Page 28

Chapter 28

THE RUMBLING OF THE MOUNTAIN grows louder, but when I look around, no one seems particularly bothered about that. Instead, everyone’s concerned stare is trained on me as I struggle to keep my shit together. As annoying as it is to have an audience, I’ve always worked better under pressure, and it helps to ground me in an unexpected and welcome way.

“The roots are rotating the vaults, the entryway will automatically open when yours has been accessed,” Linden tells me.

I can’t tell if he’s trying to give me something else to focus on or if he thinks I’m freaking out about the noise and he’s explaining what it is in hopes that I’ll calm down.

I look over at the tree and notice a subtle tremor is moving through the trunk and subsequent limbs.

Linden’s words make me picture a giant lazy Susan of treasure spinning under our feet. I have no idea if that’s how the roots rotate the vaults , but it’s the visual I’m going with. The rumbling morphs into a low, bone-vibrating groan before it suddenly stops.

In three strides, Lorn is suddenly next to me, and then his Wing and Aeson’s both move into position around us. Herm, Jori, and Blay stand on my side, and Lorn’s Wing guards his. Out of nowhere, light filters through the seams of the braided tree trunk. It grows brighter to the point of almost being blinding, while the woven gold of the trunk slowly loosens until a large arched entryway appears.

My eyes search the opening in the tree for anything that resembles a Crush, but all I see is the same glittering black stone that the rest of this cavern is made out of. Lorn’s hand presses against the small of my back. I flinch at the unexpected contact, barely managing not to pull away or deck him.

“We have to step in,” he tells me, gesturing with his other hand at the empty entryway.

“Oh, right,” I chirp, and then I hesitantly step forward.

Lorn’s hand doesn’t leave my back, and I end up having to press closer to him as everyone steps inside the golden opening. Immediately the braided seams start to close back together, and all too quickly the trunk seals itself up, completely trapping us inside.

Small spaces have never been an issue for me, but as the seconds tick by and nothing happens, I can feel the cold touch of claustrophobia as it starts to slink closer and closer. Lorn’s palm starts to grow warmer where it’s pressed against the skin of my back. The pounding of my pulse grows to a crescendo in my ears until it’s all I can hear. Heat sparks in my cheeks, and I don’t know what to make of the scion’s touch. Is he trying to comfort me, or is this motivated by something else?

I should step closer to him. I should encourage this, just like I planned. But all of a sudden, my feet are leaden, and a heavy boulder has decided to take up residence in my chest. The overwhelming urge to slap Lorn’s hand away and put as much distance between us as I can, starts to peck at my limbs. The longer I ignore the urge, the more it digs under my skin like an infestation of skittering insects.

It’s completely counterintuitive to what I’ve planned and the opposite of what I need to be doing. If he has been flirting with me, if he’s acting on attraction, then I should be trying to hook him closer to get what I need. And yet, I’m on the verge of giving in to the driving force demanding that I push him away from me. Then again, maybe this has nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with the Noctises trying to throw me off. Maybe this is meant to unsettle me and nothing more.

The floor beneath us suddenly lurches, yanking me from my frenzied thoughts, and then we slowly start to drop. A ticking sound fills the tree trunk as we descend, and the stone platform that we’re standing on rotates until we’re all facing the other side of the tree.

An exit starts to form in the trunk, or maybe this is an entrance too because it grants access to a new gleaming room. I wasn’t sure what to expect—a cave with mounds of treasure was high on my list—but I’m surprised to find a large expanse of walls covered in drawers and doors. Every surface is made from some kind of metal that has a patina to it that’s not quite bronze or gold but something unique and in between.

It reminds me of a feed I saw once on a vid screen in the human district. I think they called them safety cubes or something along those lines. Big treasure hoarders, or banks as they call them, let special humans store their valuables in these kinds of cubes. The cavernous space in front of me looks similar, only the drawers and doors here are bigger and seem to cover every surface.

In awe, I step out of the tree trunk into the chamber. Only Lorn moves to follow me, his Wing and Aeson’s staying within the open trunk. The tech I can sense here is top of the line, and the room itself is massive. A bright purple light flashes across the ground, and I freeze. My eyes drop to my feet, and I see a list of data scroll by quickly with different dates attached to names. I recognize a few of the names as precious metals.

Huh. Weird.

There’s a seam in the ground and I step over it, only for a new list to light up in purple next to my foot. This one appears to be a list of gems, rare and common, again with dates attached to the designations.

“There are vaults built into the ground too. If you want to call them up or access their contents, tell the roots what you want and they’ll obey,” Lorn tells me, pointing to the different sections that make up the entirety of the floor and then to the drawers and doors on all of the walls.

Astonished, I suck in a sharp breath and quickly stride over to a row of drawers. A new list, alight in bright purple, scrolls across the drawer front. It contains rings of some sort, and it tells me not only who they belonged to, but the gems and metals used to make them and their sizes.

“If you press your finger to the upper right-hand corner of any of the vaults, it will tell you the current monetary value of its contents,” Lorn instructs.

I test the drawer of rings and press the pad of my finger to the corner, and the list of contents disappears and a string of numbers takes its place. They keep ticking by until the digits look more like an international com number and not what a single drawer of rings should be worth.

“Fuck the fae,” I whisper, aghast as I spin to take in the whole vault.

I’m tempted to pull open every drawer and door. I want to inspect each item, take note of what my father and kindred contributed. Suddenly I need to know which items they valued enough to add to their Crush, and I’m desperate to discover the treasures that called to their dragons. But as quickly as the overwhelming desire comes, I shove it away even faster.

This Crush isn’t mine alone. I have no right to touch anything until all the Syphons are here and can decide what to do. We lost everything together. We’ll reclaim it all the exact same way.

I allow myself one more spin to take it all in. My stunned gaze lands on Lorn, and I shake my head in utter disbelief at the magnitude of it all. A wide smile blooms across the scion’s face, and a deep resounding chuckle fills the vault.

“I guess the days of caves filled with piles of gold, jewels, and the skeletons of humans who tried to steal from a dragon are long gone,” I note, completely gobsmacked but doing my best to rein it in.

Lorn’s chuckle blooms into a laugh. I notice that no purple lists light up at his feet when he moves, and realize that effect must only be keyed to me.

“Yes, Princess,” Lorn teases. “ Those days are very far behind us. That lore only exists in fairy tales now.”

“Fairy tales and in the daydreams of broken little Syphons,” I mumble to myself.

Carefully, I walk around, noting what lights up on the floor and the walls as I go. There are a lot of things I would expect to find down here—jewels, crowns and tiaras, centuries-old coin collections, pottery, art. But there are vaults for things that surprise me too—ancient documents, digital photo albums of ancestors long forgotten, clothes, books.

I have to stop myself from reaching for the archives of photos. It’s funny because I was terrified I might find exactly that down here. But now that the images are at my fingertips, all I want to do is see my kindred’s faces again. I want to replace the last memories I have of their shattered bodies with new images of them laughing and…living.

I stare at the drawer longingly, torn and conflicted, and then I force myself to walk away. I will look, I’ll scour their archives and soak up everything I can about everyone I’ve lost, but not today. Today I need to focus on anything that might help me, anything that might point to answers about who might have planned the attack or how we were cursed.

It’s a long shot that anything useful might be down here, but I’d be an idiot not to look. Treasure looks different to every dragon. Some desire gold, others covet jewels or lands, and then there are those that deal in secrets and see the value in gossip. If I’m lucky, I might find a vault filled with classified information or maybe even royal secrets.

I move to a vault storing thousands of books and start scanning the titles in case anything helpful stands out.

Lorn clears his throat and moves closer. His Wing and Aeson’s are still standing under the golden arch of the tree trunk, watching and waiting.

“You mentioned that I owe you a few secrets. This feels like an appropriate place to pay up,” Lorn declares, apprehension dimming his half smile.

That unexpected emotion from him gives me pause. He rubs the back of his neck, a nervous tell that puts me even more on guard because Lorn Noctis isn’t the type to be nervous…ever.

I don’t trust it.

My focus shifts from the vault to the heir, and I wait for whatever bomb he’s about to drop, or maybe it will be less bomb and more knife in the back.

I guess we’ll see.

He surveys my face, and the debate happening in his pretty blue eyes is obvious. My mind picks up a baton of paranoia and runs with it, forcing me to think through a thousand different disastrous possibilities for what he’s about to say.

“I knew about you,” he tells me, his handsome face a mix of trepidation and shame.

My mind stalls and my heart stumbles. Of all the things that could have slipped out of his mouth, that confession was not one I was ready for or one I could have ever seen coming.

Every muscle in my body goes tense, and I blank my face of all emotion. I stand against the wall of my kith’s Crush like a speechless statue while a riot of emotions rampage through me.

“I don’t understand,” I tell him guardedly when I can finally find my voice.

“Your father came and got Novak and Ronin one day when Aeson and I were playing with them. We didn’t see them for a few days after that, which was odd. We played every day and had tutoring sessions together, but they missed those too. When we saw them again, it was clear something had happened, but Aes and I didn’t know what, and they wouldn’t tell us no matter how much we pressed.”

Lorn blows out a deep breath and looks around like he’s in search of an anchor as he continues.

“We dropped it, but a couple weeks later, Novak told me he had a secret. We shared everything, told each other everything, and I think it was killing him that I didn’t know. Especially when he was so excited about it.”

My eyes flick back and forth between Lorn’s, like I can somehow ferret the rest of the story from his gaze alone. My throat grows tight, and the fluttering in my stomach grows sharper, threatening to start stinging me at the sorrow I find cloaked in his features.

“Novak ran me through drills and all kinds of challenges our thirteen-year-old minds could come up with to prove I was worthy of his secret, that it would be safe with me.” Lorn smiles, and a hollow chuckle sneaks out of him, but his gaze is far away and steeped in the past.

There’s a sadness in his eyes, the kind that always tints the memory of a lost loved one. An ache ripples through my own memories of my brother, because Lorn knew him better than I did. They’d been best friends practically since birth. I had days with Novak. In comparison, Lorn had a lifetime of memories with him.

“I was sworn to the highest degree of secrecy, and then your brother told me that he was going to have sisters. His dad had sat him, Ronin, and Brooks down and told them all about it. King Tenebrae told them that they couldn’t tell anyone else, not for a couple of months. Not until after his sisters arrived and he met them, and their dad could make sure they were safe.”

Emotion wells in my eyes, but my heart hits every rib as it drops from my chest into my stomach. Panic floods the now empty cavern, but I force my brow to furrow and for confusion to seep into my gaze as Lorn Noctis says sisters for a second time.

“He didn’t tell me anything else, probably because he didn’t know anything else, but we talked about little sisters and wondered what it would be like to have them. I wasn’t much help as I’d only had a little brother, just like Novak. But we knew girl dragons were precious, and we were excited to discover all the reasons why when the secret sisters arrived. Then we played games and went to classes, and life marched on.

“When Novak died, the secret was buried under shock and grief. It surfaced in my memories a long time later, but by then, I assumed that the queen was probably pregnant and that’s why King Tenebrae had told Novak and your brothers about sisters. I didn’t think anything of it really, until I met you…”

Lorn closes the distance between us in three strides, and I fight the urge to flee. His sad eyes rove over my face, and he lifts a hand and wipes a lone tear that trails down my cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Ever,” he whispers, the words raw and sharp. “I didn’t understand what Novak was telling me, that you existed. I should have looked into it, asked questions, or tried to confirm something, anything. I made assumptions and it meant you were out there in our world alone, that you learned to hate us, that you were…hurt.”

Lorn’s face collapses in pain, and I feel it wedge between my sternum and go for my heart. He reaches for me, wrapping his big arms around my body, and I let him because all of a sudden it feels like he might be the only thing holding me together.

Maybe if he’d told me somewhere else, or if I wasn’t already so raw and teetering between grief and loss. Maybe then I could have reacted differently, could have kept myself together, but his truth is a hammer to my already weakened defenses.

We stand there, his cheek resting on the top of my head, as sorrow twines its way around us, holding us both in an exacting grasp neither of us will ever escape from. His genuine sorrow pulses off of him in waves, and for some inexplicable reason, I feel the need to comfort him.

Maybe it’s because this is real. For the first time in all my interactions with the scion, I don’t question whether this is a play or some kind of trick. His guilt is palpable, and unwarranted, and I feel it heavy in the air all around us.

“It’s okay,” I offer, and I’m surprised to find that I mean it. “You were a kid. How could you know?”

“I should have. He gave me all the pieces, but instead of fitting them together, I dismissed them,” he argues, and I smooth my hands down his back as I press my cheek against his warm chest.

I don’t hold it against Lorn, but a small part of me wonders what would have happened if he’d come looking for us. If he’d realized what the secret meant and searched. As much as I’d like to imagine that things could have been better for me and the other Syphons, the reality is that we’d all probably be dead. With no way to reveal and protect ourselves, whoever hunted our kith and kindred would have come for us too.

For the second time since I was discovered by The Horde, I wonder if we’ve gotten the Noctises all wrong. I’ve been on the defense since I arrived, but what if they were just as wounded and fractured by everything that happened as we were? Surprisingly, I find myself willing to pull at those threads and see how they unravel, but another part of me worries what I might find in the end. Because as much as I want to hate the scions, they’re making it much harder than it should be. But I don’t know if my bruised and battered soul can withstand the damage it would take if I started to believe them only to find out that they were playing me all along.

I wish I knew if my fear was unfounded or justified. This kind of trepidation could be a warning from my intuition, but it could just as easily be a result of prejudice and fear.

My stomach twists uneasily.

“But here’s the thing,” Lorn goes on, his tone now edged with determination.

He leans back and looks down at me, his eyes bright and intense. I go still, and unease percolates in my gut. He tucks my hair behind my ear, and I’m too frozen to untuck it even though I hate how it feels.

“Novak said sisters ,” he tells me deliberately, evenly, giving me time to process each syllable like it’s the most important combination of words I’ll ever hear out of his mouth. “I don’t think Novak made a mistake, Ever. I think your father told him sisters—plural, not singular—for a reason.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I was really hoping he wasn’t going to focus on that despite the fact that he keeps bloody repeating it. I beg my vitals to stay calm and collected even though I feel the exact opposite. I force myself not to look over at the tree trunk to see if Selik is listening in. I know he is, everyone watching us like hawks.

Fuck the fae, and fuck too observant scions and their Wing.

Measuredly, I shake my head, but I keep my eyes trained on Lorn’s as feigned bewilderment washes over my face.

“But he had to have misunderstood, Lorn. There’s only me here,” I counter, careful not to sound too defensive or worried by his revelation. “Or maybe he hoped there would be more but it didn’t happen before my father was killed. That was the goal of this whole breeding situation in the first place. It would make sense for him to want that.”

Lorn looks as though he’s considering the possibility, and I use it as an opportunity to pull out of his grasp and put some much needed distance between us. I pretend to think and pace while I do, as though his speculations are worth considering, when really I’m trying to figure out how to steer him away from all of this without giving myself away.

My gaze catches on a large door and the purple list that lights up as I wander by. Absently I scan the list as I wait to see if Lorn will take my bait. The word mirrors flashes across the vault door, and something about it plucks at long forgotten, stale, and dusty thoughts. The list disappears as I continue pacing, popping back up when I make another round.

“Maybe,” Lorn mumbles. “But what if he wasn’t just hoping for it? What if there were more children?” he asks, and I don’t like the dogged undercurrent thrumming through the question.

Dammit. He’s not going to let this go.

“Hear me out,” he implores when I open my mouth to try to redirect him again. “If the king implemented this breeding program and he had you, he could have had others that only he would have known about. What if there are more Syphons out there? Other dragons hiding just like you were because of what happened?”

He closes the distance between us, and I stop pacing to look up at him.

“What if you really do have a sister out there, but the other Tenebrae daughter wasn’t brought to Four Tiers like you were? What if she’s waiting for us to find her, Ever?”

I jerk back, his words snapping at my face like half-starved dogs. Lorn reaches out to steady me, and hope flashes in his ice blue eyes.

“I failed you, failed to see what Novak told me for what it was. I don’t want to do that again,” Lorn whispers, an ache in his voice that echoes through me.

It stalls the argument I’m readying to launch and makes me take a second to really hear him. I sift through everything he just told me and focus on his sorrow, on his apology for not understanding the magnitude of the secret Novak shared.

Lorn pulls me closer, and something dawns on me. This is my hook. I was looking for an in with the scion, a way to connect and build trust so I can find what I need. This is my in . I don’t need to flirt or pretend to care about him and his friendship. I need to help him rescue the damsel in distress. I need to help him find the other sister, even if she doesn’t exist—at least not in the way he’s thinking, but he doesn’t need to know that.

I don’t need to steer him away from this train of thought. I just need to direct him as far as I can from where the real Syphons are—where Enslee is—and this is the perfect way to do that.

I stare up at Lorn and I let a little hope leak into my eyes. “Do you really think it’s possible?” I whisper as though afraid to believe.

“I do,” he quickly answers. “And I think we could find her.”

“Okay,” I answer after a long drawn out moment where I pretend to carefully consider what he’s saying. “I don’t know if you’re right, but if there’s even the smallest possibility that there might be more Syphons out there, I want to help them.”

Lorn’s smile is resplendent, and the optimism suddenly wafting off of him is unmistakable. For a moment, I almost feel bad, and then it hits me.

Mirrors.

I know why that word caught my attention. Even better, it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.

“What’s wrong?” Lorn asks when I pull away from him.

“Nothing, I just saw something that made me think of my dad. I’d forgotten all about it until right this second.” I stride over to the door and pause in front of it. “Open the mirror vault,” I call out into the room, feeling like an idiot, but Lorn said the roots would listen if I bossed them around.

The glowing list on the door instantly disappears. There’s a quiet whoosh that moves behind the wall, and then the distinct snick of an opening lock comes from the door itself. I back up as it swings open to reveal an antechamber filled with mirrors.

All different sizes and shapes greet me. Some gleam in the light, looking new and pristine, while others appear ancient and fragile. Every inch of every wall is covered in hanging mirrors, and I spot a rack that holds the ones made to lean and not hang. They’re framed in gold and jewels, wood, and tarnished metal. Some don’t have frames at all, just raw edges that look worn down by time.

“I forgot he collected these,” Lorn declares almost reverently. “My father has quite a few of your father’s collection still hanging in the royal offices and rookeries. He couldn’t bring himself to take them down.”

I hold my breath as I enter the vault, and a sea of reflections suddenly surround me. I stare at the repeating patterns of flame-colored hair, jade green eyes, and smooth alabaster skin—thanks to the charmed anklet I’m wearing.

“Treasure looks different to every dragon,” I whisper to myself as I take the mirrors in. “I asked my father why he liked them so much when he was showing me around his office. There was a whole wall of different shapes and frames. Some of the reflections were shiny and bright, and others were worn and warped, but he cherished each one,” I tell Lorn longingly as I let the memory painfully rise to the surface.

My pace is measured and calm as I walk deeper into the antechamber, and I carefully and discreetly begin searching the glass surfaces for a symbol, one my father told me and Enslee about. A crest he discovered that will turn a simple mirror into so much more.

“He always hung the mirrors in a room so he could see Four Tiers and Paragon City in their reflection. Did you know that?” I turn and ask Lorn, who’s respectfully still standing outside in the main part of the vault.

Lorn shakes his head.

“He told me it was so he could always see a reflection of what he was fighting for and the people who would suffer if he wasn’t the best king he could possibly be every second of every day.”

I run a finger over the intricate details of a pretty floral frame, but then I move on because it isn’t what I’m looking for.

“He spent every second of every day worrying about The Horde and the people of Drameric. He did everything he could to be the best possible leader for everyone…and they killed him.”

Emotion pricks my eyes and I try to blink it back.

“They killed his babies right in front of him. Then his mate.” My voice cracks and a tear escapes and flees down my cheek. “And then they ripped him apart, like they hadn’t already shattered him, tortured him, destroyed everything good he ever did or tried to be. He wanted the best for his people. The best for Drameric. And that’s how they repaid his efforts.”

I shake my head, rage and sorrow swirling and churning until all that’s left in me is the weapon that will make them pay for what they did. I stare into the span of my light green eyes, each of them the very shape and exact color of my father’s eyes. I let myself pretend for a moment that he’s here, looking back at me, guiding me to find what I need.

And then just like that, I see it.

A crest, no bigger than a thumb print, etched into a mirror that takes up a third of the back wall. It’s not the cure to the Syphon curse, but it might very well be the key to finding it.

I drift toward the sizable rectangular mirror with an intricate bronze frame. With each step, my reflection grows larger and crisper. I don’t recall ever seeing this mirror when my father was showing us his collection in the keep, but I’m drawn to it like the beacon of hope that it is.

“Can I have this?” I ask reverently, turning to look at Lorn.

He offers me a sad smile, his countenance somber and reverential. “You can have anything you want, Ever. All of it is yours now.”

I stare at the scion, his words settling in my cracks and turning to cement.

All of it is yours now echoes in my depths.

Not yet, but it will be.

I give Lorn a grateful nod and turn back to the mirror. My thoughts are frantic with plans I’m eager to execute, but on the outside, a dangerous calm has washed over me. For the first time since I was taken by The Horde, I see a path, a way to find what we need.

I’m going to break this curse on the Syphons. I feel it in my sorcai-cursed blood. I’m going to fix what never should have been broken. And then I’m going to hunt down everyone who had a part in it and teach them the true meaning of pain.

I nod and my reflection nods back at me. “I think I’ll hang it in my room,” I tell Lorn absently as I study my hardened features in the mirror. “Maybe it will keep the bastards that killed my father from sneaking up on me too.”