Chapter 34
FLORENCE
The city was burning. I had a dragon, and Veilmar was on fire.
I had a dragon, and I was standing here, safe and sound, while Veilmar burned.
Around me, students were crying. Kage and Regan brushed past. They were leaving.
I had no idea what their plan was, but at least they were moving. They were trying.
Nyxaris! You saw this. You knew. Why didn’t you stop him?
The dragon answered at once, voice glacier-cold. I guard my rider. I am not the protector of a hive of highblood scum.
There are blightborn in Veilmar, thousands of them! And children! Tears were running down my cheeks. My fists thudded against my thighs helplessly.
Long ago I ceased to weigh the value of your human cities or your human lives. He sounded remote, or as if he were purposely trying not to care about what I was telling him.
I felt Medra’s hand slip into mine. She was weeping, too. Tears that left red tracks through the slash marks on her cheeks. She watched me, saying nothing.
Little children. Babies, I whispered. Do their lives really mean nothing to you?
I wish I could say the same. It must be easier to not care.
But I do, Nyxaris. They mean a great deal to me.
Silence fell. I closed my eyes, filled with the most terrible sense of disappointment.
If he wouldn’t help me, we would be lost.
Long ago, I began to feel something for the humans’ plight. I cared beyond all reason, all wisdom. Nyxaris’s voice was bitter.
What do you mean?
For centuries, I lived as their teeth, as the highbloods’ claws. I slew whoever they named. It was I who was the destroyer of cities. I who slaughtered little babes in their beds.
I was trembling. That’s not the Nyxaris I know.You aren’t like that anymore.
No? You think me safe? You think me gentle? I was their enforcer. Their fangs. And then …
And then? I ventured.
I lost my rider to their cruelty. Another pause. Molindra, she came to me. Offered me a chance to mend what I had helped destroy. I surrendered my spirit. Chose the stone so I could … atone.
The vision of Nyxaris willingly letting himself be bound shattered me.
You sacrificed yourself, I whispered. That doesn’t sound like a heart-less monster to me.
Nyxaris was quiet for what felt like eternity. Then, If I fly, I risk losing you, as once I lost her.
You won’t lose me, I whispered. And we have no choice. This is what we were meant to do. If we don’t try to stop him, where will it end? I swallowed. I’m not brave. I never wanted this.
You are everything you need to be. You are my rider.
If I am your rider, then we have to try. This is what we were brought together to do. You sacrificed yourself once because you knew it was the right thing to do. Help me now. Help me stop Blake.
Blake? Nyxaris growled. That beast is not your friend’s mate.
My eyes widened. What do you mean? But Medra said …
That is Vorago, he snarled.
Medra stared at me as my expression changed.
“The red dragon,” I whispered aloud to her. “The Inferni that stood guard in the court. Did Blake do something to it?”
Her expression was pained. “Viktor said Vorago was gone from the Dragon Court. That only a pile of ash remained.”
Nyxaris’s voice was tight with contempt. Vorago was never a guardian. He was not one of us. He was imprisoned. Vorago was a hundred times worse than I, merciless and savage, even by Inferni standards. Uncontrollable. He reveled in ruin.
“But you just said he sacrificed himself,” I said aloud so Medra could hear me as well. “That the four dragons gave up their freedom to save Sangratha.”
Nyxaris’s laugh was jagged like broken glass. Three dragons offered themselves. Vorago did not. Molindra, Alabryss, and I helped to bind him. The ritual required one dragon from each lineage. How he howled treachery as his scales hardened to stone!
“How can that be?” I whispered. “How can that dragon out there be Vorago? You’re saying Blake is just … gone?”
Medra’s face was pale beneath her freckles. “I think Blake was changing and that he was resisting the change. I think he thought he could kill his own dragon. But somehow, he woke Vorago instead.” She gripped both my hands with hers, watching my face as I waited for Nyxaris to answer.
The fool. The little highblood fool, Nyxaris snarled. He meddled with magic he did not understand. A fool’s bargain. Reaching for freedom, he has unleashed a second tyrant upon you all.
Second? I whispered. Who is the first? I glanced at Medra’s face again. “Medra, did Viktor do that to you?”
She nodded slowly.
Nyxaris, I whispered, terrified, how many dragons are out there?
One for now. But soon there may be two.
“Two dragons.” I felt dizzy.
Listen, little rider. Vorago will not stop with Veilmar. He will scour Sangratha until nothing remains but ash.
I closed my eyes, searching for inner strength. You once cared for the world or you wouldn’t have let them turn you into stone. If you ever cared for anything, care for me. Care now.
His memory brushed with mine. I saw a sky crackled with fire. A rider fell, her body covered in flames. Nyxaris’s roar shook the heavens. Then stone, cold and eternal. Decades of loneliness and sorrow.
I paid for that caring with centuries of silence.
I held my breath.
Very well, little rider. I will do this. For you.
Relief flooded me—but beneath it, something else.
Complete and utter panic. I squeezed Medra’s hands back.
“He’ll help us.” I thought of something.
Will you carry her, too? Anxiety rose in my throat as I realized what I was committing to.
I’ve never fought from your back before.
I can hardly hold a weapon. I’m no warrior. You know that. But Medra …
The answer came swiftly. No. You are my rider. You alone.
But …
Prepare yourself. Then meet me on the tower parapet. Go swiftly.
All right, I whispered back. I’m coming.
I looked at Medra. “I don’t know how I’ll do this. I want to help. But I’m so scared.”
She gripped my hands. “It’s all right to be scared. I’ve never fought a battle where I wasn’t frightened. You wouldn’t be mortal if you weren’t afraid.”
“I need a plan. I need a weapon. I don’t know how we’re going to do this,” I moaned. I crossed the corridor in a fog, moving back into the infirmary. Inside, Visha and Lysander stood at a table beside Professor Rodriguez and Professor Sankara.
Visha looked up as Medra and I walked in. “You’re going after Blake.”
I nodded slowly.
“She needs a weapon. She’s skilled with a bow,” Medra told Visha. Skilled was an overstatement. But I appreciated the vote of confidence.
Visha nodded. “We have weapons. We’ll get her equipped.”
“But I use a longbow,” I babbled. “I can’t use a longbow on Nyxaris’s back.
I won’t be able to aim properly.” Horseback would have been one thing.
I might have been able to draw from a horse.
But Nyxaris’s back was simply too broad for me to get a good position.
Not without standing up—and I knew there was no way I’d be able to manage that.
“You’ll need a crossbow,” Medra said. “They’re easier to handle. You’ll adapt.”
“I don’t even have anything to shoot. What can get through dragon hide?”
“Dragon fire,” Rodriguez said, looking at me. “When dragons fought in the past, crossbow bolts weren’t enough to take them down.”
I stared at him. “You mean when they were trying to kill one another. But I don’t want to kill Blake. I just want to stop him.”
That is not your friend’s mate. How many times must I remind you? Nyxaris growled.
There has to be something of Blake still in there. It’s not just Vorago. I refuse to believe that. We’re not killing him.
I thought of something and looked at Rodriguez. “When you attacked Nyxaris, your arrows were coated with something that let you penetrate his hide.”
“One step ahead of you.” Rodriguez slid the leather satchel he’d been carrying when we came in onto the table and snapped the buckles open. From a padded niche, he drew out a small vial. The liquid inside was opaque—thick, sluggish, and tarlike.
“I only made a small amount … the last time.” He glanced at Medra and me guiltily. “I had some left over. The Emberwatch called it Godsbane. According to our order’s history, it’s said that the dragons were once worshipped alongside the highbloods as gods.”
I’d never known that. But it certainly did help to explain Nyxaris’s attitude.
“You knew,” Medra breathed, her eyes on Rodriguez. “You knew about Blake.”
His face was stricken as he stared back at her. “I’m sorry. It will have to be … a conversation for another time.”
“Can that shit kill the beast?” Sankara asked bluntly.
“That beast is Blake,” Medra exclaimed.
“That beast,” Sankara replied without rancor, “is murdering a city, Miss Pendragon.”
“I want to stop him, not kill him,” I said firmly. “Not unless there’s no other choice.”
Nyxaris, do you hear me?
The dragon was quiet.
Rodriguez shook his head. “Godsbane won’t kill Blake—Vorago—whatever the hell that thing is. It can penetrate the hide. It can slow the dragon down.” He looked over at me. “Depending on how many of these you can hit him with.”
I gulped. “Probably not many.” I realized everyone was looking at me.
Visha’s eyes homed in on mine. “We need a way to reach Blake, not just slow him down. And in the meantime, what the fuck are we supposed to be doing while she’s up there flying around?”
She was right. We didn’t have the weapons to fight a dragon from the ground.
Veilmar certainly must have at one point, ages ago, but not any longer.
The highbloods had been so certain they’d be able to control Nyxaris that they hadn’t even stopped to consider what might happen if a dragon rebelled and turned against them.
Now Veilmar was completely exposed and unprotected.