"Thank you, Matriarch," Graxen said. He cast his gaze over the guards. "I've been ordered speak to you privately. Would you dismiss your attendants?"
"Do you think we'll fall for this trickery?" a valkyrie snarled, jabbing her spear to within a whisker of Graxen's ribs.
"Lower your spears!" the matriarch commanded, drawing closer, studying Graxen with a cool gaze. "We've nothing to fear from this pathetic specimen. He's no more than an overly large carrier pigeon."
"I prefer to think of myself as an ambassador for the new regime."
"Ah yes, the new regime. Rumors travel more swiftly than you, Graxen. I've already heard of Albekizan's death. Shandrazel is king."
"For now, yes," said Graxen.
"A strange choice of words," said the matriarch.
"An appropriate choice for strange times."
"Explain yourself."
"I shall," he said, looking back over the guards. "If we may have privacy."
The matriarch waited a long moment, her golden eyes fixed on his face. He saw himself reflected in her gaze, a gray dragon against gray stone. He tried to see any emotion in her eyes, any hint of… Of what? What did he wish to see? Remorse? Tenderness? Hatred? Love? He'd not set eyes on the matriarch since infancy. He'd imagined this meeting almost every day, practiced what he would say in his mind, but now that it was happening, he felt utterly unrehearsed and awkward.
The matriarch sighed. "You shall have your private audience. Valkyries, leave us."
Graxen relaxed, lowering his wings. Until this moment, he hadn't known if he'd live through this meeting. The valkyries were notoriously unmerciful toward interlopers. He hadn't known if he would be treated any differently. There was every possibility he could have been treated worse, given his family history.
"I was worried you would hate me," Graxen said to the matriarch as the last valkyrie left the room. The guard closed the door with a final glance back, her eyes full of murder.
"I hate you with all my blood," the matriarch said, shaking her head sorrowfully. "You're my greatest mistake, Graxen. I curse the decision not to snap your neck as an infant. It gives me nothing but pain to see you again."
Graxen nodded, no longer feeling awkward. These were also words he'd heard many times in his imagination. He was a freak of nature, a mockery of the careful breeding and birth lines the sky-dragons had labored for centuries to maintain. Of course the matriarch, whose sole duty was to protect the integrity of those lines, would despise him.
"I… I'm sorry," he said.
"Of what use is your sorrow?" spat the matriarch. She shook her head, and sighed. "Your sorrow cannot mend my grief. I gave birth to four daughters, and two fine sons. Their offspring should number in the dozens by now. Yet fate snatched them all in their youth, one by one, through disease and accident and treachery. All dead… all save the accursed seventh born."
Graxen lowered his head, unable to find the words that might ease her pain. Part of him felt pity for the aged dragon, part of him shared her grief. Yet, underneath it all, he bristled at the injustice of her scorn. It wasn't his fault that he'd been spared the misfortunes of his siblings. How was he to blame for having been her only surviving child?
Chapter Two:
Frayed Threads
Graxen followed the matriarch down a winding staircase, leaving the tower far behind as she led him to the heart of her domain, the fabled Thread Room. The enormous round chamber, nearly a hundred yards in diameter, was like an interior forest filled with thick granite columns supporting the fortress above. Elaborate, colorful tapestries covered the walls of the room, depicting in glorious detail scenes from the Ballad of Belpantheron. Bright crimson sun-dragons savaged golden-winged angels in their bloody jaws at the climax of a battle that raged for decades.
The valkyries were masterful engineers; while the chamber sat beneath the surface of the lake, the room showed no traces of leaking or flooding. Mirrored shafts were set in the ceiling twenty-five feet overhead, funneling sunlight into the room. Despite the radiance, the room was still beset with a cave-like chill and dankness. The cloying incense that rose in wispy tendrils from silver sconces lining the room couldn't quite hide the underlying scent of mildew.
The matriarch walked through the chamber without looking back at Graxen. The only sound in the room was the tap of her cane as she hobbled across the tiled floor. She had not spoken, or even glanced at Graxen, since they'd left the tower. Graxen wanted to speak but feared disturbing the sacred air of this place. The tapestries of the Thread Room were priceless. Underlying the visible representation of battle, the threads themselves were woven in an elaborate code. For the matriarch and others initiated in their lore, each thread of these tapestries told a story. Thicker lines represented the lives of individual sky-dragons, every one born in the Nest through the centuries. Thinner threads ran parallel, representing desired genetic traits. The web of lines intersected in elaborate patterns as every mating, every birth, every death of a sky-dragon were recorded in minute detail.
Centuries earlier, it had been decided that the genetic destiny of the sky-dragon race was too important to be left to mere chance. Males and females were not allowed to mingle or mix according to whim or desire. Each mating represented a careful decision made by the matriarch and her predecessors. Many pairings were planned generations in advance. Others would arise after a sky-dragon demonstrated a novel trait-superior intelligence, for example, or a well documented resistance to disease-and it was the matriarch's duty to capture these desirable mutations through careful interweaving with a receptive bloodline.
On the far side of the room a black section of the wall stood devoid of tapestries. The matriarch moved toward this area, a single smooth slab of slate, twelve feet high and four times that length, covered with lines of colored chalk and countless scribbled notes. The matriarch paused, studying the board, as if she had forgotten Graxen's presence and resumed her normal duties of steering the fate of the species. She leaned her cane against the board as she lifted a thick finger of chalk in her fore-talon.
As often happened in older dragons, the colors of the matriarch's scales had faded, tinting white the frill of long scales that ran down her neck and along her spine. The once jewel-like sheen of her scales had dulled, as if muted beneath a lifetime of dust.
Graxen cringed as the matriarch brought the chalk to the slate and drew a long, screeching line from top to bottom. To the left, hundreds of scribbled notes in a rainbow of colors were surrounded by circles, with lines and arrows connecting them. He didn't recognize any of the names save one. In a large yellow oval, surrounded by pink question marks, in thick, capital letters was the name VENDEVOREX. There were no lines connecting his circle to any other.
To the right of the line she had drawn, the board was fresh and black. She wrote in neat, balanced letters despite her trembling talon: "World order, post Albekizan."
Without facing Graxen, the matriarch asked, "Is it true the so called wizard is dead?"
"Yes," said Graxen. "His funeral pyre is to be lit tonight."
The matriarch drew a bold white X across Vendevorex's name. "The 'master of the invisible' has been a burr under my scales for fifteen years," she grumbled. "He was bloodless, a beast without history. I never learned where he came from. I'm happy to know he's gone. Ash in an urn is the only appropriate fate for an… aberration."
The way she said "aberration" gave the word mass, making it a solid thing that struck Graxen in the chest.
She did not give him time to dwell upon the blow. "Shandrazel now wears the crown. He fancies himself a scholar. Metron will control him with ease."