Page 47 of Court of Embers (Dragonesse #2)

Chapter

Twenty-Six

O nce in the air, my feet no longer wanted to touch the ground, nor the deck of the dragonship.

This was what Rhylan truly felt, a sensation no longer passed to me secondhand through his senses. The absolute weightlessness and freedom of the wind beneath my wings, the knowledge that I could fly anywhere…I could leave Akalla and never look back, borne on Larivor’s breezes.

For a mere moment, regret filled me. If I had been Naga on Mistward…that island could never have contained me.

I looked down, my back already aching with the use of new muscles, watching the patchwork lands below, and it was only Mykah’s pleading gaze from the dragonship that brought me to its polished deck once more.

I landed lightly, tucking my wings behind me, and I felt the strange shift as they dissipated into my body once more, only a wish away.

Mykah threw herself at me, landing bodily in my arms. I stroked her head, cuddling her tight.

“What happened?” I asked her, bearing her down to one of the low benches lining the deck. The Horde draga had already fetched food and water for her, but Mykah didn’t drink until she was seated firmly next to me, within arm’s reach.

“I never even managed to look for Doric. Their patrols caught me on the southern edge of Orisien territory, about five minutes after I’d crossed the border.

” She drank deeply, water overspilling the sides of her mouth, and wiped her arm across her chin.

“They…they freed Solace. They didn’t kill her, thank the gods.

” Mykah closed her eyes, revealing the purplish tones of exhaustion on her lids. “She’s out there somewhere.”

I cut her a slice of bread and ham, urging it on her.

She spoke through quick bites. “One of the riders cut a piece of my hair. She said Yura had commanded it. Then they brought me to Everael. Pyrae was…she was sick, almost falling down, but she was really, really angry.”

I wasn’t surprised. To have their ward run off on them to their enemies was an insult Pyrae and Tashan wouldn’t have taken lightly. I was, in fact, surprised yet grateful that Mykah hadn’t been beaten black and blue.

“I think she would’ve killed me,” Mykah said quite seriously, meeting my eyes. Hers were full of a latent shock, almost seeming to look through me. “But Yura saved me. She said I was more valuable alive and well, and that you’d come for me if you knew.”

“Yura was there?”

“In the flesh.” Mykah shuddered. “There’s nothing behind her eyes, Sera. When she looked at me…it was like…I knew she was in there, but she wasn’t there . It was something else, something that wanted to eat me. I think the only reason she didn’t is because she wanted you more.”

My lips pressed flat, and I cut her another slice of bread, smearing soft cheese on it and handing it to her.

“Pyrae was holding me in her chambers, and my hands and feet were tied so I couldn’t get away. But Yura said she’d delivered a letter, and you would come no matter what. Pyrae ordered the maids to take me up to a holding cell…but I looked back before they shut the door.”

She stopped, staring at the bread in her hands, mouth twisted.

“I looked back, and Yura smiled at me. And then…Pyrae was…”

Abruptly, she lunged backwards, twisting, and threw up over the side of the dragonship.

I smoothed her hair back, holding her in place, and when Mykah turned back onto the seat, her skin still ashen, I pressed a waterskin into her hands.

“Drink,” I ordered gently, and Mykah obeyed, swishing the water in her mouth and spitting it over the side before drinking again.

“She was standing there over Pyrae’s bed,” she said dully, staring at the waterskin in her hands as I rubbed her back.

“Pyrae was so sick, she was curled up in a ball.

And her back was covered in sores, and…and these little things were crawling out of her.

Yura put her hand over her mouth when she started to scream.

“The Gilded Skies guards were listening to Yura, not Pyrae. They dragged me upstairs and locked me in an empty room. It took me a long time to squirm out of the ropes—” She held out her wrists, chafed raw and scabbed over.

“But I did. My blood helped a little. I think it took me…at least a day. There were no windows, so I’m not sure.

I had just started picking the lock when I heard the screaming start. ”

She fell silent, twisting the waterskin in her hands, and shook her head.

“It was all of them, Sera. The whole eyrie screaming out at once. I’ve never heard a sound like it.

I almost broke my pick, I was so scared.

But nobody came when I got out, and I went up, thinking if I didn’t have Solace, at least I could maybe find another wyvern.

But one of the maids was in the hall. She was just sitting there on the floor, her back against the wall, staring. ”

I wrapped an arm around Mykah’s shoulders, squeezing her when she shuddered, and feeling monstrous for making her recount this. But I needed to know how Yura had done it.

“I went by, and…her mouth was open. And those little black worms crawled out. They were slithering on the floor, coming after me…and I…I ran. I don’t remember any of it.

I think I saw others, fallen over and slumped down, and when I could think again, I was in the eyrie storage rooms. There were no wyverns, but I had a little hiding spot, and no one else was there.

I figured if I stayed real quiet, I could hide there, and I’d have food and water if I really needed it. I knew I could last until you came.”

She choked on a sob, jamming her hand against her mouth as though she could hold it back.

“Let it out,” I whispered, holding her, rocking her, and terrified to my very core.

Yura herself was the infection, spreading her parasites by choosing a single vector to spread them through an eyrie.

And Rhylan was at home in Jhazra, with all of his people around him as he fought the worm-like threads Yura had planted in him. The infection that would spread through the eyrie like wildfire, consigning every living soul, and our Ascendants, to a fate worse than death.

I looked up and met Kirana’s eyes, seeing the same horror written on her face.

“Mykah.” I gripped her hands, and the draga looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

“Gods, please don’t leave me now,” she whispered. My heart ached.

“Rhylan is sick with the same thing.” The words were bitter with nausea on my tongue. “He…all of Jhazra is at risk…”

Mykah dragged in a shuddering breath, wiping at her eyes. “Rhylan?”

I nodded, thinking of how quickly I needed to move and how long the flight was, and of the night he had told me about, waking up on the shore of the lake with a wounded back and no memory of how it’d happened.

And Yura, my clever, evil sister, had the patience of the Daughters. She would wait years for the right time to spring the trap, to awaken the seeds she’d planted.

Mykah’s face changed, a hint of fury washing away that terrible, lost look that didn’t belong on her face. “All right. But what can we do?”

I didn’t say ‘ you can do nothing ’, though I was thinking it loud and clear. I didn’t want Mykah anywhere near those parasites. She’d lived through enough.

“The dragonship is safe, but slow.” I exhaled slowly. “Too slow. I’m going ahead. And if…if he hasn’t gotten any better, we’ll use our last resort.”

Kirana took my place on the bench as I stood, keeping Mykah close. “Dragon blood?” she murmured.

I shook my head. “ My blood. Emei feared us. All I can think to do is try the same with Rhylan.”

“I’ll keep Mykah safe.” Kirana looked up at me with those eyes of burning gold. “Don’t let my brother die.”

I won’t , I wanted to say, but the words stuck in my throat.

If Rhylan died…for me, all the world would die with him.

I turned quickly, before my own fears could get the better of me, and stepped up over the side of the dragonship, flinging myself out into the open sky as my wings tore free.

My wings felt frosted over, aching with cold as I dropped through Jhazra’s dragon door. I landed heavily, every muscle aching, cold to the marrow and my stomach growling.

The hunger was no innocuous hunger, to be sated with a plate of normal food. It was a scratching thirst in the back of my throat, a dryness in my veins, as though my body were shriveling up on itself.

But I stretched my hands before me, seeing bright claws, iridescent scales, no sign of withering at all. I was simply…hungry for blood.

Well. I had chosen this path, and I wasn’t sorry for it, not one bit.

I shook my wings out, sending a few glittering snowflakes to the floor, and shifted them out of existence. The knowledge of their presence was like a scratch in the back of my mind, knowing I could rip them free again at any moment and fly away.

Stumbling a little on my cold-bitten feet, I pushed through the door and down the hall, sliding a little on the spiral steps. The corridor leading to our quarters was just as ice cold as the outdoors, all the windows thrown open to let the mountain wind cut through the eyrie.

The fear that had been gnawing at me in the silence abated with a gust of relief so powerful I almost went to my knees.

Several Bloodless maids were arrayed outside Rhylan’s door, all of them tense and pale as they awaited orders, and all of them very much alive and uninfected.

“Any changes?” I demanded as I barreled down the corridor, and they straightened up, moving aside and shaking their heads.

Nilsa reached for my arm. “The healer said he’s not to be disturbed—”

I shook her off without a word and pushed past her into his room.

It was just as cold in here, though the fire roared, piled high with fresh wood. Cryla looked up, her mouth open as though to snap, but when she saw it was me, she merely shook her head.

“He is no better, and no worse,” she informed me. “He’s still burning with fever. I’ve tried medicines, extraction—nothing has worked.”