by Imogen Sera
What he had certainly not expected was Lord Renaud flinging open the front doors, walking to greet them with a massive grin on his face.
“Helias!” he bellowed, his face pleased. He strode right up to the dragon king, still in dragon form, and spread his arms wide. “I was so pleased to learn you’d returned home.”
These were not the actions of an opponent. Helias watched him for a moment before he shifted, dressed quickly, and found himself grinning back.
“I’m happy to see you,” he said sincerely, and embraced the man. “You can’t trust Reis,” he whispered urgently as he leaned forward, and watched as Lord Renaud’s eyes widened slightly. He dipped his head once, slightly, and Helias was glad to see surprise there; it was unlikely that he was loyal to Reis.
Renaud ushered him to the door as Helias fell into step beside him.
Reis jogged to catch up, and slid in next to Helias. He leaned toward his king, muttering under his breath. “Something is wrong. My information was wrong, they should be attacking us. I don’t trust this.”
Helias looked at the traitor next to him, his mentor, and tried to hide the anger roiling in his gut. “Nor I,” he said shortly.
“Do not allow him to be alone with you,” said the older man, before falling back behind again.
Dinner was a feast, quickly cobbled together by unprepared servants, but Helias could taste nothing. He was completely preoccupied by the general seated down the table to his left. Julian, the lord’s oldest son and a friend of Caelian’s sat to Helias’s right, talking loudly and quickly and laughing often.
Helias leaned close to Julian. “We need to talk privately after dinner,” he murmured, and the dark haired man’s eyes widened and he nodded slightly.
.....
“I’ll explain why we’re here, but first tell me everything that’s happened since I’ve been gone. I’ve had no truth from anybody,” Helias said, leaning back in his chair and sighing.
Julian nodded, pushing his dark hair back from where it hung in his face. “Things were… tense after you left. There was a long adjustment period when everyone was learning how to continue on without the females. It was especially difficult for those who lost mates, of course, which included the king and almost all of the lords. Naturally things were tense. Everyone wanted someone to blame, something to blame, but the only thing your father could point to was that he’d sent you and your brothers to investigate. It was a mess. A bunch of stubborn, aggressive, grieving old men all fighting for power. Nothing overt though, just arguments and squabbles over everything.” He paused and glanced at the fire. “I know my father was furious at yours. I think the general sentiment was that he had shut himself up in his palace, cut himself off from everyone, and refused to rule. Things were chaotic for a while, but the last few years they’ve been better. Your father returned to the man we’ve always known him to be. We’ve found a new normal.”
Helias nodded, thoughtful.
“I suspect,” Julian continued, “the news about human mates will be well received. It at least gives us hope. Do you know if they can bear our children?”
“They can. Augustus has a son. He’s nearly a month old now.”
Julian smiled widely at that. “It’s excellent to hear. How did your father take the news?”
Helias furrowed his brow. “You don’t know?”
Julian shook his head, looking perplexed.
Helias felt as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room. How could he ever get the truth of anything when there were so many lies and so much information being withheld? “Julian, my father’s been dead for half a year.”
The dark haired man’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “That’s impossible. We’ve received regular letters and edicts—”
“It’s true. I don’t know who you’ve been receiving these from, but I whoever is sending them is the same person who’s concealed the truth from you. Reis has lied to me, twice, and I don’t know why, but I know that he’s involved. I don’t know if any among my guards are loyal to me. Help me take him down while we’re here and surrounded by your friends. Help me and I will reward you however you wish.”
Realization dawned across Julian’s face. “I suppose that does make you king,” he said quietly. He stood. “We will help you, Helias, of course we’ll help you.”
The door flew open,suddenly, and beyond it stood Reis, and at his side a woman with unearthly beauty. Her hair was long and dark, her eyes bright with excitement, her plump red lips curled into a sneer. She lifted her hands as regret crossed Reis’s face, and as Helias shifted into dragon form and pulled fire from his chest, the woman shouted something. He knew no more.
.....
By the end of the first day, Ingrid’s mind was buzzing with possibilities of ways to make operations at the palace more efficient. The daily council meetings were overkill; they could easily be reduced to twice weekly. She wondered what reason there could possibly be for having fifteen separate advisers all in on one meeting, especially when many of them had expertise in the same areas. Apparently the king only met monthly with citizens to address their concerns which led to long lines and a disgruntled populace, by the time they were able to have an audience. Ingrid noted it in her book, pleased to be feeling useful for the first time since her arrival. She fell into bed exhausted, her hands reaching out to Helias’s pillow.
“Two more days, love,” she whispered, and was asleep soon afterward.
The next morning she had breakfast with Tarquin and Cassius, and tried to engage them with helping her pick new colors for her sitting room. It was a useless endeavor, neither had the patience to even pretend to be interested. By the end of the day she was missing Helias keenly and feeling rather lonely.
At the end of the third day she took more time than usual getting ready for bed, brushing her hair until it was flowing and shiny. She hoped that Helias would be home before morning.
At the end of the fourth day she was worried.
At the end of the fifth day she dispatched soldiers to the Renaud estate.
There was no news on the sixth day, and Ingrid could scarcely breath as she did her duties.
On the seventh day the soldiers returned. Ingrid was in the council room, focusing intently on the issues before her, trying to occupy herself with anything other than the terrible scenarios that played out continually in her mind. Her face fell as two soldiers filed in.
Helias was gone. The estate was full of everyone he’d traveled north with, as well as the Renaud household, all under some sort of magical sleep. They’d brought with them as many as they could, and Ingrid ordered the soldiers to return immediately to retrieve the rest. Reis had been brought home, but Ingrid refrained from mentioning her suspicions to any of these men that she was unable to trust. She would speak to Tarquin later to ensure that Reis would be secured.
The short remainder of the day passed in a flurry of activity. The best trackers were tasked with finding Helias. Ingrid checked in on Caelian while the court physician was monitoring him.
“He is fine,” the man said, rubbing his face. “There’s no reason for this sleep. I believe I’ll need to speak with Morwich.”
Ingrid nodded, her face hard. She was able to hold herself together for a few more minutes until she escaped to her bedroom, the only place she could be alone.
“Where are you?” she whispered into the empty room.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ingrid endured. When she roused in the mornings she wanted to hide herself in her bed until she woke from her nightmare. In the dining hall she wanted to weep into her dinner. In the throne room she wanted to scream her frustration that these people cared about petty squabbles while her love, her mate, was missing.
She did none of those things. She rose early and allowed her ladies to dress her in silence. She ate her meals quietly, but politely responded to those around her. She solved petty squabbles thoughtfully and patiently. She endured.
The days were diff
icult, but she felt as if she were acting a part, which made getting through them easier. The nights were unbearable. In her room, in her bed, she could only be herself; terrified and helpless and alone.
Tarquin was trying to make her leave. He pestered her endlessly about it, promising to return her to the cottage, to wherever she wanted. He’d promised Helias, he said. Ingrid was vehemently against it. If she was honest with herself she wasn’t entirely sure why she was against it; without Helias, there was nothing tying her there. Leaving felt like abandoning him though, and Ingrid couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness that flooded her each time she considered it.
She had a free afternoon and was searching for a place to hide from Tarquin when she entered the fourth floor parlor. Morwich, the old human mage, was seated in front of the fire.
She apologized, moving to leave the room again, when he asked her to stay. She nodded, frowning, but held her book out and seated herself near the fire.
Ingrid was uncomfortable, but after a few wordless minutes she relaxed into the silence. She wasn’t alone, but no one needed her, no one was pressuring her or telling her they knew better. She read for awhile, enjoying the quiet room, glancing at Morwich occasionally.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, watching her strangely. “You Know things.”
Ingrid furrowed her brow. “I know some things, I suppose,” she replied.
He shook his head. “I mean you Know things. Things that you couldn’t know. Things that haven’t happened yet.”
Ingrid was surprised. “You’re mistaken,” she said carefully. “Why do you think that I know things?”
“Because I Know things,” he muttered. “The Knowing can come to you in different ways. It can come in dreams or feelings or hallucinations. I saw your face when we learned of the king’s fate. You weren’t surprised.”
Ingrid sat down gracelessly. “It was just a bad feeling,” she said, “which made sense given the danger of the situation. I didn’t know anything.”
“You’re a stubborn woman.”
Ingrid sighed. “I apologize. This isn’t what I’m here for, I was hoping for some peace.”
“Your Knowing is exactly why you’re here,” he retorted. “I’ve done what I can for the king, but I cannot locate him. The soldiers you’ve dispatched will have no success either.”
It was like a physical blow to her chest. She felt her face crumple and struggled to maintain composure.
Morwich watched this silently. “You see? Your Knowing told you to come here. You just need practice listening to it, I suspect.” His small cloudy eyes were fixed directly on hers. “Your mate is hidden by an incredibly powerful mage; I’ve never found cloaking magic as strong as this. I cannot locate him because I have no connection to him. You might be able to with a little guidance.”
Ingrid’s eyes widened and she nodded eagerly before he was finished talking. “Anything,” she breathed, “I’ll do anything.”
“Your first lesson is not to argue with me. I’m old and cranky and I don’t like to be questioned.”
He rose from his seat, making a show of his painful joints creaking, and left the room wordlessly. Ingrid followed after him awkwardly as he strode down a long corridor and headed toward a massive staircase that spiraled up and out of sight. He climbed the stairs with a vigor that she couldn’t quite believe was natural in a man of his age; when they reached the top she was sweaty and panting, and he laughed at her.
His workspace was a massive round room occupying the top of the tower. The ceiling was glass and sunlight streamed in, illuminating the massive piles of supplies and ingredients strewn across every surface in the room.
As Ingrid stepped carefully inside Morwich raised his huge eyebrows at her. “Ready to begin?”
.....
Helias awoke to burning agony. The fire that he’d tried to breathe had turned back in on himself, pushing through his veins, lighting each nerve ending in a blaze of torment and suffering.
After several minutes spent trying to summon the strength to open his eyes, he realized that they were already open. He was blind, he supposed rather calmly. But soon he could make out looming shadows around him, and it wasn’t blindness but a blackened room that obscured his vision. He slowly felt along his limbs; his legs were free but his arms were restrained. He was lying down, he could feel, but the pain that was clouding his mind made it hard to determine much else.
He focused on breathing slowly for a long time. It was impossible to tell whether minutes or hours had passed, in the dark with a pounding head and burning body, but eventually he felt in control of himself enough to shift. He tried, and nothing happened. He shut his eyes, took a deep breath and tried again, and nothing happened again. He tried to stay calm. Shifting into dragon form was as natural to him as waving a hand- he thought it, and then his body responded. Not being able to shift nearly sent him into a panic, feeling the same sense of loss as if he had lost a hand.
As his eyes adjusted, he could see that a very faint, very familiar green glow illuminated the room. Not just a room, but a cavern. He could hear water dripping, echoing far off, and as he gazed up toward the ceiling he realized where he was. Dragongrove.
A bright light shone suddenly from the top of the stairs, and he watched as the woman who’d been with Reis descended the stairs toward him. She held a small ball that light shone from, casting the cavern in silvery shadows. Her eyes lit up as she saw he was awake.
“Hi sweetheart,” she said, her painted lips curled into a smile and her big eyes gazing down at him. “I’m Glen.” Then she lifted a small dark bottle to his lips and tipped the contents down his throat.
“What is this?” he sputtered, still choking on the icy liquid.
“This,” she said, tapping the bottle, “is a product of my brilliance. I can do whatever I please and no one will be the wiser.” She removed the straps from his arms, letting them fall to the floor. He sat up on the table he’d been strapped to, rubbing at his wrists.
He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. A minute of silence passed, and then in his head he heard a strange, foreign voice. Lift your arm, it said, and he watched in awe and then terror as his arm rose. And the other. He felt like a puppet on a string. He fought against the impulse, pulling on the string, but a moment later his other arm was also in the air.
“You see, taking things by force can be so messy. But I’ll have you here with me for just a bit to make sure you’re fully under control, and then you can return to your life and your mate. You’ll just have a little help-” she tapped on his temple “-ruling.”
“I would kill you if I could shift.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, nodding, “which is why you can’t. That would ruin all of my plans.”
“Why does this matter to you?” he asked. “Why spend so much effort attacking my family when we have nothing to do with you?”
“I have a certain interest in seeing that someone is,” she paused, searching for the word, “ruined. A very powerful man.”
“Who?”
“My father,” she said shortly.
“No one understands wanting to ruin their father more than I do,” Helias said, smiling in what he hoped was a charming way, “but this seems a little excessive.”
“We do not need to sympathize with each other,” she said, her hand curling under his chin to hold his jaw. “I don’t need a friend, I need a king at my beck and call.”
He nodded. “Why did Reis help you?”
“I knew that was what would bother you,” she said, smiling widely. “I do feel a bit badly about it, actually. I convinced him we were mates.”
“But he had a mate, before the illness killed our females.”
“Yes, and he was so desperate for another that he was willing to believe anything. Don’t you feel bad for him though, he was all too willing to do whatever he could to get me information. He killed your father without a second thought.”
The revelation shocked
him, but he tried to not let it show on his face. “Why would he have done that?”
“Revenge,” she said simply. “You murdered his favorite son.”
Helias swallowed heavily. “He was crazed. It was self defense.”
Glen shrugged. “Not according to him. I don’t care either way.”
“What of my brother? Caelian, is he alright? And the others that were there?”
“They’ll recover, they’re just sleeping,” she said. “You know it’s funny, the differences between our species. Dragons are so hard to kill, but they’re especially susceptible to enchantments. Humans resist spells delightfully well, but will die with almost no effort.”
She bent over the table in front of her and wrote something quickly, then glanced back at him and hardened her face. Lift your leg, he heard, and before he had time to fight it he did.