Chapter 18.5 The Truth
I clear my throat. All this talk, and we still have not gotten around to the subject that we came here to discuss.
Womack seems to see it on my face. He steeples his hands once more.
"I suppose there was a reason for your visit to my office this morning.
"
"Yes," begins Marton.
"You said you have eyes in the Werewood Forest," I interrupt, my attention fixed on the two shifters behind the desk, gauging their reactions.
"Surely they told you what befell our party, in the valley.
"
Womack blinks, sharing a look with Albertson.
He turns back to me. "But do you mean...
the Dragon's Valley, in the center of the Werewood?
"
"I...suppose. We met three wyverns there—"
Womack speaks, cutting me off.
"My Lycan do not go there. Their eyes would not have even followed you near.
It belongs to the Dragomira." A chill runs down my spine at the open apprehension in his eyes.
"But...my people have not sent word since they first saw you enter the forest. If something befell your party in the valley, I have not heard of it.
But I collect it had something to do with the wyverns you met?
" Yes, that is definitely apprehension in his eyes.
Alarm.
My own rises to meet it.
"We were attacked. For something of great value that we had.
" I can barely get the words out.
Womack's face shows understanding.
"The human girl and manticore boy who were with you.
Killed? Or taken?"
"Taken," I whisper, a lump rising in my throat.
Cherry. Vakh. Taken.
His gaze roves from me to Marton.
Back to me. "You are indeed the dragon from the legend we have heard?
Who hoarded the Ithymian princess for eight years?
"
I flinch at the word.
Hoarded.
Marton speaks up in my defense, "She protected her.
"
Womack only shakes his head.
"You do not understand, boy, the way it is for Dragomira.
Have you not told him, Tarah?"
Something in my chest shrivels.
"He knows. He heard one of the wyverns speak of it, in the valley.
As he explained why he would be taking the princess from us.
"
"Then you know," says Womack to Marton, "that there is not much difference for Dragomira, between caring and hoarding.
They do not release a thing easily, once they come to consider it their own.
It is why I thought..." Womack trails off, eyeing the two of us significantly.
I finish the thought in my head. It is why he thought we were married.
Because wouldn't I move to make mine forever the man who I clearly cared about?
Wouldn't my dragon nature compel me to steal him from the rest of the world and keep him for myself?
Yes. It would.
Only I know that I should not. Must not.
I won't. Won't corrupt him with myself, any further than I already have.
"You just said," Marton nearly spits, encompassing Albertson in his glare as well as Womack, "that all people should be judged on an individual basis, and not as a part of a larger group.
"
"Yes," Womack agrees.
"All beings deal differently with their own natures.
But a dragon's nature is a dragon's nature, no matter the individual.
I am not accusing Tarah of anything untoward, only of what rumor states she has already done.
Speak, girl, if you did not steal and hoard the princess, because you cared for her.
"
"I—did not," I manage.
"I was given a duty—to protect her. I will not say more.
But you are not wrong, about the rest. I did come to care for her in time, as a friend.
A sister, almost. And I—I would have fought to my last breath to keep her safe, if I thought I could win.
But I could not win, in a head-on fight.
Now we plot to get her back from those who have taken her.
"
"You seek the Trove," Womack whispers.
My stomach lurches down to my feet.
"Yes."
"You know of it?
" asks Marton. "You know where it is?"
"I only know the legend that any old one of the kin may tell you.
It is the place where dragons and wyverns dwell, those who have given themselves over entirely to their baser instincts.
It is a place that only a winged creature may reach, and that no stranger would want to go.
It is not a place any should venture if they can avoid it.
"
Marton is undeterred.
"But where is it?"
"That I cannot say for certain.
I have heard it called 'a place between the lines of the map'.
Though which lines those maybe, or which map the phrase refers to, I could not tell you.
"
"The painting out in the hallway," says Marton impatiently.
"The painting of the Trove. Where are the writings about it?
Where is the research?"
"Destroyed," says Albertson.
"Destroyed long ago, to keep anyone from seeking the Trove.
It is a lair of cruelty and greed. A death sentence for all who are not Dragomira.
And ruination of the soul for Dragomira themselves.
"
"Have you been there?
" I'm annoyed at his proclamation, despite the terror that it stirs within me.
"No," Albertson admits.
"But the stories..."
"More stories," I growl, irritated beyond measure at these latest mutterings about myth and rumor.
"More legends. More tales. More lies." I rise from my seat, flinging off Marton's hand.
"You old men sit here in your Academy making decisions for the world.
Deciding what will be truth and what will be lies, what will be secret and what will be told.
But you don't know anything. You're not keeping anyone safe.
You're keeping us all in the dark."
"Tarah, my girl," says Albertson.
"Calm yourself—"
"Calm yourself," I snarl.
Unbidden, my dragon form yawns awake inside, shifting beneath my skin.
I double over in the sudden grip of it, my spine contorting, nails elongating.
My eyes dilate into slits, my vision changing to hyper-clarity.
Womack shoves to his feet behind the desk, his eyes on me.
Marton hovers at my side, reaching for me, but Womack and I snarl at him in the same instant.
Albertson hastens around the desk, nearly tackling Marton out the door in his haste to get him away.
Marton struggles against the old man's grip, calling out my name.
I focus on it, taking deep breaths through my sharpening teeth.
I can't shift in here. There's no room. There's no reason.
There's no one to fight, Tarah.
Hurting them won't get you answers. Won't bring Cherry back to you.
I'm almost back under control when Womack speaks.
"This is why we keep secrets, girl. This is what we protect the others from.
From those like you, who cannot control themselves, and would make a bad name for all of us.
"
A vicious noise rips out of me, and then I rip out of my skin.
I was right before, there is no space in the office for me to shift.
As Albertson and Marton, crying in alarm, stumble out into the hall, my human form swells and sharpens into my dragon one.
The desk is shoved against the wall, and I lose sight of Womack as my spines and scales catch on books and papers, tearing them to shreds.
That's when Womack shifts.
Right as my dragon form has already reached the full capacity of the room, beginning to press against the walls and ceiling, Womack bursts into great size of his own, a mass of fur and claws, and the desk turns to tinder between us.
Then the walls splinter and crack. The wood paneling of ceiling and wall give way, and I go tumbling into the hall, still tearing through walls.
A snarl sounds behind me, bitter and enraged.
An unlike any creature I have ever heard.
There is no space to turn, but I turn anyway, rending nails from boards and leaving destruction and human shouting in my wake.
Behind me, in the rubble of the office, crouches a beast the size of a bear, and almost the same shape.
Its body is hunched and brawny, legs bulging with muscle.
But its face shape is that of a wolf, and its tail is long and furred, held with the perfect stillness of a dog about to attack.
As its eyes meet mine, the beast bears its teeth, letting loose a threatening snarl, slaver dripping from its maw.
Womack, I think.
Warg.
And then the creature lunges at me.
With no better option in the small space, I use my head like a battering ram. The spikes along my head and jaw take the warg in the side, and it—he—goes flying into the wall.
A whimper rises from him, but he gets stumblingly to his feet, rounding on me again. Whatever enchantment makes a manticore's fur impenetrable clearly lives within the wargs as well, because the creature isn't even bleeding.
He lower his head, brown wolf eyes fixed menacingly on me. He paces a step forward.
I open my mouth and roar at him with a strength that blows his fur flat.
I mean it as a warning. Just stop, and we don't have to fight. I don't have to hurt you. I lost my temper for a moment, but clarity is coming back to me now.
But the beast lunges at me again. I growl, snapping with my teeth, and the warg darts away from me.
A chunk of ceiling over my head gives way, and I get a view of the third story of the building, above which is the wide, rounded shape of the dome.
No way to get out. No place to fly.
Still, I push off of my haunches, launching myself through the hole in the ceiling.
I keep my wings tucked in, protecting them as my body scrapes against the rough debris of the opening.
Using the strength of my leap and then the grip of my claws to propel me, I crawl out into the wide open space of the third floor, which appears to be some kind of observatory, with star charts hung about the room and a large gold telescope in the center of the space, pointed up at the domed ceiling.
The dome must open somehow, transforming this room into an observatory.
As I look over the room, searching for some mechanism to open the dome, I ignore the cries of terror and alarm as humans go scrabbling out of my path, vomiting and fainting in horror, stumbling over each other to get out of the door.
Behind me, a barking growl sounds, and then the warg comes hurling and lurching through the gap in the floor, its less dexterous claws scrabbling against the smooth tile. Weak, compared to me.
Womack is enraged, I think at my revealing myself to so many humans. Serves him right. Serves him right for building a world of lies, that could topple so easily.
He snarls, launching himself at my throat. I bat him away with one paw, annoyed, and he goes skittering across the floor.
There is a reason wolves are pack animals. They don't do their best hunting alone.
Womack paces around the room, his hackles up, eyes sharp on me. He is looking for a way to hurt me, I think. To erase this slip in his cover of lies? Is it not already too late for that?
At that moment, I hear human footsteps pounding up the stairs beyond the gaping door to the room. A human running in this direction? I only feel my confusion for a moment before Marton comes skidding into the room, stumbling to a halt as he takes in the scene before him.
His eyes go from me, in dragon form, to Womack, in warg form, squaring off against each other.
Marton's face is pale with fear, but his gaze is clever.
It travels from me to the dome above, and I see the idea dawn in his eyes.
In a move too quick to prevent—though Womack snarls gloriously—Marton dives toward a lever on the wall, hidden from my view by the angle of the telescope.
He heaves it down with the full weight of his body, and I watch in wonder as one quarter of the massive dome above grinds open on a system of rods and hinges.
Marton steps towards me, eyes wide, at the same moment that Womack darts in for another attack.
I bound across the room, outpacing the warg on my heels.
I snatch up Marton in one hand, and then I'm hurling myself upward with my legs, beating my wings to catch the air, though it's difficult with no wind to carry me.
I'm out of space for flying in no time, the narrow opening of the dome before me. I cringe on the inside, tucking my wings in and tucking Marton close to my chest. We fly through the opening, and then the wind is on my face.
I bellow in delight, free after so many days of being trapped. My wings open automatically to catch the wind, and then we are soaring away from the Academy at full speed, my only thought that of getting far, far away from this baffling place.