The Price of Survival (Journey of an Arbais Mage Book 2)

by Meagan Hurst

  “You should rest,” Nivaradros finally mentioned some hours later. When she started to bristle, the Dragon exhaled with fire. “Are we already going to go through this again?” he demanded in a brittle tone. “You are weak—far, far weaker than I think you even know—and I am not losing you yet. You survived telling Midestol he was your grandfather. I would like to see that effort wasn’t wasted because you freeze to death tonight. I can sense your exhaustion and condition from over here. While you might not feel the injuries you still haven’t recovered from, I can taste them on the air. For once, Zimliya, do not argue with me. I only have so much patience, and it is not as vast as you seem to believe it is.”

  She sat on her own anger with effort. She was tempted to argue because it was easier—more familiar—than giving in. But at the same time, she had already gone through this with the Dragon today, and she knew he wasn’t bluffing when he said he was at the end of his patience. Having seen the results when his temper finally emerged in full, she knew better than to let it, though it was still very tempting.

  “Nivaradros—” she began.

  “I told you to go to bed,” he responded tightly.

  “I was thinking—”

  “That you want to send me to an early grave?”

  “—that perhaps we should return to Istuion.”

  “Which is proof you truly do need to sleep.”

  “If Veilantras is looking for you—or me—being out here won’t solve the problem. It will just delay the inevitable,” Z finished in exasperation.

  “I will handle it. Go be human for all of a couple hours so my urge to kill you fades,” Nivaradros growled. “Right now, I am having the hardest of times recalling why you are still alive. And I know there is a very good reason, so I would rather not make it irrelevant because I made the mistake of eating you after you drove me past the level of patience that any other being would have dared to breach.” When she didn’t reply, Nivaradros roared and moved fast enough that she couldn’t block his movements in time.

  “Please don’t push me any further tonight,” he asked softly in a voice that caused her skin to crawl at the threat and the power he exposed within it. “It has been a very long day. And I am tired of repeating myself. Let it go tonight, Z. Let it go.”

  If he only knew how much she wanted to and couldn’t. “Nivaradros—” she tried to explain.

  And he surprised her, he instantly backed off. Closing his eyes to hide his mood, she saw his shoulders slump as he settled. “Alright,” he sighed without smoke or fire following the word. “Perhaps I need to approach with a different angle.” His hands clenched and unclenched, but his stance remained ready for action—ready to attack. “What do you seek?” he half-demanded.

  She stared at him wordlessly, and instead of getting even more irate with her, the Dragon seemed to deflate. “It is possible this is a side-effect from our wonderful experiment,” he conceded. “That would make this not entirely your fault.” He watched her while he mused his way through whatever it was he was thinking. The result, however, clearly didn’t sit well with him. “Come,” he ordered gently at long last.

  “Now where are you dragging me to?” Z asked sourly.

  “My lair,” the Dragon replied tightly, clearly hating it.

  “What—? Didn’t we already go through that?” she sputtered.

  “Not well enough, apparently,” the Dragon grumbled, but despite his immense loathing of the idea, he was more accepting of it now than he had been the first time. “It’s alright,” he added when she didn’t move. “It is the safest place for you right now.”

  “Oh really?!” she inquired sarcastically.

  “Yes,” the Dragon replied with a tone that mimicked hers. “Really.” She stared at him again and Nivaradros cursed under his breath in several languages that weren’t his own. Since Dragon didn’t lend itself to whispering, it was understandable, but surprising. “You have a decent amount of blood from a Dragon running through your veins,” he explained patiently. “There is a fairly good chance—I am willing to assume this much—that it is affecting your mood, and some of your human necessities: sleep, for instance. My lair is the safest place for you,” he repeated with the tone of someone who was stating the obvious for the thousandth time. “It is designed, magicked, and tuned to a Dragon. If nothing else, it will offer us some chance of hiding your condition and state from Veilantras if she comes to call.”

  And she wanted to argue again. Opening her mouth was easy, closing it without saying something wasn’t. The Dragon watched her fight with herself and his anger softened further. “I am going to murder the Shade,” he declared darkly. “He didn’t mention this possibility.”

  She declined to answer, and instead she worked to keep herself from responding to anything he had said earlier with a negative or argumentative tone. “Nivaradros,” she managed at long last.

  It was enough. Shaking his head and muttering darkly about the ill effects magic occasionally brought about, the Dragon moved to her side. “Do you think you could manage to agree to let me fly you there?” he wanted to know. “Or should I just seize you in my talons and carry you there kicking and screaming?”

  “I’m not screaming,” she pointed out softly. “Or kicking,” she added with a smile. “Just—”

  The Dragon’s smile was dark, but strangely reassuring. “I know.”

  She ended up managing to allow Nivaradros to carry her on his back. It took another thirty minutes and a lot of patience from the Dragon, but in the end, she quit trying to argue with him and he shifted to his native form. Once they were airborne, she began to relax. The air currents were smooth and surprisingly warm for the time of year, and the feel of the Dragon’s wings felt homelike.

  She blinked at the direction of her thoughts and scowled. Glancing over the side of the Dragon, she gave up the idea of jumping when she realized she couldn’t see the ground because the Dragon was soaring above the first layer of clouds—she wasn’t that suicidal. Remaining where she was instead, Z let her eyes close and just gave in to her delight of flying.

  Nivaradros landed smoothly about five hours later. The moon was beginning to ready itself to fall back beneath the horizon, and the Dragon’s lair was encased in shadows. He lowered himself as much as possible for her to slide off and his right wing stabilized her as she hit the ground. A snort of smoke, however, informed her he wasn’t impressed with her balance.

  “Human, remember?”

  “Only when you force me to.” Nivaradros glanced to the cave he claimed as his own. “Come.” He moved his bulk to the entrance to his home. The sheer size of it was astonishing—the mouth leading to the depths he had carved out himself dwarfed him, and little dwarfed a Dragon in their native form. When he noticed she wasn’t dogging his steps, he paused and stood in the entry—his neck swiveling around so he could regard her in open confusion.

  She hesitated even when he stared at her in something close to annoyance, but with more heat—though it wasn’t anger. “This is your home. I don’t … I don’t want to intrude.” The revulsion she felt at taking another step was shocking and something she couldn’t explain. She felt as if she was violating his home—his space—and even with his permission, she could not force herself to take a step forward.

  “I promise you, it is safe.”

  “It’s not safety that concerns me, Nivaradros. This is yours. You don’t generally allow mortals within it unless you plan to kill them—”

  “I’m not planning to kill you, although you are making it tempting.”

  “I don’t want you breaking some unspoken rule within your domain for me.”

  “As it is my domain, it is therefore my right to break any rule I choose. Z, I promise you it is alright for you to enter. I appreciate your restraint and your concern, but you have been inside before—without permission, I might add—so you really shouldn’t be so standoffish.”

  “This is different.”

  “Yes. It is. You have permissi
on this time.” Nivaradros watched her closely. “Ah. It seems you have reluctance to enter because of what I did to you. I understand now. Z, you have my permission to enter my domain freely and I give you that permission for both parts of your blood.” When she still didn’t move, the Dragon sighed. “This could make things decidedly more annoying. If the dragon blood in your veins is holding you back, and my lair won’t accept my invitation to you, as it normally would, I don’t know what to do short of knocking you over the head and dragging your unconscious form into my lair.”

  She held up her hands hopelessly. “I … I can’t, Nivaradros. It’s possibly the worst sensation I have ever felt. I cannot come any closer.”

  “I am definitely going to murder the Shade. Zimliya de la Nepioa, I give you my word that you are granted entry here. Freely.” Green eyes edged towards neon. “I seek your presence in my domain and lair!” the Dragon finally snapped through clenched teeth.

  That time she felt something. A lessening of the chain that had been wrapped around her heart. Wincing at the feel of something being granted, she finally managed to stagger a step forward. That first step was awkward, but every other one after it was normal. Seeing she could finally move, Nivaradros stepped back and offered her space. He was still Dragon, and his form was causing her skin to twitch. It angered her—she had been fine being around him since she awoke until now after all—and she tried to push through it.

  She was tempted to give him permission to kill Crilyne, tempted to tell him how to kill the Shade. Of course, that thought made her also tempted to kill the Dragon. She had been okay with death—she had accepted it—until he had intervened. Now, if she was following things correctly, she was even closer to being immortal than her power had already brought her, but it was a half-state, and one that brought too many problems to count to the table. She could honestly say she preferred the seizures to this, and those, she also knew, were not truly gone.

  And he saw it. Nivaradros saw her anger and he shifted abruptly to his inferior form, the form he loathed and yet constantly wore because it was the only form she had. Approaching her with care, Nivaradros extended his now human appearing hand.

  “Zimliya,” he whispered softly, “come.” There was no force and no order in that tone. If anything, there was pity, something else she hated.

  Still, she nodded slowly and took the hand he offered with ease. She heard him let out a sigh of relief, and then he led her through the opening to the home he had created following his exile. She felt something akin to spider webs as she walked through the mouth of the cave, but it was a light magic, and it welcomed her without pause. She had his permission, but even though the blood in her veins came from him, it was clear the protections around his lair didn’t consider it safe. Despite all of her research into the Dragon race, she hadn’t come across this in such a powerful way.

  There was clearly a reason Dragons rarely fought battles in each other’s lairs; they had to be given permission to enter, and now she understood why that permission generally came with strings. To break the bindings that had been built into the race would take effort, magic, and great sacrifice on behalf of the Dragon who was attempting to circumvent the wards. She could not think of many Dragons who would willingly do that.

  Walking down the curving path that led deep into Nivaradros’s private area, Z noticed the walls had gems periodically placed in them, and the stone of the cave was lined with rich veins of gold. It wasn’t surprising—Nivaradros had always had gold in abundance, though he cared little about it—but at the same time she hadn’t come through his underground kingdom this way, so it was breathtaking to see. Light—soft, and yet brilliant enough to keep all shadows at bay—came from somewhere, and she was curious how he managed it. It was a long walk from the entrance to what would probably have been called a foyer in any other place this fine. Nivaradros was watching her intently, and she knew he was pleased with her open surprise and curiosity. She was admiring his home, and, within Dragon culture, it was the highest honor she could offer him.

  “Does it meet your approval?” Nivaradros finally asked as she walked away from him and ran her fingers through the small pond he had probably magicked up through the floor of his mountain. It was pure and untainted by anything, and yet she could sense the power within. Nivaradros was more of an elemental master than she had suspected.

  “My approval doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “But it is quite astonishing. I presume I could wander for years and never see everything?”

  “A few hundred would probably be sufficient.”

  “I don’t have a few hundred years. If I am lucky I have a year—singular.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  His words startled her, and she let her hand pull free of the water to face him. “What?”

  “You said you were offered immortality before, several times. You turned it down. There is a chance you will be offered it again. I would ask that you consider accepting it this time.”

  “No.”

  “Then explain to me why, at least.”

  She wished she could. Sighing, she shook her head and glanced up at the ‘ceiling.’ “Did you put stained glass up there?!”

  “I smash things. Occasionally I can find use for them. Do you like it?”

  Which meant there was a design. Z sighed and let her eyes focus on the massive supposed scene above her head. Dragons could see both up close and distant things with ease because they could adjust their type of vision on command—not so much with mortal eyes, especially those belonging to humans. It took an annoyingly long amount of time, but in the end Z recognized what the Dragon had created. She really didn’t understand him.

  “When was this?”

  “A couple years after Dyslentio and I started traveling together.”

  “Huh.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Well, it is certainly something.”

  Nivaradros’s eyes were dancing. “I promise I have rooms that will not upset you.”

  “Now that I find hard to believe.” She let him lead her away from the room she doubted she would ever be okay with and found herself immediately suspicious of Nivaradros’s inborn magical talents.

  “Yessss?” Nivaradros drawled when he sensed her looking at him.

  “How many of the elements do you control?”

  “I wondered how long it would take you to ask that.”

  “Nivaradros—”

  “Patience, Zimliya. I am sure you can figure it out if you wait long enough.”

  Glowering at the smug smile touching his face, Z exhaled shortly, but didn’t push the issue. She was still feeling confrontational, so she was quite proud of herself for managing to not reply. The better news was that Nivaradros seemed to realize she was having a hard time keeping herself contained—his anger wasn’t appearing at all now, and she knew some of what she said was offensive.

  He led her down a hall, or what she was going to call a hall. For all she knew someone with nothing better to do had come up with terms for rooms and walkways designed inside, and from, a mountain. If they had, she was going to find and strangle them while never using a single one of those terms. The human language had too many damn useless words already. The hall was like his foyer in the fact that there was gold running in thick veins on the walls with the occasional unnatural gem to add to the opulence of the area. The hall lit up as they walked and Z felt a familiar—and thankfully small—touch of magic that was the cause behind it.

  “How often do you add to this?” Z finally asked.

  “That depends. Sometimes I make a lot of changes, and sometimes I don’t even complete a previous project for years.”

  Since it had taken them fifteen minutes of wandering aimlessly downward—in Z’s mind—before she realized they were truly going somewhere, Z was convinced the Dragon had too much time on his hands—well, talons. The décor was impressive—she would give him that—and the intricate carvings he had lined his halls
with were so realistic that if it hadn’t been for the color of stone, Z would have been drawn into the designs. This was still part of the Dragon’s lair she hadn’t seen before; she had never guessed the Dragon wasn’t just talented in magic and death.

  The halls had doors as well—crafted from the mountain—but most of them were closed, warded, and gave off a hint of wrongness that made her skin crawl. She didn’t ask and Nivaradros didn’t volunteer the information. They turned another corner and continued going down, deeper into the mountain. It was a slow decline—steps being useless to a Dragon in their native form—but it was anything but boring.

  In one area, Nivaradros had created and enchanted a stone meadow that led into a forest. A magicked wind blew the delicate stone blades of grass and rustled the leaves and branches of the stone trees—even the pond that was entirely stone rippled in that fake wind. Z blinked in surprise at the detail and glanced sidelong at the Dragon. Earth, air, water, and magic. Four of the elements at least were within his control. She wondered about the last three—fire, the absence, and shadow—and then remembered he was a Dragon and amended it to final two. Before she could ask, Nivaradros paused at the end of the living meadow and forest hall and nodded to a set of doors on her right.

  “That will be your room for the duration of your stay. It is far enough beneath the surface—and beneath my main rooms—that no visiting Dragons should be able to sense anything amiss.” He opened the doors without touching them or even speaking. Clearly, he felt she hadn’t seen enough of his magical talent yet. “You will find everything you require to be comfortable inside. If you need me at all just say my name—I presume you would rather be left alone?”

  The answer was no, but Z blinked in disbelief at the room the doors opened to reveal, and the Dragon made his escape before she could remember how to speak. This had to be the Dragon’s wing—room?—of stone creation. Everything inside had been delicately carved from the mountainside. The room itself was large enough to be considered a wing in most other places on its own, but it was just one room. Though she wasn’t sure if that meant it was in fact a room, or a wing. She was thrown off enough that she dwelled on that much more than she should have.