Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
“Something’s gone wrong. Should we…try to find her?”
I bit down on my lip as soon as the words left my mouth, but I didn’t need Rhylan to tell me it was a futile idea.
Four days had passed since we’d sent Alriss to Everael and Sylvaene Eyries, bearing our messages. She’d returned alone.
Undying Light’s Eyrie-Master had informed her that Kirana had left Everael within a day of arriving. She had remained there long enough to eat, sleep, and tend to Garnet. Upon hearing that Cyran was traveling to Shadowed Stars to make the bond with Asura, she’d left.
I assumed that she had understood that Cyran’s mate bond meant there was no chance of an alliance with Undying Light. Kirana would have moved on to the Wildlands by then, to seek out old family friends and hopefully return with a Horde at her back.
But no one had seen her since her departure from Everael Eyrie.
Not so much as a single wyvern-rider, across their vast network of news and gossip, had a single sighting. There were hundreds of wyvern-rider outposts spanning the bay separating Akalla from the Wildlands; one of them would have seen her. Kirana couldn’t travel on Garnet for days on end without stopping for a resupply.
Alriss had questioned the wyvern-riders and ferrymen in every outpost that wasn’t held by enemy Houses, and by the time she arrived in Sylvaene Eyrie, she’d come to an inescapable conclusion: Kirana had vanished without a trace.
But Akalla was a vast continent. We could fly for months, even years—and never find so much as a shred of evidence as to where she’d gone.
Rhylan shaded his eyes, gazing out over the peaks of the mountains for a reddish wyvern that simply wasn’t there. Since Alriss had returned with the news, a frown had been permanently etched across his features.
“Rhylan…” I laid a hand on his arm. “Do you think it’s possible Undying Light lied to Alriss? Kirana would be a valuable political prisoner if they’re planning to move against us at the Second Claim.”
I knew he was hurting, that the potential loss of another sister was cutting him up inside, but we didn’t have the luxury of falling apart now.
One of us would have to remain cold-hearted, and consider every possibility.
Alriss had brought us a message from Tyria, which hinted between the lines that she would consider joining us. News of Zerhaln’s destruction—and the annihilation of the Bloodied Talons—had spread far and wide across Akalla. With Yura’s loss of the exile band, her position was greatly weakened.
But Tyria did not dare put anything more committed into words, not now. Not with three contenders preparing to vie for the throne.
Sylvaene Eyrie was in a precarious location, with the Gilded Skies and Undying Light to the west, and the Iron Shards and Raging Tempests to the south.
If Yura managed to bring the Iron Shards and Raging Tempests into the Court of Brightfire, Tyria would find her House completely surrounded by enemies.
And as badly as we needed the Jade Leaves in our Court, the more practical side of me couldn’t blame her for avoiding a strongly-worded commitment.
With Tyria’s reply, and the news of Kirana’s disappearance, I had immediately gone to the library and pored over the map, charting out the most likely course Kirana would have taken. Thanks to Viros’s logbook, I knew her course had brought her over Koressis, over the western edges of the Jade Leaves’ territory, and from there she was confirmed to have landed in Everael.
And just south of Everael was an open shot to the Wildlands. She should have made it over the channel…and yet not a single rider claimed to have seen her.
My stomach had clenched as I sorted through the myriad possibilities. At this moment, standing on the dragon terrace of Jhazra Eyrie, watching Rhylan obsessively scan the horizon, I was sure that Pyrae and Tashan had to have kept Kirana, and lied to Alriss about her departure.
Because I could not bring myself to fathom anything else. Not without proof.
Rhylan finally exhaled, his breath steaming in the icy wind. As the sun fell, the temperature had plummeted rapidly. “It’s possible…but we’d need Tyria’s aid to invade them and retrieve her.”
He took my hand, wrapping his fingers through mine, and for once his skin was freezing cold.
I cupped his hands in both of mine, trying to warm them, and gave the horizon my own perfunctory scan. I knew perfectly well she wasn’t going to appear, Horde or no Horde, and at this point I couldn’t give less of a damn if she’d made it to the Wildlands or not.
I just wanted her home and safe.
“At the Second Claim, I’ll ask them outright. Threaten Pyrae, and Tashan will fall in line. If they have Kirana, we’ll find out.” I rose up to kiss his pale cheek. The bruises from his fight with Kalros had faded to a sickly yellow-green. “And if they do…we’ll find an ally to join us in retrieving her. Everything will be all right, Rhylan.”
“I wish I could believe that.” He blinked, finally pulling his eyes from the sky, and managed a perfunctory smile. “But I appreciate it. I really do.”
My heart ached for him. I wished I could do more, especially after the last few days of him caring for me, but…I was one draga. If I had my own wings, if I could breathe fire, I could go after her on my own.
I was hamstrung by my own lack of power, and it galled me.
“She’s alive.” I leaned my head on his shoulder. “She’s out there somewhere. Kirana is clever. We’ll find her.”
He leaned his head on mine, and after a few minutes of silence as twilight deepened, we finally tore our eyes from the empty horizon, turning away from the windows.
Viros was polishing a saddle behind us, his eyes elsewhere. Since Alriss had returned, the entire House knew that Kirana was missing.
The tension was a palpable hum in the air, everyone holding their breath as they waited for news of whether she was dead or alive.
And Rhylan paced the dragon terrace, unable to keep his gaze from the windows.
I knew it was hopeless, but I couldn’t stand here and watch him drive himself mad. “We’ll fly the planned route ourselves. Tyria won’t turn us away if we land in Sylvaene. From there we can push into Undying Light’s territory and look around the wyvern outposts ourselves. It’s possible she was seen, and the riders are keeping their mouths shut about it.”
Rhylan paused in his pacing, running his hands through his hair. The hope in his eyes was almost unbearable. “Are you sure? That’s days of flight.”
I knew what he was really asking. I’d been drinking moon powder twice a day since we’d returned from Zerhaln, and the pain of my cycle had never fully abated—and unbeknownst to him, nor had the headache from the blood-craving, which would not improve anytime soon.
Because I’d poured out the last two bottles of the nutrient tonic several nights ago. I could no longer abide the thought that I would be a slave to this craving for the rest of my life, and if I couldn’t pour it out, then I might as well accept that I would remain addicted to it forever.
And when it ran out? When Kirana refused to make it again?
It was better to have a headache for a few weeks than to find myself held captive by a craving. So I had closed my eyes, hands shaking as I poured the last of it down the toilet.
And the last few days had been a haze of pain. Rhylan believed it was only the monthly cycle, but he fussed over me all the same. Wouldn’t let me fly, or walk several flights down to the training rooms.
But he was insane if he thought I was going to sit here in comfort while he fractured to pieces.
“Of course I’m sure.” I kept my tone brisk. “Viros, get the harness and provisions ready, please. I’ll get ready now.”
Some of the tension that had suffused Rhylan’s frame since Alriss’s return relaxed, his shoulders slumping a little. He cupped my face, drawing me in for a rough, desperate kiss, and strode to the storage room, Viros on his heels.
I returned to my room, plaited my hair and pinned it in a tight crown around my head, and ensured I had extra pads for my cycle packed in my small travel bag. Jenra had churned out several new sets of riding leathers for me, now that my weight had stabilized in a healthy place.
They hugged all the right places, thick with silver embroidery at the collar and sleeves. I laced it tight down the back, pulled on my boots, buckled Aela’s sword at my waist, running my fingers over the smooth blue goldstone for comfort.
When I returned to the eyrie’s terrace, Rhylan and Viros were no longer in the manic grip of preparation. Nilsa was with them; the two Bloodless watched as Rhylan read yet another damn letter, though he held this one out like a snake that would bite.
Letters. I was getting godsdamned tired of messages bringing bad news.
I shouldered my travel bag, striding towards him, but the sight of the wax seal on the envelope in Rhylan’s hand stopped me in my tracks.
A golden seal, embossed with a setting sun.
“What does it say?” I breathed.
Rhylan looked up from the letter, his blue eyes flickering with inner embers. “It’s from Yura.”
I held out my hand, and he hesitated. “She’s my sister, Rhylan. Let me read it.”
He clearly didn’t want to give me the letter, but he finally handed it over. I flipped it around, revealing the thin, spidery writing that I recognized as my sister’s.
Elder sister,
Come speak with me by moonlight, under the white flag of truce. Do not let the flames of hatred hold you back—you will wish to hear what I must say.
Your flesh and blood,
Yura
Beneath her name,she had included the words Xilrien Tarn.
“Where is Xilrien Tarn?” I asked, staring at her name.
“We flew over it once. The small lake, on our first practice flight.” Rhylan’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Sera, she’s a liar.”
“It’s a trap.” Viros nodded knowingly. “She wishes to lure you out.”
“Of course it’s a trap.” I flipped the letter over, but the short missive was all there was to it. “It’s Yura, what else could it be?”
But if this was a trap, it was an inelegant one, and Yura was not given to inelegance—not with her own hands. She would happily send in a band of exiles to destroy another House’s territory, or any dragons in her Court to die for her…but Yura was not the type to set up a cloak-and-dagger meeting of her own accord, solely to spring a crude and obvious trap.
No…I believed that she did have something to tell me, although every instinct in me screamed that I didn’t want to hear it.
This meeting wasn’t the trap. It was whatever came afterward that I would rue.
“I’m going to meet with her.” I folded the letter and tucked it into my chest pocket, over my heart—keeping my enemy close. “Rhylan, you don’t—”
“I’m coming with you.” His jaw was set with tension as he strode to the harness. “We’ll return to the eyrie for the provisions after this.”
“Thank you.” I put my hand on his shoulder as he began the shift, scales and mass erupting until the black dragon filled the harness.
“This isn’t wise, Princess Sera.” Viros’s hands moved rapidly over the buckles, but his eyes were grave. “She is a contender; she won’t hold back if she believes she can end this tonight.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s where you’re wrong, Viros.” I checked the buckles on Rhylan’s sides, ensuring they weren’t digging into his hide, before I mounted him. “You see, Yura doesn’t want the fighting to end. She would eat, sleep, and breathe war every day of her life if she could. So I have no fear of her harming me tonight.”
They would not believe me, but it was true. Because as long as Yura had an opponent…that was when she felt truly alive.
It was the only reason I hadn’t died in the Training Grounds so many years ago. She’d had me dead to rights…and she had let me live, gravely wounded, my memories shattered, only because she couldn’t live without something to hate.
I only feared for everyone around me.
Rhylan launched himself through the dragon door before Viros could respond, but that was all for the better. There was nothing the Eyrie-Master could say to change my mind.
I wanted—no, I needed—to know what my sister was planning, if any hint of her future movements could be gleaned from whatever bile she planned to spew in my ear tonight.
And I wanted to speak to her truly. No Claims, no Houses to impress or intimidate…just a meeting between blood-kin.
The path Rhylan took was familiar to me from all our training flights; I blinked down my third eyelids, keeping my gaze glued to the ground below as he weaved between peaks, slowly gaining altitude with every beat of his wings.
Frost formed over my cheeks and I wiped it away hurriedly, checking the sky. There was no one else out here; the faint wisps of cloud hid no dragons, and the moon was full and bright. We were alone.
Except for them. I saw the tarn, many miles ahead, its deep bowl reflecting the moon like a mirror. Vague smears resolved into finer details as we drew closer.
At its edge, an iron-gray dragon sat with his neck arched over the tiny figure beside him. Even in the gray tones of night, the moonlight washing out her gilded form, I recognized Yura. She stood ankle-deep in the water at the tarn’s edge, peering down into its depths.
As we circled overhead, Rhylan descending with deliberate slowness, Yura raised her head.
My dragon landed at the edge of the tarn, well away from Yura and Tidas. I dismounted, reaching up to stroke his jaw as I paused, watching my sister.
“Stay in this form, please.” I kept my voice low, and Rhylan’s deep rumble of assent drowned out my words. “I want to be able to escape quickly.”
My first instincts had been correct; this was not an obvious trap. There were no other dragons here.
I took the first step. Yura emerged from the water, following the edge of the tarn, and we watched each other as we walked, meeting halfway between our dragons.
My sister stood straight-backed and tall, golden waves hanging loose to her waist and bleached white by the moonlight. She exuded her empty serenity, smiling without her eyes, which were as black as the tarn’s depths. There was something disturbing about her movements, her bare feet moving over the rocky edges of the shore like creeping creatures, the rest of her body preternaturally still.
“Sera. I didn’t think you would come.”
“Of course I came. Sisters should speak face to face once in a while, don’t you think?”
Yura’s smile never slipped, didn’t deepen, didn’t fade. It was like speaking to a marionette wearing a porcelain mask. “And I had been so sure I would never see yours again. Our father was quite convincing about your death. I truly believed you had succumbed on Mistward Isle.”
“I’m always glad to disappoint.” I kept my feet wide, grounded as firmly as I could manage on the stones. My shoulders remained loose; the easier to unsheathe a sword with. “What is it you have to say, Yura?”
“Now that I look at you, I wonder how I could have believed him.” Yura tilted her head, unblinking, ignoring my question. “You’ve always had a fire in you, elder sister. You just kept it well hidden.”
My teeth clamped together, jaw set. There was no point in pushing her—she had always been this way, meandering to the meat of a subject.
“Even when I had that fire in my hands…” Yura raised one hand, her claws catching the moonlight as she formed an upraised cage. “I could not bring myself to smother it. It was too early, you see. Guttering, flickering like a candle in the wind…there is no pride in snuffing out a candle flame.”
Her claws gleamed as the cage closed into a fist. Her face was white, a death mask, the empty pits of her eyes like holes.
I had seen this before.
My heart was racing, slamming quick and heavy against my ribs. That night in the Training Grounds unspooled in my mind, a memory I had mostly shut out—or repressed for my own sanity.
Seeing Yura here, pale as death in the moonlight, brought it all back with screaming clarity.
A night in the forests around Koressis. Every draga was blindfolded and abandoned, left to their own devices in the wilderness. Left to fend for themselves in a training exercise designed to teach us how to survive without a dragon. We were meant to chart our course, to find our way back to the training masters’ encampment.
I had scraped my way through thick underbrush and under briar hedges. Without clothes, without protection against the sharp thorns, I had left a trail behind me from a thousand oozing scratches.
Yura had found me that night.
Following the scent of my blood, snuffling at the ground like a dog.
In those early, pitch-black hours, I had come to realize that I was the prey, and she was the hunter. The encampment didn’t matter. The training masters’ instructions had ceased to exist.
I had been alone in the forest, and there was something in it that wanted to devour me.
Yura had come from the darkness like an animal, prowling on all fours. Laying claws into my back, driving me into stony soil. Her teeth snapping at my throat as she tore away flesh, swallowing it, my blood gleaming on her lips.
But she hadn’t killed me. I had dragged myself back to the encampment as the first rays of dawn touched the sky, my body painted red with blood.
The training masters had thought it was wild animals. In the light of day, the horror of being hunted had been replaced with flickers of memory, until I no longer remembered what was real, and what was imagined in the extremity of terror.
I had agreed with them. I had shut my mind.
Later, all I remembered was Yura. Her teeth, her claws.
Now I remembered that she had eaten my flesh. Drank my blood.
“Oh, had you forgotten?” Yura’s smile widened now, her teeth gleaming. “Yes, elder sister, I held your life in my hands. I felt your heart racing, racing…the frantic beat of a rabbit running to ground, knowing it was outmatched.”
“You…ate…parts of me.” Unbidden, my hand rose to my throat, touching the marbled scar that blended into my pale skin. The healers had fixed it, though it had taken years for those mottled pink patches to fade to silver.
Yura touched a rock with her toe, nudging it into the water. Ripples spread over the still surface of the tarn, turning the moon’s reflection into streaks of light. “When you consume a thing, you consume its power. But you were not more than a mouthful, then. I wanted to eat your fire, not the pathetic, smoldering embers you held.”
My lip curled, the sneer not quite hiding the nausea I felt, as I remembered Yura’s animalistic noises as she tore at my throat—and wished the memory had remained in the recesses of my mind. “I wonder how long your alliances would last, were the other Houses to know you’re a flesh-eater.”
Her foot twitched as she brought it back beneath her. “Oh, please, Sera. It is your word against mine. I am sure I will be shocked and appalled at such an accusation…and they will look at you as unbalanced.” She raised her chin, staring me down. “A mentally unstable liar, bearing tales just like her mother.”
The sickness churned in my guts. She was right.
The Gilded Skies were an old House. A highly respected House, despite my peers’ dislike of Yura.
If I walked into the Second Claim and accused my half-sister, the second child of Drakkon Nasir, of…of cannibalism, the other Houses would recoil.
And when they went home to their eyries, they would whisper about me. About murderous mothers. About made-up stories.
About lies.
And I would be turned away from their eyries. My letters would go unanswered. Slowly but surely, I would be driven from Akalla’s society.
As with the Obsidian Flames and Tidas, who still walked free after what he had done, I did not hold enough burden of proof to make anyone listen. That scar on my throat…it could have come from anything.
I wanted to touch Rhylan, to even look at him, just for a moment of clarity and comfort. But I dared not take my eyes off this cannibalistic thing for even a moment.
I had always hated her because there was something terribly wrong with her, and I had always known it. The eating of a dragonblood’s flesh was explicitly forbidden by the Law, because that was the province of much darker things.
Things that Larivor and Naimah forbade from walking the earth.
“When did you take to eating your enemies?” I asked lightly, and somehow, miracle of miracles, my voice didn’t shake. “Was it before the Training Grounds, or was I your first meal?”
A soft laugh escaped her, but her face didn’t move at all, and the conjunction of the two sent chills down my spine. “You were not my first.”
“Who else?”
Yura shrugged, still smiling. “Does it matter?”
The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, every primal instinct shouting now to leave.
I was sure that there would be no sign of those whom she had consumed. All she needed to do was take their bones to a dark place, and bury them deep. There were plenty of dark pockets in Akalla, that even dragons treated with wariness and respect.
They would never be found. The proof would languish in the darkness forever.
“Some would say it matters more than anything.” My fingers twitched, wanting to reach for my sword. “You ate dragonblood flesh, Yura. You’re forsaken in Larivor’s eyes.”
She flicked her fingers, brushing that notion away as inconsequential. A deep cut had been slashed across her palm, the edges of the open wound resembling bloodless lips. “Let’s not be sidetracked by religion, dear sister. The gods do not matter here. The only thing that matters on the earthly plane is power, and I did not call you here to discuss the philosophy of our…preferred diets. I wanted you to come because I have an offer. You would be foolish to refuse it.”
My heart was still racing, cool sweat prickling over my back. “You have nothing I cannot win for myself.”
“Do you truly believe that?” Yura raised her brows, and it was the most animated expression she had made thus far, a thousand times more…alive…than her smile. “I offer you freedom. If you and your mate renounce your claim and stand down from this foolish attempt, I will permit you to live out your lives in the Wildlands. So long as you remain there, I will not raise a hand against you.”
My retort stuck in my throat. It was—for a draga fighting for the throne—a very generous offer.
One I was not sure I would extend to an enemy of my own.
She knew Rhylan had family in the Wildlands. We would be exiled from Akalla, from the continent we both called home, but we would not be alone.
The Wildlands were not like Mistward, which was barren and empty. They were a thriving continent—one that spat on the concept of Houses, but still, not remotely on par with a prison island.
It was generous…too generous. And that made me believe it was a trap.
“How kind of you,” I said slowly. “But, Yura…I cannot back down when I intend to see you dead by the end of this.”
“There’s the fire,” she whispered. Her black-hole eyes bored into me. “Mistward made you burn so bright. The offer stands until the Second Claim. After that, there is no more hope for you.”
She made no movements, not so much as a twitch to give away the mind-speech, but Tidas unfurled from behind her, covering the distance to his mate with long strides.
I heard the clatter of claws on stone behind me; Rhylan had been waiting for this, and now he curled around me defensively, his eyes focused on Tidas.
But the dragon made no move towards us. Tidas did not even meet Rhylan’s eyes, his entire being focused on the golden marionette at his feet.
Never before had I seen Tidas behave in such a docile way. If willpower was a necessary aspect for a mate bond…then Yura had not only impressed hers upon him, but completely crushed him beneath it.
Yura climbed the harness, settling herself on the saddle, her bare feet sliding into the stirrups.
“I almost forgot, elder sister—it would be remiss of me not to give you a token of warning. Take what is offered, or I will extract my pound of flesh from you…and those you love.” Yura’s teeth were so bright, her grin so wide, as she untied a sack from the saddle and tossed it down to the stones at my feet.
Tidas spread his wings wide and took to the sky, sending another wave of ripples over the tarn. A low, unbroken snarl streamed from Rhylan’s throat as we watched them soar north, turn east…and vanish into the distance.
I looked down at the sack. It was woven of rough burlap, tied with twine…and the bottom was soaked black. The reek of iron was a taste in my mouth.
Rhylan sniffed, steam rising from his nostrils and spiraling into the night air, and made a terrible sound—a shriek that made the loose stones around us dance and clatter.
I knelt and untied the twine, my fingers shaking, and lifted the burlap to spill its contents on the tarn’s shore.
Garnet’s head rolled over in the moonlight, coming to a halt on the stones and staring up at us with empty sockets…like black holes.