Chapter 20
The Prince of Bones is the Champion of Beauty as well as Death. Do not forget this. He could seduce a stone, and that stone would grow legs and arms if only to crawl into his bed. But remember that no one has survived a night with him. Succumbing to his charms is as deadly as walking off a cliff.
~Cedric Penrose, A Treatise on the Gods and their Powers
Fiona
Azric holds out his hand and says, “We’ll shadow walk. There’s no other way unless you’d like me to carry you to the dragon roost.”
A shiver runs through me at the thought of him wrapping his body around me like Rhion did. His arms wrapped around my ribs. His legs tightened around mine. No, that’s definitely not a good idea.
“I think shadow walking would be better,” I say.
He smirks again, and when I take his hand, the change is instantaneous. For a moment, we linger in that darkness outside Nyth, and then we reappear on a flat stone roof ringed in battlements. The sight before me makes me almost fall over.
If Azric hadn’t been holding my hand, I think I might have really fallen.
In front of me is a dragon, at least thirty feet tall at the shoulders, with a long, sinuous neck.
Bright red scales the size of my hand cover it, all of them flashing with light even in the morning sun.
It opens its mouth ever so slightly, and I can see the teeth that are nearly as tall as I am.
Scars crisscross the body, dark lines against the flames hidden in its scales.
“Fiona, this is Inni the Destroyer. Inni, this is Fiona Thorne.” Azric’s tone is polite, but there’s a bit of playfulness behind the words and in his eyes.
My knees are shaking, and immediately, my eyes go to my surroundings, trying to find cover on the offhand chance that Inni decides she’d prefer me as a pile of ash. We’re on a massive square tower that seems to be a separate building. There’s not any cover at all.
A black dragon who’s significantly larger than Inni lands beside her, and I remember Azric called this the dragon roost. That’s Vyran the Black. Will Sidon, Calyr, and Kasan show up as well to look at the little human Azric’s so interested in?
All of them could fit on the tower without space issues. The roost is nearly as tall as the actual castle, and already, a wall of shadows has risen on all sides, blocking anyone’s view of what’s happening here.
“It is good to meet you, Fiona Thorne.” Inni’s long neck snakes down to bring her face closer to mine. Her eye is massive and seems to glow red, just a shade darker than Azric’s. “I have heard much about you.” Her voice is strangely soft, not the booming thunder that I’d expected from a dragon.
“I…” Regardless of how polite she is, the nearness of those teeth is terrifying, and I do my best not to shake in fear. “I have heard many stories about you. My father…”
Then I see a dragon smile for the first time. “Your father is an impressive human. He gave me one of my first scars with one of his ballistas. He stood against me before Azric was born, and he did not flee. That is a sign of courage which very few Godforged, and even fewer humans, have.”
Azric squeezes my hand, and I realize I haven’t let go of him. He says, “Don’t worry, she won’t eat you. All the dragons wanted to meet you. I guess Vyran completely disregarded my comment that a single dragon would be a lot to handle, and two would be overwhelming.”
A booming male voice that strangely still whispers of shadows says, “You do not command me, Azric Cyrus.”
He huffs. “I know that. I don’t control Inni, either. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Look at her. She’s about to piss herself.”
Inni moves far faster than I’d expect a creature that size could move. Her left front leg flashes forward, and I’m sure that I’m about to die. Except that it’s not me she’s reaching for.
Azric lets go of my hand and leaps back, bone and shadow wings sprouting from his back to keep him aloft. The claw hits the ground with a thud where he had been only a moment ago. “You will not be rude to our guest, Azric,” she says with a snarl.
“She’s only a guest because I brought her.” He says it as if he’s pleading with her, and it goes against everything I’ve seen from him.
They stare at each other for a few moments, and Azric returns to the roost, though he stays a little further away from Inni.
Inni turns back to me. “I apologize for Azric’s rough edges. He does not spend very much time away from his soldiers, and it’s taken its toll on his manners.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ve spent most of my time around soldiers as well.”
“See,” Azric says. “I told you we didn’t need to put out rugs for her delicate feet. Just because she’s female doesn’t mean she needs to be pampered.”
A slow roll of a snarl thunders out of Inni, and she shifts her body, putting herself between Azric and me. I take a few steps back and bump into the battlements. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so small in my life.
“I can see that my presence is… a little much,” she says. She turns her head toward the black dragon. “Vyran and I will leave for now, but we will come back to watch your training. It is good that we could meet. May the wind ever fall upon your tail.”
Then, with wingbeats strong enough that I have to hold on to the stone to stay on my feet, the two dragons leap into the air. I can’t turn away as they fly upward and glide away from the tower.
Inni’s like a torch burning in the morning sun, and my eyes follow her until she lands many miles away. It’s only then that I realize Azric is staring at me. “What?” I ask as I realize I’m still cowering.
As if I hadn’t nearly pissed my pants, I stand up straight and face the Prince of Bones. He lets out a deep sigh and shakes his head. “Well, those were Inni the Destroyer and Vyran the Black.”
I nod to him and realize just how much more terrified I should have been.
Those two dragons have destroyed entire armies on their own.
Hardened warriors flee at their appearance for good reason.
There is nothing that a human can do to hurt either of them.
Even my father couldn’t kill Inni when he fought her with ballistas and an army. Though, she didn’t kill him either.
Azric approaches slowly, and I stand tall.
Unlike when his mask fell in front of Inni, he looks just as calm as when he was talking to Lucine in the Great Hall.
There’s not so much cruelty in his eyes, though.
“They won’t hurt you. All the dragons agree with me, Fiona Thorne.
You are the key to ending this war, and we must do anything we can to help you. ”
“Why?” I ask, and instead of shrinking backward like every other person Azric’s spoken to, I take a step toward him.
“Why do you even care? You haven’t explained yourself, and don’t tell me that there’s some other war you need to prepare for.
There’s no one else to fight, Prince of Bones.
Every person and creature on Nyth has either become food for your armies or has bound itself to one of the gods.
Who else is there to fight? The very rocks we stand on? Will you fight the clouds next?”
His eyes turn to slits, and he stands perfectly still for a moment. “Are you really telling me Rhaskar Thorne’s daughter doesn’t know the reason behind this whole war? No one’s informed you of the reason for the Pact between the gods?”
“The gods woke up and wanted some diversion?” I ask.
He huffs and clenches his fists. “No wonder you’ve fought me so hard,” he mutters.
“No, little Priestess, we don’t have anyone else to fight on Nyth.
That’s the point. There are others coming, though.
The dragons call them Hunters. I don’t know what to call them other than that.
They are the true enemy, and this war is to train Nyth to combat them. ”
I frown and try to decipher a lie in what he’s said.
It seems so far-fetched. He continues, “When I’ve shadow walked with you, you’ve seen the Void.
That darkness is not the nothingness that it feels like.
Instead, it is a massive sea that our simple minds cannot truly comprehend.
Each world is an island within it. The dragons, thousands of them, stopped here while fleeing the Hunters after their world was attacked.
They told the gods, the ones that were awoken eighty years ago, that the Hunters were coming, and they offered to put them to sleep to hide them until the dragons found someone to fight them.
That happened tens of thousands of years ago, according to Inni.
Then, my mother and Calyr woke them up. So, for eighty years the gods have played war games to teach their armies to fight. ”
I stop him. “Wait, why would the Hunters care about the gods if they were hunting dragons?”
He turns around and faces the way Inni and Vyran flew. “They’re hunting anything with magic. One of the few things we know is that they want to destroy all of it. The gods have even more than dragons, and thus, the Hunters would want to kill them even more.”
“But the gods could just…”
He shakes his head without looking at me.
“They’ve killed many gods, little Priestess.
They’re trained for it. They have tools that protect them from magic, even that of the gods.
They’re coming, and if we don’t stop them, they’ll kill every magical creature from simple satyrs to the High Fae to the gods themselves.
Everything that has magic flowing in its veins is at risk. ”
I shrug. “Sounds like Sylvantia should ally with them.”
Azric moves faster than even Lucine did.
It all happens faster than my body can respond.
He turns and leaps, his wings flapping a single time.
He lands just in front of me, and his hand wraps around my throat before shoving me against the stone battlements hard enough that there’ll be bruises from the back of my head to the bottom of my hips.
He hisses, “Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t, but you will fight if you want to live because you’re going to become Nyxthos’s champion. And you will have magic flowing in your veins by then.”
My hands go to my daggers, not bothering to try to break his grip. I already know I’m not strong enough to stop him from choking me to death. As my fingers wrap around the hilts of my daggers, the stone behind me flows around my arms and legs, trapping my biceps and thighs in place.
I know I could use my Mark of Chains to escape it. I could break free, but he’d replace them with shadows or bone to keep me in place. Just as I refused to use the Mark of the Lantern to free myself from the shadows, I keep my secrets now.
His eyes never leave mine, and they burn with anger as he squeezes tight enough that I can’t breathe. Then it softens, and I think he’s going to release me. Instead, he presses his crimson lips to mine, and everything changes.
The Prince of Bones has used his powers of seduction on me nearly every time I’ve spoken with him since that night in his tower, and I’ve managed to pull away each time. This time is different. I know he’s using them on me, but I don’t want to pull away. I don’t want this kiss to ever end.
I wonder if I would survive it.
My worldview changes. I orbit this man, this terrible creature.
I remember everything my father has told me about him.
I know his savagery, but I want him to use that savagery on me.
I crave it. The world could burn around me, and I’d burn along with it just to linger in his embrace for another moment.
His nails scrape against my neck, and I wish he’d dig them into my skin. I don’t want to survive this kiss because then I’d have to live in a world where I wasn’t touching him.
The Prince of Bones is not a man, not even a Godforged. He is a god, and I would pray at his altar for the rest of my life if only for one more moment to feel his lips on mine.
Then the cold begins. It starts in my throat where his fingers hold me tight and travels down to my chest. My heartbeat slows, and I know exactly what’s happening. I’m dying. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this. The Mark of the Phoenix can only be attained when you have faced your own mortality.
I don’t pull away. I don’t run from the kiss that’s slowly killing me. Everyone dies, so why wouldn’t I want to die in perfect bliss?
As the world goes dark, I see him pull away. All I want is to beg him to come back, to finish what he started.
His lips curl up, and his nails brush against my cheek one last time before I fade into the darkness and wonder if I’ll ever wake up again. Part of me hopes I don’t.