Dragon's Treasure, page 15
“Sorry,” I rasp, the words hurting coming out of my surely bruised throat. “What were you saying?”
He stares at me for a long moment before answering. “There are ways to make this easier on yourself. If you fix it, then I can improve your circumstances.”
I don’t reply. I doubt the mirror can even be properly fixed, although I suppose we’ll never know unless I try, because he’s convinced I’m the only person who can touch it.
We both know I’m not going to fix the mirror. And I want to shout it at him, to tell him to go fuck himself. But I bite my tongue, and don’t acknowledge him.
I think it hurts him more than anything I could actually say, so I take some small pride in that.
∞∞∞
I don’t get fed. There’s a cup of water, and I gulp it down greedily before it’s taken away.
The still-glowing embers of the mirror cast an eerie glow around my cell, but at least I’m not left in darkness.
My flames still haven’t returned. I’ve never actually been at risk of being left in the dark before now.
I don’t know why they’re gone. Maybe absorbing dragon fire to do the things I did three times in a matter of days was simply too much. Maybe there was something about Frost’s flames that destroyed my own. Maybe my flames will eventually come back, and I just need to give it time.
Every night I hope that they’ll be back by morning, and every morning I’m disappointed. It’s a soul-deep emptiness, like something critical was removed. I doubt I’d feel any different if someone pulled out my heart and I somehow went on living.
What would I do if it was back tomorrow? Flames aren’t enough to fight a dragon.
But they might be enough to burn a castle. And I doubt that this chain on my neck is enchanted, so my own fire could probably melt it.
And as for fighting a dragon? My flames would never be enough. But I look at the still-burning shards of mirror, and wonder if any of them are particularly sharp.
28. Osir
I storm back into Dalyus’ throne room, daring anyone to get in my way.
People scatter before me, and I don’t stop until I arrive at the base of the throne, looking around for someone to blame. “Who took her?” I demand, my voice low with a barely suppressed threat. I am ready to kill anyone who gets in my way. My whole body vibrates with my pent up and barely checked rage.
“Took who?” The king asks me. He's not looking at me directly, and I realize distantly I ignored all social niceties of re-dressing. I can't be bothered to care.
“My mate,” I snarl, ready to unleash on him. I don’t think he took her, but right now I don’t much care to be discerning with my targets. “Who took my mate?”
“Leana is gone?” Noctere demands, appearing at my side.
“Gone. Someone burned her and took her.”
Dalyus makes an awkward throat clearing noise. “Someone burned her? Osir, I’m sorry, but she’s—”
“She’s not dead,” I snap, because at least I know that much. She’s not dead, because I won’t survive her leaving this world. I’ll follow her within a heartbeat and be glad for it. “She can survive fire.”
“She can,” Noctere confirms. “She’s powerful.” He turns back to me. “Anything else?”
I don’t want to mention the mirror in front of them. I shake my head. “No. She’s…gone. It had to be one of your princes. Just another way to destabilize our kingdom.”
I’m still alive, I remind myself. I’m still alive, so she must still be alive.
Noctere seems to be thinking along the same lines. “You couldn’t have mated her?” He mutters to me. “Given her a better chance?”
“You couldn’t have held the kingdom together as king for one day to give me time to do so?” I snap back. It’s unfair, but I’m not in the mood to be fair.
I want Leana. Here, now. Safe, in my arms. And anyone I have to hurt along the way is irrelevant.
“Roso is already here,” Dalyus says, ignoring our heated words. “He came as soon as we sent out the call. I don’t believe he had anything to do with encroaching on your kingdom, or your mate.”
He gestures broadly as he speaks, and I take in the man he points to. Roso is almost seven feet tall, and burly enough to crush skulls without transforming into his dragon form. But he stands calmly by, watching all of this, and shrugs when I make eye contact with him.
“I have my territory. I have a role in this court. I’m satisfied.” He pauses for a moment. “You told my brother Carus led the incursions?”
“Yes,” I say, voice clipped, not in the mood to debate.
He nods slowly. “Carus has always been…ambitious. Frost too. We’ll see what they say.”
∞∞∞
Roso’s territory is right outside his brother’s keep, but word takes longer to make it to the others. I’m left waiting for three agonizing days, and at every moment I want to fly off.
Noctere stops me each and every time. “Easy,” he murmurs. “Ashar is a big place. You can’t just sniff her out, Osir.”
Trying would be more useful than sitting here.
Roso and Dalyus want to discuss a treaty between our nation and theirs, but I don’t want to discuss peace when I don’t know if there can be peace.
If a single hair is harmed on Leana’s head, I’ll kill whoever is responsible, and damn the consequences. I’ll burn this entire kingdom to ash if that’s what it takes.
Finally, late in the afternoon of the third day, word comes that the youngest prince has arrived.
He strolls in like he owns this castle, and I want to throttle him for his arrogance, for not understanding the gravity of the situation. “Carus is dead,” he announces, not waiting for any greetings.
The air feels heavy and still. “Dead?” Roso checks.
“He was trying to flee. I stopped him,” Frost says. He holds his head high and keeps his gaze even, but I tense.
Liar. Filthy, filthy liar.
Roso growls. “We needed to know how deep his conspiracy goes.”
Dalyus sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “The traitor is dead, Roso. We’ll live with that.”
They squabble amongst themselves for a few minutes, and I look to my nephew. He’s watching the proceedings with a frown.
Good. He can feel it too.
Noctere clears his throat. “Did you investigate his keep?”
Frost barely looks him over. “I was there.”
“Was my uncle’s mate there? Human, dark hair, her name is Leana.”
He doesn’t deign to face us again. “No.”
No, she wasn’t there. I could have already guessed that.
I approach the throne. “We’ll leave you to your business, and we’ll go home to ours,” I say gruffly to Dalyus. “We’ll meet in a week to discuss this treaty further?”
If Dalyus finds my sudden acquiescence to a treaty strange, he doesn’t say anything. He nods absently, but not before I turn to the youngest brother.
Who certainly smells like my mate.
∞∞∞
“Go home,” I tell Noctere, standing around outside Dalyus’ castle.
He raises an eyebrow. “And what will you do?”
“I’ll get my mate back,” I tell him.
“And that’s not a two dragon job?”
I refrain from mentioning that Noctere would not be my first choice for help when it comes to a fight. “Go home. Make sure things are running smoothly. Make a plan for rebuilding those villages. I’ll be there soon.”
He looks at me for a long moment, but he does leave, giving me plenty of time to plan.
By the time the youngest prince leaves and turns into his dragon form—an ice blue dragon, as cold as his heart—all I know is one thing: I am going to get my mate back. I won’t go one more night without her.
29. Leana
As Frost suspected, the mirror shards don’t burn me when I touch them. In fact, it feels a little bit like they’re the pieces of myself that have been missing since I was taken. It’s like their heat supplements my heat, warm and inviting.
I carefully look the pile over, searching out shards big enough for me to grab, with hopefully at least one non-sharp side so I don’t slice my hands open. When I think I identify two pieces, I pick them up.
They crumble to dust in my hands.
But even as it crumbles, I can feel the fire inside me again.
It’s like the burning mirror shards get absorbed into my hands, like the fire transfers from them to back inside me.
I gasp in relief. My fire. Back where it belongs.
The listless, despondent feeling that’s curdled my insides for days fades away, and I smile to myself.
There’s no oracle to tell me how to get out of here. But that’s okay. I’ve begun to figure it out for myself.
When I’m left with a pile of ash and fire thrumming under my skin, I know it’s time to make my escape.
I wish I had a weapon. I’m more than glad to have my fire back, but it won’t scare off a dragon. Then again, few weapons a human could wield would scare off a dragon. I’m more liable to hurt myself than my captors.
I force myself to take a deep breath. I’ll have to do the best I can with what I have.
I wrap my hand around the collar on my neck, and shudder when I think of Osir being chained for an entire century.
The metal breaks under the heat of my hands, and I fling it away, watching the half-melted mess clatter into the pile of ashes from the mirror.
Good riddance. To all of it. To that infernal collar and to that mirror, and all the fighting and death it caused. To this damn castle and this war.
I light the door on fire.
I’ve never tried stepping through fire before. I know it can’t hurt me; I’ve let fire touch every inch of my skin, I’ve stuck my hand in fires, and I’ve faced dragon fire and walked away. But there seems to be a world of difference between knowing this and allowing myself to walk through a wall of fire.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. The point is to escape, and if I don’t do this, it’s all for nothing.
If I don’t do this, then I can say goodbye to the future I saw in the mirror.
I take it at a run, bursting through the flames. When I feel the heat at my back, I open my eyes and turn to look.
The wood door has burnt away, and the fire will spread soon. I decide to help it along, bringing my flames to the surface, letting them burst from my skin. The flames come immediately, naturally, like they were just waiting for me to call them.
They seem more active than I remember. My flames have always responded immediately to my call, but they were under my control, passive to my demands. Now they feel ready to jump right off my skin, like they could flare as bright as the sun at any moment.
I look at my white-hot hand. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s what this castle deserves.
When I walk down the hall, I attempt to touch everything I can.
I was unconscious when they dragged me into this castle, so I have no idea how to escape. I keep walking, keep letting the fire spread, and try not to think about what I’ll do when I get outside.
I’ve never even seen a map of Ashar. I couldn’t begin to guess where in the kingdom I am, or how far it is away from my home. Will I need to walk for weeks?
Then I’ll walk for weeks, I think sternly, and light a heavy, ornamental drape on fire.
At last, I turn a corner and see a heavy door at the end. I pick up speed, determined to make it to freedom.
I have a feeling Osir and I will be spending a lot of time outside in our future. I doubt either of us is going to be particularly enthused about closed rooms.
With conscious effort, I force my flames back beneath my skin. I don’t want to burn the door down, I remind myself. I’m not a monster, and I have no idea who is in this castle. People might need to escape.
I push the heavy door open, wincing at the creak, although I suppose there’s no chance of anyone hearing that over the crackling fire and chaos behind me.
But when I slip outside, I realize with a sinking stomach that being silent didn’t make a single difference. Because my enemy can see me.
“You bitch,” Frost hisses, walking towards me, his eyes promising a slow death.
I step back until I hit the door, and then summon the flames to my skin.
“That won’t work on me,” he growls.
I swallow. I know, but I also know it’s all I have. So I square my shoulders, look him in the eye, and make the flames glow a little brighter.
30. Osir
The glowing skyline is a beacon, and I push myself harder than I likely ever have before. There. She must be there.
I’d had to let the prince get ahead of me, lest he catch on to being followed. Every moment I let him grow smaller in the distance made my heart beat faster. If I let him make it to his home before me, what would he do? Would he hurt Leana?
Would these few minutes be all he needs to kill her?
But then flames illuminate the night, and it calls to me like a siren’s song.
Is she waiting for me? Is she signaling me with the fire, knowing I needed just a sign, a single clue, to find her?
I’m in the northern reaches of Ashar, the region under the control of the youngest brother. There’s little here besides ice, the single castle standing out like a stark figure against the white backdrop.
Or it would, if it wasn’t on fire, with an entire wing already starting to crumble.
A fierce surge of pride rips violently through me. That’s my mate. My Leana, my greatest treasure, who was too scared to ignore royal protocol even in a cell, has now burned down a castle.
She’s a queen of flames, and I will spend every day reminding her of that.
I follow the fire to its brightest point, crashing down into the snow-covered ground to take in the scene.
She’s here. She’s here, at the center of a blaze, here and real and alive.
I want to go to her. I want to be consumed by her flames, even if they hurt.
Dragons don’t fear fire. We revel in it. And I want to revel in her.
But there’s someone else present, someone to ruin our reunion. I turn my attention to him reluctantly, not wanting to take my eyes off of her for a second.
But I have a duty as her mate, to ensure she is safe.
“You dare threaten what’s mine?” I growl, stalking closer. My huge limbs eat up the distance between us. Leana is a bright, burning ball out of the corner of my eye, so much brighter than the crumbling castle.
I snarl. “You dare harm my mate? My treasure?”
He stole her from me. Imprisoned her. No doubt scared her, hurt her in ways I ache to think about. And now I see this.
If she’s burning like this, then he must have tried to burn her. And he no doubt discovered that such a thing is entirely ineffectual, but it’s the fact that he did it. That he was so willing to hurt her.
Leana, who doesn’t hurt others. Who is kind and compassionate, who fed a dragon she truly believed deliberately massacred people like her. Who spoke to me and sat with me, who gave me a chance. Who advocated on behalf of Noctere, who was never kind to her. Who is goodness personified.
He hurt her, and he’s invited his own death by doing so.
I’d hoped Leana would never see me like this, as this creature of violence. I’d hoped she’d consider the dragon form to be a protector, not a killer. I’d hoped I could fight for our kingdom and then bring her home in safety, with her not having to see a single moment of the violence.
But this is not something we can avoid. As the dragon who cornered her begins to transform, I move between the two of them, carefully putting Leana at my back.
“Leana,” I growl. “I need you to run, treasure.”
I hear her scrambling to move out of our way, and then I’m forced to tear my attention from her, focusing entirely on the blue dragon before me.
“You really want that witch?” He asks, and I think if he was still in his human form he’d be smirking at me. “Look what she did.”
I don’t turn to look, but I do feel the heat of the fire at my back. And all it does is bring me pride.
Look at my queen. Look what she can do.
I asked the oracle to show me true power. And that mirror was absolutely right. Leana is the most powerful creature I’ve ever seen.
“My queen will burn down your little castle. And I will bring her home and worship her for it.”
And then I attack.
He holds his ground for a few moments, even managing to rake his claws through my scales. But I have something to fight for.
Leana, ripped away from me, stolen from a place I promised her was safe. Leana, who should be home in our castle, treated like the queen she is, already wearing the treasure I've tucked away in my bag. Leana, who must have been so scared.
I want to make him suffer, but I want to go to my treasure more, so with one final swipe of claws and teeth, I take out his throat and end the threat.
I shift back to my human form, left naked and dripping blood from my hands and mouth. I wish I didn’t have to approach Leana like this, I wish I didn’t have to show her this part of me—
Strong arms wrap around me, and I freeze for a second before lifting Leana off the ground, holding her tight to me as I bury my face in her hair.
My treasure, in my arms once more. My world feels whole again.
I could stay right here forever, but I need to ensure that she’s all right. I pull back, and vaguely register that she’s not burning anymore before I look the rest of her over.
She’s dirty, and I very much doubt it’s all soot from the fire. There are bruises around her neck.
I tilt her head and watch her shiver under my fingers. That’s a reaction I’d very much like to note for later, but right now I force myself to study her bruises.
Not like fingers gripping her. Like a collar, or a chain. Something big and abrasive that rubbed and tugged at her delicate skin.
