30. Chapter 30
My cartography instructor used to say that by sailboat, it takes three days’ time to traverse the Leviathan Sea and reach the Skaldrathian shoreline, if one is lucky enough to survive the trek.
I learned today, however, that journey only takes an hour when flying on the back of a dragon.
And the view is spectacular, especially with the wind in my hair.
Below us, the Leviathan Sea stretches from one continent to the next like a phantom of death, devouring everything in its wake, aside from a few scattered, albeit lucky sailboats and the beasts that it cradles beneath its depths.
The sea wyrms—creatures with barbed tails and mighty tusks as long as full-grown whales, who have the ability to summon up entire storms with their mating calls.
To catch a sea wyrm babe would make any man rich, but most who attempt such a feat fall prey to the ocean’s depths, never to be heard from again.
My cartography lessons don’t tread past this part, where the black tides gulp up the sails of fishermen, and their screams dissolve in the dark. They creep to a halt somewhere along the edge of the Skaldrathian shoreline, leaving my imagination to fill in the rest.
But my imagination never could have surmised anything quite like this.
“Welcome to Skaldrathia, Princess.” A voice scratches at the inner workings of my mind as Sylas’s enormous wings tuck against his sides.
“Hold on tight.” He dives. I spot a red dragon and a black dragon out of the corner of my eye.
The black dragon is clutching Lily in its talons, and the red dragon is carrying Bella and Maxine on its back.
I think Maxine is screaming, but it’s hard to tell given how much the wind is whipping in my ears.
Together, we soar over the countryside, which is touched by the faint glow of a lavender dawn and complete with rolling pastures that collide into the foot of a mountain, which is shaped like a cluster of dragon horns.
A grand canyon lies beneath the mountain’s maw, cradling a great city woven from the sky itself.
There, buildings are hewn out of ancient stone, as if they spilled from the belly of a colossal meteorite.
We freefall again, this time my stomach lurching with every near-miss of the mountain’s jagged rocks.
At some point, I open my mouth to curse Sylas’s name, only for a forceful gust of gale to fill up my lungs, rendering me breathless.
I am flying on the back of a dragon.
This is really happening.
Oh gods, I’m going to throw up.
We soar past ivory towers made of dragonbone and archways that glitter like pearls.
There’s vineyards spilling with fiery flowers and emerald vines, their foliage billowing outward like smoke.
Beneath the never-ending clumps of shady trees, I spot people garbed in metallic clothing.
To be more precise, they’re fashioned in dragon scales and titanium spikes, which shimmer from the early morning sunrise.
Children dance around with scorched fruits and fancy fire wisps in tow, which crackle and sizzle along with their laughter.
Eventually, Sylas lands before the foot of a black-walled fortress, which is topped off by spires that climax somewhere amidst the lavender clouds.
“Welcome, Shadow, to the Lucerian Bastion, a stronghold crafted from the blood, bone, and fire of my ancestors.” The voice in my head rallies against my heart, sounding eerily similar to his. Wait. Is he speaking into my mind somehow? But how is that possible?
Axel sets Lily down at the foot of the castle steps and then morphs back into his human form.
A very naked human form, might I add. My jaw swings open at the sheer bulk of his brawny musculature, which is embedded in various battle scars that span across his tanned chest. There’s a dragon spellmark ripping over his shoulder, sailing straight down his ribcage, and sputtering off somewhere near his hipbone.
My eyes follow it, venture south, and then widen…
“My lord?” A servant dips into a bow at Axel’s feet and then gifts him with a handful of silk clothing.
Axel takes it and gets dressed as the servant hands him his thick sword next.
He sheathes it in his thick dragonbone scabbard.
And dear gods, that is not the only thick thing that man is packing.
Maxine must be thinking the same thing, because she’s just slid off Bronk’s back and is now covering her mouth and fighting back a snicker of laughter.
“Shadow? Are you coming?” Bella asks, brushing herself off. Bronk morphs into a human behind her, and Maxine’s snicker breaks free into unrestrained laughter. Because Bronk, too, is now naked.
Before I can respond, Sylas gently nudges me down the side of his sleek body with his frosty wing, only releasing me after my feet collide with soil.
The pain in my wound comes roaring back to life as I hit the ground, making me feel like I’ve been struck by a fiery cast-iron skillet. Stars flood my eyes.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Bella says, giving me her arm as I wobble to find my footing.
“Whatever you must do, I will support you through it. Even if that means you calling upon the statue. I may not understand your motive behind the madness, but I’ve decided to trust in the process. To trust in you,” she mutters.
“What caused the sudden change of heart?” I ask, my intrigue melting into something tangible, something charged, as Sylas transforms back into a man in my peripheral vision.
A very bare man, whose naked body is impossible to ignore, tarnished only by a distinct line that runs parallel to his heart.
A scar so pale, it gleams like a silver ribbon.
“Shadow?” Bella’s eyebrow ticks up. “Did you hear what I just said?”
“It seems that Shadow’s mind has been displaced by much larger matters at hand,” Maxine observes, her eyes flashing toward Sylas, who’s busy snapping the top button of his leather trousers. Bronk gets dressed next to him.
“Sorry, what were you saying?” I ask.
Bella eyes me wearily. “I had a near-death experience, one that made me rethink everything.”
“Near-death experience?” I ask, my eyes widening. “When?”
Bella shoots Bronk a look like he’s a sordid stain on the land. Then she says, “During our travels, Bronk seemed to forget that we were on his back. Because right over the Leviathan Sea, he did a loop-de-loop, and I slipped off,” she explains, chewing her inner cheek.
“I caught you though,” Bronk interjects as he tosses a scarlet shirt over his head.
“Yes. But what if you wouldn’t have?” Bella counters.
Maxine seems to contemplate this, her expression filled with glee. “Then you’d be stuck inside a sea wyrm’s belly right now.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Bella,” I say, giving her a quick pat on the shoulder.
I want to give her my full attention, I really do.
But my gaze keeps inadvertently shifting back to Sylas.
It’s almost like there’s an invisible chokehold seated around my throat, forcing me to study him and the regal way he holds his body beneath that white leather armor, or reimagine what he’d looked like without clothes.
To make matters worse, his fierce gaze is now locking onto mine, and his eyes are sharpening into something… more.
“How’s your leg?” Bella asks, her expression wrought with concern.
“Fine,” I croak. “Erm, no, actually. You’ll have to excuse me. I don’t feel like myself.” I press my hand to my forehead to check whether I’m feverish.
Behind us, Axel scoops up Lily like she’s a dollop of ice cream. “I’ll take this one to the infirmary,” he grunts.
“We should come with you,” Bella insists.
“You needn’t worry about your friend,” Sylas says as he positions his pretty metal crown on his head. “She’ll be carefully looked after until she’s well. In the meantime, you’re welcome to join us for dinner.”
“Dinner?” I nearly bite through my tongue.
He nods. “I’m sure you’re all famished after the journey, are you not?” His words might sound like an open invitation for everyone to join him, but from the way he’s tilting his head in my direction, I get an inkling that he’s hiding something.
“What about the gaping hole in Shadow’s leg?” Bella asks, stepping into the narrow berth between us. “Shouldn’t she be brought to the infirmary too?”
“Ah, yes. I’m afraid that my healers can’t help her with that,” Sylas responds cooly, his gaze lazily drifting down to my silver-soaked bandage, and then back up to my eyes. “There’s only one way to heal a wound caused by such a sword.”
I bristle. “What kind of sword?”
“A sword forged in the pits of Hell,” Sylas reveals. “A Wraithcaller.”
“A wraith what now?” Maxine blurts out.
Heart hammering in my chest, I withdraw my sword and study it, the air around me thickening as I do.
The blade itself is smeared in silver blood, my silver blood, which has long since dried out and crusted on its tip.
The sight of my own blood causes my wound to throb like a bitch in remembrance.
But there’s also something else there. Something that I’d originally missed.
Lurking beneath that smear of blood, the entire blade seems to sing, almost as if the poison lurking within is trying to escape from captivity and free itself.
“You never did answer my question,” Bella whispers, eyeing me carefully. “Where did you find that thing?”
“It doesn’t matter where she found it,” Sylas interjects. “All that matters… is that I have the antidote for its poison in my chambers. One that cost me dearly to retrieve.”
“Name your price,” I grimace.
“Your attendance at dinner this evening,” he grins.
“Done!” Maxine answers for me. “What? That’s a hell of a deal,” she quickly adds, only after noticing the irritated look plastered on my face.
Dinner? With the Dragon King? Are you fucking kidding me right now?
“Great. It’s settled then,” Sylas says, clapping his hands together. “I’ll see you all tonight. In the meantime, Bronk will escort you to your chambers. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
I sheathe my Wraithcaller and sigh, making a point to evade eye contact with Bella, who is looking at me suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. Meanwhile, Bronk props open the titanium door with his enormous shoulder and motions for us all to step inside the castle foyer.
The foyer is carved out of dragonstone and engulfed in dozens of extravagant dragonbone vases.
They spill over with orange firelilies and silver frostflames like wisps of fire and ice.
A flurry of green and pink vines creep up the walls, tapering off beneath a mosaic ceiling painted in dragons of every kind.
“Floradragons, Frostdragons, Winddragons, Firedragons…” Bronk trails off, detailing all of the dragons depicted above.
He continues on, but unfortunately, my heart is hammering too loudly in my ears to hear him.
“I don’t know who your decorator is, but whatever you’re paying them, double it.” Maxine ogles in wonder, spinning around in a circle to take everything in.
“We don’t have a decorator,” Bronk says with a shrug, allowing the door to seal shut quietly behind us once we’re all inside the foyer. “But if you’d like,” he adds, motioning at Maxine with his hand, “you’re welcome to shoulder the hefty task.” He waggles his eyebrows, and Bella gags.
“Wait. Are you kidding?” Maxine squeals, spinning around to face him. “I mean, that would be alright… I guess,” she corrects herself, her heels kissing the ground as she regains her cool composure in an instant. “I mean, it’s whatever.” Her cheeks flame.
Bronk grins, then motions for us to follow him around the corner. “Great! Your first job will be to spruce up your bedchambers to your liking. You’ll find they’re very stale. The truth is, we haven’t had a woman around in ages. No one that stayed the night, anyway.”
After Bronk, Maxine, and Bella are sufficiently out of earshot, I spin on my heel, my breath fuming hotter than all the dragon fire in Skaldrathia.
“Where is the statue?” I hiss under my breath at Sylas, who has been quietly lurking behind me this entire time, breathing down my neck like a fuckin’ wraith.
“Since I’m feeling generous, I will show you after dinner,” he replies with casual ease.
“And I anticipate you’ll be expecting something in exchange for your generosity?” I say between clenched teeth.
“Your happiness is all that I desire,” he responds with a devastatingly straight face.
“Sea urchin of a man,” I grumble under my breath as I storm after my friends.
What is it with men trapping me in their castle?