17. Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Tanead
Y ou learn who a man is when you fight him. Whether he is courageous or cowardly, creative or disciplined. You see in each stroke of his scimitar the breadth of life he has lived and how many fights have come before. I knew Prince Caelan better than his dead bodyguard did by the time he knocked me down and slammed his fist into my face.
I knew what no other man living could know. I knew he wouldn’t burn.
Any other man would’ve given me the pleasure of smelling the melting flesh of his nose as my palm pressed against it. But not Prince Caelan. His handsome face was fucking intact as I came to on the back of his mount. He’d thrown me over like a carcass; I hung loose, the muscles of my back and stomach screaming. My shoulders too, ah damn, because my arms were pulled tightly behind my back and secured. My eyes were crusted shut, glued with my own blood. It took me awhile to blink them open.
His monstrous highness rode beside me in the rising morning light. Towered above me, more like. I could suck his cock from this degraded position, but that was never to my taste, so I glared up instead. I resented the strong jawbone that still had flesh on it, the brown hair that hadn’t sloughed off into my fingers, the eyes that hadn’t turned to goo.
Let’s see if his alwashi had the same special blood as his master. It pleased me to imagine the prince’s surprise as my restraints snapped and his alwashi’s proud back became a pit of melted flesh and organs. The beast would sink to the ground, lowering me like an emperor on a palanquin. I’d stand and stretch out—Mother bless me, but I was dying to stretch out—and I’d grin at him. He’d have drawn his sword by then. His damned eagle would be in the air. It would hardly be a fair fight. Not one fight of my life ever had been.
But as I readied myself to burn by crawling my consciousness deep into my center to call upon the draconic powers that rested there, my waking eyes caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Another alwashi, and guess who rode on that one?
My traitorous priestess. She’d promised that Asherah would not be born while I was away from the mountain. Lie or mistake? Since she now rode freely behind the Slayer prince, I was going to go with lie. Her powers gave her knowledge of the land that would have allowed her to escape him, if she’d wanted to. She could have helped me escape, too. Yet here I fucking was.
I added her to my burn list.
Unfortunately, behind her was a small army of Vaharilarans who also needed to go on that list. I didn't recognize the landscape around me.
Fuck.
I was already in Vaharilar.
How long was I asleep? Was I still near the river? I closed my eyes and sniffed the air but only smelled the iron scent of the blood that had dried in my nostrils. I listened instead and heard the low burble of the water as it flowed over rocks and pebbles. It sounded close.
When my eyes opened again, the priestess was watching me.
Her hand dropped low so that her mount blocked it from everyone’s view but mine. “Too late to burn. In Vaharilar. Archeon close.”
My dragon was fucking born, you bitch. I sent her this thought and all my venom along with it. Her powers and my Rider blood allowed her to receive me, though not to answer.
Her fingers moved again. “Asherah not Bonded. Another egg at Archeon.”
I stilled. The Fortress of Archeon’s Last Breath was a Slayer stronghold a stone’s throw from the River of Madness. It was infuriatingly within reach, yet in a thousand cycles, my people had never penetrated it. It marked the place of historic tragedy where Calathan Havard had killed the last dragon, Archeon. Archeon turned to dragonstone at the moment of his death, as all dragons did. A Rider would’ve shattered his corpse and rescued the egg that contained his spirit from the Crust below his final resting place. We would’ve proceeded with sacred responsibility to the Mother’s Womb to throw that egg inside.
But the heathen Slayers had made a mockery of the defeated god. Treating him as nothing more than a stone mountain, they’d carved and hollowed him, making a fortress of his corpse.
Now Prince Caelan was marching me into the tomb from which Archeon’s egg had never emerged.
“Dragonstone beneath you. Dozens of men. Too late,” signed my traitorous priestess. Oh, I would punish her for this, surely, but I might listen to her, too.
I wiggled slightly to see what she meant by dragonstone. The rounded edges of scales dug into my skin. I twisted my head to see what lay beneath me. It was no saddle. It was the dragonstone scale armor the Slayer had worn on his chest.
How had he known I could burn or melt every material but this? I'd heard it wasn't common knowledge in Vaharilar. Maybe he'd known because he was a prince, or maybe…
You warned him, I sent to the priestess. I will fucking melt your skin off.
She swallowed, but her hands didn’t move. She didn’t deny anything.
I flexed my muscles to assess my injuries. Caelan had sliced my hamstrings and my legs would not support a long run. I had no idea if the river here was too deep to cross safely. I could murder the Slayer’s mount, but then what?
I had no allies left nearby. Loyce and Sonja were dead. I’d fucking kill the prince for that, I vowed. Or I'd save him for Zar to take apart—that would be the friendly thing to do. The loss of Zar's sister was sure to drive him into the kind of rage that fells kingdoms.
I remembered cutting Caelan with my poisoned blade, but he rode as if it had hardly affected him. Probably because he was a fucking giant.
All these things made me want to kill him more than I had before, but I knew that if I tried to escape now, I’d die, and I didn’t want to die. It was a shameful but honest truth, and I’d never been afraid to look truth in the eye and let it have its day.
If I could not escape, what would happen? Asherah was not likely to Bond another. It was my blood that called to her. She would try to come to me. My people would follow her, which could serve my interests. But it would be terribly dangerous for Asherah to approach Vaharilar when she was young and unBonded. The safest option was surely for me to return to the Mother’s Womb as quickly as possible and become the first Rider of the Reborn.
It was a destiny most men would kill for.
“Someday, the dragon Asherah will belong to you.” My caretaker reminded me of this almost daily after my mother was gone. He liked to hold it over my head like a reward I wouldn’t win if I were bad. Didn’t he understand the blood Bond? Asherah was mine; he couldn’t keep us from each other and neither could anyone else. I was my mother’s only child, and it was the blood of Ead’s line that Asherah was bound to.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her. Of course I wanted a dragon. I fell asleep each night to thoughts of what it would feel like to Ride. The wind caressed my horns and tickled the hairs on my body. In my own mind, I rode naked, no barrier between my dragon and I.
But in my most secret thoughts, the dragon I rode wasn’t Asherah.
Asherah was my mother’s dragon by rights. An inherited triumph for me, and what man wants his name known only because of a legacy he had nothing to do with making? No, I dreamed of having a dragon of my own. One I found, nurtured, and hatched myself, even if it took longer. How sweet would such a triumph be. Then people would say, “Tanead Tajawl, he was the one to bring the dragons back.”
Should I tell myself the truth? If I had wished beyond all else to claim Asherah, I would not have risked missing her birth to stalk the Slayer. Now I found myself in a position of my own making: on my way to Archeon, about to be ushered inside and led deep into the fortress’ belly, where the long-lost egg of Archeon, the Last Dragon, might still lie undiscovered.
It was Archeon who convinced the other dragon-gods to turn against their Father, Anu, and send him to the Crust forever. Archeon was the largest of the twelve and the last to fall to the evil magic of Calathan Havard. When I was a child and I pretended to Ride, it was always Archeon whose back I straddled.
There was no doubt that seeking escape was the safe bet. If I went into Vaharilar, there was a strong chance I might never come out again. My mother hadn’t.
But I was never one for taking the safe bet.
Are you sure the egg is still inside?
The priestess signed an affirmative. I didn’t necessarily believe her, but the fantasy was just so sweet.
If you’re lying to me again, I will melt you just enough to leave you screaming in your cell for days, begging for death from a mouth without lips.
Her facial expression didn’t even change. How unsatisfying. “Not lying,” she signed.
Well, we’d see about that.
Okay, new plan. Allow myself to be paraded into Archeon like the invader’s prized catch. Allow myself to be thrown in a grimy cell with nice, forged iron bars. Escape. Get the egg. Get out. Get back to the Mother’s Womb and throw Archeon’s egg into the Mother’s Womb. Maybe I’d even Bond Asherah while I awaited Archeon’s return.
The plan held a certain appeal. I could count on one hand the number of Riders who’d Bonded two dragons. When I joined that short list, nobody could claim that my glory belonged to my mother. It would be mine.
Tanead Tajawl, Heir of the Broken Realm. The first Rider after the Rebirth, so powerful he Bonded two dragons.
All right. I’d play the priestess’ game. I’d let Caelan keep his catch. I’d cry and whine as he ushered me into a cell inside my sacred, dead god. I would throw an egg of my own into the Mother’s Womb.
“He’s awake,” my priestess said. Her hands had stilled.
Caelan turned to look at me and I tried to meet his eye. It hurt to twist that way. My horns were heavy; it was hard to raise them in this position. Not to mention that my face was so swollen, I had about half an eye to see out of.
“I’m out of poppy.” Prince Caelan sure sounded regretful.
“Are you also out of water?” I could barely speak.
We turned to follow the road—someone was leading my mount, I realized—and I could see the river and my lands beyond. Where once, flat glass plains had extended serenely along for spans, now jagged arrow tips of black glass rose like the points on a crown from a sea of red sand.
“The fuck happened?” I choked out.
“The Mother expressed her opinion about the Slayer’s intrusion,” the priestess said.
If that were true, the Mother’s opinion and my own were the same.
“You can’t help but destroy my lands,” I said to the invader.
“I can assure you this is hardly what I had in mind,” Caelan said. He uncorked a canteen and came alongside me. I twisted my neck to receive the water, but when he overturned it, only a few droplets splashed onto my tongue. Fucker. At least it was satisfying to see how much stubble grew on his chin. The circles under his eyes looked ominous when viewed upside down.
Had he stayed awake to keep watch when the suns fell, or had he and my priestess stayed awake together doing other things? I’d never partaken of her particular charms myself, but my understanding was that she’d been well-trained to please the powerful by those who’d raised her. Whoever the fuck those people were.
“What will you do with me?” I asked. I wanted to see if he’d lie.
“I’ll take you to Havard and hand you over to my father. You’re his prize, not mine.” The pride in his voice defied the humble words. Prince Caelan was practically preening at being the one to deliver the Heir of Los.
“And what do you imagine he’ll do to me, Invader?”
“Torture, I expect.”
“Ah, I do as well. You enjoy a little bit of that yourself, don’t you? I ask as I’ve not tasted water in days. Is this how an Havard treats a valuable prisoner?”
The prince stiffened.
“May I sit up, at least, now I’m awake? This is—” I allowed myself to groan theatrically “—rather hard on the stomach muscles.”
Caelan shook his head. “You might ride away.”
“Do you think your alwashi would respond to my commands? He seems a well-trained beast.”
No response.
“You know little of Tajawls,” I tried. “We don’t ride. I’d hardly be a capable commander of your mount, especially with no hands to steady myself.”
The prince snorted. “Tanead Tajawl, Heir to the House of Dragons, says he can’t ride. Remind me. What are your house words?”
The priestess had the gall to snort a laugh.
“We ride dragons .” The words came out more petulant than I intended.
“Yes, that’s it. ‘We ride.’”
I grimaced. I had a funny feeling I was not going to be allowed to move until I collapsed at the feet of the ancient god’s corpse.
And so it was that I approached the Fortress of Archeon’s Last Breath upside down and stretched out like tanning leather.
We rode into the sun and the glittering stone palace rose up out of the hardened black sand, an ageless carcass, a prize, a reminder. Archeon’s towering neck stretched proudly into the sky. His mouth was open, screaming, forked tongue broken at the tip. Though he’d drawn his last breath a thousand cycles ago, it could never be forgotten that he’d died screaming.
His head was a watchtower now. Windows had been chiseled where the god’s eyes once were—those eyes that Calathan’s eagle Arbaaz had gouged out in the fight that won the invader an empire.
For the first three centuries of their reign, the invader emperors had ruled from here—the place where their power was won. What better reminder could there be than the carcass of the last god they defeated?
After that, they'd moved somewhere more comfortable. I'd heard the Palace of the Suns in Havard was open and airy, the sort of palace you build when you're no longer afraid that someone will try to take it.
Archeon's wings were too thin to carve. He’d died with them outstretched and so they flanked the fortress, making a spectacle of it that could be seen from my own lands. I’d stood on the edge of the river and studied him before. I’d let the rage at the existence of this place suffuse me.
But it had been night then, and dragonstone drank what little light there was. I’d not been able to make out the ridges of each scale, as I could now. Once, they would have shimmered, blinding enemies with their reflection of the suns’ light. Now, they were black and dull.
Would I have to squint my eyes when I looked on the glory of Archeon Reborn? Already in my mind, I imagined our reunion. I would bow, honored and humbled to feel the touch of a god inside my mind. It was said in the old books that to be Bonded to a dragon was to become part-god yourself. The merge was that complete. It was for this reason that the Bond drove many men insane. Many men, but not Tajawls.
Trumpets blared in the watchtower to announce our arrival. A large gate opened in Archeon’s rounded belly, vomiting troops onto the fractured black plains. The gate was iron, I noted. Iron could melt.
“Prince Amon. Prince Caelan,” said the man who reached us first. He bowed in his saddle.
Interesting. Was I accompanied by two Slayer princes? What an honor. And an opportunity. I twisted my head to see the other one, but my horns foiled me again. The fucking giant prince blocked my view of his brother.
“Leone,” Caelan said. The man came forward and Caelan clasped his arm.
“I hope your raids have been successful,” Leone said. His eyes kept sliding to me, but he didn’t ask about me. I’d heard Vaharilarans were all politeness to your face and secret jabs behind your back. Cowards, in other words.
“I can assure you, they were,” I said. I preferred to be talked to than about, even when hanging upside down.
The man's eyebrows rose until they were nearly in his hair. “Damn. I’ve never seen one with horns like that!”
No, of course not, idiot. It was only halflings and traitors who made their way into the Borderlands.
“He’s their Heir,” Caelan said. “Tanead Tajawl.”
Whispers amongst the greeting party. Leone shook Caelan’s hand again, fire in his eyes. “Damn good hunting! Come on, men, get ‘em inside. Our princes deserve a rest and a stiff drink, I’d say.”
These men didn’t know Caelan had gone into Vaharilar at all, did they? They thought I’d been stupid enough to cross the border. They didn’t know how many of Caelan’s people he’d sacrificed to kill mine. I noted the respect in their eyes when they looked at him and wanted to wipe it away.
“Aren't all the hunters supposed to return home?” I asked.
Caelan’s face darkened and I tried not to grin. He was so readable.
“Let’s see. There was the man who fought at your side. He was your personal guard, wasn’t he?” I tsked as if the man’s death were truly a shame, when the real shame was Loyce's death. She was a tracker like no other, and brutal at a game of chance. To avenge her, I’d kill Caelan's guard a thousand times. “He’s never coming home.”
Leone’s eyes slid back to Caelan. He looked uncertain. Good.
“Who else? I saw the fat one fall off his alwashi. That didn’t look good.”
Caelan’s face was growing redder. If I couldn’t burn him, this was surely the next best thing.
The other prince—the older one—stepped around Caelan’s alwashi to peer at me. He didn’t look like his brother at all. He was pale and thin with reddish hair and a nasty, narrow face. He had the coloring of a Northern Bird Lord and the rich armor of a royal.
“You must be Amon,” I drawled. “Always a pleasure to meet another invader.”
A slow smile spread across the crown prince’s face, though his eyes remained cold. Not full of fire and barely masked rage, like his brother’s. “Always a pleasure to bring another body into my dungeons,” Prince Amon said.
“I’m sure it is, you fucking monster,” I said.
Amon laughed in genuine delight.
Caelan cleared his throat. “Leone, I was raiding with Baris Barellis, Lord Broker Kells, and Lady Nahome Obsan. We were separated. Have any of them returned?”
Leone looked relieved, which probably meant they had. Damn it.
“Lady Obsan returned with Baris yesterday,” he said, and Caelan visibly relaxed.
“And Lord Kells?” Caelan asked.
Leone stiffened. “Not yet, my prince.”
Amon sighed theatrically. “A terrible loss.”
Somehow I didn’t think he meant it.
“Was that the fat one?” I asked. “He looked rich.”
Caelan’s jaw clenched delightfully. He ignored me and answered his brother. “It would be, but it’s too early to say such things. We can send out search parties to look for him.”
“I meant your first campaign,” Amon said.
Good one. If I couldn’t slit these Slayers’ throats myself, perhaps I could nudge them to slit each other’s.
A small, dark-skinned man ran from Archeon’s gate. “Prince Caelan! Thank the Father,” he shouted.
Caelan practically fell off his mount in his eagerness to clasp the man’s hand. Maybe they were lovers. Poor priestess, I didn’t see her enjoying playing second fiddle.
“Baris,” Caelan was saying. I had to strain to hear over the wind that made the jagged glass land sing. “Last I saw, you were being swallowed by the sands.”
“I’m a better rider than you give me credit for, my prince,” the man named Baris said.
“You must be. Lady Nahome returned with you?”
A woman approached them. She was the one who was with them in Los, but now she was limping; her leg was in a cast. What a big, happy family reunion this was turning out to be. Now if they’d only take me to my egg, I could join in on all the fun.
“He saved my life,” the woman said.
“Then I owe him my gratitude,” Caelan said.
“It is the Father to whom we owe our gratitude for all things,” said the woman.
I rolled my eyes. Fucking invaders and their precious Father. Maybe if he hadn’t tried to kill his own children, they wouldn’t have sent his spirit to the Crust all those eons ago.
“It should’ve been me. I was in charge of the mission,” Caelan said in a low voice to Baris. The others wouldn’t hear, but demons had excellent hearing.
“I don’t think even a prince of Vaharilar can be expected to quell a quake sent by the Mother, do you?” Baris said, smiling and loyal.
“And who’s this?” Leone asked as he noticed the priestess.
“She’s mine ,” Caelan said firmly, striding back to her side.
I grinned. Yes, there was the toxic possessiveness I’d expect of a Slayer. When we got to court, would each Slayer take turns pissing on me, trying to claim me as their very own personal prisoner?
Leone saluted. “Understood, Prince.”
All the men took their eyes off the priestess except Amon.
Where is the egg? I asked her.
I didn’t know if she’d answer me truthfully or if even the promise of the egg was a lie. But better to have the information and choose to reject it than to descend into the bowels of the dead god blind.
Besides, despite the evidence before me, I could not believe the priestess had shifted sides so thoroughly. If her hatred for the Havards was fake, then she was the best damn liar I’d ever met. It was practically all she fucking talked about.
No, I suspected she was playing her own game now. I’d have to be careful not to let it interfere with mine.
Or I could just kill her. Might be simpler.
The priestess began to sign and my eyes went cross-eyed trying to read the quick, upside-down motions of her fingers.
“Long room in belly. Cells? Head down. Slanted tunnels, down down. Fork—go left. Fork—go right. Cavern. Feel for pit. Climb. Egg at bottom. Deep.”
You sure it’s down there? You better be sure.
She nodded very firmly, masking it with an unsteady motion of her body on her mount. Still pretending weakness. I wondered if I’d fallen for her act myself. A man never knows.
How am I supposed to get down there? I’ll need rope.
The priestess closed her eyes. She leaned towards Archeon, her head tilted, ear to the Crust. For long moments she sat unmoving. Caelan's eyes were on her when she opened her eyes. She glared at him fiercely enough to make him look away. Boy, she had him wrapped around her little finger already.
She signed, quick and careful. “Many ridges in pit. Can climb without rope.”
Mother’s tits, that would suck. I sighed deeply. My back hurt now, but it would be nothing to how it would burn tonight. I hoped my body was up for it. I wasn’t sure I could run—was it na?ve to think I could climb?
My eye drifted to a curved horn on the tip of Archeon’s stone wing and my resolve hardened. Tajawls might be a lot of things, but weak was not one of them.
I’m coming for you, Archeon, I thought. I made it a promise, sworn over and over as I passed under and through the gate into the dragon's belly.
“See that he’s well cared for,” Caelan called to the half-dozen men who encircled me as I was finally released to fall like a lump off the alwashi's back. I knew he meant the damned beast. I didn’t expect exemplary care here, no I did not. But being upright was a start.
I stood with the slowness of an old man. Blood rushed back into places that had been without it for too long. It drained from my head and I stumbled. My vision went black and I tipped into a soldier, who shoved me away and into another. Blinking a few times helped. The blackness receded until I could see the gloom of the chamber inside the great gate.
It was hardly brighter with my eyes open than closed. Archeon's gloom drank all light. The gate (which was only iron, though there were actually two gates, and a heavy wooden door besides) had led us into a large cavernous room that sat between the dead god’s feet. If men ever had to take a stand to defend this place, they could do it in large numbers here, picking off the enemies who would have to come through the gate in lines of no more than eight.
My muscles tingled. Little stabs shot through every part of me and I twisted my neck back and forth, groaning.
“Come on, demon. Let’s get you into a cell where you belong.” The speaker pushed at my back with the tip of his sword. I had no issue with obeying—after all, I wanted the same thing.
Take me into the belly, down and down. Get me as close to my egg as you can, please and thank you, you fucking monsters.