by Silver Milan
Inside the elevator, he stared at the floor indicator, listening to the soft ding it made with each level that passed by. It sounded like a clock ticking down to his doom.
Then the doors opened and he was walking through the ornate hall on the top level, and a moment later he was standing before the desk of the president herself. Binds of Air instantly wrapped around him, trapping him in his shackles so that he couldn’t move at all. Only his head was left unbound, so that he could talk and look about.
Savanna Kettleburn studied him with an amused expression on her face.
Jett glared at her in defiance; his eyes instinctively fell to the silver band at her neck. Even dragon witches had to be collared. Especially witches. Uncollared, they were too much of a threat to Wayfarer elites, as dragon witches were some of the most powerful in the world, especially in their native form, because they could Siphon an amount of the Strength commensurate with the size of their own bones, which of course were much larger in the dragon state. He wondered if Savanna ever resented her Wayfarer masters.
He noticed an odd smell then, and was about to comment when the president spoke.
“Well well well,” Savanna said. “Look who has chosen to grace us with his presence. The former Dragon King of Midnight himself.”
“What have you done with Ariel?” Jett said.
Savanna’s eyes twinkled. “She will be dealt with in due time.”
Was that doubt he sensed in the president? Did he dare to hope?
“You don’t have her, do you?” Jett said.
“Of course we do,” the president said, a bit too curtly. “She rots in the dungeons at this very moment.”
Jett was very good at reading people. That was one of the side effects of dealing with intrigue as a king for two hundred years. By the way Savanna had so quickly dismissed his question, he knew he was right. Ariel was safe, at least for the time being.
His knees almost buckled.
My lioness.
All he cared about was that she was all right. They could do whatever they wanted to him, as long as they left her alone.
“What do you want with me?” Jett said. “Or did you bring me up here only to gloat?”
“Mostly to gloat,” Savanna said. “Though I have decided you deserve to learn your fate directly from me. Your former stature grants you that much. But first I want to know, what did you learn during your spying here? Surely you don’t think I’m so daft as to believe you were here simply to see lion shifter?”
“Actually, yes I do,” Jett said. “Because that’s the truth. I wasn’t here to spy. I don’t care about your tower, or the politics of the Council of Seven anymore. I was here only for her.”
“Oh really?” Savanna said. “Then what about your other spies. Tell me what they’ve learned about our facility then?” When he didn’t answer, she repeated: “Tell me.”
He felt bands of compulsion attempt to penetrate his mind. He was immune, of course.
“I’m not king of Midnight anymore, woman…” Jett said.
“Then I want you to name all the spies you know of that Midnight has in our midst,” Savanna tried again.
Jett glared at her. “Your compulsion won’t work on me.”
Savanna seemed unperturbed. “It was worth a try. There’s always torture…”
“That won’t work, either,” Jett said.
“The Strength can pierce your dragon-hardened skin,” Savanna said.
“I know that,” Jett said. “But I meant, I won’t break. You might as well give me to your queen and be done with it.”
Savanna raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m giving you to Queen Yvonne? As a gift?”
“That would be the most politically expedient choice,” Jett said.
Savanna smiled cruelly. “Like you, I don’t have many political aspirations. No, I intend to follow the law to the letter in this case. Unless newly awakened, and thus unaware of our laws, any dragon caught wandering our domain without a collar is to be executed.”
“Your Queen will never allow it,” Jett said calmly. “She knows my brother would avenge my death.”
“That may be true,” Savanna said. “But she won’t find out until after the fact.”
Jett stared at her in alarm. “You would start a war with Midnight?”
“If that’s what it takes to preserve the rule of law,” Savanna said. “You will be an example to all dragons. We can’t allow any of you to wander our domain unfettered. And I mean any. No one is above the law.” She sat straighter. “I hereby sentence you, Jeddah Flavius Vespasianus III, to public execution by Strength Guillotine at dawn tomorrow morning.”
The day passed extremely slowly. Jett’s binds were composed of an extremely hard material—they had to be to hold a dragon—and he noticed early on that when he pressed the edges into the stone, he could scuff the surface. With that discovery, Jett soon found himself passing the time by scratching markings into the stone with his shackles.
Most of the marks were variations on Ariel’s name. Ari. Ariel. Lioness. Warrior. Witch. In some of them he gave the “A” at the front a stylistic flourish, applying decorative curls to both sides and dotting the “i” with an endearing heart symbol. In others he merely printed the words as neatly as he could, given his primitive tools.
There was something calming about seeing her name and the other words he associated with her, something that made him forget about the ignominious and very public end that was coming. He hoped Ariel wouldn’t see his death, but he had no doubt that Savanna would be recording it. And it would be war, whether the president believed him or not. Somehow Jett doubted Savanna would remain at the head of the Steel Tower for very long, as the queen of the Wayfarers, Yvonne, would definitely not be pleased. Unless of course Savanna was plotting to break away from the other Wayfarers and form her own faction. That was the only explanation that really made much sense: Savanna resented her masters and wanted to remove her collar to unleash her true power on the world. If that was true, the Wayfarers would be at war not only with the dragons of Midnight, but themselves.
Jett could only hope that Ariel was far away from here. Very far away. Because the Steel Tower would become ground zero for both wars.
He had left Flame behind outside the tower. The White Sword would have realized something was wrong hours ago. Jett harbored a faint hope that Flame would return to the pride and rally them in a rescue attempt, but in all honesty, what could the White Swords and the lions hope to do against a whole school of trained witches? Even if Flame and Brazen broke free of their collars to unleash their dragons, they would still be no match. And the lions, while they would fight bravely, were essentially useless: they’d be incapacitated in the first few minutes of the fight. If not killed.
In fact, their chances were so bad that soon Jett found himself hoping the pride would do nothing. He didn’t need them to throw away their lives for nothing. He preferred that they live to fight another day. Live, and protect Ariel.
He just wished he could somehow get a message out. They had confiscated his sat-phone and everything else of value on his person of course, though they had allowed him to keep his fashionable dress shirt, jeans, and boots.
He chuckled ironically at that.
At least I get to die in style.
He couldn’t tell what time of day it was. The harsh LED lights shone remorselessly from the ceiling of his prison and the hallway outside. The witches cruelly let him starve, and the hunger ate at him, worsening by the hour, until eventually he found himself slobbering at the guards maintaining the Weaves of Air outside; he imagined changing into his dragon and devouring them whole in two rapid bites. He hadn’t eaten a human in so long. It had been what, over four hundred years ago? Before his first Sleep? It was about time he dined on human flesh again…
Jett shook his head. He gazed at the scratchings he had made on the floor and walls.
Ariel.
I must stay focused. Think of her. Forget my hunger.
>
He grew wearier as the day dragged on, a combination of the lethargy induced by his starvation and how poorly he had slept the night before. Eventually he was barely able to keep his eyes open. He figured it must be nighttime by then, but he didn’t want to sleep. He was going to die tomorrow at dawn, and he wanted to drag out every last living moment he had left on this earth.
He filled those moments with thoughts of Ariel. Her touch. Her beauty. Their talks. Her innocence. How alive she made him feel.
Ariel. My lioness.
His only regret was that he couldn’t see her at least one last time.
He crawled to the entrance.
“Guards!” Jett said.
The two in his line of sight ignored him.
“Guards,” he pleaded.
Finally another witch appeared from down the hall.
“What?” the witch said.
“Get my phone,” Jett said.
“I can’t,” the witch told him.
“Please,” Jett said. “I’m not asking you to give it to me. I just want you to open up the photos. Let me see the woman I love one last time. I’m going to die tomorrow. Can’t you grant me this last wish?”
“I can’t,” the witch repeated and stepped from view.
Jett collapsed on the stone and wept.
He wasn’t sure how long he remained prostrate like that, but eventually he forced himself onto one side and began marking Ariel’s name again. At least, he was trying to mark her name. But his scratchings were basically illegible.
He paused, breathing hard.
I’m too weak even to write her name.
He heard the subtle sound of paper brushing against stone. Glancing up, he realized someone had shoved a black and white photo underneath the Weaves of Air and into the cell.
Curious, Jett crawled to it. When he picked it up, he saw that it was photo from his phone. Ariel, standing behind their cabin in the Blue Hurricane camp. Dressed in a T shirt and flexing her bicep. Laughing.
Jett smiled, his eyes wet. He slowly traced her face with one finger and then he hugged the photo to his chest.
My love.
The weariness at last took over and he couldn’t help himself: though he dearly wanted to stay awake, he closed his eyes and surrendered, falling into the sweet oblivion of sleep.
He had a smile on his face.
25
Jett was rudely awakened by a whip of Air striking him in the back.
He still had Ariel’s photo in his hands; he quickly tucked it into his shirt, positioning it above his heart. A suiting place for her to be when he died.
“Is it time?” Jett asked groggily. He forced himself upright. If he thought he felt stiff yesterday, today he was a wreck. His body seemed sore all over.
“Yup,” the familiar voice of the runt said. The little man was standing just outside the cell.
The witch guards, led by the runt, escorted Jett into the hallway and then the elevator. Today it went down.
“I’m looking forward to watching a dragon die,” the runt said during the descent.
“You won’t see much,” Jett said. “If it’s a Strength guillotine, then I’ll essentially be placed inside a box.”
“We’ll still see you,” the runt said. “President Kettleburn has attached cameras inside that box. Everything is going to be broadcast live. Not just to us, but the entire shifter Darknet.”
Great.
The elevator opened and Jett was led into the grand entrance hall. He gazed at the mural painted into the ceiling above, the same one Ariel had told him about: it depicted a lone witch facing off against a dragon at the fore of a vampire army.
We’ve been at war more often than peace throughout the centuries. The Wayfarers have never really liked us. Maybe dragons and witches were never meant to get along.
He reminded himself that the president of the Tower herself was a dragon shifter, and that she was the witch who had ordered his execution. Maybe she hated her own kind?
He was led through the main doors of the Tower to a part of the inner grounds he had never visited before. It was a large field hemmed in by foliage to the west, a series of outbuildings to the east, the wall that enclosed the grounds to the north, and the Steel Tower itself to the south.
And it was packed with witches and soldiers. The runt wasn’t the only one who wanted to see a dragon die, apparently. Many of them openly held smartphones in their hands, embedded cameras pointed his way, recording his walk of doom for their own personal libraries. Maybe they’d entertain family and friends later. “I was there for the execution of the dragon king,” they’d say.
There were very few apprentices among the bystanders, Jett noticed. They were probably all in Belgrade for their liberty. That meant a lot of Wayfarers would be away from the Tower as well, acting as deterrents to any Orions hoping to strike at young witches while they were vulnerable in the city. Those Wayfarers would probably be tuning in on the Darknet.
Still, it meant the tower wasn’t as full of witches as he had originally thought, and therefore not as well defended. Not that it helped him. There were still too many for Blue Hurricane and his three White Swords to overcome.
Even so he scanned the walkways and parapets lining the wall. He felt conflicted: the emotional part of him hoped to see members of the pride moving stealthily among them, preparing to pounce, while the logical part of him wanted no such thing. The logical part got its wish, because he observed only rifle-totting sentries on those walkways, most openly scowling at him.
He couldn’t help feeling disappointed at his abandonment, but quickly dismissed the emotion, hardening his resolve.
They did the right thing.
The runt continued to lead the way; the small witch paused to accept a black hood from a red-liveried servant and pulled it over his head. The little man was to be the executioner, apparently. The hood looked a little incongruous with the blazer and jeans the witch wore, and Jett might have laughed at the sight if he wasn’t on his way to the headman’s block.
Laughter. He remembered a time when he rarely even smiled. Ariel had changed all that.
He lifted his shackled hands and instinctively rubbed at his heart; he could feel the picture he had hidden in his shirt rubbing against his chest. He enjoyed the sensation: it felt like Ariel was with him. He definitely needed her to get through this.
Jett was brought to a stage and took the steps to the raised platform it contained. A large projector screen at the far side of the platform displayed video of him approaching. He hadn’t seen the cameraman.
At the center of the stage, behind Savanna, awaited an ornate chest big enough to fit a crouching man.
He was looking at his demise.
The entire chest was carved out of dragon bone. Jett had read about these things. When the lid was sealed, the executioner would touch the surface, and because of the sheer size of the bone structure, would be able to draw a huge amount of the Strength, far more than possible with a smaller piece of bone, bringing his Siphoning abilities to the level of a dragon witch. With so much power flowing through his veins, the executioner could easily create a Weave powerful enough to sever the head from a dragon shifter’s body.
The Strength provided by the bone chest was complete overkill, because Jett could be slain with far less given the collar that constrained him, but it did ensure that the beheading happened in one smooth, supposedly painless blow.
Wayfarers throughout the world used similar chests in their executions, and the deaths weren’t restricted solely to beheadings. They could just as easily incinerate anyone trapped inside, reducing the victim to a mere shadow permanently burned into the bottom of the chest.
Witches scheduled for execution by Strength Guillotine were drugged so that they couldn’t Siphon the Strength when placed in the chest. Since he wasn’t a witch, Jett had the unfortunate luxury of attending his own execution completely sober.
The runt led Jett past Savanna. Once more he noticed that
strange scent as he passed her, the odd odor he had detected in her office at the top of the Steel Tower. Could it be...?
“Put him in the chest,” Savanna said coldly.
The witches escorting Jett threw gusts of Air at him, shoving him toward the death device.
He saw the shapes meticulously cut into the bone surface of the chest as he neared. The carvings were of Wayfarers in various poses of victory: a witch beheading a dragon with a sword; a witch impaling a vampire with a stake; a witch, arms wide, tearing apart a bear with the Strength. It was a veritable celebration of execution, and reminded him of what was to come.
Jett noticed the camera dome embedded in the trunk’s lid. He smiled wanly. They’d be switching over the stage projector feed to this camera as soon as the lid shut so that no one would miss his death. He felt like smashing that camera, but had no doubt it was shielded by Weaves of Air.
He stepped inside the chest. The lower half was stained black, a testament to where the bodies of previous victims had been burned away by Strength incineration. That fate was almost preferable to the ignominy of beheading.
He knelt on the hard surface and leaned forward so that the lid could be closed. He slid the photo of Ariel out of his shirt and placed it on the blackened bone beneath him so that her face would be the last thing he saw before he died. Hopefully there would be enough light in the chest to see her until the end. There should be, otherwise the lid camera would be useless after all.
“Close the lid,” Savanna said.
He felt a sudden panic. He wasn’t ready to die, not yet.
“Wait,” Jett said, lifting his upper body.
The president eyed him questioningly.
“I’m allowed last words, if I recall,” Jett said.
Savanna nodded curtly. “Make them quick.”
Jett ran his gaze across the witches who stood guarding the stage beside him, and the hooded runt who waited to execute him. His eyes drifted over to the crowd below, to the witch professors who recorded him with their smartphones, and then to the wall above, where the walkways teemed with soldiers.