45. Yveun

This was the danger of what the Fenthri sought. This was what he needed to fight against—how their science disrupted the natural order of the worlds the gods themselves designed. The woman was not a Fenthri, not a Chimera, not a Dragon; she was wholly monster and entirely dangerous.

Yveun flexed his still-healing finger, a soft pink from newly mended flesh and still re-growing. The tiniest of claws was begin to form next to the bone, magic strengthening it steadily. He had given the woman half a breath’s distance too close and she had taken it.

He wanted to admire her for it, but this was even too much for Yveun. Even he—obsessed with power as he was, and struck by the lack of half measures a Perfect Chimera represented—could not stand for this. If she became even the slightest bit stronger, if she imbibed, if she gained an organ she didn’t already have...

There was no way even he would be able to stand up against her.

“Dono, I do not think any more of the boxes have been created.” Finnyr scampered along at his side like the worthless rat he was. “She seems to be the only one.”

Yveun gritted his teeth. He needed something that could stand against other creatures like that monster. To assume that no more boxes had been made was to welcome the death of everything he stood for. It would be the end of Nova.

“I think we should merely kill her,” Finnyr suggested. “If she’s only made one box and used it on herself—”

“And who is to say it couldn’t be used on others?” Yveun stopped, rounding on Finnyr. “Who is to say that it isn’t in the hands of those disgusting Fen rebels as we speak, slowly turning them into something that can challenge even me?”

Yveun held up his hand, showing his finger for emphasis.

“Dono, no one can challenge you,” Finnyr sputtered.

The King roared with bitter laughter. Finnyr was still playing a game, a child holding onto an ideal. No matter how many times Yveun drove the point home, it seemed the weak little man never understood. So few could fathom his shame from the mistakes he’d made. He’d only revealed his regrets to Coletta, Leona, and men like Finnyr, who were close enough to his movements that they needed to understand the full gravity of all his risks. For the risks Yveun took rarely ever held consequences only for him.

“Finnyr, I assure you, I am very much a mortal man. While it suits me for the masses both on Loom and Nova to think otherwise, it does not change the fact.” Yveun stepped forward, impressing on Finnyr’s personal space, trying to make him feel as insignificant as he actually was. “And if I die, Finnyr, so do you. You live only by my grace. You exist only because I protect you and permit you to. Do you think Xin will ever show you love again without my support at your back? The only way you will ever leave here is as the Xin’Oji, and that cannot happen if I perish. Your life is mine.”

The man cowered for a satisfying moment. Yveun watched him struggle to steady his voice, but appreciated the struggle all the same. Finnyr would never be a great Dragon, but Yveun needed something from him more important than greatness: obedience.

“Yes, Dono.” The man lowered his eyes. “It is an honor that my life is owned by one such as you.”

“See that you do not forget it.” Yveun straightened away from the smaller Dragon, starting off in the opposite direction. “Now, if I were you, I would find somewhere to hide for the next while until you are needed again. Your use has been exhausted for now, and you will only risk earning my ire if you linger.”

He paused at the end of the hall. “Furthermore, your sister is out for your heart. If you think being on Lysip will keep her from hunting you down, you underestimate her.”

Finnyr glowered at the mention of Petra, but he didn’t object. Yevun continued away, trusting in Finnyr’s cowardice more than anything else about the man. He would continue on for the sake of his self-preservation above all else. Yveun had more important things to worry about.

Dragons would not be enough to stand against the threat of the Perfect Chimera. To fight a beast, Yveun needed a more fearsome creature of his own. He needed Dragons that would have no shame in stooping to any level for power and strength. Even if that meant imbibing.

But something even further than consuming the flesh of other Dragons was working through the back of his mind. Fenthri could have the flesh of Dragons cut into them. They had no taboos and no fear of exploring such things. If he found Dragons who would cast aside those inhibitions as well, could they receive the organs of other Dragons? Could he sew together his own Dragon warriors from the strongest parts there were to pick from?

Yveun licked his lips with a morbid sort of hunger.

“Coletta.” The heady scents of earth and foliage assaulted his nose the moment he crossed into her domain.

Coletta’s world was enclosed by a tall wall, cleverly designed right into the aesthetic of the estate. Large sun shades allowed in light for her plants, but helped conceal the true nature of her gardens from the casual observer on the back of a boco. For any who looked too close would see the ominous crimson spikes that scaled up some of her flowering plants, or the unsettling aroma that lingered beneath the heavy perfumes of unnatural sweetness.

“Yveun,” she stood from amid the plants down the path from him. The woman wore nothing, allowing the poisons to brush directly against her skin. Yveun had thought her a fool for it in the beginning. She was sick constantly, frail, always afflicted with horrible boils and rashes. But with time, her body had developed immunities. Now, he would dare argue that she had become the strongest of them all, and no one but him ever saw it.

“Leona. You knew of her well before she lived in our halls.”

“And how to pull her strings to tie her to us as something useful.” The woman knelt back down, returning to her plants as though they spoke of little more than their preference of meat for dinner that night.

“Your little flowers budding everywhere, they were the ones who gave you such knowledge, no?”

“They did.” She resumed her business, plucking flowers as delicately as a hummingbird drawing nectar.

“I have someone else that I need you to find.” Yveun didn’t enjoy going to Coletta for help. While he wouldn’t begrudge his mate the enjoyment of knowing she was needed in his world, Yveun wanted to provide. He did not want to be seen as lacking or half-measured when the woman did not even know how to breathe without giving the act everything she possessed.

Coletta smiled, lowered her eyes and gave a small dip of her head, an elegant curve that offered him subservience—visually anyway. Her chest remained upright, her body strong, her back straight; she relinquished no real power to him. She was a study in contrasts: strength from weakness, beautiful and hideous, dangerous and so tender at the same time.

“She is an unnamed.”

Coletta crossed over to a work table next to him, dropping off her basket among a variety of distilling beakers that would make an Alchemist of Loom envious. “I know of whom you speak.”

“You do?”

“I told her to stay away until you had solved the matter of Lossom.” Coletta spoke lightly while her hands remained busy. “He was a fine temporary recovery for you after Leona. I didn’t want you running into the training of a true replacement for our lost girl until you were ready to do so properly.”

“Coletta, I would—”

“Remove the growl and spare me the bravado, Yveun.” She narrowed her eyes to a dagger’s edge. “You cared too much for the girl. Her death affected you, made your head soft. All you need to do is look at your delicate actions following. The fact that Cvareh Xin is even still alive.”

Yveun’s lip twitched in a rage that was directed more at himself than his mate. He wished she had spoken this truth sooner. But if she had, he may not have been yet ready to hear it.

“Trust me,” Coletta breathed delicately, a spell made from spun glass. She stepped forward, resting her hand on his cheek. “I have always seen to it that the path is clear for you to walk. Trust my designs.”

His mate was a shadow master, well versed in the underbelly of Nova. Most never realized how deeply her roots stretched while she enjoyed the sun of the world above, and it seemed Yveun had forgotten as well. The death of his riders had turned him into a reactionary beast. He had to trust the hand that rested itself upon him to pull him back on course and chart a route that would lead to their conquest.

“Go under. Find her. She will come with you now.” Coletta’s instruction was a borderline command. She abruptly returned to her work, the tenderness gone.

“Now?” Yveun clarified.

“Now.”

Yveun paused for only a moment. There was more to this than what Coletta was letting him see. He took her hand and pulled her face toward him. She set her jaw in determination, clearly expressing her opinion on his attempt to draw out any additional truth or facts.

He leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his mate’s mouth that transformed the ambivalent line into a thin smile.

“I love you, in no half measure,” Yveun whispered. When the world was falling apart, it made him appreciate the pillar of her ruthlessness all the more. She brewed death at her fingertips and reaped it with words over claws. Most other Dragons would see cowardice, but he saw a stunning commitment to all she was.

Yveun left his Ryu, his true mate, to start for the world below—and to earn his new Master Rider.