Chapter Eleven
Nadia woke screaming and cursing due to a fiery pain in her thigh. She jolted up, or tried to, but found herself bound by chains.
She was in chains, and Kinjo stood over her, crooked teeth bared, with a glowing poker that had a thrall crystal attached to the tip. An oblong brazier heated by red-hot coals contained a perfectly sized indentation for the poker. And her thigh had a long, thin burn mark straight across it.
“Hold still, little dragon,” the green wizard crooned. “If you’d remained unconscious, this wouldn’t have hurt as much.”
The burn throbbed, blistered, and boiled. There was no reason for Kinjo to have wounded her that way. No reason except malice.
“Why in the Goddess’s name did you wake her?” Victoria exclaimed, somewhere off to the right.
Nadia twisted around as much as the chains allowed and realized she was on a medical table in a tower room she didn’t recognize. Slit-shaped windows without glass allowed Tarakona’s chilly air and flakes of snow to whistle into the huge circular room. The temperature, of course, was bloody frigid, but not enough to negate the pain of her fresh burn. The stone table beneath her curved inward, cupping her body—and diverting any blood or fluids into a central channel. Diagrams of human and dragon anatomy covered the walls, as well as cabinets full of implements of medical evil.
Victoria, along with two white dragon attendants, waited by an iron door. Nadia, through her pain, was surprised to see anyone in the room besides Victoria, Kinjo, and a green and purple dragon pair needed for the ceremony.
“If she’s conscious at the time of implantation, the thrall will take deeper hold. It’s an…experiment I’ve been working on.” Kinjo’s gaze flicked toward Victoria and away again. “Don’t you want her bettered? I can subdue the more repugnant aspects of rebelliousness and ingratitude.”
“You can’t!” Nadia exclaimed. The other dragons whispered things about Kinjo. Bad things. No one admitted to being sick or injured when Kinjo was on duty, but sometimes the physician fetched them anyway. “Thrall crystals don’t work like that. Thrall magic doesn’t work like that.”
“Magic works however the wizard can channel it,” Kinjo hissed at her. “It is yours to provide and ours to control.”
“I don’t know, Kin. I confess, I would miss her…sass.” Victoria rubbed her long, elegant fingers over her mouth. “If she were a male, perhaps she’d need refining, but as a female…no, I can’t allow her nature to be changed. We’re risking too much, leaving her unthralled this long. Just get it over with.”
What precisely were they risking with her chained up and helpless? A spout of ugly cursing that injured their pristine ears? Nadia yanked at the chains and provided said spout of cursing, but her human form had little of her dragon strength.
Or…was that the risk?
“Cob-sucking jackhole. Mumbly cove. Rotten, moldy meater.” Nadia delved deep for the most offensive slurs she could muster. “You couldn’t magic a feather into the air. I notice you weren’t sneezing in the ruins. Weak, you are. Weak and grimy, which is why you’re always bullying the dragons.”
“Shut up, dragon, or I’ll poker your face.” Kenjo snapped her fingers at the green and purple dragons, and the small women obediently placed their hands on either side of Kenjo’s bare neck. Her hair was swept up in a knot of thin braids. “We’ll put the first one here.”
The physician inhaled in the magic of the dragons. Their lattices gleamed brightly beneath their skin through their diaphanous gowns, and their expressions remained stoic. Then Kenjo jabbed the molten poker into Nadia’s thigh.
Nadia screamed so loud she thought she might have ripped out her own throat. Healing magic poured into her, stopping the gush of blood, but the agony of the purple magic creeping through every centimeter of her lattice was worse than any physical pain.
She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t allow it. She fought against the invasion with every second of her stolen freedom, every ounce of her love for Barnabas Courtier, every spark of her silver magic. Out, out, out! She would not be this thing, this possession. Perhaps it would be better if she died.
Pain blinded her. Snow and steam whirled around her, green flashes, purple lighting. What was happening?
“She’s shifting, hurry!” Victoria cried out. “Trigger the crystal.”
Kinjo cursed. “Dragons can’t shift that quickly. Stop fretting, Your Grace. I just need to—”
Immense pain in her wrists, her ankles. Why was Kinjo attempting to squeeze off her hands and feet? Punishment for running? Metal clattered, pinging against walls, and someone screamed. Was that her? Repeated, agonizing jabs in her thighs, her side, her tail, as if Kinjo was attempting to tenderize her instead of implant her with a thrall crystal
Her…tail?
She didn’t know if her rage and magic caused the explosion, but she certainly took advantage of the chaos.
When the ceiling erupted in a firebomb, Nadia launched her dragon body out of the tower and into the black sky.
# # #
Barnabas popped into the castle courtyard and promptly shot the two guards who came running at him. Detonations that had nothing to do with him surrounded him. The rush of magic sparkled on all sides, and so many fires burned that the immediate area was bright as midday and almost sweaty. With a flick of a talisman, he opened a sun shield to ward off arrows. It wouldn’t work against fire spells, but against archers it would suffice.
One of the towers in Victoria’s grand palace had blown off its top, and red dragons swarmed the sky. The wizards shot gouts of fire at the palace complex in a suspiciously coordinated effort. Already the Great Hall ceiling, a domed masterpiece of stained glass and filigree, was in flames. Dragons from the stables, further from the courtyard, bugled a challenge as Victoria mounted a counterattack.
White dragons, iron dragons, black dragons, and orange barreled out of the darkness, wizards astride them. Magic flew between the opposing forces, striking dragons, the palace, and people below, as indiscriminate as the Goddess of Nature.
Apparently he’d interrupted a coup, or Nadia had precipitated one. It was his vision come to life, only he hadn’t recognized the palace in all the flames.
It didn’t matter. All he wanted was to find Nadia before the rest of his vision transpired and take her away from here, or die trying.
Where would she be? Caged in the palace, in the dungeon? Leashed to Victoria’s wrist, like a dog? The vision had placed her in rubble, chained, helpless, perhaps dead. He made a decision and headed for the shattered tower, skirting fires. It seemed most familiar…and the closer he came to it, the more sure he was she’d be near the top.
How could he climb this dratted thing? Would the stairs be traversable? He would use the special amulet on any thrall crystals implanted in Nadia and worry about the blood tracker later. If he got lucky, it—and Victoria and Shula and any who knew of the Earth portal—would be destroyed in the battle.
But then he saw something that absolutely had not been in his vision.
A dragon, huge, silver, and magnificent, curled on the other side of an intact tower. Her tail wrapped around it and her talons dug in, steadying her as she attempted to avoid the blasts of fire and ice. Black scorches marred her hide.
Was she enthralled? She had no defenses against flames, bombs, and whatever else Shula and her reds drummed up. She had no defenses against friendly fire. Silver dragons were not made for war.
But wizards were.
A red wizard produced fireballs that ruptured against the walls of the palace on impact. One exploded on the opposite side of Nadia’s tower, setting the roof aflame. Thanks to his enhanced senses, he could hear the wizard directing her dragon to fly closer. “There’s the trollop. Thinking she can hide that fat body. Sisters, over here!”
Well, that was that. Barnabas sought out his white dragon amulet. The pearl was cold as ice beneath his fingers. As a red dragon swooped toward Nadia, he sent out a rain of frozen blades, straight into the wizard’s back.
One clipped the dragon on the wing, and the squeal of injured beast resounded off the walls. The wizard toppled from the saddle and fell to the ground somewhere.
One down. And he knew where Nadia was. If he had a transportation amulet, he could whisk them both away, but they would need to escape via mechanical means, provided he could gain her attention.
The battle raged above. None of the combatants seemed worried about any wizards below. Indeed, most of the palace residents hollering and running in the courtyard were human, and few questioned him. Victoria’s wizards, after all, had dragons of their own. They were governor’s wizards. They didn’t stoop to amulets.
And his amulets were not endless. He ran a hand down the bandolier. Would they be enough?
He bolted, dodging falling masonry, across the embattled courtyard toward the base of the tower where Nadia lurked. Why didn’t she fly away? As he grew closer, he saw that one of her shining wings was mangled and bloody.
Dragons might be able to withstand injuries and germs in dragon form, but that had to be driving her nearly insane with pain.
“Nadia!” he called from the training grounds below the tower. “I’m here!”
She gave no sign she’d noticed. The humans appeared to be coordinating themselves, forming ranks of archers and catapults. Sergeants bellowed orders, waved battle flags. A horn blew and a volley of arrows shot into the sky. More soldiers appeared along the battlements. Victoria the Valiant had trained her army well, even against itself.
His time unhindered due to the chaos was limited. It appeared Nadia’s time was, too.
A trio of red dragons converged on her. The wizards blasted fire. Nadia scuttled around the tower, trumpeting her hate, barely avoiding the flames. Her good wing fluttered wildly as she balanced herself.
Barnabas shot ice at the three taunting wizards, but their flames sizzled it. Something better against fire…or fight fire with fire? His fingers found the flame talisman, and he dug a fingernail into the pumice like retribution.
When he smacked a concussive fireball into a red dragon’s armored belly from below, the beast went tumbling through the air. He could hear a wizard cursing. “Down there! The man in the hat! He’s with the silver.”
Two dragons dove for him, their wizards already flaming at the fingers. Shula, cursing his existence, thrust up her fist for a fireball. A dragon had a great deal more power than a mere amulet. Barnabas lunged behind a pile of hay bales used for archery practice.
The hay burst into flame. The dragons whistled past, blanketing the area in fire. Barnabas scrambled to extinguish the hay with a water amulet so the billow of smoke would hide his rapid relocation.
Somewhere less flammable. In the palace complex, that meant stone, as there was no moat. He listened intently through the crackle of burning grass to assess where the red dragons had gotten off to.
But those were not the dragons he should have been minding.
“BARNABAS!” Nadia screamed. “BEHIND YOU!”
Barnabas whipped up his sun shield and peered through the thick white smoke. Flapping wings parted the cloud. A green wizard on a small purple dragon hovered behind him.
“I’ll handle this, Shula!” she called to the others. “Take out Victoria before the reinforcements arrive. She’s on a white.” Her fingers glowed with a spell as she prepared to destroy him.
Defense against purple? Grimly, he turned his shield on its side and hurled it straight at the dragon’s neck. He hated to injure dragons, but it was the dragon or him.
Purples, like silvers, were not trained for combat. The dragon reared back, nearly unseating the wizard. The shield struck its soft underbelly like a saw blade. Blood splattered and the dragon screamed, rolling in the air in an attempt to dislodge the sun disc.
The wizard tumbled to the ground, barely saving herself from a right crushing when she cast an air spell that slowed her descent. Regardless, she landed with a thunk.
Barnabas drew his pistol. Fire surrounded them. “Wizard, surrender or die.”
The woman’s green hood flipped back, and she laughed. “You first.”
He fired, missed. Greenish-black strings leapt from her hand, striking him before he could properly aim the gun. Healing magic turned sour. The sensation was like all the wounds he’d ever had in his life reopening at once.
The rope of magic lassoed his torso. She yanked, using him as a counterbalance to drag herself to her feet. She howled with triumph and shot another surge of torture through the thin, throbbing wire.
Barnabas’s fingers went numb. He fumbled with the ice amulet. Lost the water amulet. He fell to the ground, finding it difficult to breathe. He hadn’t seen how he’d die in the vision, but it appeared that it would be at the hands of a mad green wizard.
But again, his vision proved inaccurate. Thunder shook the earth as Nadia launched herself off the tower and hit the ground beside him. Hard. Without wings she couldn’t slow her descent.
“OOOF! FECKING WIZARDS.” She’d landed directly on top of Barnabas’s attacker. With its caster clearly flattened to death, the rope spell vanished. Nadia arched her neck and nosed him. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”
He wrapped an arm around her neck and let her pull him to his feet. In dragon form, her sweet breath was hot and reassuring, but tears glittered in her giant blue eyes. “Shift back to human and let’s leave this place, my dear.” He spotted the water amulet and set about creating more smoke. The red wizards would be back, and they needed camouflage.
“CAN’T. OUT OF MAGIC.” She raised her body a smidge, glanced beneath herself, and shuddered. “THAT IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE KILLED SOMEONE. IT FEELS TERRIBLE.”
How could he protect her dragon form? “Your conscience will be assuaged when we survive this.”
“NO, I MEAN, THE BODY BENEATH ME FEELS TERRIBLE. POKY BONES AND GOOSHY BITS. I MAY THROW UP.”
Indeed, her silver nostrils faded to a greenish shade. “Not here. Can you fit into the guard tower? We need to escape these infernal flames. And also, if you could lower your voice…”
Blood dribbled from her wounds, though most of them were cauterized burns. She took a deep breath and dragon-whispered. “It’s not large enough. We’d bake to death in there.”
“And you cannot fly.” Dragons on foot were, for the most part, not agile. And she wasn’t small, like a crystal dragon, that she could be hidden. Nevertheless, it was ridiculous not to try to escape. “The front gate is likely to be guarded.” And collapsed and flaming. “The servants’ gate is this way.”
They trotted as fast as she could manage through the flames and smoke. She hissed and swore, less able to avoid sparks and embers than he was. None of Victoria’s forces attacked them because Nadia wasn’t a red, and he took great care to hide behind her body. Simply being a male meant he would stand out here and raise suspicions.
“I can still feel her squishing under my bum,” Nadia complained. “Nightmarish.”
But their presence on the ground was soon noted. They had just reached the kitchen gardens when a large white dragon hurtled above them, banked, and swooped back. The dragon’s regalia was the governor’s, and several more white dragons accompanied her.
“There you are, girl,” Victoria exclaimed, her voice amplified by magic. “Shift back to human and come with me. I need to get you out of here.”
Nadia froze in one spot, staring at the sky with anguish on her face. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
“Thrall crystal.”
Hell’s bells, had they gotten it implanted after all? Magic shimmered around her, but she didn’t change. “I don’t have enough magic.” Nadia coughed. “Your Grace. Anyway, I’d rather die!”
Victoria ordered her dragon to land while her guards flanked them in the air, protecting them from the red wizards who screamed and flamed nearby. “You will if you don’t come with me.” She unseated herself and leapt to the ground, agile like only a trained warrior could be. Victoria was not one of those non-participatory despots. She got her hands dirty alongside her forces. “And who are you, man? What are you doing with my silver?”
Barnabas assessed Victoria the Valiant and located his water amulet as subtly as possible in his coat pocket. Water was very effective against the ice magic she’d doubtless been channeling from the white dragon. How much did she have left?
A thrall crystal made a dragon vulnerable to a wizard’s touch, vulnerable to her commands. But Victoria had given no orders, so Nadia responded defensively.
“This is my wizard. Not the other way around. And you should know he has foreseen your defeat.” Nadia swirled her neck around him. Granted, she had no idea what Barnabas had seen, but it wasn’t that.
“Are you two a part of this shite?” Victoria asked, glaring at them. The blood tracker locket pulsed silver, since it had located its prey. Not that she needed it if Nadia had a thrall crystal somewhere inside her.
“Absolutely not,” Barnabas said. Which of Nadia’s wounds was the insertion point? Or had it been healed already? “Shula would be a worse governor even than you.”
“I’m not all that bad,” Victoria responded. Above them, the white wizards fended off a phalanx of reds. Ice and fire spattered to the ground, reminding Barnabas that Victoria was not the only threat. But his sun shield was gone. “Just a bit land-grabby, and I have my reasons. I’ve had my eye on Shula, and if you’d been here, Silver, I could have kept this from happening. People are dying because of you.”
Nadia ducked her head. “No, I—”
“Do you realize how many coups I’ve had to circumvent? It’s not just about conquest, child.” Victoria threw up her hands. As if she’d signaled it, twin firebombs crashed to either side of them, like pyrotechnics. “And look at your wing. What have they done to you?”
Nadia whimpered. Victoria dragged a long, thin stick from a sword scabbard, and Barnabas recognized it at once. It was a thrall crystal wand.
“Do not come any closer with that,” he ordered her.
“A man will not tell me what to do.” Victoria clutched a talisman—apparently she didn’t shun them—and the wand began to heat. “Let’s get some backup crystals implanted before you run away again. I’m thinking teeth. Open wide.”
Nadia’s jaws gaped obediently…but then her head darted forward like a snake. She bit the red-hot thrall wand and Victoria’s arm. Both women screamed, though Nadia did it with her jaws closed on the governor. The iron wand branded her mouth.
“How are you doing this? You can’t hurt me. You’ve got a thrall crystal inside you!” Victoria struggled and Nadia growled.
Barnabas didn’t question how Nadia was able to defy the thrall magic. He darted forward and joined in the struggle, hoping to grab the amulet, the wand, the tracker, anything to stop this. He slapped the ice amulet on the wand and chilled it so quickly that it snapped in half.
“You’ll tear my arm off!” Victoria shouted, horrified. “Stop!”
Nadia closed her eyes. Her jaws eased—but she didn’t open her mouth.
“Give us the tracker and let us go,” Barnabas said. “And you will take orders from this man because I don’t think you’re in complete control of this dragon. I don’t think the thrall spell set, did it?”
Victoria panted, in obvious pain. “She shifted…during the ceremony. Must have interrupted the circuit. Well, it will solidify soon enough. Nadia, I command you to release me.”
Nadia growled deep in her throat while tears streamed down her silver face. Her curved horns gleamed in the firelight like mirrors. It was clear the thrall crystal had some effect on her, and that effect would increase the longer it was inside her body.
“Mmmf mrrrrrrrrrr!” Nadia swore.
“I assume she just called me a very naughty name.” Victoria was sweating, and blood dribbled from the sides of Nadia’s clenched jaw. It wasn’t Nadia’s. “This is not how I envisioned my day going. I thought I’d get my silver back, foresee that damned Shula’s rebellion, and stop it.”
“The way your palace looks, you should probably focus on that instead of on us,” Barnabas reached out and yanked the tracker from her neck. “Do you yield, Governor?”
Nadia growled again. Her lip quivered, and he heard bones crack.
Victoria, undaunted in a way that Barnabas had to respect, growled back. “This…is…gonna…hurt. So much.”
She hurled herself backward, leaving her forearm in Nadia’s mouth. At the same time, one of the white dragons crashed into the nearest tower, half-ablaze and howling. Red dragons thudded to the ground around them, encircling them, and Shula led the charge.
“Now you will all die!” she proclaimed. Every wizard raised her hands, blazing with incendiary fire. His water amulet wasn’t going to be enough. What else was in his bandolier?
“Fecking wizards,” Victoria cursed. Bleeding profusely from her stump, she threw herself into Nadia and Barnabas as if her average-sized body would save them from the flames.