Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  Oh, he can rabble-rouse!

  It was time to cut this short, before Artemis turned the restive crowd into a riot. She brushed wild curls off her face—they had indeed broken free from their restraints.

  She envied them.

  “Enough!” she yelled. “As first-in-line to the Ryferian throne, I will have no more of this at my brother’s send-off.” She swung an arm toward the canal. “Look! My brother’s gondola has traveled at least two feet while we argue. Lord Artemis, once the sea has received King Lazard, I will join you and the Intelligentsia in the forum to address any issues you may have.” Jaw set, she sat down, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  Anyone who believes that hasn’t felt my heart thumping.

  Artemis sat, too. It wouldn’t serve him to appear callous to the crowds.

  But it also gives him time to plot.

  She resisted the urge to cringe away from him. The thought of standing before the Intelligentsia in the imposing forum also made her quake.

  No matter what happens, I cannot back down now.

  It was a long, painful wait in the burning sun until Lazard’s gondola finally vanished from view. Sore, aching, and heartbroken at the finality of her loss, she rose before Artemis could grab the stage. She raised her voice to the torpid crowd.

  “The king is gone. Next time we gather, before the solstice, will be for the wedding trials. After the winner is declared, the Guardians will come down and our kingdom will again take its place amongst the nations of the world.”

  Let the Intelligentsia chew on that while they make their way to the forum to roast me.

  She staggered off the stand before anyone could gainsay her.

  Chapter Nine

  Jorah hadn’t been back to the Ryferian capital in many years. At least in the life of a human, it was a long time, although twelve years seemed but an hour in his already long life. Still, the sight of the sun reflecting off a thousand windows locked behind those crippling Guardians was unsettling.

  Closer at hand, his keen eyes swept over the fifteen-foot-high iron wall, with its hideous revolving constructs crafted from iron and fire, which separated the capital and Ryferia from the rest of the world. He sought a particular Guardian, one that failed to rotate and dance on its spindle.

  This was where Niing had said he would be.

  Even with his keen eyes, the heavily wooded mountain slope hid its treasures well. He would have to get closer.

  He swept his leathery wings back, circled, and swooped in low for a second time. The wind rippled across the gold feathered plumes that ran the length of his steely black back like silk through pinched fingers.

  Movement caught his eye.

  Four creatures shuffled through the thick iron legs of a stationary giant. The Guardian’s gargantuan hammer, which should have swung relentlessly back and forth and crushed anyone who tried to slip by, was frozen at its midriff.

  Niing’s brought company.

  He trusted Niing implicitly—they had both been alive to see the destruction of magic in Ryferia by Nethric—but that didn’t stop him pulling back into the clouds to take a moment to assess the situation.

  Niing, the dwarf. A fae. A cat.

  He grunted. The cat he knew well from when he had lived in Ryferia. He liked Peckle. Few others did.

  A hundred and fifty years ago, he and Peckle had shared barbs as Ryferia fell. Jorah had begged Peckle to leave the blighted kingdom with the rest of the surviving Magical. Peckle had refused to leave Niing. It was miraculous that they’d both stayed hidden in plain sight for so long.

  Jorah’s ears flicked. A centaur.

  A pony? Why did Niing bring him?

  Jorah dropped from the clouds and landed silently in the trees some distance away from them, so he could shift back into his human form.

  The change was swift; he had long stopped feeling pain when his bones cracked, his onyx-and-gold armored scales retreated beneath his human skin, and his muscles morphed into his usual six-foot frame of lean power. Whether in dragon or human form, he was known as a force to be reckoned with.

  In a blur of magic, his clothes, neatly folded and hidden in a pouch under his scales while in dragon form, slipped back onto his body. He straightened his leather tunic and tossed his shoulder-length hair out of his face.

  With long strides, he broke through the trees and crossed to the clearing near the broken Guardian, where Niing and his crew waited. “You sent a carrier pigeon, Niing? Really?”

  The fae jumped. Her pulse spiked, the sound of her heart thudding out to him like a beating drum. Even in human form, he was as stealthy as a lion.

  “My idea. I thought you could use it for a snack,” Peckle replied. His lip curled back to reveal needle-sharp teeth.

  “After it had delivered its message, of course,” Niing added, twigs cracking beneath his feet.

  “It was delicious,” Jorah said dryly to Peckle.

  As if he would eat a bird when he himself was a flying creature. Lila had found that funny when he’d refused her offering of pheasant at the feast where they’d first met. He pushed her out of his mind and masked the pain her memory twisted on his features.

  The other two—the pony and the fae—stood mute, watching him with huge eyes.

  He dismissed them and addressed Niing. “Why am I here?”

  Niing gestured to them. “Manners first, Jorah. Allow me to present my two friends. Keahr, our lovely fae, and Zandor, the centaur.” He scowled. “Let there be no animosity between you and Zandor.”

  It wouldn’t have mattered if the pony had been Jorah’s brother. Dragons and centaurs famously didn’t get along. Jorah’s lips parted in a feral grin; perhaps that had something to do with mundane horses being a favored prey of many dragons.

  Before Jorah could say that depended on the pony, Niing added, “Keahr and Zandor, meet Lord Jorah Thalyn of Warrendyte. He represents all shape-shifters on the council.”

  The pony—what was his name? Zandor—looked at Jorah with new interest. A quick assessment. “A dragon?” he muttered. “You represent me?” Face incredulous, he turned to Niing. “This is the man you want our Aurora to marry?”

  Niing scowled.

  Jorah didn’t like the tactless comment any better. He took a quick step back. “Marry?”

  Even after a year, the loss of his love, Lila, still burned like a fiery plume in his chest, and the idea of even looking at another woman sent sparks of anger through his skull. And it wasn’t as if Niing didn’t know that. Jorah regularly communicated with him. In one of those missives, Jorah had told him that Trojean Krall, the succubus from Lorithian, had killed his mate. He rounded on Niing. “What’s he talking about?”

  Peckle sighed and then glared at the pony. “Thank you, Zandor.”

  “Sorry,” the pony muttered. “That just slipped out. But in my defense, his arrogance may have prompted it.”

  “Not helping, Zandor.” Niing stomped over to a fallen tree. “Let’s sit and try this all again.”

  Jorah—everyone followed. Peckle took the prime spot next to Niing and then commenced washing his face with his paw.

  Impatience bleeding, Jorah planted himself on the ground opposite Niing. “I’m waiting.”

  Niing said nothing as the fae sat on the other side of him on the log and the pony took a position next to her. He folded his little arms across his bulbous chest. “Princess Aurora has announced a marriage trial. For the sake of us all, I want you to attend and compete. If anyone wins her hand, it should be you.”

  Jorah’s mouth dropped. He snapped it closed, unable to believe that Niing, who had known and loved Lila, would suggest such a thing. Worse, Niing, more than anyone, knew that dragons mated for life. To take another woman—even for a political alliance—was unthinkable.

  Not wanting the onlookers to see his pain, Jorah moderated his tone. “And why would I want to do this?”

  “Aurora announced today that the Guardians are to be destroyed and the kingdom open
ed to the world. This is her gift to us on her wedding day. Finally, we have the chance to reunite the Magical. And to heal the Infirm.”

  Jorah narrowed his eyes to mere slits. “Maleficent’s fire, Niing! Even after all this time, you are still the idealist. Years of living with your magic thwarted has not helped.” He tossed a pebble at the giant behind them. It clanked hollowly against its iron leg. “You should have escaped with me when these foul constructs first appeared and suppressed your powers.”

  Niing’s tapped his pipe against his thumb. “Jorah, how has all that skepticism worked for you?”

  “I have been free for the last hundred and fifty years.” But even as Jorah spoke, he could not stop familiar frustration, anger, and impotence, which always beset him when he considered the friends he’d been forced to abandon in Ryferia, from coloring his face. The Guardians had warped their magic, turning it into something truly ugly.

  “Then perhaps it’s time you helped the rest of us to be free, too,” Niing said.

  Jorah was about to brush that comment aside when Niing continued, “Aurora has great opposition. She is even now addressing the Intelligentsia in the forum. She has the law on her side in her quest to find a husband—no one can argue with her about that. They will be forced to allow the suitors into the kingdom to fight for her hand. But as for the destruction of the Guardians—”

  Niing sighed. “She may be strong-willed, but she can’t do this on her own. Without a powerful force like you to back her up, they will kill her before they let that happen.” Steel drove the entreaty from his voice. “Our Princess Aurora is the type of woman who will die trying. It is not a risk we can take.”

  A hundred and fifty years before, Niing made just such an impassioned plea when he begged Jorah and the surviving Magical to stay in Ryferia to negotiate a peace with Nethric. It hadn’t worked for Niing then, just as this wouldn’t work now.

  “Your Princess Aurora is a fool. No matter who is at her side, the Intelligentsia will never permit the removal of the Guardians. And as for Artemis . . . if what you have told me about him is true, though he has no magic, he is the devil incarnate. Your princess cannot hope to fight him.” He waved at the fae and the pony. “And neither can you—at least, not in your human forms. And without Niing’s magic to command the rocks and the ground we stand on, he is useless, too. That is the curse—the trap—of the Guardians. While the Intelligentsia have control, no magic will ever walk freely on the streets of Ryferia again.”

  “You are so wrong.” The fae leaped to her feet, and the wind picked up in response. Dried leaves and pine needles swirled around her. “You don’t know Aurora. You don’t know what she can do when she sets her mind to it.”

  Jorah looked her over. An air fae. A powerful one, too, when she wasn’t crippled by the Guardians. His Lila had been fae. She had controlled fire, just like this woman ruled the winds and sky. He afforded her a little more respect.

  That didn’t stop him stilling the air she had stirred with a single thought. Unlike mere fae, dragons governed all the elements. It was why so many fae and the faeries feared him.

  She looked around, confused, clearly uncertain why the wind ceased to obey her.

  “Yes, Keahr,” Jorah said. “But I know men. And men are self-serving. It does not serve the men on the Intelligentsia to remove the very things that keep them in power.”

  “Do you think Aurora doesn’t know that? She’s Infirm, but she—”

  “She’s Infirm?” Jorah interrupted. He looked to Niing for an answer. “What magic has she? And why haven’t you mentioned this before? The council in Warrendyte would want to know.”

  Niing tapped his pipe again. Thankfully he didn’t waste time stuffing and lighting it. “We have not brought her beyond the Guardians, but I suspect her magic lies with plants. She is unparalleled in her potions—although she could not save Lazard. And, thanks to the smoke from my pipe, I know the plants in her extensive gardens respond to her presence. The flowers seem to turn their heads as she walks by.”

  Probably a dryad. Jorah’s eyebrows twitched, betraying his wonder at her gift.

  A dryad who could command the mightiest trees or the rankest weeds to fight for her was a force to be reckoned with. Even a dragon had to acknowledge that.

  It didn’t matter. While in Ryferia, Princess Aurora would never have access to her magic.

  The pony nudged Niing with his hoof. “So that pipe? It does restore magic?”

  Jorah waved him to silence. “Why haven’t you brought Princess Aurora here?”

  “She is not ready for it.”

  “Not ready? That is your excuse?”

  “Yes. It is,” Niing huffed defiantly. “My princess has come a long way in a short time, but she is nowhere near ready to learn who and what we are.”

  Jorah threw up his hands. “And this is the woman you want me to risk my life fighting for? One who can’t even face her own magic?”

  The ground vibrated as the pony stomped his hoof down hard. “Show some respect, dragon. You know nothing about Aurora. Another reason we haven’t told her is that when she gets angry, she speaks before she thinks. She could betray us by accident.”

  They would think him happy with an impetuous woman who couldn’t even keep her own confidence? Jorah only just managed to resist shooting flame. “Consider your words, pony, or I may decide to make a snack of you.”

  In a flash, the centaur’s human hands pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back and nocked it. Jorah listened to the pony’s heart for tell-tale patters of fear. It beat a slow and steady rhythm as a fiery brown eye sighted Jorah down the arrow’s length.

  “Watch your tongue. You’re not in Warrendyte now, dragon.”

  As irritated as Jorah was with the impertinence, he admired the centaur’s courage. Instinctively, the centaur would know that a dragon could change form before that arrow struck. And one kick of Jorah’s clawed foot would send him reeling.

  Niing’s pipe rattled against the tree stump. “Enough, both of you.” A short hesitation, and the centaur lowered his bow and arrow.

  Niing continued, “Jorah, you are on the Warrendyte council. That means you have a duty to the Magical—wherever they may be. You know that. I know that. Since we lost the war, we have waited for someone in the Ryferian royal line who shared our Magical talents. Now we have her. She will be a worthy bride for you. Join the trial and help Aurora free us all.”

  Jorah wanted to roar that he didn’t need a bride. He’d had a woman—one he’d promised his life to. Just because Lila had been murdered by that parasite Trojean didn’t mean he was free of that promise.

  What’s more, the Magical in Ryferia had brought this fate upon themselves. He, and everyone else who served on the council, had pleaded with them to flee when the war turned against them, but they had refused. Niing, in particular, had argued that their former slaves would be brought to see reason and that the Guardians would not last.

  How wrong could a man be?

  Now Niing expected Jorah to rescue them all by betraying his mate?

  Jorah stood, looming over Niing. “I’m sorry, but you and all those in Ryferia we begged to leave, deserve your fate. I will not betray Lila for this.”

  “Excuse me?” the fae shot back.

  The wind whipped Jorah’s hair around his face. It stung his eyes and cheeks.

  “No one pleaded with me to leave Ryferia. Or Zandor,” she said. “We were born after the war. Must we be abandoned because our parents made a bad choice? Must the rest of the Infirm in the kingdom be abandoned to poverty because of a choice made so many generations ago?”

  He quelled her draft to bring her back in line. This time her eyes widened with recognition. “You can control my wind?”

  “He’s a dragon,” Niing said. “The oldest magic there is. Only Maleficent predates them. Jorah is the last of that great line, that we know of, at least. It makes him the most suitable Magical for destroying the Guardians. Of all the noble Magical
lines, it is my belief that only a dragon will restore the balance we need.”

  The fae threw up her hands. “Yet he refuses to help. How mighty is that, dragon?”

  The fae had fire.

  It hurt him to see it, not only because it reminded him of Lila, but as much as he hated to admit it, she was right.

  But how could he fight for right in a way that was so impossibly wrong? How could he commit himself to something that forced him to break his promise of fidelity to Lila? It would destroy Lila’s memory forever.

  It was time to leave.

  He looked up at Keahr through thick lashes flecked with dust from her windstorm. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.” He stalked to the forest to change forms.

  “At least think about it,” she yelled after him.

  The centaur pawed at the ground. “Give it up, Keahr. He doesn’t care about us. As long as he and the other Magical are safe in Warrendyte, what do thousands of Infirm in Ryferia matter?”

  Jorah forced himself to walk on despite the slight to his honor.

  “Perhaps he’s scared to fight the other princes and lords in his human form.” The pony. Again. “His dragon magic won’t work in Ryferia either.”

  A pony calling him a coward? That hit a nerve.

  Jorah stopped, staring ahead at nothing. “I will consider it.”

  But even as he said it, Lila’s blue eyes flared in his mind.

  Chapter Ten

  Aurora stood in the center aisle in the forum between the stone benches, dwarfed by the Guardians that rose majestically on columns in each corner of the stone structure.

  In the vast, rectangular forum, every seat, decked with a blue velvet cushion and trimmed with silver braid, was filled. Not even the waning sunbeams, streaking through the glass-domed roof, could find a crack in the tightly pressed shoulders of all the men—the Intelligentsia—who had come to challenge her. To keep everyone in view, like the Guardians rotating on their spindles, she had to keep turning. It made her dizzy.

  Artemis paced like a fox between the benches. Just as he had done for the last hour. Even though he had offered no fresh objections to her declaration to open the Guardians to allow her suitors into the kingdom, like cowering chickens, the Intelligentsia hung onto his every word.