Chapter 22.5 The Dragons
Araine shakes her head, eyeing us askance.
"The basilisks," she begins, in a voice that says this a story any child could tell us, "are the ones who first began sowing destruction for the kin.
Bitter about their lot, about their low rank among the Dragomira and within the kingdom of Ithyma, they began to pillage and burn and kill.
Not just in Ithyma, but in kingdoms across the realm.
The basilisks have a talent that other protectorkin do not, you see.
They can almost...hypnotize their prey, lulling them into complacency before they strike.
Or they can convince someone that truth is lie and lie is truth.
They can make someone believe they have seen something that wasn't there at all.
"For years, they made the humans of this realm believe that the kin had turned on them.
When they attacked a village, they made the people there believe it had been the Chimera, or the Lycan, or the Equira.
Whichever species of the kin was meant to protect them, that was the one they saw hurting them.
They made even the kin believe that others of their own kind had turned to cruel and destructive ways.
And when the humans turned on us, many of us decided to flee rather than fight.
Back then, none of us wanted to hurt the humans.
We still wished to protect them. But in the interceding years, sentiments between our peoples have continued to worsen, until the kin hate the humans and the humans hate the kin.
And the basilisk king in Ithyma...his line was the one that started it all.
They destroyed the world for the rest of us, all to gain power for themselves. "
I feel...very ill.
Was this the king I served? Not a dragon. A basilisk.
A descendant of the ones who did the things Araine described. Who started all of this. Led us into this dark age we're in, full of mistrust and secrets and pain.
And—and how did anyone let this happen?
"Why didn't anyone stop them?" I breathe. "Back then? Why did no one stop the basilisks?"
Araine's expression is grim. "Many tried, but lies are not an easy thing to fight.
It wasn't just a matter of fighting and killing basilisks—which many of the other Dragomira did when we realized what was happening.
It was a matter of undoing the distrust the humans had already begun to feel for us.
And that was all but impossible. People believe what they see with their eyes, and the basilisks could make the humans see whatever they wanted.
There was nothing that we could do to fix that.
It would have meant all-out war to try."
"So they all just...left? Our people just abandoned the humans to their hatred of us? They gave up?" My voice rises with my incredulity.
Now Araine scowls, annoyed. "I wasn't there, you know.
None of us were. But that is the history we all learn.
The basilisks turned on us, and then the humans did.
And then we turned our backs on the world.
Retreated here, to the Trove, or to places in the wilds where we could live alone and undetected.
And here we have remained all this time, living our lives unbothered with the human world.
"But many of us, in recent years, have not been satisfied with that.
Some of us never were, which is why the humans occasionally catch wind of some dragon or wyvern doing something terrible to a human.
" It might be my imagination, but I think she glares at me at that.
"It keeps their fear of us alive, which is why there are vocal groups among us," she pauses here to gesture to herself, as well as Raku and Jeksu, "who advocate for greater laws restricting our behavior.
For greater outreach for dragons living in the wild.
To keep our secrets better, and make a safer world for us to live in.
One in which, if the humans do ever happen see us, they would not automatically think to hate and fear us. "
I rub my forehead, mind reeling with all of this information.
This is just like talking to Womack and Albertson at the Academy.
They all speak as if the obvious solution to all the kins' problems is to keep more secrets.
As if secrecy has done anything good for us. As if lies have ever benefitted anyone.
Why is it only me who thinks differently? Is it because I have been living on the outside of those secrets all these years?
Yes, it probably is.
But the other kin that I have met do not know the truth about the basilisks having started all this trouble. They only know the same lie that has been fed to the humans. That the kin turned on the humans and the humans turned on the kin.
And what do the other kin know—all the hundreds or thousands of them that may be out there who I have never met—that the Dragomira of the Trove are not privy to?
How much better might the entire world be, if we weren't all squeezing our eyes shut in the dark, keeping our secrets and letting everyone else keep theirs?
I think it would be a good world, a much better, freer one. But reality comes crashing back in no time.
Our current problems are much smaller than the world's problems, and they have a less obvious solution. My princess is locked in a tower by Dragomira who hate her for what her ancestors have done. Her father is a basilisk of unknown intent.
I need to free her, and then we need to figure out what to do next.
If it is even safe to try and go back to the king's palace.
I think not. I think definitely not, because it seems clear now that we have never known the king's true plans.
Whyever he sent me off to the ruins with Cherry, I have to imagine it wasn't because he wanted to get a dragon husband for her.
The realization makes me suddenly sick. I look to Marton, and he is already studying me with concern, his brows pinched together. "The king," I say. "Why do you think— Why do you really think he did it?"
Marton takes my hand, expression troubled.
"I don't know." He knows exactly what I mean.
"It could have been that—that he was using you to continue making the protectorkin look bad.
Like monsters, who would steal a princess and murder the men who came to rescue her.
" His voice is hushed by the end, and horrified tears prick the backs of my eyes.
Because that sounds plausible. Is that what I have been a part of all this time? The defamation of my own people? Have I been a part of the lie that doomed us?
"What's this?" Raku interrupts, tone full of curiosity.
I breathe carefully to stave off a sniffle, making no response.
Marton, still holding my hand tightly, quietly explains to Raku and the others about the situation of me and Cherry in the tower.
About what I thought I was doing, all those years protecting my princess, and later, what we all thought might be the truth.
The quest to find Cherry a dragon husband, and all that we discovered along the way.
Raku's face is blanched with shock by the end, his yellow brown eyes fixed on me. "Damn, woman. You really just... That's awful, I mean. You had no idea about any of this?" He waves a hand. "The protectorkin or the Dragomira or the Trove? None of it?"
"No," I wipe my nose viciously on my sleeve, and my voice comes out full of spite. "Your lies have all worked very well. Congratulations. Most of the human world is completely ignorant about all of this."
Raku shakes his head, chagrined, and his eyes dart to Araine and Jeksu. "We didn't know. We never meant—"
"This," Araine emphasizes, "is what we have always wanted to avoid. Why I have been trying to rally the Trove for years to be more mindful of what's going on in the human world. So we can bring in those of our own kind who are out there alone."
"Clearly you've done an excellent job."
Araine's golden eyes flash fire at me. A bit of smoke trickles out with her words.
"I said I have been trying. But factions like Besana's have made it nearly impossible to get anything accomplished.
They only care to spread talk about how much we have been wronged and hurt.
They do not want to think about helping anyone else—about preventing more wrong from happening.
They only care for what they can take for themselves in recompense. "
"Like Cherry," I croak. And then clarify, at their uncomprehending looks. "Shireen. The princess."
"Yes. Like that." Araine nods. "But having her has done us no good, and if the humans hear of it—if they learn of this place—we will never know peace again. There will be human armies in our mountains come spring."
"So you want her gone? Safely gone?"
"By all means," Araine agrees. "Take her back to her father. Take her somewhere far away. I do not care. Just take her from the Trove, and never let us be implicated in her capture."
Silence falls for a moment as I digest that. Her eagerness to have the princess away from here. It is a good thing for us. But I have to wonder, about the options she presents...
"What do you think the king's reasons were for what he did?" I ask. "Do you know anything of him? Why would he send me away with his daughter?"
Araine shakes her head, eyes regretful. "I do not know much of him.
We do not get much news here. We had heard about the princess's disappearance.
Everyone in the world has heard of that.
But that was years ago, and we never checked the ruins to see if the rumors of a dragon's involvement were true.
If it were up to me, we would have. I would have gone myself, but you cannot understand the chaos that erupts when even one voice of reason is removed from the halls of the Trove.
.." She trails off, seeming to recollect that she has strayed off topic.
"I would have to suppose that your Marton is correct.
That you were a pawn, used to further the terrible rumors about our kind.
Though why the king would have sent his own daughter away, I do not know. "
"Could it have been," I wonder, "because she cannot shift? Into a basilisk form? Because the blood in her...ran weak, as it were? After years of intermarriage with humans."
Araine frowns. "Well...that is not exactly how it works.
The child of a protectorkin and a human—though there have not been many in the world in the last few centuries, I'll wager—is always just that.
Either a protectorkin or a human. Or that is the way I have always heard it.
There is no...gradual diffusion." She gestures to me.
"Are you less of a dragon than I because your mother was a human?
" I don't respond, because I don't really know the answer, but Araine continues on as if it was a rhetorical point.
"No. You are fully a dragon. As this...Cherry is fully human.
Anyone who is around her can see it. If you and this man," she indicates Marton, "were to have children, they would either be human or dragon.
Some might be one, and some the other." My skin prickles as a shockwave of embarrassment rolls through me at the thought.
I can feel my face grow hot, but Araine barrels on with her lesson.
"So the current king, if his line really has interbred with humans.
..he might be human himself. I do not know.
I do not know how many basilisks there still are in the world, or in Ithyma, or in the palace itself. " Araine shrugs.
That...was remarkably unhelpful.
Illuminating, discomfiting. But unhelpful.
"Maybe," says Marton in a faint voice, "we should discuss something else. Like how we plan to get Cherry and Vakhrin out of the Trove."
I look over at him, and see that his cheeks and neck and ears have all turned a remarkable shade of scarlet, and there is a faintly dazed look in his eyes. So I was not the only one affected by this talk of us having children, it seems.
"Yes." Araine frowns, and Raku and Jeksu share similar expression of misgiving.
"It will be no simple thing, infiltrating the Trove to get them out.
There are scouts who fly the area around our mountains.
" She points to the brothers. "And you are lucky you met two of mine, rather than anybody else's.
There are also lookouts stationed on the mountain itself, who report to various faction leaders.
And the way to the tower cell from within the Trove is heavily guarded by Besana's people.
" Araine rubs her chin in thought. "The only time I can think of at which both the princess and the manticore are out in the open, relatively exposed, is when they hold the arena battles.
.." She trails off in deep thought, but my attention is diverted.
"Arena battles?" I repeat, stomach filling with dread. "What do you mean?"
"Why," Araine looks surprised, glancing to the brothers, back to us, "didn't Raku and Jeksu tell you?"
We all mutely shake our heads, Marton and I in bewilderment, both the brothers looking guilty.
Araine becomes uncomfortable, eyes troubled as she looks at me and Marton.
She speaks slowly, nearly wincing, "It is how Besana has been keeping the people appeased, while deliberations continue about what to do with the princess.
They have not been able to decide whether they would rather hurt her or sell her back to the king in one piece, so they have been.
..improvising. They have been emotionally torturing her, by putting the manticore in the ring with multiple challengers at a time.
..and making her watch him get beaten half to death every week. "