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“I may need to travel to the Iron Mountains,” I whisper, speaking slowly as the desperate plan takes shape in my head. “Discreetly. Very discreetly.”
Elyon makes a little hmph noise, like this is something he hears all the time. For a moment I wonder what he thinks I’m going to do in the Iron Mountains. Assassinate someone? Steal something?
Well, it doesn’t matter. As long as he doesn’t suspect me of sneaking my very ill mother back into the viper’s nest that is the home of almost all of the dragons in this world, we’re fine. We’re just fine.
“That can be arranged,” Elyon replies.
I nod, then rub my hands together like I’ve just finished something.
“Meet me tomorrow?” I ask. “In the shop?”
Elyon nods silently, but his eyes gleam in the moonlight. It’s as if he’s already picturing my private collection of dwarven-made daggers. We walk together to the end of the wharves, and then he melts into the shadows. I tug my cloak over my head and start the long walk back up to Noble’s Hill, hoping that someday I’ll be able to walk this path without choking on the memory of how it felt to walk it as someone else.
Chapter12
Rayne
I’m dying.
My skin burns in the magical fire, searing off my body as the flames dig deeper, as they rip into my muscles, into my bones. The air is too hot to breathe; my lungs are empty, screaming, filling with smoke. I’m dimly aware of falling, of coming to my hands and knees, and then the room grows tight, the very walls shrinking and then closing in on me like a fist. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, and the room is growing smaller, and my entire world is smoke and flame and agony.
Someone makes a noise as I’m dying, a sharp sort of growl, a rasp like a door hinge that needs oil. It’s an animal noise, a low and threatening sound, and in response, fear cuts through my pain, sharp and cold. I hold my breath.
The noise stops. In its place there’s a rush of wind, the echo of voices. At first I can’t make out the words, only the hiss and thrum of speech, and something deep inside of me that burns in response. I recognize those voices, and I don’t like them. I don’t trust them.
Pain ebbs slowly, leaving something cold and hard in its wake. The growl stops when I stop breathing; it returns when I inhale. Voices swirl around me, gibberish intertwined with words likebroodmareandblood line. Andcurse.
Blood throbs through my aching muscles, as if every beat of my heart were trying to force my body to scream. Trying to prove I’m still alive. My skin feels odd and unfamiliar, almost hard, and I wonder if I’ve been burned so badly it’s left a crust. The rest of me feels bizarrely misshapen, like my body has been folded into something else.
“Well, look at that,” someone drawls near my head. “I think it worked.”
“Fine handiwork indeed,” replies another voice.
Varitan, my mind hisses. The name makes me feel like a snake is coiled around my midsection.
“Your handiwork,” Ensyvir replies.
Ensyvir. Varitan. Memories tumble over themselves as the scratching, whispering voices wind past my head. They sound almost as if they’re below me. But I fell to the floor, collapsing on my hands and knees as fire consumed me.
Fire. That growl rises again, swelling from somewhere near my chest. I’ve been burned before, haven’t I? I’ve been burned a dozen times, from candles to campfires to my own mother’s dragonfire. And I’ve survived.
My eyes slide open as breath hisses out of my nostrils. At first, the jumble of images doesn’t make sense. The room is too small, too far beneath me, and I can see far too much of it. Ensyvir is indeed below me, and he’s staring up at me with an expression that’s almost pride. Something hot and bitter rises in the back of my throat. Varitan shifts away from me, moving quickly, his eyes darting to the door and the staircase beyond. He looks uneasy, like I’m an animal who may attack.
Or maybe it’s not me he’s afraid of. There, on the floor between Varitan and the tower’s exit, lies a claw. Four black claws curl against the stone floor beneath smooth red scales. As I watch, the claws scrape, then relax. Then scrape again.
I hold my breath. The growling stops. Varitan narrows his eyes at me, and again I’m struck by how very small he seems. But he’s taller than me. Kings, he’s taller than Ensyvir. Now, though, I can see the top of the strange scarlet cloth he’s wrapped around his brow. I can see the way his shoulders tremble. And I can smell the fear rising from his narrow frame. I inhale, then step forward. The black claws move across the stone floor, sharp and silent as death.
Of course. I rise, sitting back on my haunches, and stare down at the body beneath me, the body that is me. Glossy crimson scales, black claws, and memories. I’ve seen this body before, the snake-like curve of the abdomen, the four stocky legs.
This is the body of my mother. She gave me her shape and her color, the dragon who died in my arms in the Knife’s Edge Mountains. I close my eyes as the world pulsates at the edges, wobbling and swimming, and the air is thick with scent. Heat, smoke, fear. Old mint. And the low scent, like oil on metal, that belongs to Ensyvir.
There’s a sound rising as well, threading through the layers of dust and terror and triumph. It’s so out of place that it takes me a moment to place it, the sort of barking rasp, like an old hinge on a hidden door.
It’s laughter. I open my eyes and tilt my head to stare at the figures below me. Varitan has edged closer to the door, and he’s holding that little silver spire against his chest as if it were some sort of a weapon. Or as if he’d need a weapon. But Ensyvir—
Ensyvir is laughing. It’s almost a joyful sound, the laughter that’s coming from His Majesty’s Royal Advisor, the man who holds the signet ring for the entire of Valgros. And he’s doing something to his cloak, the black cape that’s almost a part of him. I dip my head closer, then rear back.
Oh, kings. Ensyvir is taking off his clothes.
