Page 100 of Gate of Chaos


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“Lemuel, Petrarchyan knows by now whatnotto tell me,” Mayriel said, her skin brightening with diamond. “And donotattempt to pry intomyskull, Cloud Wyrm. My equations still balance. I will inform the Seat if they stop.”

She followed Hekon down the steps, leaving her consort behind.

Lemuel gave Petrarchyan a thundercloud-esque look.

“We have other concerns right now.” Petrarchyan’s voice smoothed the words over us, conveying his boredom with this development, confessions of who knew what when not withstanding. “Although I will remember should Mayriel and I have another pup, we’ll be obliged to alert the Seat as soon as they molt with what their Affinity is.”

Burn.

He headed after Mayriel, his green/blue tumble of hair perfectly matched to his formal shendyt, which had been dyed a matching gradient and trimmed with gold fringe.

“I willneverget tired of watching Wyrms burn each other,” I whispered to Dekka.

Auryn took the silent cue to help Dekka to her feet. Dekka was a bloody mess, and she stumbled as she stood.

“Slowly,” Auryn said. “Mahon, we’ll take her back.”

“Dekka,why?” I whispered as Mahon shifted forms. “He could have killed you!”

“Dekka,” Lemuel said.

Dekka turned towards him.

“I know when I’ve been outmaneuvered and played.” The old Wyrm leaned forward on his knees. “I will not forget this.”

Dekka pulled her lips over her bloody teeth in a macabre grin. “You and I will be dead from old age before you ever figure out how to make good on that threat. As the humans would say: let it burn.”

Twenty-Nine

“She’ll be fine,” Auryn said as he soaped blood off his arms.

“Are you sure?” I circled about.

“I’ve treated Lemuel-inflicted injuries before. He can sense lies and deception. But it’s a very unpleasant process when he wants it to be.”

“I never want to see anyone lit up like a lamppost again.” I watched Auryn pick the last bits of Dekka’s blood out from under his fingernails. He was being matter-of-fact about it, but that was his job. Me? I got to be horrified.

The mild-mannered, soft-spoken Lemuel was no one to fuck with.

No Wyrm was, really. The only thing that kept any of them in check was their vague sense of superiority and love of order.

“It’s very unsettling.” Auryn agreed.

Akoni and Keon were already packing for our trip to North. They wanted to get out of West before the Wyrms could change their minds.

My roost-mother had played the entire Seat perfectly. She’d created an excuse for why I’d “know” things, she’d taken the blame for encouraging me to chase hope,andshe’d gotten all her chips back from Hekon, Petrarchyan,andMayriel. She still owed Hekon a favor from way back, but Mayriel had been forced to lie by omission. If she’d admitted she knew about my being a Chaos dragon, then it would have made it seem like she and her consort were a two-for-one deal. Mated Wyrms were supposed to be trusted to act independently of each other.

Next to the word “boss” in the dictionary was a picture of Dekka.

Would be nice if I could teleport us all there. I tried poking around to unlock the teleportation information that might be stored in a box labelledkitchen junk drawerorgrandma’s teacups, but no luck.

Long boat ride and a ride in a pony cart it was, then.

As before,West had found out we were headed out to North, and a bunch of bags had arrived on the dock withcan you take this with you requests. We passed through North itself to drop off the bags and pick up provisions that had been prepared for our extended stay “north of North.”

I gawked at North, which was distinctly different from West. West was a coastal town, with most of the city sprawling along gentle slopes in a soft crescent shape. One side of the bay ended in a cavern, while half the city on the other side butted up against the other side of the cavern, and more areas of the city—like the machine and Jahlim’s gill lab—extended deep underground in the rock itself. A massive arch in the cavern wall provided access to the fields that lay beyond West, and the rest of Lemuria.

North also sat in a massive underground cavern, but unlike West, both sides of the immense cavern had been developed, and while there was clearly a “main” shore and the “other” shore, both were lined with rows of short, square, two and three story buildings in step formation up to the cavern wall. The larger, taller, five and six story roost structures were also there, but while West was mostly the roost structures mingled with shorter buildings, North was the reverse.

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