Chapter 30
Rosie
I lie in bed in the dark. It’s difficult to get any sense of time down here, with the scintils dulled to the barest glimmer and the palace all but silent beyond my chamber door.
I may have lain here for hours, staring up at that air shaft grate in the ceiling.
Telling myself I need to rise, clamber up there, and get on with my escape plan.
But I don’t. I’m so heavy inside. So heavy and raw.
I am a dragon.
How long have I believed it? If I’m honest, probably for days now.
The first real suspicion came the night Joro tried to kill me, and I felt that flush of fire in my veins.
Even then, I’d tried to make excuses and dismiss it, but now?
There’s not much use in denying it anymore.
I am a dragon. I am the long-lost Princess Roselle.
Hatched from a gods-blighted dragon egg in a pyre of phoenix flame.
It doesn’t make any difference though. I can accept the strange reality of my birth, but it doesn’t make me any less incapable of manifesting the fire they need from me.
If I let that hellflame rise any hotter in my veins, it will kill me—of that I have no doubt.
Something about my very being is simply unable to support the fire of my heritage.
Will that stop Alderin from force-marching me straight to the Dracor Flame and casting me in?
Groaning, I turn on my pillow, staring into the shadows of my bedchamber.
All the pieces of furniture and decoration, familiar under scintil light, become subtly foreign and ominous in this gloom.
The giant wardrobe stands on the opposite wall, one of its doors partially ajar, like a portal to some hell dimension.
Philippa’s chair by the fire is vacant, her handwork neatly arranged on the table beside it.
She waited for me to return tonight, helped me dress for bed, and retired to her own adjacent room, all in absolute silence.
I couldn’t tell if it was a silence of sympathy or deep disapproval.
In the end, I don’t suppose it matters. Philippa is not and never will be my friend.
No one in this whole gods-damned place is.
The sooner I get that through my skull, the better.
“Valtar.”
His name appears on my tongue, whispers through my lips.
Oh gods. What kind of a fool did I make myself over that man?
Memory of the moment we shared tonight burns even brighter inside me than the memory of rising hellfire.
I could sink into that recollection and stay there forever, blissfully reliving the experience of his lips, his tongue, his teeth, his hands.
But why, oh why does the man have to be so damned enigmatic?
It certainly adds to his allure, but I would gladly trade a little allure for a healthy dose of honest communication.
That kiss of his certainly communicated something, but what?
Does he want me? Does he hate me? Why did he say he would…
kill me? It doesn’t make sense, but then, very little about Valtar does.
It’s part of his charm. What in the blighted blazes is wrong with me?
I cover my face with both hands, curling into a fetal position.
Nothing helps—I still feel the pressure of his lips pressed against my breast, just above my beating heart.
That small part of my anatomy feels more alive than anything else I’ve ever experienced.
My heart pulses, as though beating in response to the sudden surge of life he gave me, a pulse which echoes down the chambers of my heart into my gut.
It’s undeniably pleasant…and desperately frustrating.
I need him, I need Valtar. I need his hands on my body, his tongue in my mouth.
I need his spirit moving in tandem with mine.
But he ran from me. He stared down at me with such a look of horror in his eyes, then he turned and ran like I’m some kind of a…a…
“Monster,” I whisper.
That’s what I am, after all. And now we both know it. There’s no point trying to deny it anymore, not after tonight.
“Oh gods,” I whisper, burying my face in my pillow. “Oh gods, what am I going to do?” It’s not quite a prayer, but it’s the best I can manage in the moment, wrung straight from my tangled-up heart.
There is no answer. Of course not. I’m as alone as I’ve ever been. No friends, no allies. No one to turn to for help or support. A single, pathetic little entity adrift on the sea of existence without even a guiding star toward which to aim.
I seem to be settling in for a good, solid, pity party. Might as well embrace it…maybe even cry a little. It won’t do any good, but then again, it certainly can’t do any harm. I roll over, cover my face in my hands, and breathe out a long sigh.
Something moves inside my head.
My breath catches. For a moment, I lie frozen, my eyes open, my hands still pressed to my cheeks. What was that? Maybe I imagined it. Maybe it’s just my overwrought emotions, and—
It moves again. A sensation for which I have no words. It’s like nothing in my range of experience. If I had to describe it, I suppose I would say it’s like a door suddenly slammed open, banging against the wall of my mind.
The next instant, awareness barrels through that opening.
Tumbling, roaring, clawing, tearing…I sit upright in bed, my own mouth dropping open in shock, my throat closing around a strangled scream.
I grip my head with both hands, as though I can crush the feeling right out, but it doesn’t go away.
It grows and grows, a terrible dissonance, getting louder with every moment.
Voices. That’s what they are. Multiple voices, inarticulate and terrified.
The little side door that leads to Philippa’s personal chamber bursts open, and Philippa leaps into the room, carrying a scintil.
She seems to be talking to me, seems to be mouthing, “Princess, what’s wrong?
” But I cannot hear her. Apparently I am screaming myself, hollering at the top of my lungs, but I cannot hear my own voice either, for the voices in my head are much too loud.
Philippa grabs me by the shoulders, shaking me roughly.
I shut my mouth, trying to stop my own wails, but my throat vibrates with an ongoing scream no matter how hard I try to choke it out.
“The voices!” I gasp. Then I fall over sideways on the bed, writhing, clutching my scalp.
“Make them stop! Please, make them stop!”
Philippa stares down at me, her eyes wide, her mouth gaping.
Then she whirls, launches herself across the room to the armoire, and flings open its glass doors.
She returns a moment later with a bottle.
Popping the lid, she presses it to my lips.
The stink of holabella extract burns my nostrils.
I’ve never taken it straight before, but I down a gulp now, only to spew most of it across Philippa’s bodice.
She forces the bottle to my lips again and, though I shake my head in protest, manages to get another dose down my throat.
The tincture works swiftly. Within a few moments, the voices begin to recede.
I fall back on my pillow, panting hard, foam and spittle on my face, sweat dripping from my brow.
Blinking a few times, I stare up into Philippa’s worried face as the room around me comes slowly back into focus. “Wh-what happened?”
Philippa shakes her head. “You tell me, Princess. Did you have a nightmare? I woke to you screaming.”
“Screaming,” I whisper, my voice slurred.
The holabella is already beginning to dull my awareness, lulling me toward sleep.
I close my eyes. In the very deepest reaches of my mind, I can still just hear those same voices: three of them, each distinct from the others, all howling.
But they seem far away now. “I…I’m all right,” I manage, forcing my heavy eyelids open once more, trying to meet Philippa’s gaze.
Her face swims before my vision. “It was just a…dream…”
My eyes close again, far too heavy to keep open, and I sink into uneasy sleep.
I’m still sluggish the next morning when they leave me at the library with Master Gormon for my daily lessons.
I suspect Philippa slipped another drop of holabella into my breakfast porridge to make certain I don’t have a repeat of last night’s fit.
As a result, I’m bleary and exhausted, even less interested than usual in anything my tutor has to say.
But at least there don’t seem to be any voices screaming in my head.
That’s got to be good, right? I’d feel a lot better about it if I understood why they were there in the first place.
It was not unlike when my perception awakened to Valtar’s presence—only ten times stronger.
Is this another sign of my dragon self beginning to rise?
If so, who were those three voices? Not my three champions, of that I’m certain.
Even inarticulate and screaming, I would have recognized them.
These were the voices of strangers. Full of terror and not entirely human.
I drop my head into my hands, groaning as I bow over the book in front of me.
Master Gormon drones on, some dull information about shrines and sacred relics.
Nothing of interest, nothing of use. Gods spare me, what motivates the man when he sits down to plan his lessons?
Can he possibly think to himself, You know what a potential savior of the entire world needs to perform her great act of salvation?
A complete and exhaustive list of shrines!
But then he says something that pricks my ears.
“And, of course, we must not forget the Shrine of Lorayarus, which is located in the caverns of Bald Mountain, deep in the heart of Inamaer. Technically, it is not a shrine of our world, but the monks of the mountain are human, and therefore, it is considered one of our own sacred sites.”