was of me tearing the chains out of the wall, turning into a bird, and flying away through the barred window. So I huddled next to the wall and fretted, wondering if it was reasonable of me to expect rescue to come at all.

  It was dangerously alluring to assume that the others would somehow figure out where I was and come for me. But, realistically, how would they know where to look? At best, Rayth, Aristede, and Eldris would have returned to find Nyx injured on the trail, and me gone. At worst, they would have found Nyx and Lisha dead, along with the corpses of a couple of anonymous horses and riders—and no explanation whatsoever as to what had happened.

  Of course, that assumed the others had arrived as planned. The last time Rayth and Aristede went off somewhere, they’d ended up missing for days before returning to the valley injured and exhausted. What if they were delayed this time, too? They might not have even returned yet. Irrational panic squeezed my heart.

  No, I told myself firmly. They’re fine. They came back not long after I was taken, found Nyx, and patched him up. Nyx will have told them what happened. They’ll be deep into planning a rescue by now.

  I repeated those silent words many times through the course of the long, dark night. Since the alternative was to give up hope before I’d so much as seen my captor’s face, I had no choice but to believe them.

  I just had to stay strong.

  Morning found me shaky and exhausted from lack of sleep. Too bad being unconscious across the back of a horse apparently didn’t do much for a person when it came to resting up. The cell had grown chilly overnight, though the relentless Utrean sun would soon warm the stone walls now that it was up. I tried to stretch creaking joints and ease my cramped muscles. The shackles were beginning to chafe at my wrists, where the skin was already scraped raw from the rope the scouts had used to bind my hands during the journey.

  I was filthy; my stench had grown bad enough that it even offended me. My head itched abominably, my scalp still encrusted with blood in a couple of places from where chunks of my hair had nearly been torn out.

  Gods, this sucked. I desperately wanted to wake up in the cave with my men and discover it had all been a dream.

  No such luck, unsurprisingly. Not long after the first rays of light penetrated the window of my cell, a man appeared beyond the barred viewing port in the cell door. It clanked open and he entered, looking down at me with a critical eye. He was somewhat better dressed than the guards who’d originally dumped me in here. I glared at him as he crouched and took my chin in his hand, turning my head this way and that.

  There was no point in trying to hurt him, even if my traitorous temper kept trying to insist that I might be able to get a good kick in while he wasn’t expecting it. How would it help me, though? All it would gain me was a beating, most likely.

  “You’ll do, I suppose,” he muttered. “At least enough for light interrogation today.”

  “Sorry, I don’t speak Utrean,” I lied, uttering the words in Eburosi.

  Because, hey, why the fuck not? Yeah, sure—Oblisii knew I spoke Utrean. So did the scouts who’d brought me in. But if it stalled things for a bit while they tried to figure out if I could talk to them, that would be all the better for me. Better-Dressed Guy ignored me, calling for a guard to bring more bread and water.

  “Can’t have her fainting at the first lash or slice of a blade,” he said with a chuckle, and the guard snorted in amusement.

  I held myself rigid to keep from shuddering, since that would give the game away about my knowledge of the Utrean tongue in no time flat.

  Dungeon humor.

  Wonderful.

  With the way my stomach felt, it was even odds whether the bread was going to come right back up or not. Once the pair left, barring the cell door behind them, I drank the water in slow sips. Hunger left over from the last few days eventually overcame my queasiness, so I soaked the bread in the dregs of the stale liquid and ate it.

  My thoughts kept circling back to Nyx, and I kept dragging them away again. Nyx was fine. Lisha had been with him. She would have protected him, and the others could hardly have missed him lying across the trail when they arrived back at the valley. There was nothing to worry about.

  Well, all right… there were plenty of things to worry about, but that wasn’t one of them. Carivel and Senovo had survived their ordeal of capture and interrogation. I would survive mine, too. The others would come for me.

  Time seemed to pass really slowly inside the cell—enough so that it was almost a relief when I heard boots approaching. Well… maybe ‘relief’ wasn’t exactly the right word, but at least now I’d have something to focus on other than my own endlessly circling thoughts.

  The door opened, and I blinked in surprised recognition at two of the figures framed in the entry. Oblisii himself stood there, eyeing me like I was some kind of poisonous insect he intended to crush beneath his boot. Even more surprisingly, a familiar woman stood at his side. It was what’s-her-bitch from the harem, of all people. Lesimba. The woman with the twiggy arms, the bad attitude, and the stick shoved up her ass. A pair of guards flanked the royal couple.

  “Is it the right woman, my prince?” asked the guard on the left.

  Oblisii continued to run his creepy gaze over my body. “So it would appear. And she was found near the valley that the bandit described, you say? With
a confirmed dragon sighting?”

  Welp. Clearly my ‘I don’t speak Utrean’ ruse was going to be a non-starter. Time for the backup plan, then.

  “A dragon?” I said, feigning confusion. “What in the gods’ names are you talking about? I thought all the dragons were killed off years ago.”

  Deresta’s tits. I wished Oblisii’s mere presence didn’t make me feel so damned creepy-crawly. Again, I wondered how on earth this man and Rayth could possibly be related. Rayth just made me want to punch him in the nose most of the time. Oblisii made me want to shudder right out of my own skin if that was what it took to get away from him.

  “My prince,” Lesimba simpered. “I beg you, allow me the honor of making this little whore talk. I will extract whatever information she possesses, as a way to prove my undying loyalty to your greatness.”

  With difficulty, I prevented myself from making disgusted gagging noises in response to the woman’s sickening display of ass-kissing. Great. So the prince’s first wife was also a not-so-secret sadist who enjoyed torturing prisoners. I admittedly hadn’t seen that one coming… though given her behavior when I’d briefly been held prisoner in Oblisii’s harem, maybe I should have.

  Oblisii stopped undressing me with his eyes long enough to rake a dark gaze over his wife. “Very well, my flower. You may have the morning to play with her if you so desire. Do be sure to leave enough for the professionals to work over later, though.”

  Charming.

  Not to mention, stupid. Prince Creepy Eyes had as much as told me to my face that nothing done to me this morning would be permanently debilitating. Which… somehow didn’t stop a chill from traveling up my spine at the look of hatred Lesimba speared me with.

  “Of course, my prince,” she said meekly, her tone at odds with her calculating expression. “I am ever yours to command.”

  This time, I couldn’t stop the gagging noise from escaping.

  Oblisii waved a careless hand toward the guard who’d spoken earlier. “Stay and assist my wife with her amusement. Take note of any information the prisoner reveals and report directly to me before the sun reaches the ramparts this afternoon. Then arrange for the head interrogator to extract any remaining useful information a few hours later, after the sun goes down.”