Page 43 of Court of Embers (Dragonesse #2)

Chapter

Twenty-Three

“ T he…Daughters.” The fire had burned out, scorching me to ashes and leaving something new behind. The pain had receded. But my tongue felt oddly thick and numb, and as I spoke, the words creeping out uncertainly, it brushed my teeth.

My sharper teeth, the smooth ivory canines now more pointed, the better for cutting into prey.

“The Daughters were Naga.”

Kirana exhaled, pulling me upright. “When I was…dying, I dreamed of them. And I thought it was only a dream, but it felt so real. Like I could reach out and touch them. But if you saw them…”

“They’re real.” I reached up to grip my shoulder, where Sunya’s hand had rested. I still felt the weight of it, like an imprint on my body. “They told me…to end this.”

“They spoke to me, but I couldn’t remember it,” she said regretfully, and her eyes landed on my face, flicking from feature to feature.

I touched my own cheek tentatively, feeling smooth scales under my fingertips, and nearly cut myself with my own claws. I stared at my hand, at the nails that had thickened and curved ever so slightly, ending in a hideously sharp point.

True claws now, not just nails carefully tended and filed into shape.

“You look lovely, Sera,” she said, her voice quiet. “Have no fear.”

“How long was I asleep?” I wasn’t quite ready for the mirror yet. There were no regrets within me, but I thought that when I finally saw my reflection, I would be looking at a stranger.

“Not as long as I was. Less than a day. There’s something to be said for working with healthier raw material.”

I nodded, taking inventory of my body without moving. My posture felt straighter, prouder, and my spine was…oddly sinuous.

I realized that was because I now possessed a long, thin tail, tipped with a rill of pearly white fin.

My feet had shifted, arched and lengthened, my toes now tipped with claws.

Finally, I closed my eyes and reached up, feeling the nubbins of horns that had begun spiraling from my forehead. My back itched, no doubt welted with the beginnings of wings that were growing beneath my skin.

The worst part of it all was how normal it felt. As though I’d been born in this body, with these draconic changes, and I merely hadn’t noticed them until now. Nothing hurt. Everything worked together, like a well-oiled machine.

I deliberately whipped my tail, and finally strode to the bathroom mirror to see the stranger I’d become.

I leaned forward, touching my cheek again. I was scaled from head to toe, a fine armor of pale iridescence. The growing horns had the same nacreous shimmer as pearls, and my eyes…they were still silver, but liquid and gleaming like mercury, my pupils now dark slits.

I thought the stranger was beautiful, everything Perfect Serafina had wanted to be and could never quite achieve.

“It’s not too awful,” I said, flashing a quick smile at Kirana in the mirror as though embarrassed.

“Tell the truth.” She crossed her arms, a gleaming ebony figure. “Don’t be shy. It’s only the two of us.”

“It feels wonderful,” I admitted. “Like I could move mountains. I don’t…I don’t think it’s ugly or terrible at all.”

“There you go.” She met my gaze evenly. “It makes one wonder why the dragons tried so hard to keep it from us. Especially if the Daughters themselves were Naga.”

I shook my head, unable to answer, and finally pulled my gaze away from the mirror. I had accepted that lovely stranger as myself; now there was work to be done with this new body.

I went to Rhylan next. Sometime during my change, Cryla had arrived at the eyrie. She had taken Kirana’s place, holding vigil at his side, but when I walked in, I knew nothing had changed.

He was pale as marble, sweating despite the icy chill rolling off his skin. I leaned over the bed, watching his eyes move behind his lids, and without thinking reached out to touch him.

“Don’t.” Cryla was a hand’s breadth from grabbing my arm. “He is a host, Serafina, and his passengers are hungry. His fever will either burn it out, or it won’t.”

It took everything in me to withdraw my hand. It was sickening to see him lying there, fighting for his life, and for me to be utterly unable to touch him. Unable to reach him, to let him know through the bond that I would find Yura and make her pay for this.

I tested the bond once more, finding nothing on the other side, only that terrible glass wall that separated us.

I’m going after her , I told him anyway. I will rescue Mykah, and I will find Yura and force her to heal you of this.

If Rhylan had been awake, I didn’t doubt for a second that he would tell me to save Mykah first. I closed my eyes, ruminating, tearing myself in half trying to decide.

But knowing him as I did, I couldn’t come to any other conclusion. I had to save Mykah, and let Rhylan fight this battle on his own. That’s what he would want.

“I love you,” I whispered, and forced myself to turn my back on him.

Kirana followed me to the upper eyrie.

“We need the Horde for this. I don’t know if she’s aware of what’s happened to Rhylan, but if she isn't, Yura will expect me to arrive on him and drop straight in. Instead, I want our people outside, but not attacking.”

Kirana arched her brow. “No?”

“No. I want Undying Light kept busy while I go in through the base of the eyrie, but not a full-on invasion. It’d be too easy for Mykah to die in any crossfire.

” Or, worse, if Yura saw me and knew she had me in her trap, she’d simply cut Mykah’s throat and be done with it.

It would take her all of two seconds, and there would be nothing I could do.

“I intend to slip in and out with Mykah, and we leave. No deaths. Yura won’t strike until she sees me, so I have no intention of being seen by her. ”

Easier said than done, but I had to cling to some small shred of hope.

The one advantage I had was that Yura would not have expected me to become Naga for this. The strength and agility, waiting coiled inside my new body, would be my tools of surprise.

“Sera…have you considered that Mykah isn’t in Everael at all?” Kirana asked, glancing at me sidelong. “If we arrive in force, we tip our hand.”

“Yes, I’ve considered. But I believe she’s in Everael.”

“Based on…?”

I looked at Kirana, my tail lashing without my conscious input.

“Because my sister, for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, desires to capture me well before she kills me.

If I arrive and Mykah isn’t there, she knows I’ll fight her to the last breath, until one of us is dead.

But if she is there, and if Yura has control of her…

” I exhaled slowly through my nose. “Then she stands a chance to force me under her thumb.”

Kirana nodded slowly. “I suppose, one way or another, we must search. If she isn’t in Everael, we’ll search the next eyrie, and the next.”

I didn’t respond. There was no point, because it would only feed my fear, and I needed to be calm to find her.

Mykah could be in one of a dozen eyries. Yura might possess the backing of three Great Houses, but there were many minor Houses under their control. I could search for a year and never find her.

So I had to pin my hopes on this, that Yura was planning her final moves in a losing game, one last gamble to get what she wanted.

But if she wasn’t there…I would keep looking. I would search until I’d found her.

“Secondly, transportation,” Kirana finally said as we stepped into the open air of the eyrie peak. “We’re riding a dragonship.” She went to Viros’s desk, picking up his quill and filling in the flight.

“As long as they’re willing to drop me out of sight of the eyrie.”

“They will. It’s easier than training you to ride a wyvern. But it will be on you to reach the eyrie while they provide the distraction.”

I loved that Kirana seemed to read my mind at times, anticipating exactly what I wanted them to do, and why.

“That won’t be a problem.” I stretched, luxuriating in the sensation of powerful limbs that could carry me for miles without tiring.

If only I had been a Naga in the Training Grounds…Yura would never have dared to touch me. I would’ve torn her throat out before she could mark mine.

Kirana muttered to herself, inking in a few more words, and stood. “Let’s find Aunt Ivoire, and get the dragonship ready.”

My mate’s aunt and uncle were fully onboard with the plan.

Kirana and I had quickly changed, wearing dark riding leathers that had been adapted to our forms. I had pulled my hair back tightly, and the sensation of my own hair, and the gentle breeze, touching the bare skin of my back was slightly disturbing.

I felt the solid, scar-like welts on my shoulder blades, a little tender where the edge of my leathers rubbed at them, but I couldn’t be annoyed.

They would become wings. They would allow me to fly.

I had skipped boots. Now I walked on the balls of my feet, the lengthened limbs as tactile and sensitive as my hands. Aela was still at my side, and I’d strapped daggers to my forearms and thighs. Kirana was similarly outfitted, ready for a fight.

We’d descended into the valley outside Jhazra, easily picking our way over rocky scree that once would’ve posed a serious problem to our softer, frailer bodies. Ivoire waited for us in one of the Horde encampments.

They had settled the dragonships in the valley, each functioning as a shelter and camp. Firepits had been dug well outside the ships, cauldrons and spits set up neatly.

The dragonship Ivoire had chosen was much larger in person. Looking at it, I realized that thirty draga could easily berth inside it, as well as transporting supplies across a long distance.

It was stained a deep maroon, painted with tribalistic designs and sigils in white paint, all of it fresh and well-maintained. It even had a figurehead, a dragon carved of pale wood, its wings spread back along the hull. I sniffed, catching a whiff of herbs and incense floating from the hold.

“We’ll be coming with you,” Ivoire informed her niece. “Roark, Dailus, and Kirman are carrying, and your dragon Cai has offered. Four to carry, and twenty to escort. With the ballistae onboard, the ship itself is as good as a dragon.”

I said nothing, allowing the Horde leaders to do what they did best. Not all of their draga and dragons were mated; as far as I could tell, the Horde did not arrange such bonds.

They either happened naturally, or if one was lucky enough to win the yearly Game, they might be inundated with requests for a bonding attempt.

They usually chose unbonded dragons as the carriers, so the mated pairs could fly freely and run defense for the ship itself. Hunter joined his parents, arms crossed, and waited patiently to be assigned to a defensive position.

“We’ll touch down here,” Ivoire said, pointing at a map spread across a relatively flat rock. “By ‘touch down’, I mean we’ll drop within fifty feet of the ground. You can slide down a rope.”

I nodded, unconcerned. In this body, heights were nothing.

“You said this eyrie is built into a mountain?” she mused, and prodded the map again. “Here. We’ll posture before their fighters from the north, while you slip in from the south.”

My memories of Everael were fuzzy, but I knew the tower was conjoined with a mountain. The Horde would focus all of their attention on the open land before them, and I would use the surrounding forest as cover to gain entry.

Ivoire carefully rolled her map. “We leave in one hour,” she said. “Come aboard.”

Kirana was ahead of me, and had clearly been on a dragonship before; she walked up the gangplank easily, and I followed, marveling at the brilliance of the entire contraption.

To be able to transport an entire camp with only a few dragons…it was ingenious. I stepped onto a freshly-scrubbed deck crawling with Horde draga.

They were stowing chests, cleaning the ballistae, securing windows and hatches.

Kirana nudged my elbow, leading me to the spread of clear deck above the bow. “You only get to experience it for the first time once,” she said.

I was all nerves for the next hour, trying not to pace back and forth. I couldn’t rush my allies, though every moment counted.

Finally, great chains were extended, sinking both into the hold and fastened to the deck, four in all. Dragons landed, and the crew of draga buckled them into vast harnesses, the chains attaching to the undersides against their bellies.

Cai had been assigned to the chains on the starboard side, and Kirana seemed content to remain with me—until one of the Horde draga, with a spill of copper hair and ocean-green scales, approached him with the harness.

Kirana twitched. Her lips drew back over her teeth in a snarl and she was over the side of the dragonship before I could blink, stalking towards them. Within moments she was harnessing him, buckling the straps under his stomach.

If she was that ferociously defensive, it was only a matter of time until their mate bond formed. I hoped Kirana was ready for it.

“Yes?” she snapped, when she returned. I hadn’t hid my smile as well as I’d thought.

I just shook my head, eager to lift off.

Ivoire mounted Roark, who was chained to the port bow. She raised a horn to her lips, and blew it hard.

The sound pealed out through the mountains, bouncing through the valley like the call of some ancient dragon.

And as one, they reared up, flapping their wings hard, rising into the air. The chains dangled behind them, and finally snapped taut.

The dragonship moved, shuddering, and lurched upwards. I gripped the railing, my claws sinking into the wood, and I retracted them with a silent apology.

Higher, higher…wood creaked and groaned, but the dragonship held, rising above the mountains.

Well above us, Ivoire turned to bark out a command, and the dragons turned as one, taking flight.

The weight of the ship, distributed between four dragons, seemed to be featherlight to them. We passed over a mountain peak, the guardians flying around the dragonship in defensive formations, and I finally exhaled. It felt like I’d been holding my breath for days.

We were on our way.

I looked back at Jhazra, where Rhylan was locked in a feverish slumber. I kept watching until Jhazra was out of sight.

I will find her, and I will save you.

If it’s the last thing I do .