“Yes, Father.”
“Lord Protector,” he said, then blushed. “I’d prefer if you call me Lord Protector in public. It’s important that people get used to it.”
“Of course, Lord Protector,” she said.
“Keep me updated.” He frowned. “It looks thinner. Fatten it up.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond, instead turning on his heel and heading for his unmarked carriage, whisking his entourage of aides and guards along with him, leaving Ysabeau alone with the dragon. She looked again into the deep pools of the dragon’s eyes. Her father was right, the creature was thinner. Far thinner. She had been so busy with everything else that she hadn’t noticed.
Looking about, Ysabeau spotted her foreman coming back in; everyone had made themselves scarce while her father—the Lord Protector—was present. She couldn’t say she blamed them. There were rumours going about the city that the return of magic was all down to him, that he dabbled in the dark arts and could kill a man with a single withering stare. It was laughable, or at least it would have been, were it not for the fact that the rumour gave even Ysabeau pause for thought. What might he be capable of when he finally chose to test his powers?
One way or the other, he needed the distraction of the dragon. The clinics weren’t winning people over; the residents of Mirabay were refusing to eat food or drink water that they suspected had been touched by magic. In that, she was disappointed. The benefits were clear for all to see, they simply refused to accept them. You could lead a horse to water …
Those were her father’s problems. Managing this dragon and its enclosure were hers. She caught the foreman’s eye. He had proved competent in the preparatory works and she planned to keep him on to help her run things now that the construction was finished.
“Get me a side of beef,” she said, then frowned. Might the dragon dislike beef? “One of bacon too.”
“My Lady, there’s a shortage of meat in the ci—”
“Get them,” she said, “or it will be you and some of your men fulfilling that role in the cage. I don’t care what it takes or costs. This beast needs feeding, and feed it we will.”
She turned her back on him to show the conversation was over, and found her eyes locked on the dragon’s once more. Each time she did, it made her feel uncomfortable, but she hadn’t been able to work out why. She could see intelligence in the creature’s eyes, dancing like a nascent flame. It wasn’t just intelligence, though. There was something soulful about the beast. When Ysabeau looked into its eyes, she knew what they were doing was wrong, and felt ashamed.
She considered for a moment whether the creature was using magic to tug on her heartstrings, perhaps in an effort to convince her to set it free, but she knew her own mind, and heart, too well for that. She had done many questionable things in her life, but had always been able to rationalise it—she had never killed someone that didn’t have it coming. On this occasion, she was struggling. Not because she wasn’t creative enough, but because she knew what they were doing was unjustifiable. She reminded herself that these creatures had to be hunted down because of the death and devastation they had caused, but she knew also that her father’s expeditions had provoked them.
As she looked into those eyes, she struggled to see the savage creature of nightmares. She saw more intelligence than she saw when looking most people in the eye. And more pain.
CHAPTER 32
Gill hadn’t thought he was afraid of heights, but had really never had the opportunity to properly test it. When he was fighting the first dragon, he had been lifted up far higher than he had ever been before, but he had assumed the terror he’d felt rose from being locked in mortal struggle with a creature of nightmares. Now, dangling from one of Pharadon’s claws proved he did indeed have reservations when it came to great heights.
Solène, in Pharadon’s other foreclaw, seemed to be having the time of her life. Though she squinted to shield her eyes from the buffeting wind, her face was split by a toothy smile, and Gill couldn’t think of ever having seen her look so happy. Watching her, he did his best not to allow his gaze to drift down. He wasn’t sure how high they were, and wasn’t willing to study the ground long enough to make an estimate. All he could think about was what it would look like if he impacted—little left but a red splatter, he reckoned. Certainly not how he would choose to go out.
They surged through the air as Pharadon’s great wings beat with a powerful, steady rhythm. It was cold up that high; Gill’s eyes watered as the wind whistled past his face. He wondered which of the mountain peaks below contained the Cups, and more importantly, the Venori. He had borrowed some warmer clothes from the stores at Castandres, but they weren’t heavy enough to keep him entirely warm, and he worried his limbs would be frozen stiff by the time he encountered one of the demons.
Eventually Pharadon started down in a loose spiral that was centred over a peak capped with snow. He slowed and hovered above a ledge on the rock face, giving Gill and Solène time to realise he was about to release his grip. The drop to the ground was slight, and he had to do nothing more than bend his knees to absorb the impact.
With the humans safely on solid ground, Pharadon landed, his bulk filling most of the space. He immediately started to transform into a human, a process that always turned Gill’s stomach. Unwilling to watch, he turned his attention to the opening in the side of the mountain. Even Gill’s inexpert eye could see that it had once been much larger, that it had been almost completely sealed by a rockfall.
He approached and peered in. The light of day reached in for a few paces, but after that, the darkness was absolute, creating the kind of void that nightmares were made of. Even if Gill hadn’t known for a fact that there were demons somewhere in there, the darkness alone would have been enough to set his imagination racing. Every instinct he had screamed at him not to enter.
“I’m ready when you are,” Pharadon said.
Gill turned back, finding him in his now-familiar human form and appearing fully clothed. Gill drew his sword, Valdamar’s old blade, and felt a momentary concern that he might lose the magnificent weapon somewhere in the dark depths of the mountain. Still, there had been no real choice—he needed his best blade if he hoped to survive.
“There’s nothing to be gained by waiting any longer,” Gill said. He looked at Solène, whose face was impassive. He wondered if she was as terrified by the thought of going in there as he was. “You know where the Cups are?”
Pharadon nodded. “I can find my way to them. I need you to protect me until I can get them back out.”
“These creatures, do they use weapons?”
“I don’t believe so,” Pharadon said. “Your Telastrian blade should cause them fatal wounds, even if the blow itself would not normally have been mortal.”
That’s something, at least, Gill thought. “How do they behave?”
“They were said to swarm the creatures they seek to slay. The narrow passages in the mountain should be to our advantage, since they’ll only be able to come at us one or two at a time. But there is something else they do, a form of mind control that subdues a living victim so they can feed. Be wary of it.”
“Have they been here all this time? Waiting?”
Pharadon shrugged. “There’s more magic in the world now than I’ve ever known. There are many possibilities when magical energy is so strong. It’s possible that some of them went dormant all those years ago, and woke as I did, when the Fount grew so strong. Or, they may simply have come to be once more. All we can do is hope that there are not many, and that they will remain in this remote place.”