by Silver Milan
“I’m surprised you don’t want to feed on me one last time,” Gabriel taunted Sevilla. “Or you, Medeia.” He yearned for the feeling of detachment, that lightheaded drunkenness, that came with a deep feeding. It would make his death more bearable.
“Oh I do,” Medeia said. “But I’d rather you went to your death fully aware of what was going to happen to you, rather than in a drunken bliss. If I drained you, you might welcome the end. But now, fully healed, you will know the fear of death down to your core. I’m looking forward to seeing your frightened face when your head is lowered to the cold stone of the chopping block. I will dearly enjoy watching you beg for your life.”
Gabriel had to smile at that. “You misjudge me, vampire. I’ll show you what dragon courage is.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” she said mockingly.
As they passed through the main gates of his estate, Sevilla and Medeia fell in beside the convoy and pretended to be vampire servants. Cornelius Heftly and other dragons who were apparently part of the interim government were waiting on the street outside, and joined them, forming a grim procession of dragons and vampires that wound its way through the streets of Midnight. Gabriel memorized the faces of his betrayers, those members of the interim government, certain that most of them weren’t undead, but rather merely acting on the chance to seize power.
Idiots, one and all. They would pay if Gabriel ever got free.
Dragon shifters had gathered at the entrances to their own estates to watch in subdued silence as the column passed by. Most of those shifters fell into place behind the progression after it passed, following toward the final destination.
His captors took Gabriel to Granger Field, which served as a gathering place for the dragons during town halls, birthday parties and concerts. It also served as a place for public executions.
A crowd had already gathered. The other spectators who had joined the procession dispersed into the throng, doubling its size. By his reckoning, nearly the entire population of Midnight had turned out to watch the coming executions. Now he knew how Jett must have felt when his brother faced a similar fate in the lands of the Wayfarers. One big difference was that the crowd that had gathered to watch Jett’s demise had been composed of strangers, while the men and women of this group were Gabriel’s own subjects. That made it even worse. There could be nothing more humiliating than dying an ignoble death in front of one’s former subjects and peers.
A chopping block had been placed on the large wooden platform in the center of the field. Next to the chopping block rested a large ax whose tip was coated with a black goo, presumably the same substance Medeia had prepared in the vat in Gabriel’s mansion. Standing beside it was a tall, muscular dragon shifter wearing an executioner’s mask. From the perfect symmetry and large size of his muscles, Gabriel guessed he was a member of the Diamondback family. So Cornelius didn’t get to be the executioner after all. That pleased Gabriel in a small way. It was one less humiliation, anyway.
“Where is my sister?” Gabriel asked Medeia. “You said we would be executed together.”
Medeia smirked. She kept her head down, continuing to pretend she was a slave. “Did I? I don’t recall… no matter. I’ve decided to execute you separately.”
“At least let me see her one last time before I die,” Gabriel said.
The smirk deepened. “I refuse to grant her the honor of witnessing your execution. Instead, when she comes here to meet her own death, she will see your headless corpse lying before her.”
Gabriel felt sickened by the image the vampire witch painted. Gwendoline would be so broken when she saw him like that. It gutted him just thinking about it.
Cornelius took to the stage and addressed the crowd. “My fellow dragons. We are gathered here today to witness a historic execution. Today…”
Gabriel tuned out the speech. He gazed at the large crowd, at the men and women who had once been his subjects. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see there. Adoration, sadness, or glee? Instead, their faces seemed mostly indifferent, though a few did appear glad.
For the most part, they don’t care. I’m so removed from their day to day lives in my position as king that they don’t even know who I am. This is just a spectacle to them.
Most were likely frightened by the prospect of a change in leadership, which was only natural, but otherwise the execution of their former king apparently didn’t mean much to them.
He wondered if they would act so muted when his sister was executed. They loved her and Jett, he thought. His brother and sister always made public appearances, showing up at birthdays and town hall meetings, and even personally shopping in the markets and town squares. The two of them loved to mingle with the commoners.
But Gabriel, he was a private man, who ruled in private. The commoners knew him only by the rumors they heard. After what Medeia had done to further sully his good name, those rumors had to be terrible of late: he was surprised his subjects weren’t all looking at him with hatred in their eyes. It was somewhat of a relief that they seemed indifferent, actually.
He noticed that the vampires and dragons of his escort were focused on the stage, enraptured by the words Cornelius was speaking, as if they truly felt they were witnessing history in the making. Even Medeia seemed caught up in what the small dragon shifter was saying.
He wondered if he should make a break for it while they were distracted like that…
Gabriel felt something cold rudely press into his hands.
Curious, and slightly annoyed by the distraction, he looked down at his open palm. A small metal object lay there.
What…?
He realized in surprise that it was the key to his shackles. It had to be.
Long slender fingers closed over his own so that his hand formed a fist, concealing the key. Those fingers were familiar somehow…
He looked up as the hands withdrew. Sevilla was the owner. She stared into his eyes from behind the glasses she wore. Her sapphire-blue eyes were moist and seemed to peer directly into his soul.
“I’ve always loved you,” she whispered, and then turned away.
Gabriel stared at the back of her head in shock.
I was wrong about her. So wrong.
He blinked, and a tear fell.
I don’t hate vampires. Or other shifters. How could I? Not when I have a woman I’m entirely unworthy of who loves me. A woman who just so happens to be a vampire.
That one woman had caused him to forgive an entire species. He no longer hated even Medeia. He realized she was merely misguided. Blinded by her lust for power.
He was roused from his thoughts when rough hands grabbed him on either side. At first he thought the guards had noticed the exchange, but when they shoved him toward the stage, not bothering to open his closed fist, he understood that they had not.
He realized Cornelius had finished his speech. That was why the guards had grabbed him: it was time for Gabriel’s execution.
Medeia’s minions guided him up the stairs to the platform’s upper deck. As Gabriel approached the chopping block and the waiting executioner, he surreptitiously slid the key from his fist and fiddled with the lock of his shackles.
The executioner grabbed him by the forearms and thrust Gabriel toward the chopping block, and then forced him to kneel.
In that moment Gabriel opened his shackles and broke free.
He leaped to his feet and slammed his fist into the throat of the surprised executioner. The hooded man stepped backward and grabbed at his thick neck, gasping for air.
Gabriel scooped up the ax that was next to the chopping block and hewed down the next two dragons that rushed the platform.
“A vampire witch is trying to take over Midnight!” Gabriel shouted. “We have to join together and fight her!”
A confused murmur ran through the crowd, but otherwise no one rallied to join him. If only there were still some members of his Black Guard that were loyal to him… but Medeia had converted them all t
o undead.
Gabriel was waiting for Medeia to bind him up in Weaves of Air, and thus revealing herself to the crowd, but she didn’t. Instead, more dragons and vampires rushed the stage, these armed with nets and whips.
“Damn you, Medeia, use your Strength!” Gabriel shouted as he sliced at the whips. One of the switches struck him in the back, and he realized it was a Strength-enhanced weapon, because it dug deeply into his hardened skin and made him flinch.
A dark blur came at him. Another vampire!
Gabriel almost cut down the latest opponent, but at the last second he altered his swing to miss.
It was Sevilla.
She had drawn a sword and planted her back against his. His earlier suspicions proved correct, it seemed: Sevilla had no dragon bones on her person. Otherwise she would have been fighting with the Strength, despite the suppression pervading this place.
“We fight back to back,” Sevilla told him.
“You should have stayed down there off the stage,” Gabriel said as he fended off a blow from another vampire.
“Medeia would have found out eventually,” Sevilla said. “I’d rather be here on this stage with you, where I belong.”
She really does love me.
In that moment Gabriel realized he loved her right back. For the first time in his life, he truly cared for another woman. He had found love.
He just wished the circumstances were a little better.
The pair fought valiantly but in moments their attackers had subdued them. Whips wrapped around Gabriel’s and Sevilla’s arms, and then a net descended over the pair. Their captors tackled them and pinned them down.
Cornelius, cowering near the edge of the stage, stood to his full height when he realized Gabriel and Sevilla were contained. He rushed down the stairs and off the platform, no doubt to consult with his master in secret.
A few moments later the diminutive dragon returned to the stage.
“So, the slave who broke the First Rule with our former king has fallen in love with him, it appears,” Cornelius told the crowd. “The interim government was willing to punish her in private for what had happened, since the dragon king was the one who seduced her after all, but this latest act of betrayal can’t be forgiven. The slave is hereby sentenced to death with her lover. Their executions will take place back to back. Immediately.”
19
Ariel rested on the hard floor of her cell in the dungeons of Midnight. It seemed she had been spending a lot of time in dungeons lately. First, during her tenure with the witches in the Steel Tower. And now here, with the dragon shifters.
She had to laugh.
I never thought I’d be living my life like his, from one dungeon to another. So this is what it feels like to be a criminal.
Except Ariel had done nothing wrong. Nothing except trying to do the right thing. She hoped Jett was far away from here. She truly did. She was worried about him, because shortly after Jett and the White Swords had gotten away, she had heard what sounded like fighting coming from one of the tunnels that led to the surface, followed a short time later by a loud thud and then a strange scraping, as if something big had crashed into the mountainside and skidded halfway down.
She hoped her dragon was all right.
The door that led to the shared cells opened—she heard the cringe-worthy stone-on-stone sound, as if the door to a crypt was opening. That was followed by footsteps.
Ariel sat up and stretched muscles that were stiff from lying on the stone, and she gazed toward the source of the sound. Across from her Gwendoline sat on the floor. In the cells on either side of Gwendoline were Flame and Cronus, respectively. Ephephany, meanwhile, was apparently holed up on her estate under 24/7 guard. Or 25/8, in dragon time.
She smiled at that. Dragon time. That was something Jett had taught her.
It was amazing how merely thinking about him could brighten her spirit even during such a terrible moment such as this. He was quite literally the light of her life, cliched as that might sound.
A female vampire came into view with six minions at her side: three were vampire, three dragon. The latter were undead, no doubt.
Bone bracelets ran up and down the woman’s arms. A vampire witch, then. When Ariel looked at her face, she realized it was the same cruel witch who had captured her. She had learned her named was Celesta. The red angioma on her forehead seemed particularly large and bloody today.
She had fed well, apparently.
Celesta stared at Ariel with contempt, then turned her back on her to address Gwendoline.
“Your brother is no longer king,” the vampire witch said. “He has been charged with violating the First Rule, and an interim government has taken his place, led by Cornelius Heftly. The former King is being executed as we speak.”
The First Rule again, Ariel thought. It would never cease to get these dragons in trouble.
“No,” Gwendoline said. “This can’t be true. Gabriel would never violate the First Rule. He’s the last man who would ever do such a thing.”
“He can, and he did,” Celesta said. “There is video evidence. We’ve uploaded it to the Intranet, not that you’ll ever see. But the citizens of Midnight have all viewed it. They know his crime.”
“But execution for breaking the rule is wrong!” Gwendoline said.
“Your punishment set a precedent,” Celesta said. “The interim government chose to follow that precedent. Execution is the new method to handle violations of the First Rule. The former king, what was his name? Jeddah, yes. He got off lightly with mere banishment.”
Gwendoline slumped against the bars. “No no no. This can’t be happening.”
The vampire witch ignored her and turned toward Flame. “Originally Gabriel planned to give you over to the Wayfarers, but Cornelius has decided against that course of action. Instead he prefers to dole out your punishment himself, to show the witches it is we who are in charge. You will be executed this morning as well.”
“What about Cronus and me?” Ariel asked.
Celesta glanced over her shoulder at Ariel. “You are a lion shifter. You trespassed into our great city during the night, breaking numerous of our laws in the process.” The vampire witch looked at Cronus. “And you aided and abetted all of these criminals. Cornelius has decided that you two will follow the others to the executioner’s block.”
“We’re all to be executed?” Gwendoline said, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Yes, dear girl,” Celesta said. “By order of Cornelius and the interim government.”
“Why do you keep pretending that Cornelius has decided all of these things?” Ariel said. “When you know the vampires are in control? These dragon men with you, they’re undead. These vampires are in on it, too. Why do you pretend, when you wear bone bracelets openly? Everyone knows that vampire witches aren’t allowed in Midnight.”
Celesta smirked. “About that... Cornelius will make a ruling legalizing vampire witches shortly.”
“It still doesn’t change the fact that vampires are in control!” Ariel said.
Celesta’s ugly smile deepened. “I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know, since you’re all about to die. Yes, you’re right. The dawning of a new age of vampires is about to take place across North America. The streets will flow with rivers of human and shifter blood.” She spun toward Gwendoline. “And the headwaters of that river will be you four. Five, including your brother. The executioner’s ax will be steeped in your blood before this morning is done.”
“Damn you!” Gwendoline said. She thrust an arm through the bars, reaching toward Celesta.
The stunned vampire stepped backward a pace, toward Ariel’s cell.
“My my, you are a feisty one,” the Celesta said. “I can fix that...”
Ariel sensed Siphoning from the woman.
Gwendoline’s face abruptly filled with shock. She dropped her arm and began screaming. She rubbed and swatted at her exposed flesh as if she was covered in biting insects,
though Ariel didn’t see anything.
“That’s right,” Celesta said. “I have feasted on dragon blood just before coming. I’m so powerful that it’s as if the Weave suppressing this place isn’t even there.”
The vampire witch cackled as she continued to torture Gwendoline. The screams of Jett’s sister as she scratched at her own skin were heartbreaking.
Celesta stepped back another pace as she worked her evil magic, and moved even closer to Ariel’s cell.
I wonder...
If Ariel could reach her, maybe she could distract the witch long enough to stop the Strength attack.
Without thinking further, Ariel extended her arm through the bars and grabbed the vampire by the bicep. Her fingers wrapped around the bone bracelets there.
As soon as she touched the dragon bone accessory, time seemed to slow. She felt the call of the Strength inside the bone. Like a thirsty woman, she reached through the accessory and grabbed onto the Strength. A river of its power flowed through her, and she surrendered to the flow.
The stunned vampire was only beginning to react to Ariel’s touch, but it was too late by then. Ariel Siphoned fast and Weaved faster, using the combat designs Mathis had taught her. Despite the magic suppression that permeated everything in Midnight, she was able to draw enough to create a wicked Weave of Air and she centered it on Celesta’s torso as fast as she was able, knowing that the vampire witch would be preparing some defense at that very moment.
Apparently in her race to beat the witch, she had perhaps pored too much Strength into that Weave, because as soon as it took hold, the vampire was literally ripped apart. Ribbons of blood and guts fountained into the air, and body parts splattered onto the minions beside Celesta.
Ariel stilled held the severed arm and its dragon bone bracelets. She cocked her head and glanced at the remaining minions. The dragons and vampires exchanged glances, and then turned around as if to flee.
But Ariel showed them no mercy. She couldn’t risk them alerting anyone. She created several more Weaves and in moments all six exploded.