Chapter 16

CHAPTER16

It had been hours since he’d torn the bracelet from his wrist to… summon Izar, or whatever it was supposed to have done, but still, nothing had happened. Tristan could only assume the spell hadn’t worked, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He’d emptied the wineskins, and he’d wallowed and thrown up, and none of it had helped make things better.

Grief and pain gripped his throat like a vise, taking control of him as it had for so long, yet… He knew what Izar wanted to do to Opal.

He wanted a dragon to take apart, piece by piece, like he had the wyvern.

Maybe Izar would even take Opal’s dragon flesh to eat when he was done.

Tristan had to pause along the path leading deeper into the mountains to vomit again. He couldn’t even think about eating Opal.

But he was a dragon. He’d admitted to murdering people. He needed… He needed to die.

Well, if Izar wouldn’t find him, Tristan would find Izar.

Afterhe found the Drakmord. With the sword in hand, he’d be able to help execute Opal and any other dragons—all of the siblings he’d spoken of with such love and fondness and exasperation, and…

Maybe he wouldn’t look for Izar right away.

Tristan got up and leaned against Feather, taking comfort in her warmth. He took one last look at the waterfall before slowly making his way back to the main path. The compass was leading north, so he’d head north from there.

Izar was sitting on a rock at the side of the path, and Tristan blinked, startling at the sight of him.

“Izar,” Tristan said dumbly by way of greeting. His stomach churned all over again. He pressed his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, trying to stave off the nausea.

“Hello,” Izar answered, adjusting his glasses. “I wondered when you’d finally come this way.” He stared down the slight hill to where the waterfall was. “I didn’t feel like climbing down.”

How close had Izar been? “Have you been tracking us?” Tristan asked, and he might’ve been pissed off if he wasn’t so fucking drunk. Even vomiting up half the wine hadn’t made him feel better.

“No?” Izar got up and dusted his heavy robes. His coat covered most of him. The only pack he wore was small—definitely not large enough to carry all of the wyvern they’d slaughtered. “You broke the bracelet, so I walked over here. When I arrived, you were sitting next to the waterfall. I figured you’d come up here soon, but you did take your time.”

Right. The waterfall wasn’t that far from where they’d murdered the wyvern.

“Sorry,” Tristan said. “I’m a little… on edge.”

“Of course. Where’s your companion?” Izar looked around—even up at the sky—as if trying to find Opal.

“Why didn’t you tell me what he was?” Tristan asked, ignoring the question as he slumped heavily against Feather. Feather nosed against him but didn’t move, lending support to him. “You fucking knew. You could’ve saved us all a lot of time and trouble and just told me.”

Izar gave him a strange expression. “You didn’t have the sword yet. If I’d said anything, the dragon would have attacked us right then and there. I’m a powerful sorcerer, but I didn’t want to chance a dragon without more preparation.”

“I still don’t have the sword, but you’re here anyway,” Tristan said, his voice rough. “I don’t know how far away I am from the fucking thing, either. The compass is…” He wanted to throw it, all of a sudden, to get rid of it and this whole quest and just go home with his tail between his legs. But he couldn’t do that. He had to find the dragon who’d killed Evan and destroy it.

He had to kill all dragons. All they did was kill and lie and deceive and hurt people—

“We can’t be too far. There’s definitely a magical haze here,” Izar said, holding his hand out. “Let me see.”

Tristan wordlessly handed the compass over. It would’ve been useful to know earlier that there might be a way to track distance as well as direction. As it was, it had been Opal who had pointed out where it might be… but Tristan didn’t say that aloud. He didn’t want to talk about Opal at all.

Izar held the compass in his gloved hand and peered at it for a few seconds. He tapped on his glasses, then turned to face the direction the compass was pointing. “Hmm. I can’t be certain, but I would say it’s in… a cave? Hard to tell from here.” He adjusted his glasses again. “I’d need to be clear of the trees to be sure.”

“Then let’s go,” Tristan said, starting in the direction Izar was looking in despite the way his head throbbed and made him feel dizzier by the step. “I’m ready to be done with this quest.”

He was ready to find a town again and get utterly sloshed, to chase away the pain and the grief and the betrayal and the sheer misery he felt.

Izar handed the compass back to him and began walking. “Of course, you’ll still be short a dragon once you reach the sword.”

Tristan was silent for a moment, then he said, “There are at least two in Phassis. One in Kithage. At least…” How many siblings had Opal said he had? Gods, he really was going to throw up again. “Nine more in the surrounding areas. Ten.” He shook his head slightly, instantly regretting it when his head spun. “Dragon-infested kingdoms, all of them.” His words lacked the heat they normally would’ve held, and he reminded himself all over again that Opal had lied to him, betrayed him—had defended dragons and other dangerous creatures over and over again, while Tristan had stupidly ignored all of the signs that Opal was a magical creature himself.

He’d thought Opal was a fucking mage with a necromancer brother, as preposterous as that had been. How had he been such a fucking idiot? Caves, not eating for a month, skeletons at the entrances to their homes…

“More than I expected,” Izar said, breaking into Tristan’s thoughts. “I suppose we could take care of the one in Kithage, although I don’t truly want to go up against the royal guard as well as a dragon.” Izar placed his hand on his necklaces. “And that would add another month at least to the trip. Did your dragon go far? Maybe we can track him down.”

“No, that wouldn’t be ideal,” Tristan said, feeling strangely defensive. “It’s probably miles away by now. I don’t know.” His whole mission to defeat dragons was something he’d based his life around since Evan’s wife had come back maimed and mangled from her own brush with the dragon. She’d refused to tell Tristan where it was, no matter how much he’d wheedled and cajoled and even yelled at her.

No one else needs to die, she’d said. You can’t kill a dragon. It would only eat you too.

He only knew it was in Southern Phassis, and that hardly narrowed it down at all.

Izar made a frustrated sound. “I’d tracked the dragon to a swamp, but he lost the charm I gave him there. After all the trouble he went to buy it… Or maybe he realized it had an extra spell on it.”

“The…” It took Tristan a moment to realize Izar meant Opal.So Izar really had been tracking one of them, at least until that point. “No. There was a demon in the swamp, and the brooch was lost in the fight. He said he didn’t need it anymore.” Tristan hesitated before asking, “What was the spell Op—the dragon bought? Tell me the truth this time.”

Izar kept looking ahead, and he adjusted his glasses again. Finally, he answered, “He originally wanted a love spell. I convinced him to buy the attraction charm instead.”

The words were like a punch to Tristan’s gut. He stumbled to a stop, still feeling drunk despite how much of the wine he’d vomited up. “An attraction… charm?” he echoed, the words feeling strange. “Something that would make someone attracted to him? Even if they didn’t usually… like men?”

“Nothing so powerful. At most, it would compel a person to want to converse with the brooch’s owner.”

Tristan wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed to hear that. Everything would’ve made more sense if it had been because of some charm, if there had been nothing on Tristan’s end that had attracted him to Opal.

Izar let out a small chuckle. “I don’t know why he bothered with a charm, considering how potent dragon fluids are.”

Tristan blinked at him. “What do you mean? Their fluids? Like… their… urine?”

This time, Izar gave him a sly glance, one that made Tristan feel stupid all over again. “I don’t have any personal experience, of course, but the literature on dragons is fairly clear. Whatever their saliva and semen is composed of, it has quite the aphrodisiac effect on humans. Their semen is more potent, but there are tales of kisses alone fanning the flames of lust in a human.”

Semen. Kisses. Fucking kisses.

Tristan couldn’t stop staring at Izar. “What?” He couldn’t possibly be hearing this correctly. There was no way. Besides, he’d liked Opal before they’d ever kissed, hadn’t he?

Though it hadn’t been until after their first kiss that he’d been willing to fall into bed with the man… with the dragon.

Izar stepped onto a rock to avoid a small icy puddle. “I’ve heard of men and women who seek out dragons to fuck them. Like the King of Kithage, I suppose.” The disdain in his voice was very clear. “But no amount of aphrodisiac fluids and double cocks will erase the fact that they are beasts.”

Tristan was going to pass out. Or throw something. Did he even have anything to throw?

For all that he’d been bracing himself against Feather, it wasn’t enough. Dazed, he looked around until he found a large stone to sit on so he could make his head stop spinning. Aphrodisiacs. How had he not realized?

Because he’d been drunk half the time, and he’d assumed the alcohol was to blame.

But he had a hard time thinking of Opal as a mere beast. He was a romantic who chattered on about his extensive family—and gods, Tristan couldn’t believe how fucking stupid he’d been not to realize. Everything had pointed to Opal being something other, and Tristan had just excused his odd behavior.

Over and fucking over again.

“No,” he said, his voice hollow. “It can’t.”

He was going to throw up again.

Izar stopped several paces ahead of him. “Are you coming? Your sword isn’t going to find itself. If we’re to slay any dragon at all, we can’t dally around.” He clutched one of his necklaces, then pointed at the ground. The icy trail steamed and melted away, revealing the muddy path underneath.

Izar looked at the mud, shook his head, and kept walking, like he knew where the compass was pointing toward. The hem of his robe dragged in the mud, ruining the clean fabric.

Tristan got to his feet somehow, though he wasn’t even certain how he’d managed it. He was still so dizzy and nauseated, and the sense of betrayal that raced through him wasn’t something he could easily process.

But there was the sword to contend with. He had to find it. He had to slay the dragon who had killed Evan.

He had to… slay…

Opal.

Strange, that he was near tears at the idea of killing that particular dragon. But what if Opal had lied all along, and he was the one who’d killed Evan and savaged his wife?

Gods.

Even if he could ask Opal, he couldn’t be sure Opal would tell the truth. Opal had lied about so much, and for once Tristan had been utterly open with someone. He was never like that. He never talked to people. They usually accepted his excuses and moved along, but with Opal, he’d shared—and he couldn’t even imagine whether Opal had lied about the things he’d said.

As he followed Izar with unsteady steps, Tristan wished he hadn’t finished off the wine.

But Opal’s sharp words sounded in his ears, too, claiming he’d have been hungover and stumbling in the swamp. Now he couldn’t even say he was hungover. He was still partially drunk, and for the first time, he felt true shame over that fact.

“How far do you think it is?” he asked, just to try to shift his thoughts away from OpalOpalOpal and toward something that might be productive.

Izar stopped to look down the uneven path. Small wisps of vapor wafted from his mouth before he spoke. “It’s hard to judge. We’ll have to go down again, over to where the fog is thickest. Don’t stumble and fall off the cliff, please. I’m not very adept at healing magic.”

“I’ll do my best,” Tristan said. He wondered if Izar could smell the alcohol on him, like Opal probably had.

In the end, the trail wasn’t that difficult to navigate, but the fog made it difficult to see. At some point, the urge to vomit passed, and his steps became more sure, until he was damn near sober—and miserable because of it.

He was so close to completing his quest. He should’ve been overjoyed.

Instead, he felt empty inside.

Izar suddenly veered off their trail, and Tristan almost lost him in the fog. When he caught up to him, Izar had stopped in front of an uneven cliff.

“Here,” Izar said, adjusting his glasses.

“Here?” Tristan looked around, but he saw nothing. He could barely even see his feet for how dense the fog had gotten.

Izar extended his hand out to touch the cliff and started chanting under his breath. Tristan felt the pressure get even heavier, until it felt like the fog was literally pushing down on him.

Then it popped, and a humid warmth brushed over Tristan’s skin.

The fog dissipated, and what had been a cliff wall before was now a very obvious cave entrance.

Tristan blinked. Well, he would’ve wandered around like an idiot, unable to find where the compass pointed—or convinced it was higher up, or lower, or something equally unhelpful.

Opal probably would’ve seen it.

Fuck Opal. Fuck all of that.

“I guess there will be other magical protections, too,” Tristan said, his voice coming out a little flat.

“There’d be no point in hiding a powerful magical artifact if just anybody can bumble in to take it.” Izar took a confident step inside. “You can make sure nothing attacks us from the rear.”

How… useless.

Tristan had spent the past few months working toward finding this sword, and it turned out that he would’ve meandered around until he’d run out of rations and had to turn back anyway.

Fucking magic.

At least he had someone to help him.

It just wasn’t who he wanted at his side.

Nodding despite the self-loathing that clawed at his insides, Tristan tied Feather’s reins to a nearby branch, then moved to follow Izar at a healthy distance. He kept an eye out for threats from behind, but he doubted anything would follow them.

The biggest threat was the fucking cold, and even that had abated within the cave itself.

Izar stopped every so often to say a spell, or to direct Tristan to move aside to avoid a trap. Every obstacle was easily taken care of, and Tristan didn’t have to do a single fucking thing.

They ended up in a room with a glass display case in the center, the sword gleaming inside. Izar approached the display cautiously, tapping his lips absently as he circled it.

“Clever,” Izar murmured. “But no match for me.”

“What’s clever about it?” Tristan asked, wanting to at least be a part of this. He didn’t want to be just…. there. Existing.

A damsel in fucking distress himself.

Izar ignored him and reached inside his cloak and produced a vial of something, which he poured around the case. The liquid bubbled and oozed, and a few seconds later, the glass shattered into itself.

The sword was free.

Izar finally looked at Tristan. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Izar asked, “Well? Aren’t you going to take it?”

“Is it safe now?” Tristan asked, even as he edged closer to the sword. With the way his luck was going lately, it would burn him or magically lift into the air and pierce his heart because he wasn’t pure, or noble, or whatever the fuck a magical sword might want from its bearer.

“It should be. But I’m not exactly well-versed in sword arts, so you’ll have to do the, ah, heavy lifting in that department.” Izar sighed. “It’s a shame you chased off the dragon. We could have killed it right here.”

Tristan, with his hand extended and almost touching the hilt of the sword, froze.

We could have killed it right here.

It.

Not him.

It.

Why was it so hard to think about Opal as a dangerous creature that needed to be killed before it could hurt anyone else when he’d been so… so…

Charming.

Deceptive.

He shook off his thoughts and grabbed the sword, holding it aloft. The balance was good, and it wasn’t too heavy. The hilt had been engraved to resemble scales, with one unnerving glass eye embedded in the pommel. He could feel the magic buzzing through it, though it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. “What else will it do? Besides pierce dragon scales?”

Izar gave him a strange look. “What else do you need it to do? If it can pierce dragon scales, it’ll make quick work of basilisks and wyverns and lamias too. But I doubt it has the capacity to kill a more ethereal foe, like a shade.”

“I just need it for dragons,” Tristan said, staring at the sword. “I’m not planning on going after any other creatures. I…” His voice cracked. “I guess we should find a dragon, then.”

Izar nodded. “Perhaps we can track the one you were with. Do you have anything that belonged to it?”

Him.

No, Tristan almost said, but he remembered he still had some of Opal’s clothing in Feather’s saddle bags.

He had to set his feelings aside. He had to remember that he’d been lured in with a charm, that he’d been drugged with an aphrodisiac, that Opal wasn’t fucking human.

He had to remember that Evan had died because of a monster like Opal.

Tristan took a long breath and answered, “Yes.”