“You must stand before the Empress alone,” Kire explained, “Only my heart can follow you further.”
“Thank you,” Marla said, releasing the girl’s hands and bowing slightly to Brother Tye. “Thank you as well,” she said with a smile.
“The Empress is wise,” Brother Tye said, “Speak truly, and she will know your worth.”
“Sorry if I got you into any trouble,” she said with a grin.
Brother Tye shook his head. “It has been... an experience,” he laughed.
Marla nodded and gave Kire a final smile before turning to face the misty hallway beyond the dragon-guarded doors. She took a deep breath and walked through, trying to quell the growing sense of dread now welling up within her.
The perfumed mists swirled around Marla’s feet, obscuring her view of the carpeted floor. They grew thicker still, the farther she walked, until it seemed she passed through the heart of a silvery cloud. The pinkish glow of the lamps that lined the unseen walls looked like an army of floating wisps, gathered in orderly ranks. She saw no end to the corridor, only the misty rows of pink lights, stretching away before her.
Marla pressed on, breathing in the flowery scents that tingled her senses and calmed her fear. She no longer felt the carpet beneath her feet, yet still she walked, numbed into a dreamlike state of peace and tranquility. She stopped then, not really knowing why, and noted that the pinkish lights no longer flanked her to either side. The light instead came from a dawn-like glow that emanated from above and below and all around.
“Hello?” she called out, wondering then if it might be considered rude to speak first in this situation. Everything her mother had taught her of etiquette now swirled beyond the reach of her sluggish thoughts.
“Welcome child,” a voice like the wind among the cedars answered back.
“You speak my language?” Marla answered, still in Gloaran. She tried to call the Draconic words to mind, but whatever power had granted her the ability to speak the ancient tongue now eluded her.
“Words are not important here,” the Empress’s voice answered, “only Truth.”
“Oh,” Marla said, rubbing at her temples with her fingertips. She didn’t like the sensation of being half-asleep while she was trying to... what was she trying to do here? She could not quite recall.
“My advisor tells me that it was a mistake to allow your people to live,” the Empress said, her voice coming from all sides at once, “What is your opinion on the matter?”
“We do not wish to die, of course,” Marla answered, squinting against the golden light that surrounded her.
“Of course,” the Empress agreed, sounding slightly amused, “All life struggles toward continuation, yet what is your true opinion of your people? Are they worthy of life?”
The image of Cicely, the dryad girl sprang into Marla’s mind, and of her blood, staining Marla’s hands.
“I do not know,” Marla answered, though part of her mind warned her against speaking so.
Marla felt something vast move past her in the mist, a shifting weight of golden light that sent little swirls of turbulence through the perfumed clouds.
“May I see you?” Marla asked.
“In time,” the Empress answered, “We must first learn which of my faces you shall behold when the veil is lifted.”
“You have more than one?” Marla asked.
A sound like wind chimes filled the air with tinkling music before falling silent as the Empress spoke again, “I have many.”
“I did not come here to plead the cause of my people,” Marla said, gathering her scattered thoughts once more.
“Why then, have you come?” the Empress asked.
“I have come to plead the cause of our people,” Marla answered coldly, “and to gather the foes of our common enemy.”
“You drink the rain and think yourself a cloud, little one,” the Empress sighed.
“The Betrayer has returned!” Marla cried.
“The Betrayer?” the Empress chuckled, “That trickster has played his part. His role in the celestial play was brief and unseemly, a tale to frighten children.”
“He is real!” Marla protested, “I have seen him.”
“I do not doubt it, child,” the Empress answered, “but his time has passed. He has no further role to play in the destiny of this world.”
“Perhaps you could help me explain that to him!” Marla snapped.
The wind-chime laughter filled the air again.
“Do not trouble yourself, child,” the Empress sighed, “The shadows of night flee before the light of breaking dawn, and Truth shall always win out over ignorance and deception.”
“No!” Marla cried, “We won’t win if we don’t fight!”
“Fight?” the Empress laughed, “You would wield Destruction against its very creator?”
“He has already destroyed the last refuge of Uroe!” Marla shouted, “I watched him do it, and I could not stop him.”
“Uroe died long before you were born, child,” the Empress sighed, “Its fall haunts your dreams as the dying echo of the world that was.”
“No, I saw it with my own eyes, only days ago,” she said, “He... used me to find it, the final refuge of our mother’s spirit.”
A rumble passed through the floor beneath Marla’s feet.
“Choose your words with care, little one,” the Empress’s voice rolled through the mists like a gathering storm.
“I thought you wanted to hear the truth,” Marla countered.
“Then speak it, child, and pray it balms the one unhealed wound in my heart,” the great dragon spoke, “Tell me of Uroe.”
“I was there,” Marla said, “I was guided by dreams to an island that no one else could find... There I found her, the Queen of the World, a dream herself now, haunting the fallen ruin of the moon that was.”
“My mother died long before your people rose from the ashes of her fall,” the Empress hissed, “You know nothing of that tragedy. Had any part of her survived that day, I would have known... She would have spoken in my dreams! Whatever delusion has brought you here, whatever devil’s poison now infects your mind, I warn you... Do not speak again of my mother’s fall.”
The floor shook, and the golden glow that permeated the mists now darkened to a ruddy orange.
“I thought you didn’t get angry,” Marla said, her breath frosting the suddenly frigid mists. She turned slowly as she searched the fog for any sign of her interrogator.
“Few now live that have seen me so,” the voice in the mist rumbled.
“I have met the Dragon Queen!” Marla shouted, “and she has charged me to gather all of her children together in defiance of the Betrayer. She has given me the purpose, and the authority to do so!”
A blast of wind staggered Marla, sending her reeling before she recovered her footing. The red glow moved upward and away through the mist, casting the frigid clouds into gloom all around her.
The rage that welled up in Marla’s breast warmed her as the mist began to burn away in the heat of the golden light that now emanated from her body.
“I came here to seek your aid, not demand it,” Marla shouted, “but I will have it either way.”
“No!” the Empress’s voice thundered from somewhere far away, “I see you now for what you are... Betrayer.”
Marla tossed back her head and shouted in frustration, her fingers flexed, claw-like at her sides. “Are you a fool?” she demanded, “Do you really think that I’m some kind of demon here to trick you?”
“What fair deception you have played, devil!” the Empress roared, “Offering me the hope of so precious a lie! No, Betrayer, I have passed your test! I will not be drawn so easily into your snare!”
The reddish glow circled around behind Marla now, and she turned to follow it, no longer certain from which direction she had entered the mist-filled chamber.
“Show yourself, then, Empress of Lapria!” Marla shouted, “Let us speak, face to face, and know the t
ruth of things!”
A coil of fiery orange light whipped from the mists and smashed into the floor a few yards away. Its impact threw Marla to her knees as splinters of wood rattled down on the carpet all around her.
“You want to see my face?” the Empress roared, “Look then, Betrayer, upon the Eater of Gods!”
Marla shielded her eyes as fragments of charred wood blasted past her in a hurricane wind. The mists boiled away to slowly reveal the interior of a sphere of glossy black stone, nearly a mile in diameter. A single railed walkway, now smashed to splinters, had once connected the circular platform where Marla knelt to the chamber’s only visible exit, the corridor through which she had entered. Now the last of the clouds burned away to reveal the titanic red-gold dragon that hovered above the broken bridge that had been Marla’s only hope of escape.
The Empress’s golden scales bore the scars of countless battles, her almost equine face cruelly marred by the claws of some ancient foe, and her outstretched wings frayed and torn in many places. The sight of her wounds filled Marla’s heart with an overwhelming sense of pity.
“My sweet child,” Marla whispered without thinking.
“Have you anything else to say before I return you to the darkness where you belong?” the Empress roared.
Marla rose to her feet and wiped a tear from her cheek with her sleeve, too overcome with sorrow to speak.
The Empress landed on the far side of Marla’s platform, buffeting the vampire girl with the wind from her wings. Marla stumbled backward, to the very edge of the platform. She turned and looked down, hoping to see a floor below, but a seething pool of liquid flame covered the lower half of the spherical chamber. A slender pillar of obsidian rose from its depths to support the wooden platform, but its glassy sides offered no handholds or chance of escape.
“You have nothing to say, Weaver of Lies?” the Empress cried. Tears of golden fire streamed from her eyes to follow the creases of her scars down into her snarling jaws. She lifted her head high as she strode forward a step, crushing carpet and timbers alike between her claws.
Marla staggered away from the edge as the platform shook beneath the dragon’s mighty footfall. She had to get back to the others. Perhaps Princess Kire could be persuaded... but first, she had to save her friends and her father.
“You deserve the void!” the Empress shouted, spitting fiery teardrops from her ragged lips, “Not my people... Not my Mother!”
“I’m sorry,” Marla whispered as she gathered her will, focusing her thoughts on the rune of Maizan. She squeezed her eyes shut and brought her fists together across her face as golden motes of light swirled around her body. The image of the name-rune burned clearly in her mind’s eye, and she willed herself to be there, on that columned terrace, overlooking the city.
“Die then, demon, if you can,” the Empress hissed, “and pray to the void you never again see the face of a daughter’s rage!”
Marla’s eyes popped open in terror. “It’s not working!” she cried, finding herself still on the broken terrace at the feet of the Dragon Empress.
The Empress’s jaws parted, and the light of a thousand suns erupted from between her crooked teeth.
The dragon’s fiery breath tore the air from Marla’s lungs in a silent scream, and the impact of the blast hurled her body from the platform. She felt only a momentary sensation of weightlessness before the fire burned away her senses, and then a muffled crunch of breaking bones, felt, not heard, as her body struck the far wall of the chamber.
Then came blackness and the sense of falling into a great, lightless void.
Was she truly the Betrayer after all? Was this nothingness that now claimed her the place she was meant to be?
“Utter nonsense!” a voice hissed from the blackness.
“Merithia?” Marla cried out in the silence of the void.
“Yes, dear,” the dragon answered, “I’m here... and you are not a demon!”
“Am I dead?” Marla asked, her heart fluttering with fear.
“Don’t be silly, dear,” Merithia sighed, “I would tell you if you were.”
“Why couldn’t I open a portal?” Marla demanded, beginning to panic, “Why didn’t it work?”
“I haven’t any idea!” Merithia replied testily, “I never understood how those things worked! As I mentioned, previously, I chose to spend my time more wisely than those gadabouts who flitted around the world in those silly things!”
“Where am I now?” Marla sobbed, “Why can’t I see anything? Where am I?”
“Calm yourself, child,” Merithia chided, “You’ve simply lost your form.”
“What?” Marla demanded, nearly out of her mind with fear.
“It really was a frail thing,” Merithia sighed, “Hardly suited for the task at hand.”
“I’m dead! I’m dead!,” Marla cried.
“Shush! I’ve told you that you aren’t!” Merithia scolded her, “You simply have to remember your true form to bring it back.”
Marla fought her way through the panic, trying to breathe deeply, but finding no breath to breathe.
“That’s it. Calm yourself, child, like that,” Merithia said.
Marla formed in her mind’s eye the image of herself, unharmed and alive. She imagined herself drawing cool air into her lungs.
A sudden flash of light and searing pain drove her again into blackness.
“I can’t!” Marla sobbed.
“Not with that form!” Merithia scoffed, “I told you it was much too frail to survive this!”
“What do you mean?” Marla wept.
“Remember your other form,” Merithia whispered, “your true form.”
“My...” Marla gasped. Her fear drained away as she understood at last the reason why she had come to face the Dragon Empress. She cleared her thoughts again, and then she remembered.
Marla burst from the lake of fire to spread her four golden wings across the vast court of the Laprian Empress. Marla’s shimmering tail coiled and lashed from the depths of the fiery pool, shattering the obsidian column beneath the scarred dragon below her. Shards of black glass and liquid fire hurtled through the air as the Empress fell, her eyes wide with horror and wonder as she beheld the Dragon Queen reborn.
Marla’s golden scales flashed like lightning as she caught the falling Empress in her outstretched hands, and her claws, like flawless diamonds, curled gently around the Laprian dragon’s body, bearing her up before she could touch the fiery pool below.
Marla’s eyes blazed with the heat of her boundless joy as she smiled upon her sister-daughter whose war-torn face gazed up at her with the adoration of a lost child.
“How?” the Empress wept.
“Love cannot die,” Marla answered in a voice like the breaking dawn.
Chapter Thirty-four
Astorra
“I still don’t know how anybody is supposed to see anything through these things,” Garrett grumbled as he fidgeted with the visor of his new helm. At least the padded cap he wore beneath it made for a snug fit. Indeed, the entire suit of plated mail fit Garrett like a second skin. Sir Baelan’s armorer certainly knew his trade. If it weren’t for the full bascinet helm obscuring his vision of the field below, he could get used to walking around in the guise of an Astorran knight. He wiggled the helmet a bit more, trying to get a look at the Chadiri legion that sprawled like a red carpet across the opposite hillside.
At last he simply pushed the visor fully open and took a deep breath of the morning air.
“Sir Perdle,” Haven called out in a sing-song voice, “keep your face covered, or you’ll catch a chill.”
“No one’s looking at me,” Garrett hissed under his breath, giving his page a sour look.
Haven grinned back at him, looking cute in her polished barbute helm and leather armor. Over it all, she wore a simple blue surcoat with no embroidery to hint at her young knight’s true identity. She leaned with one elbow on the rim of Garrett’s blue-painted shield that she hel
d for him, its pointed base sunk into the grass of the hillside.
The two other women in mail armor and matching blue surcoats smirked at him as well. Even through their remarkable illusion of humanity, Garrett could sense the wolfish cunning of Mink and Luma, sent by Raikja to act as Garrett’s bodyguards during the battle to come. The nearest real Astorran stood about twenty yards to their left as Garrett and his companions had taken up position at the far end of the ranks of Astorran footmen. A few of the younger soldiers had made the attempt to welcome Garrett, or rather Sir Perdle, and his female retainers to the formation, but the ladies had made it clear that they were content to stand apart. Mink and Luma had proven most persuasive in that regard.
Garrett nodded to the sisters before looking away, his eyes drawn by the thudding approach of a horse riding along the hill below.
“Sir Baelan!” Garrett called out as the knight rode up.
“Sir knight,” Baelan greeted him simply as he swung down from his horse to clasp Garrett’s hand through their gauntlets. The big knight’s face beamed with excitement, and he looked ten years younger than he had in the ashen wastes of the Gloaran swamp. His silver pauldron flashed in the morning sun as he turned to look across the shallow valley toward the enemy host arrayed against them.
“A glorious morning to be alive!” Sir Baelan laughed, “I feared I would never see such a day again.”
“Well... here you go,” Garrett chuckled awkwardly.
Sir Baelan sighed as he looked at Garrett again with true gratitude in his eyes. “My spirit soars this day,” he said, “Thank you. You have revived the beating heart of our kingdom.”
Garrett glanced away, squirming a little, but his armor hid it well. He simply smiled and nodded his acceptance of the knight’s praise.
“Whatever happens this day, I am proud to call myself an Astorran,” Sir Baelan said with a trembling smile.
Trials of the Twiceborn (The Songreaver's Tale Book 6) Page 40