Page 40 of Court of Embers (Dragonesse #2)
I knelt, unsheathing a dagger from my bracers, and used the tips of my long nails to pluck at his shirt.
“No skin contact,” I murmured, half to myself, half to Myst. With my nails and blade, I sliced the linen like butter, nudging the cloth aside to reveal the expanse of his back and what I’d felt moving under my hands.
My breath caught, stomach churning.
What had been scars…were scars no longer.
“How?” Myst murmured, her voice thick with revulsion. “What terrible new trick is this?”
The silvery circles were now raised welts, each an awful, raw crimson, and…they were…
A tiny, dark tendril crept from one, a glossy black that made my guts turn, and it slithered towards my hand. I dropped his shirt, rising to my feet and backing away.
“He’s infected.” How was my voice so calm while the world was shattering around me? “Myst, get Kirana now.”
“I cannot leave you with him, Serafina—”
“ Now! ” I gritted it out, taking deep breaths to prevent the panic from taking over.
Panic in the midst of a battle loses the war , my mother whispered in my head.
Just me and her in there now. So terribly vast and lonely.
Myst vanished, leaving white-hot cinders of her fury in the air behind her that burned out like stars.
I stared at Rhylan, watching that tendril retract into the welt that had been a scar.
I knew, on gut feeling alone, that whatever it was inside him was inimical to me. To all life.
“I’m sorry, love, but I can’t touch you now,” I whispered, focused on his back. It seemed that the reddened patches were growing as I watched.
I would not let him be put down like Isandoral. I wouldn’t allow it to progress to that point.
However she had done this, however many years ago…I would save him, and make her pay.
By the time Kirana made it to us, I’d laid a sheet on the floor beside him, steadfastly doing my best to ignore the tendrils that slipped from his skin and reached for me. We would need to move his body without touching him.
“What…in all Nine Hells…” she murmured, stepping closer, and it took all of my willpower to stop myself from holding her back. She was the healer, the one with the expertise that would save his life. “Sera, this is…”
“Something of Ustrael’s,” I said coldly, uncaring if I spoke the forbidden name aloud. “Yura did this. I don’t care how, or when, or why, I only care that you save him.”
Kirana reached out, her black-tipped claws hovering over his back. Nothing happened, but when I extended mine, the tiny tendrils crept forth again, one by one, waving like tiny seaweed as I moved my hand. Following me.
“Are they drawn to your body heat, or perhaps they smell blood?” she wondered aloud.
“Kirana. How do we get them out ?”
She looked up at me, gold eyes blazing like fire. Where the black scales ended, her skin had gone pale. “I have no idea. It reminds me of a parasitic infection, and yet, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
I clenched my fists, gazing at my fallen mate.
“We need to get him onto the bed, without touching him.”
It took a long time. We used our claws, careful to allow our skin to touch no part of his flesh. We pulled at his shirt and his pants, limb by limb, dragging him onto the sheet, and when we finally lifted him, we staggered under his weight. Even Kirana, who was blessed with the strength of a Naga.
Panting, we stared at the unconscious dragon on the bed, lying on his back now. He was pale as marble, all hints of golden tan washed from his skin.
I glanced at Kirana, and realized she was as close to the edge of panic as I was.
Deep breaths, and make a plan.
Rhylan couldn’t hear me; the mate bond, and our mind-speech, was utterly muffled, as though it had never existed at all. But it helped to pretend he could hear.
“All right.” I closed my eyes, unable to look at Rhylan, laying there like a corpse, and maintain my composure at the same time.
“We need Cryla. Any information on…on parasites, on how to remove them from the body, will be helpful. I will put Treza to this task as well. Anything he remembers about the Primoris, or Ustrael herself, he is to relay to you with all haste.”
“And you?” Kirana’s tail was lashing wildly, her eyes wide. But, like me, having a plan made it easier for her to stay sane a while longer.
I licked my dry lips, terrified that I’d make the wrong choice. What could I do?
I knew. I knew that she had waited until we felt secure, striking in a manner we’d never anticipated.
“I go to Yura, and I offer her what she wants in exchange for mercy.” I opened my eyes to look at Rhylan, pale and cold, his body now a host for something that stank of the Primoris to true dragons.
Kirana nodded jerkily, and Myst relayed our instructions throughout the eyrie as I helped Kirana set up the sickroom.
I brought in bowls and towels, and set a kettle of heated water atop a brazier of coals.
Kirana fetched a dense leather roll, and when she unfurled it, I saw the gleaming instruments of a healer’s trade: razor-fine scalpels, hooks, and pincers.
Hours later there was a knock at the door, and it opened without either of us speaking. Doric strode in, his eyes terrible as he took in Rhylan, and the two of us holding vigil as Kirana poked and pried at him.
“What did she do?” he snarled, pale blue scales creeping over his face.
“I don’t know, and I plan to find out.” I exhaled slowly. “Is Mykah in the wyvern roost?”
Doric frowned, shrugging one shoulder. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her and I just returned.”
I glanced at him again, really looking this time and stifling another surge of dread. “She didn’t fetch you from the scouting run?”
He shook his head. “No. There were no signs of incursion, so I returned for further orders and heard about…this.”
That coldness was creeping over me again, threatening to drown out my shaky bastion of calm.
I didn’t run, because that would give my panic a door to walk through. But I walked very, very fast, practically leaping up the steps to the eyrie peak, slamming the door open and stepping out into a fading afternoon.
Viros was at the desk, his hands trembling as he wrote.
“Did Mykah file a flight with Alriss?” I demanded.
He nodded, pointing to a recent entry. “Toward Orisien. She didn’t return with Doric, but when does she ever?” Viros met my eyes, his own dark with anxiety. “Is Prince Rhylan—”
“As stable as he could possibly be right now.” I didn’t ask why he didn’t come tell me about Mykah’s absence immediately. I didn’t want to open that door either, the one that led to screaming and a primal rage, as bad as panic for maintaining calm.
Instead I fell silent and breathed in and out. Cryla would come as soon as she received the message; Rhylan would be as safe as he could possibly be in Kirana’s hands for now. Mykah was missing.
I needed scouts. I needed riders, every healer in Akalla if need be.
I opened my mouth to issue instructions to Viros, and the sound of a wyvern’s call split the air, echoing off the mountains. I swung to the windows and peered out, shielding my eyes against the sun.
A wyvern-rider approached, but not the one I hoped for. The wyvern itself was a deep teal, its wings shading to a brilliant scarlet, and the rider had a mane of tightly-braided golden hair.
The wyvern clutched a white flag in its claws, the snow-white banner flapping beneath its belly. A flag of truce.
My stomach twisted as the wyvern came in for a landing, hissing at Viros, but the rider reigned it in. She reached into the front pocket of her leathers, pulling out an envelope.
“A message for Serafina of Silvered Embers,” the rider said crisply, holding it out to me. “No need for a response.”
The wyvern hissed again, its blue eyes blazing wildly, as the rider spurred him on and sent him spiraling back into the sky.
I looked down at the envelope, at the golden wax seal embossed with a setting sun, and knew that opening this message would bring only pain.
But there was only one way forward, and I would be meeting Yura soon enough.
I sliced it open, unfolding the crisp paper. Something light fell out, nearly swept away in the eyrie’s wind as I stooped to grab it.
I held it up, the iciness inside me giving way to steel. The singular lock of tightly-coiled hair, dark brown streaked with mulberry, danced in my fingers.
The single word on the paper, written in Yura’s spidery hand, said: Everael .