Ezeru

Avo walked over to me and bowed. “It seems like she has us trapped. We’ll pray for your safe return.”

Damn. I was hoping he would tell me he had some other plan.

I really did not want to do this. I didn’t want to see Izeria ever again. I knew she would use mist on me. She would destroy me. If I ever saw Himika or Peri again, or any of the others, I wouldn’t remember them, and I might even kill them. This was the end of my brief, wonderful happiness.

But to save the ones I loved…I would do it.

“Go back to protect the queen,” I whispered. “Merrick has access to the house.” I could hardly speak. I was terrified in a way that went well past any strength I had gained in adulthood, down to my earliest childhood days. Even before…Peri was always there. Now I will have no one…

“Bring no weapons,” the rock dragon said. “Come.”

As I started to walk after the messenger, all of my rock dragons started to follow me.

“No,” I said. “Stay with the other dragons. Go back to Queen Himika. Izeria will only hurt you.”

“You are king,” the rock dragons said, the voices chorusing around the cave. “You king!” “We die with you.”

“No, you come alone,” the other rock dragon said. He hissed at the others. “Alone! If you come, we fight you!”

“Then we fight!”

“No. No.” I growled. I wanted them to be safe too. They knew I was weak when it came to Izeria, and I expected them to back down at my order.

Well…as it turned out…I wasn’t alone after all.

They didn’t back down. They formed a circle around me and attacked the other rock dragons as viciously as if their own lives were at stake, as if I hadn’t made any bargain at all.

“Rock dragons ain’t much of a military to follow orders, are they?” Avo asked me. “All right, people, if they’re fighting anyway, we might as well help our side!”

The soldiers immediately drew their blades and took up shields. Most of the humans had already put on their armor. The battle broke out all around me, and Izeria’s rock dragons didn’t stand a chance. But what would happen then?

I doubted the story about Merrick was a lie. It was too specific.

“I’m still going,” I told Avo. “I’m going to rescue the potential priestess.”

“Ezeru…if we can kill the rock dragons, it might buy us a little time. We should consult with Lord Seron.”

“I’m the rock dragon king. She wants me. This is my business. I’d rather come after her now on my own terms.”

“Stay,” I told my rock dragons. “Stay and fight.”

Then I left through the tunnels.

I was alone, but there was no place in these caverns where I didn’t feel at least a little at home, because there was rock everywhere, and the more skilled I had grown, the more the rock itself brought me some comfort. I listened to it. I spoke to it. And I made it my own. My feet fell silent in the darkness as I felt the rock all around me, and I wore a layer of it to armor myself—and cloak myself.

I’m not sure how much time had passed by the time I reached the camp. I sensed it through the wall itself, and carved out my own passage, until I formed a slat in the ceiling above one of the rooms. I paused to catch my breath, and then I looked down.

This was definitely the place. Mist dragons I recognized were milling around, a little restless, but waiting. The soldiers were armed and ready, probably expecting the rock dragons back. Where was Izeria? I didn’t see her, but my eyes quickly found the priestess.

She wasn’t the only human in the camp. I saw some men in robes all clustered together in a corner. But she was the only girl, and she was quite young and looked scared and miserable. She was sitting by a fire all alone, arms crossed, shivering as if from some inner chill no fire could reach.

Rothair walked over to her, and I watched the moment she saw him coming toward her. She stiffened. He brought her a tray of food and pressed a cup into her hand. Calm, but insistent. He put a hand atop her head. His body language was not without tenderness, but it was possessive, too.

Anyway, it didn’t really matter what he felt, did it? She wasn’t a rock dragon in heat. She wasn’t a priestess with her sigils activated. It was obvious she was terrified of him, but there was no one to rescue her.

Until now.

I wondered how I could get her attention to nab her from the cavern without being noticed. That would be the tricky part. I could drop rocks on the camp, but there was no guarantee the chaos would work…

I heard something behind me and I turned in a panic, expecting a fight.

“Be calm, king! It just us,” said Shika.

My rock dragons had followed me anyway.

This wasn’t what I needed, but despite that, I was glad to see them. “Shh. Just stay back. I’m trying to do king business.”

“We help?”

“Shh, shh. No. Please don’t help.”

“Rothair?” Izeria’s voice came from below me. She was in a smaller cavern that broke off from the main gathering room.

“Yes, sister? I’m busy here.”

“Please. Just for a moment.”

“I shall be right back, Emi,” he said, putting the tray in the girls’ hands and bowing to her, trying to be somewhat polite, at least. “Please…eat something.”

He walked over to Izeria and I heard a leather curtain snap.

I dropped down from my perch and carefully tried to bore another hole in the wall to spy on the other cavern. I had to be extremely careful this time, since they would notice noise or rocks tumbling down.

“…I sent them to find Ezeru,” Izeria said.

I peered through a pinhole I made in the rock. I didn’t dare create a wider view. My heart was pounding so hard in my ears, and it was a struggle not to breathe audibly.

“I thought we had reached an understanding on this matter,” Rothair said. “Don’t you get it by now? All the mist in the world can’t make someone love you.”

“Those other dragons are going to kill us,” she said.

“Maybe not. We have Emi. Merrick is getting so close to the priestess that he is invited to family dinners. You think we’re going to lose? Sacred stones—we’re on the brink of winning. If you don’t screw it up. What did you tell them?”

“I told them to…trade. Oh, don’t you dare give me that look. I am the queen. Not you. If your plan doesn’t work, you have nothing else.”

“It’s better than your plan, which is just to re-adopt a stupid rock dragon, and then what? Make peace with Aurekdel and Seron?”

“No. Never.” Her hands formed fists. “But they have Ezeru. Even if we win, it will be a bitter win if I lose him.”

It was very strange to hear her saying these things. I suppose she had defended me against Dvaro now and then. But it wasn’t loving. She was just as cruel as he was. She had always been sort of…possessive of me. I guess that was it. Not unlike the way Rothair put his hand on Emi’s head. She was proud to have created me.

Whenever I thought of that, a sick anger boiled inside me.

She looked down. “I don’t want to die. I want to start over. I want a son.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “He is not your son.”

“He is my blood!”

“He is a mistake. And you want me to look at him every day? To be reminded of some shameful day in my own youth? His mother was an animal and I should have killed him when I killed her.”

I let out a raspy growl of utter fury and broke a chunk of rock out of the wall, sharpened the edges in my hand, and threw it at Rothair’s head.

“Unfh!” The rock knocked into his skull. He fell against the wall and slumped.

“Ezeru!” Izeria shrieked. She didn’t exactly look happy to see me. Hopefully, I looked terrifying.

I grabbed Rothair and threw him against the rock wall even as I formed spikes from it, so they jabbed him painfully. “So you are…you…” My rage had gone beyond words.

“Ezeru! Brother.” Izeria forced herself into composure, like the queen she was, I could give her that at least. “Please—don’t do this. Don’t hurt each other. You’re family and there’s no need for all this. Ezeru—” She spread her hands in a pacifying gesture as I turned my snarl toward her. “I know I made huge mistakes with you. That’s why I got Dvaro out of the way. He was the one who really didn’t like you, and my father never treated me with any affection so how was I supposed to know what it was like? But I love you. To me, you are a son. I—I wanted to make you stronger, and that’s why I did everything I did. I was so proud of you, watching you grow…”

“I believe that much,” I said. “You were proud of making me into something that wasn’t really a rock dragon anymore. You were proud of that.”

“I don’t hate rock dragons, but they are…beneath you and your blood. You know that as well as anyone. They’re just little beasts who do what they’re told. You’re a man. A complicated—magnificent—”

I clamped rock around Rothair’s arms and legs, and turned my attention to her for now.

“You made me choke on your mist. You assured I would always be alone. The mist dragons hated me. And the rock dragons—yes, I know what they are. But I’m still a rock dragon too. Thank the gods for that. Rock dragons are simple. If there wasn’t some part of me that was simple too, I would never find any happiness. In many ways, beasts can recognize what love really is better than you can. When I went to Irandal, I found people who loved me. It’s the rock dragon part of me that is able to forget everything you did to me. Unfortunately…it still doesn’t feel like enough sometimes.”

Tears sprung to Izeria’s eyes. “I do love you. Give me another chance to…do it the right way. I’m the queen. I’ll send Rothair away if he won’t accept you.”

For a moment, I felt something inside me that wanted to believe this woman had loved me.

I had Peri. But that was all. I remembered moments when Izeria locked me away when I yearned for her to show me some affection. And then in some brief moments, she would pat my head or caress my face and cup my chin in her hand, and say something to me. “Wonderful.” “You are really becoming something.”

She was so ever present in my life. I wanted to become the thing she wanted me to be. If I hadn’t had Peri, I would be under her spell. I was sure of that. I would be like every other rock dragon who listened to Dvaro because he gave them food.

“Gods, we are stupid sometimes,” I said.

“No,” she said. “You’re not stupid. You’re my son.”

“I am Peri’s son.”

I still wavered, with her pleading eyes looking at mine, her posture even becoming deferential as she bent her knees and spread her hands.

“Give me Emi,” I said. “And I will negotiate peace for you. King Seron doesn’t want endless war. We have sympathy for the mist dragons. Your life will be spared.”

She bit her lip. “Ezeru…do you have the power to make these promises?”

“I don’t think any of them will struggle to forgive you as much as I do.”

She hesitated. I was shocked that any part of her was considering this. I was shocked any part of me was considering this.

Did some part of her love me after all? Was she willing to change?

Her eyes flicked to Rothair. “Brother—”

But no one lies like Izeria, I thought, just as Rothair broke free from the wall.