Dragon's Fire

by Gwynn White

  Never again would she take the air she breathed for granted.

  These thoughts kept her sorrow and rage at Heron’s needless death at bay.

  Head thrown back, Axel stood naked next to her. Sobs wracked his body. Heron had been more than just a friend to him. He had been a brother, a confidant, a partner Axel could utterly rely on in the alliance.

  Lynx wrapped her arms around him. Slowly, his arms folded around her.

  How long they stood there, holding each other and crying, she did not know.

  Finally, Axel pulled away. “I have to tell Magridal.”

  Lynx groaned in pain for Heron’s love.

  Axel slid open the door and poked his head out. Someone shoved an armful of towels at him. He gave one to Lynx and wrapped the other around his waist. They stepped out of the doors together.

  Magridal waited with arms crossed. She stared at them, eyes turning bright, lips quivering. “He’s not coming back, is he?”

  Axel shook his head and reached for her, but Magridal turned and fled.

  Axel crumpled.

  Lynx wiped away her tears, but they kept coming. She laid her hand on his shoulder. “This is Liatl’s doing.”

  “No. It’s mine. I should have given us more time for the meeting. Then we would have been underground before Lukan struck.”

  “You couldn’t know when he’d send his drone.”

  Axel straightened up. “No. Not without allies. Stefan was clearly blindsided today. I’m not letting that happen to the rest of alliance or to Nicholas.” He stopped to pick up their wet clothes and then grabbed her hand. “Time to get dressed. We have some monarchs to convince to join this war with us.”

  Fire burned in her throat. Heron had just died, and he was worried about convincing monarchs?

  She was about to grab him, scream the very thing at him, but the fire quelled. Heron had just died for the alliance.

  Lynx’s stomach plummeted. That meant placating these monarchs, no matter what it took, to finally rescue Nicholas, defeat Lukan, and destroy the Chenayan empire. No matter how hurt, how wrecked she was over Heron, his dying wish had to come first. She owed that much to him, as a fellow Norin, raider, and friend.

  And not in her wildest imaginings could she envisage a warm welcome when the monarchs greeted her and Axel.

  And as for Xipal? How would he react to his father’s death?

  Chapter 59

  Numb with grief, Lynx followed Simtal into the throne room with Axel.

  Silence greeted them. She found her father’s face among the crowd first; relief relaxed his features, but his expression tightened once more.

  “Heron? Liatl?” her father asked.

  “Dead. Both of them,” Axel replied with a roughness grating his voice.

  “May the stars forgive me.” Jerawin staggered back and tumbled into his throne. “Such sacrilege on a night that should bring such joy.”

  Chad offered a steadying hand.

  Lynx tore her eyes away from Jerawin to rove over the faces of the monarchs.

  Bleached anguish in every face except one.

  Xipal. His registered disbelief. Dark hair tumbled from his topknot and hung into his incredulous eyes. “My father?”

  “Died breathing out revenge,” Axel said harshly. “He took one of my best friends with him.”

  Lynx clenched her fist, digging her nails into Axel’s hand. He pulled her closer to him.

  “You took the Blades from him,” Xipal said, voice flat, emotionless.

  Something in the new desert king’s bearing troubled Lynx. Perhaps it was the blatant lack of sorrow for his dead father. Or maybe the speculative glint in his eye.

  “No. I merely offered better pay,” Axel replied. “They followed their pocket books.”

  Xipal turned away, running his fingers down the thin beard that framed his lips and chin. “I need time . . . to think.”

  Lynx understood that. She certainly could do with all these people gone, but they had called this meeting with a goal that still hadn’t been met.

  She took a chance and said, “And you, Xipal, are you also recruiting Blades?”

  Hi Lai, the wealthiest monarch with the most to lose if Xipal got ideas of conquest in his head, pushed through the crowd. She had lost a shoe. Her hair had also fallen out of its elaborate bun, and her clothes were disheveled. “Where would he get the funds?”

  Axel dug into his pocket and pulled out the gold nugget. He threw it in the air. The nugget caught the light, gleaming like only gold could. He caught it and tossed it to Hi Lai, but the movement lacked Axel’s usual energy. He had to be struggling to deal with diplomacy after what had just happened.

  Startled, Hi Lai almost let it drop before snatching at the air. She studied it briefly and looked up at Axel. “I heard rumors of this. Our alliance grows ever stronger.”

  “I thought you would say that.”

  The Zou queen held the nugget up to Xipal. “Answer the question. Are you recruiting Blades?”

  The dark-haired man looked down at his sandals before catching her eye. “Why are you accusing me? I’m not the devil here. For years, we have paid taxes to Avanov. For what? To be gassed at his conclave?”

  A rustle of agreement spread through the crowd.

  Lynx threw her hand up in protest. “You dare call Axel a devil! It was Lukan who sent his gas to Oldfort.”

  Axel shifted next to her. If he wanted to handle this, he would be disappointed; she had too much to say to be silent.

  “This attack was just a trial run,” she said. “The next time it could be Tarach or Lotus or Esonville. That lunatic Lukan has a thousand airships loaded with gas that he plans to unleash on the world.”

  All around Lynx, shoulders sagged. Her listeners seemed to believe her.

  Energy sparked through her, counteracting her exhaustion, grief, and painful blisters. “When he’s finished, only a handful of his chosen allies will survive. Is your name on that list? Who will protect you and your people then? The alliance? Why should we, when you have begrudged us every mycek Axel used over the years to defend you from Lukan? You know very well that if Lukan had gotten the ice crystal he wanted, he would have increased his army of guardsmen a thousandfold. They would have swarmed your lands like ants, and you would have been powerless to stop them.”

  Someone coughed.

  Adrenaline surged through Lynx. Gas? Was it possible?

  Every head, including hers, spun to find the cougher and to identify the cause.

  Beric held up a hand in apology. “I breathe. I live.”

  Axel pulled away from Lynx and strode up the stairs to Jerawin’s throne. He spoke firmly but calmly. “This burrow is safe. You have nothing to fear from the Dragon’s Fire. The winds blow from the southeast tonight. By morning, the gas will be gone.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Lynx turned to identify the speaker. Faisal, one of Beric’s allies.

  “I know that for a fact because Lukan will be gracing with us with his presence in the morning. I hardly think he’s going to come wearing a gas mask.” His usual derisive smile was absent.

  A roar of protest burst out. Some shouted that they wanted to slaughter Lukan, while others seemed frightened by the news.

  Axel called for order. “Take Lukan on if you wish, but I think the thirty guardsmen he’s bringing with him might be somewhat of a deterrent.”

  People broke into small groups, muttering.

  Axel waited, probably giving them time to vent.

  Finally, Beric turned to the throne. “Warlord, none of this is a surprise to you. How did you know?”

  Axel stared him down. “Count Boris Vasily, governor of Zakar Province, has been feeding information to the alliance for years. Lynx is right about Lukan’s drones. He plans to destroy the world. The only one who can stop him is the Light-Bearer, but he needs us to deliver him to Lukan’s front door.” Axel finally smiled something like that derisive smile she loved so much. “I’m cu
rrently accepting volunteers for my invading army. All you need to do is apply.”

  Beric rounded on his lackeys. “I was right to tell you to pay the warlord’s tax.”

  No one disputed him. But even so, not all of them looked happy with events.

  Beric turned back to Axel. “What is the plan for tomorrow? We have kingdoms we must return to. We cannot be held up indefinitely in Oldfort, especially if we are to prepare soldiers for your army.”

  Lynx’s heart skipped. Beric was in. She tempered her enthusiasm with caution. Would his alliance follow him for something as radical as this?

  Showing no emotion at the victory, Axel replied. “Tonight is the spring solstice, an important date in the Lapisian calendar. With that in mind, we will hold our celebrations here in the burrow. I, for one, need to know that the gods have accepted the spirit of my friend.” He looked pointedly at Xipal. “Join me tonight to send off our loved ones.”

  Xipal stroked his beard as he assessed Axel’s peace offering. “I accept. May the gods be my witness that this is the start of many things between us.”

  Something in his softly spoken words made Lynx’s skin crawl. Even if this enigma did join the alliance and fought with them, she would be sure to have his back firmly in her rifle sights whenever Axel was around.

  Chapter 60

  Oldfort looked dead from the airship window.

  Meka growled at himself. Of course it was dead! All the humans hid underground. Only those hideous effigies waited for their arrival. Or that is what he’d kept telling himself since pushing that trigger. If it hadn’t been for an even more dangerous trigger in Lukan’s side, he would never have done it.

  Hearing about plans to gas a whole town was very different than actually seeing the lunatic plotting it right before his eyes. Also, surely Felix and Stefan would not have let him go through with it if they truly believed every monarch from the Free Nations in mortal danger? So he comforted himself.

  He had asked Tao what had happened in Oldfort, but his father knew nothing of what had transpired.

  He glanced at Lukan. The man was clearly insane, and Meka worried what would happen today if—when—he found Oldfort untouched by gas. Would he go crazy and hit that switch in his side?

  Meka still had to confront him if he was to rescue Nicholas.

  If no bodies littered the street, it was a chance he would have to take.

  He tried to focus on happier things. The tattoo on his ribs was one of them. It throbbed like a brand. It was only after the beautiful, flowing F had been inked in red ink—the color of Farith’s jasper-red hair—that he’d been told that rib tattoos were the most painful of all.

  She was worth it. He started to smile at the memory of her tiny body in his arms, but it morphed into a frown.

  What would she say if she learned that he had killed her father? Killed everyone in Oldfort? His own family included.

  He caught a flash of black in his peripheral vision.

  He looked out the window at a cloud of crows.

  Crows meant death.

  His heart almost stopped beating as he leaned over to better see out the window.

  “Don’t tell me you are that keen to see the dead bodies, Meka,” Lukan’s icy voice said. The bastard sat opposite him on a seat far from the window. “I will be worried about you if that is the case.”

  Meka forced his body back into his chair. “Of course not, sire.” Mind racing—why would crows be flocking to Oldfort unless he had murdered the town?—he stammered, “I—I worry that the birds will affect the thrusters.”

  “Our pilots have that in hand, dear prince,” Felix oozed. The count also occupied a window seat.

  But Meka couldn’t relax. His fingernail drifted to his mouth. Never a biter, he was barely aware of his teeth tugging on the nail. He had resigned himself to implicating Vasily in this ruse because the man was evil personified. But to kill innocents? Not just innocents, every monarch in the Free Nations could be dead. The impact of that was too catastrophic to contemplate.

  The direction of the roar coming from the thrusters changed; they were landing. He tore off a piece of fingernail.

  Felix nudged Meka’s foot with his soft leather shoe. When Meka looked up, the count shook his head. A warning to hide his emotions? It must be, because Felix placed his hands deliberately in his lap.

  Meka swallowed the shredded nail and followed suit.

  “Soon, all will be revealed,” Felix said blandly. “We will tether outside Jerawin’s temple. I believe it’s a short walk up the high street to the town square. That is where we should find Axel’s body.”

  “You watched him die?” Lukan drilled Felix with a hard look.

  “Like you, sire, I found I could not watch the traitor’s death.”

  Lukan nodded, as if he understood. He turned to Meka. “And you?”

  “Count Zarot and I left the office with Count Felix, sire.”

  Lukan looked at Stefan, almost for confirmation. He nodded. “We all followed your lead, sire. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  Lukan turned his face away. “No matter. The gas would have done its job.”

  For a man who wanted so many people dead, Lukan certainly sounded bleak.

  And why hadn’t Lukan checked up on his own informa to make sure his killing spree had been successful? That didn’t make sense to Meka. Unless . . . he studied his uncle’s face for signs of remorse. Composed as he always was, nothing in Lukan’s bearing suggested regret.

  “We will wait until all the other airships have tethered before we disembark,” Lukan commanded. “Stefan, you will go first to get the guardsmen in position.”

  Coward. He wants his fifty guardsmen on the ground before he braves what he thinks are a bunch of dead bodies in Oldfort.

  But even as he thought that about Lukan, Meka knew he wasn’t in a hurry to leave the airship, either. Not if he had also committed mass murder. What had Felix called it?

  Genocide.

  Finally, the hatch creaked open. Warm spring sunshine poured into the airship. It was cheering. It shouldn’t have been. Not today.

  After Stefan had left, Lukan gestured for him and Felix to take the ramp first.

  Despite using his cane, Felix stumbled. He grabbed Meka’s arm and whispered, “I trust you have been briefed?”

  Meka nodded, praying his family in the burrow watched him on Magridal’s hidden cameras.

  “Then we both know what we must do.”

  Meka and Felix disembarked into a circle of guardsmen.

  But they weren’t what interested him.

  Meka’s racing pulse slowed. No dead bodies strewed the street or the temple precinct that in the visuals they had watched the previous evening had heaved with people. Was it possible they had enough warning and had escaped? He allowed himself to hope that the crows had been an anomaly.

  Lukan joined them. He turned a full circle. Then his dark eyes alighted on Felix. “Where are the bodies?”

  Felix held up his hands, looking so astonished that, for a moment, even Meka was fooled. “How must I know, sire? I saw what you saw.”

  Circled by guardsmen, Lukan started walking, his long strides echoing up the empty street toward the square. Meka and Felix fell into step with him.

  And then Meka heard the cawing. He closed his eyes and rounded the corner into the square.

  Three dead bodies hung from wooden stakes. It was nothing like what he imagined he would find, yet they were dead, horrifically so, and he had killed every one of them.

  A dozen crows hopped and pecked on their bodies. They took off cawing, only to land again to resume their feeding. Even though this time the men’s faces were blistered beyond recognition and no sightless eyes stared up at him, it didn’t stop Meka heaving his guts out onto the cobbles. When nothing but bile was left in his stomach, he wiped his mouth on his hand.

  Regardless of his guilt and remorse over what he’d done to these unknown men, it was time to confront Lukan. He
turned slowly to find his uncle.

  Lukan stared at the four effigies. Only the scar throbbing crimson on his cheek registered any emotion.

  And then Lukan screamed. Arms flailing, he charged forward to kick over Axel’s effigy. Even as it tumbled, Axel’s smile continued to mock. “He cheated me! Again! Betrayed me.”

  Lukan fell down at Lynx’s effigy and cradled her face in one hand, while the other twirled the braid and feathers Lynx had donated to the build. Moaning like a child, he wrenched the braid off the scarecrow’s head and brought it to his mouth to kiss it. “This is Axel. All Axel. My Lynx would never have tormented me with this. She loves me. If she could, she would come back.”

  Felix brushed Lukan’s shoulder. “Have a care for the guardsmen, sire. They watch everything you do.”

  The words seemed to pull Lukan back from the brink. He staggered to his feet and bellowed at Felix. “Who betrayed me? You?”

  Meka’s blood rushed to his face as he stepped forward. “It was me.”

  Chapter 61

  Lynx gripped the arms of her chair with blistered fingers. The rest of the people in the throne room stood motionless, waiting Lukan’s reaction to Meka’s traitorous claim.

  Lukan looked first at Meka and then at Felix, as if he hadn’t quite grasped what Meka said.

  Meka licked his lips—and told Lukan exactly what he and Axel had devised. “Vasily had already told me about the Dragon’s Fire before you did. And . . . and about the alliance. He even gave me an informa so I could communicate with Axel.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his black device.

  Lukan gave no sign if he believed or disbelieved him.

  Meka soldiered on. “I told Axel that his murderous cousin planned to kill three thousand people.” He choked. “I—I just didn’t know they would leave people on the square, or . . . or I would never have hit that switch.”

  Meka had hit the switch?

  Lynx buried her face in her hands. What would Meka say when he learned he’d killed Heron and Liatl, too? Axel’s fingers tightened even harder around her shoulders. They dug into her welts, but she remained silent. Apart from the tears shed in the air-locked chamber, politics had forced Axel to appear strong despite his grief for Heron. She wasn’t going to stop the flow of his emotion now.