Page 51 of Court of Embers (Dragonesse #2)

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

T he plan degenerated rapidly. One half of the table, led by Ivoire, Roark, and Mykah, urged direct assault on Talariel Eyrie.

The other half, with Tyria and Maristela at its head, Doric backing them, demanded caution.

Both sides of advisors had the dragons and draga of minor Houses behind them, summoned by their overlords.

Rhylan and I sat at the head of the table, hiding our headaches behind neutral masks.

If this is what it’s like to be Drakkon, I’m already considering abdication , he thought to me, but he belied the joking tone of his words by resting a hand on my thigh under the table and squeezing gently.

“Two Ascendants annihilated, a House destroyed, and you think we should invade?” Tyria demanded, tossing her head as she glared at Ivoire. “I know you Horde draga leap first and ask questions later—”

“With calculated risk ,” Ivoire said, though she seemed on the verge of snapping.

I was personally in favor of invasion. But I was also asking these dragons and Naga to put their lives on the line for it, and I wanted everyone on board with the same plan.

That will never happen if everyone has a say , Rhylan said dryly.

I sighed, if only in my mind. But I can hope. Let them shout it out for a bit, and then I’ll give the order to fly on Talariel. Time is running out, Rhylan. I’ve been feeling it more and more, all the grains slipping through the hourglass like I’m going to miss something.

Sitting here watching them debate was, fortunately, time well spent.

The Horde dragons were breaking their camps, preparing the dragonships for siege.

Viros was supervising the Bloodless in prepping the saddlebags for a long journey.

They had time to get it out of their systems and then I’d sweep in and align them all on a single path.

Because we were the Drakkon and Dragonesse now, and this was our Court. They had every right to make themselves heard, and when the time came for our judgment to pass, all would fall in line.

It still didn’t feel real, knowing we possessed the majority, and merely because Yura, priestess for her foul mistress, was too hungry to restrain herself, destroying her allies one by one. Rhylan and I still hadn’t officially declared ourselves, though we now ruled Akalla in all but name.

With Isandoral dead…I wasn’t sure how we would claim it. But none could dispute it, with this Court arrayed before them.

I allowed Ivoire to finish her point on the risk of allowing Yura even another hour of freedom—and the gods only knew I agreed with her—and prepared to address them without seeming to favor one side over the other.

The last thing I wanted to do was take down another eyrie of the dead, and given enough time, Yura would be happy to throw that particular storm in our path.

But a knock at the door interrupted before Tyria could rebut, and we all looked up to see a wyvern-rider in the colors of the Shadowed Stars waiting before us. His face was pale, and he held a single missive.

I stood up slowly as he came to me. His hands were shaking.

“Dragonesse, Drakkon, the House of Razored Cinders has fallen.”

The silence in my Court was crushing.

I took the missive with numb fingers, opening it to find scrawling handwriting. The scouts had noted the constant shipments from Talariel had ceased following Tidas’s return. Iliador Eyrie had undergone three days and nights of almost complete and total silence.

And on the fourth day, the only living to emerge among the flocks of the dead were Tidas and Yura, last seen soaring south.

“Well. That settles it.” My words seemed to echo around the room, falling into a long, deep well and vanishing. “We must fly on Talariel Eyrie tonight.”

What had she sent? Infected food, infected people? Were the parasites able to exist outside a host body?

She wants you to come . Rhylan met my eyes, his blazing blue. She is taunting you, Sera, hoping you do something rash and put yourself directly in her hands.

How many more Houses can we lose before there is no Akalla anymore?

I stared back, considering the danger we were in right now at this very moment, the heads of five Great Houses and a Horde represented in this single room together.

Better to be flying now, able to split and separate, and not present an appealing massed target.

Rhylan examined my thoughts, and I felt his agreement in his fear that gathering together was a mistake.

I’d be grateful to be in her hands now , I told him. At least then I’d have the chance to strike at the source, rather than chasing shadows and cleansing the tragedies she’s left in her wake .

“Here is the plan,” I said, drawing my Court’s attention, and they fell silent to attend.

With the wind in my hair, I felt alive again, sure that I was finally doing the right thing.

The plan was simple: give Yura exactly what she wanted—me. I would take on my sister, the other Naga not far behind me, and the Houses would attack Talariel Eyrie in force.

As our Court crossed the southern edge of the Krysien Mountains, the mountains becoming rolling hills beneath us, we all diverged.

The Horde and their dragonships headed west to destroy Iliador. They would run defense on the other eyries, using their ballistae and unbonded dragons, bringing down the dead before they had a chance to spit that dark ooze teeming with malevolent life.

Doric, Tyria, Kirana, and Cai headed west, though they wouldn’t remain in that direction for long. They would split south, coming around to Talariel over Sylvaene’s territory, trapping Yura between our frontal assault and theirs from behind.

Mykah went with them on my orders, flying of her own accord. When she needed to rest her newfound wings, she would alight on Doric’s back, taking the time she needed before she lifted off again.

Maristela and Gaelin, along with several minor Houses, would cut east and come in over Sylvaene and Everael.

Rhylan and I cut straight to Talariel, and I hoped, if Yura had any eyes on us, that they reported to her that her sister was coming.

It was a long flight, but we’d set out at dawn. I glanced at the tower of Koressis Eyrie to my east, slices of the Empty Sea just visible to the west.

Once we crossed Hadrean’s Bay, there was no turning back. We would be in Talariel’s skies, flying over their land.

Good , Rhylan thought, flapping his wings once and catching another thermal. Let’s end this. Let’s take the life we should’ve had for ourselves.

I smiled at the back of his horned skull. The life we should’ve had, if not for my mother’s plotting, if not for my father’s madness, if not for his mother’s murder.

If not for Yura.

I’m as eager to end her as you are, but Rhylan…it’s so silent.

He beat the wind hard, carrying us over the expanse of deep blue water, and below us the bay gave way to rocky shores and green hills, the dark outlines of towns settled on the sea-cliffs.

There’s no lights , I said, frowning as I leaned forward over the saddle. No smells. No sounds. Not even birds .

Rhylan breathed deeply, and I joined my senses to his, tasting salty air off the sea, but no scents of civilization. Beneath the salt, there was a tinge of rot—

No. A vast cloud of it, the smell of bodies fallen in the streets and left to decay.

Without a word, he cut higher, snorting to clear his nose.

They’re all dead , I said numbly. Everyone down there, every last Bloodless is dead. Hundreds of them.

Are we surprised? He said, his mental voice savage. She serves Ustrael. There’s only hunger, no restraint.

His fury was not for me, but for Yura. I stroked his back, considering as I looked out over those dark shapes.

We’d have to search the dead towns for any survivors, and then cleanse them with dragonfire. The territory of Talariel was about to become an empty land, a shunned land.

I squinted ahead of us, focusing on our destination as he flew.

A small city was nestled around the base of Talariel, the eyrie itself a mountain chiseled into jagged peaks and long, wide balconies overlooking the city itself.

Waterfalls spilled from the eyrie’s peak, flowing in thick rivers to feed into the city below.

Both city and eyrie were known as Talariel; when speaking of one, one often meant the other, as well. The City of Gold.

But their House’s namesake, Gilded Skies, came from the sunset over the Empty Sea. The lowering sun’s bloody colors painted Talariel in shades of gold and crimson, making the eyrie itself seem to flow with molten gold.

And now it seemed to run with blood, though I knew it was only my eyes playing tricks on me. Because the city itself was just as dead, just as empty, the corruption Yura had unleashed spreading inexorable fingers of creeping death all throughout her territory.

Even this high in the air, it was impossible to ignore the scent rising from below. The scent of tens of thousands dead.

It spilled from the eyrie like a miasma, and as Rhylan circled Talariel, both my nose and throat burned.

I cannot believe this , I said, my thoughts flat as I looked down.

Because it was, quite literally, almost incomprehensible. I could see the tragedy in one dead, or two, or five or ten. Twenty or thirty was a dire massacre.

But thousands . Knowing that every single house in that city was filled with dead families.

The lamps had long since run out of oil, the animals locked within its walls had either starved or begun to feed on one another, if they weren’t already dead as well, and not a single living soul would remain in all this sprawling metropolis.

It staggered the mind.

And as the sun set, the city fell into shadow.

But something rustled in those shadows. Something with gleaming white eyes, milky in the dusk.

It rose, lifting its ungainly body on rotting wings, rising around the eyrie and trailing the scent of old decay.