House of Dragons

by Jessica Cluess

  Ajax couldn’t get any air. He crumpled in on himself, lay on his side shivering on the floor. Alone.

  “Ajax.” Lucian did not sound so angry now. Sniffling, Ajax looked up. The larger boy crouched by the door of his cell, a rough gentleness in his eyes. “I didn’t know.”

  Vespir knelt alongside the wall nearest to him. She didn’t look quite as forgiving as Lucian, but there was a sort of acceptance in her eyes. At least, Ajax hoped that’s what he saw.

  “I think I can help you,” she said.

  Ajax wanted to huddle away from the kindness in her voice.

  “How? We’re all in the same mess.”

  “I think I can help with Dog.” That got him good. Ajax crawled over to her. The girl held up her hand. “I’m not here to judge you, but I’m also not here to make you better, Ajax.” She didn’t sound cruel, only matter-of-fact. “You’re going to have to listen to me.”

  Sympathy with no bullshit was exactly what he needed.

  “I will.” He tucked his chin to his chest, too ashamed to meet her gaze.

  “Come on.” She reached through the bars. “First, your father’s awful, but that doesn’t mean you are. All right?” She squeezed his shoulder, the closest she got to gentle. “Next, Dog is your dragon.” She said it like a prayer. “That kind of bond can’t be bought, and it should never be severed. Right now he’s lost in the darkness, but he might be able to see again. Not with his eyes, though.” She placed her other hand on his forehead. “With yours.”

  “How?” he whispered.

  She started talking about a Red, and how he could “lock in” with his dragon. The more she talked, the more it sounded like a made-up fantasy you convinced yourself was real when you were drunk, but he was not about to say that. Vespir talked about “letting your eyes go out of focus” and “taking down the wall between you and your dragon.” When she’d finished, Ajax glanced at Lucian, who appeared blank.

  “Uh. You ever tried this?” he asked.

  “No,” the Sabel boy said.

  “I understand it sounds strange, but it does work. I’ve never formed the bond when I’m not with Karina, but maybe you could if you tried. Close your eyes. Imagine reaching out to Dog. Try to touch him.”

  “This sounds kind of impossible.” Ajax was not the theoretical sort.

  Vespir’s mouth curled downward sharply. “Fine.”

  “Wait. I’m sorry.” He reached for her when she pulled away. Damn idiot, chasing her off when she was trying to help. Lucian watched them in silence. Emilia…Ajax wasn’t sure she was even still awake. She hadn’t made a noise since they got here. It was unnerving.

  She wouldn’t be like this if it weren’t for me. He winced. Is she really chaotic?

  He’d always thought of chaotics as so…frightening. It didn’t fit with the Emilia he knew.

  “Don’t apologize. Just try it,” Vespir said, snapping Ajax to attention. Her dark eyes were as serious as anything he’d ever seen. With a sigh, he shut his eyes and imagined…Dog? Dog flapping his wings? Dog panting, his forked tongue lolling out the side of his mouth? Every image Ajax ever conjured of his dragon had Dog doing something ridiculous. He couldn’t help laughing. “Don’t laugh at him.” Vespir whacked his hand. Ouch. “You aren’t his master. You belong to each other.”

  Not Dog’s master? But Ajax was clearly the more intelligent partner.

  And Dog was clearly the better. Ajax’s stomach sank.

  Ajax’s other half. He’d always been annoyed to have such a dragon, one that loved to play and snuggle. Idly, he’d wished Aufidius had been his mount when he’d first seen the Hydra. Who wouldn’t feel imperial with such a beast? But Dog was the love from which he’d shut himself off. Ajax thought of rubbing his knuckles against the dragon’s snout. Curled up beside him in the aerie some nights, Dog’s wing tucked about Ajax and holding him snug and warm against the dragon’s gurgling fire belly. The first time he’d seen Dog take to the air on the end of the handler’s lead, the dragon’s joyous squawking and the flap of his wings.

  Freedom. Joy. The two things Dog loved above all, except Ajax.

  Ajax somehow could see Dog now, the faint outline of him. The curve of his back, the tiny nibs of horns. A second and the image vanished, but Ajax reached out an invisible hand and touched the creature’s snout. Dog’s eyes were bisected, dried blood coagulating on his jowls like thick, viscous tears. Sorry, boy. Sorry.

  And Ajax…felt his dragon. A ripple of something like love shivered down Ajax’s outstretched invisible arm and through his body. He opened his eyes with a gasp.

  “I think…I think I felt him.”

  “Is he all right?” Vespir sat cross-legged, didn’t seem to find any of this odd.

  “He hurts, but he’s alive. He’s scared.” Ajax could have just guessed any of that, and it’d probably be true. But there was something in the way he’d seen Dog—the detail of it, not the basic image Ajax carried in his head. It was as if Dog had perked up as he heard Ajax’s voice. Ajax’s temples throbbed. “Vespir. Thanks.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” she said. Not “it’s okay” or “I forgive you.”

  They all sat in that quiet, waiting for the guards to come. They waited a long time, but there was nothing angry in their silence now.

  If this was the end of the world, it was nice to have friends.

  Emilia floated in darkness, much like when she was a little girl and would go down to the seaside caves—her father had told her it was too dangerous, but she loved bobbing in the blackness, listening to the slosh of water coming through the narrow aperture.

  In this void, she could hear the others’ muffled voices. Nearest was Lucian, crying out her name, and then there was Ajax howling in agony. Finally, Vespir, her voice low and musical. Emilia was only just able to hear her words—the Red, dragons, connection—and they flowed over her, filling her mind with blissful images of dragons cavorting through the sky, riderless and free. Hopefully, she’d hang on to those happy dreams for comfort when they began slicing her body apart.

  Emilia.

  Was that her father? Lucian? The deep, masculine voice was one she seemed to know well, yet couldn’t place. She tried to sit up but of course could not. Her limbs were heavy in this weightless void.

  She lay in blackness and waited. Like the persistent beating of a drum, her name resounded again and again and again.

  Emilia.

  Emilia.

  Emilia.

  As dawn lit the sky, Dragonspire’s bells tolled in unison and crowds flooded the city streets. An emperor had been selected. Soon, dancing would begin in the great fountain square, and they would roast boars for this evening’s citywide feasts. Children would buy pink and blue sugar dragons from market stalls, gambling dens would lay bets on which competitor had won, and the brothels would offer discounts. The city noise did not reach Hyperia from this high up, secure in her palace. All she could hear were the bells.

  Hyperia reclined in a bath of buttermilk and rose oil as attendant women dressed in black and gold—her new retinue—buffed her nails and washed her feet, then laid out her ceremonial gown of imperial black, symbolic of a combination of all the House colors, belonging to all and to none of them. Acolytes had measured and swiftly designed outfits for all five competitors, in order to be prepared for any victory. The dress was of midnight-black satin, with a fitted bodice and skirts that molded themselves rather daringly to her hips and thighs. Sleeves and an outer skirt of fine black gossamer lent a ripple to her movement. A collar of golden dragon scales fastened around her chest and neck.

  She rose from the bath, was dried with lush, cream-colored towels. Her handwomen arranged her hair in a golden wave that cascaded to her shoulders. Dressed with ritual, she slid her feet into slippers of pure gold filigree. The golden sword she had won in the Hunt provided
much needed weight at her side. She walked into the living room of her new imperial apartment. The priests awaited her on a couch, enjoying a snack of grapes. Petros stood, still chewing.

  “A true empress,” he said, smiling.

  From there, the priests led her down the halls and into a richly appointed antechamber, one that opened through double doors onto an enormous terraced balcony overgrown with bougainvillea. Hyperia could only faintly hear the crowds, but she’d no doubt they lined the golden avenues below. They’d cheer when they saw her.

  Glasses of sparkling wine waited on a table, alongside a pillow of black silk. On it rested the imperial crown, fashioned from gold to resemble a ring of dragon’s teeth. In the center, a ruby of the deepest, bloodiest red glistened. The gem had been cut in five points. Five Houses. Five dragons. One ruler.

  Soon they’d place this upon her head and take her out onto that terrace before the assembled masses. Then the gold Volscia banners would fly alongside the imperial black, and her glorious reign would commence.

  “Leave us.” Camilla dismissed the attendants, who shut the door behind them. The priestess lightly slid Hyperia’s sword from its golden sheath. “Might we take this, Your Excellency? It is customary to appear unarmed for the viewing.”

  Hyperia watched as Camilla set the weapon on a sideboard, beside a tray of roasted figs and thinly sliced ham. Hyperia faced the open doors. The morning wind kissed her cheeks.

  “The first Volscia ruler in nine generations, isn’t it?” Petros clucked his tongue. “Your family will be proud.”

  “I have no family,” Hyperia said serenely, gazing at the bright day. “My mother and sister are dead, and my father will soon follow.”

  “Er, it was truly a blessing that the Dragon sent you to this Trial. If we had been forced to choose from amongst those other four—” Petros began, but Hyperia stopped him.

  “The Great Dragon did not send me. He chose my sister, and for that I killed her.” She faced the priests. Camilla, she noted, glanced at the sword. “We all understand what it is to murder someone.”

  “For the right reasons.” Camilla beamed. “Your Excellency, you showed the true heart of a dragon when you slew your sister.”

  “Did I?” Hyperia traced a fingertip along the points of her crown. “When I first came to the Trial, I was certain I’d been tested and passed. I saw only my duty.” She smirked. “Some may call me unimaginative. But I am not blind, you know.”

  “Of course.” Petros sounded as though he were humoring her.

  “And what the Truth showed me was unmistakable.” She curled her lip. “Killing Julia…was the wrong choice.”

  “Erm. Excellency, it is forbidden to speak of what you’ve seen in the gateway.”

  Hyperia ignored Camilla.

  “I’ve realized why. Why Julia was called and why I was denied my birthright. It was your fault.” She glared at the priests. “When you killed Emperor Erasmus, you tipped the scales into chaos. Perhaps the Dragon responded by choosing a different crop of contenders from whom to select. We firstborn are trained our whole lives to be strong, ruthless, efficient, powerful, and proud. Perhaps the Dragon looked upon the others—the oddities, the soft, the broken—and decided to try His luck with one of them. For a while, I thought I alone was the true contender in a sea of misfits.”

  Hyperia’s voice did not waver as two hot tears slipped down her cheeks.

  “But I was the greatest freak of all. I killed my beloved sister, my baby. For nothing.”

  “For a throne,” Camilla goaded.

  “For a lie.”

  “Excellency, you’ve proven your wisdom beyond any doubt.” Petros approached as he would a tiger’s unlocked cage. “Yes, perhaps our actions resulted in some…unintended side effects. Perhaps we rocked the world out of balance, but you have righted it. You are ten times the emperor that Erasmus was. You are our savior. What does it matter if salvation is based on a lie?”

  Hyperia wiped her cheeks, took a glass of wine, and toasted them.

  “To the empire, then. Long may it flourish under my rule,” she said, and drank. Petros beamed.

  Hyperia smashed her glass against the table’s edge, and with one lithe blow, she slashed Petros’s throat open. The man upset a chair as he fell. Hyperia was upon him in an instant, the warmth of his blood decorating her cheek and chest as she stabbed him again and again through the eyes. The man’s face became a slab of torn meat; his hands ceased fumbling at her shoulders, and his gurgles died.

  Camilla screamed. Hyperia knew she had a mere second before she was frozen into stasis. With lightning reflexes, she grabbed the tray of drinks and flung it at the priestess. Camilla’s attention went to the flying object, and those two seconds were all Hyperia needed to tackle the woman against the wall.

  “Guards!” she bellowed, pinning Camilla with her knee while shoving the priestess’s head back. Hyperia’s other hand brandished the sharp, bloodied glass under Camilla’s chin. The woman sobbed as guards rushed into the room, fanned around Hyperia with swords drawn. Camilla could do nothing now.

  “Petros.” The old woman wept for the dead man. These two had likely been inseparable since they were young. The best of friends, probably closer than most married couples. What a pity to lose the other part of yourself.

  Hyperia knew that feeling too well.

  “Yes. I will become what I was born and bred to be,” she hissed in the woman’s ear. “I will be empress, but lawfully crowned. Do not tell me who won the Trial; it does not matter. Until the others are dead by my hand, I am no legitimate ruler.”

  Hyperia had come too far, and done too much, to accept a lie now. If she had allowed this—allowed Petros to live, allowed Camilla freedom, allowed them to kill the other four on Hyperia’s behalf—she would have been forever a puppet.

  Duplicity. Pure chaos.

  She’d inherited a magnificent tree squirming with worms. Rotten to the core.

  It was obscene.

  If Hyperia spared a drop of pity for the other four in those cells—even Emilia, hateful monster that she was—she locked those feelings away.

  Julia. Your death will have meaning. I swear to it.

  Hyperia choked Camilla, and the priestess’s eyes rolled back into her head. Unconscious. Hyperia shoved her to the captain. Rufus gazed at his empress in shock.

  “Excellency?” he said.

  “Confine her to her chambers, and set guards to watch over her. Bind her from head to foot. Before I reveal myself to the crowds, the others must die.” She straightened her shoulders. “I must be the one to do it.”

  If the others died at her hand, that horrific vision of a burning city could not come to pass.

  Hyperia took up the crown then and settled it upon her head. A perfect fit. She sheathed her sword and gazed at herself in a floor-length mirror propped in the corner of the room. She was exquisite, a woman in black satin with golden armor and a golden sword and a crown of gold.

  And a face and body spattered in blood. Hyperia did not bother to clean herself.

  She had entered this Trial golden and bloody.

  Best to finish as she began.

  Emilia.

  That voice resounded in the negative spaces of her mind, and Emilia was falling into an endless void with only that voice to catch her. “Who are you?” she whispered, though she couldn’t move her mouth.

  Can you not guess?

  She had stopped hearing the others a while ago. Now there was only she and this phantom visitor. Not her father. Not Alex. Not Lucian. Who, then?

  In the blackness, a great orange eye opened, reptilian, with a narrowing black slit through the center. It beheld her soul; Emilia felt every lie she’d ever told, every wish she’d ever cast bubble up to the surface, and the harsh rays of some celestial light shined upon them. Even though she was b
ound to a bed, she wanted to drop to her knees.

  Impossible.

  “I’m hallucinating.”

  Perhaps.

  “You can’t be the Great Dragon.” The last few words trembled in her mind.

  I can be many things. That is your name for me, perhaps.

  Emilia was half-afraid and half-hopeful that she’d simply gone mad.

  “Then…then how can I speak to you now? Why never before in my life?”

  Your soul is merged with your dragon’s, and when I called your dragon to my Trial, she linked to me. You and I share a connection we could never have had otherwise.

  “So you approve of this Emperor’s Trial?” She couldn’t help the heat in her words.

  Not of what it has become. This Trial, this empire, has grown into a twisted version of what we once imagined. Even now, centuries after my physical death, I am ashamed of what I helped create. I would right these wrongs.

  Emilia would have enjoyed a more in-depth philosophical and theological discussion right now, but she was about to brutally die. Her concerns had to be more practical.

  “Can you take my chains away, then?”

  Only you can save yourself, my lady. But I will help, if you allow it.

  The draconic eye closed, and Emilia was swallowed up in an explosion of visions. She found herself gazing upon a vista of green rolling hills and cerulean skies. Through those skies, dragons cavorted in great number. Unsaddled. Riderless. Free. She watched as a pair descended to earth where a man on horseback awaited them. The dragons settled their wings, opened their mouths, and spoke to the man. They spoke, with glittering voices like a handful of coins.

  The dragons were speaking. Emilia could barely believe it.

  Fifteen hundred years ago, dragons were born into this world. With them came the dawn of order and chaos.