Chapter 25
Torver is both numb and reeling.
The King before him, the one who isn’t dead, the one who has been following them in the form of a fucking osprey, tilts his head, amused. He pats the chalky skull of the dragon as he walks past.
“If you were wanting to kill the Beast,” Dunmail, the Last King, says, “then I’m afraid you’re rather late.”
His voice is slick like oil slipping through the air. Torver stutters, his mind blinking.
“You’re—King Dunmail,” he stammers. “Aren’t you?”
“King…” Bassen whispers at his shoulder. “But, the Meddera—”
Dunmail rolls his eyes and bends his neck to the side—quick, seizure-like.
“Oh, give over,” Dunmail twists his head upright again and Torver shudders at the sound of his crunching neck bones. “You walk headlong into my tomb and you’re asking about my stupid Meddera? I might be insulted if you mattered.”
Bassen gasps in outrage before she can stop herself and Torver watches Winander’s hand clap over her pale mouth. Dunmail’s grey-pink tongue parts his lips, coating them in the sheen of saliva.
“Wise man.” Dunmail raises a brow before his eyes turn back to Torver.
“You’ll find, dear Torver, that the Meddera are the least interesting part of this.
I might have had them capture you on the way here—if I didn’t want to see if you could make it.
Tenacious little group, aren’t you?” He pauses to loudly suck his spit into the back of his throat, before adding, “Although, I’ll admit I was surprised by certain… additions.”
His beady gaze flicks over Winander, who blanches under it. Bassen stiffens, pushing her lover’s palm from her face.
“So you’re not dead and you—knew we were coming? The whole time?” Bassen chokes out. “Every time I saw an osprey, was that…?”
Dunmail doesn’t respond, just chuckles to himself.
“How are you even alive?”
Torver hardly dares to breathe. He wants to reach for Lavellin’s hand.
“I expected you’d ask me that,” Dunmail’s wet lips split into a slow smile. “And I’ll tell you—if only because I haven’t had anyone interesting to talk to in about a hundred years. Would you believe I don’t get many visitors? I suppose it’s to be expected when everyone thinks you’re dead…”
Bassen’s head tilts jerkily and Torver can’t help himself any longer—he grabs Lavellin’s hand and squeezes it hard.
The Last King doesn’t react to their discomfort and throws his arms wide, fanning his cloak like the wings of his osprey form. His eyes are wide, the whites encircling his irises.
“Thousands of years ago—I expect you’re all too young to remember—human magic was a rare thing.
Did you know that, Torver?” Dunmail walks back to the skull of the Beast, leaning indolently against its cheekbone.
“When I first ruled, only a few had any magic at all. Which is why I was the King. I had the most of anyone. Smoke, fire, water, transformation into my bird form, healing—if you can think of it, I could do it. It made me powerful. It made me power itself and I liked the way that tasted.”
Dunmail’s oily voice betrays his impossible age; a slow-burn dementia warping his syllables. Lavellin squeezes Torver’s hand back and Bassen’s breath is stilted beside him as she reaches for Winander.
“And who needs gods when you have power?” Dunmail continues, his voice growing loud.
Like he’s a bard performing to a packed hall, not to four terrified travellers caught in something they don’t understand.
“The kings of old were right to abandon the gods! Because humans didn’t need them!
And the freedom was worth the wrath of the Beast they sent.
What are the lives of peasants and farmers weighed against independence from the gods?
I liberated humankind and all it cost was lives!
Mere lives in exchange for all my delicious power. It was perfect.”
Torver’s body feels cold, his palm gently sweating into Lavellin’s.
Something is happening—something is about to happen—and he doesn’t know what.
The urge to flee rakes his mind with sharp claws but he is trapped in the gaze of a man warped by the ages, addled by a mania centuries in the making.
“Except…” Dunmail’s voice cuts through the air like a whip.
He examines his hand, like the Beast’s bones might have left a powdery residue on his fingertips.
“Every generation or so,” he curls his lip. “Someone would be born, chosen by the deported gods to be the bearer of an unfathomable magic. They were able to bond the immortal dragon and tame it, in order to remind humans that the gods forgive, their favour can be regained… If only we would submit.”
Torver’s knees shudder. He clenches every part of himself to stay upright.
“Why are you telling us this?” he asks, voice hardly more than a whisper.
Dunmail turns on his heel, faces Torver head-on. He shouts with a booming voice that fills every crevice of the chamber.
“Why do anything?” Dunmail exudes a slippery laugh.
“I’ve seen the birth of centuries and I’ve watched them die and I am bored, Torver.
I could have had my Meddera—or the few senior Enforcers who know the secret of my existence—I could have had them kill you the second I realised what you were, who you were working with. ”
Torver attempts to inhale, but the air feels stuck. He looks to Lavellin and its perfect face is pale in terror. He wants to hold it in his arms but he daren’t move.
“But then I thought, no point in spoiling my own fun, is there?” Dunmail continues. “It’s been a long time since anything like this has happened. Let’s see what he’s going to do. And you did entertain me for a while there, I must say. Well done.”
“W-What do you mean?”
“A thousand years ago,” Dunmail approaches them step by prowling step, “I was young and hungry for power. But… I was not to be the dragon rider. Despite all my magic, I was to pale before the might of the rider when they finally appeared.”
King Dunmail removes his crown and examines it, the swirling patterns wrought in gold. The rubies that catch the torchlight and reflect it back. Torver can smell the man’s fetid breath.
“I thought that the rider could appear and use their bond with the Beast to overthrow me… And I couldn’t have that, could I?” Dunmail tuts and snaps his ancient neck to the side once more with a loud crack. He hisses in what must be relief, slowly turning his gaunt face forward again.
“So, I travelled around the hills of the land—visiting the ancient stone circles and communing with the fae rulers of distant kingdoms, making deals and bargains as I went. Rheged, Elmet, Gododdin, Deira—each nation of Hen Ogledd,” Dunmail explains, his eyes wide and wet.
“I was gifted enchanted weapons. Tools of power. And I used them to slay the Beast.”
The air stills. The mud beneath them squelches and one of them must have recoiled backward in horror—but Torver can’t see who it is. Dunmail is so close that he daren’t turn his head.
“I took the power that was rightfully mine,” Dunmail smiles vacantly, his eyes going dead with far-off recollection.
“And by slaying the Beast of the gods, I stole part of its immortality. What other explanation was there? The years passed and I lived. I lived and lived. The Beast gave me a gift of its own—the chance for my reign and my power to last forever.”
Torver’s mouth parts in a soft o, unsure if he plans to pronounce the sacred words obedience keeps the Beast asleep, or if he only wants to examine the phrase in his mind. No matter, because Dunmail’s expression darkens. The thought takes flight. Torver feels dizzy.
“But can’t a King be overthrown?” Dunmail’s voice lowers in volume, the low vibrato reverberating about the chamber.
“I can’t have that either, I thought. So I took the name Dunmail, invented the People’s Kingdom, came up with the legends of my sacrifice, and began the Meddera system.
The men I hand-selected would rule in my stead, controlling the people with an iron fist, keeping the secret of my everlasting life with a handful of their most trusted Enforcers.
That way, there was no chance of my rule ending—because no one knew it existed.
And I could be not the Last King, but the Forever King. ”
Dunmail replaces the crown to his head, where it rests atop his waves of brittle, brown hair.
“The only thing I didn’t expect…” he says, his eyes bearing down on Torver like dark grey millstones.
“Is that the dragon’s death diffused magic among the humans of my Kingdom.
Instead of rare magic and the almighty power of the generational dragon rider—the magic dissipated.
Every single human gained a small kernel of the dragon’s power, the magic woven into it by the gods themselves. ”
Torver’s throat tightens.
“Except for one.” Dunmail approaches Torver. “Except for the one, every few generations, who would have been the dragon rider.”
Dunmail’s hands rise up and Torver flinches when they come to land on his shoulders. He can’t breathe.
“The one who, now, has no magic at all.“
Torver blinks as the vaulted ceiling of the chamber comes into focus. The worried faces of Lavellin, Bassen, and Winander hover above him. A warm thumb brushes his cheek.
“You’re awake,” Lavellin quickly leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead. “You blacked out.”
A laugh resounds from where Torver can’t see, and he sits up groggily. Dunmail comes into view, leaning once more against the bones of the Beast.
“There he is,” the Forever King laughs again. “The dragonless rider, with us once more. Quite a shock, was it?”
“You…” Torver arranges his legs under him and is helped by Lavellin to his feet. Silence fills the air and Winander is staring at him as if several things suddenly make sense. “I’m…”
“Important?” Dunmail’s thin brow arches. “Not without your dragon.”
He roughly smacks the skull he’s leant against.
“I’m not even going to bother killing you, dear Torver,” Dunmail croons. “That’s how important you are.”