Chapter 194
Chapter 194
I sucked in a breath, ready to answer him when another wave of explosions shook the city. We all stared as dragons flew past the right hand side of the city before veering off.
“Change of plan.” Draven sounded curiously calm. “Get Pippin and Glimmer back to camp and I’ll take care of my uncle.” He turned to me when I went to protest. “I heard you loud and clear. Every word you said before Rex and the others hit me hard, I just couldn’t show it in front of the other riders. You’re right, Pippin. The entire city doesn’t deserve to die for my uncle’s sins.” He jerked out his sword. “This was always about him and me, so I’ll bring the fight to him.”
“Hate to get in the way of your noble self-sacrifice,” Brom drawled, “but we can’t go back the way we came. The explosives you had the riders drop resulted in the collapse of Drathnor’s cave.”
“But it was just blasting powder…” The sound of more steps had Draven shaking his head. “No matter. Brom, lead everyone?—”
“To the old servant’s entrance to your uncle’s palace?” Brom replied. “Already what I had planned.” He turned to us. “Come on and stay close.”
With a quick look around the corner, he gestured us forward. Glimmer followed on his heels, obedient as a hound, so we did the same, streaking across a wide street, the light of the moon feeling like it left us terribly exposed. We were quickly swallowed up by another dark alleyway, leaving us to dodge around rubbish, broken boxes, and sacks of dubious origin, our feet having to move fast to keep up with Brom.
“How…?” Draven pulled up alongside me. “Why…?” We stopped abruptly when Brom raised a hand, plastering ourselves against the side of a wall as yet more guards ran past. “What on earth possessed you to try to infiltrate Blackreach, Pippin?”
“I…” My ribs ached, a stitch forming because I was terribly out of condition, but that wasn’t the pain that had me doubling up. “I needed…” Drathnor’s vision seemed to have stuck with me because it felt like my guts were convulsing, trying to expel dragon eggs that weren’t in there. “This fight needs to end.” I panted that out. “Your uncle needs to be stopped.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Draven replied before taking my hand and pulling me forward. “And I had the situation in hand.”
“You didn’t tell us that.”
We were in another dank alleyway, this time hiding around a corner as more guards streamed past.
“I don’t remember you sharing your plans with me either,” he said, but before I could reply, he pulled me close. Sure enough, another explosion went off and we were about to find out what it achieved.
“The wall’s been breached!” someone shouted. “It’s been breached!”
“Everyone to the wall now!” someone barked. “We need to keep those bastards out of our city!”
But we were already inside. Brom waved us forward, and we ran and ran. Down alleyways, the stink and condition of them improving the closer we got. The houses we walked past were tall, beautifully made, and had well prepared gardens that the owners emerged out into. People stared out at the now crumbling wall in their nightgowns, mouths open, but we couldn’t stop to explain. We ran until we reached another tall wall, this time cordoning off the duke’s residence from the rest of the city. Brom had us plastering ourselves against the wall as guards streamed out of the gate.
“No frontal assault,” Draven muttered with a frown. “Knowing my uncle, he’ll have kept his best guards with him.” He pulled a grappling hook from the bag he was carrying. “I had intended to scale the walls.”
“You think you can handle that, cadet?” Soren asked me in gruff tones.
I remembered my dismal showing in the training session at the keep, but in the end, that didn’t matter.
“Always doing things the hard way,” Brom said with a snort, running his hands along the wall before finding what he was looking for. A knife was pulled free and then he worked it into a slot, wiggling it until we heard something pop. I blinked as a door swung open, the hinges groaning far too loudly. “Inside, now, before they realise what’s making all the noise.”
“I remember this.” Draven ignored Brom’s order, staring at the door as if it appeared via magic. “We used to slip in and out of my uncle’s house, driving my guard detail mad.”
“So we did.” Brom shook his head. “Now, unless you want to meet another contingent of them, we need to get inside.”
“Another cave?” Ged groaned as he stared into the darkness.
“Not a cave.” Draven clapped him on the shoulder. “An old tunnel.”
“Should we be walking through tunnels of dubious construction as dragons bomb Blackreach?” Ged asked weakly.
“Scared of the dark, are we?” Flynn clapped him on the shoulder. “You stay out here then.”
“I’ll hold your hand,” I offered. Ged’s jaw flexed as his eyes narrowed, but he put his hand in mine anyway.
This way , Glimmer urged, running off, leaving the rest of us to follow along after her.
“Gods, we used to lurk in here all the time,” Draven whispered as we walked upstairs. The tunnels appeared to twist around the entire residence, allowing servants to enter and exit the rooms they were cleaning without disturbing the residents. Spy holes had been cut into the walls to let the servant know when it was safe to emerge. “Remember when we caught those two chamber maids going at it in my cousin’s bed?”
“Girls kissing girls?” Ged asked, his interest plain. “Nice.”
“We’re not here to spy on recalcitrant maids,” Flynn growled, climbing further. “Your uncle needs to answer for what he did.”
Draven’s smile faded as he nodded.
“That he does. This way.”
We climbed and climbed, our breath coming in noisy pants, but if I was worried the inhabitants might hear us, I needn’t have been. As we climbed onto one landing, we caught sight of our quarry.
“The wall is down?” I remembered the Duke of Harlston, remembered the dark plans he concocted with his sister, the queen. This was no richly dressed duke congratulating himself on his own cleverness. Instead, his shirt was untucked and half unbuttoned as he pulled on his boots. “They attacked too soon. I can’t wait for the ships. I need a dragon to get me to the capital, now!”
“Of course, sir,” a rider said. “I?—”
“Your Grace.” Did the rider see the manic gleam in the duke’s eyes? The way he went pale suggested that he did. “You will refer to me as Your Grace.”
“Of course, Your Grace. Please accept my apologies.” As he went to bow, the building shook as another explosion went off. “So we are ordering a retreat?”
“Retreat?” The steel seemed to return to the duke’s spine. “No, I need you and the rest of your flea-bitten dragons to strike back! Burn these usurpers that threaten our home. Tear them from the sky!”
“But, Your Grace?—”
“But, but, but,” the duke sneered. “All of you are idiots. Fearful for your animals, for your own pathetic lives.” he gripped the rider’s arms. “You’ve committed treason, lad, you do realise that? What happens to those found guilty of treason?”
“They’re hung from the gallows in the capital’s grand square,” the rider croaked out.
“That’s right, so if you’re going to die, do so with honour, lad.” His tone changed abruptly, becoming warm, almost cajoling. “Go and defend our city and we will strike back at these bastards, bringing the capital to its knees. Beatrice!”
My hands slapped down on the wall and a faint growl had me looking down, noting that Glimmer’s claws were also digging into the plaster.
“You’ve got the eggs.”
“Of course, darling.” That warm voice, the shift in her expression the minute she walked into the room, with several servants tugging an insulated box behind them… She went to him, ready to fall into the duke’s arms. “We lost another one?—”
My nails dug into the plaster, sending a shower below.
“Not the queen.” He stared into her eyes. “Not the queen, correct?”
“No, my love, though…” This was the first time I had seen fear in Beatrice’s eyes. Not when she tried to poison me. Not when she succeeded with Glimmer. I raked my nails downward, the feeling of crumbling plaster only partially satisfying the rage in me. “Perhaps it would not be so bad if it did die.”
It? I looked down at Glimmer and saw that her fangs were bared.
“I have tried and tried to use the amulet to get through to the little bitch?—”
“No,” I whispered, feeling that same claustrophobic feeling I’d experienced when I’d had a vision of Glimmer’s treatment in the egg. “No, no, no…”
“You failed me again?” Why did anyone throw their lot in with the duke? He was a snake in a man’s form, his voice little more than a sibilant hiss. “After you were unable to force the other queen egg to bond with you? A dragonling in the shell, and still you were unable to bring it to heel?”
She went deathly pale as he approached.
“My love?—”
“You are the weak link here, Beatrice. You. I should’ve chosen another girl.”
“No, Your Grace, please,” she said.
“If I had found someone stronger, better, then we wouldn’t be where we are now.” He looked past her to the servants. “Bring the box to the top floor and be careful about it! I’ll toss your unworthy hides from the balustrades if you crack another shell.”
We had to go, race up the stairs and meet the duke before he got there and then?—
“Have a dragon meet me on the balcony,” he snapped at the rider. “Your fastest one.”
“That would be my Celerity,” the rider replied stiffly.
“Really? How convenient. Well, you can redeem yourself now and get me out of here. We should’ve left the moment my nephew’s riders arrived. Why the idiot didn’t strike immediately, I’ll never know, but his weakness is my gain.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Your Majesty.” Both Beatrice and the rider paused at that, but despite the chaos going on outside, the duke smiled. “My nephew had his chance to sit on the Nithian throne. All he had to do was recognise where his power came from and he would’ve enjoyed a long and prosperous reign, just like his father. Now it’s time to usher in a new era.”
I couldn’t muster a response to the duke’s monologue, because that was the moment another stab of pain washed through me. It took everything I had to stifle a scream, my breath forced out from my nose. Wave after wave hit me, and that’s when my hands closed around the stone eggs in my pockets.
That’s what this was. I could see Cynane, Hadrian and all of her mates surrounding her, as she laboured, just like Drathnor had. Her colour was terrible, little more than a dull brown now.
You’re doing well, my mate , Hadrian said, his neck wound with hers. Another push when you’re ready.
I can’t!
I felt Cynane’s wail in my soul. That feeling of hopelessness was all too familiar. The pain was smashing into her like waves, but the undertow threatened to pull her under and drown her.
Yes, you can, Hadrian urged. You fought Kaida with Inara on her back. You hammered out the conditions of the Treaty of Two Queens. You have always been glorious, my love, my queen. I would take this pain from you, but I cannot.
I can’t! Cynane’s protest felt like it echoed throughout the cave. You’ll need to cut them from me, Hadrian. Our daughters must survive. Promise me this, my love. Promise me!
He just stared at her, unable to even conceptualise what she was asking for, even as primitive instincts told him he must. His mate was fading. She was too old to bear another clutch, should not have rose to mate again, but she did. This was the only way forward, that had become clear in the conversations they’d had with Glimmer. Cynane would bear queens, only queens, and the future of dragon kind would be assured. The trouble was her body was failing, and so was her strength. Pain was a parasite, sapping her strength until she could no longer bear it.
But I could.
My hands shook as I raised the crystal eggs, it requiring both hands to hold them all now. Everyone stared as blood dripped from my nose onto them and that forged the bond between us.
I was Cynane. I was Glimmer. I was the little dragon queen stuck in the shell, terrified and not knowing why. They’d been trying to make me a queen with gowns and tiaras and parties, but none of that made you one. It was this: sacrifice so that others might live. A queen needed to serve her people, human and dragon both, and that’s what I would do.
“I need to go,” Draven said. “I’ll finish this thing with my uncle and then we’ll need to ride hard for the capital. Look after Pippin and Glimmer,” he urged. “If I fail…”
“You won’t.” Flynn gripped his sword hilt tightly. “But we’ll be right behind you if you do. One way or the other, the duke will face justice tonight.”
He would, because if we failed, that would mark the end of dragon and humankind living together on Nevermere.