House of Dragons

by Jessica Cluess

  “What do you all know about statecraft?” Lord Pentri snapped.

  “Not much.” Emilia smiled. “At least, not the sort of statecraft of which you would approve.”

  “Is my House to be left out of this brave new world?” Lord Volscia inquired. He didn’t look at her.

  “Your elder daughter killed your younger. Julia would have stood here otherwise—I’m sure of it,” Emilia said.

  At that, the lord merely stood and walked out. No one watched him go.

  “This is how it will be,” Emilia continued. Her eyes tracked from one face to the next, memorizing the expressions she found there. If they looked pleased, or at least indifferent, she noticed; if hostility simmered under the surface, or their lips twitched, she remembered that, too. “It was suggested that we kill the dragons, and the eldest, of every House to prevent insurrection.”

  There were gasps. She could practically hear Camilla grimacing. It had, of course, been the priestess’s cheerful suggestion.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Dido growled.

  “We said no,” Lucian replied. “The Cut has always been barbaric. From this day forward, it’s done with.”

  Murmurs now. Confusion. Some think we’re weak for not Cutting, Emilia realized. She was going to have to be very, very careful with everyone in this room.

  “However, all of your dragons are safely perched in the aerie right now, and the imperial guard has thrown its support entirely behind us,” she said. Of course, Emilia knew that the guard were partial to one person especially. Suppose someday Lucian decided to make a play for greater power, with Rufus and the rest backing him?

  She let that thought slide. For now.

  “If we gave the order, everyone here would be killed.” Emilia remained stoic, even when the room cried out in horror. “Consider how merciful we are.”

  “We’re supposed to bow to a servant?” Lord Pentri glared at Vespir. The girl’s gaze bored into his.

  “An empress who was a servant,” Emilia replied evenly. “Yes. If you want to live.”

  The old bastard grumbled but turned away. From the corner of the room, Antonia stepped into view, wearing a gown of green silk, with seed pearls woven into her black hair. Emilia noticed that Vespir stood a little taller.

  Antonia regarded them all with wondering eyes.

  “How exactly will you govern this vast empire of yours? When a dragon is born with two or more heads, it dies in confusion,” Lady Pentri snapped.

  “Actually, there have been two-headed Hydra who lived very long lives,” Vespir said. Yes. If anyone would know those particulars, she would.

  “And we have other powers.” Emilia turned out her palms, felt the chaos pump in her blood. She focused upon the chandelier overhead. The pendants of crystal morphed into delicate rosebuds, the flames to flapping monarch butterflies. All the Houses leapt to their feet in horror.

  “Chaos?” Lord Tiber looked as if he had fallen into a nightmare. “Who did it? Kill them!” he bellowed.

  “Chaos is free once more, and under my control,” Emilia growled. This time, the reverberations through her body were not so bad. When blood dripped from her nose, she wiped it away before anyone else could see. “It’s going to take its rightful place alongside order once again. Isn’t that so, Your Grace?”

  Camilla could barely bring herself to whisper yes, but it was a yes all the same. Now the families understood. Emilia had the power of chaos, the backing of the church, and the support of the imperial guard. Those who did not bow would die.

  Emilia had studied these people her entire life. She knew that, Lord Sabel excluded, every one of them cared for their comforts more than trouble. If she could not bend their will to hers…death might be the only option.

  She hoped it would not be.

  “The choice is yours,” Lucian said, surveying the room by her side.

  The priestess kept silent.

  Finally, the heads of the four Houses drew into a small circle. Their discussion was brief, and when Lord Aurun faced them again, Emilia could read the decision in his eyes before he spoke.

  “All hail the emperors and empresses of Etrusia,” he grumbled.

  She made certain to look him directly in his eye as she gestured with a flick of her wrist. On your knees.

  His lip curled, but her father obeyed.

  Emilia’s mother followed his example, as did the Pentri and the Tiber and the Sabel. Lysander openly wept with fear and possible confusion. Antonia was the only one who didn’t bow right away. Instead, she crossed to stand directly before Vespir.

  “Excellency,” she said, lowering her lashes as she swept into a deep curtsy. But Vespir cupped the girl’s chin.

  “I don’t ever want you to kneel,” she whispered. Antonia stood, tears trembling in her eyes. Vespir whispered Antonia’s name and kissed her. Antonia slipped into the other girl’s arms with a sigh.

  “All hail us!” Ajax crowed. “Time to let the empire see its new face.” As the boy walked over to his so-called family, he flicked Lysander’s ear. The older boy’s face grew beet red, but he did nothing. “Hey. Thank me for that, Lysander.”

  “Thank you, Excellency,” he snarled.

  “I like the sound of that.” Ajax flicked the other ear. “Do it again.”

  The four waited as Camilla took to the terrace, where a large copper cylinder meant to amplify her voice waited upon a stand. Emilia heard the priestess’s voice ring out, loud enough to reach half a mile away:

  “All hail the Dragon’s wisdom. All hail truth’s conquest over falsehood. Today, a great four-headed dragon has been born. All hail the Sarkoni: Emilia Sarkona, formerly of the Aurun; Lucian Sarkonus, formerly of the Sabel; Vespir Sarkona, formerly of the Pentri; and Ajax Sarkonus, formerly of the Tiber. All hail your new emperors. All hail the Sarkoni. All hail!”

  Camilla bowed and gestured for them to take their place. Emilia walked to the terrace’s edge, Lucian on her right, Vespir and Ajax to her left. The four peered over the balustrade at the veritable sea of people gazing back up at them. Even if corners of the city remained on fire, they had still come to see their emperors and perhaps to understand what on earth had happened.

  The faces in the crowd were still. Emilia noted a ripple of turning heads, people asking one another what in the depths was going on.

  “Uh-oh,” Ajax grunted.

  But then, hands extended up for them. The murmur of the crowd broke into a roar, and Emilia heard them shouting for the emperors. The Sarkoni. Hail to them.

  She raised her hand and waved, and the crowd waved back. To be on display to this many pairs of eyes was exhausting, but she smiled.

  “Do you think this will work?” Lucian murmured in her ear, while the families watched them warily from behind and the crowds rejoiced before them.

  “Too late to turn back now,” she replied. She flushed as his hand traced the small of her back.

  “Then I’m lucky we’re in this together,” he said.

  She had no ready response.

  * * *

  Night had fallen by the time the families trundled off to their apartments throughout the capital. Inside the imperial home the other emperors reveled, along with Antonia. Emilia needed a moment to herself, however. She traced her path through the labyrinthine gardens, listening to the crickets and drinking in the perfumed air. When she arrived at Truth’s doorway, she inspected the pair of stone doorjambs. The pitch-black void had returned; perhaps she might take another stroll inside.

  No. Too much truth could be a dangerous thing.

  She touched a sleeping rosebud and turned it to pure gold. Beautiful.

  Emilia coughed, winced as blood splattered upon the burnished flower. It felt like a boot had kicked her in the stomach. More practice. That’s all she needed.

  The hairs on her neck ros
e as a twig snapped on the path behind her. “I don’t love being followed, you know,” she said.

  “You never did,” Lucian replied, picking an errant petal from his shoulder. “You yelled at me whenever I tracked you along the cliffs.”

  “Because you tried to push me in.”

  “Once, and only as a joke. I’d go in after you if you ever fell.” He smiled.

  Yes. He would.

  “Are you all right?” Lucian asked.

  “The chaos? It’s in my control, at least. I’ve been thinking…The Drag—the voice told me that when they locked chaos away, it was like an earthenware jar with a few small cracks. I was one of those cracks. All of chaos was trying to get out through me. No wonder I had accidents. But now the power is evenly distributed. It’s better.”

  Better, but in some ways more dangerous.

  “Do you think the priests might have had a point about me?” she asked. Lucian frowned. “I exploded three human beings with no more than a thought. Perhaps no one should ever possess such power. Maybe it is wrong. Maybe the dragons losing their tongues was the right price to pay.” She nibbled at her lip.

  “Why are you talking about this now?” Lucian sounded baffled. “You’re the dragons’ savior, Emilia. You’re a hero.”

  A hero. Boys like Lucian believed in such things. Emilia had read far too much to trust anything was so simple…but she didn’t want to think about it tonight. She was tired of always thinking. And with Lucian beside her, the stars above and the garden fragrant around them, she felt so many things. Things she’d believed had been locked away, imprisoned inside her body.

  “Can I ask you something?” Emilia murmured. His silence answered her. “Now that you’re willing to fight again…have you made peace with what you did?”

  “No.” It was a soft answer. “I don’t deserve peace. All I can do is work so that no one else ever makes my mistakes.”

  “Ah.” Emilia frowned. “I’m sorry that I was weak with Hyperia. If I hadn’t been, you would have kept your vows.”

  “No. I would have fought anyway. I had something to protect,” he said.

  “Oh.” Her heart picked up pace. If only she’d been around people these last five years. If only she knew how to toss her hair or playfully grab his arm. If only they did not have an empire to govern and a balancing act to maintain between four people. If only…“We should go.”

  “Wait.” He touched her hand as she began to walk away. “You said that you killed the first boy you ever kissed.”

  “What about it?” Emilia flinched.

  He made her face him and brought her hand to his lips. The sensation of his kiss was too brief, but deliciously warm. Her body pulsed with chaotic sensation.

  “Wh-why did you do that?” she breathed.

  “A reminder that things can change,” he said.

  And that was that, for tonight. For now.

  They wended the path back to the palace, the future fragile in their hands.

  The girl heard the fishermen whisper about her. She spent her days huddled in a corner of the boat, listening to the slosh of the waves and the uncertain murmurs of the sunburned men. She rubbed the place on her arm that had once boasted a pearl bracelet; she’d paid for her passage with it.

  Sometimes the girl remembered her name. Other times she wanted to forget.

  She gave them her pearl earrings in exchange for a rowboat. When they lowered her into the sea a healthy distance from her destination—they would go no nearer, not on their lives—the men called her a fool as she rowed away.

  The girl’s arms were always sore now, and her mind distant. Only half a heart beat in her body.

  They took something precious from me. She could barely recall who “they” were, but she hated them.

  Though she could forget her own name, she never abandoned her purpose.

  So she rowed to shore, a sun-bleached expanse that grew impossibly large the nearer she came. Gulls cried overhead as if calling her back from the brink.

  But she had her dagger and her purpose.

  By the time she reached land, the sun was at its apex in the azure sky. Sweat soaked, she staggered onto the beach and gazed up a winding path to the top of a craggy promontory. The wind whispered along the shore. There was no sound of life here. Not a bird or beast, not a human voice. There was only the sea and the empty sky.

  The girl climbed the path, walking because she could no longer fly.

  She came to the top of the cliff, her sandaled feet white with limestone dust. Blading a hand over her eyes, she found the surrounding area filled with statues.

  White chalky faces. Wildly gesticulating poses, backs warped and stretched, arms flung high into the air. Some poor bastard had been frozen standing on one foot. The dust whispered among these trapped souls.

  Beings suspended in time. If she listened closely, the girl could hear the hum of magic.

  The Chaos House. She stood among them, these prisoners of order’s stasis.

  Once, a red-haired girl had said that the blood of a noble heart could break such a spell.

  Her right hand traced the gilded hilt of her dagger, the sole luxurious item she had kept. She had come to this land as a pilgrim in rough cloth and sandals. She had nothing. She was nothing.

  The wind loosened a coil of her blond hair, dancing it behind her like the tail of a kite.

  Her hands were numb as she grasped her dagger. Fear fluttered through her, but she had already suffered a much greater agony.

  Even if the curse would not break, better not to go on like this.

  And if it did break…

  If it did, the weak would be culled, and the strong survive. Survive to fight a war, to put down chaos once again and uplift order. The empire needed to be tested, that was all. The empire, now ruled by that “four-headed dragon,” the Sarkoni. The abomination.

  If she must become the destroyer of all she held dear to save it, she would.

  Her body trembled as she drew the blade.

  When faced with weakness…

  She closed her eyes and scarcely felt it when the knife entered. She only grunted when it angled underneath her ribs.

  …cut out its heart.

  The girl collapsed to the ground, her blood soaking into the earth.

  As she faded, she realized that death was not as she’d imagined, a black depth that stole over her like the tide. It was hot white. The sun’s blaze turned her closed eyelids red so that she could pick out the veins.

  She barely heard it when they began to move around her. Barely heard the crunch of their footsteps. Her eyes fluttered open when someone stood over her, blocking out the sun. She gazed up into a shadowy face.

  “Not dead yet?” the person whispered.

  “No,” she croaked. “Not…yet.”

  Hyperia of the Volscia gave a bloody smile.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my editor, Chelsea Eberly. Getting to the end of this book very nearly killed both of us, but it was a journey I’d make a hundred times over. Ours is a fruitful creative partnership, one that’s made me a much better writer and an all-around nicer person. A good two-for-one deal.

  Thanks to my agent, Brooks Sherman. No one else has as good a heart or as sharp a mind. The pitch-black sense of humor is also top-notch. Thank you for strategies, for hard work, for integrity, and for letting me ramble on and acting like what I say makes sense. I owe you several.

  Thank you to everyone at Janklow & Nesbit and Random House for all your incredible work. Thank you to Casey Moses for the amazing cover design, Ken Crossland, Shameiza Ally, and Barbara Bakowski. Thanks to Wendi Gu.

  Traci Chee, Tara Sim, and Emily Skrutskie: The Avengers may have disbanded, but Thor + Tony + Cap + HULK will never die. Thank you for all the good and joy you add to my life. It’s a whol
e lot. More than 3,000, even.

  Alyssa Colman, for helping me fix this novel, for feeding me, and for friendship. Having you ten minutes away is one of the truest blessings in my life.

  Alexa Donne, for laughter, free movies, good wine, and excellent conversation.

  Gretchen Schreiber, beautiful friend, keeper of all books, and knower of everything BTS.

  Erika Lewis, for being a rock, making me laugh, and teaching me how the hell a map works.

  Brandie Coonis, my light and whimsy in dark places.

  Alyssa Wong, whose mere existence brightens my day.

  Jack Sullivan, for helping with fight scenes and generally knowing absolutely everything.

  Josh Ropiequet, for making life far more interesting and introducing me to Schitt’s Creek.

  Amanda Santos, for all the best book discussions.

  The Rosenblums: Mike, Alison, Jordan, and now Isabella. Love you.

  The friends I wish I saw more of, because such is the life of an author: Alwyn Hamilton, Kelly Zekas, Emily Duncan, Christine Lynn Herman, Adam Sass, Paul Krueger, S. Jae Jones, Margaret Rogerson, Kerry Kletter, Brittany Cavallaro, Laura Sebastian, Kiersten White, Robby and Terra Forbes-Karol, Gwen Katz, Allison Senecal, Zev Valancy, Ronen Kohn, Parker Peevyhouse, Rosamund Hodge, Ian Randall, Grace Fong, Adriana Mather, Tobie Easton. We’ll always have Twitter, or at least Instagram, which I shall never, ever update. Ever.

  To my Clarion 13 loves, I miss you. I need more Rocketship Spatula in my life.

  To Robert Crais, for talking me out of a tree when I was sure this book would suck, and for giving damn good advice.

  My family, who are always there, and Bentley, the newest member: Thank you for everything.

  Finally, to the booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and readers who make this job worth doing: Thank you for the gift of your attention. I’ll keep striving to be worthy of it.