Chapter 14
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KATALENA
The food was excellent.
Again, more than I expected being a prisoner, but I appreciated it. If there had been no windows, I might have started to lose myself to boredom, but with the sea spread out like a glittering blanket across the landscape, it felt like there was no end of things to look at.
If I leaned out of the window ever so slightly, I could see the peaks of the Bowl rising to either side. Too far out and an enchantment shoved me backward into the room so forcefully I fell to the ground.
Varícoughed smoke—suspiciously like a laugh—when that happened.
But the sun still poured down, and the warmth on my skin and the salt of the wind off the sea made me feel free. Like those first moments of flight when I had only felt joy and ease.
Some day I wanted to stand on the dark sands I could see below and touch the water. It looked so infinite. Touching it seemed like madness.
A scraping of the door’s lock had Varí diving for my legs. He scrambled into his position as the door opened, revealing Erryn once more. She didn’t say anything this time, merely gesturing for me to follow.
Who were the leaders I was meeting? Was it the dragons who brought me here? Was it the man—dragon—from last night? Endre? Nerves jangled in my stomach as we walked up the curling central staircase. Higher and higher and higher.
As we rose, I caught a glimpse down a long hallway that ended in a window. A flash of wing blew past, and I realized with perfect clarity these stairs were the secondary mode of transport. No doubt there were avenues of flight that were much faster. Did their forms hold their clothes when they shifted? How fast was it? Was it painful?
I had so many questions, and I hoped I would have the chance to ask them before they threw me out one of the windows just to have it over and done with.
My legs burned when we reached the top, and one glance down the center of the spiral made me dizzy. Skalisméra was bigger than I ever imagined.
“Careful,” Erryn said.
She was right, of course. There were no railings to protect the wide open space. Why would there need to be when everyone living here had wings they could summon at a moment’s notice?
“Erryn?” I asked as we approached another set of large double doors. “Who am I meeting?”
“Our leaders.”
“Yes, but who? If you’re not allowed to tell me, that’s fine, but I have no idea if I’m walking into a meeting with the rulers of all dragons who are one breath away from burning me alive.”
Erryn laughed softly. “No. The Elders reside elsewhere. You will be meeting with dragons in human form. Three of them. They are the Heirs. The dragons who will replace the Elders once they fade from this world and return to the stars.”
“Oh,” I said. “All right.”
Not unnerving at all. Not the current rulers of all dragonkind, just the future leaders.
She knocked softly on the door. I heard nothing, but she must have, because she opened the door and gestured inside.
My mouth fell open as I entered. There was a small, curtained foyer, but the curtains were sheer, revealing that we truly were at the peak. Or a peak. The ceiling vaulted into a dome with another circular window open to the sky. It let out the smoke from the fire burning merrily in a large raised pit in the center.
There were other rooms that branched off, but there were also walls of nothing but air, with platforms clearly used to fly from.
Low, curving couches circled the fire. The colors of the space were warm and comfortable. On the whole, the space was both more grand in scale and less grand in luxury than I had expected.
But that was all I had time to notice, because I was noticing the three men spread through the room. Endre was one, and two men I didn’t recognize. They were handsome in the same way Endre was—brutal and harsh, like they’d been carved from the mountains themselves. I couldn’t help wondering if smiles softened them at all.
Along with ignoring the surge of awareness now that I knew what Endre’s body felt like pressed against mine. Lips on my skin. Things I shouldn’t be thinking about or wanting.
One of the dragons I didn’t know sat on another couch, and the third by one of the large windows.
“Please come in.”
I pushed through the sheer curtains, fully entering the space. The weight of their gazes on me was almost enough to make me retreat.
Endre was here, and he was one of the ones who’d taken me from Rensara. There were three of them.
“It was the three of you that attacked the palace?” I asked.
The man on my left turned toward me. His skin was a bit darker than the others, hair somewhere between red and gold. Like an autumn leaf in the midst of its change. I’d never seen a human with hair like it. Then again, most people I’d encountered found my hair strange. No one had commented on it here, which maybe meant it was more normal.
We locked eyes, and I felt it. His eyes were a mixture of brown and gold and other things, and it wasn’t the dragon shining through, but I still recognized him. “You’re the one who carried me.”
His gaze held as much fire, darkness, and intensity as Endre’s did last night. As Endre’s did right now.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
The third dragon observed me with cold eyes. I pressed my lips together, my nerves not disappearing now that I was here. He slowly walked toward me, but in an arc, as if he were circling me like prey. Swallowing, I spread my hands. “I have been at court my entire life, and yet I do not know what to do. Are there protocols I should observe?”
I saw Endre’s mouth move for a moment into that same hint of a smile he’d shown me. “After our last encounter, I would think that protocols aren’t necessary.” My face flushed red, and he continued. “I thought your first question would be if you’re about to die.”
“On the off chance politeness has any sway toward you keeping me alive, I want to make sure I’m abiding by the rules.”
The one on the left chuckled at that. “You’ve met Endre. My name is Zovai.”
“And I am Sirrus.” The dragon coming closer. Cold eyes and icy blond hair.
“Katalena Isabel Arslan Savea,” I said. “Crown Princess of Gleira. Though I suppose that hardly matters anymore.”
“That’s quite a name,” Zovai said.
Twisting my hands together, I took a risk. “I prefer to be called Lena.”
“Very well, Lena.” Sirrus neared my shoulder. I didn’t turn to face him. Turning to face him meant turning my back on two dragons.
I barely felt the air move before a strangled cry left my body. Sirrus’s arm came around me, pinning my arms to my sides as a blade rested against my throat.
Endre and Zovai were on their feet, rage on their faces and in the snarls that shuddered through the air.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” Sirrus whispered. “Finish the job.”
Panic clawed at my insides. No matter that I understood every reason, I didn’t want to die. Unwelcome tears pricked my eyes, blurring everything. I closed my eyes and said goodbye. “You should.”
No words were spoken, and the tears I tried to keep back leaked from the corners of my eyes.
“You should kill me.”
“Sirrus,” Zovai warned. “Release her.”
The dragon behind me snarled. “Before I kill you, Princess, tell me what it is you’ve done to my brothers to ensnare their dragons.” In one movement he spun me, grabbing me by the throat, the tip of the blade—my blade—pressing to the skin, ready to break it.
Just like that moment against the wall with Zovai, something surged between us. It had been the same with Endre, but slower. Something invisible shifting that I didn’t understand. Sirrus’s eyes went wide, and he stumbled backward, releasing me like he’d been burned. In another moment, those same eyes froze and thawed. Closing the distance once more, I was in his arms. Not the embrace of a lover, but one borne of desperation, anger, and despair. “What are you?”
I didn’t dare move or breathe.
Beneath my skirt, Varí moved, pressing his head into my leg, just barely, like he wanted to remind me he was there. It was as if the tiny dragon had screamed. Sirrus pulled back and gripped me by the shoulders. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“I scent dragon on you, Princess. And not one of us.”
Before I could do anything, Varí dropped from my leg and ran out into the open. Sirrus looked at him, released me, and I threw myself in between them. “Don’t touch him.” Venom laced my words.
All three dragons looked at me, the room bathing in tense silence.
“I didn’t know any of our small cousins lived at Skalisméra,” Zovai murmured.
“They don’t,” Sirrus said.
“The day before the wedding I went into the city alone. I found him. I didn’t want anyone else to discover him and kill him on sight. Why he was there, I don’t know. But he was beneath the skirts of my wedding dress. You carried him here with me. He was beneath the blankets last night,” I said to Endre.
A low growl came from Sirrus, not directed at me, but at the small dragon. Varí leapt into the air, fluttering up to my shoulder and perching. He was growling too as he rubbed his face along my jaw. I startled in shock. “He can speak?”
“After a fashion. Less words and more intent. It is something very old and very primal.”
I quieted as the three of them focused on him. Back and forth in the growled dragon language, they had questions for him. Eventually Endre laughed softly. “He is quite attached to you.”
“I had hoped to smuggle him out of the city before I left for Craisos, so he could be somewhere safer. He told me—well, what little we can communicate. I guessed his name was Varí. Was I right?”
If I hadn’t been looking for it, I don’t think I would have noticed the subtle stilling of the dragons in the room. There and gone. Quickly masked shock. “Yes,” Sirrus said. “You were correct.”
“What does Varí carry?” Endre asked.
“You may ask him.”
They did, and I watched surprise take over their face as he told them. Even Sirrus hid a smile. A further conversation had the three dragons nodding.
“He wishes to stay with you,” Zovai said. “And we have no objections.”
“Thank you.” My heart pounded in my chest. “If you—If I must die, please keep him safe.”
Varígrowled, but these were the Heirs of all dragonkind. They needed to think about more than just me, no matter what strange power zinged in the spaces between us.
Zovai stood now and approached. The way his gaze took me in and the proximity to the two of them had my breath going short. His eyes, more like his hair up close, shifting through tones of amber and gold, dropped to my lips for an eternal moment. “You know we were sent to kill you.”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
A step closer. “And I’m sure you understand all the reasons why my… failure to do so will cause… friction.”
Allowing myself, I smiled a little. Every possibility and argument had already flowed through my head. How it might play out if they had killed me when they meant to. How it might play out if they killed me now. How it would go if they sent me back alive. “Yes. And I know you still should, even if I don’t want to die.”
His eyes warmed a fraction, but his voice was soft. “I don’t want to kill you,” he murmured. “I’m not even sure my dragon will permit it. But do you have any arguments as to why we should keep you alive?”
“Likely nothing you haven’t already thought of.”
Another step closer, and I couldn’t think with him so close. He smelled of smoke on a summer evening. The scent melded with the warmth of soft breezes. “Try.”
“Why?” I asked honestly. “Whatever you decide, it will have nothing to do with me.”
Sirrus laughed roughly behind me, closer than I realized he’d been. “On the contrary, I think it might have much to do with you.”
My fear turned to frustration that boiled over. I turned and walked away from them toward one of the windows before whirling back. “Then choose. If it has nothing to do with me or everything to do with me, you need to choose because—stars, I am dead either way, so please decide if it will be you that delivers the killing blow.”
All three dragons’ gazes fixed on me with a sharpness that stole my breath.
Once, Taia told me when she first met Baris every time they locked eyes, it felt like her heart stilled. Was that what this was? I reached up to scratch Varí behind his ears and hide the shaking in my fingers.
They were beautiful. Handsome. More than any human I’d ever seen in my life. My mind and body responded even though I knew they shouldn’t. But none of that mattered if they were about to put their claws through my chest or send me back to the nightmare of a marriage they rescued me from.
It might not matter even then.
I watched Endre inhale before he narrowed his eyes. “If I flew you back to Rensara this very moment, they would kill you?”
No. They wouldn’t. But the result would be the same. “I did not say that.”
Endre stood and stalked toward me. The plain shirt he wore stretched and bunched as he moved. I couldn’t claim to have noticed the fit of men’s clothing before, but I did now. They all wore plain clothing. Nothing that belied their status as heirs to the most powerful race in existence. “When we spoke before you told me you would not return to his side. Have you changed your mind?”
I shook my head. “Never. Nothing has changed.” My words got caught in my throat and sounded more like a hiss. “You may send me back. I will not live on after.”
That was the truth. If they sent me back, the potion to keep a child of Andaros out of my womb would not be enough. He would trap me in a gilded cage, his wild possession driven by my rescue and the value of what they traded away to save my life.
By saving my life, they turned me into a treasure. And though Andaros would rail against it, he and dragons weren’t as dissimilar as he wanted to believe. It was well known that dragons loved treasure more than anything else, and though I was questioning that knowledge now that I stood in their city, Andaros loved treasure too. His definition of it was merely different.
“Then explain, Princess.” Zovai said, turning away from me. “How exactly are you to die?”
“I am a potion master,” I said. “Or would have been had I continued to learn. My father thought it merely the dabbling of a woman, but it was not. The night before the wedding, using that knowledge, I ensured that I would never bear Andaros a child. If I am returned to him, once all the promises that have been bargained are resolved, I shall make sure he has nothing else of me either.”
Endre whirled, golden dragon eyes blazing. “You would take your own life rather than return to him?”
My voice rose. “No, I would take my own life rather than be owned by him.” I closed my eyes, allowing myself to accept the truth I’d forced away this whole time with false hope. My voice shook, but I kept it level. “My life is forfeit. It was when the marriage contract was signed. And I made my peace with that. But now, no matter what happens, whether you send me back or keep me here, they will come for you. My life—my existence—will bring violence down on both dragons and humans, and I am not too proud to admit that my life is not worth the cost of another war. The war continuing. However you want to view it.
“Do I want to die? No. Of course not. I doubt there is a single living thing—” I sucked in a breath. “My life has never been my own. I’ve tried to take as much for myself as I could, but it’s the truth. And the moment the agreement was signed, it was done. Marriage to him would have been death in enough ways. The possession our reuniting would spark in Andaros is not something I will survive, so I will make one last choice that is my own.”
“You begged me,” he snarled, coming close. “You begged me to ruin you so that you would live, and then you would choose this?”
“I did not beg.”
“Say that all you like. We both know it isn’t true.” His eyes dragged over my neck. My lips. All the places he’d touched. Where I wanted him to touch me more, and I was pretty sure he did too.
“I asked you because it is the only way he would throw me away. If you give me back to him whole, I am nothing better than a prize. I’ll be his hoard. Locked away for the rest of my life to make sure I will never be taken again. I would rather die than live like that. So yes. I will beg you and then choose it, because I am still not ruined, my lords.”
The very air in the room shifted, warming.
“That can change.”
“Then do it.” I looked at each of them one at a time. “Do it or kill me, but stop the sham of pretending I have any control in this situation.”
Endre stood so close now, the others merely steps away, like they couldn’t stand to be far from each other or from me. Any one of them could cross the distance to me in a second, and my traitorous heart wanted them to.
If I admitted the truth, I wanted to say yes. I wanted to surrender to whatever it was that sprang to life when they looked at me. The impossible heat that slid down my spine and made me imagine things that weren’t permitted.
But here, if I were free, maybe they would be permitted. Because nothing else would matter. If I was simply Lena and no one else.
I wanted.
And I’d learned a long time ago that wanting was dangerous.
Sirrus stepped forward and put a hand on Endre’s shoulder. The dark-eyed dragon growled low in warning, still staring at me like he might kiss me or eat me. I wasn’t sure if he’d decided. But Sirrus squeezed his shoulder, and Endre threw him off, putting a roomful of distance between us.
It should have been easier to breathe, and wasn’t. Not with the two of them still so close. Sirrus came to me, holding up a hand. There was nothing to see, but I felt power pulsing there. His fingers brushed the side of my neck, tracing the spot just behind my ear. “Though I cannot command you as I would a dragon, the magic I place on you will tell us if you leave Skalisméra without our permission, harm yourself, or anyone in this city.”
The magic he spoke took hold of me like invisible claws, there and gone. Hard and fast. A brush of silver clouds and dawn breaking.
His fingers lingered before they pulled away. I could have sworn longing filled those cold blue eyes, but it was gone as fast as the brush of magic. “And what is your decision?”
“Despite what you might think, we are just as bound as you,” he said. “We must speak to the Elders. As of now, they have not been informed of your… survival. But you will be given a measure of freedom until that time.”
I supposed I couldn’t push for more than that, so I nodded once.
Endre approached once more, and with all three dragons in close proximity, I felt—I didn’t know what I felt. Only that whatever it was, it was never meant to be. And I couldn’t want it. Wanting it made weakness. Wanting made it hurt when it didn’t come to pass.
“You will join us for the evening meal,” he said, darkness lacing his tone. No room for argument.
“Will I be on the menu?” It would be one way to kill me.
Zovai laughed, but it contained the same velvet darkness of Endre’s voice. “We do not consume humans, Lena. But I would take great pleasure in eating one.”
I looked at him, unsure. It didn’t sound like he was talking about killing me, and the way he looked at me now only set my skin aflame.
Pressing my lips together, I resisted asking the question. I already had so little power, I did not want my lack of knowledge or experience to make it worse. So I simply walked to the door, feeling their eyes on me with every step.
At the last moment, I looked back. “I have one more question.”
“Ask it.”
“Why did you do it? Spare my life.”
Zovai shook his head, staring out at the mountains before finally speaking. “I wish I knew.”
I didn’t wait to see if his expression contained relief or regret.