the stowaway aboard the cú na mara spots something unusual in the water and faces a moral conundrum
~
Journey by ship was not new to Rosa, but this was. She knew the drill - or, at least, she thought she knew the drill. As it turned out, hiding in the cargo hold between barrels of salt pork and gunpowde, ankle deep in stained straw (the providence of which she hardly dared think of), was a far different story to any previous journey she’d been on.
Her first crossing to the Southern Icefields at the very edge of adulthood had been, of course, luxurious. The return trip had been much the same, though marred at the end by news of her siblings’ massacre back home. So, at least in one respect, this squalid trip was an improvement.
The ship tipped drunkenly from side to side; the weather must have been rough out there. She hadn’t seen the sky in several days, and as she pressed herself back against a crate reeking of iron, she would have preferred to be out and exposed in the midst of a storm than spend another second down here in the filthy gloom.
Muffled voices sounded above. She braced herself stiffly against the ship’s movement and, for the fiftieth time, unfolded her letter.
R,
I hope everything’s well. As you know I’m not one for sappiness or overly romantic nonsense, so all I can do is let you know that my every thought turns invariably to your well-being, and that of your boy. There, that sounded sufficiently romantic, I think. Do come back soon, and when you do, return victorious.
All my love,
- E
Reading it in the darkness was near impossible, and sparking an open flame next to a container of gunpowder was... perhaps a little unwise, no matter how well the barrel was reinforced for the journey. She had to settle for squinting until her head ached and her stomach churned. But - as they had every time she’d read them before - the words were reassuring.
The ship continued to veer wildly from side to side. Her stomach flipped and she inadvertently crushed the letter in her hand. Before she could give voice to her oath, though, a new sound rose from below.
A long scraping sound. Knocking and rustling against the boards under her. Something thudded. She scowled - had the fool of a captain run the ship aground somehow? It sounded like they were sailing over jagged rocks. How typical, that out of the hundreds of ships she’d had to choose from back at the wind port, this was the one she’d picked.
The scraping noise continued, followed by thumping and groaning and then - a juddering knock that threw her forward. The dragons on the upper decks were yelling out in alarm and Rosa - Rosa would be damned before she allowed herself to die at the bottom of some pathetic dinghy. She shoved herself to her feet, tail stuck straight out for balance, and felt her way towards the single flight of uneven steps. At the top was a trapdoor that should have been locked, but she’d long since had the lock broken and the door easily accessible, just in case.
As she ascended, dragons moved past on either side and no one seemed to notice her. After her gruelling trip south she blended in fairly well with the unwashed masses.
Rain and wind howled through the empty windows on the gun decks, slamming the port shields wildly against the side of the ship. Someone shoved past her to secure one of the cannon, which was threatening to snap its traces. All was chaos and shouting and nauseating movement, but when she burst out onto the top deck and filled her lungs with fresh air for the first time in weeks, she could only feel relief.
She found a railing and clung on and stared around, trying to spot the coast or the rocks or even an attacking ship. But there was nothing all around but the storm and the waves. No jagged rocks.
She leant over the edge, wrapping an arm firmly around one of the thick, greasy ropes. The sea was an unappealing grey, frothed all over but strongly reminiscent of wet concrete. For a moment she considered jumping; she was a guardian, swimming was in her nature and anything was better than spending another second down in the cargo hold. But part of her - a part she’d done her very best to stamp out - warred against the notion of swimming. The cold, the wet, the uncertainty of a safe arrival. The association with those who were too poor to travel in luxury.
The grey tail-tip that broke the waves’ surface jolted her out of her thoughts. Her grip on the rope tightened as the immense creature breached. She found herself tipping her head back, staring up and up and up to keep it in her sights. It was grey and brown and it stank and she knew it. She’d seen it before.
Two of its heads dipped below the water again, leaving a single emaciated face staring down at her. Barnacles and seaweed streamed from exposed bone. And just as Rosa became convinced that she would never make it to shore alive, the creature plunged back underwater. One of the tails pushed against the side of the ship, steadying its crazed slewing. A rotten claw gripped the jib with astonishing gentleness.
There was no one else on the deck to see this; everyone had taken shelter below. Rosa’s heart hammered away in her chest as she considered her options - tell the crew that they were trailing an emperor and sell herself out, or stay silent and potentially damn hundreds of innocent dragons to disaster.
The old Rosa would have done the latter.
She steeled herself and headed belowdecks again, to find the captain.
it’s time for the battle! robin and emiliano team up to beat rezann, but rezann has a few tricks up his sleeve. rúth and tiber each have a horrifying vision of the future that forces luke to Do Something Reckless. delta and neven have a Moment
also somebody dies idk
~
The command centre mounted on the first cannon still smelled faintly of toxic smoke. The blackened patch on the sofa had been impossible to get rid of and the ceiling and walls bore smudgy black marks. Rezann ran a finger along the stained back of the sofa, picking up a dark smear on his fingertip that burned like weak acid. He ignored it; his regeneration would kick in momentarily and fix any damage. Unfortunately, the memory of all the time he'd wasted on the creature known as Reginald was not nearly as ephemeral.
Zaer didn't comment on the stains. He sat opposite, sipping from a glass of wine, his gaze fixed on the distant citadel. The chunks of pink crystal floated serenely over the city, bathed in morning light.
“Well, well,” Zaer said, a sly grin crawling over his face. “You're preoccupied today, Commander. Bad night's rest?”
“What do I have to be preoccupied about?” Rezann said in a low tone.
“I could think of a few things,” Zaer said, swirling the wine in his glass and taking an appreciative sip. “Such as, for example, the army outside the city gates?”
The dark mass of Robin's troops had assembled the night before. To the surprise of no one, she'd rejected Rezann's terms and made it quite clear that she was prepared to fight. But her army was smaller than his, and less well-equipped. He had no reason to be worried.
And yet.
“I'll be finished with them by this afternoon,” Rezann said dismissively.
“I wish you the best of luck,” Zaer said. “I'll of course take my leave before any actual fighting breaks out, but you should see me again this evening. You'll need my merchants to recuperate.” He knocked back his glass and rose to his feet. “I'm getting too old for this wartime business.”
“My sympathies,” Rezann said, his eyes on the citadel.
“That's a rather hollow sentiment, coming from someone who doesn't age,” Zaer said cheerfully, moving to let himself out of the command centre. “Anyway, maybe one day soon you'll be seeing my son Andrei here in my place. He's a little impetuous, but he has charm, unlike the other two.”
“Join me for dinner later,” Rezann said. “Rebuilding the citadel will require some detailed planning.”
Zaer waved in acknowledgement over his shoulder, already out of the room. Once he was gone, and the metal door had swung shut in his wake, the third occupant of the room spoke.
“You know as well as I do that those city walls are impenetrable,” the creature said, seeming to un-peel itself from the shadows at the back of the room. “I could help you breach them, of course...”
It was a tempting offer, but then again every offer the creature made was tempting in some way. Rezann was used to it. He shook his head.
“Suit yourself.”
The creature vanished as someone pounded on the door from the outside. “Commander!” a voice said.
Rezann rose to open the door. The soldier outside saluted briefly before giving his report.
“A large number of troops have just uncloaked themselves in the east, sir. They're gathering behind us.”
“Under what banner?”
“Court Dorchadas, sir.”
That gave him pause. Rezann leant out of the door and face east, into the rising sun. Sure enough, a mass of dragons had camped out a scant two hundred metres from the rear-most troops of Rezann's own army. Black and gold banners streamed in the air.
With a jolt, Rezann realised that he'd been far too distracted by Robin's challenge. He hadn't kept tabs on Court Dorchadas and now he didn't know if the army had come to aid him or attack him. Surely Fain was still part of the Court? She was loyal to him.
But if that was the case, why had she not told him she was coming?
“Let Laete know that we’ll need Zeiya after all,” he said.
~
The Cú na Mara had been placed in dry dock for repairs. It was odd to sit on the edge of the deck and not see water beneath. Luke had been writing for hours now, drafting yet another healing spell at Fiach's request for John. In the distance, the streets of Hydriop were bright and busy, the morning markets flooded with shoppers. Most of Clan Fuil Darach had gone down to buy repair materials for the ship, but the healers were still on full-time duty.
Stifling a yawn, Luke flipped over the sheet and wrote on the back of the spell tag. With spells as complex and intense as these, the heat released by the spell could burn the patient. To ward against that, extra scripts had to be added on the side of the paper that came into contact with the patient that would dissipate the heat.
The morning sun grazed their face, warm and unspeakably welcome after a night spent at John's bedside.
They took up the finished stack of spell tags, then, regretfully turning their back on the sun, headed for the ship's surgery. Zeta was already there, nodding off over his desk. John sat upright in the single narrow bed, carefully reading over yet more spells.
“You've made a glyph error here, darling,” John said, his voice muffled by the bandages that covered most of his skin.
“Huh?” Zeta said sleepily. “Oh... I'll fix it.” Seeing Luke, his shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank the gods you're here. I'm spent.”
Luke waved him out, then set about pinning their spell-tags to John's bandages. His mismatched pink and yellow eyes gleamed from a slit in the bandage, tracking Luke's movements with suspicion.
“Sit still,” Luke said sharply, as John tried to read the tag attached to his sternum. “I'm not Zeta, I don't make mistakes.”
This elicited a thin giggle from John. “Says the dragon whose mistakes are literally written across their face.”
“Do you or do you not want these painkillers?”
With a stifled sigh, John nodded and sat still. “I like your new look, though,” he said charitably, his unsettling gaze skimming over the new, discoloured patches that had begun to bloom on Luke's exposed skin.
“Can't say the feeling's mutual,” Luke said, carefully unwrapping the bandage from John's hand to check on the status of the strange, hardened patches of pink and yellow scar tissue that had appeared following John's near-death experience. Touching the scars was almost like touching a live electric current; Luke withdrew with a hiss of pain.
“Sorry,” John said. “I can't regulate my energy so well any more.”
Shouts sounded outside. Luke glanced around just in time to see the door bounce open and fall off its hinges. Standing there, breathing hard, was Rúth. Black shade mist surrounded them like a stormcloud. Aside from a strategically-held bedsheet, they were naked, exactly how Luke had left them the evening before.
“R-”
“Luke!”
Zeta appeared behind Rúth, trying to pull them away from the infirmary. Rúth didn't even seem to notice him.
“You have to help him!” they said loudly. “He's – he is going to die, he needs help-”
“Who needs help?” Luke said, abandoning John.
“Delta,” Rúth said, knocking Zeta aside with an irritable shove. “He is there – and the army – there's a monster, I saw it.”
Luke knew better than to doubt Rúth. But before anything else could be said, a new voice rose through the air.
“Healer! I need a healer!”
Rúth glanced over their shoulder and quickly stood aside, allowing Rich into the infirmary (which was starting to become very cramped indeed). In Rich's arms was Tiberius, who lay as if dead, aside from the odd seizure-like tremor that gripped his limbs and tail.
“Please,” Rich said, his voice rusty from disuse. “I don't know what's wrong with him, he was getting ready for the wedding and then he just fell...”
“Put him in the chair,” Luke said. As Rich carefully set Tiberius down in the chair by the desk, Luke conducted a quick examination. All seemed fine, but Tiberius' eyes were moving rapidly beneath his eyelids, as if he was dreaming.
“Luke,” Rúth said urgently. “We have to go-”
“Wait,” Luke said, pausing for a moment to recollect themself. John was staring, Rich was on the verge of tears, Zeta was cursing, and it was all far too loud and distracting.
Just as Luke began to run through the various spells they could use to wake Tiberius up, the tremors stilled. Tiberius blinked, groaning loudly, and raised a trembling hand to brush his hair out of his eyes.
“Wh – Rich?” he said. “What happened? Where's the – there's an army...”
That caught Rúth's attention. They bore down on Tiberius, who flinched back weakly.
“You saw it!” Rúth said. “Yes? The army?”
“Yeah,” Tiberius said slowly. “I saw... something. There was, uh... there were these huge cannons, like the ones we saw in the bay.”
“What else did you see?” John said quietly.
Tiberius swallowed nervously, visibly uncomfortable with everyone staring down at him, but he couldn't seem to stand up. His formal suit was in disarray. “There were three armies,” he said, closing his eyes. “Everyone was fighting, but in the very middle there was a fae and a guardian and I think their fight was more important than the rest.”
“Describe the guardian,” Luke said, before John had a chance to interrogate Tiberius further about pointless details.
“Big,” Tiberius said. “He was young-looking... Light eyes, dark brown skin...” He winced, as if the memory of his vision pained him. “I don't think he was winning. He was bleeding a lot.”
Luke's wide-eyed gaze moved back to Rúth, who nodded to confirm this.
“Thank you, Tiberius,” John said gently. “One last thing. The cannons, were they operational?”
“I don't know? A few exploded. It looked like what you did the other night.” Tiberius shrugged helplessly. “Were you there?”
“It hasn't happened yet,” Rúth said. “You are seeing the future.” They glanced across at Luke and beckoned. “We have to help Delta.”
“And I'd better go too,” John said, which was downright laughable. He could barely sit up unassisted, let alone fly out to gods-knew-where. Not that Luke could fly anywhere, either.
“No, you're staying,” Zeta said firmly.
“Don't be silly, Zeta. I seem to be the only one who can destroy Commander Rezann's artillery, which means I have a responsibility to go there and do it. Also, I've never met a ward I couldn't beat, and I'd like to try again. This time, I'll get it right.”
“Can you fly?” Luke said. “No? Then you're staying.”
“Can you?” John said snidely. “Zeta, you can give us a lift.”
“Fine,” Rúth said, “whatever, we have to go.”
“What about me?” Tiberius said. “My parents are about to get married, I can't leave. They still have to meet Rich!”
“It's fine,” Luke said. “You two stay. Tell the others where we've gone. Zeta, grab some supplies and get ready to take off. John... are you sure you can do this?”
“I may not be able to walk,” John said, “but I can still cast. I've fought for Rezann's side before, this is my chance to make up for that. And, anyway, with you and Zeta with me I'll be fine.”
Zeta didn't look overly pleased at being forcibly drafted into this new service, but he didn't argue. As Rúth ran off to get dressed, he and Luke organised their healing supplies. Fiach was out in the city with Vaska – surely they would be fine on their own.
The group had left Hydriop far behind before the wedding had even started.
~
“Hiii, sweetheart. How's my little girl?”
Thea pressed a tiny hand against the surface of the scrying mirror, disrupting the signal for a moment. Her features swam back into focus a second later. Emiliano sighed happily and held out his hand as if to press it against hers.
It was the first time he'd ever left Dragonhome, and the distance between himself and his family was starting to sting. He'd kept in touch as often as possible, scrying Fallon and Thea and Iriangi to update them about his situation and reassure them that he'd be home soon.
He sat in a hastily-constructed command tent, surrounded by guards who seemed to grow more visibly uncomfortable by the second. He'd spent a lot of time gushing about his daughter to anyone who would listen, and apparently that wasn't appropriate for a battlefield. Or something. He hadn't listened to what they were saying about him – why would he? He was their king. He owned them.
Clangs and shouts filled the air. As he blew a kiss to Thea's image on the scrying mirror, the thunder of a cannon going off momentarily deafened him.
“What was that?” Fallon turned the mirror to face himself.
The ground shook. Emiliano's chair folded; he quickly leapt to his feet, trying to seem unruffled for Fallon's benefit. “Just one of those cannons. Nothing to worry about, they're not pointed at us.”
Fallon frowned. “You are staying away from the actual fighting, aren't you? You promised.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Emiliano said, picking up his chair and sitting again. He was wearing armour for the first time since his military training and his sword was ready at his waist, but he wasn't actually allowed into the battle. He had to sit here and wait for it all to blow over, then meet up with Robin.
It made sense, he supposed, to stay away from the fighting. He had no battlefield experience and didn't know how to command troops very well yet. But what little he had seen of the battle looked very exciting indeed.
“So who's winning?” Fallon said. He leant out-of-frame for a moment to catch Thea under the arms and hoist her up onto his lap, so that Emiliano could see them both. She waved at him.
“It's still too early to tell,” Emiliano said. “Robin and I have Rezann pinned between us, but unfortunately we didn't catch him by surprise like we planned.” He shrugged, with a little difficulty under the heavy leather armour. “It's been very-”
The cannons roared again, sending tremors through the earth. Unable to contain his curiosity, Emiliano went to the tent entrance and peered out.
“Your Majesty, please, stay inside,” one of the guards said. “It's not safe.”
“You don't tell me what to do,” Emiliano said, though by then he was shouting over the noise of the battle. “I'll have you hang-”
One of the cannons went off, and this time Emiliano actually saw the fallout. The thunder drowned out his words. The city walls, which had held fast against the assault so far, had started to crack. But that was all. Smoke rose in a thick column from the cannon to the far right. Sparks and flashes of light surrounded the enormous weapon, as Robin's soldiers attempted to put a dent in its magical wards.
“Emiliano?” Fallon's voice said faintly from back inside the tent. The mirror was on the ground, face-down.
He retrieved the mirror. “It's fine, I'm fine...” He blinked hard, trying to wipe away the afterimage of cannon-fire burned into the back of his eyelids. “So how's everything going over there? Heard from Renée at all?”
Fallon glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder, even though the room was clearly empty. 'Renée' was how they had been referring to Rosa. “No,” Fallon said. “But I keep expecting her to come marching in here. We're going to have to let her know about Corin somehow, Emilio.”
“Mm. Maybe we can hold out a little longer,” Emiliano said, a brazenly optimistic note in his voice. He propped the mirror back upright on the table and sat down. “If we can get him back soon enough, she won't be... quite so angry at us...”
He trailed off. A new noise had joined the cacophony outside; a low moaning rumble, louder than all the dragon roars combined. The ground was shaking again, and people were screaming – terrible screams, screams of fear and horror unlike anything Emiliano had ever heard before.
“Emiliano?” Fallon said. “What's that sound?”
Something caught the tent and ripped it away, leaving Emiliano bare to the sky, and the underside of the creature shambling overhead. The mirror shattered on the ground.
For the first time ever, Emiliano found that he literally could not move. Paralysed, rooted to the spot, he could only stare as the creature flicked one of its many paws irritably, unhooking the tent canopy from its enormous claws. The body of an imperial – laughably tiny beside this behemoth – dragged along in its wake, still gasping and struggling but already starting to fuse with the monster's rotting hide. An enormous purple banner streamed from the monster's antlers, wreathed with strange black mist. Thousands of vivid green eyes flashed and glittered in the air around the monster's main head.
The belly plates of its torso were directly above Emiliano's head, blotting out the harsh sunlight. He groped for the hilt of his sword, for comfort more than anything else. His knees threatened to fold. The monster hadn't noticed him yet.
A lesser head whipped around, howling in agony, and drew a breath. Clashing purple and yellow light streamed from cracks in its skin. Then its breath weapon razed the battlefield and the world turned white. Emiliano couldn't run – how could he? There was nowhere to go.
~
“Oh dear gods, what is that?”
The question repeated again and again as Delta shoved his way through the rear line of Robin's army. They'd fallen back into the city, trusting to the cracked walls to keep them safe, but some distant explosion had caught their attention. He finally found a vantage point with a view through the city gates and stared over the crowd, past the no-man's-land, past the melee, past the cannons and purple command tents, past all that, to the enormous thing on the horizon. A vaguely dragon-shaped mountain loomed over the Dorchadas army, too far away to really make out.
“What is it?” Neven said at his side, their ears rammed forward to catch the many-voiced, wheezing moan that washed over the battlefield.
“I don't know,” Delta said. “Some kind of monster?”
The tide of the battle changed rather abruptly. With the Dorchadas troops in disarray and the cannons continuing their unending assault of the city walls, Rezann's side had begun to recoup. They pressed forward, towards the gates.
Delta gripped the handle of his standard-issue glaive, shaking. This wasn't like anything he'd ever experienced – a few battles here and there were nothing compared to this. And seconds later he and Neven were caught in the skirmish by the gate, and there wasn't time to think. Neven fought bare-handed, with only the lightest armour so as not to impede their movements. As Delta hammered a soldier over the head inexpertly with his weapon, Neven blew a hole clean through the chest of a skydancer.
Neven in the midst of battle was almost hypnotic. Graceful, balletic, everything Delta wasn't. But he could take no joy or satisfaction from watching them effortlessly push back their opponents. With every breath he drew he could taste sweat and piss and gunpowder. Multicoloured blood ran down the haft of his glaive and congealed into a brownish mess on his knuckles. His hands were so numb that he doubted his ability to drop his weapon even if he tried. He hadn't suffered any injury more serious than a gash across his face, but under his awkward armour he was battered and bruised to the core.
He just wanted it all to end. It didn't matter to him who won or who lost.
The combatants on Rezann's side fell back again, nursing their wounds. Delta grabbed Neven's hand and dragged them back behind the row of spiked barriers that had been constructed in the street. Gasping, he looked Neven up and down while he caught his breath. They were uninjured, but their palms were very hot to the touch, and they flinched away when Delta tried to examine them.
“It's fine,” they insisted. “I just have not used this much magic in a long time, I'm not... not used to it.” They spread their fingers with a wince, and blood oozed up as their skin cracked.
“You should rest,” Delta said. “We're fine here without you-”
“No,” Neven said.
The moans of the distant monster sounded again, echoing Delta's own emotions. He couldn't hold Neven's hands, so he took their wrists instead and kissed them, mumbling an apology against their skin.
“Delta, what?” they said weakly. “What are you saying?”
“I'm sorry,” he said, a little louder this time. The other soldiers barely cast him a second glance, but he still blushed. “I'm sorry for dragging you out here and getting you involved in all this.”
Neven snorted, a tiny grin appearing on their grimy face. “As if I had no choice,” they said in a tone of gentle admonishment. “If I wanted to leave, nobody would be able to stop me. But I don't! I want to be here. Somebody has to keep you safe, and somebody has to kill Rezann.”
“Yeah, but... it's not like this is an ideal situation,” Delta said.
“Well, no,” Neven said, “but think about it like this. Once the Commander is dead, the world will be better – and we can go home without ever having to worry about somehow meeting him again.”
Delta nodded frantically. “Yes – oh, gods, I just want to go home, Neven. I want to go home.”
Neven had to pull Delta down to their level to kiss him. When they pulled back, he didn't want to let them go.
“Marry me,” he mumbled into their sweaty hair.
“Oh,” Neven said. “I wanted to be the one to ask-”
“Yes!” Delta said, before they'd even finished.
And Neven laughed, which was the most beautiful sound in the entire world. But before anything else could be said, the gates crashed open yet again and Delta and Neven were forced back into the fray.
~
The battlefield was easy enough to find. The magical echoes spanned the entire continent, and all Zeta had to do was follow. Soon enough, the battle itself appeared in the distance, a multi-coloured mess strewn about on the fields around the citadel.
Lost in Zeta's mane, Luke gave John a final once-over. As long as John stayed on Zeta while he cast his runes, then theoretically he would be able to strafe the cannons without once touching the ground, or having to walk unassisted. Luke was saving their paper, so they'd resorted to writing healing scripts directly onto John's bandages, tailoring them to activate if he was injured.
“I'm flattered that you care, sweetheart,” he said, casting a critical eye over the writing on his forearm, “but you needn't worry about me. Worry about your bother instead – I'd be heartbroken if I never saw poor Delta again.”
Luke peered over the side of Zeta's neck. The ground wheeled dizzyingly below, making their stomach turn. Flight hadn't appealed at all to them since becoming a bogsneak, and this was just torture. But even when Zeta flew as level as possible, the fact remained that there was no chance at all that Delta could be located in the tangled mess of fighters below.
A magical missile shot past on the left, burning through Zeta's mane. Luke didn't withdraw, still struggling to parse what was happening below. If not for the banners, it would have been impossible to tell which side was which, and who was fighting who. Rezann's army covered the bulk of the territory, pressing in to the citadel with all cannons trained on the walls. To the east, the scene was a little more confusing, the soldiers scattered, unable to present a unified force. Black and gold pennants hung on the backs of dragons struggling in the dirt to stand and fly, and it looked like-
Suddenly, Zeta veered. The ground rushed up far too fast. A ground which seemed to be moving, which sprouted heads and limbs and wings at odd angles. Which didn't look like the ground at all, actually.
“It's an emperor,” John said, his voice snatched away almost instantly by the howling wind.
Luke tapped Zeta's neck. “Hey! Zeta, pull up!”
“He's not listening, it's pulling him in.” John raised his hands, steam rising from the opalised tissue that the bandages did not cover. “He'll thank me later for this...” And he summoned an arcane rune to his fingertips and pressed it down against Zeta's scales.
Zeta yelped with pain and stalled, his wings thrashing, then seemed to regain his consciousness. He avoided one of the emperor's many wing-tips by a hair's width. It whistled past so close that Luke could smell the decay. The thing stank like a week-old corpse left out in the sun.
A twisting flash of orange, and now Rúth was coming in to land beside Luke and John.
“He is not here!” Rúth called above the noise. “Closer to the city, I think! Inside the gate! But I will have to leave you now.”
Zeta turned, winging his way towards the city as if the shade itself was snapping at his tail-plume.
“What? No,” Luke said sharply. “You have to lead us.”
“I have something else to do,” Rúth said. “But you will be fine! I promise! You will find him. Okay?” They lifted off again, wings spread to catch the wind. “Oh!” they said, just before taking flight, “and tell Delta congratulations from me!”
And then they were gone. Luke resisted the urge to wring the air out of a mixture of fear and frustration. They almost rose to their feet, trying to follow Rúth's progress, but one tiny orange spiral in a crowded sky was not easy to keep track of. Strangely enough, though, as Rúth flew back towards the emperor, several of its heads turned to follow them, as if it knew they were there.
That did not bode well. Luke put it out of their mind – they just had to trust that Rúth would come back alive.
Zeta bore down on the city walls and tried to land, but an invisible barrier surrounding the citadel repelled him. He circled, unable to land.
“What now?” he yelled back at Luke and John. The only space to land was behind the citadel, but that was too far away from the entrance gates. Luke stared down, still trying in vain to catch sight of Delta. There was a furious knot of activity just inside the gates, and no way for Zeta to land there.
“We can find him later,” John said, reading the desperation on Luke's face. “For now just stay here with us while we take out those cannons.” He set a hand on Luke's arm.
One of the cannons flashed and recoiled, and the city walls groaned. Chunks of stone rained down from the formerly-smooth surface. More cracks spread in thin air, glowing faintly as the invisible shield took the brunt of the cannon's force. There – a gap in the barrier, only large enough for a small dragon to pass through. An entrance.
Luke unclipped the makeshift leather harness keeping them firmly attached to Zeta's back. John sighed and rolled his eyes but did not argue as Luke stepped off Zeta's side.
It was not a pleasant drop. Fatal, for anyone else. But the wood curse had saved Luke from a fall once, and it could do it a second time. With a nasty, splintering crunch Luke landed on one of the roofs below the barrier. They lay there for a moment, reeling from the pain, then slowly rose to their feet again. Every cell in their body ached, but they'd made it. After that, it was a simply matter of skidding down the side of the steeply-sloped roof and dropping to the street below.
Immediately, they found themself lost in the chaos of soldiers falling back, rushing away from the breach in the city barrier. The houses attached to the wall itself were crumbling now shaking curtains of dust down onto the street.
Luke caught their breath behind one of the spiked roadblocks, their head swimming already from the stink filling the street, the sight of so much blood. They'd never considered themself a squeamish person, but this was something else.
Rezann's soldiers rushed in through the breach in winged and bipedal forms both. The flash and crack of magic echoed around the ruined market square. Cursing their diminutive height, Luke struggled to see over the crowd, but they didn't have to.
A hand landed on their shoulder and a familiar voice gasped, “Luke!”
“Delta!” Luke didn't know whether to hug him or punch him. He looked cut up, but not too badly hurt. At his side was Neven.
Delta didn't let Luke say anything else. He bundled them up in a hug so powerful that it lifted them off their feet and threatened to crack more of their ribs.
“Hey – hands off, you big idiot-” Luke fought their way free, their snarl softened slightly by the audible relief in their voice. “I've come to take you home, come on.”
Delta was already crying, because of course he was. “You're alive,” he said plaintively.
“Yes, and I'd like to stay that way, so can we please get out of here?”
“No,” Delta said. A magical projectile took out a chunk of masonry by his head and he yelped, grabbing Neven and dragging them behind a low wall. Luke followed, their ears aching from the noise of it all.
“What do you mean, no?” Luke said.
“We agreed to fight,” Neven said. “I have to kill Rezann. He'll be here soon.”
“You have to – excuse me?” Luke said, aghast. “Delta, there is an emperor out there. An emperor! We have to leave right now. This whole city's coming down around us. Rezann is the least of our worries right now.”
A deafening siren ripped through the air. Luke flinched, huddling behind Delta as a woman's voice, magically amplified, rang out over the entire battlefield.
“This is an order to all imperial dragons,” she said in ear-splitting tones, “fall back. Flee. Your services are no longer required. Any imperial left on the battlefield will be killed on sight, no matter your allegiance.”
“See!” Luke shouted. “Neven, you've got to understand – that's what they do when there are emperors around! They execute all nearby imperials, it's to prevent a disaster.”
“No!” Delta said. “We'll be fine, Neven, it's not near us.”
But Neven hesitated. They were shaking, now that Luke was close enough to actually examine them. Neven wasn't in good shape, and John wasn't here to snap them out of it if they chose to heed the emperor's call, as Zeta almost had.
“Neven?” Delta said.
The citadel wall shattered. Its grey stone cladding fell back, revealing the pink crystal within that powered the barrier. Crushed crystal fragments scattered over the cobblestones. Neven didn't even seem to react. Neither did they react when a single, short figure crested the pile of rubble, facing the city.
Commander Rezann held a spear loosely at his side. Blood had spattered his bare chest but there was no sign of any injury. He strode into the city as though he owned it – which he did, technically. Soldiers charged at him and he cast them aside almost without effort. A broad open square stood between him and the rest of the city, between him and the group huddled behind the wall.
“I can't...” Neven said weakly. “Delta, I can't... I can't think... I have to leave. Before I hurt anyone. But – he is there...”
“It's fine,” Delta said quickly, “it's fine, you can go. You don't have to stay, it's not safe for you. I'll, um. I guess I have to be the one to fight him. Luke, you can get Nev out of here, right?”
This was not going according to plan. Luke opened their mouth to issue a command that they knew Delta would not follow, then broke off with a sigh. “I'll get them out of the city, but I'm coming back for you.”
“Good, because I'll probably need the healing,” Delta said, peering over the wall. Nobody stood between him and the Commander now. “Oh, wait – before you go, um. Could you marry us?”
“Can I what?”
“Oh, yes,” Neven said. “Please? You are an emissary, yes?”
Rezann was walking at a leisurely pace, but the distance between him and Delta was dwindling. There was no time to argue. Luke grabbed one of Delta's hands and one of Neven's and stood between them.
“There's nothing to bind you with here, so you'll have to imagine it,” Luke said. “Lightweaver forgive me for what is probably an act of blasphemy but here goes...” They drew their fingers through a smear of blood left on the wall and used this impromptu ink to daub an illuminated emblem on the back of Neven's hand and a whirlwind emblem on Delta's. Luke stammered through the ceremony as fast as possible, pronouncing the two of them married under the gaze of the Lightweaver and Windsinger.
“And I now pronounce you-”
The spear whistled through the air and struck the wall, missing Neven by an inch. With a muffled oath Luke grabbed Neven and dragged them away, yelling the final words of the marriage.
“Just go!” Delta said. “I'll – I'll see you later, okay?” And as Luke and Neven fled from the city, Delta faced Rezann and raised his weapon one last time.
~
Clouds whirled dizzyingly below, intertwined with smoke and steam and the twisting shapes of dragons flying. Emiliano stared down at it all, utterly bewildered. Why were they under him? He appeared to be pressed to the ceiling of the world, spread-eagled, unable to move.
He struggled to draw a breath, and that slight movement caused the entire scene to spin and tip onto its side, so that he now was facing sideways, somehow, then up, then down, all without moving at all. It was nauseating, but he couldn't throw up any more than he already had. His front was soaked with bile.
Smoke drifted over the battlefield below him. Someone tapped the side of his face, as if to make sure he was still alive. He growled, weakly, and broke off with a start when he realised that he could not hear his own voice. The vibration was there, but the sound was gone.
An armoured woman leant over him, gesturing angrily. He stared at her, dazed. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him into a sitting position. Behind her, soundless pink and yellow explosions tore the clouds. The cannons were burning. His head hurt.
The woman waved for his attention, then held up a piece of paper with some magic rune scribbled on it. She set it down on his chest. Immediately, the pain began to dissipate. The sound of the battle returned, but only on one side. Something hot and wet dripped down his neck from both ears.
“Emiliano!” the woman said, the sound of her voice wavering in and out of his hearing. “Hey. Stay with me.”
He knew that voice. “Rosa?” he croaked.
She tipped up her visor, revealing more of her face. “Oh, thank the gods. I don't know what I'd do if one more of my idiot siblings died. Hey. Wake up.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. He hadn't even been aware he was drifting off again, but she had to pull him back upright.
“What happened?” he said. “Why are you here?”
“I'm a merc with Robin's troops,” she said. “I saw the emperor and came to get you.”
“Oh.” He realised, for the first time, that he had been dragged away from the burning, muddy wasteland that the emperor had left in its wake. Rosa had brought him a couple of hundred metres up the side of a hill. The hillside was bizarrely peaceful, wildflowers bowing in the wind while in the distance, the undead monster laid waste to the remainder of the Dorchadas armed forces.
“Can you stand?” Rosa said.
“Uh. Maybe.” He tried his best, but still had to lean heavily against her to get to his feet.
“That explosion must have blown out your inner ears,” Rosa said, almost sounding cheerful. “The tag should work, though. You're getting your colour back.”
“Thanks. Is my ear going to start working again?”
“Your what?”
“My right ear.” He gestured to it. “Not working.”
“I don't know. I had planned on visiting Corin with presents from the Saturnalia, but it looks like I'll be bringing his stupid injured uncle back home instead.”
“Rosa,” he said. “Corin's gone.”
She froze, glancing across at him. “Excuse me?”
“Atropa took him,” Emiliano said.
Rosa met his eyes, then stepped away from him. He fell instantly without her support, unable to find his balance.
“I'm sorry,” he said, using the ground as a guide to sit up again, “I had no way of contacting you. That's why I'm here, we have to beat Rezann to get to Zaer and Atropa.”
She stared hard at him, her eyes utterly cold. For a moment it looked like she would kick him. Then with a muted snarl she turned away, paced in a small circle, then rounded on him again. “You let Atropa take Corin?”
“I wasn't paying attention,” he said. Behind her, the emperor was clawing open one of the cannons, driven out of its mind by the combined thoughts and suffering of all the imperials it had absorbed. Rezann's army couldn't stop it any more. Nothing could.
And then... it stopped. Both Rosa and Emiliano stared as its thrashing and moaning quietened down. Something was going on down there, but Emiliano did not want to get any closer to the monster than he already had.
“We'll talk about this later,” Rosa said. “For now, just – just stay here, okay? Stay out of trouble.”
“Promise,” he said, with a smile that revealed several broken teeth.
“You'd better.” And with that she turned and marched right back to the battlefield, towards the emperor.
~
Several of the emperor's heads turned to follow Rúth, its eyes – hundreds of them, green and two-dimensional, surrounded by mist – flickering, as if it was blinking. It didn't roar or moan or attack. It simply watched.
Rúth wasn't totally sure what they were supposed to do here. All they knew was that they had to do something. Because the thing inside the emperor was as familiar to Rúth as their own face. It was their shade parasite, somehow. Rezann had captured it and put it into an imperial and used it as a weapon against the Court.
The explosions generated by John's rune casting had driven it wild for a few heart-stopping minutes, but once again it had calmed down. It watched Rúth, spellbound.
Unable to keep up their hovering, Rúth touched down on the very tip of the largest head, the bare skull surrounded by mist and eyes. The emperor did not move, observing Rúth with a calm curiosity.
Rúth hesitated for a moment, then copied the emperor. Flat green eyes winked into life in the air around their head. They saw the emperor from several different angles at once.
And they saw themself. If they closed their actual eyes, they saw a long, bony snout directly in front of them, with a bright orange spiral perched on the tip.
They blinked back into their own body, disoriented for a brief moment.
“Will you stop now?” they said. “Yes? You've made enough of a mess already.”
The emperor mantled its wings and grew still.
“Go away,” Rúth said, as firmly as they dared, their body shaking all over. “Leave this place. We don't want you here.”
And the emperor left.
~
Luckily, Delta had managed to remove Rezann's spear from the equation. Unluckily, he had done so by getting it lodged through his shoulder.
As expressionless as ever, Rezann closed in. Delta had no strength to dodge any more, and he wasn't supposed to actually attack until Eladrin showed up, but there was no sign of the skydancer.
Delta hurt all over, and the blood loss was starting to make his head spin. Black spots danced on the edge of his vision. He'd sagged back against the low wall. Rezann drew back his fist. And there, right behind the Commander, several paces away, was Eladrin. Delta didn't have time to verify his identity or condition – if he was there, that meant Delta could fight.
Not that Delta was in any kind of shape to fight back. With his last vestiges of strength he caught Rezann's fist with one hand, but the Commander was far stronger than he looked. Delta's wrist cracked. It still didn't hurt as much as the spear through his shoulder.
He swung blindly with his glaive and Rezann dodged as if fending off a toddler's blow. Delta's knees hit the cobblestones. He couldn't do it, but that was all right. He hadn't expected much success, anyway, but he'd bought Neven and Luke enough time to escape.
The Commander turned away, his dispassionate gaze elsewhere. That wouldn't do. Delta had to distract him as much as possible. So, every muscle screaming in pain, Delta somehow managed to stand again. He caught Rezann's side with the blade of his glaive, slicing a shallow cut across his front.
Rezann barely reacted. He grabbed the shaft of the glaive, tore it out of Delta's lax grip, and used it to knock him down to the ground again. Out of the corner of his eye Delta saw the blade of the glaive spin through the air, ready to impale him where the spear had missed. He closed his eyes, thought about Neven, and waited.
A searing heat grazed the side of his face. The Commander sure was taking his time with that glaive. With a slight frown, Delta opened his eyes and looked up.
Someone stood between him and the Commander, their back to Delta. Someone kind of short, wearing all black, a smoky void where their neck should have been.
The person's head turned all the way around. Delta almost collapsed again.
“Hi, Delta!” the creature said. “Hello! It's me, Reginald! We met before once.”
The point of the glaive passed right through Reginald's back and promptly burst into flames. With a start he glanced down and turned back to face the Commander.
“Fain told me you were dead,” Rezann said, taking a short step back. He raised his fists again.
“She was wrong,” Reginald said. The glaive dropped through his body as if he was completely insubstantial, breaking into burning fragments on the cobblestones.
“But – how?” Rezann said, the first shard of emotion shining through his tone. “You have no fuel source any more, you should be dead.”
“Well,” Reginald said, extending a hand. Poisonous-smelling black smoke threaded through his fingers, “it sounds like you need to expand your definition of living.”
And he tore the skein of smoke straight through Rezann's chest. Flames guttered out from the hideous wound, embers and sparks drifting to the ground.
Rezenn fell to one knee. Delta couldn't help but try to spot Eladrin, hardly daring to hope that the plan would somehow work, despite everything. And yes, there was Eladrin, standing to the right now, behind the Commander, his head bowed and his limbs twitching.
As Rezann struggled to draw a breath, Eladrin collapsed.
“Is he okay?” Reginald said, glancing back at Delta questioningly. “That looks... bad.”
Eladrin was frothing at the mouth now, his hands twisted and his limbs shuddering. A dark stain seemed to unfold in the air around him, lines of strange symbols flickering into life around his head.
And then Eladrin stood up, his movements horribly jerky and unnatural. Even the Commander seemed taken aback.
“I can't believe... you fell for it,” Eladrin said. His voice was low and strained, and there was another voice sounding above his, dissonant and unpleasant to listen to. “You stupid shade animal. You really are... as idiotic as you look...”
Both Rezann and Reginald seemed to recognise the second voice, but Delta had no clue. He sat back against the wall and took the opportunity to rest up while everyone else reacted to this new turn of events.
“I'm not an animal,” Reginald said sharply.
“But you still came, didn't you? Like a dog to its master.” Eladrin's features were all but erased by the black lines extending from the air around him. “You creatures are so easy to play. And now I'm really here, finally.”
Rezann stood up. The wound on his chest was already closing over. Delta would have sobbed if he'd had the strength.
“Talk straight, creature,” Rezann said. “Earlier this morning you offered to help me.”
“Me too,” Reginald said quietly. “You told me to come here to stop the Commander.”
Eladrin – or, rather, the creature possessing Eladrin – gave a laugh that sounded like a sealed tin of angry wasps.
“Because I needed you both together, in one place,” it said. “Two creatures as magically powerful as yourselves in one place? And an emperor? You were practically begging me to come through. But I won't monologue. The two of you are of no more use to me.”
Hard-edged black shadows struck out from Eladrin, impaling the Commander and Reginald at the same time. Rezann died instantly and fell to the ground, but Reginald lingered, flickering in and out of focus around the black spear, as if struggling to escape it. But he couldn't. He stared down at the shadow with a look of faint confusion, then began to dissolve.
Within a couple of seconds, Reginald's shape had broken down into a cloud of smoke. But it continued to break down, the smoke folding in on itself and thinning out until it was nothing at all, until the ember at its very heart finally winked out.
Eladrin turned and walked away.
Delta passed out. He didn't wake until several minutes later, when Luke had already pretty much covered him with spell tags. But when Luke asked him what he had seen, he didn't know what to say. He didn't know what he had seen.
down in the labyrinth of chasms beneath the skin of dragonhome, there is a mob forming. the dragons march in a tight group through the dusty corridors, holding up flaming torches and brandishing wands and staves. everyone here is already dead, and all have been pressed into action by the threat that lurks on the edge of their village.
they pass a darker wing of the chasm, the shadows peppered with pretty golden lights. that’s where the monster waits. the mob draws to a halt as one, uneasy, waiting for one of its number to make the first move towards the lights. their faces are hidden by painted masks but their fear is obvious.
among the lights, the monster watches. here they are again - the villagers won’t leave it alone. they won’t abide its presence, they’re intolerant, they hate that which they do not understand. okay, sure, the monster has killed and eaten a few of them, but that was in self-defense (and, later, vengeance, and then boredom). it mentally dares the villagers to come closer. if they do, it’ll teach them a lesson they’ll never forget. then they’ll finally give it the respect it deserves.
a tall villager in a spiral mask takes a torch and ventures towards the lights.
“we know you’re there, creature,” it calls in a hollow voice. there’s nothing behind the mask. “this is your final warning.”
leave me ALONE, the monster wants to shout. why are the villagers like this?? constantly forcing the monster to harm them. it’s their own fault if they get hurt here.
the villagers don’t seem to want to come any closer. warning issued, they disperse. the monster withdraws and paces in its cave, furious. it lashes out at a cracked wall and leaves a blackened crater. it mutters obscenities under its breath, threatening to raze the village to the ground.
“don’t do that,” another voice says. this one isn’t a ghost. “be nice.”
luke has a pre-arranged meeting with Somebody Important (it’s ideal)
~
While high summer blazed down on the northern hemisphere, the southern ocean had mid-winter to deal with. The passage between the Southern Icefields and the Shifting Expanse was all but blocked by ice, which had forced the Cú na Mara almost to a halt. There were still a good few months left until the Brightshine Jubilee, when the clan was due to make land at the Sunbeam Ruins, but Fiach in particular seemed eaten up by impatience.
“How long?” His voice, uncharacteristically harsh, carried over the deck.
“One month – it's fine, we'll have plenty of time to spare before the Jubilee.” Delta was trying to calm him down, which wasn't something Luke ever thought they'd hear. Fiach almost sounded angry, as if Delta had any control over the ice that blocked their route.
Fiach turned and faced east, frowning against the harsh light thrown back by the ice sheet. There was an intensity in his eyes that was equal parts surprising and alarming. “I don't care about the – just – can you try to speed up this boat?”
Delta shrugged helplessly. “I could tow the ship, I guess, but that could damage it. Who knows how far the closest port is? I don't really want to risk it. I hope you understand.”
Fiach looked like he was about to start shouting again. That was Luke's cue to intervene. They put themself between Delta and Fiach and shooed Delta away with a wave of the hand. Delta took the chance to escape, edging away so that he could go and sit with Neven at the stern, where he'd been before Fiach had picked a fight with him.
“If you're angry at something,” Luke said to Fiach, “don't take it out on him.” There was the slightest hint of a warning in their voice. This more than anything seemed to shake Fiach out of his anger.
With a deep sigh he nodded and glanced back out at the ice that blocked their way. It heaved gently up and down along with the waves beneath, giving the unnerving impression that the sea was breathing.
“I thought you hated the Sunbeam Ruins,” Luke said. “But suddenly you can't get there fast enough. If you really want to go, I'm sure you could just fly there.”
Fiach snorted. “Fly? Me? As if. I haven't flown since I lost my arm. That's why I'm frustrated – I used to be able to fly anywhere I wanted, and now I can't. You don't know what that's like.”
Luke stared at him, their patience rapidly running out. “Watch who you're talking to, old man.” But they were less angry than just really really confused. Because Fiach had avoided the question. He had spent most of his life running from the Sunbeam Ruins. A sudden brush with flightlessness wouldn't change that. Luke and Delta had actually discussed how best to break it to Fiach that they were going to the Jubilee, aware that he didn't like being near the Ruins.
Fiach smiled apologetically and reached out to ruffle Luke's hair. They caught his wrist before he had a chance and put another few feet of distance between the two of them.
“Tell Delta I'm sorry for shouting,” Fiach said.
“Tell him yourself.” Luke beat a hasty retreat, pointing him towards the benches where Delta and Neven sat arm in arm. As Fiach set off, Luke took the opportunity to simply marvel at the newlyweds. Never had there been such a sickeningly saccharine couple. Not even Luke could be angry at them.
As Luke watched, Delta pulled Neven against his side and pressed a kiss to the top of their head. It was cute. Trying something similar with Rúth would have resulted in a swift and merciless suplex, which was more fun in Luke's opinion, but hey. Different strokes for different folks.
Speaking of Rúth...
Luke glanced up and down the deck, but saw no tell-tale flash of orange. On sunny days like this, Rúth tended to prefer the top deck, but lately they'd been somewhat reclusive. Clearly, Fiach wasn't the only one keeping secrets on the ship. It was annoying, but it wasn't Luke's job to go chasing after Rúth and demanding the truth.
A blast of icy wind swept down the deck, making the tightly-wound sails clatter. Luke drew up their hood. The leaves that had sprouted pretty much everywhere from their skin already bore blackened frost-scorched marks. The sooner the ship got back up over the equator, the better.
And then the ship vanished. Luke stood alone in a plain white expanse, huddled against wind that no longer existed.
Were they dreaming? Perhaps they'd been asleep all along. They turned on the spot, severely disoriented by the stationary ground, too used to a rocking deck underfoot.
A figure appeared in front of them. Luke froze. The figure was bipedal and vaguely dragonish. Two legs, two arms, upright stance. But strange and unnervingly warped, as black and featureless as a shadow. There was something about it that shook Luke to their core, something not right, something that just didn't belong. The hornless head seemed to turn to face Luke.
When it spoke, its voice seemed to emanate from all around equally.
“This is a message for all my beloved bogsneaks,” it said. It sounded like it was smiling. “Your time has almost come. When the time is right, and the armies have gathered, you'll know what to do. Well, I'll tell you in later messages, this is really just to test if you all can hear me – can you hear me?”
Luke didn't respond, too busy backing away. But the figure nodded anyway. “Great! The channel works. Now, when you guys wake up you won't remember our conversations, so I guess I can say whatever I like right now.”
“Wait, what?” Luke said, shocked into responding.
The figure was definitely smiling now. It didn't seem to hear Luke. “So,” it said. “Would you all like to know the truth about your world?”
Someone was tapping Luke's cheek. They flinched against the sunlight, squinting up at the ring of anxious faces that looked down at them.
Delta gave a tiny wave. “You're back.”
“Did I fall?” Luke said, sitting up. Only a second ago they'd been standing on the deck, sheltering against the wind. And now here they were, surrounded by onlookers as if...
“You fainted,” Delta said. “Um. Do you feel okay?”
“I feel fine.” Luke took Delta's offered hand and stood up. This caused the crowd to disperse. Luke checked themself from head to toe for signs of injury or fever, but everything seemed to be in working order. Strange.
Delta was still watching them anxiously. “What happened?”
“I don't know,” Luke said. “I guess... maybe sunstroke? I'll go below and sleep, I suppose. But I really feel fine.” They shrugged again, thoroughly confused.
“Huh. Yeah, sleeping sounds like a good choice.” Delta ushered Luke towards the stairway down belowdecks. “Don't scare us like that again.”
“I won't.” Luke ducked into the shade directly below the upper deck. The absence of bright sunlight was not an improvement. Bewildered, they followed Delta's suggestion and collapsed into bed beside Rúth, but it was a long time before they actually fell asleep.
it doesn’t matter if every single cannon and every single soldier in rezann’s army is defeated, if the man himself still can’t be killed. and robin refrained from publicly challenging rezann because of this - she’s super smart and she can draft a winning battle plan any day, but rezann himself is supposedly impossible to beat. he fights dragons in his gijinka form, he’s ridiculously overpowered and he can’t die
then robin found eladrin. this young skydancer is shade-touched and any magic spell will backfire horribly in his presence. that makes him a danger to everyone around him, including his allies. eladrin was basically wandering around sornieth with no goal, trying to avoid society, when robin’s scouts found him. robin’s mechanical creations don’t break around eladrin because they’re not magic, unlike p.much any other machine in sornieth. so eladrin got on quite well in robin’s army, until his talent was discovered.
the plan has 2 parts. first, eladrin has to be there, on the battlefield, as close to rezann as possible. for that to happen, the commander has to be baited out into the fray. this is pretty easy, since he’s quite a hands-on commander anyway. eladrin will be installed in rezann’s army as some minor footsoldier at the very last second, so that his powers don’t have a chance to betray his presence.
with eladrin there, rezann should become vulnerable. his regeneration and resurrection magic should backfire. but that means that someone still has to go in and actually physically fight him, which will be tricky. robin still isn’t sure what she’ll do for that half of the plan - she has a lot of fine warriors, but no one who can go toe to toe with rezann long enough to inflict a fatal wound.
luckily for her, and unluckily for rezann, an elite world-famous warrior has just made it into the citadel. getting them to fight might be a challenge, though.
in this very important lore update, somebody dies! i had to rush this one so it’s a bit sparse whoops but u get the idea
(part 1) (part 3)
~
The dungeon was perhaps the worst place to be if you had recently been stabbed in the kidney. Dark, damp, dripping gods-knew-what from the ceiling, it was a wonder that most prisoners didn't simply die of infection. Emiliano knew that the only reason he was still alive was the paper tag stuck over his stab wound, which had been tailored to fix up the wound as much as possible while still leaving him incapacitated by it.
He couldn't sit up, so he had to be content lying on the single bench. Fallon had to sit on the floor, but he wasn't complaining. In fact, when Emiliano tried to insist on letting Fallon onto the bench, Fallon refused.
The two of them were being observed, so they couldn't even voice their real fear – that Thea had been discovered, too. Emiliano had succeeded in bribing a guard to send a message to Iriangi, but there was no way of telling if the message had ever arrived, or if Iriangi had been able to do anything about it.
So it remained unsaid, a silent fear that hung between them.
“You know,” Fallon said, on the third day, “this is actually the second time I've been imprisoned down here.”
“Yeah, gods,” Emiliano said, his voice a faint wheeze. “At least you don't have that prick Rich for company this time. Count your blessings.”
Fallon laughed. He held Emiliano's hand in his own, a constant source of support. “Your father saved me, actually. I think he was under orders to kill us, but he didn't... I think even Rich survived.”
Emiliano made a noise of disgust.
Outside, the guard rapped on the door and slid back the heavy wooden covering on the cell bars, letting light flood into the room. “Oi, bodyguard,” he said harshly, “it's your mother.”
Iriangi stood beside the guard on the other side of the bars, her arms folded in very convincing admonishment. The guard laughed, stepping aside without letting either the prisoners or their guest out of his sightline.
“Wouldn't envy you now,” he said, nodding to Emiliano.
Emiliano tried his best to sit up, but the deep wound on his side hurt too much. He had to crane his neck instead to see Iriangi. She didn't look happy. Was that bad news? It was impossible to tell from her expression.
“Emiliano,” she said quietly. “I can't believe you. I'm so disappointed – what would your father say? You've disgraced our entire family. You've disgraced me.” As she spoke, she turned subtly away from the guard and flattened her hand against the bars. Written on her palm in large charcoal letters were the words SHE IS SAFE.
Emiliano's shoulders sagged with relief. But he had to play his part. “Oh, what do you know, mother?” he said as loudly as his wound allowed. “I'd sacrifice anything for our love, even my family name.”
Iriangi folded her arms again, wiping her palm on the front of her tunic to smudge away the charcoal. “I can't even look at you any more,” she said, turning away. “I've written to all your siblings and they all know what a failure you are. Hopefully this will be the last time we ever speak.”
And she left. The guard winced, sharing a strangely sympathetic look with Emiliano, then slid the wooden barrier back across to plunge the cell into darkness once more. With a gasp, Fallon turned in and put his arms around Emiliano, as best he could, and pressed their foreheads together.
“She's safe,” he breathed.
“I'm going to have to apologise for shouting at mum later,” Emiliano said, his eyes sliding shut with relief. “If I ever see her again.”
“That's all we can hope for,” Fallon said.
Several more days passed before the trial Atropa had promised. Trials at the court were a messy and broderline-barbaric business, often put on for show rather than any semblance of real justice. It was obvious that Atropa was only doing all this in revenge for the theft of Thea's egg, so there really wasn't any hope of there being a fair turnout for the trial.
Emiliano and Fallon were marched out of the cell separately; Emiliano first, because he couldn't walk on his own. Being transported by stretcher was humiliating enough, but when he and his escort made it up to the throne room it all got about a hundred times worse.
Having grown up in the Court, Emiliano knew he was moderately well-known among the lower classes, if not the nobility. He was always around Corin, but bodyguards were supposed to blend into the background. No one paid attention to a member of the militia doing their job.
Everyone paid attention to him now. People stared, a naked, morbid curiosity in their eyes. They wanted to know what type of commoner had been enough to tempt the good Prince Fallon. And of course, many of the commoners and militia members at court knew Emiliano, too, they knew his history, and there was this added layer of disgust, that he'd forsaken his own class to go and consort with the nobility.
Nobody in the throne room seemed even the least bit sympathetic.
The guards reached across and cuffed his hands together, which was pointless since he couldn't very well attack anyone with a kidney wound so bad he'd been pissing blood for days on end. The stretcher was set down at the base of the dais on which the thrones sat, so that he had to look up to meet Atropa's eyes.
It was a full court, so Rosa was there too, looking vaguely bored. Corin had a new bodyguard, of course, but his wide eyes were fixed on Emiliano with a look of utter horror. That was heartening – at least one person here was on Emiliano's side. He tried to smile at Corin, but the little prince did not seem reassured in the slightest. He was holding something on his lap; a small black notebook.
Loud murmuring from the crowd. Then the guards stepped aside and let Fallon through. He was not handcuffed; of the two of them, he was more likely to be seen as a victim. And, of course, Atropa didn't really have any grudge against Fallon.
This was an oddly heartening thought. Maybe Fallon would escape – Atropa couldn't risk angering the Sky Spire by executing Fallon or imprisoning him, so maybe it was more likely that Fallon would simply be sent home in disgrace. Thea could even go with him. Emiliano had never met Saf or Sparks, but he had no doubt that they'd welcome her with open arms.
Atropa held up a hand for silence. “I'm sure you all know why we're here, but if you aren't-” And he held up a sheet of paper and read off a rather dry list of charges, naming both Emiliano and Fallon and their supposed 'crimes'.
Fallon shot a sideways glance at Emiliano and forced a smile.
“So,” Atropa said, finally setting aside his script, “Emiliano. You are not of noble blood. You-”
“Father,” Corin said in a quiet, urgent voice. Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned on him and he quailed visibly; he'd never spoken up like this before, in this sort of setting.
“Be silent,” Atropa said sharply.
“No, father,” Corin said, “you're wrong about him.”
Atropa turned to face his son, visibly furious. “Now is not the time. I know you liked him, but he does not need you to defend him.”
Rosa shot an irritated look at Atropa's back, then reached across the gap between the thrones and set a hand on Corin's arm. Corin looked surprised for a moment, then cleared his throat.
“Father, I'm sorry,” Corin said, “but you can't try Emiliano as a commoner, because he's not one. I... I found this in the record room last night and I think you should read it.” He held up the notebook in one shaking hand.
Emiliano couldn't do anything but stare, dumbstruck.
Atropa snatched the book off Corin and leafed through it. His lip curled. “What is this vulgarity?” he said harshly. “This is highly inappropriate...” He trailed off, as if he'd only just spotted the date on the front cover, and the hand-drawn court crest.
Now even Rosa looked interested. “What is that?” she said, reaching for the book. She stared at it for a moment, her eyebrows contorting, then lowered it and stared at Emiliano as if she had never seen him before in her life.
Emiliano shared a shocked look with Fallon. His secret was out, but how exactly was it supposed to help his current situation? The fact was that he was still illegitimate royalty, since his mother was not of noble blood like Rosa's had been. But maybe it was enough to buy him another few days.
“So, um,” Corin said, visibly terrified, refusing to look out at the crowd of spectators, “Emiliano is actually one of King Serraden's children. He's my uncle.”
Rosa flipped through the notebook, frowning. “Corin, where did you get this?”
“The records room?” Corin said, shrinking back slightly.
She cleared her throat, her expression utterly inedcipherable, then read out a passage from the book.
“'The third day of the month of plague. Today I met with my son Emiliano again. I can tell that Reginald finds his company deeply boring, but I cannot share his opinion. New to fatherhood though I am, I am already starting to wonder why I never chose to have children before. And Emiliano, my only child at Court, is a man after my own heart. He discussed his relationship with Prince Fallon today – although I find the prince to be a pleasant sort, I have to wonder what exactly Emiliano sees in him-'” She trailed off, frowning deeply.
Emiliano cast Fallon an apologetic look and a shrug.
“All right,” Atropa said, “but there's no way to verify those documents.”
“Actually, father,” Corin said, flinching a little as all the attention turned on him again, “I sp-spoke to General Fain about it and she says it's real.”
“I'll have to speak to her myself about it,” Atropa said. “And who is this 'Reginald' mentioned in the text?”
Corin shook his head helplessly.
The crowd, which had been remarkably subdued until now, started to erupt into shouts and cheers, apparently thrilled by this dramatic new revelation. Emiliano was not reassured. Rosa continued to stare at him; it was the first time ever that she looked truly caught off-guard. When Emiliano met her eyes, he actually felt a flash of anger – now she cared! But she hadn't given a shit before. Some queen she was, having let someone like Atropa gain so much control at the court.
“Fine,” Atropa said, after a long pause. “The trial is suspended.” There was a deep anger in his voice as he gestured at the guards beside Fallon and Emiliano. “See to their wounds, but don't set them free just yet.”
So that was that. Emiliano was taken to the infirmary next for a proper healing session. Fallon didn't go with him, promising in undertone that he'd do everything in his power to find Iriangi and Thea.
Several more days passed. The court was in uproar, nobility scrambling to reconcile with this new turn of events. Emiliano remained shut up in the infirmary, with only a few visitors at a time. He was under guard, though at this point he wasn't sure whether or not it was to keep him imprisoned, or for his own protection.
It seemed that Corin's sources had been proven accurate. According to Iriangi, when she found time to visit, nobody knew quite what to do next about Emiliano. He couldn't be king, he wasn't quite royal enough for the royal family. Even when he was completely healed up from his injuries, he wasn't really sure if he was supposed to leave the infirmary. Was he a prisoner or not?
“Oh, Emiliano, it's just a huge mess,” Fallon said, during one of his visits. “Atropa is obviously scrambling for a new crime to pin you with, but all he's got is that treason shit you pulled with Xandra, and nobody would ever find you guilty for that. If he even brought it up, it would only give your supporters more reason to love you.”
“My what now?” Emiliano said. He sat on his infirmary bed with Fallon, an arm wound comfortably around his waist. “Did you say supporters?”
Fallon nodded. He was still bruised from his treatment at the ball, but none of it was permanent. Emiliano could have watched him for hours.
“Oh yeah,” Fallon said. “There are people who say you should be king. They say you can free the court from its obsession with nobility, that kind of thing.” He hugged Emiliano to his side with a sigh. “There's no hope, of course. Not with Rosa still around.”
“Yeah,” Emiliano said, a spark of anger in his tone. “She let this happen.”
“Has she visited you at all?” Fallon said.
Emiliano quickly shook his head.
“Huh. You know, if I found out that I had a long lost sibling right under my nose who almost died, I'd probably want to meet them. At the very least, she could apologise.”
The next morning, Emiliano had made up his mind. He'd been given an opportunity, finally, to follow his own ambition. But, more than that, he had a chance to give Fallon and Thea a safe, comfortable life. He dressed himself with care in his bodyguard uniform, buckling on his scabbard and stopping at his own room to grab his backup sword. It was a big day and he had to look good.
Undoubtedly, Atropa would find another way to get back at Emiliano. Maybe one day Emiliano would wake up with a dagger at his throat, or maybe it would be poison, or a carefully arranged 'accident'. But he wasn't going to let Atropa get the jump on him, not again. It was Emiliano's time to strike.
There was an uneasy quiet in the air that morning. People watched him go, some calling out his name in surprise. The guards watched him with suspicion. He was alone; Fallon didn't know about this. If he'd known, he would have tried to stop Emiliano.
The guards stood aside to let him pass at the throne room doors. Court was in session; Rosa and Atropa seeing to the masses, as usual, without really caring at all for anyone's problems but their own. Corin was nowhere to be found. That was good. Emiliano didn't want the little boy to see what he was about to do.
Silence fell as Emiliano approached the dais where he had been handcuffed only a couple of days before. He didn't bow.
Atropa opened his mouth to speak, but Rosa beat him to it.
“You,” she snapped, fury in her tone. She rose to her feet. “What business do you have here, you pathetic half-blood? Did your peasant mother never teach you to bow before the throne?”
Emiliano cleared his throat. His heart was pounding and he knew that his plan was so stupid that it was almost certain to fail. “Good morning to you too, sister,” he said coldly. “I've come to speak to you about article 5, section 38 of the Court rules of succession.”
Rosa frowned. She didn't know this rule. But Atropa clearly did, because he stood up. “How dare you-”
Emiliano spoke over him. “In the event of a succession crisis,” he said, almost shouting, “the rivals for the throne are permitted to nominate one champion to fight for their bid. I challenge you, Rosa, and I nominate myself.” It was, admittedly, a very strange rule. But Emiliano had bored over the rulebooks that had been drafted during the Court's infancy, and this one was legitimate. Serraden had written a lot of trial by combat into the court's rulebook.
Rosa's bodyguard, Myra, stepped forwards, clearly expecting to be chosen as Rosa's champion. Emiliano's heart thudded. Myra was big and very dangerous, the best of the best. But just as Myra began to descend the steps to reach Emiliano, Rosa cast out a hand and held her back.
“Myra, wait,” she said. “I don't need your help to fight him.”
“But – Your Majesty-”
“No. Stand down.”
Atropa's expression was so shocked it was almost comical. For the first time, he didn't seem to know what to do. All he knew was how to follow the rules, and the rules were being followed to the letter here.
Rosa pulled a short dagger from a decorative sheath at her belt. She cast off her fur-lined cape and approached Emiliano.
“My mother taught me how to fight,” she said carelessly, sweeping her hair over her shoulder. “Draw, brother.”
Someone shouted at the other end of the hall – Emiliano recognised Fallon's voice – but it was too late to stop now. He drew his own dagger, a little put out that he wasn't allowed to use a sword. But no, the weapons had to be the same. It had to be a fair fight.
It wasn't. Rosa was good, he could admit it, but she hadn't been raised in the militia. He sidestepped her first strike, caught her wrist, and forced her back. She tried to circle behind him, but her movements were predictable. She was too used to shadowy assassin-work, she didn't know how to fight without the advantage of surprise or poison.
So it came as no surprise to anyone when he pivoted at the last moment, dodging her second strike, and gashed his blade across her throat before sinking it between her ribs. She crumpled to the ground and lay still.
back at court dorchadas, emiliano lets his nobles know exactly what kind of king he’s going to be, and his plans for the future.
~
Corin's disappearance occupied Emiliano's thoughts for the next couple of days, forcing him to set aside his longstanding plans for reform at the court. He'd interviewed every single witness, all the servants who'd unknowingly let Atropa into Corin's quarters, and their stories all said roughly the same thing: Corin had been taken, but it had not been by force. He'd been spotted simply walking out of the court with Atropa.
Further sightings of two guardians flying south confirmed Emiliano's worst fears; Atropa had taken the boy home with him, to the remotest corner of the globe. Court Dorchadas had no allies in the Southern Icefields who could help.
“I could contact my brother, he lives down there,” Fallon offered, one evening. He was sitting with Thea on the floor of the royal suite, carefully clipping her claws; she hadn't been outside enough to wear them down on her own. She refused to sit still, so the job was not going smoothly.
“No,” Emiliano said. “I know Rue could probably help, but it wouldn't solve the problem. And I don't fancy asking a foreign force to storm the Winterborn fortress for the sake of one boy.” He hated to be dismissive, but it was true. If Corin had been taken by force, by some stranger, it would be different. But the fact was that Corin had been taken by his own father.
Atropa was a monster in many ways, but Emiliano didn't think he'd hurt Corin. He had always been perfectly normal around his son, during the family gatherings Emiliano had been forced to witness as Corin's bodyguard. But that didn't mean Emiliano had to be comfortable with the thought of Corin surrounded by enemies of the Court.
“Nothing will solve the problem,” Fallon said, releasing Thea's right paw and reaching for her left. She spread her newly blunted claws and tried to scratch the carpet, looking supremely disappointed when nothing happened. “That entire trading company is our problem, and we can't go to war against that.”
“Who says we can't?” Emiliano checked the clock that rested on one of the spindly end-tables. Only a few more minutes until the dinner he'd so carefully organised. He couldn't be late. Pacing back and forth in front of Fallon and Thea, lost in thought, he turned over his options in his mind.
“Um,” Fallon said, “Commander Rezann? He's Zaer's biggest ally. Emilio, we can't fight him. He'd crush us – we're lucky to have survived last time he came to the court!”
“No, yeah,” Emiliano said, frowning at nothing in particular. “You're right. Not if we try it alone.”
Fallon clipped through another claw, watching Emiliano in silent disbelief.
“No, listen,” Emiliano said, rounding on him. “There's already a force rebelling against him! His citadel was taken over by these guys, they're obviously good. What if we joined them? We have the resources – gods, you'll never hear me praise that man again, but Atropa managed our affairs better than anyone else ever has. We have a shit ton of weapons and fuel and whatever to spare.”
“I... guess,” Fallon said. “You'd better go and get some proper advisers, though, they'd know more than me.”
Well, that was probably true. Emiliano had already promised to pick advisers and representatives from every single occupation in the court, so that each guild and class could have an equal say. There was no way he was going to the nobility for advice – no doubt they'd be firmly resistant to any proposition that involved them actually leaving their comfort zone. Maybe a senior member of the militia could help with this particular problem.
His thoughts went instantly to Iriangi, but he held them in check. He couldn't play favourites. Maybe there was someone better and more experienced than her that he could nominate.
The clock chimed gently to announce the hour.
“Oh, shit, it's time to go,” Emiliano said, jolting out of his reverie. He snatched up the darksteel crown from the end-table and jammed it on as best he could. He had to look good for this dinner party. Unfortunately, his tailors hadn't yet gotten back to him with his new royal attire, so he was forced to dress in the fanciest clothing he owned; his militia dress uniform.
“Bye,” Fallon said, with a little wave. No doubt he was savouring the fact that, for once, he wasn't obliged to attend every single royal event. He got to stay home with Thea instead, and after only a few days of this he looked remarkably at ease, relaxed and free from that strange well-hidden anxiety that had plagued him for years.
“Bye,” Emiliano said, pausing at the door to blow a kiss to Thea. “I'll bring you back something nice from the dinner!”
He let himself out of the royal suite, fumbling slightly with the ornate door handles, and set off down the corridor. It was difficult to put all thoughts of Corin out of his mind, but he had to do it. He needed his full focus for this next task.
There was a large dining hall for banquets and feasts, but tonight's dinner was being held in a much smaller room just off to the side of the ballroom. It was to be a small, private affair, with a very exclusive guest-list. Of course, once the nobles had gotten wind of it they'd been falling over themselves to ingratiate themselves, to get on what they perceived was Emiliano's good side.
They were quite mistaken.
He entered the dining room through the door reserved for royalty, as he had countless times before as a bodyguard. It was a little disconcerting to be using it without Corin there for company. He found himself facing a long table full of chattering nobles, all of whom fell silent at Emiliano's entrance.
Without paying much attention to them, he went to sit at the head of the table. With a huge rustle and a scrape of chair-legs on stone, everybody else in the room stood up. He paused, wondering what the matter was for a split second before remembering that it was just court protocol. The king sat first.
He sat down, enjoying the wary looks many of the nobles cast him. They were right to be nervous. No doubt they'd noticed what they all had in common, the thing that linked them all together. The guest-list had been very carefully chosen.
“You can sit,” Emiliano said, only once he himself was comfortably seated.
And they all sat, with another deafening thud. It was incredible. He could make them do whatever he wanted.
He let them stew, electing instead to take a very slow sip from his wine glass. Wine was the only thing on the table. There would be no actual dinner here. As he drank he watched them and marvelled at how ridiculous they looked from this new perspective, no longer a threatening mob who wanted to expose him and Fallon in public just for the sake of drama. Now they just seemed rather sad, each trying to outdo the rest with their outlandish fashion.
“Okay,” Emiliano said, setting down his glass. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and smoothed it flat on the table. “Before we get to it, does anyone have anything they want to say?”
“Yes, of course,” one of the nobles sitting closest to him said. She was a tall imperial whose name he didn't remember, her face intricately painted. “On behalf of my hold I must extend the warmest welcome to His Majesty. We are yours to command, and it is indeed an honour to serve under such a courageous king.”
'Courageous' was probably the nicest descriptor that anyone in the room was able to apply to Emiliano. He nodded, unable to help his tiny blush at being addressed as His Majesty. He'd imagined this so many times, in all kinds of different settings, even back when he'd still thought Aster was his father. So he really had no reason to be surprised, he told himself.
“Is that all?” he said, glancing around the table.
One by one, the nobles delivered their own spin on the same greeting; fervent promises to serve under him, praise for his 'acts of bravery', and so on. He didn't miss the nervous creak in their voices, or the way their eyes darted to the servants' entrance, as if they were starting to wonder where the food was. More than a few began to eye the guards standing in each corner with suspicion.
Finally, the last stammering noble fell silent. Emiliano drank it all in, relishing the increasingly obvious looks of fear on the nobles' faces. This was fun.
“All right,” he said, glancing down at his sheet of paper. “This is the guard-captain's report from the ball. First of all... Lord Koda. Do you have anything to tell me?”
The nocturne squirmed in his seat. “I was there, Your Majesty, of course. I was horrified by the unfortunate turn of events.”
Emiliano wanted to play it cool, to be impressively calculating and cunning and all the rest of it, but he couldn't rein in his mingled anger and delight. “You fucking liar. It says what you did right here, and I saw you do it. You laid a hand on Prince Fallon, in front of everyone, because you thought you could get away with it.” The sheet of paper crumpled as his hand closed into a fist.
“I – I'm awfully sorry, Your Majesty,” Koda stammered. “I thought he was guilty of a crime, I thought -” He glanced back around at the guards, shuddering, then quickly turned and bowed deeply to Emiliano. “Please, Your Majesty, tell me what I can do to make it up to you and Prince Fallon. I am your humble servant.”
This was really fun.
“I can have you executed,” Emiliano said, struggling not to smile. He took a sip from his glass and struggled to control his features.
“No – no, Your Majesty, please, anything but-”
“No.” Emiliano met his eyes. “I want to see you beg for your life.”
So Koda begged. And when he was finished, bowing so deep his forehead almost touched the floor, one of the guards moved forward on Emiliano's signal. She sank her sword to the hilt in Koda's back, held for a moment, then kicked him aside.
Silence descended. Koda's fingers twitched one last time. Emiliano refilled his glass.
“You all know I'm serious,” he said. “So. We'll try that again. Does anyone have anything they want to say to me?”
The nobles practically fell over one another to confess their sins, speaking truthfully for the first time since the doors had locked in their wake. One lord had helped to hold Fallon down during the ball, a lady had acted as a spy on Atropa's behalf. Emiliano didn't kill them, but, he realised, there really wasn't much to stop him. In fact, there wasn't anything to stop him. They are so annoying, he thought, watching boredly as another one of them bowed and scraped, I might as well be rid of them forever.
But he'd already promised himself that he wouldn't. “That's enough,” he said. “I won't execute anyone who tells the truth. But from now on all of your houses are stripped of their titles, their crests, their land, and their wealth. Okay, you can go now.”
They practically fled. The guards turned to leave, too, but Emiliano beckoned to the one closest to him. The guard, a pearlcatcher who was now looking increasingly nervous, approached.
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
Emiliano rose to his feet and drew his rapier.
“I probably don't need to say it,” he said, deeply appreciative of the panic in the guard's eyes. The scene in the ballroom played out again in the back of his head – the jeering crowd of nobility and the guards, who had been just as complicit. The pearlcatcher guard had been the one to punch Fallon to keep him down. And there was no forgiving that.
Later, Fallon met Emiliano just outside the dining hall.
“There you are – what took you so long?” Fallon said, as Emiliano shut the door in his wake, badly shocking him.
“F-Fallon? What are you doing here?” He quickly thrust his blood-soaked rapier back into its sheath. As Fallon fell into step beside him, Emiliano surreptitiously wiped his hands clean.
“I had to tell you right away,” Fallon said cheerfully, not really paying attention. “Thea got permission to shapeshift from the healers, come on, you have to see her, she's so sweet-”
Excitement wiped away Emiliano's residual surprise. Forgetting the mess he'd left in the dining hall, he grabbed Fallon's hand and led the way back to the royal suite.
hey please don’t read this unless you’ve read part 1 and part 2 first because u will be so confused
~
She visited him in the infirmary the night before.
It took a lot of courage. Rosa had not had to consider the reality of having a sibling for a long time. And this sibling wasn't like the others she'd grown up with. Emiliano wouldn't take kindly to any excuses she had to put forwards.
She hesitated, then knocked on the infirmary door and let herself in. Myra followed, her ever-present shadow. In the infirmary, Emiliano was on his own, trying to polish out the dents in his scabbard to no success.
He glanced up, a bright smile of greeting on his face that faded instantly at the sight of her. He glanced away, then just as quickly glared back at her.
“In my defence,” she said, before he had a chance to open his mouth, “I didn't know I had any other siblings. So don't blame me.”
She sat on the bed opposite his own. Myra hovered silently by the door, guarding the siblings from interruption.
Emiliano snorted. “Don't blame me? This entire business is your fault! You're the fucking queen. You could have stopped this – or, at the very least, you could have put a muzzle on your awful husband.”
Rosa was a little surprised at this. It seemed that Emiliano was truly ignorant of what it was actually like to be a member of the royal family. And yet, Serraden had chosen him to befriend, and not Rosa. What was so special about Emiliano?
“If you think I had any choice in the matter,” she said, “you are stupidly mistaken. You clearly have no idea how the court actually works, you'd be an absolutely terrible king. I don't know what father was thinking.” With an amused snort she sat back and produced the slim black notebook from within her cloak. Emiliano's eyes widened as she waved it in his face.
“Did he – did he say anything about me?” Emiliano said. “In the book... was I supposed to be king all along?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “I've read through a bit of it. Mostly it's just a rather... explicit account of our father's various conquests. I don't know where Corin got his hands on it, to be honest, it's highly unsuitable for someone his age.”
“But he still wrote about me,” Emiliano said.
“Yes, several times,” she said. “Which is several times more than he wrote about me.”
He shot her a sly grin. “Jealous, are we?”
“Anyway,” she said, electing to ignore this (accurate) jab, “I haven't read through the last few entries before I – before he died. I thought we could read them together? I assume they were mostly about you anyway, and you seem to enjoy being the centre of attention.”
Emiliano patted the bed beside him invitingly. She crossed the gap and sat with great dignity, holding out the book between the two of them.
Emiliano peeked at one of the earlier portions of the book, then quickly snapped it shut with a look of shock, blushing. “Holy shit,” he said. “Let's not. We can just read the last ones. He was sick then and he wasn't seeing anyone... I hope...”
“You'd think so, wouldn't you?” Rosa said, opening the book to the part she'd marked, several pages before the end of the book. The two of them stared down at the entry for a few moments.
“Who the fuck,” Emiliano began, “is Luke?”
“I'm more concerned about this Reginald person,” Rosa said. “He's everywhere in the last entries, he and our father seemed very close. And it looked like he knew Commander Rezann very well, too. Hm.”
“Turn the page, for the love of god,” Emiliano said, “I don't want to read this.”
She didn't want to turn the page. She didn't want to see her father's very last journal entry before she had killed him. And she wasn't quite sure she wanted to let Emiliano know that just yet.
“How about I just leave it with you?” she said, shutting the book and setting it down on his pillow.
“Sure,” he said, “I'll take a look any time I feel like having nightmares.”
That brought a grin to her face. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.
“Anyway,” she said, “I'd rather Corin not keep that. Like I said, he's still far too young.”
They sat in silence for another few moments, but it wasn't quite so awkward any more. He was still watching her somewhat questioningly, as if wondering why she'd behaved the way she had during the ball and the trial.
“Emiliano, listen,” she said.
“Wait,” he said. “I have something to tell you. You know Atropa? He has this dungeon filled with-”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“Okay,” Emiliano said, “but he had this egg there, and I took it. That's why he's out to get me. He used the trial as an excuse – it doesn't matter if I'm no longer going to be executed, he's still going to try and find a way to hurt me. Can you do anything about that? If it was just me at risk I wouldn't ask, but – Fallon and I have a daughter...”
Oh. Now a lot of things made sense. Atropa had been strangely obsessed with Emiliano's punishment for the past few days, and had been obviously extremely put out by the trial going haywire.
“Well,” she said, “that was a very stupid idea, wasn't it? Stealing from him.”
He smiled and shrugged. “'Stupid idea' could be my middle name. But even you have to admit it was the right thing to do.”
“Yes, it was,” she said. Her mind was racing now. He was right – Atropa wouldn't let Emiliano's newly discovered royal blood stand between him and revenge. She knew first-hand how possessive her husband could get over the things he called his own. As long as he had power in the court, he was dangerous. And she wouldn't let any more of her siblings die.
Then, in a flash, it came to her.
“Say, Emiliano,” she said with a sly grin, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “have you ever read through the court succession laws?”
*
The next afternoon, shortly before Emiliano's coronation, he quietly let himself into the royal suites and made his way to Corin's bedroom. The door was locked. Through it came the sound of Corin sobbing uncontrollably.
Emiliano raised a hand to knock, feeling hideously guilty. The sound of crying did not stop. He knocked again, and something heavy clunked against the door, as if Corin had thrown a book at it.
“Hey, Corin,” Emiliano called. “Let me in.”
Silence fell on the other side of the door. Then there was a sound like a cannon-shot and the door blew itself off its hinges, propelled by magic down the corridor until it smashed against the opposite wall. Emiliano, who had ducked just in time to avoid being beheaded, peered around the empty doorway.
Corin flew out, brandishing a short knife, sparks cascading from his hands. Emiliano had to grab his shoulders and force him back into the bedroom, holding him at arm's length while he swiped clumsily with the knife.
“Corin! Calm down,” Emiliano said, his heart breaking at the look of tearful desolation on Corin's young face. “Don't make a scene.”
Myra appeared just outside the bedroom, checking the coast was clear. A moment later, Rosa herself entered, still in her blood-soaked finery. Corin went very still, the knife clattering to the ground by his feet. Then a fresh flow of tears cascaded down his face.
“Mum,” he said, “mum, I'm so sorry, I wasn't there to stop him and – and now you're dead-”
“Corin,” Rosa said, “I'm not dead.” She pushed past Emiliano and enveloped Corin in a firm embrace, almost knocking him off his feet with the strength of it. Corin bawled into her shoulder, linking his hands behind her back.
“This would be a lot easier if we had a door,” Myra muttered.
“S-sorry,” Corin sniffed. He cast Emiliano a look of deep guilt.
“It's fine,” Rosa said. “You were so brave, I'm really proud.” She released him but continued to stroke his hair soothingly.
“Did you... um, did you plan this?” Corin said faintly. “You sent me out of the throne room this morning...”
“Yes,” Rosa said. “I would never let you see something like that. It had to look convincing, you know, and there was a lot of blood. You wouldn't have liked it, trust me.”
“Probably not,” Corin said, with a tiny smile. “But – why?” He gazed up at Emiliano.
“Emiliano will explain it fully later,” Rosa said, “but the short version is that... well, I don't want to be queen any more, and my presence here was enabling a very dangerous man to act unchecked.”
“Yeah, see,” Emiliano put in, “you're still next in line, Corin, but you're still too young. So once you're of age, you can take the throne. If you want, of course. But until then, I'll be here. I'll keep it warm for you.”
“Uh,” Corin said, a look of dawning realisation on his face, “but... mum, what are you going to do? Everyone thinks you're dead, right?”
Rosa nodded.
“You're leaving,” Corin said quietly.
“I have to live my own life,” Rosa said. “I'll visit you as often as I can, but we can't let the Winterborn Trading Company know that I'm alive. They still believe they own me, and they would use their ties to me to take control of the Court. Do you understand, Corin?”
“Yes,” Corin said. “And the dangerous man... that's dad, isn't it? Is he leaving, too?”
“Yes,” Emiliano said quickly. “Yeah, I'm kicking him out as soon as possible. I can do that now, apparently. Don't worry, Corin, I promise I'll look after you. You can live with me and my family – I have a young daughter, you know, her name is Thea and she's so adorable you have to meet her-”
“Emiliano,” Rosa said sharply. “Save it til later.” She dragged in a deep sigh, then placed both hands on Corin's shoulders. “I have to go now,” she said. “You'd better be good. And keep up with your magic lessons! You'll be a brilliant mage one day. And I promise I'll be back in time for Wavecrest, I'll bring you a gift from the Sea of a Thousand Currents.”
Corin nodded, clearing making an effort not to burst into tears again.
“And,” Rosa said, “if I catch you reading any more of that smut I'm going to get Emiliano to ground you.” She leant forward to kiss Corin's forehead, then ruffled his hair one last time and turned to go. Myra followed her out. Corin stared after her, a look of mixed horror and sadness on his face.
“I'll send someone to fix your door,” Emiliano said. “Just stay here, okay? And remember to pretend to be sad. Make people believe you just lost your mother.”
And he darted after Rosa. She'd reached Myra's tiny little bedroom off to the side of the main royal suite, and was already changing into a plainer outfit. Under Myra's direction, Rosa was going to leave the court dressed as a guard in a full-face helmet. Rosa strapped on the armour with a wince, clearly unused to its weight.
“I suggest you take care of Atropa as soon as possible,” she said, watching Emiliano in the stained mirror Myra was holding up for her. “He's probably already coming up with an exit strategy. The scissors, please, Myra.”
Myra handed her a pair of ancient-looking shears. Emiliano nodded, already imagining what he could now do with the power of an entire militia at his fingertips. Rosa faced the mirror and, her expression utterly unflinching, began to hack her hair off. She cut without care for appearance, letting long, thick strands fall to the floor. She was left with a rough crown of black bristles, and somehow it suited her far better than the long, curly locks had. As a final touch, she smeared dark green greasepaint over her face, further obscuring her features.
“Keep an eye on Corin, will you, Myra?” she said, grabbing the helmet from a table nearby.
Myra nodded. “Of course, Your M- er, of course, Rosa.”
Rosa pulled on the helmet. Spell scripts lining the armour would make her blend into the background – not make her invisible, exactly, but make people just not notice her as much. It was the strongest spell that she and Emiliano had been to arrange under the circumstances.
Finally, she and Myra left the royal suites together, two faceless soldiers on patrol. Emiliano watched them go, feeling weirdly tearful, then quickly made his way back to the throne room, where his court was waiting.
He'd already made a list of everyone who had laid a hand on Fallon during the ball. The nobility of Court Dorchadas was about to experience quite a shock.
*
Rosa made it out into the town at the base of the fortress. When the huge double doors were behind her, she felt an indescribable sense of freedom, something that was almost frightening in its enormity. With clanking footsteps she made her way through the ramshackle town, staring out with new eyes, gloriously anonymous and unburdened.
In front of the inn, she found a scruffy horse lashed to a cart. On the cart was Ember, the wildclaw mercenary, packing away all her belongings as if preparing for a long journey. Rosa paused by the cart, her heart hammering – the old Rosa would never have been brave enough to do this in broad daylight, but she wasn't the old Rosa any more.
She tipped up her helmet visor and hailed Ember with a wave of the hand.
“Can I help you?” Ember said, pausing in the act of tying down a bundle of weapons to the side of the cart.
“Where are you going?” Rosa said.
Ember clearly recognised Rosa's voice. A grin broke out over her face and she jumped down from the cart. “Mercenary work, Your Majesty. I can never stay in one place for long. Headed out to the Starfall Isles, actually.”
Rosa blushed. “I'm not – I'm just Rosa.”
“Rosa, then,” Ember said, beckoning. “You look like you want to come along.”
“I...” But, for once, there was no reason to say no. Rosa nodded eagerly instead. “If you don't mind,” she said. “I, er, I must apologise for my behaviour the other day...”
“Don't worry about it – you're here now, aren't you? Now, I don't take dead weight with me,” Ember said, hopping back up into the cart. She reached down with a muscular arm and caught Rosa's hand, easily lifting her up to sit alongside her. “So you'll have to learn on the way. How are you with a sword?”
*
Emiliano arrived back at Fallon's quarters at the end of a very long, exhausting day. He sagged against the door once it shut in his wake and closed his eyes, his head spinning. Almost immediately, he was accosted by Thea. She was the only one there; Fallon was absent. But for once, Emiliano didn't have to worry for his safety.
“Well, Thea,” he said, “I have some good news, and – my gods, you grow fast! Look at what you've done to your father's bed!”
Thea glanced back at Fallon's bed, which had been smashed into matchsticks. “Not me,” she said.
“Yes, you,” Emiliano said with an indulgent grin. “But don't worry, it's fine. My good news is that you might finally be getting out of here – though we might have to take the door off its hinges for you to fit through it. We're all moving up to the royal suite – you, me, your Dad, and your new cousin Corin! Grandma might be there too, I haven't spoken to her yet.”
At the thought of actually venturing outside Fallon's bedroom, Thea shook with excitement.
“Out?” she said, almost uncertainly, eyeing the door.
“Yes, out. You'll love it, I promise. There's a beautiful garden on the fortress roof, and we can go out and explore Dragonhome, too, and we might be going to the Starfall Isles soon to visit your other grandparents! Isn't that exciting?”
She seemed awestruck. Emiliano unbuttoned his bodyguard coat for perhaps the very last time, leaving it in heap on the floor.
“Emiliano!”
The door burst open and Fallon was there, breathing hard as if he'd run all the way there.
“Oh,” he gasped, “oh, thank gods, you're still here...”
“Why wouldn't I be?” Emiliano said, dragging his hands through his hair. “Something wrong?”
Fallon glanced significantly at Thea, then beckoned. Emiliano joined him in the corridor outside, where she would not be able to hear.
“Oh, Emilio, I don't know how to say this,” Fallon said. “But... Atropa is gone.”
“Good?” Emiliano said, frowning. There was something deeply unsettling about Fallon's tone.
“No, not good!” Fallon said. “He's gone back south – and he's taken Corin, too.”
