“She was a scholar, not a warrior,” I continue, the words tasting like ash. “She believed a treaty was possible, even at the height of the Great Purge. Later on, she slipped out to the surface to meetwith a coven elder under a flag of truce.” I tap the glass case. “They sent back this, and a message. 'No peace with beasts'.”
The lie is a necessary one. The truth is far more complicated, a betrayal that cuts deeper than any darkblood blade, but this version will suffice.
She looks from the scale back to me, her expression unreadable. For a moment, I think I see a crack in her armor. But then her jaw tightens, and the harder glint returns to her eyes.
“Every story has two sides,Daynthazar,” she says, her voice regaining its edge. “I'm sure the archives of Darkbirch tell a very different tale about that day.”
Of course they do. And that is precisely the problem.
I guide her past more displays of shattered weapons and tattered banners, each a testament to a failed negotiation or a bloody victory. I stop before a massive pedestal of black marble, the centerpiece of this section of the Repository.
Mounted upon it is my old battle saddle. It is a monstrous thing of carved ebony and burnished gold, its high cantle shaped like a dragon's skull. Runes of protection and endurance are burned into every surface, and the dozens of leather straps, meant to bind a rider securely to my neck through the most violent aerial maneuvers, hang like sleeping serpents.
“Wait,” she says, her voice steeped with disbelief as she takes in the object. “You were ridden into battle? By whom?”
“On several occasions,” I explain, my gaze fixed on the worn leather, remembering the sting of wind. “During our alliances with one faction or another, some of us allowed their leaders or their finest warriors to ride us. It was more of a political statement, their ability to ride us and our willingness to carry them. A symbol of our friendship, one might say.”
Her eyes, dark and assessing, flick from the saddle to my face. “And who got to ride… you?”
“Helena Salem, mostly. A few others before her.” My gaze drops to the artfully engraved brass plate at the saddle's base. “Their names are etched there, for your curiosity.”
Esme leans forward, her dark hair brushing the cold marble. Iwatch her brow furrow as she scans the list. She doesn't recognize most of the names, I can tell, but I know a couple still stand out beside Helena’s. And they are all Salem ancestors. Her breath catches.
“There's more to your friendship with my family than you told me,” she murmurs, straightening up, her eyes accusing. “You're holding back information.”
“I'm merely keeping my word to your ancestors,” I reply, the statement both true and a deflection. “I made promises. I do not break them lightly.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she demands, her voice rising.
I finally meet her gaze, letting her see a sliver of the truth, a calculated crack in the wall of history I have built around her. “The alliances I made with the Salems sometimes went against the treaties signed between the dragons and the darkbloods,” I say. “Some secrets were meant to be kept for the good of all. Even from their own descendants.” Her face pales slightly, the implications of my words settling like a shroud over the stories she’s been told her entire life.
Her mind is reeling; I can see it in the slight widening of her eyes, the way her lips part as if to ask a question she doesn't know how to form. Before she can regain her footing and press for answers, Nyssa turns our attention elsewhere. She points to a small, unassuming display set apart from the others.
“What is that, my lord?”
It’s a simple object, a silver disc no larger than my palm, round like a belt buckle. Runes I know intimately are etched into its surface, the deep crevices filled with a dark red enamel that looks like dried blood. In the center, the three-headed serpent of the old Salem family crest rests, seemingly inert. The memory of the first time my fingers brushed against it, the cold shock that jolted through me, hits with an almost physical force.
“Dayn,” Esme whispers, her voice barely audible. “What is this?”
“Just a keepsake,” I reply.
“A keepsake?”
“It’s from a belt buckle worn by Arturius Salem, the youngest of the Salem sons who fought in the Blood Wars. It bears no real use or significance,” I lie, a cold knot tightening in my chest. “I convinced my father to preserve it as a museum artifact. To the dragons of old, it serves as a reminder of how far one is willing to go for victory. To the dragons of youth, it’s meant as a warning.”
“A warning of what, my lord?” Nyssa asks, her brow furrowed with earnest curiosity.
“A warning of what will happen if we do not learn from our past mistakes,” I say, my gaze sweeping over both of them, a prince delivering a sermon. “Alliances were what kept the balance in the world above. When alliances broke, blood was shed, lives were lost, and we ended up in Draethys, confined to the bowels of the earth for our survival.”
Esme never takes her eyes off me. Her focus is sharp and piercing. I’m well aware that she has picked up on the subtle tells—the slight stiffness in my shoulders, the way my words are too perfectly measured. She knows I’m not being entirely truthful with regard to the buckle. She keeps her lips pressed in a tight line, a single vein throbbing in the pale skin of her neck, a frantic, tiny pulse I suddenly long to feel against my tongue.
I move to the adjacent display, a deliberate shift of my body to distract attention. “And that’s my personal ceremonial sword,” I say, my voice steady, betraying none of the turmoil her focus on the buckle has stirred. The steel blade rests on a bed of dark velvet, runes of enhancement a silver river down its center. “I used it for the peace treaty signing, among other important occasions.”
“Which peace treaty?” she replies. “No, wait, it doesn’t matter. You probably ended up breaking all of them anyway.”
Nyssa, ever the loyal subject, frowns. “I thought it was the darkbloods who betrayed the dragons at the Battle of Emerald Hill.”
“Emerald Hill?” Esme repeats, her head snapping toward Nyssa. “No. The dragons turned their fire on us instead of the clearbloods.”
