Page 3 of Magick and Lead (Dragons and Aces #2)

ESSA

L ike a bolt of lightning dropped from on high, we fell upon our enemies.

Othura caught a black-armored Lacuna by the helmet with one of her back talons and slammed him to the ground as we landed.

Another charged us on horseback. I ducked the slash of his blade, pivoted in my saddle, and buried my sword in his neck.

I sensed motion behind me and turned to see a pair of jaws streaking toward my face—a huge serpent-shaped golena sped toward us.

But with a flash of white and a rush of cold, it froze mid-strike, embedded in ice.

Razune landed next to it, her breath still wispy white from breathing ice.

On her back, Pocha nocked an arrow and fired it through the eye-slit of another Lacuna’s helmet, dropping him.

Othura shifted beneath me and smashed the frozen serpent into pieces with a whip of her tail.

Nice work, I told Pocha, using the silent communication—the simnal—which for us dragon riders was as familiar as speech. Pocha nodded back to me, her plump, normally smiling face grim with resolve.

I sensed motion above me and ducked as a purple dragon slammed a birdlike winged golena to the earth. The clay monster thrashed there, its beak snapping, claws scrabbling to slice the dragon’s tough skin.

A clip, strapped onto my missing right forearm in place of a hand, held me to the saddle.

I undid it now, slid off Othura’s back, raised my sword, and hacked at the bird monster’s eyes.

Two, three, four chops and the beast’s left eye rolled out of its socket, crimson and sizzling like a burning coal.

I stomped it to powder beneath my boot, and the left side of the golena’s body went limp.

Lure leapt from the purple dragon’s back and drove a dagger into the monster’s other glowing eye.

The light in it went out, and the creature twitched once more, then went still.

Lure stepped back, one hand on their stomach.

You okay? I demanded using the simnal.

Lure pushed back the visor on their helmet and nodded, wincing.

I knew Lure should have stayed back at camp. It was too soon for them to be fighting again after their injury—but they were too stubborn to stay behind. As a person who’d been called stubborn a few times myself, I could relate.

“Take it easy,” I ordered.

Lure flipped me off, smiling.

Oddly enough, it filled me with joy. I might be queen now, but at least I could count on my friends to continue treating me the same as ever.

The sound of hooves drew my attention, and I wheeled, ready to face another Lacuna—or maybe a hooved golena of some kind. But it was another of my Skrathan friends, Dagar, riding on my horse, Sisha. He reigned her in, out of breath.

“Guys, come on! I can’t keep up,” he huffed.

Dragons don’t wait for horses, was a common saying among the Skrathan, but it would have been too cruel to say aloud. Dagar had lost his dragon the day of the assault on Charcain. The day Issastar fell. The day my mother died. The day everything changed.

Gods, we all lost so much that day…

But Dagar, perhaps, had lost the most. Because a rider without their dragon was like a body without a soul. That was another Skrathan saying...

Dagar kept up a brave face, though, as he dismounted, brandishing his sword and shield.

“Well?” he said. “What are we waiting for?”

We all turned toward the target of our mission: a door, half concealed with bushes, that led into the side of a hill. Local farmers had told us they’d seen Lacuna going in and out.

Was it too much to hope for that my missing friends Rohree and Ollie were being held inside? Or Clua—who had gone to search for Rohree and never returned? It probably was too much to hope for. But we had to find out.

Othura took a deep breath, her silvery scales glinting as her belly expanded, then she blew out a gust of wind so powerful it blasted the door off its hinges. It fell inward with a boom, exposing the darkness beyond.

“Geez, Othura. Nobody tried the knob. It might have been unlocked,” Dagar quipped. It felt good to see him joking, but I couldn’t muster a smile or even a laugh. Not when Mother was dead. Not when our kingdom was lost and overrun with monsters. Not when Kit—Charlie…

No. I wouldn’t even think of him. Not now.

Not until I found a way to get his throat under my knife…

Focus , I told myself. There would be time later to think of revenge. Plenty of time. A lifetime more of agonizingly long, sleepless nights just like the ones I’d suffered over the past two months. But now, there was a mission before us.

The broken door revealed a tunnel. It was too narrow for dragons to enter, so we all dismounted and moved on foot toward the waiting darkness.

“Anyone bring a glowstone?” Pocha asked.

“Yes,” I said.

Sheathing my sword and reaching into the bag slung over my shoulder, I drew out the stone. It was only a small one, no bigger than a kyn cookie, and the bluish magical light it emitted wasn’t much—but it was all I’d had with me when the city fell and everything was lost.

I glanced at it, then down at the sword in my sheath.

It was strange… I could go hours or even days without thinking about my missing right hand.

Then, a moment like this would happen, and it would strike me again like a slap to the cheek: a simple, important task that was impossible for me.

I couldn’t hold the glowstone and my sword at the same time.

Pocha, ever attentive, saw my predicament immediately and, without a word, put out her hand. I gave the glowstone to her and drew my blade again, walking side-by-side with her as we stepped into the darkness, Lure and Dagar a step behind.

Be careful, Dear Heart, Othura said in my mind.

I’m always careful, I shot back.

She snorted. No, you’re not. You’re reckless as a hatchling.

As usual, she was infuriatingly correct. I had once been careful. Fearful, even. But in the days since Issastar fell, in the days since Kit’s—Charlie’s—betrayal, everything had changed.

Maybe I was desperate. Maybe I just didn’t care if I lived or died.

But being depressed had its upsides, because our little band of survivors had scored quite a few victories over the golena monsters, their Lacuna handlers, and several bands of rebel nobles over the past two months.

And the villagers living nearby had taken to sharing food and information with us, eager to show that despite all that had happened, they remained loyal to the crown—and to me.

Othura was right. I did have to be careful.

Even if I hardly cared for my own life, I owed it to the people who believed in me to stay safe.

I owed it to my friends, who the traitors held captive—Rohree and Ollie.

I owed it to Othura. And I owed it to my mother, whom I swore I’d avenge.

So, I held my sword high and proceeded slowly as we descended deeper into the blackness of the tunnel.

There was little to see. Stone walls bent inward and came to a point above us, forming a low, vaulted ceiling. A floor of hard-packed earth scuffed under our boots. All sounds of our passage died immediately, falling into a tense, heavy silence, like a stone dropping into a well.

Rohree. Ollie… please be here, I begged into the darkness. But the darkness was the void. And the void was the domain of my enemy. Prelate Kortoi. If I were truly lucky, I’d find him at the end of this passageway—trickster, traitor, dark priest. I’d find him, and I’d carve him up like a roast pig.

Torchlight flickered ahead, and with it came the mutter of low voices.

Pocha and I exchanged a glance and moved ahead, quick and silent.

We rounded a corner to find three men seated around a table.

At the sight of us, they gave a cry and sprang to their feet.

Two were dead before they even got their swords drawn, one with my blade in his belly and the other with Pocha’s knife across his throat.

The third drew his sword and retreated. As I came at him, all the anger and heartbreak of the past few weeks flared up in me.

My blade clashed against his once, twice, thrice.

On the fourth blow, I gave a roar of fury and swung so hard my blade snapped his, its momentum carrying through until it buried itself in his neck.

He went down heavily, his blood already spreading out on the floor.

I turned, catching my breath, to find my friends staring at me.

“What?” I demanded.

“I don’t know, maybe leave somebody alive next time?” Lure arched an eyebrow. “We might have gotten information from one of them.”

“Too late now…” Dagar nudged one of the already-dead men with his foot.

“Are you okay, Essa?” Pocha asked me.

At the tenderness of her question, tears almost rose to my eyes.

Was I okay? Ha.

I’d lost everything. I’d lost my mother.

I’d lost Ollie, my Torouman—councilor, defender, loyal eunuch and friend.

Ollie, who’d been bound to me since I was a girl and who was closer to me than a brother.

I’d lost Rohree, my sprite handmaiden and dear friend.

I’d lost my home. My kingdom. My identity. And I’d lost—I’d lost?—

Kit—Charlie. A traitorous, lying man who had deceived me. A man I was far better off without. A man who, if I ever saw him again, would be far worse off than the one now lying at my feet.

And I would find him.

“Essa?” Pocha said again, concern in her voice.

“I’m fine,” I told her. “You want to check on someone, check on him.”

I gave a casual kick to the dead man at my feet.

And I really looked at him for the first time.

A glance at his rusty chainmail and his worn boots told me he was no Lacuna, nor was he a knight or a defected royal guard.

He looked like a commoner… but that didn’t make any sense.

The people were supposed to be loyal to me.

Sure, some of the commoners were bound to have loyalty to their local lords, but…

something about the scene gave me an uneasy feeling, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me so much.

A sound behind me made me jump, and I spun, my sword at the ready. Just beyond where the dead man lay, something square sat covered by a canvas tarp. From within it there came a low growl.

We all glanced at one another.

“A golena?” Dagar wondered aloud.

I crept forward, tightening my grip on my sword.

Careful, Othura said in my mind. I sense hunger.

Slowly, I hooked the cloth with the tip of my blade and pulled it aside. It was a cage. And inside the cage…

“A baby dragon,” Pocha gasped.

But it wasn’t just any dragon. I recognized him. And when he spoke in my mind, my hunch was confirmed.

Parthar, he said.

Parthar… It was his name.

“Not just any dragon,” I whispered. “This is the one that was bonded to…”

“To Kit,” Pocha said—sparing me from saying his name. Or rather, the alias he’d used to woo and deceive me.

“Look, he’s hurt,” Dagar said, rushing to the cage and kneeling before it. Sure enough, I could see blood on the little dragon’s talons where it had been clawing at the bars. His eyes looked dim, too. He was sick. And sad.

My heart swelled with hurt as well as anger. No creature should be treated like this, especially such a beautiful little dragon.

“We should kill him quickly,” I said, looking away.

“Essa!” Pocha scolded, shouldering past me to kneel with Dagar at the edge of the cage. She reached out, and the little dragon licked her fingers with his forked tongue.

Lure came to stand beside me, considering the cage with crossed arms.

“Essa is right,” Lure said. “I’m sorry to say it, but if he’s bonded to an enemy, he’s a threat. And a dragon that young with his bonded rider gone… he’s probably going to go mad anyway.”

Pocha glared at Lure. “Maybe. But let me remind you: we’ve lost control of the hatchery.

There aren’t exactly a lot of spare dragons lying around.

We can ill afford to throw one away, especially a beautiful little fellow like this.

And some riders have lost their dragons.

” Her eyes widened for emphasis, and we all knew what she was talking about.

Dagar’s dragon, Barnard, had been killed in the attack on Charcain.

He’d put on a brave face, masking his pain with his usual humor, but we all knew that a part of him was in agony.

“What if this little dragon could be rebonded?” Pocha pressed, appealing to me now.

It was rare for a dragon to be successfully rebonded, even one as young as Parthar. Still, Pocha was right. We’d need every dragon we could get to win back my kingdom.

But Lure was right, too. There was a risk to keeping Parthar alive. A full-grown dragon bonded to one of our enemies, especially one as treacherous as Kit—Charlie—was almost too terrible to contemplate.

The little dragon was giving Dagar’s fingers little licks through the bars. Dagar glanced back at me with a hopeful expression. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen on his face in months.

I sighed. “Fine. We’ll give the little dragon a chance to rebond to Dagar. If it doesn’t work, he dies. Now get him and let’s move. We’re losing daylight.”