Chapter 10
FLORENCE
I fell to the floor, sweat pouring down my face.
“Florence!”
Dimly, I could hear my mother’s voice.
Pain. Overwhelming pain. Physical, yes, but emotional, too. Sorrow and horror mingled together. Tears ran down my face. No, this was wrong. This. This should not be. Nyxaris, I tried to scream. But the word caught, tangling in my mind, wrapped in the web of pain.
We paid the price. And a great one it was. Did we pay it for nothing? Nyxaris’s voice was urgent. Tell me, Molindra.
Nyxaris, I tried again. Pain. Unrelenting pain.
“Florence!” My mother’s voice was urgent, panicked. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s happening.”
I tried to push myself up, palms flat on the floor, but it was no use. My wrists wobbled. Gasping, I fell forward, whimpering.
Who has done this to you? a voice demanded. Nyxaris, but he wasn’t speaking to me.
Tell me, Molindra. How has this happened? What have they done to you?
He was speaking to someone else. I wracked my mind. The Dragon Court. The third stone dragon, the golden one—the Luminthar of House Orphos. The one Lunaya, Marcus, and Catherine had ridden away.
Could dragons talk to one another? Of course, they must be able to. If Nyxaris could talk to a weak and foolish human like me, surely he must be able to speak to another dragon.
I knew Molindra was gone, but the details were hazy. I’d been unconscious when it had all happened. Through the pain, I felt a prick of recognition. I’d shut everyone out. I hadn’t even asked. I’d only cared about what had happened to me.
The Veil.
My blood ran cold. The voice was neither mine nor Nyxaris’s.
They seek to pierce the Veil, the voice whispered tremulously. So much pain in that voice. So much agony.
No. Nyxaris’s voice was sharp.
I felt my body nearly sag in relief. If Nyxaris said it, it must be true. Therefore, whatever horrible thing this other voice was saying was false. Impossible.
No, he repeated, and I froze. That’s impossible. You will not allow it. Tell me you will not allow it, Molindra.
I trembled, sensing the fear in his voice—the terrible horror.
Molindra’s voice was gone. I could only hear Nyxaris now.
Nyxaris, I called, pushing weakly against his mind. What is it? What’s happening?
A pause. Something beyond your comprehension. Go back to your life of blissful ignorance, fledgling. And then he was gone.
The words were contemptuous but no less than what I deserved.
I felt weak and dizzy, but the pain was dissipating.
My mother’s arm was around my waist. Gently, she helped me to a sitting position.
She touched my cheek, looked at me with the heartbreaking expression only a mother could have, and bit her lip.
“Florence …”
“I’m sorry for scaring you,” I managed to get out, my voice raw. “I had … a headache.”
“A headache?” She looked doubtful, then slowly shook her head. “Florence, please. Won’t you tell me what’s really happening?”
I stared at her, weighing the choice: Clearly it was mine to make. Medra and Rodriguez hadn’t told her what saving me really meant.
“When Medra and Professor Rodriguez saved my life,” I said carefully, “it came with … a catch.”
Her eyes widened. “What kind of a catch?”
I studied her face. Did all children love their mothers this much?
She had always been the very best of parents.
Ever since my father died, it had always been the two of us.
We were lucky. Our temperaments were very similar.
We enjoyed the same things. Did I love those things because she taught me to, because I had seen her loving them?
Or would I have loved them simply because I was me, and thus part of her?
Knowledge. Books. Wisdom. I weighed them, one by one.
All worthy pursuits. Now I had access to a very special archive—for what greater treasure trove of knowledge could there be than a dragon?
Nyxaris was a flying remnant of a vanished world.
He must have been witness to countless historical events.
I stared into my mother’s dark eyes, rimmed by wired spectacles so very like my own. If she could speak to Nyxaris, she would have asked him a thousand questions by now. She wouldn’t have shied away from him as I had done. She wouldn’t have hidden from her fate.
“A catch,” I said slowly, “a catch to do with dragons.”
When I was finished speaking, my mother’s face was thoughtful.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m terrified for you, of course,” she said without beating around the bush. “You’re my daughter. And you’re bound to the most powerful creature in existence.”
I shivered. Yet part of me swelled with pride at hearing Nyxaris described in such a way.
“The world is changing, Florence,” she went on. “The power balance is shifting.”
“Shifting?” I repeated. “Shifting how?”
My mother looked around the room nervously—even though we were the only people in the little apartment. When she spoke, her voice was low. “All of us live to serve the highbloods.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “It’s what we’ve always been taught.”
“Only the most devout are accepted at Bloodwing, you know this. The most obedient. Those with the highest respect for Sangrathan tradition. I hoped you would rise within the constraints of being blightborn. I wanted you to succeed.” She touched my cheek.
“You’ve always had such a competitive spirit, Florence.
I knew you’d need a place where you could shine.
So I taught you as best I could. I wanted you to be accepted here, to follow in my footsteps.
” She bit her lip. “But sometimes I’ve worried that was a grave mistake. ”
I stared at her, shocked. But then, who could teach a child anything other than obedience? To do so would be heresy. Treason. Worse. My mother had done the right thing, the only thing she could have.
“Outside of the school, compliance with the highblood way is less of a choice,” she continued. “Very few people even realize the systems of control that keep the balance, Florence. Blightborn compliance isn’t instinctive. It’s compulsion.”
The blood rushed to my head. “Compulsion? You mean … magic?” Enchantments. Compulsion magic. The implications were instantly clear. Woven through generations, all of us, bred and bound.
“You felt the tug lessening once you arrived here,” my mother said gently. “You may not have understood what was happening, but I saw the changes in you, though they were subtle.”
Like a weight on my shoulders lifting that I hadn’t even known I’d been carrying. And most blightborn carried that burden all their lives—the weight of control.
“I’ve been speaking to some of the other blightborn faculty. There have been … whisperings for a while now. Ever since Medra brought back Nyxaris.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Don’t you feel it, too?”
“Feel what?”
She didn’t answer. Not directly. “There is a very old saying: The axe forgets. But the tree remembers.”
I stared at her, uncomprehending—or not wishing to comprehend.
“The chains have bound us all for a very long time, Florence. Dragons break chains.”
I swallowed hard. Is that what Nyxaris was, an axe? “You’re speaking of rebellion.”
“Perhaps. All I know is that something is coming. And you, you’re going to be at the center of it, Florence. If you’re bound to a dragon, you must be.” She looked terrified but also hopeful.
It was that look of hope which got to me. “But I don’t want to be,” I blurted. “I didn’t choose this. I certainly don’t want to start any kind of rebellion.”
My mother’s face was sad but stoic. “Don’t you?”
“You think I do?”
Her hand found mine and squeezed. “Perhaps you should discuss it with Nyxaris.”
I felt numb. The pain from my last encounter with dragons had hardly worn off. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t Medra. I wasn’t brave.
And yet … far off, in the back of my mind, I felt a tug. The pull towards Nyxaris.
My dragon. Watching. Waiting. A great price, Nyxaris had said.
Just what exactly was the Veil? And what had Nyxaris paid to keep it shut?