22. Vinculum Bonds #2
My gaze snapped across the arena to where Arrik was standing, only now, he wasn’t watching the tournament, he was staring directly at me.
I didn’t have time to process it as the fire stopped down below and the rider was, mercifully, still standing.
His leather sleeve was burned, and in its place, the word drakin was burned down his forearm in a vertical line.
“How—” I gasped, trying to make sense of it because there was no way in the Suns that a dragon was able to burn a freaking word onto his skin without catching him on fire.
Cash seemed to notice my shock. Whatever he thought of me using my Token was gone.
He stepped back toward the railing and leaned forward, murmuring, “It’s not the dragon that’s doing it.
Wielders get their gifts bestowed on them from the two Sun Goddesses, but drakins originate from the Moons—one for each breed of dragon. ”
Six moons. Six dragons.
“Why isn’t that common knowledge?” I asked because there was no way it was if I’d never heard about it before.
I knew there were multiple dragon breeds, but not once had I heard the connection to the Moon Gods.
Which was so stupid. I even noticed the six oil paintings last night, one for each color of the moons, how had the connection never come up?
Before I became a slave, I paid attention to all talk regarding Viven, and I remembered everything that was said—mainly because I was obsessed.
I always dreamed of living here, of being born to this kingdom.
I knew I only heard whispered gossip from a fraction of what actually went down, and even then, there was always the chance that exiled Vivenians were lying, but not once had the Gods come up.
“There’s a lot about drakins that aren’t common knowledge,” was all Cash said.
He looked me up and down like he could read my mind before adding, “Besides, only high class civilians from the First and Second Provinces get to attend the Vargothi, most of the lowlifes that get exiled into Moriann are from the Fourth, sometimes Third. They wouldn’t know anything about drakins. ”
We watched twenty other riders come to the center of the pit before I realized what Arrik meant by sanctuary of burning.
“What happened?” I gasped, trying to keep my voice down.
A green dragon had flown down to bond with a rider, but instead of searing the word drakin onto his forearm, he was gone.
As soon as the dragon fire receded, not even his bones were left as ash flew across the pit.
The dragon roared before taking to the skies, flying out of the Dome through the top.
“I don’t understand…”
“He wasn’t worthy,” Cash replied, his voice low.
“Then why did the dragon go down there? Why did he kill him?” I saw it happen five times now where there weren’t any dragons that wanted to bond with the rider. Elion gave each initiate ten minutes to see if a dragon would fly down to the pit before they were ushered back through the tunnel.
“The dragon still wanted to bond,” Cash said. “It was the Moon God, Viridis, that didn’t find the pairing worthy.”
“So it’s better if a dragon doesn’t want them—”
Cash shook his head.
“No. The riders want the dragons to bond. They just also need the Gods that protect the specific breed of dragon to also accept them.”
“So what happens to the ones who had nothing happen? The ones who went back through the tunnel?”
“You’ll see,” was all he said before the next rider was walking out onto the pit.
The entire day carried an ominous weight. No one was drinking. The servants no longer moved through the stands with food as they had the previous two days. Any celebratory presence the tournament evoked was long gone.
Instead, the hollowed silence unnerved me. The air was too still, as if everyone in the crowd held their breath in stasis, waiting for violence. The only time anyone spoke was between riders, when we watched a new drakin walk out of the tunnel, and even then, it was hushed conversations.
By the end of the day, more riders were bonded to a dragon through the Vinculum, but there were just as many that had no dragons fly to them. And the few times the Moon God wouldn’t bless it, silence rippled throughout the arena as the initiate burned to ash.
I couldn’t imagine walking out there, hoping a dragon would bond, only to be killed by one of the Gods because they didn’t think you were worthy.
I looked around the Dome. All the dragons were gone as the suns were starting to sink lower into the sky. My legs were starting to ache from how long we’d been standing on the balcony, and while I could have sat down on one of the cushions provided, I refused to move from the railing.
The dragons that completed the Vinculum rode off with their new riders, but I had no idea where they went.
The initiates that didn’t bond with any dragons were being ushered back onto the pit.
There were thirty of them walking out of the tunnel, the projection still playing, displaying their faces in meticulous detail.
Most of them were crying, some were shaking…
“Why didn’t all the dragons come?” I asked. Throughout the entire day, I only saw four types. Not all the breeds were present.
Ignis, the red dragons; Viridis, the green dragons; Caerulus, the blue dragons; and Ferro, which Cash told me were the gray dragons.
“They did all come,” he said.
“You told me there were six dragon breeds. We only saw four.”
“That’s because Crepitos, the white dragons, are rare. They’ve only been seen once in the past three centuries, and Aters are rumored to be extinct. No one has seen the black dragons since the War of Two Kings.”
My head spun as I realized I already saw a Crepito.
White—not cream like I’d originally thought.
My gaze snapped across the Dome toward Arrik, only now he wasn’t looking at me.
He’d been staring—more like openly glaring—at me all day.
I only knew because I’d been doing the same to him, but he wasn’t standing behind the king anymore.
He was standing by the railing of his own balcony, staring down at the initiates in the pit below.
His face was unreadable, completely blank, and I found myself wondering what he was thinking.
All the riders were standing in a straight line in the middle of the pit, waiting for something…
King Elion rose. “Initiates. We respect the Moon Gods and their choices. The thirty of you were not deemed worthy of the Vinculum bond. May your souls be worthy when you meet Dahes.”
“When you meet Dahes…” I mouthed, then realization dawned on me. No—he was going to kill them all…
A reverberation sounded before the sinking suns were blocked by clouds. No. Not clouds—a white dragon.
“That’s a Crepito,” Cash said over the loud rattle. “They’re the only species of dragons that make the noise—” He didn’t need to say it. There was no denying the rattle that was shaking my bones. “—they rattle.”
The sound was jostling and only grew as the dragon slowly descended from the sky.
Then, the projection shifted. We were no longer looking at the thirty initiates down in the pit, but the projection user was staring up toward King Elion’s balcony, and although I probably could have seen better if I just looked at the balcony myself, my eyes were glued to the projection.
I watched as Arrik jumped off the balcony and landed perfectly in the middle of the dragon’s back. The rattling stopped the instant he was on and I could do nothing but watch as it tucked its wings before swooping down toward the pit.
“Suns,” I cursed. “The dragon’s going to burn them…” It brought me back to the first night of the Vargothi when I spent what felt like hours watching that girl slowly burn, only now there were thirty of them…
“No,” Cash said, interrupting my thoughts. “The dragon isn’t going to burn them.” Before I could relax, his next words hit me like a brick. “Hael’s going to kill them.”
Hael.
The name rang through my ears, but I couldn’t process it.
Even as I watched Arrik jump off the Crepito’s back and land perfectly in front of the initiates.
Even as I watched him unsheath the blade at his back.
Even as I watched him move down the line, stabbing each initiate through the heart.
One after another after another—until all thirty riders were bleeding out in the pit.
It happened so fast. One clean strike for each failed rider. The tip of his sword finding its mark every time.
No one fought him. No one tried to run. They all just waited for him to stab them…
It wasn’t until the dirt was painted red and all thirty bodies were lifeless, piled atop one another that he resheathed his sword, not bothering to wipe the blood off of it.
He turned without uttering a single word before jumping back onto his dragon.
The Crepito let out a low rattle before it roared, everyone’s hands simultaneously grabbing at their ears to drown out the shrill.
White flashed in my vision as the dragon soared upward, then out of view.
“No,” I might have staggered backward. “That’s Arrik.” I turned toward Cash, my voice rising a couple of octaves. “That was Arrik?”
“Yeah,” Cash nodded. “Hael Arrik.”
“This is the end of the Vargothi,” King Elion boasted, but I couldn’t stop staring up at the suns, even as my eyes burned and tears poured down my cheeks from the brightness.
I kept gaping up at the endless blue sky like I’d still be able to see him, even though the dragon was long gone…
“Tonight we have the Imassura, but tomorrow we celebrate this triumph as a kingdom to honor our forty-two newest drakin recruits.”
Cheers went up in the stands, but I couldn’t move—could barely think.
I finally found out who Hael was.