Indomitable noticed me almost the moment I left the trees, waiting patiently until I stopped thirty or so feet away and bobbed my head in greeting. He began speaking in Draconic with a half-lidded expression that I thought signaled relief, and I waited until he paused expectantly.
“Cannot speak tongue,” I told him, using the full extent of my piddling command of that language. I consoled myself with the knowledge that my pronunciation was pretty good.
“Ah, yes. That is right,” he replied in excellent Karakani. “Your mother and Sandstorm both said. You command this human tongue, yes?”
“I do,” I confirmed. I probably should have been more polite, but worry and pain had me a bit short.
“Very well. Little Draka, grand-daughter of my clutchmate, it is good to see that you yet live. I was concerned when your cousin reported much destruction here, and that your mother is nowhere to be seen.” Then he seemed to take note of my injured side for the first time. Surprise swept over his face, followed closely by anger. I fought down an urge to flee as he surged forward, moving with terrifying speed to inspect me. “Little one,” he growled after sniffing at my skeletal wing. “Who did this to you?”
“Do you know the other dragons here?” I asked. I tried to sound strong in the face of his question, like I was holding up much better than I was, but I sounded pitiful even to myself.
“Your mother told me of them on our last meeting.”
“The big ruby female, Behold Her And Know That All Things Must End. She tried to kill me and my humans.”
“Your mother warned me of her,” Indomitable mused. “This was yesterday? I heard a lot of screeching, but I never thought you might be in danger. Where was your mother when this happened?”
“She left me and hasn’t come back.”
Indomitable looked at me, tilting his head slightly. There was still anger on his face, but I didn’t feel that any of it was directed at me. Instead he looked appraising. “She abandoned the whelp she travelled half the world to find?” he asked.
“I do not think that she has abandoned me.” I tried to sound confident, and not just hopeful. “She said that she needed to think.”
“She needed to think so urgently that she left you at the mercy of an aggressive female who has declared her desire to see you dead… and so deeply that she has not yet returned.” He watched me in unscrutable silence for a few terribly long moments before saying, “I believe I know why.”
My heart leaped all the way up my long throat. There was nothing speculative in the way that he spoke. It was false humility all the way through. He was sure that he knew something. It only remained to be seen if he was right, and how he’d respond. “Your mother told me something of her concerns when we spoke, while you were getting to know your cousin,” he continued. “Though she did not tell me everything, she was confused by what her Kin-sense was telling her. You had always waxed and waned unpredictably to that sense, she said, but recently it had been as though you were in two places as once. ‘She stands there, speaking to your granddaughter,” she said, ‘and yet it is as though the whelp I see is a stranger, and my own daughter is back with this one’s humans.’ She could not make sense of it. So despite her pride, she asked for my advice.”
“What did you tell her?” I asked. My voice shivered, not sure if it should be curious, fearful, or furious. Was this why Embers had confronted us? Was Indomitable the reason that we’d been left without a protector when Behold Her was on the war-path? I had to know. All I could do to him was to curse him out, and I didn’t dare do even that, but I had to know.
“I told her to take great care. That once a bond is willfully broken, it can rarely be mended again. And that if she intended to reject you she should kill you now, lest that rejection fester within you over the centuries, until you grow strong enough to do her real harm.”
“You told her to kill me?” Mercies, I couldn’t imagine what Mak was going through just then, with the storm of emotion she must be feeling from me. My granduncle had told my mother to kill me.
“I did. She either rejected my advice, or followed it. I am most curious to learn which when I next speak with her.”
“What?” I’d been slowly working myself up to delivering some very choice, possibly self-destructive words to the old dragon, but now he threw my balance off again. “What do you mean, ‘or followed it?’ She didn’t, clearly. She left. She didn’t kill me.”
“Indeed,” he said, eyes crinkling as though this was amusing to the old bastard. “Knowing my niece, I am more inclined to think that she took my advice. She tends to make her decisions quickly. You said that you do not think that she has abandoned you, and I am certain that you are right. She is gone, yes, but you are alive. You see? She does not intend to reject you. She simply needs to settle her thoughts.”
My fears calmed, just a bit. There was a familiarity in the way he spoke about Embers; a calm certainty that was hard not to believe.
Then he had to go and stir those fears up again by going right on and saying, ”Though how long she intends to be away, who can say? Until then it seems to me you need a new protector.”
“That sounds like an offer,” I said warily.
“You may take it as one, if you wish.”
“And you make that offer because… why? Out of kindness?”
Now he was undeniably amused. Amused, and something else that I couldn’t quite put my claw on, but which I wasn’t sure that I liked. “No, little Draka,” he purred. “Not kindness. Such a human thing to suggest! For my own descendants, perhaps, but not for you. No, I have two motivations for keeping you alive. Can you guess the first?”
I didn't hesitate. I could only think of one thing he might want, and it was more bitter than the taste of my own venom. “Sandstorm. You want me to give up some of my territory to her.”
“Not quite. Once Behold Her And Know That All Things Must End and the other interlopers are driven off or destroyed, you will accept her in your territory. This is a good place for a young dragon to mature, close enough to what was her father’s territory that moving her hoard is not outside the realm of possibility, but I would not wish to upset my niece by taking it from you for my granddaughter’s sake. So, understand that I do not expect you to surrender anything that is yours; only to allow her to remain as a guest until you both come to some agreement or she chooses to move on.”
“And if I give you my word to do so, you will protect me from Behold Her?”
“Indeed.”
“You had another reason, though,” I reminded him. “And you still have not said what it is you suspect about me. Will you not tell me?” I had this hope that whatever that reason was, it would be enough even if I didn’t promise to let Sandstorm stick around. I hadn’t disliked her, and I certainly sympathized with her for her loss, but I also had no illusions about her making any difference between being allowed to use part of my territory, and that same part belonging to her. Possession being nine tenths of the law, and all that.
Indomitable saw right through me. “So I did, and so I will,” he said, lowering his head so that we were eye to eye. “Accept my condition, and I will be pleased to tell you the second reason, as well as my suspicions.”
I scowled at him, a human gesture that I didn’t know whether he’d understand but which I couldn’t hold back. A stupid risk, probably, but the constant ache of my wounds wasn’t exactly helping me be patient and polite. His protection could mean life or death for me, which I was sure he knew, and for my humans trapped underground, whom I couldn’t say whether he was aware of. And he was enjoying pressuring me far too much, the arrogant old prick.
It wasn’t like I could afford to turn down his offer, no matter how reluctant I was. For all I knew, Embers might be away for days. Or I might be entirely wrong about her, and she was gone forever. Meanwhile, Behold Her would return. There was no world in which she wouldn’t; the only question was when. This afternoon? This evening? Or would she wait until night had fallen? Would she try to dig the humans out once she came, out of spite? I wouldn’t put it past her. It was more likely than not, really. The only real question was whether she’d simply gas them all once she got to them, or if she’d try to use them to draw me out.
So I accepted. And Mercies, it hurt worse than my wounds. When I told him, “Very well. She can stay. For a time,” it was like I could feel my pride tear, the kind of injury that would never heal right, even if I slept on my hoard for a year straight.
Conscience’s reassurances that it was the right thing to do, for myself, for my humans, and for Sandstorm, helped some. And I knew that I should expect this old dragon to put himself in Behold Her’s way for me if I couldn’t offer him anything in return; not after having seen Presence; not after having experienced her wrath myself. But I also knew, with absolute certainty, that it would take me a long time to forgive this. And if, at some point in the future, Sandstorm refused to leave, or if she tried to occupy more than I was willing to grant her, then they had better kill me themselves.
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I couldn’t say if Indomitable was ignorant of my outrage or merely ignored it. He looked damn pleased with himself, that was for sure. Neither could I be sure if he was being serious or mocking me when he told me, “My niece said that you are wise beyond your years, little Draka. It is good to see that it was not merely the blindness of a doting mother. And I am sure that your cousin will be pleased as well. I believe that she enjoyed meeting you.”
I wasn’t so sure, but what the hell did I know? I’d only spoken to the dragonette for a few minutes. Besides, I was tired of his rambling. “You said you’d tell me the other reason,” I reminded him, laying down so that I favored my injured right side. My legs hurt from standing for so long, and I let out a relieved sigh as I settled. I couldn’t wait to have Mak and Kira out; Mercies knew how long it would take to heal me, but they could at least take the pain away.
After I lay down, Indomitable followed suit. The old amber looked positively regal as he got comfortable — poised, yet relaxed. “I did, and I shall,” he said. “Listen well, and I shall leave it to you to decide whether you tell your mother or not. You see, I have spent much time thinking since speaking with your mother, and I have some suspicions about your origins… and about you.”
When Embers had confronted me, I’d been terrified. Now that Indomitable said that there was something suspicious about me, something that made it worth keeping me alive, I was mostly annoyed. Frustrated, perhaps. And, yes, I was a bit curious to learn what he suspected, and why. But mostly annoyed by the way he insisted on drawing it out.
The old dragon didn’t pause for me to ask what he suspected, or why. He liked to talk, that much was clear, and he immediately asked, “Little Draka, what do you know of your father?”
“My father?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. Something about magic, perhaps; something related to the forbidden ritual that had created the Avjilan I knew, or something else he might know of. I hadn’t expected him to bring up Night, a long dead dragon whom he had presumably never met.
Indomitable only watched me expectantly.
“My father,” I repeated. “I do not remember him well. I was too young to really be thinking when he died, when— has Mother told you what happened to me?”
“About the humans and what they did to you? Broadly, yes. I was rather curious how it was that she had a whelp so far from her territory, as you may imagine.”
“Right. Well… He Who Darkens The Night was like me, I think. I barely take after Mother at all, though I should grow larger than Father was, based on some of his teeth I found.”
“Teeth?”
“Teeth and bone,” I confirmed. “I found some. The valkin here, they had these staves that they used to control humans, made with his remains, or the remains of some dragon, at any rate. It was awful, and I have destroyed the two I have seen. Anyway, even as a fully grown adult, I don’t think he was a lot bigger than Sandstorm now. Mother could tell you better. His lair would certainly have been impossible for any other adult dragon to move around in.”
To the point where I was sure that he must have been able to Shift and move around that way, because most of those tunnels would be hard for me to move in as it was. They were all human sized; if he’d been somewhere between ten and twelve feet tall, like I’d estimated, he simply couldn’t have fit.
“I also know that this city, Old Mallin, Malyon in their own language, loved him. They revered him, maybe even worshipped him, as a savior,” I added, excitement and a bit of unearned second-hand pride bleeding into my voice. “There’s a—”
The excitement vanished as quickly as it had come as I remembered what Behold Her had done in her spite and anger. “There was a shrine to him, not far from here. On the other side of the courtyard that this used to be. There was a beautiful mural there, covering the entire inside wall, showing how Father saved this city from the Rifts and the monsters that they created. It’s… It is gone now. Behold Her destroyed it after I got away from her.”
“Unfortunate,” Indomitable said. An attempt at sympathy, perhaps, though he clearly didn’t care much about the shrine, a human monument to a dragon that meant nothing to him. “Is that all?”
“He liked humans,” I added, racking my brain for anything that might interest the old dragon. “He had a huge flock. I do not know how many, but there were living spaces for plenty of them around his lair.”
“Hrrm, yes. That matches what your mother has told me of him. Now, if that is all you know… before I tell you what I suspect, another question. What do you know of the City of Rains? I believe they call it Tekeretek nowadays.”
“They’re trying to conquer my city to the south of here, I know that much!” I replied angrily. “And they’re using me as an excuse to go to war.”
“Is that so?” he asked, with nearly the same lack of interest as he’d shown for the destruction of the shrine.
“And it was a Tekereteki royal who murdered my Father and imprisoned me,” I added, spitting the name. “Sekteretesh.”
That got his attention. “Sekteretesh you say? Well, that is interesting. Anything else?”
“I know dragons used to rule Tekeretek. They worshipped us as gods. Some few still do, though it’s illegal now.”
“Yes!” he replied with great satisfaction. “That is what I was driving for. For a long, long time, many thousands of years, the City of Rains and the lands around it were ruled by dragons. So were many other places, of course. Some still are. Travel far enough, and you will find dragons competing for ownership of cities and more, though I do not understand why any dragon should wish to spend their time pushing humans around. But the City of Rains was ruled since time immemorial by one unbroken line of dragons; secretive, jealous, and not much liked, except by the humans they ruled, who worshipped and adored them.”
The rulers of Tekeretek. The false gods. The Soul Dragon. The Soul Dragon’s last scion. All things I’d learned from the Tekereteki empress’s first two letters. Okaitireti had been absolutely certain that my father was the last member of the line that had ruled Tekeretek. It was half their justification for murdering him.
“Were they like me?” I asked, certain what the answer would be.
“Hrrm? No, not at all,” Indomitable replied, dismissive and as confused at my question as I was at his answer. “I never met the last dragon to rule Tekeretek, but my mother did. She described him as opalescent, or pearlescent, perhaps, his scales reflecting the light in all the colors of the rainbow. Lots of spines, too, like your mother. No, nothing like you at all. Now where was I? Ah, yes. Jealous and secretive. Nobody ever quite knew what their Advancements let them do, you see. They certainly could do nothing like the all-consuming flame of your mother, or my own lightning, or the venom and acid of some others of our kind. But we have clues. My own mother could sense any dragon near her, and she swore that she sometimes felt the last opal dragon in his humans, when they were near and he was not—though how that could be, she had no idea. And I have heard from her, and from others, that any who attempted to challenge the dragons of Tekeretek would perish ignominiously, losing the will to fight and simply awaiting their deaths. It was the humans who killed them, in the end. Bit by bit they lost control, and over the decades they were killed until only one remained. And then he, too, was slain, and humans ruled Tekeretek. A grim story, and a lesson in why one should not bother with anything beyond a flock of loyal servants.”
I waited, expecting him to go on. The old dragon had spoken almost without pause since I asked my question, but now he fell silent, leaving me with a new question. One that I suspected I knew part of the answer to, based on what he’d just told me. “So what does that have to do with me and my father?”
“Oh! Yes! Well, while dragons of yours and your father’s type are certainly rare, you are not unique. I have met one other, far to the east, and—and this is what I meant to tell you—it was said that the last dragon of Tekeretek consorted with a black or obsidian dragon shortly before my own time. One who vanished, leaving him no young to raise. He never had another mate after that, since other dragons avoided his territory like scale rot.”
Again things started slotting into place. With renewed confidence I asked, “You think this dragon who left Tekeretek was my grandmother?”
“A female black dragon leaves her mate, a peerless ruler of humans, somewhere around the Sarey. Then, some time later, another black dragon, this one a young male seemingly in search of a territory to call his own, appears on this very island. Yes, I do think that quite likely. And with how your mother described him, how his hordes of humans loved and obeyed him without question, I find it easy to believe that he might be descended from a line of dragons with a knack for ruling humans. Do you not agree?”
The last scion of the Soul Dragon. Yeah, I agreed, and I told him so.
“And your mother told me how devoted your humans are to you. She even told me how, when your mother grew angry with you, one in particular attempted to fight her with just a tiny bit of iron. And so we arrive at my other motivation for protecting you. Little Draka, I believe that you may be the last survivor of that line of imperial dragons. You may not have their colors, but I believe that you may have some of their Advancements. And call me sentimental, but I do not wish to see any lineage perish from this world, least of all that one.”
“But… why?” I asked. “What difference would it make to you? You say you don’t see the point of ruling over humans. You say no one liked or trusted the dragons of Tekeretek. If you are even right, why would you care if their line ended with me?”
Indomitable became very thoughtful and serious then, lowering his head to bring us closer together as he said, “You are very young, little Draka. You may not know this, but our numbers have been declining for my entire lifetime and longer, as humans grow bolder and more numerous. The end of draconic hegemony in Tekeretek was not the beginning. It was merely a sign of how far things had gone, and that was many centuries ago. Ask your mother, when she returns, how many young she has raised, and how many yet live. Ask how many have been killed by their own kind, and how many by humans. And ask how many of the cities she has razed have risen from the ashes, and are now grander than ever.”
He raised his head again, looking up at Sandstorm who was circling high above us. “Something must be done about the humans, and it would be good, I think, to have an alternative to the flame.”
He stopped there. He kept his gaze on the sky, just watching his granddaughter as she circled, and I stared at him in bewildered silence. I couldn’t be entirely sure, but it sounded to me a whole lot like he wanted me to become matriarch of a whole new line of dragon tyrants, bringing the worship of dragons back to the civilized world in a major way. Not that he’d asked me to; he just thought it was worth keeping me alive to leave the possibility on the table. But still! That was one hell of an expectation to lay on someone who was, as far as he knew, less than a decade old.
l was about to ask if I’d understood him right, when he became still and alert, eyes still on the sky. I looked up. Sandstorm was diving, and was still high above us when she began to roar loudly in Draconic.
“Remain here and hide,” Indomitable commanded, and it was as though he spoke directly into my hindbrain. It was a tone that didn’t even entertain the possibility that I might disobey. Which was fair, really. It wasn’t as though I could follow him, with the membranes of one wing reduced to dried up scraps of skin. “Someone is coming. Someone red, she says, and she does not think that it is your mother.”
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