Dragon Curse

by Lisa McMann

  She had to rest or she’d never be able to pull off her glassy-eyed ruse without messing up. Hopefully there would be time to figure out how to get through the back wall tomorrow. But for now . . . she waited.

  There were no more knocks. Still, Thisbe stayed another minute before finally sliding down the bone pile. At the bottom she curled up with the thin blanket and tried not to think about how this very room had seen some other harsh action too, after she’d escaped. Alex had died here, not far from the spot where Thisbe lay. Trying to find and rescue her. There was perhaps nothing more horrible than imagining what Alex might have looked like, dead on the floor in this lonely, forsaken place.

  Thisbe fell asleep with those pictures in her mind and woke up disoriented and still thinking of them a few hours later. The sound of the door lock turning brought her back immediately, and she sat up, then scrambled for her pitcher of water so she could drain the rest of it before Mangrel could take it away.

  He stepped back in surprise.

  Thisbe froze, then moved deliberately to sit down and fixed her vacant stare.

  Mangrel studied her suspiciously, then set a tray of food on the floor at her feet. She took a slow bite of food, pretending that she hadn’t just lunged for the pitcher of water. After a long moment, Mangrel stepped out. “I’ll come back for the tray,” he said, his voice measured. “The Revinir wants you to report to the kitchen to make dragon-bone broth. She said you’d know what to do.”

  Thisbe nodded slightly. “Yes, Mangrel,” she said in a monotone voice, and put another spoonful of something disgusting into her mouth. It was better than nothing. Slightly.

  Seemingly satisfied, Mangrel left. Thisbe sank against the wall in relief. Then she hurriedly choked down the rest of the food and water and set out into the hallway, heading to the kitchen. She slowed when she went past Rohan’s hallway, but he wasn’t anywhere around that she could see while still maintaining her low-key glassy-eyed stare.

  She thought about last night. Had she imagined the knock exchange? She’d been delirious with exhaustion. And Rohan hadn’t recognized her at all on the entire journey—even the accidental pinkie-brushing was hardly evidence of anything. How would he have known to do the knocking, especially when he was in a trance like everyone else? Maybe she’d just wished it so much that she’d only thought she’d heard it.

  By the time she reached the passageway that led to the kitchen, Thisbe had concluded that she’d imagined the interaction with Rohan from the middle of the night and chalked it up to exhaustion and weird dreams about being back here. Once she entered the warm, smelly kitchen, she immediately forgot all about Rohan. Because standing with his back to her, stirring a cauldron of bone broth, was Dev.

  Thisbe abandoned her role momentarily. “Dev!” she cried, then slapped her hand over her mouth and whirled around to make sure nobody was around, especially the Revinir. But the throne room off the kitchen was empty, and there was no one else about either.

  Dev turned slowly.

  “You’re alive!” Thisbe said softly. Tears threatened to brim over. It was a great relief to see him.

  Dev stared blankly. His eyes looked dead. Thisbe could see he was even more covered in scales than before.

  “Oh, Dev,” Thisbe whispered, walking toward him. It was a reckless move, trying to engage him—he could report her. But she couldn’t help herself.

  He turned away, continuing to stir. “The bones are there,” he said, and pointed out the obvious pile of dragon bones behind him.

  “Dev, please look at me,” Thisbe whispered. She glanced over her shoulder anxiously, then reached out to him. “It’s me. Thisbe. I’m your friend.”

  Dev was quiet, making Thisbe wonder if she was actually getting through to him or if the spell he was under was making him not know how to have a conversation. She feared the latter.

  “The bones,” said Dev again, though his voice faltered. He pointed a second time.

  A couple of the Revinir’s original soldiers came into the room. “Ha-ha! I heard she was back,” one said with a sharp edge to his voice. He poked the other guy.

  The other one was unimpressed—she’d gotten past him in her escape with Rohan, which had made him look bad. He sneered at Thisbe. “Don’t try anything stupid.”

  Thisbe really wanted to practice her boom spell on him. But that would blow her cover and keep her from freeing Rohan and the others. She wasn’t ready to make any hasty moves. She needed to learn a lot more about how things worked before going into attack mode, and figure out some way to get at least a couple of the other slaves to help her free the rest of them. In the meantime she needed to raise zero doubts in anybody’s mind about her being under the Revinir’s mind control. This wasn’t going to be easy when she was regularly interrupted by people she couldn’t stand.

  Dev wasn’t one of those people, though. How she wished she could talk to him! To get him to snap out of it! She wanted to know everything about what the Revinir had accomplished in the months since her escape. And what she was trying to do next. And at the back of her mind was the worry about Fifer. How far would the dragon-woman go to track her down? Would she go all the way back to Artimé if Fifer didn’t appear locally like Thisbe had said she would?

  As Thisbe began constructing a dragon-bone broth on her fire, she sent out silent wishes to the universe: Please let Aaron and Florence and the others figure out some new spells to take down the Revinir. Please let them be safe. Please make the Revinir forget about Fifer. Please.

  The soldiers moved on to continue their rounds, leaving Dev and Thisbe alone together like old times. But now it was awful. Thisbe tried talking to him again, but he just kept his back turned to her and ignored her. Soon Thisbe gave up, too worried about him reporting her.

  It was sad. Dev wasn’t anything close to the boy Thisbe had gotten to know so well in their time together down here. He no longer had any personality. And no emotions—that was the hardest part for Thisbe to get used to. The old Dev had been anything but dull. He’d been sullen, or angry, or generous, or torrentially sobbing in Thisbe’s presence. There was always something going on with him. But now, like with Rohan, he was a cardboard cutout. An unfeeling puppet without a hand to guide it, who merely resembled Thisbe’s old friend. It was so draining just being near someone like that. And it seemed hopeless to try to get through to him.

  Thisbe didn’t have power like that—the power to break this invisible spell. She wasn’t even close to being strong enough to stop whatever it was that gave the Revinir so much hold over everyone. Much less take down the dragon-woman herself.

  As the day drew on, Thisbe felt her resolve and her confidence slipping. What was she trying to do here? What could she possibly accomplish on her own? She’d managed to trick the dragon-woman into leaving Artimé alone—that was something. But now what? Whatever grand schemes she’d had of helping Rohan and Maiven save the universe seemed to be crumbling into dust. There didn’t seem to be any way to defeat such a powerful monster. It was silly for Thisbe to think there was anything she could do. Until she could find the Revinir’s weakness, Thisbe’s presence here was futile. What had she gotten herself into? Stuck down in the catacombs again!

  Hours later the soldiers returned, then left again. Dev didn’t say much. The Revinir never appeared, perhaps too busy in her new castle. Or too big now to fit through the catacomb passageways. Thisbe bottled her broth and prepared to go back to her crypt to spend a lonely night thinking about all the things she couldn’t do.

  Her mind turned to wondering how she could use her magic to break through the golden barrier in front of the tunnel. Was it worth the effort, even if Rohan was so zombielike? Perhaps it wouldn’t be too hard to melt the metal, rather than try to break through it. After all, she’d melted the gold thorn for Henry so he could repair Talon’s ankle. She’d definitely try that, though it could take quite a while to clear a big enough area. And Mangrel would certainly notice a large melted spot like that, unless she co
uld hide it behind a bone pile as she’d done before. That would take time too.

  Deep in thought alongside Dev, Thisbe ladled broth into the glass vials, then brought them into the throne room and stacked them with the supply of others. When she heard a clattering of bones, she went to the door to see who had delivered them.

  Rohan was standing just outside the kitchen, staring straight at her. Bones that were distinctly not from dragons littered the floor around his feet. The corner of his mouth twitched into a sly half grin. “Hello, pria,” he whispered.

  A Team Effort

  Thisbe’s heart thudded in her chest, and she almost dropped the vial of broth she was holding. “Rohan?” she said softly, then strained to look behind him to make sure no guards were nearby. She checked Dev, too, and he was ignoring them. “Are you . . . ? I mean . . . are you, like, yourself right now?”

  Rohan grinned. “Right now and always,” he said, keeping his voice low too. He frowned at Dev’s back. “Maybe we can talk tonight? Once you figure out how to be a beast, that is, and break through the wall again.”

  Thisbe stared. She couldn’t believe it. Tears of joy and relief popped to the surface and streamed down her cheeks.

  Rohan’s face melted. He went to her, and despite the risk, they embraced. Thisbe felt the sobs come, and she tried to do it quietly without getting any snot on Rohan’s shirt, but she was having a hard time. He held her and whispered, “Shhh. I’ll explain everything later.”

  Thisbe sucked in a breath and steadied herself. “It was so awful seeing you like that.”

  “I know. I felt the same way when I saw you and Drock coming. I thought the Revinir’s mind control had gotten the best of you after all. It was only that night on her back when I saw you lift your head and look at me that I realized you were faking too. You’re very talented.”

  Thisbe eked out a smile. “I know,” she said, and the two laughed quietly.

  Dev turned at the sound, and Thisbe and Rohan immediately went into their roles.

  “Make broth,” Rohan said in a monotone voice, indicating the bones he’d brought.

  Thisbe stifled a giggle at how stiff he sounded. She could feel a tidal wave of laughter at her throat, threatening to spill. Thankfully, Rohan kept it together, and soon footsteps in the hallway sobered them both up quickly.

  “Hurry,” Rohan whispered. “Get them into the pot before someone sees what they are.”

  Thisbe had been so preoccupied with everything else that she hadn’t noticed what the bones were. She studied them, and with a sickening feeling, she realized soon enough. “Ancestor,” said Thisbe, frowning. “I thought . . .”

  Rohan put a finger to his lips and turned away, slipping out of the kitchen as the soldiers entered.

  Thisbe’s mind raced. She quickly gathered up the armload of bones and threw them into her cauldron, then poured a giant bucket of water over them. She stoked the fire and stood in front of the pot in such a way that Dev and the soldiers wouldn’t be able to look into it without getting past her. All the while her mind whirled. The Revinir had given up making the ancestor broth because it hadn’t worked for her. Thisbe had managed to steal a couple of bottles of it before the rest was destroyed. She was quite sure the Revinir didn’t want any of the ancestor broth made. So why did Rohan bring these bones? It couldn’t have been a directive from the Revinir.

  As Thisbe stirred the water and bones, she realized exactly what was happening. And she felt foolish for not having thought of it herself. The ancestor broth had kept Thisbe from being pulled to the Revinir until now. Taking the second dose had given her even more control against the effects of the dragon-bone broth. And it had given her more clarity in the historic images that sat almost pleasantly in her memory now, rather than blinding her whenever the Revinir roared.

  The ancestor broth was the answer to one big part of Thisbe’s problem. It would combat the mind control, and it worked on people with black eyes. They’d just have to get the other slaves to drink it. And to stop taking the dragon-bone broth. It was brilliant!

  But the more Thisbe thought about it, the more it seemed like a difficult task—there was no way Dev or the other black-eyed slaves would just obediently drink something Thisbe offered them. And would they tell the Revinir that Thisbe was trying to get them to drink it? She’d have to figure that part out. Maybe Rohan had an idea.

  “Finish up,” said one of the soldiers, poking his head into the cooking area. “Time to go back to your crypts once your overnight batch of broth is cooking.”

  Thisbe startled but managed to keep her body steady. She watched out of the corner of her eye at how Dev responded—slowly and deliberately putting one last log on his fire. Thisbe did the same thing, then added a handful of herbs to her pot to provide some cover over what was inside. There was nothing more she could do.

  Together they turned to go out. With a tiny bit of worry burning a hole in her stomach, Thisbe walked with Dev in silence, wondering if what she’d done with the herbs would be sufficient to hide the bones. Or if she’d be discovered and questioned in the morning.

  But there was little time to think about that, for she had another huge task to accomplish before the broth would be ready.

  Breaking Through

  Thisbe backed up to her crypt door and faced the golden wall, trying to visualize precisely where the tunnel had been before. Chances were pretty good that someone had filled in the tunnel, because she hadn’t heard any hollow spots. But the wall had already been compromised in that place once before, so perhaps it would be easier to break through it again. It helped that Thisbe’s magic had improved. But it was too bad that Florence’s team hadn’t finished making obliterate spells before Thisbe had left—it seemed like they could be useful here. Though if Thisbe had possession of one of those, she might have to save it for the Revinir.

  Staying far away for better aim, which is how Thisbe’s natural magic worked best, she concentrated on the spot that seemed right. She raised her hand and pointed at it. Then she unleashed a long stream of fiery sparks. The impact was loud, making quite a metallic din. In the closed space, the spell produced a lot of smoke that had little place to go. Thisbe coughed and peered through the smoke, then went again with another round. When a river of gold trickled all the way down the bones, Thisbe stopped and climbed up through the smoky haze to see her progress.

  To her delight, a huge section of gold had melted away in the right spot, exposing the tunnel that had been filled in with rocks and bones. Fueled by adrenaline and feeling powerful, Thisbe shook her head and laughed. “You’d think they’d understand who they’re dealing with by now,” she said. Going down the bone mountain halfway, Thisbe stood back and pointed, her sparks slamming into the hodgepodge of filler, sending gravel and sand and bone bits spilling out.

  From the other side of the wall, Rohan pounded three times, which gave Thisbe assurance that all must be well over there. Thisbe sent off another round of sparks to break the tunnel contents loose. Climbing back up, she grabbed the end of a giant bone that was sticking out and tugged at it with all her might, working it back and forth. Finally it broke loose and sent her tumbling down the mountain with a bunch of silt flowing out after her. Once more she climbed to the tunnel, her muscles burning from all the exertion. Taking a short break to catch her breath, she stared into the tunnel to assess the remaining stuff plugging the hole.

  A few minutes later she was back at it again, firing into the space. The explosion shook the walls and made the bones around her rattle. Fearful of being heard, Thisbe waited a while and tried to wave the smoke away, certain that someone would come to see what was making the racket. But no one did. Thisbe was determined to get through this thing. Tonight.

  Piece by piece, Thisbe cleared out the rest of the debris. After dragging out the last bits, she climbed into the hole, coughing and choking on the smoke and dust. But there was no light at the end of the tunnel leading into Rohan’s crypt. Crawling in to figure out why, Thisbe
slammed into something solid where the other end of the tunnel should be.

  “What is this now?” Thisbe said, exasperated. She started feeling all around, finding a flat piece of something that spanned the diameter of the tunnel opening. “Rohan, are you in there? What’s covering this?” She pounded on it.

  “It’s a sheet of gold,” came Rohan’s muffled reply from the other side.

  “Oh.” Thisbe paused to catch her breath. “Well, I suppose that makes sense. You’d better stand back. Like, way back.”

  “Aye, Captain,” said Rohan. Thisbe could hear bones knocking together as he scrambled out of the way. “Ready when you are.”

  Wearily Thisbe backed out of the tunnel to get some distance. Then she pointed her less-tired-and-singed hand at the gold panel that separated her from Rohan. This time she aimed a narrow, laserlike line of fire at the gold plate that blocked her way, making a circle. Soon she could see hazy light appear as the sparks burned through and melted the precious metal. After she made it all the way around, the solid middle disk that remained fell out onto the bone pile in Rohan’s crypt.

  They both coughed and waved away the smoke. Eventually, when it was easier to breathe, Thisbe went inside the tunnel once more, dirt-covered and sweaty, and collapsed. When the opening on Rohan’s side was sufficiently cooled off and no longer smoking, he climbed up and peered into the tunnel at Thisbe. She patted the space beside her. Rohan stepped over the molten bits and slid into place. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” Thisbe’s heart swelled.

  “Just like old times,” he said, beaming.

  Thisbe grinned. Though she was exhausted, filthy, and triumphant, she never wanted the moment to end.