Page 76 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Fifty-Three

I n literary terms, a 'climax' is the moment of highest point of tension in a storyline, often in a confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist. In this case, me, and the man who is one heartbeat away from literally slitting my throat.

The climax resolves the main conflict of the story, in the moment the main character reaches their goal.

It is also, I recall as I swallow against the claws, sometimes when the protagonist fails to reach it.

Sometimes the hero tries to save the world and in the end… they don't. They can't. Sometimes they give up. Sometimes they die.

Lieutenant Governor Francis Alibbed Gwilliam Simcoe's hands are around my neck. I am on my tiptoes, straining, one hand on his forearm more for balance than because I have any illusions about my ability to pull his hand away. Chin up, eyes on Dav's.

Poor Dav, I think. It'd destroy him.

If this is to be my climax, if I'm going to perish like a literary hero trying to change the world that I damn well deserve to be, then I'm going to make sure everyone knows why.

"What were you planning for my accident, eh?" I hiss. "Another cliff? Paparazzi car chase? How were you going to make it Dav's fault this ti— hurghk ."

"I am going to rip out your tongue ," Simcoe snarls, his hand tightening.

"Murderer!" someone in the gallery shouts, and the chant is picked up first by the Favorites, and then by the dragons. "Poacher!"

"I'm going to kill you, slowly, here and now, so he has to watch," Simcoe hisses against my ear.

The queen raises her hand and the chant stops just in time for everyone to hear me squeeze out: "Dav didn't kill Charlotte! You did, didn't you, Frankie?" I ask, because he seems like the kind of villain who would get off on revealing his dastardly plot. "Come on! Tell us how you did it."

My heart breaks for Dav when Simcoe proves me right.

"Yes! It was me!" Simcoe snarls, eyes rolling, teeth lengthening. "Alva-draig, the great strategist, the tactician so valued by my father, and I out-maneuvered him!"

"The rock wobbled," Dav gasps. "It was solid the week before, but when I stepped onto it—"

Simcoe laughs, high and shrill. "You're so predictable ! It was easy . I knew where you'd be, that the river was far from civilization—"

"Hey!" I protest on Onatah's behalf.

"All I had to do was wait for you to do exactly what I knew you would…

it wasn't as clean as I had hoped for, you didn't drown together, but I got to pin it on you anyway.

Oh, Alva, if only you'd left , if only you weren't so foolishly noble, if only you cared more about your own people and less about those savages , we wouldn't have to do all of this all over again. "

"Had your father killed, too, I bet," I husk out, reedy and strained. Okay, maybe I'm suicidal, I don't know, but like, fuck, if I'm going to die then I'm going to die making sure Dav knows the truth. "I don't know any dragon that dies of an illness. Survived him well and good, didn't you?"

"Outrage!" someone shouts from the back of the gallery.

"Betrayal!" calls another. "Treachery!"

I suck on another breath, heels kicking fruitlessly against Simcoe's shins.

"You branded him a murderer, isolated him, tortured him, for what ?

You claim to keep Dav at the ready, a sword left in the sheath until it's needed.

Swords rust . And when another whetstone came along, you couldn't stand to lose control. So you marked me."

"You threw me into the frenzy on purpose ?" Dav howls.

Elizabeth Regina rises. Beside her, Leicester unsheathes his blade.

"Release him and explain yourself," the queen commands, voice ringing like a guillotine blade, raising one arm like a sword, pointing a finger like a pistol.

Simcoe quavers and seems to finally realize what he's admitted to. And in front of whom. He drops me to fold his hands earnestly over his heart.

I stumble forward. My dignity already well and truly dead, I use the forward momentum to throw myself at Dav. He catches me, presses his face immediately against mine, licking up my ear to eradicate Simcoe's touch, then at the nick under my chin to clean up the blood.

He's quick and efficient about it.

This isn't the time for a relieved, and lingering reunion. This isn't even the time for another frenzy.

That's not where we are in the story.

This is the climax, remember?

This is where the hero rises to their final challenge.

And this is also where the villain's hubris finally undoes all of his plotting.

Simcoe burbles, but the queen is having none of it.

"Speak again!" she commands, roaring like cannon fire.

"Your Majesty, I didn't—"

"You did!" I cough, ducking around Dav. "You planned both their deaths, and when that didn't work you engineered Dav's isolation, tailor-made his own personal mental fucking breakdown for him . "

"Shut your mouth, you useless bedwarmer!" Lt. Gov Horrorshow snarls with increasing desperation.

Around the room, dragons rise to their feet, furious. Favorites reach across aisles to comfort one another. Laura Secord weeps. Her head is high, her posture rigid, her expression like stone. But there are tears running down her cheeks. And there is no one to hug her.

The remaining dragons on Simcoe's side slowly, deliberately, stand up. Walk to the back. Abandon him.

Good.

"Cowards!" he roars at them, then aims the accusation at the rest of the room.

"Cowards! Do you know what we could do if we took what we deserve?

We are the superior species, and we ," he thumps his chest, " We have earned our place at the top!

And you want to give away everything we've earned?

Everything I've worked so hard for? It's mine! "

Another explosive noise of horror and protest crashes down on us.

Dav… I don't know how else to describe it. He uncrunches. He uncrumples . He seems to fill all of his skin, the power and the presence radiating off of him so intense that it knocks me back a step. Every cell in my body screams to throw myself at him.

This is the draconic magnetism Dav's been hiding this whole time?

Shit, it's strong.

He reaches up and, slowly, meaningfully, removes his winged circlet and holds it out to me. I take it, press it against my heart.

"Lieutenant Governor Francis-dragoun Alibbed Gwilliam Simcoe," Dav says, silencing the crowd's howls with his gravitas.

"I, Alva-draig George Tudor, Marquess of Niagara and son of Y Ddraig Goch's own bloodline, do hereby charge you with the murder of my Favorite Charlotte Edith Woodley, and with the willful repeated violation of my Favorite Colin Fergus Levesque. "

I blink to hear my name included in the list of his sins, but say nothing. This feels too important, too formal , to interrupt.

And it must be important, because Simcoe goes suddenly, shockingly pale.

"Alva, friend, you can't—"

"Silence!" the queen commands, and Simcoe curls in on himself, twitching. "Proceed, Niagara."

Dav dips his chin regally at the queen, eyes closing briefly, the gold paint on his lids glittering in the sunlight. Then he pins Simcoe to the floor with a gaze so filled with hate and fury that even I quail.

"I challenge you," Dav says.

But it's more like Challenge, with a capital C, with meaning.

"No," Simcoe whimpers.

In all the ways that Dav uncrumpled, Simcoe now seems to be pulling in on himself like a weasley, flop-sweating black hole.

"I challenge you," Dav repeats. "To a duel. Now. "

The noise that washes over the gallery this time is one of excitement.

Dav starts to undress methodically. He hands me each piece of clothing, one-by-one.

Too stunned and confused to do anything else, I fold it and set it on the table.

He wouldn’t want it wrinkled; he always folds his clothes, even when we’re in the throes of passion.

So proper. A hundred-thousand questions press behind my teeth, but the most important, the most vital, blocks them all because I can't ask: Promise me you won't get hurt?

I try not to look at Simcoe, who hesitates before stripping far less elegantly than Dav. Enemy junk is nothing I want burned into my brain. But I do glance at him long enough to catch the raised, ridged gunshot scar that crawls across his back, ugly and deep.

Laura hasn't moved to his side to take his clothes. No one has. The only thing she's focused on is me. I don't know how to read her expression, but I think it's… pity? Sorrow?

For me?

Or herself?

A roar reverberates through the room, and I tear my attention back to the dragons in the middle of it. They're both properly scaly now.

Red as blood, Dav slinks down into the pit, his tail lashing in an ever-twisting Celtic knot, sunflower eyes now the bright glowing yellow of acid, black talons scratching at stone.

One step up, Simcoe hunches on the carpet like a shivering dachshund.

He's cinnamon brown, serpentine, but less armored than Dav.

He turns pleading eyes up to the queen and she shakes her head.

His request has been denied.

A low, rolling growl fills the room, rising like foam on the sea. Dav is impatient.

I wish I had another Favorite here to squeeze, the way the other humans are holding one another. I wish Laura weren't so far away.

This is because of me.

This is about to happen because of me.

And it has nothing to do with me at all.

It's for Dav's pride, but it's also for his grief.

I want to stop the fight.

I can't stop it.

Please be okay, I think hard at Dav. Please don't get hurt for me.

I don't know what I'll do if you get hurt.

Simcoe uncurls, and steps tentatively down into the arena. Dav stops pacing. They both unfurl their wings, dip them at one another. Time stands still.

One… two… three…

They fight.