“Yes,” Emilia said numbly. She knew that the great families of old had sifted through the remains of a long-cooled volcanic eruption, and in those ashes they had discovered jewel-bright eggs. She knew those eggs had hatched, and dragons had come into the world, but she never knew that those creatures could speak.
For centuries the ways of man and dragon were neighborly, but separate. Until Cassius Oretani, the chaos lord, rose up to bring the other Etrusian lands under his sway.
Yes, Emilia had known all of this. Before her, the scene dissolved as if wiped away, and a new image formed in its place.
Five people, two women and three men, stood before an enormous dragon. They were on a large marble veranda open to the summer air. One of the men, dressed in robes of blue—Antoninus Sabel, Lucian’s greatest ancestor—strode forth to stand before the dragon.
This dragon—the Great Dragon—was a massive creature, over sixty feet in length. His scales were the color of burnished bronze, his eyes deep ochre, and his unfurled wings seemed to block out the sky itself.
Antoninus Sabel, soon to be the first Etrusian emperor, settled himself upon the Great Dragon’s back. The other men and women, the rulers of the other four great Houses (and Emilia could see her ancestor, Marcella Aurun, among them) bowed in unison to Antoninus and the Dragon.
When Oretani grew to be too much of a threat, the voice whispered, I told the other Houses to form as one army, led by one person. I chose Antoninus as my rider because he was the first to ask how he could help his people—he alone did not seek power. I have always thought the meek to have a keener understanding of human nature than most great men.
The scene shifted, and Emilia watched Antoninus and the Dragon soar through the air to fight Cassius Oretani. Emilia caught a quick glimpse of the famed chaos lord, a young man with long black hair and a crimson mouth, riding a dragon of the purest white.
Before Emilia’s eyes, Oretani took a sword to the stomach. He and his dragon spiraled downward.
The five families fought Oretani’s people to a standstill. They trapped them in their territory to the west, frozen in stasis for all time by the orderly magosi. When the battle was done, all of us agreed that, for the good of the world, the power of chaos must be bound.
“If they bound chaos, how am I a chaotic?” Emilia could not let this pass without an answer.
Think of chaos as water poured into a cracked earthenware jar. The majority of it is contained, but there are leaks. It is a good thing, too, for all of us that your chaotic kind still exist…because of what happened next.
Emilia now watched the scene shift to Antoninus, the other lords and ladies, and a horde of orange-robed orderlies clustered around a table. They appeared to be arguing as, perched around the enormous pavilion, the Great Dragon and several other dragons watched, their tails twitching, their wings settling.
We dragons helped create the binding spell. We were foolish to assume that there would be no consequences to locking away half of all magical ability. And we paid the price. When the spell was done, and chaos bound away, so too were the tongues of all dragonkind.
Emilia watched as the Great Dragon and the others jerked as if shot through by lightning. They began to lash their tails, to bite at one another, to roar and flap into the sky in a disorganized mass. Antoninus and the others were startled and watched in seeming horror.
“Then why didn’t they undo the spell?” Emilia asked. She felt as ill as if she were watching a murder.
Because if a meek man receives power without first developing a stout heart, he can become a natural tyrant.
Emilia was forced to watch Antoninus beckon the Great Dragon down as though the noble beast were a dog. When the Dragon obeyed, he who’d been the savior of order and the lives of how many millions of people, the first emperor petted him like an animal. Antoninus smiled.
Emilia couldn’t look anymore. Blackness rushed back over her, and she mentally sobbed in relief.
“So dragons are prisoners? Including Chara?” Emilia felt raw throughout her body—what little she could still feel, anyway. Chara, her best companion, the creature she’d tickled and kissed and whose scales she’d brushed…was that creature her slave? The thought nearly broke the tenuous thread of her sanity.
But you, and only you, Emilia of the Aurun, may set them free. Free them, and free yourself. Will you make that choice?
“What do I do?” Dimly, Emilia realized that she was no longer questioning the hows and the whys of this insane miracle. Perhaps Camilla, monstrous as she was, had been right about one thing: logic was the enemy of faith. Later, Emilia would find that thought disturbing, but right now she clung to that faith—her only hope.
A chaotic dragon rider must break the spell. Any chaotic may break a binding spell, but only one whose soul is connected with a dragon may break this one.
“I don’t understand.”
Think of the binding as a great invisible chain stretched across the entire world. To render a chain useless, you must only destroy a single link.
Emilia understood.
“If I can break the binding on my own dragon…,” she began.
Then the spell will shatter in every dragon’s mind, and chaos will be unleashed once more.
At that, Emilia paused. She would give her life to save Chara, but…what she had done could never be forgiven.
“Isn’t it better if chaos never comes back? What if the Oretani return?”
Chaos is as natural as order. One should not exist without the other.
No mention of Oretani.
“But I’ve only ever hurt people.”
There is life in chaos as much as there is death. There is the potential for needed change. And…you may save lives.
The others. They would be put to death as well. Lucian. Vespir. Even Ajax. She could not…she could not allow it. So what if she’d been born bad? She had not chosen it, but she could choose how to shape her future. If she had one. If she chose one for herself.
And for Chara.
“What do I do?”
Reach out for your dragon. Feel the link in her mind, and break it.
Might as well tell her to dance the color mauve. But Emilia recalled what Vespir had told Ajax about locking in on some sort of Red. Emilia breathed and tried to do as the other girl had instructed. She cleared her mind and imagined her invisible hand reaching out through the iron bars and the stone walls. She pictured flying through the air, her spirit light as a sigh, and she imagined Chara rising up to meet her in this darkness.
Emilia could have sworn that her dragon actually appeared, milky white, ruby eyes shining with inner fire. Emilia reached out her invisible hand. She could feel the thin, silken sensation of dragon scales. This was Chara, her soul. Her beloved friend, condemned to a lifetime of servitude and silence.
No one should ever condemn a woman to stay quiet.
Shaking with the effort, Emilia imagined her hand passing into the dome of the dragon’s skull. Emilia’s breathing grew haggard; there was something resisting her, some pressure shoving against her hand. It tasted like iron on her tongue, this lock. This spell. Emilia gasped and cried out in pain.
Break it. Break it.
Emilia heeded the voice and pressed back harder. Her mind felt liable to snap with the pain. Perhaps…she changed her mind. It was not a lock, but a silken purse with the top sewn shut. Much easier to open. She began to pick at the thread binding that precious jewel. Her muscles, her mind, her will burned against this impossible spell. Too weak. She was too weak.
And then, her chaos prickled at the back of her neck and hummed at the tips of her fingers. With a deep breath, Emilia let the chaos slide down her arms, over her knuckles, kept it small as it approached the spell in her dragon’s brain. Give the power too much freedom, and Emilia knew she’d crush Chara’s skull from this di
stance.
Slowly, carefully, the chaos ate at those threads, and Emilia pictured the purse unravel and fall away. She felt something pop, something invisible that shocked her and shook her stomach and tickled her ribs. A white-hot explosion of noise like the howling wind cascaded over Emilia, rushing into her soul.
“Emilia!”
The voice that called her now was feminine and sweet, familiar as her own breath. The voice—her Chara, her dragon—called for Emilia again and again as chaos exploded over the world, rippling through flesh and bone and stone and steel. Emilia’s back arched, and she gasped as the blood and flesh inside of her sparked with power.
Chara was free.
And so was Emilia.
Vespir listened to the tolling bells and knew. One look at Lucian, seated on his cot with his head in his hand, was all the confirmation she needed.
“All hail the empress, Hyperia Sarkona?”
“I should have known,” Lucian replied.
“Wonder if she was the real winner.” Ajax, seated against the bars nearest Vespir, wiped his eyes. Clever boy.
“Someone should be down soon enough to kill us all.” Lucian stared at the floor. “Traditionally, we go first. Then the dragons.”
Yes. Karina would die howling for Vespir to save her. Hot, furious tears blurred her vision.
“Then we’ll fight.” She clenched her fists. “When they open the cell doors, we’ll charge.”
“Lucian? You up for a fight?” Ajax muttered.
The Sabel boy cursed, stood, and retook his customary position of looking at Emilia. He called the girl’s name again before resting his forehead against the bars.
Ajax shrugged. “Guess that means no.”
There would be a way. Vespir tried to think of places to kick a soldier: the groin, the instep. Could she break a nose if she had to? She’d never trained in fighting, but her arms were wiry from years of lifting hay and tack and wrestling hatchlings. Plus, she’d fought alongside her siblings in a thousand village skirmishes with other children. She knew how to bite an ear and pull hair with the best of them.
“We need a plan.” Vespir licked her lips as she glanced at the closed iron door that led to the twisting staircase. Soon she’d hear the thud of boots. “Ajax, what do we do?”
“Pick a lock, if possible.” He started jiggling his door, trying to snake his arm through the bars. “Maybe if—”
Vespir’s ears exploded with a ringing scream. No, more than a scream. It sounded like the simultaneous shattering of thousands of panes of glass. Vespir slammed her shoulder against the bars, deafened by that thunderous crashing.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“What is happening?” she felt herself shout; she couldn’t hear her own voice. Dimly, she saw that Ajax’s mouth was open in a silent scream as well. Across from them, Lucian had taken a knee.
And then…
The shattering stopped. Through the ringing in her ears, Vespir made out a voice, one she had never heard before and yet knew so well.
“Vespir? Vespir!”
She gripped the sides of her head, but nothing would get that voice out. Not that she wanted it out. The more the strange, familiar woman called for her, the more Vespir thrilled.
“Who’s there? Where are you?” she called.
“You hear it, too?” Ajax shook his head. “That man?”
“It’s a woman, though.”
“I hear a woman, too. Calling my name,” Lucian rasped. He slapped his face a few times, as if to make sure he was really awake.
Vespir gripped the bars as she climbed to her feet. Then her hands slid down the iron as it became slippery. Freezing cold, to boot.
Vespir gasped as the bars of her cell transformed from iron to ice, the metal freezing in the span of heartbeats. Vespir backed up and watched the others’ bars transform as well. Ajax leapt away with a shout, and Lucian cautiously pressed his palm against the bar. Then, decisive, he stepped back and kicked clear through the lock, the ice shattering into chunks. Vespir stared as he fashioned a door. Standing outside, he looked to Emilia’s cage.
It alone remained ironbound. Cursing, he started pulling at the gate as Vespir, and then Ajax, followed his lead and kicked their way to freedom. Vespir stumbled out of her cage to stare at the now-dripping prison cell. How? Impossible.
“Vespir,” the woman pleaded. Vespir clutched her head again. Maybe this was how they died. Perhaps the priests were already killing them by driving them mad. But no, she was free. That was no trick.
“Emilia!” Lucian continued to shake the bars.
“We need to get out of here, man.” Ajax grabbed the Sabel boy’s arm, but Lucian shook him off.
“You know what they’ll do to her,” he rasped. He tried yanking the very gate out of the wall.
The bars transformed, changing from iron to sand. Lucian tumbled to the floor. Blinking, he crawled back and watched alongside Vespir and Ajax as the chains that bound Emilia, the helmet on her head, all melted from steel into mounds of fine sand.
Emilia shook her head free as she sat up. Iridescent grains still clung to her purple velvet dress. She spat and rubbed her eyes. Cursing, Lucian stepped into the cell and helped her to her feet.
“Emilia? Did you…?”
The Aurun girl ran fingers through her tangle of hair and grinned. Vespir had never seen such a radiant smile in her life.
“I’m. Free.” Emilia laughed.
Then she coughed up blood. It bubbled onto her lips, dripped down her chin. Ajax grunted in horror as Emilia turned around to take care of herself, Lucian gripping her shoulders.
“Are you all right?” he cried.
“Fine. Fine. I think it’s too much power right now.” She turned, having wiped the blood away. Her face appeared pale, though her eyes were fever-bright.
“What’s going on?” Vespir croaked. Emilia told them in a soft, hurried voice what she had seen in her black prison. The Great Dragon, or at least she thought it might have been, and the secret history he’d shown her. The dragons’ bondage, and chaos’s binding. How Emilia had severed the chain and freed the dragons and chaos.
Freed the dragons?
“You mean the voice I hear in my head…Is that Karina?” Vespir’s heart jackrabbited. Was it insane to be so violently excited while the world fell apart around them? Karina. She had to find her dragon.
If she could speak to her beautiful girl for five minutes…
“We need to get out of here.” Lucian supported Emilia, her arm around his shoulders; she still appeared glassy-eyed, her body as weak as her power was strong. “If the four of us can get away, we can come up with a plan to expose the priests.”
“I like the getting-away-from-here part.” Ajax bolted for the stairs. Vespir and the others followed, taking the steps two at a time where they could. Soon. Soon. If the palace were in shambles because of the sudden chaos, maybe they could slip away to the aerie. Perhaps, even though she was spitting blood, Emilia could be useful if they ran into an enemy.
And above all, Vespir was as excited as a child at the midwinter festival at the prospect of seeing Karina, hearing that velvety voice in a real conversation.
They ran up the winding stone steps and emerged into the palace corridors. No one was around. They took off, all four together. The main entrance hall was to their right, the door beyond. They broke into a run, rounded the corner.
They skidded to a sharp halt.
Forty feet ahead of them, Hyperia waited with a legion of imperial guards before the door. The Volscia girl wore a black gown, a collar of scales, and a crown of teeth. Blood decorated her front, much as when Vespir had first met her. Though this blood looked fresh.
The priests were nowhere to be seen.
Vespir turned to run, but another squadron of guards blocked her
escape route. Swords drawn, they awaited Hyperia’s signal.
“Shit,” Lucian growled. He hugged Emilia tighter. “Hyperia. We just want to leave.”
“To spread word of Camilla and Petros’s treachery? No need. I’ve taken care of them myself,” she replied coolly, unsheathing her sword. Vespir’s legs felt rubbery.
“Then we’re done. We all agreed not to kill one another,” Lucian said.
“That was before I understood the terms of our agreement.” Hyperia’s eyes flashed. “I can’t allow a chaotic to live. Besides, to make my ascension honorable, I must kill all of you by my own hand.”
“Honorable?” Vespir choked.
Hyperia’s chin tightened. “You’re all a threat to my legitimacy. Especially that.” She pointed at Emilia, who wobbled on her feet like a newborn foal. Lucian tried to snatch her back, but Emilia put him off.
“We’ve been lied to our entire lives,” Emilia said. “There’s so much we still don’t know. Didn’t you hear that noise, Hyperia? Don’t you hear your own dragon’s voice?”
Hyperia’s calm mask slipped.
“That’s Aufidius?”
“When they locked away chaos, the orderlies and Emperor Antoninus suppressed the dragons’ ability to speak and think. Aufidius is free now. Can’t you hear him?”
“I can. Do you know what he’s saying?” Wild light kindled in her gaze. “A single word: kill.”
Of course. Vespir shuddered.
“I won’t listen to more of your heresies.” Hyperia settled into fighting stance. Behind her, the imperial guard waited like a sea of black. “Come forward, and die.”
Lucian’s instincts urged him to the attack. It would be so easy to disarm one of the soldiers and lunge for Hyperia. His eye twitched as he imagined lopping off her sword arm, blood gushing from the stump—
Just as he had done over and over, slicing soldiers through their bellies so that the rope of their intestines slopped onto the ground.
You swore to never lift a finger against another living creature. Do you only keep your vows when they’re easy? he thought.
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