Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Hael
MAGNOLIA
“What vision of the future do you want to see?”
I was starting to think the sister I carried on my back was older, even if it was only by seconds or minutes, she acted like it. She was the only one who spoke as the other two siblings held hands, angled slightly behind her.
“I want to know if I will defeat King Elion,” Dahes’ voice echoed off the stone.
The girls’ green eyes widened at the request, but they quickly recovered before they started chanting, their voices lowering a few octaves. I immediately passed them the eye, and even though I kept rubbing my hand on my hides, I couldn’t wipe away the slimy texture coating them.
They paused, their eyes flicking up to Dahes. “No,” they replied in unison. “Not as things stand now.”
“What do I need to do?”
More creepy chanting, and then, “What exactly do you want? His death? His kingdom? The more specific you are, the better we can find the answers you’re looking for. The future is always turning, always tipping, so the more details you provide, the more accurate the reading.”
I knew immediately the girls weren’t going back on the streets.
If Dahes was asking them this kind of question, no one in the throne room would be free.
I glanced down at Kip. His knees had slammed against the stone the moment the sentries dropped him.
Blood pooled around his hand from clutching the socket where his eye had been.
His screams dimmed to more of a labored wail, but it still felt just as deafening to my ears.
His remaining eye—the one I didn’t rip out of his skull—narrowed on me. There was a promise there.
I turned away from him and focused my attention on Dahes.
Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale.
I kept wiping my hand, kept trying to get it clean.
“I want the drakins back,” Dahes said after a moment.
I knew it was probably killing him to admit his plans out loud.
He never did. I could never predict his next move, could never understand his motives.
The only constant about Dahes was that he was unpredictable.
“I would prefer if Elion was alive long enough to see it, but ultimately I want him dead.”
The triplets nodded. My focus fixed on the older one. Her throat bobbed once before re-clutching her sisters’ hands and the chanting began again. Long seconds passed as their low-tone musical incanting echoed off the stone, swallowing up Kip’s mumbled cries.
“There is a path to defeat him,” they said in unison, “to return dragons and their drakin riders back to you.” Dahes leaned forward on his throne, so subtle that I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been staring at him.
Our history claimed that Dahes gifted the drakins to King Elion as a symbol of peace to end the war between them.
Dahes possessed monsters and beasts—dragons included—and Elion possessed magic and Wielders, but beyond the outcome, no one really knew the details of what occurred during the war or how it ended.
Despite our thousand-year Staying Age, no one was alive today that witnessed it.
It had my mind spinning. Was it not really a gift to end the War of Two Kings thousands of millennia ago? Were the drakins not given willingly?
Dahes’ white eyes whipped to me, and I immediately realized I’d been thinking too much. I tried to block my mind, to zone out my thoughts again until I was nothing but an observant in the room.
Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.
“How?” Dahes asked.
“You must attack on the Summer Solstice when the six moons are at their highest.”
Dahes’ excitement was palpable. He drummed his fingers against a spike on his throne, oblivious to the fact that he was drawing his own blood. Or maybe he just didn’t care. I doubted pain affected him like it did the rest of us.
“This year, the Solstice will overlap the Watata, making the effects on drakins heightened,” they chanted in unison.
I had no idea what they were talking about. What effects did drakins have and how did the moons aligning have anything to do with dragons? But Dahes didn’t react, like he already knew what the triplets meant.
“But,” the triplets’ voices cut in, “the Gods and Goddesses’ intervention still stands. As punishment for the war, you and Elion are not allowed to kill each other. Nothing you can do will change that outcome. No matter the various paths to the future we glimpse, that remains constant.”
Dahes growled, his fingers momentarily paused in their drumming. “How do I kill him then?”
“You need Hael, the Drakin Leader, to fight alongside you. He alone is the only person alive who can kill King Elion.”
I turned my gaze away from Dahes as the triplets kept chanting, and I instantly regretted it. They were huddled together, taking turns passing Kip’s eye between their hands, and I caught a glimpse of his brown iris before I wanted to vomit all over again.
“Hael?”
They nodded in confirmation. “Yes. He has to be the one to kill him using a dragon-fire blade.”
Dahes’ tongue clicked, and my stomach plummeted. Dahes was trying to restart the war, and he wanted a way to kill King Elion. I couldn’t fathom what would happen to Hilithia if he was the sole ruler, if Dahes controlled Viven too…
“But be careful,” they added. “If he does not fight alongside you, you will lose everything you hold dear.” Dahes’ gaze flicked to me as their cadence echoed off the walls. “And your chances of getting the drakins back will die with it.”
His throat clicked as he leaned back on his throne, and it sounded more beast than man. “How do I get a dragon-fire blade? No metal has been able to withstand the flames.”
“Do not worry about the blade,” they chanted in unison. “Get Hael and it will fall beneath your feet.”
Dahes’ eyes narrowed. “Any other outliers I need to be aware of?”
“Impossible to tell. We can’t answer vague questions, only direct.”
“Fine.” Dahes’ sentries moved from across the room. “Take them to the dungeon. I might need their services later.”
“What? You promised—”
“Noo. NO!”
“We had a deal—”
All three of them shouted at once that I had no idea which sister said what. Kip’s eye dropped onto the stone. It bounced off the floor, once, twice, three times before it rolled a foot away.
“I promised I would return you to my streets,” Dahes cut them off.
“I did not promise when I would return you. So until I kill Elion, you will be fed and cared for in my castle. But if you give any of my sentries a hard time, they did not promise to leave you unharmed, so I’d mind your tongues.
” He turned to his men—well, if you could still call his sentries men, “Take the boy too.”
I tried to mask my shock. I assumed Dahes would have killed him, but I knew he was leaving him alive because of me. What I did tonight would come back to haunt me, eventually. Maybe when he got sick of me, he’d let Kip return the favor…
The triplets protested, their screams rivaling Kip’s as the sentries dragged them away. I closed my eyes, not having the stomach to watch right now.
Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale.
“Magnolia.” Dahes’ voice was soft, and I immediately knew we were alone.
I opened my eyes and looked up. He was still on his throne, but for once he wasn’t looking at me. His mask was off now, and his head was tilted back as he stared up at the swirling fog through the arched window in the ceiling.
“Yes?” I whispered.
He looked at me then. “You’re going on another hunt.”