Chapter 18

Kit

Ettienne staggers back, one hand around the arrow shaft protruding from his chest while the other protectively clutches the egg he holds.

Cyril's hand goes to the hilt of his sword. His blue eyes are already crackling with magic.

"I wouldn't do whatever you are considering," the priest says and points his crossbow at the nest of eggs sleeping in the flower bed. He sighs, shaking his head like a disappointed father chastising a group of misguided children. "Trust me when I tell you that I can pierce the shells faster than any magic you might throw takes effect. And truly, I don't even need to do as much." His hand moves at his side and the eggs shudder in undiluted panic that I can feel rippling over my skin.

I put myself in front of the eggs, for all the good I can do.

Ettienne groans. Honestly, I was half expecting him to snap his fingers and make the bolt disappear—because, well, because he is Ettienne. Instead, it's all the king can do to pass his egg safely to Cryril before collapsing against the wall, his breathing heavy.

"Wyrm's bane," the priest gestures causally towards Ettienne's chest. "It's an ingenious potion to tame the dragon's power. The main ingredient is called shackle weed, which is truly an understated name for its magnificence. We've had a strong crop of it this year as you can see."

He motions to a set of blue flowering vines stretching from their beds toward the skylight on the other side of the room. "Its poison drains a dragon's powers and eventually kills its victim, even in small doses. The amount on the bolt was much greater than small. Which is a long winded way of saying that you are already dead, your majesty. Unless of course we come to a new sort of understanding."

"An understanding?" Ettienne's face is white, his breathing hard and shallow. "You have been deceiving my people for centuries."

"The dragons have enslaved and abused mine for far longer." The priest pulls back his hood, revealing his shaved head with constellations tattooed over each inch of exposed skin. "Tell me, do you not force young women believed to be human into fates of death and breeding? Is that not what these trials you so support are about?"

Women believed to be human? I frown at the wording.

The priest smiles, though it doesn't touch his eyes. "The ones qualified for the trials all have remnants of dragon blood in them. The order culls the dames, but the dragons themselves seek out and kill the lesser abominations. It's truly a beautiful setup. Or was, until today."

The look the priest gives me is so full of venom that I take a step back. Cyril secures the egg in a nesting spot, then Cyril comes up beside me. He moves slowly and keeps his hands up where the priest can see them. Cyril has an intense look on his face, the kind he gets when he is thinking.

"Who are you exactly?" Cyril asks, his voice utterly reasonable and collected. Like he is having a normal conversation.

"You know who I am. The High Priest of Orion who you swore to obey. Or did you forget that part?" The priest barks a laugh, which makes his face contort. Beneath the constellation tattoos, his skin is as smooth as a child's, though his eyes have an ancient malice lurking behind the too pale irises. A face that has no age to speak of.

"I remember." I don't know how he is managing to stay so calm, when my heart is racing with panic. The priest can hurt the eggs. Is willing to hurt them. We could never stop him in time. Cyril drapes his hands behind his back and offers the priest a bloody half bow. "Things have changed a great deal since that day for us both. Have they not?"

The priest snorts, but doesn't stop Cyril from talking.

"I imagine there is something you want from us?" Cyril continues. "And that something is not our immediate death."

"You think I care for your life?" the priest scoffs. "Why? Because you are a precious dragon? Or maybe you think I give a rutting horse's ass about royal blood?"

"And yet, there is something you want," Cyril presses. "You have caught us unaware just now, High Priest. You could kill us, yet are choosing not to. You've even alluded to an antidote for my father. That must mean you imagine a mutually beneficial outcome that could still come to pass?"

Tavias! I shout in my mind, making the most of the time Cyril is buying us. If I ever needed to be able to control my power it's now. Tavias, can you hear me? We need help. Tavias!

There is no answer. Not even that singular awareness that I felt when I was breaking the eggs free. My mind speech is as elusive as it's ever been, my magic buried deep and out of reach no matter how desperately I fight to reach it. Useless. I'm bloody useless.

"For centuries the priests of Orion have maintained a balance with the dragons," Cyril continues. "Held us at bay with the Equinox Trials and a false narrative. That ruse has ended. The truth is out beyond the walls of the citadel, and it cannot be contained. You know that. That's why we are still alive. You want to negotiate an alliance."

Tavias! I shout with all my strength. He has to hear me. We've no other option.

"Let us talk," Cyril urges. "Who are you truly? What is it you want?"

The priest offers a mocking bow. "Emric, of course."

"Emric? Named after the dragon of the ancient legend of the citadel?"

"That is how your story goes, isn't it? Do you know the tale?" Emric turns to me, hatred in his gaze. When I fail to move he recenters the crossbow on the largest of the eggs, the one that's shivering and turning all shades of reddish purple, and knocks back the trigger. "Talk, scalewench. What's the tale you've been fed?"

Ettienne makes a pained sound. I think he is trying to sit up and failing.

I yank on the mating bond with all my power.

"Talk," Emric orders me. "Now."

I clear my throat. The fear rushing through me has dried my mouth, making it difficult to speak. "A long time ago, when the dragons' fertility was just starting to wane, Dragon Prince Emric made a deal with the goddess Orion to grant his beloved Illiana a child. The goddess guided Emric to a special place where a rare flower needed to make a fertility elixir grew. Illiana drank the elixir and bore a pup. But in return, she became mortal and died, while Prince Emric was shackled to the sacred ground that grew the flower. He became the first priest of Orion."

I look at Cyril, hoping I got all the parts right. I'm not sure what Emric will do if I don't say what he expects to hear.

Emric chortles. "A beautiful and tragic tale you tell yourselves. Of course you leave out the most vital part. How Illiana's children were never stillborn, but butchered by the dragons. She and Emric were always human. Slaves. As their children were slaves. Playthings for a dragon dame named Roshana. Roshana took a liking to Emric. When he would not leave his Illiana, she became angry. She killed Illiana's babes for sport, tearing them apart before their mother's eyes, tormenting them until Illiana was nothing but a husk. Lost to grief.

"Emric had to do something. So he indeed prayed to Orion. And she heard his prayer, blessing him to find an ancient text. Emric was smart. Very smart. Smarter than all the dragons and humans around him. Still, he spent a decade deciphering the magical runes and maps. He did it in secret, placating Roshana the whole time. Letting his body be used. But he was rewarded. The maps guided him to this place, where rare plants bloomed indeed. Shackle weed. Wyrmwood. Lullying lotus.

"Eventually Emric lured Roshana here alone. And it was here that he unleashed his power. He took Roshana's eggs like she'd taken his children. But instead of destroying the babes, he made her build a womb of wyrmwood here, and bind it with ancient runes painted in her blood. That womb became the heart of Emric's power, as Orion had intended."

"You are that Emric," I whisper, the horror of it finally sinking in.

"I knew that if I spoke slowly enough even you'd catch on. I am indeed that Emric. The one who started the Order of Orion. That part you'd all got right. Do you know what our motto is? Justice for the past, peace for the future. A future where humans have immortality and dragons are but an afterthought that can never hurt our children again."

"That's why you stay here, in the citadel. You can't leave because your power source is here… And dragons come to you for slaughter," I whisper.

"Efficient, is it not? There are so few of us."

Cyril says nothing. Even he's given up on diplomacy.

Bile rises up my throat. "How can you speak of protecting children? You siphon the power of unborn hatchlings to make yourself immortal."

"A brutal start to a great order. But then, no throne is seized without spilled blood. Just ask your king." Emric nods to Ettienne.

Ettienne lifts his face, his eyes bloodshot. "Why would Roshana let Emric go exploring for new lands? Not…" he pants between words, "not the kind of journey you make secretly and return in time for supper." Ettienne tries and fails to sit up straighter. "Plus, five eggs from one dame? Impossible."

Anger flashes in Emric's face. "Roshana was not the last dame on the continent," he snaps at Ettienne. "Not then, and not after. Others have been… convinced… to help. As Kitterny will help." The malice in his eyes grows as Emric weighs me with his gaze and smiles. "I thought you looked familiar, scalewench. But now, I understand. It was your mother who drew the last set of runes for me. She did an exceptional job of it too."

No. No. "My mother would never have helped you."

"Never underestimate what a dame will do to protect her egg. It was fortunate that she carried one, for we'd just lost an egg." He clicks his tongue, his smile widening. The bastard is enjoying this. "You never even knew she was pregnant, did you? Dragons and their lies."

No. No it's not true. It can't be true. But even as I tell myself that, my stomach drops. My mother's song. The magic's pull to bring me here. It isn't a coincidence. It is my mother's doing. Emric might have forced her to draw the runes, but he didn't know she did more than that. My mother infused her love and memories into the marks. She charged them. A last hope that one day, when I was strong enough and had a pack, I would hear the lullaby and come to protect the egg she could not. Tears sting my eyes.

"Yes now you see," Emric tells me.

He has no idea.

"Now it is your turn to serve the goddess Orion," Emric continues.

"Go to hell."

"You've worked out by now that only a dame can build the eggs' womb," Emric continues as if I'd not spoken. "You broke the one prior dames built, and now you shall fix it. It's simple, really. Rebuild what you broke, binding the planks with your blood until all is restored to how it should be."

"I will never?—"

"Tsk, tsk. Let's skip the ‘never'. I've been through this chat a dozen times in the past centuries. It always ends the same." He reaches into his robes and uses a handkerchief to pull out what looks like a pair of wide wooden bracelets, the same color as the crate wood. He tosses them to Cyril.

Cyril catches the bracelets on instinct, then drops them to the floor with a hiss. Pain shoots through the bond between us.

"Put them on," the priest orders.

Cyril growls.

"No? Am I not convincing?" Emric makes that motion with his hand again. The eggs scream. He makes another, and the tattoo on my back blazes with pain that shoots down each nerve. I bite my cheek to keep from screaming, but drop to my knees.

Cyril bears his teeth, murder flashing in his eyes.

"Kill me and she dies by the way," Emric says a heartbeat before Cyril can launch himself at the priest. "I thought that much would be evident."

My back arches. This time, I fail to hold in the scream.

Cyril rushes to me, but I'm convulsing too much for him to hold me safely.

"Intricate magic, that tattoo," Emric continues in a conversational tone, as if I'm not writhing on the floor. "Difficult,fickle magic that only a few in our order can use. And even then only in close quarters. I've been working for years toward a more scalable solution, but alas there is still much to learn. I really should have suspected something when it manifested the way it did on her. Perhaps all this unpleasantness could have been avoided."

"Let her go," Cyril shouts, stepping between Emric and me. As if he can put himself in the middle of the magic the priest uses for my torment.

"Her fate is entirely in your hands. You can put an end to this anytime you wish."

The bracelets. I've no notion what they do, but it cannot be good. "Don't do it," I manage to say through my teeth. "Don't."

"I've been told that when that particular rune is active, it feels like being skinned alive," Emric continues, gesturing to me. The words are becoming harder and harder for me to hear through the agony. "I could let you feel it for yourself, but this is more meaningful, no? I remember the feeling well. I recall every moment of watching helplessly while a dragon shredded the person I loved right in front of me."

My vision flashes. The world spins. When I can focus again, Cyril is reaching for the bracelets.

"No," I beg him. "Don't do it."

"A hard dilemma," Emric says to Cyril and cocks his head to the side, as if watching a curious experiment play out before him. "You don't know what those bracelets do. But you suspect that whatever it is, will likely hurt you. You don't want that. At least she doesn't. But each moment you hesitate, she is the one getting hurt. So who will it be? Hmmmm."

"Me," Cyril pants. "Take me."

Before I can shout for him to stop, he clasps the bracelets around his wrists.