CHARLIE
Iawoke to the sound of distant bells tolling. My head seemed to dong along with them, throbbing in time with my heart, the dreary cadence of a hangover headache. I reached up to rub my face and found, instead, a thick, scaly appendage running across my neck.
Snake! I thought, sitting up in panic.
But then I saw Parthar’s big orange eyes blinking at me, sleepy and quizzical in the clear morning light, and I realized it was just his tail draped over me.
“Agh, God,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes. My mouth was dry. My body ached. But my thoughts were already with Essa.
I needed to get back to her. I felt it like a hunger, like a thirst. I felt it the way an exhausted person longs for a bed, the way a burning person runs for water.
But she told you to fuck off, I reminded myself.
Yeah. There was that…
I didn’t even know what had happened. Had she seen my teeth, seen that I was a monster, and felt repulsed by me?
Or had it been Braimar. He had been lurking over her naked body. Was she with him now? Was that why she’d been horrified to see me? Was she disgusted with me that I’d murdered him in my rage and jealousy?
Braimar was a piece of shit, and I’d have killed him again. But it still made me sick to think of it. I’d killed men in the heat of war, but never like that…
I couldn’t help but think of the state I’d found Essa in, either. Naked on that ceremonial bed…
So the bydrune had happened…
Maybe she’d been upset that I’d seen it. A sacred rite of her people. Something no foreigner was meant to witness, much less a man who… who loved her. Who still loved her. Oh, God…
I groaned, my head aching, feeling heavy as a boulder as it dropped into my hands.
Murmuring voices drifted to me on the wind, and I looked up. Parthar and I sat in a clearing in the woods. Down a slope, through some trees, I could see people walking down what appeared to be a road. A group of people—no, an unending stream.
Heading toward the city…
Toward… the coronation.
“Shit. Is it…?” I glanced at my watch. 11:45. The coronation ceremony was at noon.
I staggered to my feet.
“I have to get to Charcain,” I told Parthar.
I had to see Essa one more time, even if I was just another face in a crowd at her coronation.
And anyway, I’d been a part of her journey.
I’d helped her win her challenge and become Irska.
This was a culmination of a long arc we’d shared together.
Even if she hated me now, even if she wanted nothing to do with me, it felt right to witness the final step of her ascent to power.
After that, I could slip away in the crowd and disappear forever—just like she wanted me to.
Parthar still stared at me attentively, as if he were trying to read my thoughts, even without the simnal. I put a hand on his head.
“I’m going to go see Essa one more time,” I said. “You stay here and wait for me, okay?”
I started to walk away and immediately fell on my face. I looked back to find Parthar’s tail wrapped around my ankle. When I looked at him, he let go and gave a low growl.
I sighed. “There are going to be a ton of people there, buddy. It’s going to be hard to navigate through the crowd with a dragon. And we wouldn’t exactly be able to keep a low profile, you know?”
He straightened up and gave an irritated snort, sending twin puffs of smoke out his nostrils.
“Just trust me on this, I need to go alone. I’ll be back for you. I promise,” I said, dusting myself off and starting to walk away again. I heard his heavy footsteps behind me and turned around. He was following me—of course.
I threw up my hands. “Fine. Come along then. Hell, it’s Maethalia. I guess they’re used to dragons…”
He gave a happy little hop-step and bowed down, inviting me to climb on his back.
Truth be told, as hungover as I was, I was pretty happy to ride rather than walk back into the city. It turned out to be a lucky choice. The crowd parted for us as we trotted down the roadway. Joyous shouts of Skrathan! greeted us all along the way.
As we entered Issastar, food carts lined the streets, and several vendors ran up to give me free food items—a stick of dried meat, a loaf of bread, some sort of delicious purple fruit I wasn’t familiar with, and a cup of juice—all of which I sorely needed.
By the time Charcain’s damaged towers were in sight, I was already feeling considerably better.
All over the city, sky-blue royal banners flapped in the cool breeze.
Children ran and shrieked with excitement.
Men and women sang songs and raised bottles.
All in all, it was an incredibly festive occasion, and my heart swelled with pride that Essa engendered so much joy and excitement among her subjects.
But many black banners of the Gray Brothers flew as well, sometimes right alongside the royal flags. That was more unsettling.
The closer I drew to Charcain, the more nervous I felt.
The crowd’s excitement was not merely joyous, but manic.
The jollity took on a tinge of desperation.
I got a mental image of all these people smoking cigars while sitting atop powder kegs, as if the entire celebration and all its excitement might ignite at any moment, shifting from giddy energy to an explosion.
Maybe I was just nervous for Essa, I told myself. I couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling at a moment like this.
But as we went on, the feeling only intensified, and I decided it was more than just empathy for Essa. I was bonded to a dragon. Even without the simnal, I still had a dragon rider’s intuition. And if I felt danger, I would do well to be on guard…
Somewhere up ahead, trumpets blared. A herald was shouting something.
We pressed forward faster. Without Parthar, it would have been impossible to enter Charcain’s massive main courtyard as packed as it was, but wherever we went, the crowd parted for us, greeting us with varying mixtures of excitement, respect, wonder, and fear.
I could smell all those emotions around me, too, along with the heady scent of blood.
With all those bodies around me, hunger swept over me like a bank of storm clouds, making my fangs shift longer in my mouth, making my head buzz with dizzy longing. But I pushed the feeling back. I could not lose control of myself—especially not here.
Then, a sudden cheer rose from the throng, followed by a chant. Poi-son queen, poi-son queen!
It started off on just a few lips, but in seconds, the call seemed to have been taken up by everyone.
And I looked up to the balcony above. There were Lacunae.
Other, strange-looking warriors who I guessed must be foreigners.
There was a boy and a girl in what looked like religious robes. And between them stood Essa.
My breath stopped at the sight of her. She was still far away, high above me, but my vampyre sight was keen, and I could make out every detail of her.
The plump swell of her lower lip. The delicate lines of her collarbones.
The faint shadow beneath her eyes, visible to me despite her perfect makeup, immaculate hair, and fairytale gown.
I could sense the shudder in her breath, the trembling in her only hand as it hung, clenched at her side.
To all the world, she must have looked like the perfect symbol of composed grace.
A woman who’d endured every trial, conquered her enemies, braved the maze of politics, and returned triumphantly to claim her throne.
She was all those things, and I marveled at her along with everyone else.
But at the same time, I could see that she was tense as a watch spring.
I longed to take her in my arms. To hold her until her resolve fell away and she wept.
To squeeze her shoulders and feel the knots of tension melt away beneath my touch.
To make love to her—tenderly, completely. To own her. And to give myself to her.
She was a princess. Soon, a queen. A person destined for the history books. A person who belonged to her people.
But she was also mine.
I’d been a fool to think I could leave her.
I would live with Essa, or I would die for Essa. There could be nothing else. I felt the truth of those words like a fever ache in my bones.
The chanting around me had petered out. The priests seemed to be doing something.
The girl priestess in the green robe first, then the boy priest in the dark robe—Earth Mother and Sky Father representatives, if I had my Maethalian religion correct.
The girl gave Essa a necklace of flowers.
The boy anointed her head with some sort of sparkling powder.
Then, Prelate Kortoi stepped forward and spoke to Essa.
His words were impossible to make out, but I heard snatches—amplified by his magick, perhaps.
All the princes of the Void… a new era of peace… in the presence of our esteemed guest.
At these last words, he gestured to a group of people standing off to one side of the massive balcony. They were impossibly tall, dressed in incredibly fine clothes, with veils covering their faces.
“The Sylph Lord,” someone next to me muttered.
Those words awakened my attention like the lash of a whip.
The Sylph Lord was by all accounts one of the most powerful leaders in the world—and certainly the richest, a critical trading partner for both Maethalia and Admar.
More importantly, his ships had borne the golenae that had inflicted so much devastation on Ironberg.
I’d seen that firsthand. If he was here, I had no doubt that trouble came with him.
The ranks of strange-looking warriors behind him clapped fists to their chests in a salute to Essa.
I caught another muttered word from the crowd. Goblins. But that couldn’t be true, could it? Goblins were creatures from the pages of fairytales...
Of course, I’d never seen a Sylph in person, either…
The ceremony was continuing. A woman, who I recognized as Essa’s Aunt Dreya, stepped forward, walking gingerly. She took a glittering crown from the pillow on which it sat and held it up for the inspection of the crowd, which cheered uproariously.
But my vampyre ears heard something else beneath the noise of the crowd, a low droning, like the buzz of a million bees. It seemed to vibrate the world. And it was familiar.
Planes.
My head snapped back and I scanned the skies.
I felt Parthar tense beneath me and I put a comforting hand on his side.
“I know,” I said. “I hear it, too…”
Up on the balcony, Dreya was lowering the crown onto Essa’s head.
The crowd erupted in cheers. Beneath their elated din: the low, powerful blast of the Theyrune horn.
Essa looked up, and everyone else, the thousands gathered, turned their attention to the skies as the first Admite biplanes streaked into view above.
The boom of naval guns sounded out in the bay.
Distant shouts rang out, along with the crackle of gunfire.
God help us, the Admites were here…
Screams broke out all around me, and panicked people began running, shoving, stumbling, falling in a massive human stampede.
But my attention snapped up to the balcony.
Essa’s eyes were trained on the sky, her head tilted back, her beautiful, proud jaw and graceful neck and windblown hair like something out of a painting.
I watched as her hand drifted to the hilt of her sword.
Where was Othura? I wondered suddenly. If she were close by, Essa would be leaping on her back and soaring into battle. Instead, the troop of goblins surged forward, surrounding her and hustling her back toward the shelter of the palace.
Protecting her—or capturing her?
Just as they disappeared into the darkness beyond the arched doorway, a bomb from one of the planes dropped onto the balcony. It exploded just behind them, leaving one of the massive doors swinging on its hinges.
I’d seen enough.
I held tight to one of the spikes on Parthar’s back and squeezed with my knees.
“Go!” I shouted.
I didn’t have to tell him twice. With a flap of his wings, we lurched haphazardly into the air—then dropped back down again, almost crushing a group of terrified people trying to flee.
“Careful!” I said. Parthar huffed, bounded ahead and leaped at the wall.
Wings flapping, claws scrabbling against the stone, he half flew, half scrambled his way up until, with a final leap, he was able to grab the balcony with his front claws.
Then, his feet pedaling in the air behind us, he pulled us up and onto the balcony.
“Good boy!” I called, patting his flank.
The balcony was abandoned now, its stone scorched and smoking from the bomb, all the Lacunae, goblins, priests, and dignitaries fled. A loud buzz and the snap of gunshots rang out above. I looked up and saw a plane diving, strafing us, its bullets pinging and sparking off the stone all around.
“Move!” I shouted, and Parthar bounded across the balcony, through the broken doors and into the castle—toward Essa.