Chapter 40
“Let’s go.” Lucan grabs my hand, wrenching me toward the barrel-disguised entry we came from, and we don’t even bother to hide ourselves as we bolt through the kitchen.
He drops my hand as we burst from the cask, closing the secret door heavily behind us. I don’t think anyone will hear it. Even down here, the bells are deafening.
Lucan moves for the stairs, and while I force myself to follow, I stall on the first step. Go up? Up, when there’s a dragon? I’m nothing more than a girl again, about to take a step onto that rooftop. But this time, the dragon is waiting for me, calling…
Lucan pauses a few steps ahead, and our eyes meet. The image of the dragon in my mind is replaced by him, reassuring and steady. He extends a hand, and I fully return to the present. “You can do this, Isola.”
Our fingers wrap together, firm and unyielding. For a second, I believe him, and that’s all it takes for me to begin ascending. Almost running. I don’t let the fear win. My heart is hammering to the point of bursting by the time we make it back into the central atrium.
We stop a moment and catch our breath. I expected utter chaos, but there’s nothing. The central atrium is alarmingly empty. The bells still toll, singing their frantic, ominous hymn across Vinguard, and we warily ascend the stairs to the residence hall.
The moment our feet hit the fourth-floor landing, a flash of light fills the window at the end of the hall, followed almost instantly by a deafening boom.
Etherlight strikes me, and I wince. But it’s not quite as uncomfortable as I remember the last cannon shot.
It feels like too-hot bathwater. Prickling my skin.
Painful, slightly, but in an almost refreshing kind of way.
“Cannons?” Lucan runs to the thin window at the end of the hall, peering out. His lack of self-preservation is both astounding and alarming.
“There must be more than one, if they’re using cannons already.
” Which means I’m not wasting time. I burst into the room to find Saipha already on her feet.
Without a word, I throw a small roll to her, and she tears into it like her life depends on it.
I’ll give her the honeycomb later. She needs more solid food first. And I want her to be able to savor it.
“Your success is delicious,” she barely manages to say between bites. Lucan walks in the room and closes the door behind him, then shoves the lockbox back against it. He flips the lid open. I quickly unpack and store our score.
Saipha has barely finished when the copper boxes throughout the monastery sizzle to life.
“All supplicants are to report to the central atrium.” Direct, to the point, and leaving no room for questioning.
“I wonder if they’ll move us into the basement.” Saipha still sways a little, but there’s a satisfied smile on her face that I haven’t seen in ages.
“I hope so,” I say as I start out the door. Lucan catches my eyes. We share a look that suggests neither of us are particularly convinced that will be the case.
The three of us join the flow of the other supplicants down the stairs. It only takes a few minutes for everyone to gather, staring at one another uncertainly.
Inquisitors emerge from the staircase that I vaguely remember taking with Saipha on our night out together; it’s the one that leads to the basement.
A sigh of relief escapes me. We’ll be safe down there…
so long as they don’t use this opportunity to put all of us under the effects of the green dragon vapor.
I’d like to think the inquisitors have other things to worry about, but given how they’ve acted so far, I’m not optimistic.
“Please follow us.” It’s the prelate. My stomach knots, acid eating through tissue, burning muscle. I don’t trust her…not for a second.
My fears are proved well-founded when she leads us up, rather than down.
“What’s going on?” someone asks, voice pitched high.
“Is there a fortified room this way?” another supplicant asks an inquisitor standing off to the side, clearly thinking along the same lines that I am: “Up” during a dragon attack is never a good decision.
“No questions,” the prelate snaps, her voice echoing around all of us, the words tightening like nooses on our necks.
They funnel us like livestock. Every step up feels like a funeral march. More cannon fire rattles the upper windows. Flashes of light mingle with the darkness.
We’re nearly on the fourth floor when the roar of a dragon seems to shake the very foundations of Vinguard itself. Some of the supplicants let out screams. I falter, grabbing the wall for support. My other hand goes to my chest, and I take a shuddering breath.
My thoughts waver, turned to liquid; I can’t hold on to them. Trees aren’t real. The scourge is actually my blood. Punch Saipha in the nose. Laughter threatens to bubble up, as though that’s the funniest idea I’ve had in ages. Talk like a dragon: Roar, roar roar. Hiss. I snort.
“Isola.” His hand is firm on my shoulder, jostling me.
I shake my head and catch a hiss in my throat. What was that? Purple dragon madness. Exposure to one’s roar can cause delirium. It’s the only explanation. But purple dragons are extremely rare.
Given how everyone else seems to be emerging from a daze, it must have been.
The inquisitors don’t even give us a second to catch our breath. The prelate begins marching again. Up and up…
The supplicants at the front of the line begin to shout objections at the prelate. They curse at her, beg and barter, because they see now where she’s leading us. She ignores them all and throws open the door to the rooftop where I was interrogated far too recently.
Icy wind billows down into the stairwell. Someone screams as though it’s a dagger stabbing them. Another weeps. “You can’t do this to us!” Mikel shouts.
“Out!” the prelate barks, ignoring all the protests.
“You’re going to kill us!” Daisy yells over the wind.
“You can’t force us to stand out there with dragons in the air.” Cindel forces all her misplaced authority into her words to try and seem calm.
I can’t see the prelate’s face, but I can hear what almost sounds like delight in her words when she says, “It will be assumed that those who refuse are hiding the curse.”
“How is not wanting to go out on a rooftop during a dragon attack any sign of the curse?” one of the latecomers, Dazni, asks.
His sunken eyes are blazing in the shadows of their sockets.
Bruises dot his skin. The other two latecomers—the twins—slide in closer to him as others cast wary looks their way, maintaining a full step of separation even in the cramped hall.
“Being in the presence of a dragon can force the dragon curse to activate. Therefore, any who avoid being near one will be presumed cursed and will be shown Mercy.” The prelate continues to exude utter calm. I think she gets some kind of sadistic amusement from this, and I hope I’m wrong.
Given no choice, the supplicants at the front begin to march out onto the exposed rooftop.
One woman stops at the threshold. Yenni, one of Horowin’s group. Of course a girl who spent her life in the Undercrust would be terrified by this prospect. Even those of us who have grown up under the skies are terrified.
“I can’t.” Her words quiver.
“Go,” the prelate commands coldly.
“I can’t go out there. A dragon will kill me. You can’t honestly expect us to go out there.” She pleads to the prelate’s compassion—her better sense. A futile endeavor, from all I’ve seen.
“Go, or you will be assumed cursed.” There is no emotion behind the words, a simple statement of fact.
I try to push forward, but there’s no way. We’re too compacted in the narrow passage. No one is moving; we’re all blocked by Yenni and the prelate.
“Please, I’m not cursed… I don’t want to die.” Yenni worries the end of her braid.
“This is your last warning,” the prelate snaps.
Yenni tries to take a step forward but falters. She shakes her head and lets out a whimper, turning. We all watch her eyes go wide as the prelate’s dagger sinks between her ribs.
She’s so weak and malnourished, she barely has enough life to let out a shocked, choking noise before she collapses into the prelate. The head of the inquisitors tosses her body aside, out the door to the rooftop. Another inquisitor moves to collect the corpse.
“Leave it,” the prelate commands. “Fresh blood will draw them.”
My hands ball into fists. From the first night on the rooftop, I didn’t trust her. I knew she was waiting for an excuse to strike me with that baton.
No one moves. Everyone stares in stunned silence. Someone behind me begins to hyperventilate.
“Move!” she snaps.
We march once more. My hands are shaking, knees weak.
I’m going to throw up. The only thing that keeps me moving is when I reach behind me with both hands and Saipha’s fingers lock against mine in my right hand.
And Lucan in my left. Saipha trembles, too.
She’s just as terrified as I am. Somehow, that makes me feel better.
And then the guilt of taking solace in her fear makes me feel worse.
But all emotions leave me the moment we cross the threshold. I suck in a gulp of cool nighttime air, and my eyes are drawn to the sky.
It’s another overcast evening. This time, the moon is full enough that the drifting clouds are mostly illuminated. Dark shadows dart between them. Wide wings. I immediately see four of them.
Four dragons.
A once-in-a-decade attack.
Still forcing myself to move, we shuffle toward the group of supplicants that is condensing at the center of the rooftop.
Ulven kneels by Yenni’s body, and Horowin and the others from the Undercrust stand nearby in shock.
Wind whistles softly in my ears like an ominous undercurrent to the rising cacophony of a city in panic.