Chapter 25

I hurry though the feasting hall, my gaze fixed on the high table. I have to get close to the Lord Protector and his advisors—to learn something, anything about this newest death. I know in my gut whatever I discover will shed light on Merritt’s killing, and that certainty spurs me on.

They’ve all disappeared too quickly to have left by traversing the whole hall and exiting its front doors, though. That means there must be some sort of rear exit to the great hall.

I squint as I plow ahead, encumbered by the decorative chains draping down from my hood but not daring to push them out of the way to see more clearly. I think I see the long robe of Councilor Miriam there—no, there!

She moves past a large column, and I glance around, then pick up a large ceramic jar still half-full of water. What I’m going to do with this jar, I can’t guess, but I stride forward confidently, balancing it on my hip as I angle through the crowds. I mount the steps to the high table and skirt it, rounding the large column—only to see three archways.

“Perfect,” I mutter. I close my eyes and try to calm my mind, Nazar’s words coming back to me in sudden clarity. “The way of the warrior is to blend the body with the spirit and the void.”

My eyes pop open as the sound of metal upon stone grates up from somewhere below, flowing through the third door—at least I think it’s the third. The noise doesn’t repeat. Hefting the large jar, I angle for that door, slipping into a dark corridor that immediately dampens the sound of the feast behind me.

I blink, becoming accustomed to the gloom as I make my way forward. The shadows are broken by first one torch, then another, the pathway leading down a long corridor and then a winding stair.

Each step makes me surer this isn’t the right direction. The Lord Protector would position himself on high, I feel in my bones, not bury himself in the heart of the mountain. Then again, what safer spot could there be for him to seek his councilors’ wisdom than holed up in some cave?

Either way, I’m committed to following the stair until it dead ends. As long as I don’t leave the staircase, I can’t get lost…or so I assure myself.

I trot down more steps, grateful for the occasional torches lit in their sconces. Someone clearly uses this pathway often enough.

The farther I go, however, the faster I move. I need to reach the end of this wrong turn then discover the true path. The path of the warrior.

I grimace. How is Nazar so intimately familiar with that path, anyway, for someone who’s never done battle? The priest’s words had come through clearly to me while I was practicing with Gent, and his instructions resonated once more in my mind while I’d been fighting. Both times, I’d felt their rightness.

I’d insisted to Caleb that Nazar was only a priest, but…well, he must’ve watched warriors train at some point, or…or something. Had he been conscripted into the army of the Exalted Imperium as a young man? He says there are no longer any Divhs in the empire outside of the Protectorate, but I can’t imagine that’s true. As powerful as our Divhs are, surely the Imperial army would have brought some back to defend the emperor, handed down generation to generation until this present day.

But Nazar remains a puzzle. The first time I’d ever seen the priest handle a sword was in the forest clearing after Merritt’s death. At the Tenth House, he’d take long walks in the forest with only his walking stick, but he’d never attacked any animal and certainly no person for as long as I’d known him. How can a man be so skilled in a thing yet never speak of it or seek to practice?

It can’t be that he just had learned about fighting, somewhere in the distant past, part of his role as a priest of the Light. That he was merely a teacher and not one truly skilled. It can’t. Can it?

My mind rushes on in time with my feet, and eventually, the fiery sconces grow farther apart. I find myself hurrying forward to reach the glow of the next one, until finally…there isn’t a next one.

I slow as a wide apron of stone spreads out from the base of the stairs. Here, the space smells cool and damp, and several water jars are lined against the wall, exactly like my own. With the clatter of my feet stilled, however, I can hear the rush of water falling in the distance.

I frown, looking down at my heavy jar. If there’s water falling close by, why would anyone carry more down?

I lean down and settle the jar on the floor next to the wall and wait another few moments while my eyes adjust to the dim light. It’s clear this isn’t the Lord Protector’s private rooms, yet someone has been down here recently. The cobblestones have been swept free of dust, and there are no cobwebs hanging in the space. No creatures at all that I can hear, in fact, and in a sheltered space such as this, there’s always something trying to wedge in.

Eventually, another vat becomes visible in the gloom, a wide, well-like container, also made of stone. I tiptoe up to it as if it’ll bite me. When it doesn’t, I reach out, my fingers skimming over a thin lid of stone. It’s the work of a moment to shove that lid free a bit. Immediately, I’m overcome with the scent of ginseng, bloodroot, and sage, plus the heavier, exotic notes of jasmine. I frown. A healing salve? I reach down and feel the thick paste, scooping up a thick dollop. I know what the water is for now—it’s to thin this muck.

But thin it for whom?

Something shifts in the darkness up ahead, and I freeze. My warrior band heats, and I rub my arm, my gaze pinning on the deeper gloom. It doesn’t seem wise to shout “who’s there?” yet it’s almost impossible not to. Still, I haven’t come down all these stairs for nothing. I want to know what’s in those shadows—need to know.

I peer into the gloom and step forward. With each stride away from the last flickering sconce, the space grows darker, the shadows blending together. I reach my hands out in front of me, my steps short and cautious. In another five paces, my fingers brush against something smooth and metallic before I ever see it. Bars.

I frown. Bars?

Reaching high, I feel where the metal poles have been driven into the ceiling, then I follow the line all the way to the floor. But they’re not meant to hamper an average-sized person’s movement, it appears. Each of the bars is over two handspans distant from its neighbor, but they’re as thick as a man’s leg. In tracing their vertical length, I realize the roof of the cavern has dropped low while the floor has risen up, narrowing the space where I’m standing. I’m on the edge of a precipice. As I peer through the bars, I realize something else.

There is light, after all. It’s so dim as to seem unreal, but it casts a soft blue haze over the space beyond the bars. At once, I’m reminded of Gent’s home plane, but I chase the thought from my mind. In another moment, I realize that the apron of rock extends farther about ten paces. Beyond that, there is a fathomless pool of darkness. Some sort of cave, I think, a great open center in the heart of the mountain.

I slip between the bars and drop to my knees, not trusting myself to walk. Crawling, though, I can manage. I edge toward the dark abyss and know immediately when the overhang above me opens up—the light is distinctly brighter here. I look up, and up still farther, and see it.

An oculus set high above seems slightly less black than the surrounding space. It’s full night now, so there’s nowhere near enough light to see by, but just knowing that light had been here, at one point, and that it would be again, is enough to slow the hammering of my heart.

I inch forward to peer over the edge of the precipice.

An enormous cavern stretches before me, as broad as the tournament field and as deep as the coliseum is tall. Beneath me, down the side of the rocky cliff, something glistens thickly—and the scent is clear. Salve. The salve from that large vat is being poured over the side of this precipice, to coat the rock wall. There must be a reason for that…

A noise, a scrape, and I freeze in place. There’s something down there.

At that moment, a flash of light scores across the oculus, then another. I yelp and stagger back, lunging for the nearest bar, before the sound of explosions peppering the sky registers in my mind. Fireworks . Lord Rihad is setting off fireworks. Bursts of white and red and yellow are illuminating the sky visible through the oculus in quick bursts.

Something shifts again in the cavern over the edge of my rocky cliff, and despite my hammering heart, I creep forward, once more on my hands and knees, until I can barely peek over the lip of the precipice. Another burst of fireworks erupts, and I glance up instinctively.

When I drop my gaze again…I’m staring into an enormous eye.

With a choked-off scream, I flop on my back, but it’s as if my arms and legs can no longer move correctly. I sprawl like a bug, trying to gain purchase as I watch a long, vicious head angle to the side and crane up, stretching toward the oculus. The sound of metal scraping on stone rattles through the cavern, and the head snaps down again, rearing back with a slide of creaking scales to focus on me.

By this time and by mere luck, I’ve managed to scuttle my way back to the bars, and I lurch through them as the creature’s muzzle peels back from tree-trunk teeth to snap at me. The sound makes my ears ring, but I can’t speak, can’t move.

Another burst of fireworks lights up the space beyond, and the head twitches back skyward. I sense more than see the eye focusing on the ceiling, straining toward the distant lights.

Then, in the beam of another soaring stream of fire, that eye fixes on me.

It’s a lizard, I realize. A lizard with wings . A dragon like those in the sandy desert of the south, I think, though a hundred times larger than any of those dragons should be. Its head is deep bluish-black. Its snout is lined with burnished gold, and it has not one pair of eyes but two, angled in a sharp slant, each of them gold with black pupils and more than half my height. Sharp, vicious horns spike up from its temples. The dragon’s neck is thick and sinuous, the better to balance its head, but that’s all I can see of the creature. It doesn’t lift its wings, though I can only imagine how broad its span must reach. Even what I can see of the lizard is achingly beautiful, its predatory profile magnificent in another flash of fireworks, its eyes furious and intelligent. All four of them.

My mind suddenly flares to life again.

“You’re a Divh, ” I whisper. The truth of it is obvious, but I can’t reconcile what my eyes are showing me with what I believe—know—to be truth. “But Divhs don’t stay here, they can’t… they don’t stay here. They go home.”

The dragon simply watches me with two of its massive eyes, head cocked, as if it can understand my words.

Despite the danger, I slip through the bars again, approaching the great cavern on wobbly legs. The creature shuffles back—whether to lure me out or give me space, I don’t know. When I reach the edge of the precipice, another flash of fireworks overhead throws the entire basin into bright light for an extended moment, and I see the great iron shackle holding the enormous dragon in place. The chain is long, and the cavern immense, so the creature could…possibly…fly. It just can’t leave.

Then the light flashes again, and I see something else.

“Your wing ,” I gasp—for I see it now. The right wing of this enormous, majestic dragon looks like it’s been slashed to shreds, its delicate leather torn and scarred. The wing hangs awkwardly from its body, and as I stare, the creature huffs a warning, with a trickle of sulphury smoke streaming up from its muzzle.

A second later, it lunges at me, and I bleat, scrambling backward from the snapping teeth, barely missing being made the creature’s next meal.

“I’m sorry!” I manage, trying to stuff my heart back down my throat. The snap was a warning I know, a warning not to get too close, not to stare too hard.

A warning I’m happy to heed.

And yet… “How is it you’re here?” Unreasoning sorrow touches my voice. The dragon shuffles a few short steps below me, hauling the heavy chain with it, but the chain doesn’t look so sturdy as that. It’s not what’s holding the dragon still. The bird’s damaged wing is doing that. Or…something even worse.

“Who did this to you?” I whisper, and in the darkness, my hiss seems to carry deeper into the cavern. But the creature doesn’t turn again at my voice, doesn’t react to me at all. It’s not bonded to me, like Gent. It’s not my place to know its secrets or its?—

Her.

The thought is so clear in my mind that I fall back again against the stone precipice, trembling like a bug once more. I stare straight up into the far-off oculus, wondering what just happened, if anything just happened. Wondering if I’ve been given the precious right to know a new Divh’s thoughts—a right that’s not possible, like this Divh was not possible, this bold and mighty dragon, lifting its wings below?—

Her wings.

The words cascade through me, blasting every other thought away. And as I stare, I see an image of the dragon in her full glory, soaring toward the sun, her great wings pumping with razor-sharp spikes at the tips, each of them a separate spear, her neck outstretched, her breast as blue as raw sapphires shot through with ebony fire.

The image disappears again. I can sense nothing more from the creature, the Divh, the immense dragon in the cavern below me. I don’t know why she’s here, but something very wrong is happening in the underbelly of the First House for this to be possible. Something wrong and dark. I know so little about the mighty, extraordinary Divhs, but I do know this: you can’t keep them in this world. It’s not their world. They will die if they stay too long…or they should die.

I creep once more to the edge of the stony outcropping, staring down. Though the fireworks still explode overhead, I can no longer see the Divh, can no longer hear the snap of her teeth. I should go, and yet, a sudden aching maw of loneliness opens up within me.

Forgettable, forgotten.

How can I leave her here?

“I’ll come back,” I whisper. “As soon as I am able. I’ll come back, and we can…” I break off, feeling foolish. This creature doesn’t know me, won’t care if I come back. I am as nameless to her as to whomever brings the large jars of salve to coat the rock wall, no doubt to allow her to soothe the pain of her broken wing. She won’t miss me.

But still, I’ll definitely return for her. Somehow.

No Divh should be held captive like this.

There’s no further sound from the cavern below, and at length, I retreat back through the bars. I’ve no intention of picking up my half-filled jar of water and lugging it up the stairs again, but perhaps there’s another one that’s not so heavy. As soon as I can see by the far-off torchlight again, I go to the jars lining the walls. I lift the lid of the nearest one and stop.

The jar is filled with small metallic balls. I pick one up, feeling the weight of it. It’s lead. I half turn. The bars are made of lead as well. Did lead have some sort of effect on the Divh? Is that what her shackles are made of? I think about her face next to mine, staring at me with her huge eyeballs. If I’d lined my pockets with lead, maybe thrown some down to bounce off the sloping rock wall, would she have left me alone completely? If they were sending down servants to ladle the salve over the cliff, that made sense.

But forget about the salve. What do you feed a dragon whose foot is chained to the floor? The very thought is preposterous. Dragons are made to hunt, to fly. Not to eat leavings tossed over a cliff.

How long has she been here?

The other jars are empty, and I realize I can’t leave mine here, not half-full like this. It might be noticed. I also don’t want to dump its contents over the side like so much garbage.

I sigh, suddenly wanting to be free of this place, these bars, the extraordinarily beautiful Divh tied up like a cow in the cavern below. Something is desperately wrong in the First House. Something that has led to the death of the Ninth House warrior…the death of my own brother. And I have a feeling that the truth of it all lies in one of the other two doors off the great hall. Doors I must enter, if I ever want to learn the truth.

Reluctantly, I pick up my heavy jar of water and trudge back up the long staircase.