6. Yveun

The Dragon King oozed displeasure from his very pores.

He felt it seeping out of him, simmering hot, elevating the temperature of the room. He was alone, which was an unfamiliar sensation. Leona had been a figure at his side for decades and now it was as though the woman had never existed.

She’d had her faults, as they all did, but her loyalty was only matched by her ferocity. And, for the most part, she could manage to temper the fire that burned under her skin even when her frustrations struggled to get the better of her. It was a fire he’d stoked in all the right ways, until it burned white-hot and only for him. Nurturing Leona’s radical worship of him had been the rare duty that was also a delight.

Now, years of work had been lost in what seemed like a blink on his lifeline.

Yveun sheathed and unsheathed his claws, raking them against the wall of the room he’d been pacing like some lowly caged animal.

It was one of his secret habits. The Dono, the sky ruler, the overseer of the land below, chosen one of the Life-bringer, for all his sweeping palaces and grand rooms, preferred the comfort of a tiny space to think in. A space with only one way out. A space so confined that just the thought of being trapped within it set his heart to racing.

In that heightened awareness of his own mortality, he found clarity. It was as though the stone walls that surrounded him, marred from years of claws scraped against them, were the only thing solid enough to contain the torrents of his thoughts. It was a place where the feeling of lowliness growled for dominance in his stomach once more, and when he ascended, he returned to the world like a merciful god.

Leona and Coletta were the only two who knew of his secret lair. Coletta never came down; she had her spaces, he had his, and they issued the utmost respect to each other in preserving those barriers. They were three times as effective because they maintained that separation, and the world regarded them as a split entity.

Yveun smiled wide, pure delight filling him at the very thought of Coletta. He and his mate, moon and sun. They were two halves that orbited each other and only very rarely touched.

But Leona... She would wait at the top of the narrow stair that led back into his private chambers. She would grant him his privacy, and say nothing of the clawing or howling that no doubt echoed up to her from time to time. She thought herself mightier for it, for knowing the King’s secret. Yet another suggestion of Coletta’s gone well, only to be wasted by Leona throwing her life away on Loom.

Yveun snarled, his claws straining against his skin as he gouged them into the wall. Cvareh Xin. He thought only Petra would be able to elicit a raw, emotional response from him. But it seemed she’d taught her younger brother in much the same fashion. How that meager slip of a man had bested his Leona was a mystery. Seeing the Dragon-child emerge from his supposed meditation only proved the point further.

Cvareh was not a laughable specimen, but he was no exemplar of the Dragon form. Not even the will of the twenty gods should be able to sway the cards in his favor in a duel against Leona. Yveun retracted his claws and folded them over his chest, walking faster.

Sybil, Leona’s sister, had said that Cvareh had help upon Loom—a Chimera and Fenthri. Yveun had seen Leona turn Fenthri into ribbons and reduce Chimera to no more than sharpening posts for her talons. Logic told him it was highly improbable for such meager prospects to be a threat to his Master Rider.

But logic had run its course, and here he was—less several Riders, and his Leona gone well before he intended her removal. Cvareh was alive and upon Nova once more. No schematics for the Philosopher’s Box returned. An Alchemists’ guild gone rogue—or going fast. And no answer for any of it.

When the probable had been exhausted, the only explanation that remained was the impossible.

Yveun launched himself forward with wide steps. He needed more information and there was one way he knew how to get it with any measure of certainty: he needed a Dragon on the inside. Fortunately for him, he had just the blue-skinned worm for the job on retainer.

The world materialized beneath his feet as he left his unorthodox sanctuary. He envisioned that nothing existed while he was in that tiny claw-scratched room, that the gods themselves held their breath and halted everything for the sake of his thoughts. When he emerged, the world shone with their magic, pulled back together in a new shape that carved a path for him to progress.

Yveun pushed against the wall at the top of the stair. It gave and he emerged from the passage that closed to form the back of the large hearth that dominated one wall of his chambers. They were a glittering contrast to the dark, rough-hewn passage he’d just been in. A large platform bed stood adorned with silks. Pillows were tasseled with beads cut from jewels. The desk alone had taken three craftsmen four months of non-stop work to carve.

It was a collection of all his favorite things, arranged only for him and the few he deemed worthy to rest their eyes upon it. Yveun was in no mood for it. He wouldn’t soil the essence of his room with his present ferocity. He’d return when he could rest knowing that action was being taken.

Waiting for him in the hall was the man-child he’d been forced to choose as his new Master Rider. Yveun did not even lay eyes upon the boy. He was barely twenty. His age made his three beads more impressive, but all Yveun could see was how scarce they were compared to Leona’s.

He needed to call a Crimson Court soon and test the mettle of his Riders. A few would fall, and a few unexpected upstarts would distinguish themselves from the pack. Yveun would pluck them from their humble beginnings for a place on the top of Lysip. He could only hope a woman would emerge from the lot as a potential candidate for Master Rider. He had a much easier time manipulating a creature he could leverage sexuality against.

“Finnyr?” he demanded.

“In his quarters, I believe.” The Rider endeared himself to his lord by knowing exactly what Yveun sought in nothing more than a word.

Beads clicked softly around Yveun’s neck as he walked, holding a decorative plate that bore the symbol of House Rok over his bare chest. The silver contrasted brilliantly with his wine-colored skin. Around his waist was a simple sash, holding in place a draped cloth in both front and back. Otherwise, his physique was apparent, cut muscle rippling ominously with each aggravated stride.

Even the Rider gave him an extra half-step of space. Nervousness flashed across his magic, assuring Yveun that his choices in how to present himself were well founded. He leveraged his sexuality against his female riders, his physical presence against male riders. In both, sheer dominance prevailed.

In the end, Yveun didn’t care if his subjects loved or feared him, so long as the emotion was an all-consuming one.

“Dono,” a green-skinned man greeted him and stepped to the side. He was a Kin from House Tam, a ward of the Dono’s to assure the other House’s loyalty to their sovereign. But, just having him on Lysip wasn’t enough.

Around the man’s neck was a thin gold chain. The tempering on the metal whispered familiarity to Yveun, assuring him that his magic was the only force by which the metal could be controlled. Keeping the most important family members of the two subservient Houses might have been sufficient for some other, less King, but Yveun preferred adorning his wards with nooses he could tighten with a thought.

Above all else was his dominance over Loom and Nova.

The Rok Estate opened up on the north side, spilling over the hillside in wandering arcades that connected smaller chalets. The Dono smiled, inhaling the potent scent of wildflowers and subservience.

This was where his most loyal subjects lived. Chosen Kin of Xin and Tam—immediate family to the Oji and Ryu of the Houses. The Dono invited them to the Rok Estate and gave them some of the most lavish accommodations in all of Nova. They ate like kings and slept like brothel masters. They were given honors of state and management of affairs both on Loom and Nova. It was a life that many could only dream of.

And all he asked for in return was their unyielding and unquestioning loyalty.

He strode past his subservient subjects on a mission towards one of the middle homes. Yveun did not even knock before crossing the threshold of a stately one-roomed chalet. Just the man he was looking for stared, startled, from behind a desk that could nearly rival Yveun’s in quality. Nearly rival.

“Dono.” Finnyr stood only to fold at the waist in a low bow. “I was not expecting you this morning.”

“Weren’t you?” Yveun folded his arms over his chest, widening his stance.

“My lord?” Confusion shone true from Finnyr’s face into his magic. He clearly had not consulted the whisperer for House Xin. Or, more likely, Petra hadn’t sent any word of the King’s venture this morning.

Yveun let the accusations drop. “Finnyr, where do your loyalties lie?”

“My King, they lie where they have always been, with you and House Rok.” His brows, the color of tarnished gold, knitted together, drawing lines in his powder blue flesh.

“I have no room for question in this.” Yveun crossed the remaining distance to the desk opposite the other man. “The Guilds on Loom still resist me. Those that do not outright have yet to fully embrace the structure which I am attempting to impose upon them—structure that is the only thing standing in the way of the world below being lost to their own devices as they leech off the earth past the breaking point.”

“None have understood the gravity of this more than I.”

Finnyr was a smart and resourceful man. What he lacked in physical prowess he made up for in mental fortitude. It was the only thing that had kept him alive for the past decade. He was certainly of no other use to his family. Though Yveun had found creative ways to apply his talents.

“I cannot fight battles on two fronts. I cannot give Loom the attention it needs when I am being picked apart from within.”

Finnyr paled to nearly the white of a Fenthri. He’d heard all the layered meanings in Yveun’s words. They had not been on entirely good terms since the schematics were stolen.

“How may I serve you, Dono? You are our one true King.”

“I hope you believe that,” Yveun pushed.

“You are everything.”

That the Dono believed. Without him, Finnyr would long be dead. And Yveun knew that he held the key to the future Finnyr sought. It was a shameful bargain for a Dragon to make, to seek power and prestige through a means other than sanctioned duels. But Finnyr was a Xin, and the Xin put their ends before the means used to achieve them. They would cut out their own eye and sell it to a Harvester if it benefited their goals, and that was how Yveun had ended up in this predicament to begin with.

“See that I am, Finnyr, and you will have that which you desire someday.” The man’s eyes were alight at the prospect. Finnyr’s very existence rested in Yevun’s hands. But the King’s future was stacked precariously on the lesser Dragon’s shoulders. The brother of Petra’Oji, the man who would inherit House Xin by blood and rank should he somehow best his sister in a duel, or if Petra and Cvareh were suddenly and mysteriously found dead. “For now, I need you to speak with your dear little sister. I need answers.”

Finnyr paused. Petra’s was one entity that still deflated him with a mention after more than a decade. Shame was a seeping wound and Yveun pressed upon it to get what he wanted.

“What do you want to know?” the Dragon forced through his all-too-dull canines.

“I want to know how Cvareh survived the Riders. I want to know what happened to my schematics.” Yveun’s claws unsheathed at the mere mention of the drawings that held the most substantial progress made on the Philosopher’s box to date. “I want to know what Petra is keeping from me.”

“My lord, my sister, she—”

“No excuses and no half measures, Finnyr. You were born in the month of Lord Rok. Show me where your true heart lies.” Yveun rested his hands on the desk, his claws raking long lines across its surface as he stepped away. He’d have Finnyr flayed for an hour if he buffed them out of the resin. Yveun wanted them to last as a threat to the man until the whole catastrophe that had been the past three months was behind them. The Dono paused at the door. “Succeed, and I will forgive your prior lapse in judgment in even mentioning the schematics to your sister. Fail, and I will not let you live long enough to try again.”

Yveun sneered widely, showing off his wicked sharp fangs. He left the man fighting trembles, but felt immensely better himself. There was more to be done, but it was progress for now.

As loathe as he was to see powder blue skin, it had paid off to have the loyalty of Finnyr Xin’Kin To, eldest son of House Xin.