Морган Райс
Realm of Dragons
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Lenore found herself looking around for her brother as her carriage trundled down to the crossroads and past it. The roads were muddy here, paved only in places and with clumps of vegetation on either side.
“Vars was supposed to meet us somewhere here, wasn’t he?” she called out to one of the half-dozen guards with her.
“I’m sure the prince will meet us in due course,” the man replied, although he sounded as surprised as Lenore felt that Vars had not done so already.
“Should we stop and wait for him?” Lenore asked. Probably, though, as the princess, she should have been giving the orders. The soldier seemed to think so too.
“If it pleases you, your highness,” he said.
“We’ve still a long way to go today,” one of her maids pointed out. She gave a disgusted look out of the carriage window. “And if we wait here, we’ll be doing it in the mud. We could at least wait for the prince at the next comfortable inn.”
Lenore sighed. Her maid had a point. More to the point, it was likely that Vars was there already. Probably he’d decided that he had no more interest than the maid in waiting out in the mud, and the thought of beer or wine had drawn him on.
Then there was the thought of the cargo they carried. They only had the gifts from Royalsport and the nearest villages so far, but even so, it seemed like too much to be sitting out in the open with. Better to press on and wait surrounded by whatever walls the inn had.
“We’ll keep going,” Lenore called to the driver.
The carriage continued to bump its way down the road, while Lenore looked out and tried to find something different in the landscape. Probably Nerra could have told her the name of every tree, pointing out the differences as they went, but she wasn’t here. Lenore hoped her sister was all right, and that Rodry had been able to find her.
She hoped a lot of things, because if there was one thing a lengthy carriage ride had time for, it was hopes and dreams. Lenore found herself hoping that the rest of the ride would be smoother, and that the people on the rest of the journey would love her as much as the ones before had. One of those hopes seemed more achievable than the other, given the way the carriage was jolting. She hoped Nerra would be found soon, and Erin, and that their father would forgive them both. She hoped her marriage to Finnal would be the perfect dream that the feasting with him had been, although why did that have to be a hope, when she couldn’t imagine it any other way?
“Almost at an inn, your highness,” the driver called out. Lenore looked out of the carriage, seeing the building ahead. It was a structure of painted wood and stone, with a thatched roof and a sign in front that had no words, only a picture of a celandine flower. A small stable stood next to the main building, obviously there to receive travelers, although there was no sign of the body of men that her brother was supposed to be bringing.
“We’ll stop here,” Lenore declared. Vars would find her more easily here than out on the open road if he’d missed her, and they would all be safer behind walls than in the open. Lenore could see the guards around her relaxing slightly at the news.
The driver pulled the carriage in front of the inn for Lenore to alight with her maids, and it struck her just how quiet the place was. Weren’t inns normally bustling places, filled with the sounds of raucous celebration? Maybe she had that wrong; after all, Lenore spent far less time in such places than the likes of Vars or Rodry.
“I’ll take the carriage to the stables, your highness,” the driver said, a couple of the guards going with him to protect the goods they’d been given.
She walked in, surrounded by her maids and the remaining guards who had come with her, and immediately knew that something was wrong. There were people there, sitting in place, but they were far too still as other figures moved among them wearing steel and leather. Lenore hadn’t seen enough of the stillness of death to know it by sight, but she could see the cut throats of the men there, the stab wounds and the marks of strangulation. Against the silence, she could hear the whimpers and cries of a woman from somewhere upstairs, and she knew that what was happening there was every bit as bad.
The living figures turned to her, and Lenore saw the marks of King Ravin’s army emblazoned on the armor of men and women. They had a variety of weapons with them, from swords to strange, many bladed daggers, and they moved with a quiet coordination that terrified Lenore almost as much as the blades.
“Princess,” one of the men said, “we had expected more men with you.”
“Still, it makes it easy,” one of the women said. “Means we don’t have to poison a regiment.”
“There is that,” the man said.
“Who are you?” Lenore demanded, trying to sound braver than she felt, trying to buy time, or find a way to talk clear of this, or just understand. “How are you here?”
They shouldn’t have been there; Southern soldiers shouldn’t have been able to cross the bridges.
“Oh, we’re the ones King Ravin has been putting in place for a while,” the man said. “His best. One by one, over the bridges, in with the merchants. Men and women, because no one thinks a married pair will be killers.” He smiled over at one of the women. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
“Absolutely,” she said. She looked at Lenore with a gaze that promised awful things. “Can I cut her?”
“You know the king’s orders for her,” the man said. “Suitably broken, suitably used before she’s brought to him, but intact. I don’t think that includes your games, Syrelle. You can have one of the others.”
“Oh, I suppose so, Eoris. They all scream well enough in the end.”
The man nodded, and that nod seemed to be a signal, because the others surged forward.
“Back, Princess!” one of the guards with her called, stepping forward to try to slow them, to give Lenore space in which to run.
He died.
He died so quickly that it didn’t even count as a fight. Lenore had heard stories of heroic combats and seen her brother Rodry practicing with swords. This was nothing like that. There was no back and forth flash of blades, no witty talk, no chance for the guard. He was simply hacked down by a sword stroke so fast that Lenore barely saw it, while the rest of the southerners leapt at the other guards, thrusting blades into chests, dragging them across throats.
Lenore knew that her only hope was to run. She turned to do so, and saw one of her maids dragged to the floor by one of the soldiers, pinned there while she fought to get away. She saw a guard cut down, and in it all, Lenore wanted to help, but she couldn’t; she couldn’t persuade her body to do anything but run.
She ran, pushing her way clear of the inn, bursting out into the open sunlight with a scream that she hoped would attract the attention of any help nearby.
“We’re under attack!” Lenore cried out, racing for the stables. There were still two more guards in the stables, along with the driver. She just had to pray that he hadn’t unhitched the horses from the carriage yet, because right then the only hope was to flee. There was no hope to fight, not against foes like these. She sprinted for the stables, hoping she would be in time, hoping she would keep ahead…
Lenore reached the stables and saw the bodies there. The two guards lay on the ground where they had fallen, clearly cut down in seconds. The driver swung from a noose, legs still kicking as he died. Even as Lenore stared in horror, a man stepped from the shadows, dangling another length of rope
“Hmm, Eoris said that you might come this way,” he said. “But I thought he was mistaken. Tell me, are you going to fight?”
“Please,” Lenore begged, but all the time she was doing it, her hand was creeping down to her eating knife. “Please, I’ll do whatever you—”
She lunged with it, hoping the element of surprise would make up for what she lacked in skill and strength. Instead, she found her opponent twisting aside, and that rope tangling with her hand, wrenching tight and ripping the knife from it. In another second, he’d somehow caught her other wrist, tying the two together behind her.
“Yes,” he said. “You will. And then what all the others want, too. King Ravin was quite clear.”
“Please,” Lenore begged. As he threw her down to the stable floor, she found herself hoping, praying, that one of her brothers would arrive just in time to save her like something out of a song. It always happened like that, didn’t it? They would be there, and they would save her, and…
Suddenly, a rope wrapped around her neck, forcing her to look up at the man who scowled down at her with pure hatred.
“Good,” the man said. “Let’s begin.”
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Aurelle stretched out in the prince’s bed, waiting to see if he would return to it, and to her. When it became clear that he wouldn’t, she stood and dressed before heading down quietly through the castle. With the feast done, there weren’t as many people to see where she went, but it also meant that there weren’t as many to mask her comings and goings.
At least the guards in the castle were used to her now. They’d seen her on Prince Greave’s arm, and that seemed to be enough to grant her license to leave without questions. She assumed it would get her back in when she needed to as well.
“Everything is fine,” she told herself, but she looked behind her for the possibility of anyone following, just to be sure.
Her first stop was the alley where she’d hidden a cloak and a change of clothes: a plainer dress that wouldn’t catch the eye, and shoes that were anything but delicate. There was a dagger there too, just in case she needed it. Aurelle dressed quickly, making sure no one was coming, then set off again, still checking for anyone following. Past a certain point, paranoia was simply a sensible precaution.
Out through the city she went, into the entertainment district, heading in the direction of the looming House of Sighs. It was the sort of place where someone who came and went normally could do so without attracting unwanted questions, without the risks that would come from a neighborhood filled with thugs and cutpurses. Aurelle would hate to have to kill someone; it would draw far too much attention.
She walked along, feeling the changing shapes of the cobbles of the streets as she went, making her way to a side door of the House, one of those reserved for quiet entrances and exits. The House of Sighs was good at discretion. It made it such a perfect meeting place. She went in, heading for the usual room, a surprisingly simple one given the wealth of her … benefactor.
The arrangement of ribbons left on the door would have seemed like simple decoration to anyone else, but to Aurelle it was a sign carefully left, saying all was as it should be. The House of Sighs taught more than simply how to give oneself to those who paid, after all, at least for those with the talent for it.
Aurelle reached out and opened the door, stepping inside elegantly. Her employer was sitting on the bed, waiting for her, sharp eyes scanning her, lingering as they always lingered. Those hawk-like features lent a predatory edge to the movement.
Duke Viris stood, and Aurelle curtseyed elegantly. She knew he liked that.
“There is wine, if you wish it,” Duke Viris said, gesturing to a bottle and two glasses. He took one, rolling it between his fingers. Aurelle took the other, sniffing it carefully. As far as she knew, the duke had no reason to poison her, but that was the problem—she would only know afterward.
“So,” the duke said. “Is all going as I require?”
Aurelle nodded. “The prince is suitably distracted from thoughts of a cure. Your men were able to search the library while I kept him… busy, although they made a clumsy job of it.”
“I’m sure your own efforts were far less clumsy,” he said. “Did you have any problems with Greave?”
Aurelle laughed at that thought. “Hardly. Poor Prince Greave has been so starved of affection that he all but threw himself at me, even if he didn’t know he was doing it.”
“Good,” Duke Viris said. “Is the prince suitably enamored of you?”
“All that and more,” Aurelle said with a faint laugh. “You should see him: poor, sad Prince Greave, running around after me like an eager puppy.”
“Just remember who gives the commands,” Duke Viris said.
Aurelle nodded carefully. “Yes, my lord. You employ me.”
“I do,” the duke said. “Remember, the youngest son cannot be allowed to find a cure. The princess’s illness, and all that King Godwin has done out of his love for her, will continue to drive a wedge between him and the nobles. With my son married to his daughter, when things reach the point that they are looking for a new king, my family will be in a position to take its place.”
“As you say, my lord,” Aurelle said. She filed away the reasoning, because it was knowledge worth having.
“You do not think it will work?” Duke Viris said.
Aurelle spread her hands. “I am sure that you have considered every possibility.”
“I have. The king will be too tainted for having hidden his daughter’s illness. Prince Rodry will no doubt do something rash. Prince Vars is sufficiently hated that none will side with him. You will act as I say against Prince Greave. Princess Lenore will be controlled by Finnal. Princess Nerra is banished. Princess Erin is off doing the kinds of dangerous things where she could easily meet an accident…”
“No doubt an arranged one,” Aurelle said.
The duke flashed her a hard look and Aurelle instantly made her expression one of contrition.
“You play your part well,” the duke said.
Her part: Aurelle Hardacre, sweet, innocent flower of a noble house, who had fallen instantly in love with her handsome prince and could barely bear to be parted from him. That Aurelle was the kind of figure the real Aurelle would have had nothing but contempt for, simpering and sheltered, with no understanding of the realities of the world.
“The House of Sighs did well, sending you to me,” the duke said. She saw his glance across to the bed in the corner of the room. Most of the rooms in the House of Sighs had a bed.
“Thank you, my lord. I live to serve.”
“And since you are paid for…”
He drew her to him and kissed her, then pushed her back in the direction of the bed. Aurelle didn’t tense at it. She could play this part as well as any other.
At least, until it became more advantageous to play a better one.
CHAPTER FORTY
Devin heard a dragon roaring, the sound of it filling the world around him. He was standing in a place where volcanoes filled the skyline, and winged shapes flew around them. He could see other things there, things that weren’t human, things that were twisted out of shape and strange, things that could only exist in one place…
Sarras.
As if the thought had summoned it, his mind’s eye conjured a map of the place, moving in and out so that he could see the jungles and the wastelands, the glassy spaces burned by dragon fire and the ash. Then the map became lines on an arm, a tattoo…
Devin was looking at a younger version of his father now, and there was another man with him, wrapped in a cloak. He was looking up at them, as if he were very small, and Devin had the feeling that this was more than some imagining; it was a memory.
“Take him, raise him. If I find any harm has come to him…”
“None will, my lord.”
“The boy is special, born on the dragon moon, in that place. None can be allowed to know…”
Devin woke.
His head hurt, and the whole of the inside of his mouth felt like it was covered in fur. He looked around for the dragon, for the forest, for the youth who had spoken, because it had seemed so real that for a moment he had expected that they would still be there. Instead, he saw the interior of Sir Halfin’s rooms, where he seemed to be wrapped up in furs in front of the fire.
There was a note there, left by the knight. Gone hunting with the prince. Stay as long as you wish. Maybe learn to hold your drink better.
Devin smiled at the knight’s idea of a joke, and even that made his head ache. He rose, knowing he couldn’t just wait here for the knights and the prince to return. For one thing, there was too much he still needed to do.
He hadn’t managed to speak to Master Grey yet, and he suspected he wouldn’t until the sorcerer was ready. Then there was the dream. It nagged at him, and Devin knew it wasn’t just a dream. He’d been remembering, remembering things that had actually happened to him. If that was true though… that meant he wasn’t who he had thought he was. He was someone else entirely.
He needed to talk to his parents.
Devin set off through the castle, seeing that while the servants were up, many of the nobles and commoners were still rising in the wake of the prematurely finished festivities. The servants were tidying away all the mess the feasting had created, which meant that Devin was able to slip out unremarked. He spared a glance for the tower belonging to Master Grey, knowing that he would have to return there soon. For now though, the only answers he wanted were at home.
Royalsport was starting to wake up around him, so Devin found himself hurrying, wanting to get home before his father left for work. He passed an apple cart and brushed it accidentally, sending one of the apples within to the ground. “Sorry,” Devin called, and tossed the man one of his few coins.
“That’s all right, milord,” the man said, and it was only then that Devin realized what he must look like, still dressed in Halfin’s spare clothes. He hurried on quickly. He was getting closer to home, crossing the bridges from one district to the next, moving from cobbled streets to stones and dirt, having to watch more carefully around him to make sure the spaces between the wattle and daub houses contained no cutpurses.
There were signs of activity when he reached the small house his family called home: smoke from the chimney and sounds of people moving around within. Devin opened the door and went inside to find his parents at the dinner table, almost as he had left them. It seemed strange to him that everything should just be a normal morning then, especially when he hadn’t been home for… well, days now.
His mother turned, and in that moment, Devin could see no real concern, only annoyance.
“Where have you been? Why are you dressed like one of the rich folk?”
His father stood up. “Well? Where have you been?”
“I’ve been up at the castle,” Devin said. “They wanted me to work some special metal for them.” He could have left it at that, but the dream demanded more. “I was traveling with Rodry and the knights.”
“You were what?” his father said. “Who are you to go talking about your betters like that?”
“I don’t know,” Devin said, the words almost seeming to slip out. “Who am I?”
The words stopped his parents short. At least, the people he’d always thought of as his parents. In that moment though, he could see what was obvious: there was no resemblance there with him. There had certainly never been any love.
“What do you mean, who are you?” his mother demanded. “You’re our son.”
“Then why can I do magic?” Devin asked. “Why do I have dreams of being given to you? What happened on Sarras?”
His father stared at him then, his expression darkening. “I told them. I told them when they brought you to me that you were too dangerous, that you’d find out…”
He stepped forward, and instinctively, Devin flinched. How many times had his father lashed out when he was drunk? How many bruises had Devin suffered?
“Well, now that we know you’re something twisted,” his supposed father said, “at least I don’t have to hold back anymore.”
He lifted one meaty hand, fist closed, and Devin reacted on instinct. He knew the feeling of power rising up in him now, and once more the world around him seemed to slow as he saw it, understood it, saw all the things that he could do in it. He lifted one hand, feeling the power pulse up inside him, and it took all his control not to fling all of it the way he had with the wolves. Even so, it was enough to send his father flying back, tumbling into his chair and then over it, to lie looking up at Devin from the floor.
“Get out!” he yelled. “Get out, you monster!”
***
Devin left, mind still reeling from what had happened, barely able to comprehend how quickly he’d gone from asking questions to not having a home. Yet in another way, it wasn’t quick, because it felt as though this had always been coming, as if everything had been heading this way Devin’s whole life.
It didn’t make anything feel any better, and he rushed out into the street, not knowing where he was going or what he was doing. And yet he did feel driven by something pulling him this way. What, he was not sure.
He was so caught up in the shock of the last few seconds that at first he barely noticed the fog that had swept up, surrounding him until he couldn’t see the buildings on either side, and the world became a thing of shadows and echoes.
The city around him faded, so that Devin barely knew which way he was going. He could hear the sounds of it at first, but now even those started to be swallowed by the fog. Mists were common enough in a city intersected by so many river branches, but this… this felt like something different.
How long he walked, Devin didn’t know. In a space like this, it seemed that time itself stood still, so that he walked forever between one heartbeat and the next. He thought again of his dream. And he felt that force pull and pull him.
And then he spotted something ahead where the mist thinned. It seemed to summon him.
He started toward it and eventually came out into a clearing. It stood in the midst of thick sections of what seemed to be a forest, far from any spot most people would find, and there seemed to be a cave entrance there. Someone had pushed rocks in front of that entrance, rock after rock until it was tightly sealed.
Devin could hear sounds coming from within, and he guessed that they must be those of an animal, except that they were like no animal he had heard before. There was snuffling and roaring and scraping there, as if something was trying to get out.
Except… he had heard those sounds before. He’d heard them in dreams. It sounded primal.
Dangerous.
He knew, with complete certainty, that he had to help the creature that was in there.
Devin started to pull away some of the cave’s covering, and it was anything but easy. There were plant fronds covering it, and those were easy enough to remove, but the rocks there were larger and harder to shift. Devin had to squat to wrap his arms around them, and then shove them to the side one by one. He got several of them clear, and then something came out to swipe more out of the way: a claw.
Devin leapt back, and the dragon came out through the mouth of the cave. It looked almost exactly as it had been in his dreams. It was huge, but somehow Devin knew that it wasn’t yet full grown. It towered over him, wings folded against its back, blue scales flickering with iridescent rainbow colors. The dragon was large enough that Devin half suspected it wouldn’t be able to free itself from the cave, its body scraping against the side as it pulled itself clear. Devin heard the crack of shifting rock, and several rocks tumbled down around the dragon as it exited the cave.
More than that, it was growing larger. With every second that Devin watched, it seemed to be growing, and Devin’s eyes shifted, letting him see the clouds of light and power flowing into it. He didn’t know much about magic yet, but he knew that was what was fueling the growth of the dragon, making it bigger, turning it into something impossibly huge.
He could only stare at it as it towered over him, rearing up on its hind legs, with its wings stretching out, bat-like, in the sun. Its neck stretched up sinuously into the sky, and then came down, so that its head wove in front of Devin like a snake’s before its prey. Its mouth opened wide, revealing teeth that would be able to bite through him without any effort at all, while its hind claws left gouges in the dirt as it moved. It roared at him then, in a sound that all but deafened Devin as he stood there.
The dragon stared down at Devin as if trying to work out exactly what he was. Huge, reptilian eyes stared down at him, flicking back and forth. A snakelike tongue flickered out as if tasting the air around Devin, then scraped across his skin. The dragon blinked, as if not quite understanding, then paused, as if listening to something that only it could hear.
It roared again, and those great wings beat at the air, producing a rush of wind that almost knocked Devin from his feet. He had to brace to keep standing as the dragon’s wings beat again in great swings of leathery flesh. The first couple of wing beats seemed to be as if the creature were testing what it could do, but the next ones were more serious.
Devin saw the dragon’s muscles bunch, and then it leapt into the air, taking off and soaring above the trees.
Devin stared after it, trying to make sense of it. He didn’t know where the dragon had come from, or what it signified, but right here, right now, that wasn’t what mattered.
What mattered was where it was going.
That he, Devin, had a role to play in whatever happened next.
That, somehow, he had unleashed it.
