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CHARLIE

B ack in my room, I sat on the floor, watching Parthar wrestle his own tail on the rug. I hated to admit it, but the little beast was growing on me. He reminded me of a pup I’d had growning up, Spottie. But I could already see Parthar was far more intelligent than any dog.

“I don’t know. I think that tail is tougher than you are, buddy,” I said, giving one of his wings a playful tug. He left off playing with his tail and came over, sitting on his haunches in front of me and gazing into my eyes with an intensity that made me a little uncomfortable. I chuckled, glancing away, but his tail snaked up and touched my chin, directing my face toward him once more. There was such earnestness in his express…

“Come on,” I said. “I don’t even gaze into Essa’s eyes like this…”

And yet, I didn’t feel I could look away, either.

You have to fight soon… Parthar said. The communication came to me not in words, but in feeling, knowing what he was trying to communicate. I was lost in the fiery depths of his eyes, plugged into him in a way I’d never been with another creature in my life. Then, suddenly, he retched, then retched again, like a cat about to cough up a furball. I scrambled backward, not wanting to get vomited on—or hit with fire. With a third belch, Parthar bowed and vomited clear fluid onto the floor. In the midst of the puddle was an object, reddish orange and oval in shape, a little larger than a human eye.

“What the…?”

I leaned over to get a closer look at it. The object emitted a faint glow, shining with an inner light that shimmered and swirled beneath its surface. I grabbed my wash rag from the basin, picked the object up out of the slime and washed it off.

Its surface was smooth beneath my fingers and surprisingly hot. It was like the stone in the necklace Essa wore, I realized. A dragon stone. I looked at Parthar.

Keep it, he said in my mind. And I’ll always be with you.

* * *

Late that night, the door to my room swung open without warning.

Parthar had taken to sleeping in the same bed with me. He was hell to sleep with, all claws and spines and scales with a tail that regularly wrapped around my leg or arm like a snake and squeezed when he was having a dream. But the body of a dragon runs hot, and his warmth kept the chill of the castle at bay. And besides, I felt I could protect him better in the night when he was right next to me. He was a baby, after all.

When that door swung open, though, I cursed myself for my laxity, tugging the blanked up over Parthar’s head and jerking my ankle free of his tail as I stood blinking in the lanternlight.

The wavering illumination revealed the ugly face of the queen’s guard, Trag. The white strips of his scars almost seemed to glow in the dark as he eyed me. “Get dressed and come.”

“The queen?” I asked.

“The Prelate,” Trag corrected. “He wishes to have one last chat before young Braimar sends you to your maker. I’ll let you dress.”

The big man turned and the exited, the door clapping shut behind him.

I pulled on my boots and went to the desk, where my notebook and pen sat—filled with my attempts at writing an article that would convince the queen I was truly a reporter. They were all terrible; writing was far more difficult than I imagined.

Opening to a blank page, I scribbled my final message of my spy career and tore it loose. When I turned, I found Parthar’s head poking out of the blanket.

Hungry?

Hush, you! It’s the middle of the night. Go back to sleep.

Hungry.

I’ll give you all my bacon in the morning. Now stay quiet.

I tugged the blanked back over the dragon’s head and pushed him down so he lay flat against the bed just as the door swung open again.

“Coming,” I said, and I let Trag usher me out into the night.

* * *

The keep of the Gray Brotherhood at night was one hell of a spooky place. The walls and ceilings groaned and windows seemed to whisper although there was hardly a breeze outside. As we walked down the long corridor to the Prelate’s audience chamber I kept seeing movements out of the corner of my eyes but when I turned my head to look, there was never anything there. The numerous candles that lent tenuous light to the space flickered constantly, as if on the verge of blowing out. The shadows seemed to have shadows.

I’d have given anything to be back in my room, curled up in the bed with Parthar. Or better yet, with Essa.

Then I remembered the look on her face the last time we’d met. My lies were unravelling. She’d sooner put a piece of steel in my chest than kiss me again. It would be better to put her out of my mind—as if that were possible. To run away from her and this place and never look back. And yet more and more, she was all I could think about. Even now…

We found the Prelate in a library filled with ancient, musty-smelling books, seated in a chair before a hearth.

“The foreigner,” Trag said with a bow.

The Prelate watched me with those strange eyes of his. They were both dark and bright at once, like polished obsidian, and the smile on his face reminded me of the grin of a skull.

“Ah, our intrepid friend has returned. How has your sojourn in the land of magic been going, Charlie?”

“I’ll tell you at this time tomorrow,” I said.

The Prelate chuckled. “Well spoken. Come, sit. Are you familiar with Zaynat?”Kortoi gestured to a small table before him. On it sat a glass dome, like the cover for a cake plate, and beneath the dome a pair of rats, one white, one black, tussled with one another.

I shook my head. “Never heard of it.”

The Prelate twiddled his fingers excitedly, his many rings glinting in the dim light. “It’s a form of divination. Watch.”

The rat battle was coming to a close. The black rat had the white one by the neck and was gnawing it ferociously. The poor white one scrabbled with its pink feet, but was unable to get free. After a few moments, it went still, blood pooling beneath it, but the black rat continued, tearing a mouthful of stringy flesh and fur free and gobbling it down. I looked away.

“Ah,” the Prelate said, nodding. Taking a quill pen, he jotted a few words down in a notebook. “You see, it doesn’t only matter which rodent wins. It also matters where the victory happens—on which square. And after it dries, we’ll look at the pattern of blood on the board.”

I looked again and saw that the rats had indeed been killing one another on a sort of chess board, each uneven square marked with strange runes.

“You’ll learn something from that?” I nodded at the rats in disgust.

“I’ve learned everything,” the Prelate said, an unsettling gleam in his eyes. “But I wouldn’t want to tell you about it. It would spoil the surprise. Oh, where are my manners. I have coffee and cigarettes. And I managed to get a package of those delicious chocolate cookies from URA. Jollies. Enjoy!”

He gestured to another table in the corner. Though the thought of those treats and the Prelate’s highly-addictive coffee tugged on my desires, I shook my head.

“I can’t stay long. I have a big day tomorrow. I just wanted to give you this.”

I handed him the rolled-up page I’d torn from my notebook. He took it with a flourish of his long nails and unrolled it, held it at arm’s length.

“You don’t have to read it now,” I said. “In fact, maybe wait until?—”

“I am writing,” the Prelate read in a theatrically loud voice. “To share that this is my last communication. I have a duel tomorrow. Most likely I won’t survive, but if I do, my days as a spy are over. In my time in Maethalia, I’ve learned many things. Foremost is this: not all magic is evil. Some of it is wonderful. And not all Maethalians are evil. Some are the most spectacular people I’ve had the honor to meet. Even dragons can be good. I already regret the information I’ve shared and the damage it has caused. And I regret the killing I’ve done. My last wish for both URA and Maethalia is peace.”

The Prelate looked up at me, his eyebrows raised in mocking surprise. Back by the door, Trag laughed. I hadn’t realized he was still in the room, but it suddenly struck me as odd that the head of the queen’s guards would be running errands for one of her chief rivals in the middle of the night.

“Well, perhaps you’re a writer after all,” the Prelate teased, carefully rolling the paper up once more and placing it in his pocket. He leaned over his dead rat, placing his hands on the glass dome, and locked his eyes on me.

“Do you know what the Zaynat told me?” he asked. “You may be finished with this war, Ace. But the war is not finished with you.”

I chose to ignore the ominous glee in this tone.

“I’m not finished... So you’re saying I’m going to live tomorrow?”

He laughed. “It is not only the living who participate in events, Ace. The dead, the denizens of the void—they will have their say, too. They are beneath us now. And all around us. And their time is coming. Soon.”

As if to emphasize his words, the shadows around us seemed to writhe in exaltation. It sent a chill through me, a terror that extended far deeper than my mind to shiver my very soul.

“I’ll die, then,” I said.

“Live. Die,” the Prelate shrugged. “You will fulfill your role, just as we all must.”

“Very philosophical,” I growled with a glance at Trag. “Tell me something, Kortoi. Whose side are you on?”

He reached out and toward me. My impulse was to shy away, but I refused to show him that he scared me. His long fingernails brushed my cheek; instantly, the spot he touched felt numb.

“I’m on your side, Charlie, of course,” the Prelate soothed. “Now go. Get your sleep. And know that everywhere, in the shadows, the lords of the void are working toward our triumph.”

I rose, all too eager to leave that place. But before I turned to go, I glanced back down at the rat board. The black rat had completely consumed the white one, all except its wormlike tail, which it slurped into its mouth now like a strand of pasta. All that was left of the white rat then was a blotch of blood. On the square it stained lay a rune which looked, to me, like a flying dragon.