“Uhhh…”
This mist was dark. My head fogged.
“More, more…he’s big! More!” They were all screaming, panicked about how long it was taking to subdue me.
“I took you in,” I said. “Why did you…”
“Our queen wanted her rock dragon back…but…she’ll be happy with you, I think. You’re quite a prize.”
“I hope so, after all this,” another one of them said.
“It’s the best we can fucking do, okay?”
I couldn’t see through the haze. Or maybe that was just my vision blacking out.
“Fuck…he—he was right,” I said. Someone warned me about these mist dragons. My memory failed me. I couldn’t even remember the name of someone very important to me. “Something went wrong. I trusted—something—”
“Shh. Calm down. Let’s get you out of the water.”
“Is it working?” I was surrounded by strange dragons. I didn’t know them.
I didn’t know my own name.
I couldn’t think.
Why was I here, in dragon form, in the water? Where was I? I felt weak, collapsing into man form as we swam for the shore. They transformed back, too, and concerned faces surrounded me.
“Are you all right?” one of the women asked me. She was the youngest of them, with long black hair. I sort of remembered that long black hair… She bit her lip. “They killed Andara and Meru. Thank the gods you made it out. They’re too strong. We need to get out of here.”
“Who are you?”
They all looked horrified. “You don’t remember?”
The girl took my hand in hers. “Tanu…I’m Emiri…your betrothed.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Ezeru
I went to the children’s quarters of the castle, only to find rock dragons everywhere. But not my rock dragons. They were chasing the kids, but half-heartedly. I could see that they were a bit lethargic, which probably meant they had been rushed hastily into the castle through the toxic fog surrounding it. Almost all the children had changed into dragons too, to better defend themselves against the biting and clawing of the rock dragons.
Niko had gotten there before me, and he was in dragon form too, trying to defend the kids. He looked at me. “Something’s up,” he said. “One of the mist dragons was in here, and when I tried to confront her, she jumped out the window.”
I had my suspicions of what was going on. Izeria knew I had betrayed her and gone to the high dragons, but I don’t think she could ever have imagined how much I had been welcomed. She surely thought that if she staged an attack by rock dragons, I would be immediately blamed and shunned.
The children’s nurses started screaming at me,
“Get control of them!”
“I knew we should never have let rock dragons share this castle with our kids!”
Well, I suppose she wasn’t entirely wrong.
“These are not my dragons,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Niko asked.
“Of course I’m sure! I know my own dragons! Aknu? Nuru? Samo?” No one answered.
I let out a screech that asserted my dominance. Many of them stopped in their tracks. But one of the rock dragons ran up to me. “Bad dragon,” he wheezed. “You like pretty dragons. Enemy! Enemy!”
I wrapped rock around my hand from the floor and cuffed him, throwing him back against the wall. “The mist king sent you, did he?” I asked, although I could hardly even get my voice over the screaming and crying of terrified babies.
A female scrabbled up to me, lowering her head. “You very strong. I not want to fight.”
“Smart,” I said. “I need my own dragons here. They’ll talk to this group.”
The nursemaids all looked nervously and looked at each other like, Do you want to go to those other dragons?
“I guess the most timid of dragon maids are asked to watch the children, is that it?” I said, frustrated.
A few guards had reached the doorway. “We can’t let more rock dragons into the children’s quarters. Can we corral this bunch down to them?”
I counted about twenty rock dragons, and I drove them out with harsh commands. Niko followed me out, helping me force them along.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“It seems that someone let enemy rock dragons into the castle. This must be a plot to retaliate against me for turning on Izeria.”
Another soldier came running up to us. “Guardian Niko…King Ezeru…the mist dragons seem to have turned on us. Eight of them are missing, we killed four of them, one was fighting King Seron upstairs and they both seem to have left the castle. The queen and Aurekdel want to see you both.”
“Fuck,” Niko said. “The mist dragons let them in, huh? They orchestrated this whole attack, I bet. I was really hoping that wasn’t going to be the case.”
I turned to him, and he looked so much like Peri that I always felt more comfortable around him than our actual acquaintance warranted. “Niko…it’s not your fault. It’s not being a mist dragon that makes a person evil. I know that.”
“Tell it to everyone else around here.” He shrugged. “I mean, I guess I don’t really care, as long as we save Peri.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did care,” I said. “We are both…grudgingly accepted here.”
“True.” Niko gave me a chagrined smile, not revealing too much. “I’m missing the birth of our first baby just to put up with all this.”
“Dvaro and Izeria are evil,” I said. “And they have tainted many of the people around them, but they’ve used being kept out of high dragon society to justify all of it. If you dare to question them, you must be a friend of the man they’ve painted as the true enemy, King Aurekdel. That’s why your mother’s tongue was cut out. Something like that, anyway, I’m sure. She had to spend years feigning loyalty. We should…try to save them from that. It just won’t be easy, because many of them truly are loyal. It won’t be a solution we can reach without more pain.”
“I get that,” Niko said. “I’m a cynic by nature.”
I quickly forced the mist dragons into the chambers where my dragons had seemed content enough to build their nests in the shadows. Aknu’s golden eyes locked on them. “New dragons,” he said, prowling over from his dinner, some fish and roots they were all tearing into. He was starting to get pretty good at being an ambassador.
“Yes, new dragons. Tell them I’m their true king,” I said.
“Yes, friend king,” he said, puffing up a little as he looked at the hostile newcomers. Some of the others were baring their teeth a little, communicating that this was their turf. I had to leave it there.
I dashed back upstairs to check on the others.
If Aurek and Seron’s kingdom had one great strength, I thought, it was the joy with which they shared music and dance, love and camaraderie. They didn’t share it with me, but I was so used to that anyway that it wasn’t something I expected. Just to see that somewhere in the world, people could be happy…it made me happier too.
But its greatest weakness was also obvious. The castle had been under just the usual level of guard, while the rest of the soldiers were drinking and dancing the night away, and now everything was a complete mess.
Himika spotted Niko and me. “There they are!” She ran toward us, practically dragging Aurekdel behind her. “Ezeru! We need to find Seron! He doesn’t seem to be in the castle and Avo and a bunch of guys just went outside the fortress to look for him but—”
“You need to stay in the castle!” Himika’s handmaiden Hara said.
“I need to find him,” Aurek insisted.
“You too,” Hara said. “If something happened to Seron—”
“No!” Aurek shouted. “Gods—damn—it. I have two sips of this tea and I’m ready to kill for him if I must.”
“Will you help us?” Himika asked me.
“Of course.”
Being needed…this was a good feeling.
“Oh no you don�
�t…” Hara tried to block Himika’s way. “I’m your guard, my lady!”
But Himika and Aurekdel pushed past her.
Niko told Hara, “Just let her go. I’ve got a stubborn girl at home and it’s not worth the energy. We’ll take care of her.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me!” Himika said.
We set out in the boats, putting on our masks to protect against the toxins, and everything seemed to take far too long. Outside, the rest of the army had come out to fight, concentrating near one of the walls.
One of their boats came toward ours. “Queen Himika! Stay back! It’s too dangerous. There’s dahna mist in the air.”
“What?” Aurekdel got to his feet, swaying in the boat. “Where’s Seron?”
“We—we haven’t found him yet. We’re searching the surrounding area and trying to break up the mist cloud, but until we do, we can’t pass through it or we’ll forget what we were after.”
“What is dahna mist?” Himika asked.
“It steals your memories away,” I said.
“Memories…?”
“This is Izeria’s handiwork,” I said. “Send rock dragons into the castle, sow confusion and fear. She thought you would turn me and the rock dragons out. She wants me. But we didn’t act like the mist dragons anticipated and Seron just happened to step into it.”
Himika looked at me. I could see her teeth chattering through her face mask. “No…not Seron.” She shouted, “We have to find him!”
“Give me the tea,” Aurek said.
She handed him the jar. He drank it down and then he jumped in the water and climbed onto the soldiers boat.
Chapter Forty-Three
Aurekdel
The water was churning, people were shouting, my mask had fallen off my face.
I had to give the tea a moment to activate, but even in the meantime, I could sense the cavern walls out pretty well from the echoes.
“King Aurek—stop. It’s not safe. There’s still dahna mist,” the captain said.
“I need to fly over it,” I insisted.
“But—you can’t.”
“The queen gave me magic so I can see for a few minutes,” I said, oversimplifying it because I didn’t have time. “I can get Seron. Just tell me where they went.”
“Well…there are some smaller tunnels there past the mist.” He took my hand and tried his best to point the direction. “Probably there…by the wall. Does that make sense?”
“I’ll figure it out. Thank you.”
Panic propelled me more than anything else, which was not a good way to make any decisions. But… I don’t have time for good decisions. I can’t lose him… I unleashed a partial transformation: wings for flying, claws for fighting. Otherwise, I stayed a man so I could keep my sword.
I hardly ever flew. You couldn’t really fly with a cane. My wings were shaky. I could sense the walls pretty well. Anger boiled inside me as I landed at one of the tunnels. “I told you not to trust them, Seron. I told you. You big hearted dunce…”
I sniffed the air. There was a faint odor, sort of like burning hair tinged with sweetness. Very unpleasant. That must be the dahna, but there was no hint of it inside the tunnel.
I listened. I heard voices and I crept forward a few steps but then I stopped.
You’re alone. What can you do? Get yourself killed or captured? Leave Himika all alone?
Twelve mist dragons had come to the fortress. Even if half of them had been killed, they outnumbered me by a huge margin. And if they had Seron on their side, it was hopeless.
The tea was already starting to fade.
You can’t do this now.
Whatever the prophecies say, you said your vow to Himika, to stand by her side and protect her. Not Seron. And he wouldn’t want you to break that vow.
I drew back and I don’t know when I had last cried. But for just a moment, before I returned to my people, I sank down to the floor of the tunnel and choked on my tears.
Then I realized the footsteps were getting closer, and I had to force myself back onto my feet, choking it all back. “Who’s there?”
“Lord Aurekdel?”
It sounded like one of the guards I had sent with Oszin. “Ren? Did Izeria let you go?”
“She let us go with Peri,” he said. “Oszin made some kind of deal with her.”
“Is Peri with you now?”
“Yes, she’s right here. Peri, this is—well, Lord Aurekdel.”
I held out a hand and a small, strong hand took mine. If Peri couldn’t talk I thought I’d have a hard time getting to know her, but her hand said more than I expected. It was friendly—strong—reassuring.
In that moment, it struck me, because I could feel the strength and kindness in this woman’s hand, and I could feel the weight of everything she had sacrificed in order to get Niko to the priestess, and to give Ezeru some kind of a life. I could imagine a young woman, desperate to find some other way, only to see cruelty and fear everywhere she turned. Including in the halls of my own kingdom.
And that was why Seron let the so-called defectors in. Even though it went wrong.
“I am very sorry,” I said, “that you were only allowed in the library when the court was away.”
Peri squeezed my hand.
“She wants to see Ezeru and Niko,” Ren said.
“Of course…yes.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. A lot has just happened. We have to…regroup.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Ezeru
I put my arm around Himika. She leaned into my touch, as if she knew me. Together, we sat in the boat and watched the mist fade away as the dragons searched for Seron.
Even now, I could smell Himika’s sweet scent; I could hardly believe any part of this girl was mine, that she would trust me and fight with me. Even in this terrible moment, some part of me was happy, just because she was there.
And then, one of the boats came back to ours. One of the shield maidens was holding the crystal crown of the high dragon kings in her hands.
“No…” Himika held out her hands. The woman presented the crown, wordlessly.
“It was just sitting on the rocks like an offering,” she said. “We’re still looking, but…I’m worried they might have escaped while we had to wait for the dahna cloud to dissipate. Even with the masks, it was too strong.”
“Seron and Oszin…” She looked up, her hands shaking.
And then I saw a boat sailing out of the fog, and a woman standing on it. She met my eyes. From a distance, her hands flashed my name.
“Peri!”
“Peri?” Niko perked up from the seat behind us.
“Peri,” I called. “Sillu is here too!”
The boat came closer, and tears were flowing from Peri’s eyes, but she was smiling more than I’d ever seen her. She leapt from one boat to ours, and our boat swayed beneath us. She threw her arms around Niko and me. Niko’s eyes widened, like he didn’t know what to say.
She kissed my cheek and then signed rapidly, You look so well.
Then she looked at Niko. Her tears were all joy. You don’t look very much like your father. But you grew up very handsome anyway.
I translated for Niko. He looked like he’d been struck completely speechless.
“I need to learn what you’re saying,” he said.
She nodded, but even that barrier adding more distance between her and her son didn’t seem to squelch her joy.
“I thought you might be…kind of broken down,” Niko said. “You’re smiling, but you’re a tough bitch, aren’t you?”
She nodded. I’ve been waiting for a long time. One down, one to go. Since you left, Izeria has been speaking as if she is your mother, Ezeru. She snorted.
“It sounds like, if anyone was Ezeru’s mother, it was you,” Niko said, after I translated for her again.
I glanced at him, grateful for this. He could have been possessive of her just as easily.“Yes,” I said. “She is my mother.”
I don’t think Peri ever wanted to presume to claim that role when my real mother was a rock dragon; but I hoped she would know how much she meant to me.
She lowered her head, wiping a few tears. I hope you two get along.
“I don’t really get along with anyone,” Niko said, with a dry chuckle.
“Neither do I…”
“But I guess we’re not too bad as acquaintances go. Having a brother this powerful? That’s pretty useful,” Niko said.
I nodded. I understood him.
Himika and Aurekdel had been keeping a polite distance during this, but now I shifted my attention to them. “I want you to meet the queen, Himika. She also happens to be my mate… I’ll have to tell the story later. And Lord Aurekdel.”
“King pro tem Aurekdel,” Himika said.
“Himika…”
“Don’t even bother protesting,” Himika said. “I know you want this crown back on your head.”
“Not like this.”
“Seron would want it too, and you know that. He tried his best not to become king at all. You’re the only one who can rule beside me through this time. And half the people still keep calling you king anyway.”
Himika led the way back into the fortress. The high dragons gathered in the hall, as sober as I’d ever seen them. “I wish to appoint Aurekdel to rule as the king of the high dragons in King Seron’s absence. Lower your head, my lord.”
Aurek bowed and she replaced the crystal crown upon his head.
“I will strive to embody the best of myself, and the best of King Seron,” he said. “Until such a time as we see him again.”
Some of the dragons wept. Somewhere, a baby began to cry.
Aurek frowned. “Did they take Vorja with them? The baby?”
“No, my lord,” Maja said. “I have him.”
“Give him to me,” Aurekdel said. He took the boy in his arms, calming him with a brief, golden sparkle of magic that trailed from his fingertips. “This child is a mist dragon. As is Perina. As is Guardian Niko. And King Ezeru and the rock dragons have fought alongside us as loyal comrades. King Seron dreamed of a kingdom of peace. It was a vision I have struggled to see, and I still do, but I have also come to realize it is worth fighting for anyway. From now on, I want it to be clear. Our enemies are the individuals who harm us—not the mist and rock dragons who stand beside us. If I hear any slander against them, you will face a reprimand or worse. This child is too young to know who his enemies are…let’s make sure they are not us. Let’s welcome him.”
The Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Box Set Page 54