Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
There's no one in the arena except Blight when I walk inside.
After what happened during our last session, approaching her feels…
different. Disorienting. Whatever familiarity we'd started to build no longer seems accurate.
It's like she opened my eyes in more ways than one yesterday, and I can't go back to looking at her as I did before, now that I know how she sees the world.
I know I heard her voice in my head, too, yet I still find it hard to believe that part wasn't just a dream.
Maybe I want it to be a dream.
Because admitting I heard her, admitting I connected to her in the way we did, means I can no longer deny the ties I have to dragons—or to what happened on Emberfall, and during the days leading up to it.
She lazily lifts her head as I approach, appraising me as I circle her and clean up the fallen feathers and scales around her, which has become a ritual at this point.
“Are we on speaking terms today?” I wonder aloud.
Her frill puffs and then flattens against her neck.
“Just listen, then.” I swallow several times, trying to clear the dryness in my throat. “I just…I wanted to thank you, again, for lending me your eyes yesterday. So we didn't look like complete fools during that trial.”
She studies me for a moment, her golden gaze unblinking. Then I hear her soft voice bleeding into my thoughts, bringing a tingling warmth with it.
Not we. I never looked like a fool, she says. That was just you.
“Insults? Really?”
I'm merely speaking a language I know you understand.
I wince slightly, thinking of all the insults I've hurled her way since we met. “That's…fair, I suppose.”
She snorts, and I go silent and still at the realization that I'm having an actual conversation with a dragon.
Her voice is a strange combination of youthful and worldly.
Lacking the confidence of a mature adult, yet naturally powerful, perceptive, penetrating…
it's hard not to be intimidated by it. Hard to know what to say next.
We carry on in each other's presence for several wordless minutes.
Suddenly, her head snaps toward the entrance, and I feel a rush of emotions cascading over me—her emotions. Sharp panic that eases into prickly wariness.
Be careful. He's angry today. She exhales a breath hot enough to make the air between us shimmer. A deep anger, in this one.
I follow her gaze and find Gareth walking toward us. He doesn't look angry. Just stoic and grumpy, like he wishes he didn't have to waste his time dealing with me.
His usual appearance, in other words.
But Blight's warning settles like a stone on my chest, while she flexes her wings, only to fold them back at her sides, repeating this restless motion over and over again.
Gareth doesn't greet me. He busies himself with checking the chains that bind the dragon, inspecting the places where they might rub against her scales.
Without looking at me, he finally says, “It's come to my attention that you took it upon yourself to report to the king regarding our training progress.”
I tense, but my reply is even and unapologetic. “Yes. And it's a good thing I did, since apparently you didn't tell him about the success I had yesterday.”
“Maybe because I didn't think you'd done anything worth bothering him about?”
I scowl. “Blight and I completed your trial. We've more than proven the bond is real, at this point.”
“That isn't her name,” he reminds me, tersely. “And just so we're clear: a bond born of desperation is not the same as one born of freewill.”
“So yesterday doesn't count? Is that what you're telling me?”
He doesn't answer right away, focusing instead on examining one of Blight's wings. Most of the smaller, darker feathers have fallen out at this point, and teal plumage is coming in brighter and thicker than ever.
She watches him with a sharp, steady gaze. She doesn't speak, and I don't feel any more panic or wariness radiating from her; I feel nothing from her, in fact. It's almost as if she's wrapped a supernatural shield around her emotions.
“It was a step in the right direction. I suppose I can concede that.” Gareth finally looks at me. “It should have given you a better idea of what's possible between you two—so maybe now you'll let go of some of your foolish stubbornness and actually try to embrace this bond, hm?”
I bite back a defensive retort, remembering my earlier conversation with Briar. However unfair Gareth is being, playing the role of dutiful mentee will serve our plans better than arguing with him.
At least for now.
Keeping this in mind, I join him in his work, examining Blight's other wing, checking the healing of her few remaining stitches and looking for any signs of infection or strain.
After a few minutes of silence, some of the tension between the three of us settles. That shield Blight wrapped around her emotions seems to have extended to me, making me feel calmer, confident enough to try and start a useful conversation.
“I'm embracing learning about her and other dragons, for what it's worth,” I say.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. And I have questions.” He doesn't outright dismiss me, so I continue: “Questions such as…what do you know of the first dragon-bound queens of Kaldra?”
He hesitates, pausing in the middle of examining the joint where Blight's wing connects to her lean, powerful body. “What do you want to know?”
It takes me a moment to decide where to start. “I read something interesting yesterday, regarding the first divine dragons and their magic—how it differed depending on which god or goddess shaped them.”
“And you're wondering what sort of magic your own dragon might be capable of?” he guesses.
I nod.
“It's usually not apparent until they mature, and their chosen bond has secured and strengthened through time and trust.”
“But surely there are patterns? Parameters those first divine beasts established?”
“I think you're getting ahead of yourself, but…
yes. The four you're talking about, specifically…
they each represented a different part of a fire's lifecycle. The first humans they bonded with had titles suggesting their role in this cycle, and the magic that aligned with it—most historical texts refer to them as the Hearth Queen, the Inferno Queen, the Ember Queen, and the Ash Queen. The Hearth Queen and her dragon were known as the life-givers, with powers centered around creating things and helping them flourish. The Inferno Queen represented peak power and transformation; a master of fire itself, able to reshape matter through heat and will. Ember was known for endurance and memory, and magic that dealt with the mind, in many cases. The Ash dragon and her queen represented—and wielded powers of—death and rebirth.”
He meets Blight's golden eyes, which remain narrowed and intently focused on him.
“Each of the four god-sanctioned kingdoms had its own smaller, individual flame,” he continues, stroking her neck, “but when all of their different specialties of magic coexisted in the intended, balanced state, a greater flame would also burn here in this central realm of Mouren. And as long as this unified flame burned, the gods would remain connected to this world, even after those founding queens had passed on. They would continue to shape and send new divine dragons to guide each new generation…that was the promise they made.”
“But did the kingdoms keep the flames burning?”
He sighs, his hand stilling against the dragon. “Sometimes. There have been ages of prosperity, ages of darkness…the deeper you dig into the empire's history, the more messy you'll realize it is.”
I'm quiet for several moments, twisting one of Blight's fallen feathers between my fingers, thinking all of this over. “I'm guessing there hasn't been balance for some time.”
“No. And there haven't been any divine-sent dragons, either.”
“Until now?” I glance at Blight, who blinks in response.
“Until now,” Gareth confirms.
I shake my head. “If she truly is divine, I don't understand why she would choose me to bond with, of all people. I'm nobody.”
“Her kind have almost always chosen humans from humble backgrounds. I've always believed it was the gods' attempt to keep the empire's power from becoming too concentrated.”
“Yet there are countless kings and queens who have wielded concentrated power throughout Kaldra’s history.”
He shrugs. “If humans can find a way to elevate themselves in society, they'll generally take it. So it should come as no surprise that the dragons’ chosen ones typically ended up leveraging their gifted status into relationships with more elite families. And even though the divinely-bonded continued to be picked from lesser circumstances, it eventually became common practice for powerful figures to purposefully seek them out and force them into marriage and service to their chosen crown.”
“…And history repeats itself, even now.”
“Much to the gods' chagrin, I imagine.”
I lift my eyes toward the open roof, to the Mouren banners fluttering from the upper balconies. “So that's how Mouren was able to rise to power, then. Because the balance of magic faltered, and the gods stopped gifting the empire with divine dragons for however long it was.”
“That, and because Mouren bonded with the lesser dragons who had started to breed and multiply throughout the empire. Though they weren’t fully divine beasts, they still had power and magic that this kingdom was able to use to build up an army capable of mass destruction…”
He looks like he has more he wants to say on this particular subject, but at that moment, we're joined by three finely dressed individuals filing into the arena—the king's close advisors. I recognize them from the meeting he held on the first morning I arrived at the palace.
“Looks like we have a more distinguished audience today,” I mutter, frowning.