Chapter 34
Rosie
The din of the alarm is still rattling in my skull when voices begin to join with it, creating a calamitous chorus which threatens to shatter what’s left of my strained composure.
I hear guards in the passages outside the shaft, their armor clattering, their shouts echoing against stone.
And how long before they enter the shafts themselves in pursuit of us?
“Hurry!” I hiss, reaching up to pinch the boy’s ankles. “Keep climbing. We’re not there yet.”
I don’t know if he can hear me above the din, but he responds at once to my command, clambering as swiftly as his small limbs can carry him.
The climb seems to last forever, and through it all, that unrelenting alarm blares on and on.
It’s nearly enough to make me spring out of the shafts, throw up my hands, and say, “Fine, all right, you got me! I didn’t really want to escape anyway!
” just in hope of reclaiming a little peace.
But I set my teeth and keep on going, one handhold and foothold at a time.
It’s nearly impossible to tell in the dark, but by some instinct, I sense when we come to the intersection of our shaft with the one that leads toward the pulley lifts.
“Here,” I say, reaching up to grab the boy’s ankle again.
“Back down a bit. Careful now!” I slide into the sideways shaft, and the boy follows, once more at my heels.
It’s not far to the grate which looks down into a passage with the stone chairs placed on either wall.
This is the same spot from which I exited this shaft two nights ago.
And, like two nights ago, it is, for the moment at least, empty.
I slot my fingers into the grooves, pulling the grate from its frame.
“Wait here,” I tell the boy, and lower myself to the floor below, dropping the last several feet.
I remain where I land, crouched, listening to voices ringing all around me.
It’s difficult to tell through the din of the alarm, but I don’t think anyone is about to round the bend either before or behind me.
I rise and beckon to the boy. “Get down here, quick!”
His little face tightens into a knot. Once again, I feel his resistance, his fear.
And something else as well—rage. Pure rage, childish and young, but no less fierce.
Not aimed at me exactly, but at this whole mad world in which he’s found himself so unfairly thrust. I hate that life has been so cruel to him at such a young age.
But it’s only going to get worse for him if we don’t move fast. “Rhyo,” I say sternly, allowing a certain amount of force to ripple along that mind link we share. “Now.”
He shakes his head but otherwise makes no protest, slipping through the opening and dropping to the floor beside me. It’s frightening how easy it is to command him…even more frightening to realize how naturally I might begin asserting my will over another person when it’s convenient.
I shake this thought away for the moment and take the boy’s hand.
He looks up at the open grate, brow wrinkled.
I know what he’s thinking; anyone who comes this way will see that we exited here.
But there’s nothing we can do about that now, and it would be a waste of precious minutes to try.
“Come on,” I say, and lead him at a swift trot down the scintil-lit corridor.
The palace is both familiar and strangely nightmarish to my senses, with that awful alarm still pulsing.
We reach the pulley lifts. One stands open.
No guards lurk in the alcoves, and I refuse to consider the convenience of this, refuse to let myself doubt or dither.
After all, there’s a chance I have been really clever all this time, isn’t there?
“Get inside,” I say, my voice a growl I scarcely recognize.
The boy whimpers but obeys, stepping into the box beside me.
I yank the lever, and the door slides shut.
The next moment, the box begins to rise.
The boy startles in his skin, and his fear shocks up the back of my mind, sharp enough to make me stagger and hit the wall.
I gasp for breath, putting out a hand to steady myself.
“It’s all right!” I say. “It’s all right, I promise. Just a little farther now.”
But of course, that isn’t true. The ride up has always seemed long, but now?
It feels like an eternity. The boy crouches in the center of the box, rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped around his skeletal body.
I wish I knew how to comfort him, but I’m hard at work protecting my mind from the assault of his fear.
I think I’m getting better at it; with a little practice, it might even be possible to make the link between us one-way only, so that I might transfer information or commands while protecting myself from his reactions.
“Are you…are you going to take me back to her?”
I blink down at the boy. The single scintil hanging from the ceiling illuminates his face in a harsh white glow, washing out his dark complexion and emphasizing the hollows around his eyes. An image appears in my head once more—that picture of the woman who looks like me. Nyxia.
“Don’t you want to return to your own kind?” I ask.
He shakes his head and remains silent for about twenty clicks of the pulley chain. Then he says softly, “Coming here…it is the first time my mind has been clear since the dracori took me from home. Mother’s voice is always in my head, and…and when it’s not her, it’s Nyxia.”
I nod slowly, turning this information around in my brain.
So, it would appear the Dragon Queen has another daughter after all.
One she’s not already devoured. My sister.
And she too possesses the ability to enter the minds of the dragon spawn.
No doubt she discovered, like me, how simple it is to control those minds, to gain swift obedience to further her own needs.
I’ve been doing this for less than an hour, and how many times already have I asserted my will over this boy’s? I don’t like to think of it.
What must it be like to live subjected to the will of another?
Until today, I’d never questioned whether the dragons served Mhoryga willingly.
But what if they don’t want to be the fire-breathing monsters and mindless slaves she’s created?
I remember the shame I felt in this boy’s head—the shame of being made a beast, an animal. Of being ridden.
“Listen, Rhyo,” I say, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible despite my own fears, “I won’t send you back to Nyxia.
Once we’re out of here, you’ll be free to do as you wish, to go where you want.
But,” I add, and crouch beside him, bringing my face level with his, “neither of us is getting out of here alive unless you transform. Do you understand?”
He blinks at me, his eyes swimming with terror. Inarticulate fear claws at the back of my brain.
“You can transform into your dragon aspect, can’t you?”
He nods. Then, with a little shudder, he adds, “But the more you do it, the less likely you are to turn back again. Some of them…some of them never manage it at all.”
The horror he feels at that terrible prospect is almost enough to undo me. And can I blame him? The idea of being made into a creature so utterly different from what I know myself to be—whether princess or dragon—terrifies me as well.
“I understand,” I say. “But…Rhyo, we cannot escape this place without wings.”
His brow pinches, and he tilts his head to one side. “You’re like her,” he says thoughtfully. “You can’t transform.”
I frown, uncertain what he means. Then it comes to me: He’s talking about the other woman, the one who looks like me. Nyxia hasn’t manifested her dragon form yet either? Interesting. Not terribly pertinent to the needs of the moment, but interesting.
“I’m not sure about that,” I answer with a shrug. “So far, no. I can’t wield dragon flame, and I can’t take dragon form. A pretty poor dragon when all’s said and done.” I grip his shoulder. “Which is why I need you. I need you to become a dragon and fly us out of here. Can you do that?”
He nods slowly. “But not without hellfire. I’m still new at it. I need fire to transform.”
“Can’t you…breathe fire or something?”
He opens his mouth, and I flinch. But nothing more than a faintly noxious fume emerges. “They fed me meorise pellets,” he says, his lip curled with disgust. “When they captured me. To keep my fire subdued.”
“Well, damn.” I sit back on my heels, nonplussed. “We’ll just have to think of some—”
The box jolts to a stop. It’s so abrupt, both the boy and I tumble onto the floor. My heart plunges to my stomach, and the boy’s fear shoots up inside my brain. For a moment, I’m too disoriented to realize what is happening or why.
Then the box begins to descend.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
My head whirls—the descent is much faster than the rise, almost fast enough to feel like falling.
The boy screams and plasters himself against one wall, terror quaking him from the inside out.
It’s so much, and I’m too distraught myself to protect against it, which only adds to my own distress.
“Damn it, Rhyo!” I cry, my hands plastered against the sides of my head. “Get a hold of yourself!”
He can’t. And unless I’m willing to make him, there’s nothing I can do about it. The box continues to descend, and who will be waiting below to greet us when the door slides open? Captain Norlan and a dozen of his guards? King Alderin himself?
I reach for my hip, find the knife strapped there, and draw it.
Though the swift plummet of the lift makes me dizzy, I force myself to my feet and assume the defensive position Valtar taught me.
I’ve come this far; I’m not about to be taken down easily.
If I must sell my life for the sake of freedom, so be it.