“Yes,” Ymmen agreed, breathing fire behind his words. “That is one of the reasons why many of my kind have vowed to no longer have anything to do with the land of the humans,” Ymmen explained. “We dragons can remember long, far longer than even you imagine, dragon friend,” he said mysteriously. “And that means that we can see the melody and rhythm of the song long before any other creature.”
“The same notes play out every time there are humans and dragons. Always there are the dragon friends, and there are always those others who steal our power.” Ymmen said all of this, and I was amazed at how eloquent he was. Something had happened to the bond that we had between us; either I was learning to understand his thoughts better, or we were each growing closer, allowing more communication between us.
Because we were one thing, I remembered the dragon’s philosophy.
“Inyene is as bad. Or will be,” Ymmen said finally, and then there was a new image – of the fifteen circling the keep and the mines of Masaka, but from far up above – so high that I couldn’t hear the racket that they made from my vantage point.
“They haven’t stopped. Haven’t slept. Haven’t fed,” Ymmen told me with great suspicion. “There is nothing that will tire them from their destruction.”
And they had no fear. I nodded. And none of the natural instincts that any other animal had. If Inyene ordered them to attack the Plains – or even Torvald – then that is just what they would do – even once their wings had been ripped from their back or their sword-talons struck from their paws.
And she is only making more of them, every day, I thought in horror.
“Yes. We cannot let her get the Accursed Crown,” Ymmen said, and I sensed that the dragons had an entirely different view of what the Stone Crown was, and what it represented. I nodded gravely. This was the only way to truly save my people.
I was about to ask Ymmen about the ‘Accursed Crown’ and what he knew of it (why had I never thought to ask him that before?) when there was a rapping on my chamber door. I jumped, whirling as the door was pushed open. For a moment my mind saw Dagan Mar standing there, miraculously alive and still intent on killing me – but it wasn’t him, just another guard that looked a little like him. I hadn’t been given the luxury of locking my door this time, I thought.
“C’mon, next door,” the guard growled. He was one of the unfriendly ones, apparently, as he waited for me to grab my cloak and then halted me, patting me down for weapons. As I no longer had the Lady Artifex’s knife, I had nothing. “Walk in three paces, bow, and kneel. And stay down!” The guard pushed me roughly on the shoulder the short trip past the complement of guards who lined the walls, and Abioye’s open doorway.
The room was large and sumptuous, and it was gray with early morning light. Abioye himself lay on the wide bed, breathing shallowly but looking a lot better, propped up with pillows.
And there was Lady Inyene herself by her brother’s bedside – sorry, Queen Inyene, I saw, as she had added an iron circlet to her brow. I froze briefly in the doorway as I saw her. She was dressed in many layers of gossamer white dresses, embroidered with the greatest skill in purples, reds, and gold. Over this was a long, floor length sort of coat, somehow in a silvery-white hue. When matched with her red hair and the drawn and pinched white skin of her face, her visage reminded me of the image of the Dead, marching ceaselessly, tirelessly. Inyene had something of that same relentless force of will about her.
But she was very much alive, her eyes gleaming with a hard intensity as she turned quickly to regard me like a falcon spying prey.
Three steps forward, bow and kneel, I remembered, doing everything the guard had said that I should. Inyene waited for me to perform the necessary honors that she demanded, a small, pleased sigh of air coming from her when my head lowered, and I knelt.
How insecure you must be, to constantly need everything around you telling you that you are strong! I thought with disgust.
“You are the slave Narissea, are you not?” Inyene said. I was about to look up and answer, but it seemed that the self-appointed queen did not even need any input from anyone else, as she continued. “My brother, the Lord Abioye, has told me of your bravery during the atrocious act of treachery by the mage Montfre,” she said. It sounded like a speech, although she was only addressing me, the guard standing at my shoulder, and Abioye on the bed.
“A great ruler is also a beneficent ruler,” she said, and it sounded like a familiar saying or a quote, though I had no idea from where that quote came. “And so, seeing that you are so smitten with your liege lord—” Inyene said with apparent hilarity. I blushed. It wasn’t like that.
“—I will offer your village clemency for their crimes against the True Throne of the Three Kingdoms!” She ended on an apparent flourish.
The thrill I’d felt at the word ‘clemency’ died in an instant, giving way to fury. What crimes! What is this ‘True Throne’ nonsense!? I kept my eyes cast down, lest she see how outraged I was. This wasn’t news that I could even dare to be happy with – nor could I dare to believe she would ever keep her word.
What about all the other Daza on the Plains? What about the Daza down there in the mines? I thought.
“Well, applaud, you imbeciles!” Inyene hissed when her dramatic statement was met by nothing but confused subservience from the guard and me.
I swallowed back a growl. If only I had the Lady Artifex’s knife at my side about now. But though it pained me, I did clap, as did the guard at my shoulder, and even the guards who stood outside in the hall.
“My only condition for your village and you to be freed from their debts is that you return my brother, victorious, with the Stone Crown,” Inyene said in a satisfied fashion.
Which was never going to happen, I knew as I kept my face lowered. It wasn’t just that I didn’t know if we would ever be able to find her precious Accursed Crown. It was also the fact that the pride of my mother, and of a dragon, and of myself blossomed within me in that moment.
I will never trade the freedom of my people for your gain, I thought. The Daza – stars, all of the free peoples of the world – were worth far more than that. We were not pawns or bargaining chips. We were part of a larger song.
“And so, my dear brother”—the ‘Queen’ Inyene then turned her attention to Abioye, lying before her—“I graciously give you permission to leave. Immediately. At first light,” she said with a beatific smile on her face.
“I… uh… now?” Abioye blinked in surprise from where he lay on his convalescence bed, with bandages wrapped around his head and wrist. It had barely been a day and a night since the fight.
“Yes, brother dear.” Inyene’s beaming smile faltered as a frown wrinkled across her forehead. “It has been made clear to me that there is now a pair of dangerous renegades on the loose about my lands. Montfre and the black dragon. We cannot allow them to halt our plans!” she said vindictively.
“And so, to that end, I am sending you and a full complement of guardsmen ahead, and I will also be rewarding you with a company of my finest dragons,” she said.
Uck! I felt appalled.
“I will be sending more supplies and troops after you, but for now it is far more important that you get this done.” Her eyes glinted cruelly as she regarded her brother. “Any brother of mine, one with the blood of the High Queen Delia herself coursing through his veins, will see this as an opportunity.”