Evanescent (Chronicles of Nerissette)

by Buchanan, Andria

Long vines had burst out of the ground, snaked across the grass, and covered the field, twined over anything and everything that lay in their paths. The field was now covered in dark-green leaves. It was like the vines had swallowed the field whole, eating it, destroying it. Like, if the vines were left alone, they would swallow the entire world.

  Maybe it would be better if we let the vines take everything. For us to let the world itself destroy us all and save ourselves from the pain of watching the Fate Maker do it anyway. That way it would at least be our own choice.

  “Mercedes,” I said quietly. “We should just burn it. Everything. We should destroy it all. That way the Fate Maker won’t be able to take it from us.”

  “We’re not going to let him take it. Not on my life. Or yours for that matter,” she muttered as we reached the soot-blackened trunk of the Silver Leaf Tree. There at the bottom, barely visible under the soot, was a rune carved into its bark.

  Mercedes kept her hand in mine and reached down to brush her fingers against the carving. “Come on. Let’s finish this. Then we can come back and give them the memorial they deserve.”

  “You’re right.” I pushed away from her slightly, standing on my own. “No one will ever forget what they gave up for the rest of us.”

  “No.” Mercedes shook her head. “We’ll make sure that no one ever forgets how brave they were. I promise. You and me, together, we’ll make sure that they’re remembered. Forever.”

  “Right.” I nodded.

  Rhys took Mercedes’s free hand, and I clung to her fingers in mine. Then I bent down and touched the rune.

  “Take me to Dramera. Take me to Dramera so I can find my army and end this once and for all.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Your Majesty!” Kitsuna yelled, and I sat up, turning toward the sound of her voice through the forest.

  “I’m here.” I pushed myself up and saw that Mercedes and Rhys were getting to their feet as well. “We’re all here.”

  “Go.” Mercedes pushed me forward.

  I ran in the direction of Kit’s voice, still calling for me, and put my hand up to knock branches and leaves out of my way. I didn’t take too much of a beating before we found each other.

  “Oh, thank the Pleiades,” Kitsuna said as we broke from the edge of the forest and reached the field behind the red dragon clan’s lodge house. “You’re not hurt. Thank goodness none of you are hurt.”

  “Forget about us.” I hurried over to her and took her face in my hands, grimacing at the sight of the deep gash on the side of her face and the dried blood around her nose. “What happened to you? And Winston. Where is he? Is he safe?”

  “He’s fine. We’re fine,” Kitsuna reassured me, and then her face crumpled as tears started to flow. “I just set fire to my clan’s lodge house, burned half my village, battled a wizard who was intent on killing me, and almost lost the queen I’d sworn my life to protect. It’s—”

  “It’s okay.” I tried my best to sound like my mother always had when I’d come to her with my problems. “Everything is okay. As long as everyone is safe then we’re all okay.”

  Instead of helping that only made Kitsuna cry harder, and I hugged her. I closed my eyes, remembering that for right now we were safe and that had to count for something.

  “Your Majesty,” Rhys said quietly. “We’re going to go find the rest of the army.”

  “Do you want us to—” I squeezed Kit again, breathing in the smell of dragon and sweat that came from her hair.

  “You can find us when you’re done here.” He led Mercedes away as I turned back to comfort Kitsuna.

  When her sobs slowed I lifted my head and looked at the destruction in front of me. Half the rooftops in Dramera were smoking, and patches of air existed where once thatched roofs had been. It looked as bad as my palace had. Trying to save all that was good in our world had led to us burning it to the ground. Nothing was safe unless we’d turned it into ashes first.

  “We can rebuild it,” I said as the walls of a nearby half building croaked. Three large, male dragons circled it, and the largest blasted one of the walls with a fireball, and the other two beat at the house with their wings. A moment later the house groaned and another fireball caused it to collapse on itself. “We will rebuild it. Bigger. Stronger. Fire-resistant.”

  “They’ll never forgive me,” she whispered. “The others, they won’t forgive me.”

  “Yes, they will.” I patted her back. “We’ll all pitch in to rebuild the lodge house and the rest of the village. Everything will be fine. No one will blame you.”

  “They will.” She sniffled.

  “No, they won’t.” I stepped back from her and gave her shoulders a quick shake. “You fought a wizard all on your own. That was incredibly brave. You saved all of us. You saved me. When we were faced with a wizard you did what needed to be done. If anyone doesn’t like it you tell them to come see me.”

  “To come see you?” Kitsuna asked weakly.

  “That’s right. I’m the Golden Rose of Nerissette, and I’m saying you did the right thing. And if anyone else doesn’t like it, they can deal with me.”

  “What are you going to do? Scold them?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “But you did the right thing, and no one is going to punish you for that. If they try, I’ll…I’ll banish them. I’ll banish them into Bathune, and they can try life out there living under my aunt’s rule.”

  Kitsuna sniffled, her eyes bright with tears, before she laughed, her voice high-pitched and slightly hysterical. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” I gave her shoulders another shake before pulling her close. “I was so worried about you. Don’t ever do something as stupid as saving my life ever again, do you hear me?”

  “Or what?” She trembled against me, and when I looked down I could see that the brat was actually laughing.

  My own lips twitched upward and a panicky, freaked-out giggle slipped free. “Or I’ll banish you along with all the people who think I should banish you for fighting a wizard single-handedly to protect me.”

  “Where are we supposed to go?” Kitsuna giggled. “All these people you’re going to banish. You can’t send us all over the White Mountains. The dragons in Bavasama’s kingdom won’t allow us to just take over their hunting grounds. So if you’re banishing us, where are we supposed to go?”

  I laughed harder, my brain going a bit fuzzy as the nerves from the past few hours started to unwind. The adrenaline coursing through me made me slaphappy and I realized that, for at least right now, I was safe.

  “There’s got to be a crappy part of this world. I’ll send all of you there, and if it’s not crappy enough I’ll find a portal and send you into my world. I can make you settle somewhere that sucks enough for you to realize that I’m right.”

  “You’re going to banish us to your world?” Kitsuna giggled again, and I felt my knees weaken with relief. “But I thought this whole war was to keep the Fate Maker from going back to your world? Remember, find the relics, destroy them, and stop the Fate Maker before he destroys us all?”

  “Okay, so maybe I’ll wait to banish you until we’ve gotten all that done, but I swear if you ever do something that stupid again I will banish you. Somewhere really crappy. Really, really crappy.”

  “Sure you will.” She pulled away from me a little bit and smiled. “Okay, come on.” She wiped the tears from her face. “Time to go find Winston and everyone else. We’ve got a battle to plan.”

  “Right.” I felt my good mood evaporate at the mention of battle. The Fate Maker was trying to take over our world, and it was time that we stopped him. “And as soon as that’s done, I’m going to find that portal and that crappy place to banish you.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Just you wait.” I tugged her braid as we started toward the square. “Oh, and Kit?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you for saving me and Mercedes. It means a lot to me.”

  �
��That?” Kit scoffed. “That was nothing. What any honorable dragon would do for someone they call a friend. Not to mention, what any soldier should be willing to do for their queen.”

  “Somehow,” I said quietly as we turned down another street, “I doubt that everyone else sees it the same way.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I saw Winston round the opposite corner onto the street, and I raced toward him, not caring whether or not people stared. He was alive, he was human-shaped, and considering he’d gone to war and battled a demon raven earlier today, he looked really, really good.

  I slammed into him, and he wrapped his arms around me, lifting me off my feet as he buried his face in the side of my neck and let out a shaky breath. “Allie.”

  Before I could say anything he crushed his mouth against mine and squeezed me tight, knocking the air from my lungs and making my skin spark everywhere he touched.

  “Thank God you’re safe,” he said and pressed our lips together again.

  “Me? I was more worried about what was going to happen to you. You were the one fighting for your life up there against that overgrown canary.”

  “Hardly.” He dropped his head so that our foreheads were touching. My stomach fluttered. I was holding him, we were both safe, and right now that was all that mattered. “All I was doing was distracting the bird so that it couldn’t help that wizard. I was trying to keep him busy until you could find somewhere safe to hide.”

  “We went to the red dragon clan’s lodge house.” I snuggled against his shoulder, trying not to let him see how freaked out I was by everything that had happened today. “I wanted to help you but with the wizard on the ground we had to run. What if you would have—”

  “I’m fine.” Winston kissed the top of my head as he cradled me against his chest, unconcerned that we were hugging in the middle of the street where anyone could see us. “Nothing but a few scratches. Little girls in tiaras playing dress-up are tougher than that bag of feathers. But what happened to you? You’ve been gone for hours.”

  “Forget about me,” I said. “What happened to it? The bird?”

  “Don’t.” Winston grimaced, and I felt my stomach clench because I knew. I knew that if he was safe then the bird was dead and Winston had been the one to kill it. He turned his head and refused to meet my eyes. “The raven has been handled.”

  “The wizard? The one that Kitsuna fought?”

  “He was seriously wounded, but somehow he managed to escape. Disappeared. One minute he was there and Kitsuna had her sword at his neck and the next second he was gone and Kitsuna was stabbing at air.” Winston turned to lead me down the street in the same direction he’d come from.

  “Great, so we have a wounded wizard who knows we’re at Dramera.”

  “It’s where the Fate Maker and your aunt would expect us to go anyway,” Winston said. “They’ll already have plans to attack us here, which is good for us, because Dramera is a strategic place for us to take a stand.”

  I looked around us at the high cliffs that enclosed the area on two sides, surrounding the broad lake, and then over at the thick forests on the other two sides. “You want us to fight a war here? We’re boxed in.”

  “Yes. Because unless your aunt and the Fate Maker decide to transport an entire army,” he said, “or fly, their only way in is right there.”

  I stared pointedly at the narrow gap between the two cliffs at the far side of the lake. It looked like a shadow, a thin line down the middle of the cliff face. “There?”

  “The woods are impassable. They’re surrounded by swampland to the north. Behind us are the Cliffs of Lament, and they’re a straight drop into the Sea of Sorrows. So no way in there. If the Fate Maker uses his magic to teleport their army, it will have to be in small groups and that will be too risky.”

  “They could fly, though, you said?”

  “Against dragons?” Winston glared at the bustling village around us. “It wouldn’t be the smartest plan.”

  “So it’s the cliffs, then.”

  “They’ll follow the stragglers from our army through the cliffs, and the passage is so narrow they’ll have to travel single file. It will funnel them right into our army.”

  “And if they don’t do that?” I asked.

  “That’s where we are going, what the Dragos Council needs to meet with you about. They have some ideas on how to fight back.”

  “What kinds of ideas?” I asked as we crossed the square toward a group of large, still partially thatch-roofed buildings on the other side.

  “Good ideas,” Winston said. “Ideas that we need to listen to if we’re going to keep the dragon warriors supporting us against the Fate Maker. We brought our war to their home and half of Dramera was burned to the ground today because of this. We have to let the Dragos Council have their say now or we will lose them.”

  “They aren’t going to punish you and Kitsuna, are they? For the raven, and well, the wizard, too? It’s not your fault the wizard and his monster set the village on fire.”

  “Nobody is going to be punished,” Winston said. “Especially not Kitsuna. After watching her fight I don’t think anyone, including the Dragos Council, is going to look at her cross-eyed while she’s wearing a sword.”

  “Good,” I said as he led me up the front stairs of the largest building in the town square and opened the heavy wooden front door. “She was only trying to protect me.”

  “A rather remarkable display by a wryen.” The voice belonged to Tevin, a pale blond man who was the head of the dragon clans of Nerissette. He stood just inside the doorway. “I didn’t imagine one of her kind could have such courage.”

  “You don’t think much of her kind at all.” I narrowed my eyes, annoyed at how dismissively he talked about the girl who had saved my life today. “She’s just a wryen after all. To you she’s worthless.”

  “She’s not worthless to you?”

  “She chose to fight a wizard, alone, with nothing but a sword to protect me. Meanwhile, your full-blooded dragons cowered inside like scared little children, waiting for the scary monsters to go away. You want to take a guess on who I value more right now?”

  Tevian’s lips tightened, and his jaw clenched. “Perhaps the Dragos Council should consider claiming neutrality in this fight?”

  Winston stiffened beside me, and I put a hand on his arm, trying to keep him from rising to the bait.

  I smiled at Tevian and tried to look fierce. “Perhaps I should remind you that the prince consort is a dragon. How many of your people would go against you and fight if he asked?”

  “And how many would stay put?” Tevian asked. “We’ve fought this wizard twice for you. Why should we do it again?”

  “Because once the Fate Maker’s done with me, it’s your lands he’ll come after next. How many people are you willing to let die for your pride?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I am fighting to protect my people,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on his. “And I will not fail them. Now the dragon clans can side with me, or once my armies have finished with the Fate Maker, we can turn our sights on you, our newest enemy who abandoned us in our time of need.”

  “So you’re saying that I must decide who conquers my people? Which army it is better for us to kneel to?” Tevian stepped closer so that we were nose to nose, and I had to clamp my hand down on Winston’s arm to keep him from stepping between us. “Yours or the Fate Maker’s?”

  “Does it matter?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “Either way, Dramera is no longer yours. If your luck holds out it will be my army that conquers you. If it doesn’t, well, the Fate Maker has threatened to hang me, behead me, and imprison me at various times. What do you think he’ll do to someone like you? To him, you’re worth less than Kitsuna.”

  Tevian swallowed and fear flickered in his eyes. He took a step back and turned sharply on his heel. “Come with me.”

  He pushed the wide double doors open and we followed as he stormed into
a large room. The timbers that held up the wall were painted in the colors of the dragon clans—black, red, blue, silver, and gold—and the plaster between them was a stark white in contrast.

  “So much for being friendly so that the dragons fight on our side,” Winston muttered as he followed me inside.

  “Golden Rose of Nerissette,” a loud voice boomed from the far end of the room. “Enter and find you here the wisdom of the dragons.”

  I straightened my shoulders before I let go of Winston’s arm and walked forward, trying to project nothing but self-confidence. These guys were nothing—just a bunch of dragons—and I was the queen. The queen of an entire world. The queen who had conquered them without a single sword being drawn. A queen that any one of them could eat in a single bite and not have to bother chewing first.

  As I made my way up the aisle I saw that I was walking toward a dais like the one in my throne room, but instead of only one throne there were five ornately carved chairs. Two of them were empty. Tevian took the empty seat in the middle of the dais and placed a crown with curling silver horns on his head, the horns protruding from the front of his forehead. The other three men on the platform were wearing similar crowns, each with a different pair of horns.

  “Black dragon, join your kin,” the loud voice boomed.

  Winston looked from me to them. “I won’t sit in judgment of my own queen. I am her prince consort, and I would give my life for her.”

  “You must choose,” said the old man. He was wearing a set of blue robes, and his white hair stood up around his head like a lion’s mane.

  “Then I choose her. I’ll always choose her.”

  The four men gritted their teeth as Winston straightened his shoulders beside me, every inch of him not just a soldier’s son but a warrior in his own right. His father would be proud of him…if he knew he existed anymore. I hoped again that I’d have the chance to set things right for Winston and his family.

  “The Fate Maker has returned to these lands,” the old man said. “After you claimed you destroyed him, he returned.”

  “I never said that I destroyed him, just that he was gone. He disappeared that day,” I said.