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54

ESSA

I burst into one of the sitting rooms adjacent to the throne room. A fire burned in the hearth, maps were spread upon the table, and Mother stood around them with Hoatan, Trag, and three of her generals.

“Leave us,” I commanded.

The men glared at me but made no move to leave.

“Essa…” Mother began.

This time I shouted. “Leave us!”

Hoatan glanced at Mother, who nodded. He cleared his throat and began moving toward the door. One by one, the others followed suit. Mother watched me expectantly until the door was shut. Something about that look of hers, those sharp gray eyes, the line between her brows, a slight frown—as if I were a vexing cipher, too difficult to solve—made me feel like a little girl again.

“I… He…”

I tried to speak, but my throat clamped shut. My face twisted as tears filled my eyes. Embarrassed, I pressed my hand to my face and silently sobbed, falling to my knees.

“Whatever your punishment… I accept it…” I managed to say. “I deserve it.”

Her hands were on me and I looked up, startled. She’d knelt down next to me and pulled me onto her lap. For a moment I resisted, then I gave in, falling into her arms and burying my face against her chest.

“Oh, Essa,” she whispered.

“He betrayed me,” I said. “All along he was betraying us. And I trusted him… I’m a fool.”

She stroked my hair.

“Laynine died for nothing. I’m not worthy to be Irska.”

“No,” Mother said. “You fought well. I never could have imagined how well you fought. You earned your victory.”

“But the moment I became Irska, I betrayed the kingdom by freeing a prisoner… a spy.”

Mother gave me a sad, knowing smile. “I’ve known some who have done worse for love.”

I looked at her, wiping tears from my cheeks.

“Have you been in love?”

She shook her head. “I’m not as brave as you. I knew I would one day be queen, and love was not a luxury a queen of Maethalia can enjoy. There were moments, but… I pushed them away. Still, I can imagine what it must have been like for you.”

I shook my head. “He was spying. Stealing our secrets. He’s an ace. The Silver Wraith, Mother.”

This, at last, caused her eyes to widen in surprise.

I shook my head, tears filling my eyes again. “I’m a traitor. You’ll have to have me killed.”

Mother’s brows knit. “Do you truly think I would do that?”

“But the law?—”

“I am the law,” she said.

I released a pent-up breath, relieved. Then I remembered the intelligence I had come to share.

“At the hatching grounds on Dorhane we saw something, Mother. The Lacunae. They were working with golenae.”

Mother’s frowned. “Golenae? From the old tales?”

“Yes, I swear. Creatures made of bone and earth and animated by the souls of demons,” I said quickly. “Golenae. They were taking dragon eggs.”

“And they were working with the Lacunae? Are you certain?”

I nodded. “We saw them.”

“The prophesies... What is dead must not live again…” Mother looked away from me and I saw the millstones of her mind grinding in thought. What I’d said could only mean one thing. Prelate Kortoi had broken the cardinal law. He’d used the spirits of the void to animate unliving matter. If he would do that, there was no telling what else he might be capable of.

“Did you ever investigate those crates in the catacombs?” I asked.

Mother’s face had gone pale. “Kortoi sent his Lacunae. He said they found nothing. The Prelate must be brought in for questioning. He must be arrested, before?—”

A sound stopped her words, faint at first, like the whining of a mosquito, but growing louder and deeper with every second. It was a sound every Maethalian was intimately familiar with. The sound of plane engines. Mother and I both sprang to our feet and rushed to the window just as the Theyrune Horn blew a low, hair- raising blast. The sky was clear for now, blue and empty, but there could be no doubt about it—the Admites were coming.

Then, the floor was shaking under our feet. In the courtyard below, we saw a great fissure forming among the flagstones.

“What’s happening?” I whispered. Mother’s only answer was to place a hand on the hilt of her dagger.

The fissure widened until it was at least two spans across, then out of its black depths figures began emerging. Monstrous figures—golenae. Some were humanoid with the heads of beasts, others shaped like dragons with mis-matched body parts. Oversized heads, gigantic claws, limbs of different sizes—a grotesque and terrifying menagerie. Two guards charged at the first few that emerged with their spears leveled. In seconds, the golenae had reduced them to piles of splintered bones and shredded meat.

Mother spun from the window just as Hoatan burst in the door.

“Your majesty—” he said breathlessly.

“I know,” Mother interrupted him. “Wake my dragon. Today I ride with the Skrathan.”

* * *

Mother went to find her dragon. I went to find mine.

Othura. Come to me!

For a moment, the only response was a whimper and a snarl.

We’re trapped. The cowards have trapped us, she said.

Where?

In the hatchery. Hurry, Essa. It’s burning.

I remembered what my friends had said about Lacunae surrounding the Hatchery. They’d assumed it was some plan to catch them trying to rescue Kit’s dragon, but obviously they’d been planning something far bigger than that...

I burst out of the palace, drawing my sword and sprinting across the courtyard. To my left and my right, golenae were emerging from the ground— claws, spiked heads, and toothy jaws bursting up like breaching leviathans. The royal guards were fighting them as they emerged, but I saw immediately how futile that was. One golenae—a human-shaped one with a head and claws like a lobster’s—had seven spears protruding from its body and still fought ferociously. Another one shaped like a huge wolf continued to fight despite being covered in burning pitch. As I watched, it snarled and sprang onto two guards at once, pinning one down and clamping the other one’s face in its jaws.

Cursing, I veered toward them.

With a shout of fury, I swung my sword with all my force at the wolf’s foreleg, cleaving it just above the paw and freeing the man stuck beneath. He rolled free and stumbled to his feet, spear ready.

The flaming wolf turned to face us, its mouth covered in gore, its teeth still gripping the dead guard’s torn-off head. Its coal-red eyes burned into me as it snarled and began padding forward. A normal wolf would have been limping from having a paw chopped off, but this one simply walked smoothly on the stump of its foreleg.

How can we defeat creatures that feel no pain? I thought, dread welling up in me.

The wolf pounced. I dove beneath its jaws, leaving it to snap at empty air.

As I rolled to my feet, I chopped at the same leg I’d cut off before, hacking it one, two, three times, until I’d exposed bone beneath the layer of clay. But I was only halfway through the muscular upper leg—and the beast leaped again, this time onto the other guard. The guard got his spear up in time, and it plunged into the golenae’s chest—but when a living wolf would have recoiled at the injury, this one kept coming, driving the spear deeper into its own body until it was near enough to get its jaws around the guard’s throat. The guard got his shield up just in time, but the wolf’s mouth closed on it and crumpled it like an eggshell.

I whistled, charging, hoping to distract the thing from the defenseless guard. It turned its head toward me, the crumpled shield still in its mouth. Before it could spit it out I was there, leaping and stabbing downward into the golenae’s face. The blade entered the bottom of the thing’s eye socket and a shiver went through its body. With a scream of fury, I twisted my sword, prying upward. The beast stopped, twitching, and with a final effort I wrenched my sword sideways.

The creature’s eye came out, an oblong chunk of burning coal, and I stomped on it. It crumbled into smoldering dust and the right side of the beast’s body went limp. With a battle cry, the guard followed my lead, stabbing his dagger into the creature’s other eye socket over and over. With each strike, smoking dust sifted out until at last the socket was nothing but a smoldering hole and the beast lay still on the ground.

The guard looked at me, wild-eyed. “Thank you,” he breathed.

I saw his relief, but I didn’t share it. All around us were hundreds—or thousands—more golenae. If it was that hard to kill just one of them, there was no hope of defeating them all.

I took a step forward and tripped on something. The arm clip I’d taken off and thrown down before the challenge still lay where I’d left it. Impulsively, I snatched it up.

“Go for their eyes!” I shouted at the guard, then I was running again.

* * *

Somehow, I made it through the menagerie of horrors the palace had become and fought my way to the Hatchery—but the sight that greeted me made my stomach clench.

The hatchery’s door and windows were covered by some black, shimmering substance—a magical barrier. And the entire structure, from foundation to peak, was licked with eerie blue flame. Normally, fire was no concern for a dragon; their hide was fireproof. But the carcasses of several large dragons littered the ground, their bodies wreathed in flame. They must have been outside when the fire began, tried to free their fellow dragons—and touched the flames in the process. And it had burned them.

Clearly, this was no ordinary fire. Every element of this attack was magical in nature—the dark magick of the void.

If I doubted Kortoi’s involvement before, ample proof stood before me. Row upon row of the Brotherhood’s Lacunae knights stood lined up on their black horses, preventing anyone from reaching the Hatchery.

My Skrathan were gathering opposite them, staring in horror and bewilderment at the sight before them. A few sat astride their dragons but most were on foot since their dragons, like Othura, were trapped inside. Off to the right there lay a knot of mangled bodies where a group of Skrathan had clearly charged the Lacunae ranks and paid the price.

“The Irska!” someone shouted when they saw me.

“Irska Essaphine!”

“Our dragons!”

“What do we do?”

My fellow Skrathan looked to me, panic and fury on their faces. I saw Lure pushing to the front of the crowd, and Pocha and Dagar, too. Pocha was on dragon back.

Where the hell was Ollie? I wondered, but there was no time to dwell on that question.

“What do we do, Irska?”

“What are your orders?” several Skrathan shouted at once.

For a terrible moment, my mind was a perfect blank. What could we do? The golenae were so hard to kill, each of them could probably slaughter five of us before we could take out one. And the Lacunae were the strongest knights ever to live. Skrathan were trained to fight hand-to-hand, but we were far better on dragon back. A hundred of us we couldn’t take on a five hundred Lacunae and hope to live—not without our dragons.

And where were the royal knights? I spun a circle, looking for them, but there was not a single one to be found. Either they’d all been slaughtered already, or Lord Natath and the nobles had betrayed us too.

My riders stared at me, desperate, expectant. If Laynine or Paemalla were here, they’d have a plan. They’d have an answer. But me… I could see no way out of the noose our necks were now in.

Unless…

Unless we could somehow free our dragons.

Defeat the Lacunae, quench the flames, reach our dragons…

I looked at the burning ziggurat, then off to the right. The falls of Cheselie ran down the cliff face, sending mist into the air. And beyond that, far above us, lay the dammed basin of the lake. What if…?

“Irska?” someone prompted.

I could see my Skrathan glancing at one another, skepticism and worry on their faces. I was losing their faith.

I stood up straight and shouted in the loudest, most commanding voice I could muster. “Form up ranks but do not attack until my command,” I said. “Pocha, you’re giving me a ride up to the top of the falls. Let’s go!”

* * *

I climbed behind Pocha onto the back of her teal-colored picean, Razune, and she winged us up toward the cliffs. Almost immediately, a barrage of arrows streaked toward us from the Lacunae ranks below.

“Look out!” I shouted.

Pocha saw the danger and steered us to the right, out of range of the arrows. But they were far from our only concern. A half dozen flying golenae had spotted us as well and had taken flight, winging up toward us from the ground.

Golenae, I warned Pocha.

I see them.

Drop me off at the edge of the falls. Then you hold them off.

Yes, Irska, she said.

With a last effort from Razune, we emerged above the falls. She roosted on the edge of the cliff for a second, just long enough for me to jump off, then she turned and dove to take on the oncoming golenae.

I now stood atop an ancient, two-foot thick stone dam. It held back the water from the spring, forming a basin perhaps a hundred spans wide. The falls plunged down from a twenty-foot wide gap in the center of the dam. For a second, I was struck by how tranquil the water was given the chaos taking place below. Then Razune rose into the air behind me, snarling, locked in combat with two golenae, and the illusion of calm dissolved.

Focus. How do I get the water from up here to down there?

In my mind it had been easy. Break the dam, watch the water pour down. But now that I looked at it, I was impressed with how thick the dam was. And it had been in place for thousands of years. If it were easy to break, it would have broken already. I sure wasn’t going to make any progress hacking at it with only my sword…

Frustrated, I turned away from the water, thinking.

As I did, I saw Razune hit one of the golenae with a blast of ice, freezing the upper half of its body. As it began to fall from the sky, she wrapped her tail around the leg of a second golena and swung it into the first. When the two collided, the frozen one shattered and both fell from the sky. It was an epic move. And it gave me an idea.

We need fire, I told Pocha.

She was distracted, preparing to engage two more golenae—a giant eagle something that looked like a flying snake.

Someone with a strong dragon stone and fire power... Lure! Bring me Lure.

As you command, she thought back to me, and her dragon tilted and dove, slipping right between the two attackers who shrieked in irritation. The snake dove to pursue Pocha. But the eagle spotted me and began flying in my direction.

“No. No, no, no…” I fled, sprinting down the dam wall as the eagle’s talons slashed the air just behind me. Water lay on one side of me, a thousand-foot drop on the other. Fall left and the eagle could snatch me out of the water like zyrfish, fall right and drop to my death. So I tight-roped my way ahead, clay beak snapping at me as I ran. I reached the grassy sward at the end of the dam and dove as the eagle screeched over me, talons raking the air where I’d been a second before.

I rolled to my feet and channeled Othura’s power using my dragon stone. A stone’s power was far more potent when the dragon itself was present. But I’d have to do this on my own.

I summoned the power, focused, and released. A blast of swirling wind hit the golena, twisting the thing’s wings about itself and causing it to plummet over the edge of the cliff. I ran and looked down. The eagle fell halfway down the cliff face before righting itself and starting to fly up again. Three more flying golenae joined it.

But Kortoi’s abominations weren’t the only worry. The URA planes were arriving, too. Bursts of fire bloomed on the palace’s east wing as bombs fell and exploded. The rattle of machine gun fire filled the air as five planes buzzed the courtyard, strafing the Skrathan there.

This is a disaster.

Where was Pocha?

There!

I caught sight of her weaving her way toward me among the golenae, dodging attacks from the biplanes. And Lure was on Razune’s back with her.

Suddenly two more golenae burst up from the edge of the cliff, screeching and flying toward me. I hit them both with another blast of whirlwind and they dropped just as the eagle had—for now.

Then Razune was there, rising over the cliff’s edge.

Lure, you heat the water near the outlet to the falls. Just don’t get washed over.

Pocha, you cover Lure. Buy time. We want the water near the dam boiling. I’ll try to draw the golenae over to me.

Yes, Irska, my friends replied.

Pocha deposited Lure atop the wall and Lure’s hands plunged into the water. Immediately, the nearest water began boiling and steaming. Razune turned, hovering, ready to take on the next wave of golenae. From my place off to the side, I ran to the cliff’s edge and whistled. Two of the five onrushing golenae shifted their attack and came at me.

Are you coming any time soon? Othura demanded in my mind.

Trying my best, I said, sprinting to draw the golenae away from Pocha and Lure. When I’d gone far enough, I wheeled and hit them both with a blast of wind, knocking them back. It worked—but channeling Othura’s power through the stone was taxing. I wasn’t sure how many times I could do it.

I spared a glance at the basin and saw a large swath of water near the dam was now boiling.

Gods, Lure’s fire ability was powerful…

What now? Lure demanded in my mind.

Keep it going, I shot back. We need the rock of the dam to be as hot as possible.

The buzzing of an engine grew louder as a plane swooped toward us, machine gun blazing as it fired at Pocha. A few shots hit Razune’s tough hide before she barrel-rolled out of the line of fire. A blast of ice gushed from her mouth and froze the plane’s propeller. It paused in mid-air, then started to fall. As it did, Razune grabbed it with her talons and steered it into a pair of attacking golenae, knocking all three from the sky.

Yes, Pocha! I cheered. I glanced over again to see the water abutting the dam roiling and steaming. That was hot enough. It had to be.

Now freeze the dam, Razune. Lure, run!

Obediently, Lure took off down the length of the dam as Razune spun and blasted the dam with ice.

For a second, nothing happened and I felt like my heart dropped into my belly. Then, I saw a crack appear on the dam wall. Then a second. Then a third.

“Yes!” I shouted.

But the celebration was short lived. A shape blurred toward me from the left and I looked over just in time to see a golenae dragon swooping toward me, talons flared. As it hit me, I dove and twisted, freeing myself from its grasp—and falling into the basin with a splash. There was a sound beneath the water. Crackling, then a boom. I surfaced, gasping for air, and felt my body tugged along in a powerful surge. The dam had broken. The water was gushing out, over the cliff’s edge. And I was rushing with it.