1
ESME
“Lord Dayntha—what?”
I struggle to form a coherent thread of thought as I stare at Nyssa. Rage and confusion lock my jaw while I scan every inch of what appears to be… a guest room. Clean and lavish, but impersonal. Except for the unsettling choice of sheet color: crimson. That echoes of Dayn. But this room feels too small to be his personal bedroom. His ego wouldn’t fit.
Beyond the glassless window, a city of dragons unfolds.
A city of dragons.
“Lord Daynthazar, my lady,” Nyssa says. Her voice is soft. Almost as soft as the shimmers of her skin. “The firstborn of Lord Bemmar of House Draxion, the ruling dynasty of Draethys.”
“Draethys,” I repeat after her, slowly, like I’m daring myself to believe it.
“Our home,” she replies. “Beneath the earth.”
“Beneath the—wait. We’reactuallyunderground? We are… We’re underground,” I ask and answer for myself as I twist back to the window breathlessly, sucking in every detail within view. Shivers run down my spine as I register the sharp stone towers and the massive, domed ceiling that stretches over the realm. The rock pillars that keep it from collapsing over Draethys, spread across the city.
“Draethys,” I say it again. As if that will somehow make it less ludicrous.
“A rather well kept secret.” Nyssa smiles.
“Lord…Daynthazar,” I re-attempt his name as the pieces of this sudden, terrible puzzle rush to fall into place. “Whom I call Dayn.”
“Lord Daynthazar,” she insists.
“Dayn. Thatbastard. He’s dragon royalty?!” The words tear out of me, anger roiling like a dark elixir ready to spill. My blood simmers, hotter than it ever has. I can’t tell if it’s only fury at being abducted by the very dragon I was meant to kill—or if it’s the poison of his blood still burning through me.
Nyssa smiles again, taking a few cautious steps in my direction. I hear the delicate brush of her jade satin dress across the floor. There is something about her that piques my curiosity. Despite the silver hair, she seems young.
Dragon morphology aside, I need to figure out how I claw my way out of this mess. I can’t feel much beyond the dull heat of the city itself—likely due to the dragons who live here, walking furnaces of ancient, deadly flames and hoarders of lost arrogance.
“He is royalty,” Nyssa says. “In fact, the whole of Draethys is now preparing for a celebration of his return. Lord Bemmar doubted he’d ever see his eldest son again.”
“And Lord Bemmar is the ruler here,” I say flatly.
“Yes. He is served by a council of advisors from all of Draethys’s noble houses, including Draxion, which currently holds a majority of the votes,” Nyssa explains.
“Politics lesson aside, how in the hell did you people manage to do this?”
“Do what, my lady?”
I point out the window. “This. All of this. It’s… unbelievable.”
Nyssa sighs, patting down a crease in her dress. “When the dragons withdrew from the surface, they needed a safe haven,” she explains. “A realm of their own. Once they realized that the clearbloods and the darkbloods would never stop coming after us, thedragon lords made use of every single sheet of ancient magical knowledge that they had gathered over the centuries to build this place.”
“And the people above have no idea…” I exhale.
“None whatsoever,” Nyssa says. “We like our privacy, so to speak.”
But something about the way those words roll off her tongue unsettles me on a deeper level. I’m receiving the curated version of their city’s history, and I’m certainly being kept out of the loop where their intentions and agenda are concerned. I was trained in espionage and sabotage—and while I may see the potential of plots in almost any setting, my instinct has never failed me.
“And you’ve been fine, just living here, underground,” I reiterate, carefully analyzing Nyssa’s expression.
“I was born here,” she replies with a delicate shrug, her shoulders capturing more of that pale light that pours through the window. “I’ve never seen the sky. Our elders remember the world above, but we were taught to love and cherish our world here, below. We were told there was no room for us up there.”
For a flicker of a moment, I’m tempted to feel sorry for her—perhaps for all of them. Her kind has suffered over the centuries, much like mine, though they’re not without sin either. Then again, neither are we.
