House of Dragons

by Jessica Cluess

  His words warmed her. “Thank you. My victory will be honorable, at least.”

  “Don’t think that.” He let the curtain drop, so that he was little more than a talking shadow. “There’s no honor for people like us.”

  He walked away, leaving her to sheathe her knife and get into bed. Julia wasn’t beside her when she put out the lamp.

  Lucian stood by the northern tip of the island and watched the flickering lights in the competitors’ rooms. The sea churned against the rocks as he finally wended his way toward his own chamber. The competitors’ rotundas had been placed around the central temple like five points on a star.

  He stopped outside of his room and turned his gaze to the actual stars, picking out constellations like Draconis Major and the Emperor’s Bow. He fixed his gaze on his favorite star, the brightest in the sky, chief ornament in the Celestial Diadem. Then he knelt on the ground, placed his hands over his breast, and bowed his head. The oath of the Sacred Brothers played in his thoughts.

  I swear that I shall uphold my vows until the last breath of my body.

  I shall never take up arms against another, for every living creature that walks this earth and flies through the air is my brethren.

  Lucian pictured his father’s horrified face as Tyche burned that exalted sword…

  I shall forsake all worldly things, for temptation removes our thoughts from good deeds and the suffering of our fellows.

  Lucian recalled an old man clutching a little boy, gazing up in terror at the dragon rider circling the gray skies over their village…

  I shall cherish no one person over any other, for all people are equal in my heart.

  Lucian’s eyes snapped open at the surge of wings. Tyche descended out of the twilight and landed before him. Her tail skated along the ground, upsetting pebbles. Her nostrils flared, and in this darkness he could see the faint glow of embers. Holding up his hand, he let his dragon nose at his palm, and chuckled at the tickling heat.

  “I can’t cherish any one person,” he said. “But the vows don’t say anything about dragons.”

  Tyche tilted her head and made the light, chittering noise she always gave when playful. Sighing, Lucian sat back on his haunches and began to sing.

  “They say that love should be boundless,

  As high and as deep as the sky.

  And yet no embrace can compete with the chase,

  Of a dragon for clouds passing by.”

  It was a silly rhyme that he’d made up for Tyche when he was a boy, and he grinned as she fluttered her wings with the pleasure of it. The dragon tilted back her head and began to “sing” along. She made a series of lilting ooo noises, her tail swishing this way and that as she kept time. Lucian couldn’t make it to the second verse before he had tears in his eyes from laughter.

  Pleased with herself, Tyche thumped her tail and laid her chin upon Lucian’s shoulder. He smoothed his hand down her neck, trailing his fingers along the silk of her scales. His girl made a purring noise in her chest, telling him she was happy. Happy just to be with him.

  Lucian squeezed his eyes shut. He did not mind forfeiting his own life, but Tyche’s…

  My soul. The priests were right about that. She was all that he liked of himself.

  “That’s a pleasing tune,” a girl behind him murmured. Lucian swiveled his head to find Emilia watching from a safe distance away. Her hair was still in her face, her shoulders still hunched. “Did you compose that yourself? I remember that you. Uh. Were fond of music.” She spoke haltingly, as if trying to remember lines in a play.

  “I did.” He stood, dusted his knees. “Do you have any new theories on what we’re all doing here?”

  “I’m currently wavering somewhere between ‘this is all a nightmare’ and inarticulate screaming.”

  Lucian chuckled, and Emilia drew a few steps nearer.

  “Well, let me know when you come up with a way to save us all. I’m counting on you.”

  “Oh? So I’ve got to shoulder this burden myself?” He could see she was smiling.

  “I wouldn’t trust anybody else. You were always the one with the plan.”

  “Yes, but…that was years ago.” The smile disappeared. She ducked her head, and Lucian frowned.

  “If you ever, well, want to talk—”

  “About what?” she said abruptly. “We’re trapped, and only one will survive. Isn’t that correct? Being cordial and, well, chummy would only increase bitterness and, and enmity, wouldn’t it?”

  Well. Her feelings weren’t wrong.

  “I just don’t want us to become…” He searched for the best word. “Worse,” he said at last. Emilia remained silent for a while.

  “Some of us are as bad as we can be,” she muttered.

  Oh, she was right. She was righter than she knew. Lucian nodded grimly.

  “I just want you to know that if you need help in any way,” he began, and then nearly leapt out of his skin when something made a violent, banging noise behind him. A damn explosion. Lucian wheeled about, Tyche expanding her wings and squalling at the disturbance. He blinked as some pebbles scattered across the ground, but otherwise nothing was there. “Bizarre,” he muttered, then turned back. “Emilia?”

  But she’d gone. He heard the patter of footsteps as she raced away. Probably the noise had scared her. She was so high-strung. His heart sank to think of what might have happened these past five years to make her so.

  I’ll do something to help. I have to.

  That was the path of a Sacred Brother, after all. Help those in need.

  That thought gave some comfort as he left Tyche outside and entered his chamber with the blue bedspread and a blue gown lying on top of it. Bemused, he picked it up. It’d been measured perfectly for Dido. “Unfortunately, not my size,” he muttered, balling it up and tossing it to the floor. He removed his cloak, sloshed water into a basin, and pulled off his shirt.

  There was no mirror to let him stare at his scars. Good. Lucian washed quickly, scrubbing his face and dampening his hair. The scars, so pale against his brown skin, traced his arms like lines on a map.

  Some drew raised eyebrows and gasps, like the white knob of scar tissue at the bend of his left arm. That particular scar had come from a Wikingar soldier with a broken broadsword. Lucian had cradled his arm, the injury raining crimson on the snow beneath. He’d been pleased to see his own blood spill for a change. Maybe he’d even hoped this would be the warrior to finish him.

  He’d taken all his physical scars from practice and by an enemy’s blade on the battlefield.

  The invisible scars, those etched upon his soul, came from his father.

  Every time he’d disobeyed or spoken back against a command, he’d been thrown into the brig, divided from Tyche, left to shiver through long winter nights. That discomfort had been nothing, nothing at all, to seeing the sadness in his father’s eyes, the pain that came from Lucian’s rebellion. His father, who could not seem to understand, no matter how fervently Lucian argued. That blind unhappiness had pierced Lucian to the core. A soldier needed to obey orders.

  A son needed to love his father.

  Lucian was a disappointment on both counts.

  With a sigh, he turned to put out the light.

  Two burned figures squatted at the foot of his bed and stared at him.

  The eyes had disintegrated, their jelly boiled to sludge in the charred sockets, and yet he could feel their gaze. Lucian swore that he could still hear their fat sizzling.

  The smaller one’s face had become a mask of curling, crisped flesh.

  Like roasted chicken, Lucian thought stupidly as bile rose in his throat.

  The old man was skeletal and burned to a black cinder. His silent mouth opened and closed, the jawbones creaking, the hopeless gaping of a landed fish.

 
He had seen their faces in his dreams nearly every night. He’d stopped waking with a scream after the first year.

  But this wasn’t a dream. Lucian collapsed.

  Finally, he thought.

  Then sanity returned, and he ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. No. No. No. “You’re not real,” he whispered, his voice quavering. Hysterical laughter clawed his throat. When he looked again, the old man and the boy had vanished. The bed was empty.

  Lucian’s ghosts had abandoned him, but he knew they’d return.

  They always did.

  Emilia woke to a bad headache, new clothes at the foot of her bed, and a dragon’s snout poking through one of the curtained walls.

  “Chara!” She thrust the blankets aside and went to her dragon, even as pain gnawed at the base of her skull. She placed a palm on Chara’s nose and felt a gust of hot breath. The dragon had short, ticklish hairs at the top of her upper lip. Chara huffed in contentment, dipping her head so Emilia could stroke the long bridge of her snout. The tang of salt clung to her; she must have gone for a morning swim. Her pearly scales were soft. “Someone brushed you.” Emilia smiled.

  They’re treating you well before they Cut you.

  The dragon rumbled low in her long throat and pressed the side of her head against Emilia’s leg. The warm, fizzing sensation of connection coursed through her…and she thought about never having that again. Dying, and her soul murdered as well. Drifting into oblivion.

  Emilia looked away to gather her thoughts. Today the Trial would begin in earnest, and she had to be at her best. That stupid accident with Lucian last night could not be allowed to happen again. Thank the blue above it’d been dark, and the explosion minor. Just a couple of rocks. She had not expected him to sound so concerned. She had not anticipated that the way he spoke would ease a pressure that had long solidified in her sternum. But none of that mattered. She’d be stretched out on a table with nails pounded into her flesh if she did not learn to dominate this chaos in her soul.

  The headache tightened as she studied the clothes on her bed: a plum-colored shirt, a jacket of sturdy fabric in the same color, and loose, tan trousers.

  Beside the bed, someone had set a golden shield so polished that her reflection glared back at her. Emilia winced. She couldn’t blame Lucian for his reaction yesterday. She looked hollowed out by a long, slow illness. With a sigh, she picked up the shield, and something behind it clattered to the floor. It was golden as well, a narrow tube about as long as her arm.

  Emilia picked it up and flicked her wrist. Sharp protrusions shot out of the tube on either end. She studied the thing—the spear.

  A spear and a shield for the Hunt.

  The first challenge had begun.

  * * *

  “Nice to see you all properly dressed.” Camilla regarded them coolly as she poured a cup of coffee from a gleaming copper pot. Emilia wondered how the clothes had been tailored so well for all of them. Probably the acolytes had worked their magic well into the night.

  The competitors all sat awkwardly around the banquet table, mumbling thanks and eating. Emilia poured a cup of hot, syrupy coffee, her throbbing head practically shouting its gratitude. She took a sip and found it was sweetened with cardamom and cream. Her entire body softened with a shiver.

  There were round loaves of freshly baked bread accompanied by oil and olive paste, sweet rolls dusted with cinnamon, fruit, and rice porridge stewed with raisins and dates. Emilia nursed her coffee. Ajax ate so quickly she wondered how he left room to breathe. Vespir sat cross-legged on the sofa, listlessly shoveling porridge into her mouth. Lucian, meanwhile, picked up his plate and sat down next to Emilia.

  “How’d you sleep?” He offered her a cinnamon roll; he’d remembered they were her favorite. Emilia felt heat creep up the back of her neck.

  “Uh. Well,” she mumbled. Sitting next to him again relaxed her, let her mind wander…She could picture every capillary in his face bursting in one swell of crimson and his entire head exploding and bits of brain matter scattering over the cushions—

  She stood at once and marched her coffee over to sit next to Ajax, who waggled his eyebrows. Sighing, Emilia stared into her cup. Lucian didn’t try to sit next to her again.

  Better he stay away.

  At least her chaos had waned. Sleep and food did wonders for that.

  Everyone took notice as Hyperia swept into the room, pouring herself coffee and taking a bowl of rice porridge. “The island’s perimeter makes for a good morning run,” she said conversationally, sitting apart from everyone else. No one said anything in reply.

  “So. Can we get started?” Ajax asked.

  “Your dragons are waiting.” Petros snapped his fingers, and brown-robed acolytes entered to set leather satchels beside each of the competitors. “The coordinates are in here. Once you arrive at the island, the Hunt begins.”

  “What are we hunting?” Hyperia sounded pleased. Killing things had probably been a daily habit since she’d played dolls in the nursery.

  “The island’s residents have been under siege for some time.”

  “We’re hunting the island’s residents?” Ajax screwed up his face. “That’s sad.”

  Petros’s eyes fluttered shut. “No. A basilisk has been terrorizing them. You’re hunting that. Whoever hunts it down, kills it, and brings back its head is the winner.”

  Emilia felt the coffee in her stomach sour. She’d studied every predator in the Crotian region and had consulted her notes as soon as she found the spear. They wouldn’t be hunting a centaur—for that you need a bow and arrow—and no one would think to go after a siren without trawling hooks and nets, so that was out. Privately, she’d hoped for a giant boar or a lion, but no. A basilisk. She had to face a basilisk.

  “Wow,” Ajax breathed. Then, “What’s a basilisk?”

  “Didn’t you read Pliny’s Natural History?” Hyperia sneered at him.

  “I can’t read,” Vespir muttered, so low only Emilia could hear. Then, even lower, “Forty percent chance.”

  Sensing Ajax was about to say something irritating, Emilia jumped in. “A basilisk is a land-based dragon.” An abomination. A wingless dragon could never be a true one. “It walks on two legs and has a serpent’s body with the head of a cockerel.”

  “A chicken dragon? Sounds fun.” The idiot boy grinned.

  Emilia’s temper snapped. “If having acid for blood, sharp teeth, and a glance that can poison you to death is amusing, I really hope you enjoy yourself.” She snatched a piece of bread from the table and forced herself to take a bite. Ajax stopped smiling. At last.

  Lucian dusted his hands, swallowed the dregs of his coffee, and picked up the leather satchel at his feet. Emilia noticed that he had brought the shield, but not the spear.

  “Let’s go,” he said as the other competitors grabbed their weapons and headed for the front of the temple. Emilia hung behind with Vespir as Ajax and Hyperia jogged to be first on dragonback. The Tiber boy had to run to keep pace.

  “Emilia.” Lucian came up beside her. “Stay with me once we reach the island.”

  Thankfully, he didn’t wait on a response. Lucian hurried ahead. She doubted he was trying to hurt her…but she could hurt him.

  “Are you all right?” she asked Vespir as they walked side by side. The servant was making a little eye contact now. Progress.

  “Sure. Basilisks are fun,” Vespir replied, her voice distant as she checked the satchel’s binding. It slipped open, revealing two extra loaves of bread and figs. Emilia frowned. The priests had already given them food for lunch; there was no need for more. Vespir noticed her notice. “It’ll be a long day,” she said. “I, er, get hungry.”

  “Of course.” Emilia didn’t say anything else. It wasn’t her business.

  Moments later she was seated in Chara’s saddle, stealing a quick
glance at the directions. She was ready. With a snort, the dragon flapped and soared upward. Emilia didn’t look back at the others. She focused on the blue horizon, where the sea merged with the sky. She bladed a hand over her eyes and squinted into the bright day. She could practically hear her pale skin sizzle.

  Basilisk. King of serpents. Alchemists claimed you could combine its blood with powdered human remains, red copper, and vinegar to make gold.

  There’d be no alchemy today. Emilia’s mind tarried over the facts in the files she’d brought, the books she’d slaved over. She’d no skill with a spear, and the sword at her hip would remain in its sheath if she could help it. To win this challenge, she would have to use her knowledge and her more…unique powers.

  The pressure of chaos built at the base of her spine.

  After twenty minutes of flight over sapphire waters, an island appeared. Emilia tugged on Chara’s reins, peeling away from the other four as they rose on the wind to fly higher. Emilia could already see their problem: there was no landing space on the island. A thick forest covered nearly every square foot, and the rocky shore was too narrow. Most dragons didn’t do well in water.

  But Chara, as an Aspis, took to it naturally, and Emilia wanted to be separated from the group.

  “Emilia!” The wind swallowed Lucian’s voice. She felt a small stab of guilt but forced herself onward.

  Emilia guided Chara around the island’s perimeter until she noticed a tiny inlet of gentle water. She pulled back on the reins and squeezed the dragon’s sides. They dipped toward the ocean, Emilia’s hair whipping behind her. Chara huffed in delight when they splashed down in an arc of crystalline water. Emilia pulled her feet from the stirrups, trying not to get wet. While Chara dipped her snout into the sea and snorted, blowing a stream of bubbles, Emilia glanced at the shore ten feet away.

  “Chara.” She scratched the top of the dragon’s head and pinched the knob of excess flesh at the base of her neck. Chara’s wings expanded automatically on either side of her, the thin membrane rippling in the wind. Holding her breath, Emilia ran along the right wing, moving quickly so as not to apply too much pressure and bruise a joint or tear the membrane. She bounced effortlessly off the wingtip, landing ankle-deep in the sea. Onshore, she let the shallow waves play at her feet. Her dragon retracted her wings and trilled happily, flashing white and pearl as she frisked through the sea. “I’ll be back. Stay here,” Emilia called. Chara waggled her ears.