by C. I. Black
You don’t, the agony whispered. You didn’t know. No one knew, and you paid the price.
“I don’t understand.”
Darkness shuddered around the edges of the lightning, promising relief, blissful nothingness. He mentally grabbed for it, but the lightning flashed. Panic shot through him, and he yanked himself back, drawing into a tight ball in a desperate, ineffective attempt to ward off another strike. It sliced into him, tearing his soul, blinding him with searing white and devouring the promise of cool darkness. Just as he deserved.
No. A face materialized from the light, with a long black snout and piercing black eyes. Everything about the drake was darkness, except it — She — wasn’t darkness. She was salvation and kindness, ferocity and power. She was the Mother of All Dragonkind, the goddess who’d sacrificed Her essence to power the spell that had saved Her dragons’ spirits.
Her darkness billowed, sweeping out from Her eyes, devouring the blazing lightning and muffling it again with the soothing miasma.
You fell, She said.
“From the heavens. We all fell.”
No, your soul fell, and I didn’t have the courage to save you.
The Mother of All had more courage than any drake imaginable. She’d made the greatest sacrifice of all.
A pinprick of white light bled through the darkness, and Constantine shrank back, but instead of searing agony, a human woman with the aura of an ancient silver drake appeared.
“I feared if I rebirthed your soul, elder drakes would take advantage of you and convince you to avenge Regis’s usurpation of your throne.”
“I was soul sick. Regis had an obligation to take it.” The truth flashed into his thoughts. No one had known how dangerous it was for drakes to change vessels, until it was too late. It had been too late for him. Regis had been his heir. He’d been well trained. Constantine hadn’t been in a position to abdicate and Regis had made the right call.
“But now his fear of the Great Scourge, of human mages, is consuming him,” the woman— the Handmaiden said.
“We must protect ourselves.”
“Only from evil.” The Handmaiden cupped his cheeks and her pale gaze locked onto his soul, freezing it in place. “We were predators but we were never evil. We kill to survive. Never without cause.”
“But those humans who cast the Scourge—”
“—were a small few among many human mages and sorcerers. Humans, just like drakes, are good and bad.” The Handmaiden’s eyes filled with fear. “And the bad is coming.”
* * *
The gate closest to the Handmaiden’s private residence — opened by Ophelia because she had a sense for the location — dumped Ivy on a dark cliff’s edge with snow halfway up her calves. Freezing wind howled, biting her face and hands, slicing through her too-thin shirt and jeans.
If she’d known she was going to end up on a mountainside, she would have worn warmer clothes. Not that the cold would kill her, but it was still uncomfortable. Although not nearly as uncomfortable as the ache in her soul. Reading the memories of the Handmaiden’s chambers at Court had eased it, but that use of her power had been short, not long enough for any kind of enduring relief, and now the ache had returned, a reminder that she was missing key elements of herself. That she was irrevocably broken.
She fought to control those thoughts and concentrate on the job at hand — and no way was she going to think about how even just a brush of Grey’s memory fire had made her feel.
Above her only pinpricks of stars and a sliver of moon lit up the night sky, while a few feet away, the cliff’s edge ended in a sheer drop into nothing. Not a trip she’d like to take. The fall, like the cold, also wouldn’t kill her — the only way to kill a drake was decapitation — but she still didn’t want the agony of experiencing and then healing from that kind of drop.
Her phone rang. It had to be decked out with satellite capabilities which meant there was nowhere Tobias couldn’t reach her.
She pulled it from her purse. “Hello?”
“Don’t step too far forward,” Tobias growled. “You’re in the heart of the Himalayas and without the ability to free gate, it’ll take you days to hike back to civilization.”
“Oh, I’ll just climb back up the rock face.”
Tobias snorted. “Are you seeing that same fall I did? Or has something changed in five hundred years since I was last there?”
“I’m sure something has changed. And no, I’m not seeing anything. It’s the middle of the night.” Not to mention freezing, and while she was wearing winter boots, they weren’t sturdy enough to be hiking in a mountain range.
“Right. Time difference. Well, trust me. It’s not a fall you want to make or a climb you’d be able to do. Not without the magic ability to control stone.”
“Got it. And I got clear instructions from Ophelia back at Court.” Which made her wonder why he was calling. Had Ophelia told him about her wanting to escape? She’d tried to keep that thought from her mind while the other drake had been giving her instructions, but something might have slipped out. Definitely the shock of being shoved out of Court had shaken her mental resolve.
She still couldn’t quite get her mind around it. There wasn’t a memory in the locket indicating this had ever happened before — and she was certain this was something she’d make sure she never forgot. And did it mean she could trust Ophelia or Tobias? She wasn’t sure she fully believed the explanation about why they let her continue thinking she was trapped at Court. Yes, the human world wasn’t safe for her. There was more risk of losing her locket here than the relative safety at Court. But to make her think she belonged to Regis—
Except going into the human world didn’t make her any less Regis’s servant.
“If you can’t get to a gate to be at the office tower in Newgate by ten tonight, I expect you to call in.”
She pressed her palm against the front of her jacket, capturing her locket between her clothes and her chest.
If she lost it, she’d be lost. Everything she knew about herself, about her experiences, would be gone. She’d have to start all over again.
“You got that?” Tobias asked.
Of course, if she forgot, she wouldn’t know she was trapped. Maybe that would be a good thing. “I got that.”
But in fifty years or so — more if she was really lucky — she’d be in the same spot: knowing she was a prisoner, too useful to be free.
No, she needed to figure out how to escape. She’d have to cut ties with Ophelia, but the black drake had admitted lying to her. No doubt she was telling Tobias all of Ivy’s private thoughts, even though Ivy wasn’t allowed to read Ophelia’s memories to remind her of their friendship.
The ever-present knot in Ivy’s gut snapped tight. What if they didn’t have a friendship? Yes, they shared a suite — because Ivy had read the memories of the room — and yes, from that it looked like they had a friendship. But what if it was one big lie?
“You’ve imprinted into your locket that the gate for the office tower smells like lilacs and sounds like wind chimes,” Tobias said, his voice gravel across the connection.
Ivy wrenched her attention back to him. “Ophelia played a recording of the chimes and made me smell fresh lilacs.” Except she had no idea if she could gate to Tobias’s office tower anchor. Save for knowing she’d made a gate before, there was nothing in her locket about how she’d actually done it.
“Good. Confirm the culprit was or wasn’t there. Nothing else.”
“Yes.” The knot in Ivy’s gut tightened even more. “Confirmation only.”
“You have nine hours, but I expect you at the office tower a lot sooner.”
So she really didn’t have nine hours. Escape was her only option. She was out of Court now, with permission — something she’d never thought would ever happen. There was no way in hell she was going back.
Which meant the sooner she read the Handmaiden’s front room, the more time she’d have to figure something out — sinc
e she wasn’t going to risk having to return to Tobias without an escape plan or with an incomplete assignment.
She turned away from the cliff’s edge to a passage in the sheer rock wall behind her, a wide black slash in the dark gray and shimmering ice. Ophelia had said the door to the Handmaiden’s private residence lay in a clearing on the other side. She’d also said there was a gatelock spell in the area, so even if Ivy could gate without an anchor, this was as close as she’d be able to get.
Ophelia hadn’t said much else about the residence and Ivy got the sense — she wasn’t quite sure how — that her friend hadn’t actually been there and her information came from someone else — probably Tobias.
Ivy turned on her phone’s flashlight app to better see around her. She’d been told not many drakes knew about this private residence, so she doubted anyone visited. Which meant footprints would be a good first indication that someone else had been there.
She shone the light on the snow around her legs. Nothing.
The knot in her gut eased.
This was good. She’d get inside, out of the biting wind, confirm no one had been there, and then she had hours to figure out her next move. She could do this. She didn’t know how or where to get information or learn anything about Regis and Court, but that was the first step. She could lie and say the reading took longer than she’d expected and not go to the office tower in time. Maybe the Handmaiden would have something in her residence that could help. In the very least, a map of anchors so she could gate someplace warmer.
She hugged herself, but that did little to stop her shivering. Moving was the only way to get warm. Teeth chattering, she trudged through the calf-deep snow into the passage. Sheltered from the wind, it was only marginally warmer, and with a sliver of paler darkness ahead, it wouldn’t last long. The walls and floor were smooth like the halls at Court, the stone carved by powerful magic, and only wisps of snow gathered at the edges as if when the wind blew in the right direction to fill the passage with snow, it blew with too much force. There was only a hint of memory licking over its surface, as if not much — and no strong emotions — had ever been there.
Beyond stood a thigh-high snowdrift and a clearing… more like a courtyard. The cliffs towering all around were magically smooth, and snow and ice had been shaped into a frozen garden with trees and bushes, flowers and benches. All without color, all meticulously carved with fine details, as if a real garden had been flash-frozen into ice and transported into this mountainous middle-of-nowhere.
Ivy shoved through the snowdrift into calf-high snow, pressed her locket to her chest, and concentrated. No way was she forgetting something like this. It stole her breath and made her ache. She was missing so much trapped at Court: real gardens, vast landscapes, places filled with years and years of memories. Certainly more memories than this place. The weakness of the fire around her suggested no one had been this way for years, maybe even centuries.
At the back of the garden stood a gray door, only a few shades paler than the rock around it. It was the only door. There weren’t any signs of any other places to go, so Ivy trudged to it and grasped the latch.
Lightning shot into her hand with a painful snap and she dropped her phone. It, with its light, disappeared into the snow, and pain radiated from her palm up her arm and into her chest.
Crap. Stupid drake.
She shoved her hand into the snow and grabbed the phone, hoping the cold would numb the pain. She should have known the Handmaiden would have a lock on her door. Doors at Court had locks. It made sense doors out of Court would have them, too.
Which decreased the odds of that black drake coming here and ransacking the place. To do due diligence, though, she should still read the memories on the door, although the memory fire on the handle had been pretty weak before she’d touched it. Now the fire flared a little stronger, indicating her shock had been imprinted onto it.
And really, she didn’t have to read anything. She could just leave and get on with figuring out her escape plan.
No, if she had to face Tobias and Ophelia again, she wanted it clear in her thoughts that she had done her job.
She turned off her flashlight app and shoved her phone into her purse. Her power word flashed into her mind, and she drew breath to say it when something shushed behind her. The sound wasn’t loud, but every instinct she had said it was more than just the wind.
Her gaze jumped to the passage, but without night sight, all she could make out was its dark slash in the slightly paler gray cliffs.
The shush came again. No, more than one shush, the rhythm steady and drawing closer.
Someone was coming. It had to be the black drake.
Maybe Ivy could buy her freedom by apprehending that drake. Except she didn’t know if she had any combat skills. There weren’t any memories of that in her locket, so she had to assume no. Her best bet was to hide and follow. If she could tell Tobias where the black drake was, maybe she could use that as a bargaining chip.
She scrambled to a large ice-bush near the gray door and held her breath. Then realized her footprints led straight to her hiding spot.
CHAPTER 9
Grey tightened his grip on the hilt of his short sword and wished he’d brought his broadsword instead. But the larger weapon was harder to hide, even with a winter coat that came down to mid-thigh, and he didn’t want to risk needing to gate back to Nero’s to switch weapons if he had to go some place populated. With the world writhing around him, murky with memories that were getting harder and harder to shake, he couldn’t afford for his gate to slip and send him to the gateroom in Court. Not after his run-in with those Court guards. Whether Tobias wanted to or not, he’d have to issue a writ for Grey’s arrest or risk Regis’s ire. And Grey doubted he’d risk Regis’s ire. Not for Grey.
He reached the opening to the Handmaiden’s ice garden and felt the tingling magic of her gatelock as the hair on his arms prickled. Still powerful, just like the locks around her chambers at Court. No one was getting out of here without getting at least halfway into this tunnel first.
Beyond, in the ice garden, the footsteps of whoever had arrived before him plowed through the snowbank and left a path straight to the gray door on the far side.
Impossible sunlight sparkled off the frozen topiaries, and the Handmaiden stood in front of the door, holding it open, a brilliant white aura blazing around her.
Grey’s heart skipped a beat. She was here. She was waiting for him—
But that didn’t make sense. It was night right now. Not noon.
He blinked. The sunlight vanished, and the wind gusted, biting his cheeks and slipping down the neck of his coat. A shiver swept through him and the dark memory fog billowed, consuming the edges of his vision. He blinked again, fighting to keep in the present, and focused on the footprints in the snow. Those were new, not part of a memory. Those meant danger. Whoever had ransacked the Handmaiden’s chambers at Court was already there and had the power words to get past the magical lock on the door.
Grey’s only advantage was the element of surprise. The culprit didn’t know he’d been followed, and Grey could catch him unaware.
He shoved through the snowbank and kept to the path already created. The strides weren’t as far apart as Grey would have taken, and the footprints were smaller than his, which told him the culprit was shorter.
Good. That gave him the advantage of reach. There also weren’t many drakes left alive who had his combat experience.
That didn’t mean they couldn’t be better than him in a fight, but he had over two thousand years of dirty tricks to draw on, which gave him another advantage. Hopefully, that would be enough to subdue someone long enough for him to restrain whoever it was, since killing was a last resort. Too many dragon souls had been lost to the universal ether already. He might not be a fast healer, but with his experience, he didn’t necessarily have to be.
Sunlight flickered again. He ground his teeth, forcing all his attention to the path. It
led right to the door, and there wasn’t the telltale swoosh through the snow indicating the door had been opened. In fact, there were three footsteps to the side—
He jerked toward the frozen shrub, and the drake from the Handmaiden’s chamber, Tobias’s agent, roared and lunged at him.
She swiped at him with hands held like claws. He shifted, letting her rush by, rammed his free hand into her back, and slammed her against the rock face beside the door. Before she could regain her balance, he pinned her in place and pressed the edge of his sword against her neck.
A shiver raced up his arm. The billowing darkness, the constant threat against the here-and-now, vanished and calm flooded in. Everything stood in crisp detail, the bite of cold on his cheeks and hands and his breath puffing around his head.
Her breath, frozen wisps — as if she were a real drake with a fiery breath — curled along her jaw, over her ear, and slipped past her dark hair. It framed her delicate face, caught in profile as she struggled to glare at him while pinned front-first to the rock. Beneath his arm and her clothes — too thin this high up in the mountains without giving her away as a drake — he could feel her body, taut and ready to strike again at her first opportunity.
She blinked, drawing his attention to her large dark eye, filled with rage and determination, and the all-consuming stillness from before. His heart thudded, slow, strong, sure as if just being close to her centered his soul back within his stolen human vessel. This was right, a completion to something he hadn’t known was incomplete. He could stay this way forever with no past, no future, just pure, clean present.
The urge to draw closer, be fully within her aura of calm, clawed in his chest. She was his salvation, his way free of his two-thousand-year nightmare. With her, he wouldn’t need the Handmaiden to keep sending soothing magic into his mind. If the Handmaiden didn’t return, he wouldn’t have to beg Anaea for help and reveal just how pathetic a drake he was.