Chapter 8
HAILEY
The castle of Solenne and Corvus stood like a fossilized hallucination at the center of its own windstorm, every stone larger than my house and every window as wide as a football field.
The outer walls, all pale gold and black basalt, looked poured from a mold made for gods and then aged a good hundred thousand years.
We landed in the upper courtyard, the span of it so enormous it could have hosted an air show or two. The wind here whipped off the peaks in constant, purposeful motion. I expected flags or banners, but there were only carved runes along the parapet, pulsing with a faint, ceremonial blue.
Our arrival was met with a small contingent of dragons. They lined the main walkway, eyes unblinking, heads tilted at the exact same angle. A telepathic ripple ran through them as we touched down, a chord of respect and anticipation of the Queen’s.
Solenne moved ahead of us and waited in the grand entryway, her scales even more luminous in the clean light. She bowed her head to Adalinda, but when she turned her gaze to the rest of us, it was pure delight. “Queen. Guests. You honor this house. Please enter and claim the Hall as your own.”
The Hall was a masterwork in negative space, designed for flying through it if a dragon felt like it, or walking, or rolling, or whatever else dragons preferred to do in their off hours.
The ceiling was so high that clouds formed up near the rafters, and every supporting column was carved with stories, actual pictograms of dragon history, looping around in an ascending spiral, ending in a burst of gold leaf at the top.
The floor was an inlaid map of the world, updated, apparently, to reflect current realities.
Ayrathys was front and center, and the earth I’d left behind was a pale blue marble at the extreme periphery.
The main attraction was the table. Not a human table, not even a conference table, but a slab of black stone the length of a commuter train, set into a dais so that even the smallest dragons could see over the edge.
Atop the table was a scale model of the surrounding mountains and valleys, rendered in exquisite, almost photorealistic detail, and studded with gemstones to mark sites of note.
Corvus was already there, tail wrapped around the base of a column, wings folded in military fashion. His mind-voice was as clipped as his posture. “We meet in crisis, but we don't panic. There is a plan.”
Solenne settled at his right, and the rest of us found space around the table, Jax to my left, Adalinda at the head, Flint wriggling in the space between my forelegs and the stone. A contingent of dragons filed in at the far end, some in ceremonial armor, others bare-scaled and glinting.
Corvus began the briefing. His voice was telepathic but broadcast at a volume that made even my scales buzz.
“We have tracked Vaelog to three possible lairs. Each is heavily defended by traps and warded ground, but the pattern is clear. He returns to the central valley every night, always after sunset. He is targeting dragons by power to increase his own. It has made him more unstable, but also stronger.”
He flicked a claw, and a band of light circled a section of the map.
It was a valley I remembered from the flight in, deep, shrouded, ringed by floating stones.
“Our previous assaults have failed for three reasons,” he continued.
“First, Vaelog’s ability to anticipate strategy.
Second, his physical advantage, he is larger, faster, and more vicious than any dragon in recorded memory. Third, all the power he’s accumulated.”
Jax grunted, his skepticism practically a scent in the air. “So why haven’t you just bombarded the valley? You have numbers.”
Corvus bared his fangs, but the gesture was more pride than threat. “He always expects frontal assault. He has laid enchantments to redirect fire and poison, even to collapse the cliffs if necessary. He has made this area a fortress for himself.”
“Hailey and Jax, you are the unknown,” said Solenne, her gaze flicking to us. “He will not be prepared for your hybrid abilities.” So she did know we weren’t born dragons. Okay.
Adalinda leaned in, her mind-voice resonant. “He’ll have watched for you, Corvus. For me, even. But if the attack comes from above, with a new dragon at the vanguard, we have the element of surprise. Hailey and Jax are the spearpoint.”
I nodded, catching the thread. “You want us to lure him out. Draw him away from the defenses, then hit him with the sword.”
Corvus and Solenne exchanged a glance. The rest of the plan, I realized, had already been written in the air between them.
“You will not be alone,” said Solenne. “We will flank from the ridges. Once he is exposed, we close the trap.”
Adalinda added, “The gauntlets, when ready, will be critical. Vaelog’s magic is anchored in his claws. Without them, he is weakened.”
Flint piped up, his mind-voice bright. “I want to be bait! I can fly fast, and I don’t even care if he chases me!”
The entire room paused, the way a room full of people might when a toddler volunteers to wrestle a tiger. Then a telepathic pulse of amusement ran through the crowd, and Flint basked in it.
“You will be important, little one,” said Solenne. “But for now, you must watch and learn.”
Flint nodded, entirely satisfied.
Jax unwrapped the blade and laid it on the table, the edge humming with readiness. “How do we know it’ll work?”
“We do not,” said Corvus. “But we believe.”
“Testing is overrated,” I said, running a finger along the hilt. “Sometimes you have to just go for it.”
Adalinda and I shared a look, and I could tell she was already assembling a thousand contingencies behind her eyes. Solenne took a step back, wings flaring. “The first move is yours, Queen. Name your attack.”
Adalinda’s mind was a sharp, cold beam. “We fly the day the claws are ready. Corvus and Solenne, you take the left and right ridges. Hailey and Jax, you go straight in, high and fast. I will follow, and when Vaelog is in the open, I will cut him off from retreat.”
Solenne gave a ceremonial dip of her snout. The table vibrated with the energy of the plan. Every dragon in the room absorbed the information, adjusted to it, and accepted it as law.
Jax rolled his shoulders. “I assume we’re sleeping in the stables?”
Solenne and Corvus looked nearly offended. They didn’t get the joke. “Of course not. You will have your own quarters next to the Queen’s,” said Solenne. “I’ve arranged for sustenance appropriate to your needs.”
Jax raised an eyebrow at me. “That means what I think it means?”
“Blood popsicles,” I said, unable to suppress a grin.
He snorted, and the cloud of sulfurous steam he exhaled made Flint giggle uncontrollably.
After a dinner of what I was fairly sure was donated dragon blood, which was extremely delicious, by the way, I spent an hour practicing with the sword, in human form, in dragon, and in between.
The castle’s training grounds had been built for this, with rings of obsidian targets set at every possible height.
The sword felt alive in my hands, not heavy but insistent, always nudging me to use it, to unleash it, to cut through something.
I ran drills with Jax, him as attacker, me as defender, then the reverse.
The dragons watched, their approval running in low, unspoken currents.
But they really roared with applause when I used my special vamp power to manipulate metal and had the sword move on its own.
When I tired, I shifted into my dragon form, went out onto the balcony that overlooked the valley, and watched the clouds. Adalinda joined me after a while, silent, her presence enough to make me feel steadier. I said without looking at her, “You really think this will work?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she flexed her wings, stretched them until the joints popped, and said, “We won't know until we try. But I trust you. More than I trust anyone else.”
That, more than anything, frightened me. The weight of her expectation was heavier than the sword, heavier than all of Ayrathys.
A flicker of motion caught my eye, Flint, circling the ramparts with a flock of younger dragons, every one of them shrieking in joy as he out-maneuvered, out-climbed, out-dove the rest. He would be okay, no matter what happened. “I thought they said there weren’t young ones here?” I asked.
Adalinda smiled a toothy smile. “I asked the same thing. He meant none have come here by dying in your world. There have been dragons born here, though not many; this is their natural home. We adapt and evolve, I suppose, even in our version of dragon heaven.”
Below us, Jax and Corvus were working out the last details of the assault, arguing tactics in clipped sentences, no energy wasted.
Solenne observed, adjusting the plan by micro-increments, never losing track of the whole.
I was fairly sure that Solenne and Corvus were brother and sister. They certainly argued like it.
I let myself feel proud, for just a minute, of the team we’d become in such a short time. Even here, even on the far side of death, the old patterns held. We adapted. We survived. Even in dragon heaven.