Chapter 25

“Thank you for coming down on such short notice.” The Drake spoke in a deep baritone, his voice oozing with power.

Battle fury began to race through Ursula’s blood, making her body tremble—and yet something about his presence stilled her, willed her to obey his unspoken commands. As if drawn by a magnetic pull, she stepped forward.

The Drake’s eyes glowed with an amber light, and he lifted his hands. “I am Lucius Artorius Castus. The last Drake. Leader of dragons.” His eyes blazed with magic, and they locked right on Ursula. “And I do not remember seeing you before. Or have I?”

His eyes flashed, and her mind clouded. The words kneel before me rang in her mind, and Lucius drew his sword.

Zee elbowed her in the ribs. “Ursula!”

Lucius’s eyes darted to Zee, and as soon as his gaze was off her, Ursula’s mind cleared again. Her body blazing with power, she drew Excalibur, and she could feel her body humming with ancient magic. By the time the Drake turned back to her, she was ready for him.

Snarling, he lunged for her, but she parried his blow. Their swords clashed, echoing off the stone walls, and the Drake’s eyes burned into her. “Do you think you can invade my home?”

Around the hall, sleeping dragons began to stir.

“I command a clan of dragons,” his voice boomed.

“Is that right?” As she fought, Ursula summoned her fire magic, channeling it into the blade. She could feel Zee’s glamour fading, as her body began to glow.

Lucius’s eyes widened, flashing for a moment with fear. “The mystery girl.”

“You can call me Ursula.” Ursula slashed at him with Excalibur, her limbs blazing with a primal surety, as if she knew where each one of her muscles needed to be, each precise stroke of her blade.

“Where did you get that blade?” The Drake slashed at her, but she parried. Emerazel’s fire seared the sword, igniting it with power. Around her ribs, her armor began to materialize, spreading around her torso, then moving down her arms. With this power burning through her body, she wanted blood and vengeance, slaughter and victory. She wanted to feast on stars, to grind monsters into dust. “You mean Excalibur? Viviane gave it to me. Did I mention that I know how to wield it?”

Lucian’s eyes blazed. “That whore.”

As he backed away, Ursula pressed in on him. “Where is Bael?”

“Bael?” Confusion flickered across his features. “Oh, you mean that monstrous demon that was creeping around here? He’s been dealt with.”

From behind her Zee shouted a warning, but it was too late. A dragon’s talon slammed into her side with a loud crack. Ursula flew across the floor, slamming into a stone bench. Pain splintered her body.

“Good girl, Esther,” said the Drake as he crossed to Ursula’s crumpled form, his sword ready.

Ursula moved her legs. The blow should have killed her—and yet, after an initial flash of pain, she felt fine. The magical armor had protected her. Best not to let Lucius know that.

He pointed his sword at her head, a grim expression on his face. “The prophecy cannot be fulfilled. As protector of Mount Acidale, it is my duty to destroy the Darkling.” He lifted his sword for a strike, but as he brought it down, she rolled to the side, and his sword rebounded off the granite.

Ursula crawled to her feet, raising Excalibur, her blade burning brightly, now ten feet of fire.

“I don’t give a shit about your prophecy, and I’m not sure I’m your Darkling. I have no interest in destroying the world.” She slashed at him, not entirely sure if she meant it. “I asked you nicely before. Now tell me where Bael is!” she roared.

Lucius retreated, his face paling. Slowly, a dark form rose behind him, then two more. The dragons stared at her with yellow eyes.

“Kill her!” the Drake screamed.

The closest dragon lunged, fast as a cobra. Ursula leapt back, and the dragon’s jaws snapped the air where she’d been standing.

She brought up Excalibur, channeling more of Emerazel’s fire into the blade until it burned like a super nova.

The dragon lunged again, but this time instead of dodging, she slashed at its head. The beast screamed, rearing back, blood pouring from its neck.

And yet it was hard to think clearly, hard to focus on death and destruction when her mind kept turning back to one thing—those pale gray eyes. “Tell me where Bael is!”

In the chaos, she’d lost track of Lucius. It seemed he’d slipped into the shadows. When another dragon lunged for her, she slashed her blade through its chest, feeling the hot thrill of victory as her sword found its mark. This was what she was meant to do, her destiny. And yet she couldn’t keep her mind off Bael. What had the Drake meant when he’d said Bael had been dealt with? What the fuck did that mean?

When the next dragon lunged for her, Ursula wasn’t quite ready, and the creature caught her in its jaws, violently jerking her into the air. The dragon’s mouth closed over her head, and it shook her from side to side. Her head slammed against the inside of the beast’s mouth like a bell clapper, her bones rattling within her.

The armor protected her from the dragon’s teeth, but the movements rattled her body. For just a moment, the shaking stopped and its slimy tongue brushed over her, pulling and sucking her into its gullet. Gravity shifted and suddenly she was upside down in a narrow fleshy passage, in complete darkness, struggling to breathe.

Panic setin as she clawed at the dragon’s esophageal lining, and she lost her grip on Excalibur. Instantly the magical armor surrounding her disappeared. Around her the dragon’s throat constricted, like the coils of a snake, squeezing the air from her lungs. She squirmed and wriggled, but the clenching motion of the monster’s muscles pushed her downward, toward its stomach. Swallowing hard, Ursula closed her eyes, her heart thundering against her ribs.

Fear claimed her mind. She’d imagined how she might die any number of times. Since Emerazel had conscripted her into service it had become almost an obsession. Usually in these morbid fantasies she was locked in combat with a particularly lethal demon, and she’d missed a parry. The resulting sword thrust severed an artery. Given her profession, bleeding to death was the most logical outcome, and death by magic was a close second. Never in her most disturbing visions had she imagined dying of suffocation and stomach acid inside a dragon’s gut.

Her body pushed through some sort of internal draconic sphincter, and she was able to move again—but this freedom came with a big splash of stomach acid. Ursula screamed, expelling the last of the air from her lungs. She thrashed in the beast’s gut as bile and acid burned her skin, her mind ripping apart with panic, lungs blazing with pain.

She was hardly conscious when her fingers brushed Excalibur’s hilt, but she grabbed it reflexively. The sword seemed to draw the magic from her as if of its own accord, and it cast a glowing light over the folds of the creature’s stomach lining. What had the words on the side of the blade read? Take me up. Her fingers tightened around the leather grip.

Golden light radiated up her arm as magical armor spread over her skin with a rush of power. Once the armor covered her face and head, she found that she could breathe again. As flames began to lick along the blade, the beast’s stomach muscles convulsed. She was thrown back and forth as she slowly brought her free hand to the sword’s grip. As soon as she did, the sword lengthened into a fiery pillar.

Around her, stomach acid hissed and steamed, spraying over the visor of her armor. She was thrown around again as the fire charred the monster’s stomach lining. She pushed the blazing sword forward, burying it in the dragon’s entrails. Then she carved to the side with all her strength.

With a hiss of burning flesh, the sword cut effortlessly through the dragon’s guts. Ursula continued to be tossed violently, but she kept the sword moving until, above her, light pierced through a gap in the lining.

As the gap widened the spasms grew fainter. When the gap was big enough for her to fit through, she slowly climbed to her feet, her body glowing with magic armor.

The dragon lay dead in a pool of blood and bile. She stepped from its steaming carcass onto the stone floor, her eyes focused right on Lucius. A mix of draconic stomach acid and blood hissed along Excalibur’s flaming blade as she leveled it at the Drake and the two remaining dragons who crouched behind him.

She arched an eyebrow. “Which one of you fuckers is next?”

“Impressive,” said the Drake. “No one but the Darkling could have survived that.”

His eyes burned with cold fury, but with Excalibur’s magical armor surrounding her, they seemed to have lost their ability to command her. She needed to block out everything—everything now—but the Drake.

She took another step closer. “Now tell me where my friend Bael is.”

“No.”

It was then that Ursula noticed Zee standing next to him, Lucius’s sword pressed to her throat.

“You will put down that infernal weapon.” His voice was pure ice, and his sword twitched. Zee yelped in pain.

Zee stared at Ursula, her jaw clenched with determination, a few drops of blood stained the steel blade.

Pure, molten fury burned in Ursula. She wanted more than anything to carve Lucius’s skin from his bones, but there was no way she’d be able to do that with Zee as his hostage.

“Drop the sword,” said the Drake.

Slowly, she lowered her blade, dropping it on the stone. Sorrow and regret threatened to crush her chest as she let go. Was this it? As soon as her fingers left the sword’s hilt, her magic armor vanished from her skin in wisps of pearly smoke.

The Drake grinned, kicking away her sword. “That was far too easy. You should really take care not to let your emotional attachments get the better of you. You just lost a battle that you could have won, if only you hadn’t been hampered by human weakness.”

He flicked his sword away from Zee, pointed it at Ursula.

Ursula folded her arms. “Well. You have your Darkling. Let my friends go.”

“I cannot do that.”

Emerazel’s fire licked at her ribs. She might not have the sword, but she still had hellfire in her veins. Fire began to ignite her torso, blazing down her forearms.

The Drake shook his head. “Oh, dear. Without Excalibur you cannot hurt us.” He nodded at one of his dragons, who crossed to her. The monster snatched her up in his hand, claws piercing her ribs. Hellfire erupted from her, but the dragon ignored it. The beast lifted her into the air, then turned and presented her to Lucius.

The Drake stood only a few feet from her now. He’d dropped his own weapon. Now, he leveled Excalibur at her head. “This is a fine weapon. I can see what all the fuss is about.”

Anger ignited. “It’s not meant for you.”

“Is that right?” Lucius sliced the sword sharply through the air. There was no hitch in his stroke. He conducted the blade like it was an extension of his body.

“How—” Ursula started to say, but Lucius interrupted with a disdainful laugh.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?”

A total knob-end?Ursula studied him. There was something familiar about him. Her eyes were drawn to his shock of red hair. Was that it? No, she would have remembered meeting a man with hair that color—that glowing, coppery red. Still there was a niggling sense of familiarity. The color of his hair was almost identical to the red scales of the dragon that had attacked Avalon.

Her eyes must have widened in recognition because Lucius grinned. “Sometimes it’s more convenient to assume a human form.”

He inclined his head and the dragon dropped her on the ground. Lucius kept Excalibur trained on her while the dragon began to transform, its neck shortening and its scales retracting into its skin. A moment later, a man stood in its place. He looked exactly like the guard who had led the gaggle of models down to the Drake’s lair.

“Stop toying with her, Lucius,” said the guard. “She has killed some of our own. She is the Darkling. She must be destroyed.”

Lucius shook his head. “King Midac said we are to bring to her to Acidale alive. Lock her up. We will deliver her in the morning.”

Lucius turned back to the captive, and Ursula could feel the fear ripple through the room. “Now, my beauties. Who would like to be my personal guest this evening?”

Ursula couldn’t see his face, but she was pretty sure his eyes were glowing with that cruel, commanding magic.