by Lisa Daniels
With a start, she snapped it shut again.
There were more doors like this one. All made from metal and charcoal.
More of those things.
Echo began to curse under her breath. She heard footsteps, and hastily retreated back into the tunnel, scrambling through until she reached Nox.
“Let's get out of here. Now.”
“What did you see? You look panicked. What happened?”
“Not now. Go! Someone's coming.”
They both scrambled through the tunnel. It occurred to Echo, dimly, that someone might approach them from the other direction.
Ah well.
Luckily, no one did, though the gigantic hole where the pipe once lay would not go amiss from the Shadows. She summoned Monster again to help them clamber up, then chose to chasm surf and explain to Nox.
“They have a massive set of tunnels going underneath the Lunar Wastes. It's how the Shadows have been reaching so far. They just go along the tunnels then emerge up from it into the wastelands.
Nox gasped. “That's it!” He frowned. “How were the tunnels built?”
Echo shrugged. “Pretty sturdy. I saw some Shadows pass. They ignored me – they were using the tunnel I was in. I let them go. Their controller can usually sense if they die.”
“Right,” Nox nodded, excitement pouring out of him. Echo mimicked it, riled up by the discovery.
“There's more. They... must have several animators. Like Erlandur. There's a bunch of cells in the tunnels that are completely stuffed with resurrected corpses. Werewolves, humans, you name it, they're there. There's even some which are like Monster here. The amorphous entities that can wreak destruction if used in the wrong hands. Blasted skies, we must warn them at the base. This changes everything!”
Nox gripped her tight. “You were right to be suspicious. But what do you mean it changes everything? Didn't your lot have a plan before?”
“Yes, well. But the more information, the better, you know? And although the tunnels look sturdy – if we can destroy them, we can likely delay their progress massively.”
“Or you cause a schism in the Lunar Wastes that makes it easier for them to travel.”
“Ugh.” Echo frowned at him, annoyed.
He grinned at her. “Don't worry. We have something tangible here.”
They rode the rest of the way back to inform the Supremes of the location. Helena appeared troubled, and the others, including Erlandur, didn't look happy at the turn of events. Even though it meant an answer to the mysterious progress of the Shadows.
“Thank you for this, Echo. Seriously.” Helena held out a hand to shake. “It does mean we may need to revise a few of our plans. There's more problems to deal with than we initially thought. If we go into the Fractured City with our full forces now, we risk being pincered by the undead in the network.”
Jael and Deyna nodded, disturbed.
Having given them the news, Echo went back to her chambers, with Erlandur informing her that they would leave for the Fractured Spine in a few hours, when the moon lay highest in the sky.
Nox followed her, and they sat in silence for a while.
“We're in trouble,” Echo said.
“Yes,” Nox agreed. Then, they smiled at one another.
“But less than before.”
“You did good,” Nox said. “Brilliant, even. I look forward to being able to fight with you by our side. Among... other things.”
“Likewise.” Echo sat beside him, for once forgoing her usual lustful urges. She preferred to sit comfortably beside him, and visualize a future where they all survived. Where she might be able to persuade this white furred werewolf to come with her to the south, though that did mean abandoning his position as next in line for leader of the Spine.
Well. They'd cross that bridge when they came to it.
Perhaps, Echo thought, reflecting on the monster inside her, it was good to feel emotions. To not let the darkness constantly take over. Someone like Nox could offer a good moral compass for her. To help her tackle the cruel Shadow within, and to balance it out with the human empathy her shell contained.
First off, they needed to survive the blasted mountain and the trip back with a huge army without being discovered.
Echo rested in the crook of Nox's arms, and closed her eyes.
Sleep came. She needed it. She had a lot to do when she woke.
The End
Captured by Kazak
Dragons Take a Princess
Chapter One
Princess Marea walked out into the royal gardens. She looked around for an appropriate place to settle, an easel tucked under her arms, and a paint holder and a box of paints. Behind her, about ten guards followed, all intent on protecting her. And, also, to not allow her any privacy whatsoever.
Really, she thought, irritated as the guards trumped around, generating noise, scaring away the birds and other objects of interest. Talking to them did nothing – they were under orders from her beloved father to not speak to her, or take any orders, since she had a tendency to give them insane instructions – and it took all the fun out of her already excessively dull life.
“I doubt any other princess gets guarded this much,” Marea muttered, stubbornly setting up her easel, and propping herself on the perfectly trimmed grass. Her red dress crumpled beneath her, more like an elaborate wedding gown than a practical dress for walking around the grounds, but her mother insisted on a princess always looking her best.
“You never know when that handsome prince is going to walk through the door,” her mother said, with a wide smile and a glint of her baby blue eyes.
Not exactly hard to find a prince in Marea’s world, given that they hosted at least five other kingdoms in their castle per week, and she was always up to her eyeballs in princes and princesses. One hundred kingdoms, one hundred extra reasons to find being royalty a drag. Even the downright pampering irritated her. She didn't know anything. A servant was more skilled than her, because sky knew if she could figure out how to change a bedsheet without getting tangled in it.
Of course, Marea was edging close to her thirties, unheard of for a princess, except she also had six other sisters to marry up ahead of her, and she never failed to mess things up for any visiting prince which she suspected her mother and father was trying to hitch her up with.
Now, with the recent bate of dragon attacks on all the border kingdoms, with princesses being carried off at least once a month, her father had upped the security, and ordered them to stick to her like glue, so she didn't slip off into some dark alley and sneak along the general population, like she was prone to do anyway. Her mother forced her to take courtesy lessons, embroidery, learn all the fashions going through court, and which big marriages or knight quests had hit the news.
She was also supposed to know how to appropriately act and scream when taken by a monster. (With a dragon, you were supposed to flap your arms and wail.)
“You're getting awfully old,” her mother would say, in that familiar upturn way she held her nose, and glared disapprovingly at her daughter. “I was married at sixteen. I was a proper princess, and your sisters are good examples, too. Where did I go wrong with you?”
Everything, Marea thought. She didn't know why she was unable to click. Why she refused the princes, even though she had such a vast pool to choose from. They were stupid, they were fake. Reasons and excuses she gave, but really – she just didn't find the polite smiling attractive. She wanted something rough. Like that time when she went to the taverns, disguised as a wench, and saw the way the men laughed raucously, and the women were bold, taking who they wanted and whenever they felt like it.
Marea desired that freedom. To be able to let go and just laugh, instead of worrying about being abducted by dragons, or an invasion from the Dark Clans, or whether the other princesses would mock her choice of outfit or not.
She raised a paintbrush with green smeared over the tip, and pressed it to the canvas. She couldn't paint,
of course, but it gave her an excuse to sit out in the garden without appearing out of place. One of the guards gave her an odd look, breaking the normal custom of staring resolutely ahead and pretending to be invisible. She examined the man through her straw yellow hair, noting his strong physique through the rigid uniform, and the way his green eyes seemed to glow in the sunlight. He had such good cheekbones, too, and a malleable curve of the muscles in his face, along with the hint of a red trimmed beard, giving him a Wilderness look.
She wished at that moment she could paint him. Something about those eyes arrested her. Just a shame he was a lowly guard, and not a prince. She wondered what words those plump lips might say, what kind of life he led outside the job in the castle. Maybe he even lived in the castle, in the lower chambers.
The guard gave her a thin, predatory smile. Marea blinked. Had she just imagined that expression? The guard now appeared neutral, though his eyes still bore into her.
Licking her lips, allowing some of the paint to smear over the canvas, Marea stated, “Are you supposed to be looking upon a princess like that?”
Several of the other guards appeared nervous at the statement. The man with the emerald eyes, though, shrugged. “It appears to me that you're the one staring... princess.”
The audacity of his statement made her temporarily hang her mouth open. Why, no one dared speak to a princess like that. Especially if they were lower class, like this man.
“I could have you executed for speaking like that to me.”
“Why? I'm only answering to what you say to me. Unless you like to kill people who are brave enough to talk to you.” His emerald eyes trailed up and down her body, taking in the blood red dress with all the ruffles and frills, gaudy and elegant, two things Marea was not. Heat flushed in her cheeks. How dare he?
She almost gave the order. It bubbled up to the tip of her tongue, waiting to unload the man's fate. Everyone knew that you weren't supposed to lip a princess, and she sensed insubordination. Apathy, even. At the same time though, it felt refreshing to be stood up to like that.
How much normal conversation have I been missing out on?
Some of the green paint had dripped all the way from the brush onto her hand. “Oh!” Her shame, embarrassment, and the other thing turned to surprise. She ordered the guard to fetch her a cloth, and he did as bid, not saying anything else, but smiling at her with a half smile. A mocking one. And with a look that made her feel as if she were being undressed. Inch by inch, from the top of her lacy gown to the bottom of her black, high heel shoes.
What's wrong with me? She shook her head to clear away the steam that heated her mind, sped her heartbeat up. She must be starved for affection. Yes. That would be it. Starved due to the polite arm distance she always needed to keep from everyone. Starved because her parents offered her no affection other than duty.
She pointedly ignored the green-eyed guard for the rest of her monotonous day, though when she thought of him, if was as if her gray day had been painted a little extra color. Certainly better than the atrocious mess she splashed on her canvas.
She attended the evening feast, where a prince and two princesses from their neighboring kingdom, Yaltine, commented on how they were stepping it up with the border guard.
“We're getting more raids on the villages from the Dark Clans,” princess Esmer said, when elbowed in the ribs by her older sister, Hallie. Marea liked Esmer – she wore the princess mantle better, with a vibrant fire mane sprouting from her head, instead of the wet yellow straw that stuck out at awkward angles from Marea's.
I could have a bird's nest in my hair, and no one would notice. Marea ate her food in her normal silence, only speaking when spoken to, observing the royals and nobles from both kingdoms laughing and discussing with one another. Her father, clad in golden robes, entertained the king of Yaltine, who stood several inches taller, with a ferocious red beard jutting out from his chin. So many red heads. First the guard, now this family. Plenty of people with a touch of the Wilderness.
Esmer spotted Marea, who was slightly hunched over her squid rings, plucking at them. The distinctive aromas of each dish flooded the room, from the salted fish dishes, to the juicy red meat dishes, and roasted vegetables, all creating a musk that blended together perfectly. Marea pressed the fork in her hand hard, so that little lines formed in her skin.
“I notice you have a lot of security following you nowadays,” Esmer said to Marea, pointing to the ten guards who even stood in the room with them, though they leaned against the wall edges. “Have the dragon attacks been getting worse?”
Marea shrugged. “They say they spotted one swooping around the castle, trying to reach one of the princesses. My father is a cautious man, and I am of course, an unmarried woman.”
“Same,” Esmer said, with a trilling laugh. “I just have the one guard, though. I suppose when you're the twelfth child in a very big family, protection isn't quite as important.”
“Don't say that!” Hallie scolded her sister, a scowl knitted over her brow. “You know perfectly well we're safe in our palace. It's the villages the Dark Clans are scavenging, and we have a big army.”
“We have in total one mage,” Esmer pointed out. “And an army is useless against a really determined dragon. Marea, how many mages does your kingdom employ?”
“Uh...” Marea didn't want to talk, though she appreciated Esmer's effort to include her. “We have around eight. Ice and fire mages.”
“See?” Esmer said, now turning to her sister again. “Eight mages. We have one. Because our father's spending his treasury on the wrong resources.”
Marea tuned out the conversation as the sisters continued to argue, uncomfortably picking at her blue velvet dress, changed especially for the feast.
Dragons stealing princesses. Monsters eating people. The Dark Clans probing at the border kingdoms, robbing people and stealing women as well, taking them back into the Wilderness. The untamed land beyond the hundred kingdoms. Lands of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes – and thousands of monsters.
How humans could even live in the Wilderness, Marea didn't understand. Surely they'd all be eaten. But no, they lived there, and sometimes they came into the kingdoms to civilize themselves.
Like that guard...
Marea's eyes trailed along the guards pressed against the wall, but she caught no sign of the emerald eyed man. Nine guards. The tenth was missing.
She didn't think much of it, and focused on finishing her meal, before retreating to her chamber for the evening.
Walking up the spiral staircase, the nine guards behind her, filling out the wide stairs, along with one of the handmaidens to lock her into her room.
Like a prisoner, Marea thought wryly. She listened to the click of the key turning, and examined the slice of moonlight that came in through the window, onto her pink bedsheets. She prodded the braziers in her room one by one, and they flickered into life, enchantments gifted by the fire mages in her father's employment. Smokeless, they provided heat and warmth.
Wish I could be a mage. Far more useful than being locked in my room at night. She watched the flickering light for a moment, before heaving a sigh, and stepping in front of the huge mirror on her wardrobe, watching herself as she peeled off the evening gown. She unclasped a few buttons on her shoulders, allowing it to flow down into a blue pool on the floor, leaving her undergarments on, white, plain and unassuming. She rubbed her feet as she removed the high heels. Her tendons were sore and red from wearing the new shoes, and already, a blister formed on her fragile skin. She placed on flat soled silken slippers instead, planning to sit by the window and read, whilst observing the kingdom outside beyond the castle.
She liked doing this, seeing all the crooked buildings and bending streets with their little lights and sometimes quirky designs. She also liked looking into the Wilderness, a huge, forbidding expanse that spoke of ghosts, demons and monsters, where sometimes, if you concentrated hard enough, you saw the dragons flying. In t
he distance though they looked like little specks, birds and bats, rather than the huge creatures they were up close. Not that she'd ever been near a dragon.
She did see one once, though, diving towards one of the farmlands, scooping a rather unfortunate cow from the field.
Marea ran her hands through her straw hair to get rid of the worst tangles, and picked up the current book she was reading, A History of Glenderal. Glenderal. Her kingdom. One she'd likely never inherit, due to the ridiculous glut of princes and princesses swapping themselves around.
Royal families breed like rabbits.
She smiled to herself, flipping open the book.
“Hello, princess.”
Marea jumped at the deep voice, and let out a shriek when she saw someone standing to the side of her, his face partially concealed in shadows. A big, meaty hand clamped over her mouth mid-shriek, muffling her sounds. His voice. She recognized that voice.
“You!” The exclamation came out obscured, but he heard what she said.
He chuckled, and she shrank back, trembling, as he reached over to her window, and unlatched it. “I must say, reaching you was easier than expected. Still, it was a challenge, and I’m all about the challenge, you see...”
Marea prepared to bite his hand, so she could bawl at the top of her lungs. Curses, he caught her in her undergarments! And how did he get into her room? Was he waiting here the whole time? Was that why she didn't see him at the feast? Her eyes bulged in shock and horror as the man with the emerald eyes stepped onto the window ledge, dragging her with him.
What?
Without any ceremony, he hugged her tight and launched himself off the ledge, with her squished against his body – and now she gave voice, screaming, hoping a mage might hear. The cold night air assaulted her lungs, and she felt him change and widen behind her.
Her bawling turned into high pitched shrieks of terror when she realized the arms hugging her had transformed into talons.
A triumphant roar sounded above her. The heavy swish of something, like sails in a strong breeze, beat about her. Wings. Petrified, she managed to tilt her head up enough to see a long, serpentine figure, massive green wings attacking the air, and the mouth of the figure open, before belching flames.