Chapter 22 #2
My tongue flicks out, tasting the air around the fallen cake. The risk is necessary. I need to know what substance felled Leira with a single bite.
With deliberate care, I isolate a single crumb between my claws, examining the seemingly innocent morsel. With a decisive motion, I place the crumb on my tongue.
At first I taste only what I expect, the sweet-savory blend common to traditional glimmergrain cake, the melting of sugar crystals leaving pleasant warmth.
Then, as the morsel dissolves further, something else emerges.
A bitter undertone, sharp and medicinal, hiding beneath the dominant flavors like a scorpion beneath sand.
I freeze, recognition flaring instant and certain.
I hiss and spit the remaining fragments onto the floor. The same sedative Zara mixed with the water I gave Leira before her broken leg was set. I recall how quickly it had taken effect, softening her pain and drawing her into a deep, untroubled sleep.
Now that same bitter note clings to my tongue, unmistakable despite attempts to mask it with sweetness. I know someone drugged her. Someone she trusted enough to accept food from.
Rage floods me, molten and consuming. The byrn, that primal, possessive instinct to protect what is mine, claws its way up my spine.
My scales flush with heat, the air around me shimmering as my elemental power responds to emotional extremes.
The temperature in the chamber rises perceptibly, moisture evaporating from stone surfaces in thin wisps of steam.
My lungs expand in a deliberate rhythm as I wrestle my thoughts into order.
While the drugged cakes account for why I cannot sense Leira's consciousness, it leaves too many questions unanswered. Where are Zaethir and Nirik? Was it Lurok or the TrueCoil who orchestrated this with such calculated precision? The Temple was Leira’s only destination today and must be the source of these poisoned offerings.
A russet-scaled face materializes in my thoughts—Miria, the herb-keeper who has been teaching Leira our healing traditions.
She would have both access to gloomroot and Leira's trust. All russet-scaled females in Vessan-Kar had been questioned and searched for the TrueCoil's brand upon their scales. By the day’s end, we found nothing suspicious enough to warrant detention.
My Talons released them all, including Miria.
I surge across Leira's chambers to the serpentglass panel embedded in the far wall. My palm sweeps over its surface, activating the network of luminous veins beneath. The ancient stone responds instantly, liquefying under my touch as the communication pathways brighten to life.
"Connect to Sareth," I command, my voice raw with barely contained fury. "Priority royal summons."
The serpentglass ripples like disturbed water, its surface shifting from solid to fluid as it searches for my commander.
The moment stretches unbearably, each second another slither Leira's captors might be taking away from my reach.
I press harder against the stone, as if physical pressure might speed its ancient magic.
"Come on," I hiss through clenched fangs. "Answer.”
The glass stabilizes suddenly. Sareth snaps to alertness at the sight of my face, reading the emergency in my expression before I speak a single word.
I waste no time with preamble. "Wake your Talons. Leira is gone."
The effect is immediate. Sareth's scales bristle visibly, his massive form straightening as he moves closer to his own serpentglass connection. "Gone?"
"Drugged and taken," I say, my voice deadly calm though fire licks at the edges of my control, threatening to burst free. "Either Lurok's faction or the TrueCoil. Secure Vessan-Kar and send Talons to the temple. No one leaves and detain the female called Miria."
Sareth turns to bark orders at someone off-screen. "My Talons will sweep every passage, every tunnel. If she is still within our walls, we will find her."
"And if she has been taken beyond?" I press, the possibility tearing at me like claws.
"Then we will track them," Sareth answers, his voice hardening with resolve.
"And find Zaethir and Nirik," I add, my chest tightening with worry for the loyal guards who would never willingly abandon their posts. "Her guards were missing from their post."
"We will," Sareth promises, his expression grim.
"Any word from Traven?" I ask, coils tightening beneath me.
"Not since his last communication before his wraiths left Vessan-Kar," Sareth replies.
"Report to me the moment you have anything," I order. "I will be at the Temple of Threads. The cakes that drugged her came from there, and I believe it was Miria who prepared them."
Sareth bows, the serpentglass rippling as he disconnects. My palm remains pressed against the now smooth stone as the crushing weight of responsibility and fear settles over me.
I should have explained the OathCoil to her when it was first placed. I should have followed her after our argument instead of wallowing in self-pity. So many different choices that might have prevented this nightmare.
Regret is a luxury I cannot afford, not with Leira drugged and held captive somewhere beyond my reach. Not with our bond stretched so thin I can barely feel the thread of her consciousness anymore.
I pull my hand from the wall and straighten to my full height. Self-recrimination must wait. I need answers, and I know where to find them: the Temple of Threads.
I burst from Leira's chambers, my body moving with battle-ready precision while my mind races ahead.
Every second matters now. Every heartbeat puts more distance between my bloodmate and safety.
The sedative I tasted was potent, but its effects will not last forever.
When she wakes, disoriented and captive, I want my Talons already closing in, her captors already trapped. I want her to know I am coming.
The corridors blur as I surge through them, my coils propelling me with the full force of desperation. Servants flatten themselves against walls as I pass, wisely sensing the lethal focus radiating from my scales. I do not slow to acknowledge their bows or their startled expressions.
I exit the palace and surge through the tunnels at blinding speed, my coils propelling me forward with desperate purpose.
The Temple rises before me, its spires of carved stone already surrounded by my Talons, their scales catching the faint bioluminescent glow that pulses against Vessan-Kar's night cycle darkness.
Sareth's efficiency, at least, does not surprise me.
I surge to a halt before Hydat, the first Talon I reach. "Miria?" I demand.
"Not here, Sovereign," Hydat reports, scales bristling with tension. "Prithas Sareth had us search the herb gardens and her quarters. No trace."
"Venom curse it!" My tail slams against ancient stone, and surge forward. The doors to the Temple recognizing my blood and flowing open before I can demand entry. Heat radiates from my scales, the air around me shimmering with barely contained fire that leaves scorch marks in my wake.
The Temple's usual hushed reverence is already shattered with Talons searching every shadow.
My passage echoes through vaulted chambers, the slap of scales against stone reverberating like war drums. Guardians coil at side passages, alarmed by the disturbance, only to press themselves flat against walls when they recognize their sovereign moving with lethal purpose.
I spot Eira near the central altar and surge toward her, my coils propelling me forward with barely contained rage. With a sharp gesture, I guide her to a shadowed alcove away from prying ears. Trust has become a luxury I cannot afford.
"Where did the cakes come from?" I demand, my voice a harsh whisper.
Confusion crosses her aged face, genuine and unguarded. "What—?"
"The glimmergrain cakes," I press, leaning closer as heat radiates from my scales. "The ones given to my bloodmate this day. Who made them?"
Recognition dawns in her eyes, followed swiftly by understanding. "From Miria," she answers, her voice steady despite the tension crackling around us. "She gathered the ingredients from the gardens herself. Is that why she is being sought by the Talons?”
"Yes," I growl, my fangs flashing in the dim light. "Leira was drugged with the same sedative used when Zara tended her leg. The cakes were the delivery method. Someone my bloodmate trusted has betrayed us all."
Eira's scales pale to a ghostly white, her ancient eyes widening as the full implications register across her features. “Miria has served the temple faithfully. I never suspected her as anything but loyal…" She trails off, her gaze distant.
"The bond," I manage, my voice suddenly raw as I speak my greatest fear aloud.
"I cannot feel her, Eira. Not as I should.
Not as I have since the ceremony." My claws dig into my palms. "If she were dead—" The words catch in my throat, a physical pain that steals my breath and sends cracks spiderwebbing through my carefully maintained control.
Eira's ancient eyes soften with understanding. She moves closer, unafraid of the flames that ripple across my scales in waves that match my erratic heartbeat. "Tell me precisely what you feel, Sovereign," she urges gently. "Not what you fear, but what you know."
I force myself to breathe, to focus on the gossamer-thin connection that still stretches between Leira and myself.
"Distance," I finally say. "As if she travels farther with each moment.
And... muffling. Like hearing a voice through water.
I sense her existence but nothing more. No emotion.
No direction. No..." My voice breaks, composure shattering like thin ice beneath too much weight. "No guiding thread to follow."
I, who have led armies and carried the burden of an entire species on my shoulders, find myself utterly lost without the bright pulse of her consciousness against mine. The silence in that space feels like drowning.
Eira regards me with eyes that have witnessed countless bonds form and break across centuries.
"What you describe sounds like interference.
Not just the sedative but distance combined with certain barriers.
There are materials that can dampen thread-connections like lead-lined chambers or specific crystal formations. "
“If the bond is too weak for me to track her, perhaps Zara could commune with the Flame. She might glimpse Leira's location where I cannot."
"I will wake her," Eira says, already gliding toward the inner sanctum, her ancient scales catching the dim light as she moves with surprising swiftness for one so old. "The child has been restless with visions these past nights.”
I pivot toward the main entrance, my scales rippling with impatience to assemble a team of Talons to begin my own search, when Eira's voice rips through the temple.
"Sovereign!" The ancient guardian's cry bounces off vaulted ceilings. "Zara is gone! Her guards lay dead outside her chamber."
Each word strikes like a precisely aimed dagger between my scales. First Leira. Now Zara. The fire in my blood extinguishes, replaced by a creeping cold that paralyzes me for three thundering heartbeats.
"They took them both," I whisper, fangs bared.
Zara, the first true seer born to our kind in centuries. Her last warning echoes in my memory, Beware the shadow that hides behind loyalty. Its fangs are patient. The little seer had hit close to the mark of who was behind the bombing, and they could not risk her seeing more.
Two treasures stolen from me this night. My bloodmate, whose touch melted centuries of ice around my heart, and the youngling who looks at me with such unwavering trust. They are mine to protect. Mine to avenge.
Shards of cold rage give way to pure fire that races through me, scale by burning scale.
My body becomes a forge, each heartbeat pumping molten fury through my core.
Crimson and gold flames ripple visibly across my length, not in waves but in violent pulses that match my thundering heart.
Let the enemy feel my coming like hellfire and my descent like extinction itself.
I am vengeance incarnate. What is mine has been taken. What is mine, I will reclaim.