3. Allie
Allie
“You’re making me nervous.” I gulped against the cold air hissing through the trees and hooking itself into my skin while Dax tinkered with that monster of a backpack he’d somehow carried all the way up north.
He flashed a bright smile, before returning to unbuckling the countless leather straps caging the worn canvas. “Patience, dear cousin.”
I sucked in a harsh breath. My blood raced through my veins, settling at the bottom of my feet, as my heart gave a painful thump. “You sound just like my dad.”
The words scratched out of me before I could stop them.
For only a moment, I could almost hear his steady voice between the falling snowflakes.
Allie, some things require patience.
Tears stung the corners of my eyes, and I couldn’t pretend it was the prick of cold. Not in front of Dax.
“He would have been very proud of you, Allie,” he said gently, before his gaze sharpened. “And we will avenge him.”
Yes, I would.
While my future in my Clan was uncertain, the need for vengeance pounded in my chest like a wound.
May the gods have mercy on who killed my father, because I wouldn’t.
“First, I want to fulfill his last request.” I jutted my chin at the backpack threatening to spill over. “You managed to sneak out more parchments and ledgers than I’d hoped. Thank you.”
Before Evie’s doomed wedding, my father had asked me to discover why the Protectorate vaults had been bleeding gold–and why nobody had sounded the alarm.
The first poisoned arrow shot at the wedding had been aimed straight at my head.
Not Evie.
Not the Dragon.
Not the groom.
Me. I was convinced it was meant to silence whatever secret I could have accidentally uncovered in those documents.
Dax furrowed his brows. “These aren’t the ledgers. I’m good, but not even I could walk in and out of a locked down Aquila with mountains of papers and parchments.”
My breath stuttered.
I couldn’t fail my father. Not again.
“Then how–I need those ledgers. They’re our only lead. If Silas is in on the plot, he can burn all the evidence.” My chest vibrated with the wave of worried words struggling to escape me all at once. “Ry can move fast, maybe if–”
Dax raised his brows and smirked.
“You know, it really hurts when you don’t have the barest faith in me. It does.” He placed a hand on his heart, before tapping the side of his head. “I have all the information we need right here.”
I opened my freezing palms, as if I could snatch answers from the air. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“While Silas was snoring in your father’s bedroom, I spent my nights undetected in the vaults, reading all of the recent parchments I could find. The sentinels have been ordered to guard the entrances and exits, nobody bothers with the important places anymore.”
“That’s…strange.” It also chinked my theory that whatever was hiding in those ledgers was worth killing me for.
If that had truly been the reason, wouldn’t have Silas guarded those parchments with his life?
Well, someone else’s life. He’d never put his hide in danger for anything and he wasn’t about to start now that he’d stolen the Protectorate throne and could command others to risk their own wellbeing.
Silas’ only true passion in this world was reading.
He was always disappearing in a library whenever he was needed.
Especially when Clara, his only child, needed him.
Whoever he was in cahoots with must have not bothered to tell him how important the letters and numbers catalogued in those vaults truly were.
Dwelling on that would not help, though.
I’d promised to find how our gold had been squandered and that’s what I would do.
“It’s stupid, it’s what it is,” Dax grumbled. “Ever hear of a Clan not guarding its gold?”
I shook my head. In the Serpent Clan, it was the most important thing.
“Neither have I. I could have strutted in there and made off with piles of gold. Small mounds now, but still. Instead, I indulged myself with numbers and facts,” he said. “It was so boring, Allie, I almost gouged my eyes out.”
“Even if you’ve read every single page–”
“I did.” Dax winked.
“That’s way too much to remember, even for you.”
Dax had a frightening knack for remembering things he saw, a skill Uncle Maksim had uncovered and honed since he and Dara were children–but the Protectorate vaults held documents spanning back centuries. Dria Vegheara’s scribes had been meticulous at the start of our Clan.
“I read the papers from the last ten years. Whatever I can’t remember consciously, the truth serum will reveal,” he said. “All those numbers are floating around in my brain somewhere.”
I bit my lower lip. “You’d have to drink a lot of truth serum. The side effects…”
He waved me off and went back to tinkering with his pack. Whatever was hiding in there looked about ready to explode. “Uncle Maksim trained me well. I can take large doses, still keep my wits, and, shall we say, dodge the whole truth.”
It truly was a shame nobody in Malhaven knew what an absolute danger Dax was. He had skills I could only dream about.
“You’ll be a walking corpse for days,” I pressed.
“Those long nights already did a number on my sleeping schedule. Don’t be scared if you see me haunting the halls at five in the morning.”
“You’re staying longer?” I asked, my voice hitching with that hope which had eluded me for weeks.
After the last few days, I needed every little win. Especially the unexpected ones.
“If you’ll have me,” he said, then rolled his eyes. “And if your precious Ry agrees.”
I pursed my lips and tilted my chin up as far as it would go, giving him a withering look, as if I hadn’t just accidentally revealed the Commander’s nickname in my haste. “He won’t have any problem with you staying here. Plus, half of all of this will soon be mine.”
“Smart woman.” Dax whistled. “I’m staying in your half.”
“He will have a problem with you entering the crater undetected, though.”
“The whole undetected part is kind of my signature. I’ve snuck into places most people think are legends.”
Solkar’s Reach wasn’t that far off from a legend–and only one known entrance.
The smell of bloody ash invaded my senses, sinking into my mind. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the memories. The mask. The attackers. The darkness.
If Dax got in, others could as well.
“This crater has its own mind,” I said. “It shouldn’t have let you, a stranger, in.”
“You’re here,” he said. “You were a stranger.”
“I was brought here. It’s the only way to enter.”
He shrugged. “Apparently it isn’t.”
I licked my lips, staring at the forest surrounding us. Ryker was right. The fallen star that gave magic to Solkar’s Reach was bleeding.
Without its protection, we were all in danger.
Those masked attackers had been contained to the passage, but if they found other ways…
The screams from Sanctua Sirena flooded my thoughts. The pleas for salvation I hadn’t been able to fulfill. The bodies. The blood–
I clenched my jaw.
Solkar’s Reach could not fall like Sanctua Sirena had.
“But this…this is a way in.” Dax’s eyes sparked with excitement as his fingers undid the last of the fastenings. “Stand back!”
My heart stammered as the backpack began to move.
Dax jumped in front of me, protecting my body with his as the canvas exploded. My blue tendrils burst out, snaking around my forearms to protect us both as two great wings expanded right in front of me, blocking out the few rays of sun which managed to touch us through the thick branches.
“What is that?” I whispered, disbelieving.
It looked like half of a creature which had once been a dragon.
Two large wings tied to harness swayed in the wind, as if they were alive.
They’d been made out of a skin or a membrane which had definitely belonged to some poor animal at one point, the webbing stretching it carved out of wood instead of bones, held together by copper bolts.
“That is one of the greatest inventions of our generation.” Dax beamed. “Made by a peculiar fellow I met in the Fair Isles a while back when I was running from the local guards. Those merchants have no idea of its true potential.”
I snapped my tendrils back into the well of power inside of me, staring in astonishment. In the center of the wings stood a curious panel, with pulleys and too many cogs.
I wanted to touch it and step away from it all at once.
The wings flapped as a rush of wind swept through the forest, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
It felt like a warning.
I whirled around, suddenly tense, eyes jumping between the trees.
Nothing.
No troll, no attackers, no purple light.
“This thing can fly?” I asked, my voice still a whisper. It felt illicit to be talking about something that shouldn’t exist.
I stepped closer, raising a hesitant hand toward the closest wing. The membrane was smooth and oiled, my fingers sliding easily against it. The entire machine shivered at the soft touch.
It looked impressive. Not that sturdy, though.
Still, a part of me–a reckless side which had been hidden for so long in a sea of doubt and duty, I didn’t even recognize it–ached to strap it to my back and fling myself toward the heavens.
Dria Vegheara had chosen predatory birds as the Protectorate’s symbol for a reason.
They were fierce, loyal, and free to soar.
Dax settled his hands on his hips, tilting his head to the side. He hesitated. “In theory, you’d use the ropes on the sides to flap the wings.”
“And in reality?”
“It glides more than it flies,” he admitted. “Maybe I just need to test it out some more.”
I took another hesitant step closer, feeling like a newborn. “So you glided into the crater?”
“Had to.” He shrugged. “Damn thing wouldn’t work properly and it’s fast. I can’t tell you how many trees I almost hit on the way down.
Good thing the walls are so high up, it took a long time and some very careful maneuvering to find a clearing to land in.
But I had enough time in the air to spot the city and let the stars guide me. ”
I turned, scowling at him. “Dax, you could have died.”