Dragon King: Ruler of the Realm

C.C. RAE

Dragon

KING

RULER OF THE REALM

Calypso Books®

DRAGON KING

RULER OF THE REALM

Copyright © 2019 C.C. Rae.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialog in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Calypso Books titles may be ordered through booksellers or at www.ccrae.com

ISBN: 978-0-578-58623-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-0-578-58621-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-0-578-58622-9 (e)

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without my friend and    editor Karmen Leggett. Thank you, Ms. Leggett. You were the toughest teacher I had in my entire academic career and, to this day, you help me strive to be a better writer. Thank you for your         generous dedication of so much time and care to this literary child of mine. Most of all, thank you for your endless encouragement, your constructive criticism, your love, and your support.

To my students,

There will be bad days, but there will

always be people who care.

Thanks for all the good days in Room 202.

Love, Ms. Rae

•

To my readers,

 Thank you for taking this journey

with Nicole, Raiden and Gordan.

Please know that this is

not the end of their story,

but we are embarking on the

darkest chapter.

This book is about trauma,

and the struggle to heal,

but as always we

will face it

together.

Gordan’s thoughts roiled in a storm of worry around Nicole, and he did his best to believe he had done the right thing, leaving her there on that beach. He wanted to turn around and go back to her the entire return trip to the wastelands, but he told himself that was selfish—that wanting to be with his friend didn’t matter more than her safety. He was conspicuous—even in human form, people would recognize his eyes as clearly as they’d spot a dragon in the skies. He told himself that it was wrong to think she couldn’t reach the city and find Raiden on her own, yet his heart kept    straining to turn around.

He left her on the shore just after sunrise, and it took him until sundown to reach the wastelands. The prospect of returning to the dragon haven in the middle of the mountains made him feel heavier than the mental acrobatics it took to leave Nicole alone. The ruins scattered at the edge of the plains at the feet of the mountain range was as far as he cared to go. There was nothing for him among his kind, so he curled up and slept among the pillars of a broken      temple.

He spent each day since his return to the wastelands watching the horizon even though he knew it would take her time to get to Atrium, and time to find Raiden before the Council could find her. His anxiety festered, but it was too late now. If he went back, he would have to find her, or do what he hated most and step into the ether, hoping that when he emerged, he wouldn’t be jeopardizing her safety. His fears of putting her at risk smothered his thoughts of being by her side. Instead he had to believe that she found Raiden, that they were biding their time to find a way out of the city, and that they would materialize out of the winds together.

The only way he could tolerate the waiting was to point his gaze in her direction, an effort to peer through that immense space       between them and catch an impossible glimpse to see they were all right and on their way.

All there was for him to see day after day was the parched blue sky hanging over the crumbling graveyard of the old world,         fragments and ruins from every corner of the world left behind. He lay atop the ridges at the edge of the mountains where he could watch the plains and the horizon, his long body draped over the rocks like a miserable cast-out hide. To pass the time, he flicked his tail against the rocks. Every now and then he let out a fiery sigh into the bitter breeze. Once each day, he stretched his wings out over the emptiness to spend some time in the company of the blistering cold winds that hissed to him Nicole and Raiden will not come.

This was not so different from his life before the tower, before them. He had grown accustomed to that solitude once before and with each day that passed, he attempted to sidle back into that bitterly familiar place. Still, it was difficult to sink into his old life while keeping his eyes on the horizon in case the winds were wrong.

The sea was a thread-thin ribbon of blue to make the pale sky jealous. His keen eyes could just reach the ocean on clear days, but the island of Cantis and the mainland far beyond were as imaginary to him as the old world was to all of Veil. Six days passed since he left Nicole on the beach of the mainland. What he would have given for Raiden’s gift of the Sight, to know if Nicole was in his future, no matter how distant.

For six days he questioned his choice to let her go alone. For five days, he watched the horizon lie straight and steadfast, a staring contest he was doomed to lose. The horizon never blinked, no matter how harsh the gritty winds or how blinding the sun. At night the flat blue wall at the end of the world as he knew it transformed into an infinite strait of stars, and strange lights drifted out of the ruins after sunset to hang in the air.

Gordan didn’t really know what the lights were. They retreated into the ruins at dawn and every dusk they emerged like fireflies, perhaps lingering traces of the magic that made this realm, whisking the people and pieces of the old world to their new safe haven. Maybe they were wisps of that long-lost wild magic from the         beginning of everything, primordial phantoms of change in the night.

It was in that vividly bright darkness on the sixth night that the horizon finally broke under his gaze and blinked. A razor-sharp   column of light erupted out of the distance, slicing straight up through the stars, beyond the edge of the wastelands, beyond the Wayward Sea, beyond Cantis even.

When a ripple of hazy light rolled across the distance and washed over him, his heart seized on this strange phenomenon and believed it could only be a sign of one thing—Nicole. Somehow, he knew this beacon led to her, but its unwavering presence struck him with a sour note of dread. The stunning stream of light was a rift in the sky like daylight slipping through the crack in a door left ajar into a dark room.

He jumped up from the rocks, expecting that door of the night sky to swing open and let the light flood the whole world—but the brilliant white thread remained constant, taut and straight in the sky, concealing its meaning in silence. His heart twisted with the uncertainty. Was that light her triumph or her end?

He could not stay in the wastelands watching that beacon. The hole left by his friend’s absence was as significant as the one left by the loss of his only love to Death long ago. He and Nicole were two creatures of the same substance, not blood or bone or parentage, but that deeper immaterial matter of a person. Of all the other dragons in his brood there was no doubt shared lineage, the same sire or dam or even both, but he never knew true kinship until    Nicole. He would gladly face the pending death sentence waiting for him on the mainland to find out what happened to her rather than spend millennia never knowing.

He heaved a tremendous sigh into the night, and leapt off the ridge into the air, keeping the beacon in his sight. As each hour of his long journey passed, he stared it down, but it did not fade, flicker or waver—not even when dawn threw its pale blue blanket over the stars. The sun rose to the east and beside it the column of light stood, a white line straining to shine through the coming brightness of the day.

The light of day spread and the shining beacon grew fainter in the blue sky. At last the horizon could no longer taunt him. Instead it recoiled, rolling backward to keep its distance as he advanced eastward.

The wastelands were shrinking behind him by the time the last star disappeared into the daylight. The time that passed watching the ocean below him was more frustrating than lying on the rocks and watching the horizon. Even though every minute brought him closer to the mainland, each minute would slip by no faster than the last and every hour slogged along slowly, weighed down by his worries.

He saw Cantis float toward him across the ocean, and he watched it pass beneath him like the sad debris of a shipwreck    drifting on the currents. He wondered if anyone would ever return to that island to revive it, but who could ever see that cemetery as a place to live? Once Cantis was behind him and only half his    journey to the coast remained, he felt lonelier than before. He could not stop himself from thinking of the last time he made this      crossing, carrying someone no less dear than his own heart, her voice in his ear and her arms around his neck.

This time he had nothing but the roaring wind to fill his ears —it spoke only of storms, storms of the sea crashing against the land and storms of men converging on each other. The winds knew the world better than the sun, for the sun knew not what transpired during her nightly absences. But Gordan didn’t want to hear about storms, he wanted to hear about Nicole. He supposed he had to be grateful that all the blustering air currents wanted to whistle into his head today was nonsense about change. The worlds were always changing and so the winds were the ancient senile soothsayers    rambling on as always until their wisdom turned to predictable nonsense.

Gordan took a deep breath, tasting the salt in the air and     heaving his anxieties out of his chest for a brief respite until more seeped out of his heart, an endless cycle. The sight of the mainland on the ocean twisted and pulled his stomach between relief and fear. Maybe she’ll be there, standing on the beach right where I left her, his heart mused in its pained delirium. But as he glided down close enough to the water to feel an invigorating spray against his face and the beach rushed forward to meet him, there was nothing but silent sands and shushing waves reminding him to be quiet, stay hidden. You aren’t welcome here, the waves hissed at him as he looked up and down the shoreline for a sign he would not find.

He had a choice to make, transform on the beach and travel slow and as well-concealed as he could, or keep flying and let himself be seen. He didn’t want to trade any more time for safety, so he kept his wings stretched wide and gave a few strong thrusts to climb back into the sky as the beach rushed by beneath him. Gliding over the trees—a sea of shriveled brown hands reaching into the air with waiting claws—his gaze swept back and forth, his mind returned to the dangers of a lost time in the old world when men through savagery against anything unlike themselves hunted dragons to prove they were brave and to prove their god was true.

A vivid island of green seized his attention. He could not pull his gaze away, and although he knew he should keep flying, something about that peculiar patch of summer in a brown winter quilt whispered Nicole to him. As he drew nearer, he spotted the modest cottage and before he even touched the ground, he felt her all around this place.

He landed in the soft grass of the small clearing around the house. Until that moment, he hadn’t noticed the girl, perhaps       because she hadn’t moved, or hadn’t screamed as he approached. As he regarded her, gazing wide-eyed back at him, he could be sure she had indeed seen him, thus, her composure baffled him. She sat perched on an old thick-woven basket, half buckled under her weight.

The urgency drumming in his chest pushed him to speak to the girl, but he knew it would be an easier transaction if he looked a little more human. So, he begrudgingly summoned up the magic he needed to condense himself into the shape of a man, remembering to conjure up some pants in the process, which—in his haste—resulted in a replica of the first garment to come to his mind: the pair of loose plaid trousers he had seen Nicole’s brother Mitchell wearing their first morning together in Tucson.  

To Gordan’s surprise, as he settled into his small human frame and crossed the grass between himself and the house, he spotted a smile on the girl’s face. The place radiated with Nicole’s presence. The breeze that slipped out from the rustling trees, the earth beneath his feet, even the very stones of the cottage before him hummed with Nicole.

She’s not here, the girl said dragging his attention back to her—cloud of tight black curl around her kind dark face.

I beg your pardon?

She left days ago, the girl continued.

The door of the cottage opened and a tall willowy woman stepped outside, not seeing Gordan at first. Fen, who are you    talking—oh, she gave a tiny start at the sight of him. Was it the grayish skin that glistened ever so minutely like scales? Perhaps the violet eyes and sharp narrow pupils?

I told him Nicole is already gone, Fen said.

How could you possibly know I am looking for Nicole?     Gordan finally took command of his voice.

Isn’t everyone? Fen asked with a short laugh.

The woman interjected, she carried Dragon’s Breath with her for one thing… and Nicole is the kind to befriend a dragon, isn’t she? She chuckled. Not to mention anyone wearing that, well, she gestured toward the garment on his lower half to conclude—it certainly had the odd look of the old world.

Gordan was far less interested in her summations and more   concerned with the confirmation that Nicole had been here. How long ago did she leave?

Three days, the woman answered with concern weighing down her words.

Fen frowned.

Is there any chance you know what that light means? Gordan pressed further, turning his gaze toward the white line of light, faint to the northwest but ever steadfast.

Some travelers popped through Witch Haven this morning and said the light is coming from the old palace. I don’t put much stock in gossip, though, the woman said with a shrug.

They’re saying the keys have been claimed, Fen added.

They can’t possibly know that, the woman said.

I’m not saying it’s a fact, but it sounds possible, doesn’t it?

I suppose. The woman wrung her hands, fingers stained green—she’s a floramor, Gordan realized. He could feel their worry knotting in the air, but he had to detach himself from this oasis of Nicole’s presence and people who loved her. They had no more      information for him. He turned away, supposing his departure would be rather appreciated.

Are you going after Nicole? the girl called after him when he was several paces away.

He answered over his shoulder. Yes.

When you find her, will you tell her we miss her?

Gordan could feel Fen’s sadness reaching through the breeze, straining across the distance. The woman stood beside Fen looking at him with a similar plea in her eyes, her mouth pressed into a firm worried line. How like Nicole—he smiled to himself.

I will, he replied.

Fen straightened up a little with cheer and smiled at him. Before he turned away, Gordan spotted a third figure, a smaller girl,    standing just enough in the threshold to peer around the doorframe at him. A pale face framed by straight black hair. Her dark eyes glinted with depth beyond her years and they bored into him   hopefully. He turned away from the little family and, he hoped,   toward Nicole.

Nicole wrenched herself out of the Council’s great hall, snapping her eyes open with relief to find she was back in Raiden’s apartment. She wasn’t holding his sword, her body was her own—yet she couldn’t help feeling suspicious of the peaceful silence around her as her heart continued to race. Where is he?

Now that she was awake, she remembered how she had ended up here, balled up on the small couch in a cradle of cushions. She wasn’t sure how long she had slept. Her body still ached, drained and battered by her abuse of that inner power last night. Her mind was filled with anxious static, glad to be awake despite her lingering exhaustion.

She reminded herself what was real. Last night she reclaimed her body from the Council, and she killed them, but she lost herself somewhere dark. Had she really won, when they succeeded in  pushing her to be exactly what they insisted she was? When she dragged herself back from that black pit inside her, Raiden was there. The courts were destroyed, the great hall in her nightmare was no more. A blinding beacon erupted into the sky and a wave of light washed over the city.

Dropping her gaze, she saw the key hanging from her neck. A dark purple cluster of quartz carved into a rough key. I guess that was real too. She vaguely remembered trying to navigate their way through the rubble of the courts when her body gave up completely. The last thing she remembered was the firm warmth of Raiden’s arms, but where was he now?

Her straining bladder pushed her off the couch cushions. She unfolded her stiff legs and set her feet on the floor, then she heaved her weight up and stood for a swaying second before shuffling across the living room and through the kitchen to the bathroom. Once she plopped down onto the toilet, she sagged, relief streaming       beneath her. Her mind cleared just a little, making room for her senses again. A cut in her sleeve caught her attention. There was an angry red scratch across the inside of her forearm, stinging with freshness. She stared at it, not recalling the cause, then decided it must just be another of her many scrapes and bruises from last night.

She realized Gim was draped over her collarbones, curled around her neck in his favorite spot, but she didn’t know when he had emerged from his hiding place. The thought of Gordan struck her heart, a cold note of sadness ringing through her chest as she ran her fingertips along the warm scaly back of the little golden serpent that clung to her.

At the sink the faucet turned with a tiny high squeak and cold water gurgled over her hands. She cupped them together and, when they were full, dropped her face in. The icy splash cut through the slick layer of oil on her skin and pried her sleep-heavy eyes right open. After burying her face into a towel for a minute longer than was necessary, she wandered back out of the bathroom. In Raiden’s room the bed was empty, so she turned toward the living room, her heart thudding faster in distress.

When she stepped into the kitchen, she noticed a figure sitting slumped over the table in slumber. For a split-second Nicole thought it was Raiden, but the head of blond-grey hair pulled back into a ponytail corrected her. It was his father. She had not noticed him on her way to the bathroom. Why wouldn’t he have gone to sleep in the bedroom—unless he had been keeping watch over her when he succumbed to sleep.

What’s he keeping watch over, she wondered. The unstable fera that might lose control again? The weapon that needed to be kept out of the wrong hands? Or—she looked down at the key hanging from a long cord—could this key be exactly what she feared it was?

A story of an abandoned palace in the heart of Veil crept out of her memory. Raiden told her about the people who erected it as monument to their hopes and dreams for this new realm. However, they couldn’t agree who would hold the keys and so the palace and the power of their unity, suddenly broken, forced them out and sealed the palace shut. If the key around her neck and the one around Raiden’s were those keys, then that would make them…she didn’t even want to think the word. She just wanted to know where Raiden was.

She sighed, pacing quietly in the living room, not wanting to wake Raiden’s father.

Everything all right? A groggy voice asked from the kitchen.

Nicole saw him sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

His question summoned up bile in her throat, and she had to swallow it back. All right?How many people died last night because of me? I killed every last member of the Council. Venarius and his           organization are still out there—who knows where. I don’t know where Raiden is. I have the key to the whole fucking realm hanging from my neck and I don’t want it!

Where’s Raiden? she asked, avoiding his question.

He said he would be back soon, he said, looking up at the clock on the wall.

Nicole looked to the clock as well, almost seven in the        morning.

They’re just working on getting the court’s lower levels cleared, the seers are still down there.

What? Nicole balked, a sucker punch of guilt and horror    hitting her stomach. She realized her shoes weren’t on her feet. The toes of her boots peaked out at her from beside the end of the couch. She snatched a boot and shoved the corresponding foot down its throat.

It’s fine, they’ll have them out soon.

Nicole yanked the second boot on. I should be there to help, she grumbled through her teeth and stormed toward the door. I made that mess after all. I trapped those people down there when I brought the Courts down on top of them. As a final impulse she took the key off and tossed it across the room onto the couch.

Wait—uh—

Nicole did not wait. She wrenched the door open and stepped outside into the biting morning air. She shut the door behind her. It was a relief to escape the thick warm comfort of the apartment. She set her thoughts on Raiden and slipped into the air before his father could follow her out the door.

The sudden solid contact with stone beneath her feet jarred her a little as she appeared beside Raiden. He jerked his gaze toward her with surprise and she wondered if his turquoise eyes would ever stop being so startling to her.

He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and then began again. Sleep all right? He moved his hand toward hers.

She was relieved to see him. He had changed out of the bloodied clothes she had cut to tatters last night.  The evidence was gone, but she was reluctant to touch him after what she’d done. Not really. I want to help, she said, turning her attention to finding her way to where the seers were trapped.

They stood in a vast pit of stone, some crumbled piles of block, some whole walls still intact and leaning in precarious angles around them.

I think we’re almost there, he said, no doubt seeing the guilt on her face. You didn’t put them down there, Nicole. It’s not your fault. We’ll get them out.

Nicole didn’t want to have this conversation now. All the guilt in her heart made it feel like lead and words wouldn’t change that. Only making things right could.

You can’t get in through the ether?

Even in ruins the spells barring the ether are causing us trouble. We can get past some walls, and others we can’t, especially down in the low levels, Raiden explained. We have to move it all out of the way.

She nodded, looking down at the terrain as she made her way deeper into the destruction toward the sounds of grunts and shifting stone. The gritty shuffles of Raiden’s steps followed close behind her as she descended into the hole that was once the Council’s court building. They navigated down the mounds of crumpled stone, and Nicole eyed broken sections of staircase lying around, the steps   leading in bizarre directions like she had fallen into a war-torn M.C. Escher scene.

Some of the stones around them pulsed with a faint light as they passed, and Nicole realized she was walking through the ruins of corridors she had traversed during her brief out-of-body experience the night before.

It’s a little different than I remember it, she mumbled.

Once we get the seers out, we can get away from this place, Raiden said, his words saturated with optimism and distain.

And go where exactly? She wondered, noticing the key  bouncing against her abdomen with every step. She halted, frozen in shock, there it was hanging from her neck again. Really?! She took a deep breath and kept moving.

Raiden was silent, glancing toward the sky for just a moment. Nicole looked up, and saw the column of light still reaching        endlessly upward. She had hoped that beacon would be gone today. Raiden looked ready to say something—but Loak appeared from behind a leaning wall, bear-hugging a massive stone block to his  bare chest—his white shirt tucked behind him into his belt.

Look who it is, Loak said, carrying the stone over to a pile and releasing it. The stone hit another with a great crack that slapped her eardrums.

Nicole hoped her cringe passed as a smile. She didn’t know how else to greet the giant man whom she only met informally the night before when he scooped her off that table to whisk her away from her impending execution. To him she had been unconscious, but she had been eerily aware of everything happening around her and to her.

Where’d Leone get to, Loak wondered.

Oh, I left him back at the apartment, she said, hiking her thumb back behind her.

How did the search go, Raiden? Loak inquired further.

Raiden exchanged an uncomfortable look with him. There was no trace of him or anyone else back in the rebel’s hideout.

Trust me. He’s long gone, Loak assured him with a shake of his head.

For now, Raiden said.

Nicole’s stomach squirmed, she knew they were talking about the leader of Dawn. Venarius? she asked.

Raiden hesitated.  but Loak answered. It turns out he was      behind the rebels.

Excuse me, another voice barged in and Andrus appeared. "He was behind Eulina. The rebels were a movement with a cause before he showed up. He eased himself down onto the pile of stones and sighed like it was his blue velvet couch back at the rebel base. Fera, good to see you. How’s the shoulder?" He asked with forced nonchalance.

She appreciated the completely unveiled attempt at throwing her a lifeline to escape the conversation, but from the corner of her eye, she could see a sour expression pass over Raiden’s face at the mention of her shoulder. He hadn’t been the one to hurt her, but their unfortunate encounter played out as it did thanks to Raiden’s altered memory.

It’s fine, Andrus, she answered, tracing a small circle in the air with her left elbow. Her shoulder was still stiff, but then every part of her ached today, the physical fatigue that came after magic-overload, which she was becoming rather accustomed to now. How’s it going in there?

It’s stuffy. Progress is slow but we’re almost in, he said, heaving himself up off the rocks that grumbled and shifted with his            departure.

Nicole followed Andrus, relieved to leave Loak and Raiden’s conversation behind. She didn’t want to talk about where her enemies might be lurking, or what they were going to do about Raiden’s and her apparent inheritance of the entire realm. As far as she understood, under the Council’s leadership the realm was still divided up into states that had been the old kingdoms. Veil will just revert back to the old kingdoms, she hoped even though she knew better. There were some states without their royal families that relied on the Council’s leadership.

Andrus led her into the corridor, mostly intact and almost     precisely how she remembered it aside from the occasional ceiling stone out of its place. Daylight couldn’t reach them. The stones all around them glowed with their presence, but the light flickered, foreboding the eventual failure of whatever magic was at work. The feeble light mirrored the waning life of this dying building. They turned a corner and ventured maybe a hundred feet into the          enclosed corridor before coming to a doorway blocked by a section of collapsed wall.

Caeruleus was there clearing stones out of the path of the door. His uniform jacket was gone, his white sleeves rolled up and his slate grey trousers were covered in dust. It was clear that a lot of work had already been done from the mounds of debris lining the walls. A particularly large stone barely budged an inch at Caeruleus’ effort bracing his back against it and pushing with his legs.

Nicole couldn’t stop her gaze from zeroing in on the patch     concealing his lost right eye—the last time we were together he thought I was unconscious, she thought grimly about her out-of-body         observance of his and Loak’s rescue attempt. It was a strange         sensation to look at him knowing what he had done for her, after she had marred him irreparably. He only glanced at her for a        moment and looked away too fast for her to read the emotion in his eye. He continued his efforts like she wasn’t there as she took position beside him,    placing her hands against the smooth side of the stone and pushing.   Together they slid the stone aside several feet.

That’s good, Caeruleus declared, breathing heavily as he straightened up, his gaze carefully avoiding hers.

Just last night he’d risked his life to help her, when he didn’t know her, despite all he’d been told about her, and now he was doing his best to ignore her. She wondered if he was scared of her, or if he hated her—she couldn’t blame him if he did, though.

This looks like it could come all the way down at any            moment, Andrus said, regarding the portion of wall leaning across the corridor and against the door.

Let’s see if we can get the door open at all, Caeruleus           suggested. Carefully, he added, acknowledging Andrus’ concern with a nod.

Andrus knocked on the door with the polite cadence of a         solicitor. Would anyone in there like to get the hell out?

A jumble of muffled voices answered in the affirmative through the thick door.

Caeruleus took the door handle and opened the door. It swung outward but only a few disappointing inches before meeting the obstruction of the fallen wall.

No one is fitting through that, Andrus said.

Oh, really? Caeruleus huffed.

Nicole rolled her eyes and stepped between them, reaching for the door. The power in her core was not so eager to rise to the      surface, her body still worn and weak, but she dragged it out and pushed it through her hand, into the door handle. The door creaked, wood grains swelling with light for a moment. Andrus and Caeruleus cringed, leaning away.

Nicole pulled on the handle. The lower half of the door split and opened like a Dutch door.

Well, there you go, Andrus said.

Caeruleus ducked into the chamber. Is anyone hurt?

Nicole swallowed a lump. Then one by one people filed out, stooping to get through the squat doorway.

Just follow the corridor that way, Andrus ushered with a wave.

The seers were a mixed assembly, all ages, from white-haired elders shuffling along in a permanently stooped posture to children as young as ten snapping upright and breaking into a grateful march down the corridor. So, the Council had never stopped tracking down seers. She wondered how long those youngsters had been in the courts, how desperately had their families tried to hide them and their unfortunate gift only to fail?

 Nicole looked into every face and—except for the youngest seers whose eyes were still clear—she saw clouded eyes. Some eyes looked back at her through a slight haze, a faint mist across their vision, others couldn’t possibly see her at all through the thick milky fog in their blinking gazes. Those who could see her looked at her with profound recognition. The youngsters gave her sly smiles, their gazes bright with knowing. The older seers who could still look at her and see her face gave her looks ranging from gracious relief to troubled pity.

She wanted to ask them who they were, how long they’d been here, where would they go now, were their families out there waiting for them? The thought of counting them was lost in the crowd of her unspoken questions, but given the several minutes that passed as seers wandered to freedom, the number could be no less than a hundred, perhaps closer to two hundred. Caeruleus emerged.

That’s all of them, he announced.

Great, Andrus clapped his hands together. Job done!  

But as the guys turned to follow the seers, Nicole turned the opposite way, moving beneath the leaning wall and deeper down the corridor. She wanted to check another chamber. It was uncanny to travel down this passage with a body, to feel her progress in every step. When she came to the next tall door, she reached out and      instead of passing right through it, she took hold of the handle and pulled. At first the door wouldn’t shift. Her body was so achy that every movement came with an angry twinge, but she couldn’t bring herself to summon up magic again. She latched onto the door    handle with both hands, braced one foot on the wall beside the door, and pulled again.

The hinges whined and the door moaned, scraping across the floor as it opened a few feet. A gaping black maw greeted her. Before she could think about lighting her way, the column of darkness rushed forward, enveloping her in a black flapping cloud. A chorus of caws sounded through the passageway as the ravens from the record hall spilled out the open door and surged toward their      freedom.

Nicole sagged with relief that the sudden onslaught of shadows was merely an aviary exodus. She peered into the blackness of the unlit hall beyond the open door and considered letting this minor obstacle deter her. But when she looked down the hall with the thought of going back, she spotted some of the debris along the way—broken pieces of the stones from the walls and ceiling, still glowing in response to her proximity. She snatched a baseball-sized lump of rock that glowed even brighter in her hand like a falling star a child believed could be caught.

Holding the stone out at arm’s length, she stepped through the doorway. The stone chased back the darkness enough for her to see a few feet around her. The last time she crossed this vast hall it was bright, the regiment of bookshelves stood tall and straight in their lines. But today she would not enjoy a simple stroll down the       avenue between rows of shelves to the other end of the long chamber. The shelves were toppled, their books and scrolls littered the floor.

•

Venarius stepped lightly through the rubble littering the floors of the remaining lower level of the courts. He wore a satisfied smile. He had planned to bring down the Council from their high hill himself, but his victory had been achieved by-proxy thanks to his creation. Watching from the streets below as the courts crumbled had been such a thrill that even now, hours later, the thought of his creation’s glorious power gave him chills. He wished he had been inside to see it all firsthand.

With the Council gone he didn’t have to worry about the        annihilation of his hard work any longer, and he was eager to usher his creation back to the purpose he had laid out for her long ago. He stopped a moment at the doorway into the hall of records,      following the faint echoes of her footsteps into the shadowy hall.  

•

Raiden watched, his heart heavy, as the seers file out of the tunnels and into the daylight. A part of him felt like he might see his mother among them—safe all this time, locked away with all the others, like his father had been—but, of course, she wasn’t there. The seers young and old passed him, feeling familiar. Even though he knew he’d never seen any of their faces before, he felt like he had.

Can we go home now? One girl asked, her soft hand clinging to the wrinkled brown fingers of a milky-eyed woman who smiled.

Yes, Dear, we can go home.

The girl looked up at him and he looked away, not wanting her to spot the Sight in his eyes.

Andrus and Caeruleus emerged from the buried passages without Nicole.

Caeruleus, where’s Nicole? he asked.

Caeruleus looked around. Still back there, I guess.

Raiden huffed in frustration and brushed past him and into the stone corridor. None of it was familiar to him, so he listened for footsteps, unable to shake the fear that there might be someone else down here besides Nicole and him. Loyal court agents could have been trapped in the lower levels too. He passed doors that were blocked and eventually came to one large door split in half, the lower half open.

Nicole? He ducked through the low door and stepped into the chamber.

It was quiet and the stones in the ceiling glowed with a feeble white light—the courts spells dying, but enough that he could see the room. Concentric rings of chairs faced the center of the room where a massive crystal ball sat fractured on the floor. Even broken, just glancing at the crystal ball hit him with the Sight. He looked away, cringing at the disjointed cacophony of a fractured future. He could grasp nothing from the flashes but sound and nausea. The Sight burned and pounded in his head.

Finally, the Sight receded and he turned toward the door. His foot grazed something and he looked down to see a small crystal ball, still spinning and rolling in a little circle. Unlike the great broken crystal behind him, this one didn’t pull him into the Sight. He bent over and plucked it off the floor. This time the Sight was a warm pulse in his head, a slight pressure, and the crystal in his hand clouded with shadow. Then within the little sphere he saw Nicole walking through a dark room.

He closed his hand around the crystal, blocking its images from his eyes, and he pushed the Sight back without struggle. The crystal seemed to make the Sight entirely new and tame. He tightened his grip on the smooth sphere, telling himself he should leave it, but he slipped it into his pocket before he ducked back through the doorway.

•

The sounds of Nicole’s careful steps to avoid fallen books echoed around the hall. Whispers of shifting stone and tiny fragments dropping from the ceiling answered her shuffling feet in an unintelligible conversation. She climbed and stumbled over the downed shelves in her path, her left hand devoted to holding her light. The distance across the hall felt endless with nothing but darkness beyond her small field of light. The door at the other end had to be a figment of her imagination dreamed up in the delirium of her harrowing night. There was nothing here but the edge of reality and the void beyond. But after what felt like half an hour the curtain of shadows slid aside and the light from the broken stone in her hand reached the door.

Last night she had passed right through the door. It could have been locked for all she knew, but if it had been it didn’t matter now. The door was still in its frame, but just barely, looking like it had been struck from the other side, its iron hinges torn from the frame and the wood was even split in places. She managed to squeeze her body through the gap between the doorframe and the failed hinges on the door’s edge.

One of the many pillars from the chamber lay toppled around the door. Her stomach clenched with dread as she climbed over the stone disks, the separated vertebrae of a great buckled spine. Streams of white daylight spilled down from fractures in the ceiling above. What had seemed an endless expanse of darkness existing in another plane of existence last night, now proved to be a rather ordinary crumbled chamber, much smaller than she would have expected. The illusion of infinity was shattered—the room was finite—a sad cavity buried in earth-bound ruins.

Her heart dropped cold and hard into her stomach. Where there should have been a large book upon a pedestal, there was now a small mountain of crumpled pillars. That strange tome and the echoing voices within—the pages she had hoped held more answers, other prophecies, or perhaps just other possibilities—were crushed and buried.

Nicole?

A voice called, stretched thin by the cold empty chamber between them. Her name slipped through the door behind her. It was Raiden. She knew that wary tenor of concern, even distant and echoing. Nicole sighed and shimmied back through the sliver of space between the door and the threshold.

I’m here, she answered without raising her voice. Her words still managed to fill the hall of toppled bookcases. She thought she heard him sigh when she answered him, but the sound just as easily could have been the shuffle of her feet as she made her way back across the mess of bookcases and scattered records. Atop one mound of fallen records the stone slipped from her sweaty grip and it fell, knocking and clattering down into the tangle of broken wood shelves and crevices between books until it tumbled out of sight and its light was gone. Across the hall Raiden held out his hand and a shining orb hovered over his palm, casting a radius of light through the shadows, illuminating her way.

What were you doing in here? he asked as she scrambled down the last bookcase.

I was here last night, kind of. I wasn’t sure if it was real or just a dream.

And?

It wasn’t a dream, she said. And I’ve seen enough of this place.

Let’s get out of here then, he suggested, turning toward the door and raising his hand in an invitation for her to lead the way.

Venarius stood in the darkness of the records hall, listening to the pair of footsteps bid him farewell and fade away.

Nicole, he said—his creation named for victory, how fitting.

The key hanging from her neck felt heavier the more she thought about it. Raiden and she emerged from the tunnel through the remnants of the Council into the open air. They were greeted by the stream of light shining steadfastly into the sky.

Go on, Caeruleus said, shooing a raven off of his shoulder. The large black bird hopped away from him and swooped over to a pile of stone not three feet way where it perched and clicked its beak.

I think we can safely say the courts are empty, Raiden said as he and Nicole joined the others. Now what do we make of that, he wondered, nodding toward the light in the sky, a distant celestial scepter standing on its own with unwavering authority.

Only one way to know for certain, Loak offered, pulling his shirt back on.

They stood in the crater that remained of the courts, Nicole, Raiden, Caeruleus, Loak, and Andrus. She squirmed in her skin, loitering here made her uneasy. It wasn’t even standing in her own destruction that made her uncomfortable, or the fact that she had killed the entire Council here and their remains were somewhere in this rubble. This place was where she had hurt Raiden, and she couldn’t stop seeing what she did to him. She didn’t want to be here any longer. Her attempt to inch her way to the edge of their cluster and creep away failed; the guys managed to encircle her in a haphazard sort of security detail—accidental or intentional, she couldn’t be sure.

How do we get there? Raiden wondered, standing behind her. We’re all too exhausted to make the shift through the ether. And to be honest, after last night, I don’t particularly trust that the ether is safe.

Even with the central line buried under the courts, the vox network should still function, Loak said. We might be able to contact the Council’s nearest ship.

Nicole’s stomach clenched with hunger churning deep into her core that let out an aggressive grumble. Surprise flushed her face as everyone looked to her.

Andrus let out a laugh. I’m with you. Food first, plans later. He broke away from their formation and Nicole jumped gratefully into step behind him to escape the circle.

I won’t turn down something to eat, Loak agreed, following behind them.

They climbed out of the pit of ruins in relative silence, listening to the sounds of the city around them. Since the destruction Nicole caused in the middle of the night, Atrium had been shaken awake and unable to sleep. When they reached the edge of the hole and descended the hill toward the streets below, people were gathered around the hill gawking up at the courts, now just a broken empty shell. Others were staring up at the beacon—the thick gray sky she had come to know in Atrium was clear and blue today.

As they passed these people on the streets, Nicole stole glances at their faces. Some studied the beacon with puzzled expressions, others with mild wonder, and some faces were masks of worry.

Only the few people who had been there to witness the keys appear around Nicole and Raiden’s necks knew what the beacon was heralding. Nicole lifted the key and tucked it into her collar, letting it fall to the end of its cord and hang beneath her shirt.

She saw Andrus watching her with repressed amusement on his face.

Not ready to be called ‘Your Highness’ yet?

"Just call me Nicole—not your highness or fera—thank you," she grumbled.

Andrus laughed. As you command, he answered.

She glared at him, but Caeruleus’ voice behind them stole her attention.

How soon can you be here?

Nicole glanced over her shoulder to see him wearing his agent mask, that silver segmented face shield with orange eyes. Then Raiden strode up beside her and she dropped her gaze to the street while she folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself against her shame as they walked.

Great, Caeruleus said and pulled the mask off his face.

They zig-zagged their way along six short blocks and ended up on a familiar street where food vendors and eateries competed to fill the air with enticing aromas. The haze of savory spice and syrupy sweetness overwhelmed her nose and rushed into her brain. Her head spun amid confused cravings, her mouth watered, her stomach twisted and growled with impatience.

In less than ten minutes they were seated around a table with food in their hands and eating with intense focus. Despite the chaos of the night before and the demolition of the realm’s government, the bustle of Mat Street seemed unaffected. The conversation around them, however, buzzed with the fate of the Council and Atrium.

… suppose my brother can move to the city without any trouble now…

… seems a bit ominous to me…

… is it a coincidence that it showed up last night after the Council fell to the rebels?

Oh, the rebels aren’t responsible for the Courts, I can tell you that.

How would you know that?

My neighbor was there—oh yes—said there was a fera in the city. Wager you anything it was the fera that did it. It’s just like the old stories, isn’t it? Destruction like that.

Nicole didn’t even flinch at the suggestion of her role in last night’s events. She wasn’t under any illusion it was going to remain a secret. She wasn’t sure if she was becoming numb to what she’d done or if she was just too hungry to care about anything but her food.

… I want to see for myself what that light is all about. It’s to the northeast and we all know what’s out there.

Nonsense, it’s nothin’ to do with that old palace.

Oh—been there, have you? I don’t trust gossip, only way to know is to see.

No one stopped chewing, but they all looked up at one another, gazes shifting to Nicole and Raiden as they listened to strangers’ chatter. Raiden looked to her and she looked at him, the key still hanging from his neck out in the open. He moved like a street magician as he scooped the key into his palm and made it disappear beneath his shirt like she’d already done.

There was an unspoken understanding not to say anything, even indirectly, about the fate of the realm now dangling from Nicole and Raiden’s necks. It was suddenly comical, the two of them sitting there in the middle of the bustling food district having a meal while Atrium tried to comprehend the severity of the last nights events—a chicken that hadn’t quite yet realized its head had been cut off, a little frantic, oblivious to its own demise.

Nicole chanted to herself to the cadence of her chewing—no, no, no, no. This wasn’t the plan. She was supposed to come to Atrium to get Raiden. They were supposed to leave Atrium with lives that belonged solely to them. She promised Gordan that they would meet him in the Wastelands. After that there was no plan other than to figure out what to do with themselves and their freedom.  But now there was a shackle around her neck, pulling her deeper into Veil, further from Gordan, further from freedom than she could even fathom. I can’t be in charge of an entire realm.

She forced the wad of food down her throat, only half chewed and too dry. She couldn’t taste it anymore. Her stomach was subdued at least. A black blur swooped in and landed with a little thud on the table beside Caeruleus. It tilted its head at him and let out a loud caw in his face.

Get out of here, Caeruleus grumbled, yanking a piece off his sticky pastry and lobbing it several tables away. The raven scrambled after its prize. Loak stood up, wandered over to a vendor and returned minutes later with something wrapped up snugly in brown paper.

Shall we? Loak prodded the rest of them out of their seated stupors.

Nicole got up and followed in a daze. As they walked down streets she vaguely recognized, she let Raiden take her hand and that contact burned her conscience. When she looked down at her hand in his, all she could think about was the sword in hers and what she had done to him. At last they arrived at Raiden’s apartment and when everyone filed in through the door, she managed to slip away from his grip.

The small apartment felt even smaller with five bodies milling about the living room and kitchen. Loak had to dip his head slightly to one side to avoid the ceiling as he crossed the room and passed the parcel of food to Raiden’s father, still sitting at the kitchen table where she left him, the picture frame containing the photograph of him and his late wife sitting in front of him.

Much obliged, Leone said in earnest as he unwrapped the food, his eyes red.

Loak clapped him on the shoulder and pulled the other chair away from the kitchen table to sit down. At last he could hold his head up straight.

Once they were all inside with the door shut, Caeruleus began. I was able to reach Captain Rhee on the Tempest. They weren’t far from Atrium and are heading this way as we speak. She said they could be here in little more than an hour.

Nicole’s heart hammered. An hour? And that conversation was at least twenty minutes ago now. The only place I want to go is home. She drifted across the room and sank onto the couch. Andrus flopped back unceremoniously onto the cushions on the other end and looked ready to fall asleep. He dropped his head back, the scars riddling his face and neck made brown constellations on his skin.  Nicole tried to focus on the conversation in the room.

Say we get there and find out what we all suspect is true, then what? Even if these are the keys to the palace, what is that even worth? Raiden said.

 With the Council gone the states will more than likely revert back to the old kingdoms. The Council allowed the surviving monarchs to represent the royal states because they were familiar, trusted. We all know they’ll happily resume control. This realm is going right back to where it was before the dragon wars, Caeruleus insisted.

Don’t underestimate the power of an old hope, Leone warned. There are a lot of people in Veil who still believe the day will come, and they’re right to believe it.

The whole realm can see that beacon, Loak said. It’s only a matter of time before people realize what’s going on and it reaches every corner of Veil.

But Caeruleus has a point, Raiden said. What are the chances that the people of the royal states even care? Their kingdoms are what they know, there’s a reason the Council maintained the borders.

Even so, there are the open states that relied on the Council far more for stability, Loak added.

Aside from that, at the very least it means we now have a stronghold, Loak offered. You still have enemies. Without the Council around I think we will see members of Dawn come out of hiding.

I’m not so sure a palace emitting a beacon is the best place to hide from anyone, Caeruleus suggested.

It doesn’t matter if your enemies know where you are as long as they can’t get to you, Loak countered.

No one has been able to get into that palace in all the centuries since the doors shut. I’d say that’s a safe place to be, regardless of any expectations that might come with it, Leone added in agreement with Loak.

Nicole waited for Raiden’s response, for his refusal, reluctance even, but he just nodded. She could see he was exhausted and anxious, but his complacence stoked the growing resistance in her heart. She didn’t want a big shiny palace and a realm full of people to worry about. She just wanted to get the hell away from this city, this realm, and the stranger she had become here. Her mind dragged her back to last night, an anchor pulling her down into that dark place, too deep to hear the conversation in the room with any     clarity.

Loak’s voice became a heavy muffled baritone, Caeruleus and Raiden’s voices distant tenors in the background of her memory where she was in the Council’s great hall. She remembered every second, and despite the pain of her anger and magic ripping through her, she had relished ending their lives. They hadn’t just tried to kill her, they toyed with her, tortured her, forced her into a sick game, to play the cat while Raiden was the mouse. She knew she shouldn’t think back on her own brutality with so much          satisfaction, shouldn’t find peace in that place, but she did. That was the first and last time she had been in complete control of her life, and she felt the need to savor that memory, take a gasping breath of air from that fleeting freedom before she was dragged into a new unknown.

Reluctantly, she pulled her mind back to Raiden’s apartment. The food in her belly seemed to finally assist her, the ache in her muscles was finally dissipating.

I suggest we be there to meet Captain Rhee when the Tempest arrives, Caeruleus said, his voice became clear in Nicole’s consciousness again.

Agreed, Raiden said, I think we should leave Atrium as soon as possible, but I’d like to stop and see a friend first.

We can meet you at the hill, Loak suggested.

Nicole thought Andrus had dozed off, but he opened his eyes, lifted his head from the couch and stood up as if on cue. She        suspected he had been conscious and listening to the whole         conversation.

I’ve got some affairs to set straight myself, Andrus said. I’ll catch up with you. He gave Nicole a discrete nod and followed the others as they filed out the door, leaving Nicole and Raiden alone in the apartment sooner than she anticipated.

The door was shut and the room fell quiet before she could utter a single word.

Raiden looked at her and she looked back at him. The silence was taut between them. Nicole turned away from the dilemma by crossing the living room and grabbing her bag from the back of the kitchen chair.

Look at that, she said, swinging the bag onto her shoulder, I’m already packed. Her attempt at a lighthearted quip fell        horribly flat and