Page 15 of Among the Burning Flowers (The Roots of Chaos #3)

CáRSCARO

DRACONIC KINGDOM OF YSCALIN

CE 1005

Another year of smoke and brimstone. Little by little, the people of Cárscaro were losing their faith. The wyverns’ eyes were too sharp, the Great Yscali Plain too wide. Gulthaga had chosen its outpost all too well.

In the city, things had taken a turn for the worst. Over time, Draconic monsters – the dreaded sleepers, now woken – had started to arrive. Now there were not just wyverns, but other vile beasts, stalking the streets in search of prey. Unlike the wyverns, they fed on flesh.

The city guard was still trying to keep the peace, but it was a fruitless endeavour. Anyone could be snatched up and carried to the crack in the mountain, never to be seen again. Without the sanctarians to guide them, and with all of their nobles serving the wyrm, some Cárscari had lost their fear of the Knight of Justice. Cutpurses and robbers prowled by the light of the Tundana. More than one person had been killed for sport. Clearly there were some who had been waiting for the Saint to fall, so they might indulge their vices. Worse still, several cases of the Draconic plague had been reported. The sick had been sealed in their homes.

tried her utmost to keep despair at bay, even after learning the truth about her father – even after telling Priessa, who had not yet found out if her own father had been complicit. Every plan to resist had failed, but they had started to sew gloves and handkerchiefs for the people, to be handed out in secret, with parcels of food and notes to bolster their spirits.

Within the walls of the Palace of Salvation, some of the Vardya had submitted to Draconic rule. They scoured the halls for any hint of rebellion, perhaps out of fear that Fyredel would burn the city if defiance thrived. But Ermendo, ever loyal, had ensured that some obeyed . She had sent two of them to scale Mount Fruma, to see if there was a way to drop gunpowder on Fyredel, to no avail. The Fell Door seemed to be the only way into his lair.

Hope was now a dying lamp, and hers only had a little more oil.

It almost went out on the anniversary, two years to the day since Cárscaro fell. She was gazing out of the window, hoping for the sight of a dove, when Ermendo entered her apartments.

‘I have a message from His Majesty,’ he said, his gaze low. ‘Fyredel wishes to see you.’

slowly looked at him. In two years, Fyredel had never once acknowledged her.

Priessa rose. ‘Fyredel has the king as his puppet. Why would he ask for ?’

‘I wish I knew, my lady.’

The number of people who had survived a close encounter with a High Western was very small. knew of only three. One was Glorian Shieldheart, the second was Gastaldo Yelarigas, and the third was her father.

‘I see.’ stood, her voice distant even to her own ears. ‘I had better get ready, then.’

‘No.’ Priessa grasped her arm. ‘, we can hide you.’

‘Fyredel will burn us all if we do not submit.’ smoothed her bodice. ‘I doubt that he will kill me. What purpose would that serve?’

Priessa was turning pale. After a moment, her resolve seemed to stiffen.

‘Fyredel will likely breathe the plague,’ she said. ‘If you must go, then let us armour you.’

****

It took some time. donned twice as many layers as usual, with a veil of the sort that mourners favoured. She would have worn a plague mask, but she imagined that Fyredel might want to see her face, her royal eyes. The veil was more a prayer than any real protection.

Ermendo lent her a breastplate, which she covered with a cloak, in case the wyrm perceived her armour as a threat. Last came a gold circlet forged by Oderica. When Priessa placed it over her veil, she felt as if she, like her ancestor, could survive being folded into the mountain.

The Palace of Salvation looked different. It had been discovered that the bile of Draconic creatures could be made into candles and torches, which burned for days with hot red flames, drawing the air even closer. Her father insisted upon their use. He had also forced a stoneworker to carve grotesques of Draconic beasts around the main doors of the palace, and commanded his court to refer to him as the Flesh King of Yscalin, servant to the Iron King.

Cárscaro had turned into the Womb of Fire. The realm of damnation, the cradle of iniquity. If any newcomer looked upon it now, they would believe its people loved their overlords.

And could do nothing but watch.

She descended the Grand Stair with her guards, bathed in a crimson glow. Despite the peril, she felt no fear. Perhaps the threat was simply too great to work its way inside her.

A coach waited outside the palace. When saw what drew it, she stepped back. Two monstrous beasts observed her with glowing eyes. From their furred lupine heads, these were jaculi – a melding of wyvern and wolf, each about the size of a carthorse.

They would ensure she heeded the summons.

‘Saint.’ Ermendo kept one hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Let me go first, Your Radiance.’

He approached gingerly and opened the door. The jaculi growled, but allowed them both to board.

The Cárscari watched the coach emerge. Their silence was unnerving in a city of forty thousand souls, but one wrong sound could draw fatal attention. wished she could make the sign of the sword, showing herself to be true to the Saint. Instead, she avoided their eyes, grateful for the veil.

They must think she was on her way to die.

Perhaps she was.

The coach jolted and rattled so badly her teeth clashed. The jaculi were swift, but clearly had no care for their passengers’ comfort, nor for the safety of those around them. More than one person had to run out of their way. They loped between the guildhalls and grand basalt mansions and banking houses around the Palace of Salvation. When spotted a pair of red wings painted on a door, she pointed them out to Ermendo.

‘What does that symbol mean?’

‘The plague is in the house,’ Ermendo said. ‘Any afflicted families board themselves inside.’

closed her eyes after that. So tense was her body, she felt sore by the time she dared to look outside again. The coach had passed the merchants’ rowhouses and crossed the Tundana twice. Now they were among the tenements that most Cárscari lived in.

They reached the eastern outskirts of Cárscaro, where the stonecutters dwelled. This was where the rockslide had ended, the night of the fall. Several cottages were almost buried in rubble.

‘I was born here,’ Ermendo said. looked at him. ‘Most of the survivors have left this quarter, since no one wishes to live near the Fell Door. They’ve all moved closer to the cliffside.’

‘What of your family?’

‘My parents died many years ago, and I thank the Saint for it. I need not fear for them.’

At the foot of a slope, when the wheels could roll no farther, got out, her veil fluttering in the wind from the Spindles. For the first time in years, she could see the Palace of Salvation from a distance. The dark and sombre tower, illuminated by the sinister red of the Tundana.

Her riding boots slewed on loose fragments of rock. Ermendo steadied her as she began to slip. ‘I must go alone. Fyredel did not summon you,’ she said to him. ‘Will you wait for me?’

‘As long as it takes.’

He offered her a lantern from the coach. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I read in a bestiary that fire can become … unpredictable in Draconic lairs. I trust there will be a safe path.’

‘Very well.’

Above loomed the Fell Door, dwarfing her. Relying on the full moon for light, she clambered up the wooden ramp that had been constructed, each step hard on her feet, even with boots. She was used to the smooth floors of the palace.

At last, she stepped into the cave. The cave from which many Cárscari had never returned.

Fyredel must have set humans to work in here. There were pickaxes and ladders around the entrance, as if someone had been trying to widen it. Not only that, but iron braziers and torches blazed, lit with red fire. Out of their reach, it was black as pitch. She nerved herself and stepped forward.

A hiss stopped her in her tracks. A grey beast emerged from the nearest shadows, its forked tongue lashing out. A culebreya – a winged serpent, like the amphiptere, with a hood like a cobra. They were believed to have come from Afelayanda Forest, hence the Yscali name.

managed to keep still. The culebreya retreated a short way, eyes aglow with hatred, before it moved its head into the light again. This time, its hiss was louder, scraping down her spine. When it repeated this swaying motion a third time, she realised that it wanted her to follow it. Praying her instinct was right, she placed herself at the mercy of a monster.

When she came near, the culebreya did not strike. Instead, it turned and slithered into a tunnel. shadowed it, keeping a safe distance. It was hard to keep her veil on, such was the overpowering heat. She could already see another brazier, but when they reached it, she wished for darkness, for the ground was strewn with bones. She had almost convinced herself they were animal until she noticed a human skull, bloody and missing its jaw.

began to shake uncontrollably. She had known the creatures fed on flesh. Bartian had guessed the fate that must have met the Cárscari who came here, but she had denied it to preserve her sanity. Surely not all of them, she reasoned with herself. They would not eat their own labourers. She forced herself to walk after the culebreya. Please, let some of them have lived.

Now she could hear a hammering. It distracted her and she misplaced her boot, stepping on something that caused her foot to roll. When she instinctively looked down, she saw the mound of bones she had disturbed, and then a human arm on the ground, still fresh, torn off at the elbow. She pressed her lips together, sweat trickling down her face.

A hot roar of light drew her attention back to the hammering. In a vast cave to her left, two wyverns lay alongside each other, surrounded by humans.

glanced at the culebreya, which had stopped to lick the blood from a skull. While it was distracted, she squinted into the cave again. Several of the humans were climbing on a wyvern, cloths over their faces. As watched, two women lowered a sheet of metal over a deep hole in its hide.

Her heart was beating harder than it ever had. The Cárscari were mending the wyverns’ injuries from the Grief. Taking away those few hard-won weak points in their armour.

She tore her gaze away and looked across the rest of the cavern, straining to see through a haze of dust and smoke. A burly man was using hot water and a stiff broom to clean the filth off a basilisk, while another scrubbed rust from its patches of iron armour. It hissed at them both, but seemed to endure their ministrations. The sight of that great serpent chilled . If its venom touched either of those men, they would disintegrate, like Rosarian.

Even farther away, a group of Cárscari were chipping at the wall. The Fell Door was large enough for wyverns and Draconic creatures. These people could only be excavating more beasts.

The culebreya snapped at her. flinched and went after it, hot tears on her cheeks.

Her people were being forced to act as agents of their own destruction. To make worthless the sacrifices of their ancestors.

At last, her guide brought her to another cavern, where a hot wind made her veil flutter. A faint glow – lava, flowing somewhere nearby – lit its walls. She walked to the end of a long spear of rock, reaching the edge of a pit that seemed bottomless. The culebreya let out a harsh sound, which echoed through the darkness.

For a long time, could only shiver at the precipice. At last, she heard movement. A low rumble, followed by earth-shaking thuds, shards of rock skittering.

It took some time for her eyes to tell rock from scale, and to pick out the face of the wyrm.

The face of Fyredel.

A thousand stories could not have prepared her for a High Western. Even after reading eyewitness accounts, she had never imagined that he could be so immense, nor to look exactly as volcanic as he was. His scales were obsidian, though his throat was reddish, as if stained with blood. She could not even see all of him, but what little she did see dwarfed her.

The wyrm that had almost destroyed humankind. An abomination of the highest order.

If this was only an underling, she could not imagine the Nameless One.

Did Fruma look this way to Oderica?

His fiery gaze was nailed to her. A wonder that he could even see a small human. sank to her knees, unsure if she had done it on purpose, or if her joints had failed her.

‘Who comes?’

His voice was so deep, it took her a moment to realise he was speaking Inysh.

‘ Vetalda, Princess of Yscalin,’ she replied, her voice shaking. ‘You summoned me.’

‘You are the whelp of the Flesh King.’

‘Yes.’

forced herself to look up again. She had to take the measure of the enemy. There were dents and scores in his black hide, but no missing scales, no obvious vulnerabilities. All wyrms had a weak spot under the wing – their hides were thin and supple there, allowing them to fly – but she doubted even a javelin, even there, could pierce a High Western.

‘The fire burns through his body, though he does not perish yet.’ Fyredel spoke Inysh with a strange inflection, forcing her to concentrate to understand him. ‘Whenever he is too weak to rise, you will hearken to my commands in his stead. I will send them through the seneschal.’

The title had not existed for a long time, but the seneschal could only be Lord Gastaldo.

‘Yes, my liege,’ said, addressing him in an archaic manner. ‘We are ready to serve.’

She loathed how meek and docile she sounded. If only she had the mettle to defy him, like the heroes of the Grief, but forty thousand lives hung in the balance. How could she risk them?

‘There is a woman in your dungeons. Red her cloak and sharp her blade,’ the wyrm said. ‘In agony and fear she must die. The Flesh King will bear witness, so I might know the deed is done, hear the screams that mark her end. She must hang alive upon your gate of stone by dawn.’

He wanted this woman to be pecked and cut to death.

‘It will be done,’ said. ‘Wh-who is this woman?’

Fyredel did not answer her question, but his gaze scorched into hers through her veil, like a brand. It took all her will to keep her eyes open, in case that was the way he seized a mind. She had lived for years as a figurine, to be moved as her father wished; she did not want to die as a puppet.

‘Why do you do this?’ she said. ‘Why do you wreak such violence upon humankind?’

She did not know what possessed her to ask such a thing. Perhaps because she was one of the few who had ever come this close to a wyrm. Perhaps because Fyredel seemed, unexpectedly, to be listening.

‘You doomed your own earth,’ he said.

‘How?’

When Fyredel was silent, forced herself to rise, even though her knees shook. A low growl resonated through the chamber.

‘Majesty, I beseech you, give us your counsel,’ she implored the High Western. ‘Our ancestors slew your siblings. I know this. I see the scars upon your armour. But we fought you because you attacked first, because you did not tell us what you sought. If we have offended you, I am sure we can atone, but how can we put right a wrong we do not understand?’

Fyredel considered her. His eyes were like two great braziers beneath a pair of formidable horns.

And then did something that she knew was not only very foolish, but would surely enrage the Saint, who had risked his life to slay one of these creatures. She thought of her people in the other cavern, permitted to climb on the wyverns.

Before she could doubt her decision, she drew her pendant from her bodice and slowly held it up, showing it to the wyrm. Fyredel turned quite still, and she prayed that he could see a sliver of his own reflection, little though her mirror was. Perhaps he would be like the bird Denarva had brought from the Ersyr, unable to recognise its own image, courting itself in the looking glass. Even if he was too large to see himself, she hoped his curiosity would buy her time to speak.

She took a step towards the wyrm. Fyredel remained motionless. Slowly, she reached out her left hand, safe in its thick riding glove, and grazed her fingertips against his snout.

And Fyredel, the enemy of humankind, did not strike her down.

See yourself in others. She trembled violently as she felt his terrible heat through her glove, strong enough that it would surely make short work of the leather. Every breath moved through him like a slow rockslide. Show them the same grace …

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Tell me your purpose. Tell me how I can stop this.’

Another ominous rumble filled the room. She knew he was considering whether or not to kill her.

‘Broken are the roots of chaos. Thrice cleaved,’ Fyredel said, ‘and never knit.’ He bared his teeth, which gleamed like iron swords. She made out her own dim reflection in their polished surface. ‘The fire beneath must rage above. All must burn, from shore to shore.’

tried to parse the words through the dizzying fog of her fear.

‘Then you do mean to destroy Yscalin,’ she said. ‘Why do you stoop to this puppetry?’

Fyredel snarled at her. She fell hard on the ground before him. Still clutching the pendant, she stared into his mouth – at the second and third rows of teeth, and his forked tongue, dark as blood.

And there it was. The crimson light at the back of his throat, an ember from the Womb of Fire. It was hot and bright enough to cast a glow on her body, and to coat her face in sweat again.

‘Forgive my insolence. I misspoke,’ she stammered, ‘but please, take no more of my people.’

‘You do not command the fire,’ Fyredel told her. ‘Go back to the Flesh King, and when he can no longer stand, don my aspect in his stead. Let them know whose decree resounds from the mountain.’

With a heavy clang, something fell at her side. picked it up with clumsy hands. Even through her gloves, she felt its warmth.

A helm of cast iron, shaped like the head of a wyrm.

****

She carried the helm with her from the cave. When she reached the Palace of Salvation, Priessa was there to wrap her in a mantle and embrace her. tried to still her shaking as Ermendo took the dreadful helm out of her sight.

‘Your Radiance.’ Lord Gastaldo appeared to her right. ‘Are you injured?’

‘No, my lord.’ kept her left hand clenched against her breast. ‘I am only shaken.’

She had thrown her glove into the Tundana. The evidence of her folly.

‘I am relieved to hear it,’ Lord Gastaldo said. ‘Please, come to my study.’

‘I must bathe first. Saint knows what Draconic filth I have brought.’

‘Do not fear. The floor is cleaned with vinegar.’

followed him up the many steps to his study, torn between nerves and curiosity. Lord Gastaldo had always been a broad man, but in the weeks since she had last seen him, his face had turned gaunt.

In his study, took a seat, keeping her veil in place. Lord Gastaldo opened a window, while Priessa stood beside the door.

‘Donmata,’ Lord Gastaldo said, ‘what did the wyrm say to you?’

‘He said I must take over when my father can no longer stand.’

Priessa made a faint sound. Lord Gastaldo glanced at his daughter, his lips pressed into a line.

‘Your Radiance,’ he said to , ‘I know you must resent me for keeping you away from the Privy Council, as your father always has, but I did it only to conceal you from Fyredel. I have tried my best to stop His Majesty visiting you when the wyrm looks through him.’

‘The wyrm does look through him, then?’

‘I have no doubt of it. I have stayed close to him in the hope that Fyredel would perceive me as his natural replacement. Until today, I believed I was succeeding.’

was momentarily speechless.

‘You meant for him to sow the plague in you next?’ she asked him. ‘You would sacrifice your own life to his evil?’

‘Better me than our Donmata.’

He was serious. She could see it in his eyes.

‘You may know that Fyredel called me into the mountain some time ago,’ he said. ‘During our meeting, he made clear that he knew I was not a Vetalda. Perhaps it is a scent. He knows enough of our laws to understand that the throne must pass to someone of the same blood.’

‘What was the purpose of the meeting?’

‘He wanted to know why His Majesty was sleeping more often. I explained that he was unwell. The plague has been afflicting him with fevers, which leave him too weak to rise, even when Fyredel compels him to do so. The Royal Physician has also given him dwale, which keeps him in a deep stupor for hours. That must be why the wyrm called you today. He wanted to see who is next in line. To make sure they are young and strong enough to bear his fire.’

‘What cares a wyrm for the petty laws of humankind?’

‘I suspect that he wants to use Vetalda authority to make this invasion appear legitimate.’

‘How long do you think I have?’

asked the question in a detached manner, as if it were of no more import than the weather.

‘The Royal Physician is working around the clock to keep your father alive. The longer he endures, the longer you are safe,’ Lord Gastaldo said. ‘His deterioration appears inevitable, but so far, it is mercifully slow. He can still walk. So long as he does not refuse food or water, he should not die.’

‘How much of his mind remains?’

‘It is difficult to say. When his eyes are unlit, I think that he is both himself and Fyredel – as if the wyrm is asleep, but their memories blur. He dreams of things he has not seen.’ He rubbed between his dark eyebrows. ‘Stay away from him, Donmata. Let us hope that Fyredel will forget you are there.’

thought of asking him if he had known about Queen Rosarian. If he was the one who had taught the cypher to King Sigoso.

In the end, she decided that she would prefer not to know.

‘I must go,’ Lord Gastaldo said. ‘Your father has called a meeting of the Privy Council.’

‘Are you trying to stop this, Lord Gastaldo?’ asked him. ‘Are you trying to free our people?’

‘I am. But in my opinion, there is … not a great deal to be done, Your Radiance. Not without condemning all of Cárscaro.’

‘Then I suppose we have nothing further to discuss. Goodnight, my lord.’

‘Goodnight, Your Radiance.’

****

In the relative safety of her apartments, Priessa helped remove her reeking layers, which the laundress meant to burn. For once, wanted the bath as hot as she could bear it. Once she was in, Priessa scrubbed her scalp and used the last of the rosewater to banish the smell of wyrm.

‘Did you know of this?’ asked her. ‘Did you know that your father was shielding me?’

‘I guessed.’ She wore a mask of indifference, but could see the conflict behind it. ‘I cannot stop wondering if he knew about Queen Rosarian. My father is not perfect – he can be unfeeling and vainglorious; perhaps he is even cruel – but I believe that he is loyal to your dynasty. So is my mother. All of us would give our lives without question.’

‘As I would give mine for you.’

Priessa poured clean water, rinsing the suds away. ‘Was Fyredel as ghastly as they say?’

looked down at her left hand.

‘Like nothing you can imagine,’ she murmured. ‘He is so much larger than the wyverns, but I think that is why he has not yet emerged. It will take him longer to regain enough strength to fly.’

‘But he does have his flame?’

‘Yes.’

Hot enough to make her sweat, even before he breathed.

‘We should try to slay him while he is grounded, to spare the world another Grief.’ Priessa reached for a cloth and soap. ‘As soon as he takes to the sky, all of humankind is doomed.’

‘None of our weapons could get near, except when he is slumbering. Even then, scores of his creatures stand guard. It would be death to attempt it. Perhaps if we could pack his lair with gunpowder, but even then … I doubt it would kill him.’ closed her eyes as Priessa washed the grime from her face. ‘Do you know if there are any new prisoners in the dungeons?’

‘Only the Duchess of Ortégardes and Sir Robrecht Teldan, to my knowledge.’

They had both confessed to imagining the death of the king. Even in his changed state, her father did not forgive acts of treason. There had been other prisoners, but they had already been killed.

‘Fyredel has told me there is someone else down there,’ said. ‘She is to be hung upon the Gate of Niunda by dawn.’ Her temples were pounding. ‘Do you know how long the Privy Council will be in session?’

‘An hour or two, I should think. His Majesty wishes to share more of his plans for this Draconic kingdom.’

‘Then I must go now, to visit this prisoner.’ rose. ‘Do not wait for me, Priessa.’

****