“Bash, can you hear me?” Navan asked, taking the stopper out of a vial and bringing the edge to his brother’s dry, cracked lips.
Bashrik nodded, taking small sips of the blood. “What happened?” he rasped.
“One minute we were walking through one of the Draconian biremes, talking to their engineers, the next you were on the floor, out cold,” Navan explained. “You’d said you were tired, but I didn’t know you were sick. I’m sorry, Bash,” he murmured, holding the bottle up again so Bashrik could drink some more.
Bashrik smiled weakly. “Not your fault, Brother. I didn’t sleep too well, and there wasn’t anything to eat. It just caught up with me.”
“Biremes?” I asked.
Navan nodded. “It’s what they call their vessels.”
“So I just keeled over? Well, that’s embarrassing,” Bashrik muttered, rubbing his eyes.
Navan frowned. “Bash, do you understand what’s going on?” he asked gently.
“Why do you all look so worried?” he retorted, laughing it off. “I feel fine. My legs are a bit stiff, but I’m okay.”
“No, Bash, you’re not,” Navan replied, visibly steeling himself. “Somehow, you’ve been infected with the coldblood plague. You collapsed because it’s sapping the strength out of you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner,” he said earnestly, though there was nothing else he could have done, even if he had picked up on it earlier.
Lauren nodded. “From what I’ve read of the Zaian plague, you’re suffering from the same symptoms that the mining teams suffered through when they were infected. I don’t think it’s a little fatigue, Bashrik. It’s almost certainly the coldblood virus,” she said, her tone sorrowful.
His gaze flitted to Angie, who knelt in front of him, a sad smile on her face. Tears glittered in her eyes, her lip trembling as she looked at him. Immediately, his expression morphed into a mask of concern.
“Who did this to me?” he asked sharply.
“The Pyros, the other sect of Draconians. We’re headed in their direction now,” I replied. “The only one who can reverse the sickness lives at the top of Mount Kusuburi, and we’re going to force him to fix you, if it’s the last thing we do,” I promised.
He jerked away from Navan. “You need to get away from me. If I’m infected, I might infect you, too!”
Navan took Bashrik’s hand in his, gripping it despite his brother’s protestations. “I don’t care, Bash. We’re on our way to find a cure. If I get it, then this Pyro will just have to heal me, too,” he insisted. “The only way to get up that mountain is if I carry you. I’m not leaving you down here to get eaten by whatever is lurking in that jungle,” he added with a halfhearted chuckle.
“Yeah, so if you could try not to do anything stupid—like, die—before we get to the top, that’d be great,” Angie murmured, the tears falling down her face.
Bashrik smiled, placing his hand on Angie’s shoulder. It was a small gesture, but her head shot up in shock. Sobs wracked her chest as she lifted her hand to cover his, squeezing his fingers. To my surprise, he didn’t move his hand away. Instead, he waited for her, letting her decide when to break the contact. I honestly hoped it wasn’t delirium setting in. If he didn’t remember any of this, or acted like it didn’t happen, I was going to kill him myself. Angie deserved better than that, especially in her overwrought state.
She slowly took her hand away. “Just hang on, okay?” she whispered.
“I’ve got a pretty good grip,” Bashrik replied, his eyes fixed on her face, a smile pulling at his lips.
“At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” Angie chided, but I could see she was pleased. Maybe things were finally looking up for the two of them. I just prayed it wasn’t too late.
After eating some of the bread Freya had packed, the dough soft and sweet, while the coldbloods drank another vial each, we got up and started the long trek up the mountainside. Bashrik insisted on walking alongside Navan, with his arm draped across his brother’s shoulder, but it didn’t seem to be slowing us down too much.
The road was steep, and my breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. Even with all the training I’d been doing on Vysanthe, I felt incredibly unfit. Although, back on Vysanthe, I hadn’t been training in sweltering heat, whereas here the air almost seemed liquid.
The sun beat down on us from directly overhead, the rocky walls to either side of the path offering little in the way of protection. It singed my skin, even with the cream I’d slathered on that I’d found in the satchel. All of us were struggling, the veins beneath Bashrik and Navan’s skin pulsing darkly. It concerned me, but I knew we couldn’t stop.
Instead, I tried to distract myself with the creatures that watched from the rocky ledges and hidden crevices along the way. There were strange, guinea-pig-like beasts with leathery skin, covered in the same geometric patterns as the flying lizards. Much to my amusement, these creatures hopped easily from rock to rock, their paws somehow suckered to cling to sheer rockfaces.
And then, on the road itself, Angie almost kicked a poor, unsuspecting critter all the way down the mountain path. It was balled up, looking like a boulder that had fallen off the wall, but as soon as Angie’s foot connected with it, by accident, it sprang to life, letting out an almighty shriek that startled everyone.
“What the hell is it?” Angie yelped, darting backward.
“It looks like a pangolin,” I said, remembering the funny, scaled creatures from a science lesson we’d had on defense mechanisms in animals.
Angie hid behind me as the creature sniffed the air. “A pango-what?” she hissed.
“Remind me to show you a picture when we get back to Earth,” I replied, the word sticking in my throat. “Come on, let’s leave the poor thing alone. It’s probably terrified of us.”
With Angie still hiding behind me, we skirted past the creature, giving it a wide berth. It watched us for a while before tucking back up into a ball, camouflaging itself among the scenery. After that, we didn’t see any other creatures, the air growing strangely more still as we climbed higher. Eventually, the rock walls disappeared altogether, leaving us with a treacherous, sheer edge, and the most stunning view I’d ever seen. It was even better than the one from the hot spring. I could see for miles around, picking out settlements in the jungle canopy, and the wisps of distant smoke revealing villages and volcanoes alike, all across the landscape. And, on the horizon, I could pick out the telltale glitter of an ocean. Well, now I knew why Cambien had picked this place: it was the perfect crow’s nest from which to see everything.
I wondered how far the Draconian civilization stretched across the planet’s surface. With so much ocean and jungle, Zai seemed sparsely populated, clustering where there were natural clearings in the rainforest. The Draconians didn’t seem like the kind of race who would indulge in mass-deforestation for the sake of building settlements. Maybe that was the reason they were so confident about their ability to get everyone off Zai in a relatively small number of biremes.
Soon after, a cool breeze drifted down, refreshing our tired, sweat-drenched faces. If it hadn’t been for the perilous mountain trail, it would have been blissful. As we walked, stones skittered away across the crumbling edge, tumbling down the mountainside. It wasn’t really the kind of path where you could walk side by side, but there was no other option for Navan and Bashrik.
As I watched them up ahead, my heart was in my mouth. One false move, one collapsing chunk of rock, and it would be game over for both of them. It was only as I thought of them falling to their deaths that I remembered their wings. If they fell over the edge, they’d probably be fine. Although I couldn’t say the same for Angie, Lauren, and me.
Turning a sharp corner on the mountain trail, we skidded to an abrupt halt. There, in front of us, nestled inside the still-smoking crater of the volcano, was a village. Evidently, the volcano was a dormant one, though it still billowed out streams of vapor, which rose in sporadic jets through the plateau of bla
ck stone that served as the village’s foundation. Built on top of that stone were several clusters of houses, with a clear street layout and a larger building at the very center. Only, the houses seemed to be disintegrating, the roofs caving in, the walls crumbling, everything covered in a thick layer of ash that lay like gray snow on the ground.
Moreover, there was not a Draconian in sight.
That wasn’t the strangest thing, however. Frozen in the streets were statues made of pure opaleine. All of them were fixed in different positions, some with their eyes open, some with their hands outstretched, some halted in midmotion, their legs bent as if they’d been trying to run. Tentatively, we moved toward them, edging down the stone steps that led to the village itself.
“They’re coldbloods,” Navan gasped, reaching out to touch the back of one, on which the wings were half-unfurled.
“It’s like the ruins of Pompeii,” Lauren murmured in disbelief. They were coldbloods, frozen in time, hidden away up here.
“They must be from the last mining mission to Zai. I remember that none of them came back,” he said sadly. “Before then, we’d managed to get our sick into a nearby quarantine, but there was one group who were never heard from again. A big team, too, sent to set up a mining colony and scope out other potential sites.”
By the looks of it, many of them had tried to flee—but how could you flee from something that was inside you?
The earth shuddered, the vibrations juddering up my spine, making my teeth chatter.
“The volcano?” I called out.
Angie clutched Bashrik’s arm, holding him upright. “We can’t outrun an eruption!”
“We can fly off the edge—” Navan began.
A shadow stretched out ahead of me, enveloping all five of us in darkness. This was no natural disaster. Whirling around, I found myself face-to-face with a full-fledged dragon, its wings outspread, its teeth glinting.
Chapter Fourteen
The dragon seemed to smile through its savage teeth, tucking its leathery wings behind its vast body. All across its enormous form, deep scarlet scales rippled, creating a strange susurration similar to sand falling through an hourglass. With vivid amber eyes, it glanced at each one of us, no doubt scrutinizing the puny beings that stood before it.
“I am Cambien,” he announced, his booming voice shaking the ground again. The sound came from deep within the dragon’s chest, resonating outward, making the hairs prickle on the back of my neck. “I take it from your brazen invasion of our sacred realm that you seek to become like your… statuesque brethren? Are you here to steal more of our precious resources?” he demanded accusatorily, his nostrils flaring. From what I’d heard of Draconians, I knew they were capable of breathing fire—was that what he was getting ready to do? Did he want to turn us into cinders?
“No, we’re not here to take anything from you!” I blurted out, feeling nervous. Cambien was huge in his true dragon form, and he could deal some real damage if he wanted to.
He snorted. “Why should I believe a word you say? You come here with coldbloods—you cannot expect me to trust you,” he said, his voice harboring a cold amusement.
“We’re here with honest intentions, Cambien. We’ve just come for help, nothing more,” I explained, the words tumbling out of my mouth.
“We shall see,” he mused.
“Did the plague do this to the coldbloods?” I asked. “Did you kill them by turning them into opaleine statues?” I thought of Bashrik’s future fate. I didn’t want this for him.
A throaty laugh erupted from Cambien’s mouth. “While there is a certain poetic justice in that, which infinitely delights my soul, we are not monsters—unlike the ones who invaded.” He chuckled, his scales rippling with what seemed like pleasure. All down his long, reptilian neck, blades bristled, moving in the opposite direction of the swish of his winding tail.
His forked tongue licked the scaled contours of his mouth, where lips should’ve been, and I dropped my gaze.
“Pyro got your tongue?” he asked.
“They look dead to me,” I said quietly, forcing myself to look at him.
A blast of hot air hit me in the face as he scoffed in my direction. “We are not killers. We are freedom fighters,” he explained with an air of arrogance. “If the invaders remain on our planet, serving their time for the pain and inconvenience they caused to our people, then no permanent harm can come to them.” He flicked his tail, grinning wolfishly.
I gasped at him in horror. “They’re still alive?!”
“Would you prefer it if they were dead?” Cambien countered. “I could always—” He moved toward the statues, but I put my hands up, my fingertips brushing the scales of his neck.
“No! Don’t do anything to them!”
He shivered with glee. “You have an extraordinary radiance about you. It’s getting my scales all in a lather,” he purred. “What are you?” he whispered, nuzzling my face with his snout, the hot air from his nostrils blowing through my hair.
Navan stepped up, his eyes narrowed. “Never mind what she is. What have you done to these people?” he demanded, putting an arm across me. Bashrik limped up to stand at my other side, while Angie and Lauren kept back.
Cambien laughed coldly. “What a sorry pair! I could sneeze and blow you off the edge of this mountain,” he remarked, eyeing Bashrik derisively. “As for you—have you ever felt the true burn of Draconian fire?”
“No,” Navan growled.
Cambien smirked. “Would you like to?”
“What has the plague done to them?” Angie asked, moving forward, her eyes on Bashrik’s unsteady figure.
“My, my, you feel as exquisite as this one does. As does your friend with the peculiar goggles,” Cambien murmured, tilting his snout. “Only, there is a funny bitterness in you, my snaky-haired treat. Sadness, perhaps?”
“What does the plague do to the coldbloods?” Angie repeated, her tone dripping with anger.
Cambien chuckled coldly. “It saddens me to see such beauty attached to such ugliness.” He sighed. “Undoubtedly, one of your coldblood chums has contracted the very same virus, and you are desperate to know his fate. From the look of the buzzcut twins, I’m going to guess it’s the one who looks like he might drop dead at any moment?”
Angie glowered, but Lauren pulled her back before she could say something she might regret. After all, we didn’t know how easily his temper might flare. Cambien had already spoken more in the last five minutes than I’d heard Freya speak in the entirety of our time together, though I was pretty sure that was because he enjoyed the sound of his own voice.
“How can they still be alive? You claim they are, but where’s the proof?” Lauren asked, diverting Cambien’s attention.
“I do love a smart female.” He snickered. “Well, being the altruistic gentleman that I am, I will put your fair-haired friend out of her misery, though you must trust my word. The plague turns the coldbloods into opaleine, but the victim is still conscious, able to see and hear everything going on around them, while the stone itself sustains their worthless lives. I call it divine justice, while others simply call it genius.”
“Some might call it torture,” Navan spat.
“Hmm, and some might call that hypocrisy, coming from you,” Cambien countered, getting nose-to-snout with Navan.
Angie’s eyes darted to Bashrik, who had been moving more stiffly with every minute that passed. On the way up the mountain, he’d complained about an ache in his muscles, but only now did it make sense. He was turning to stone. The virus was petrifying him.
“We need a cure, Cambien, and you’re going to give it to us,” Navan growled, refusing to back down from the gigantic beast.
Cambien blew hot air in Navan’s face. “Why would I do a thing like that? Your kind do not deserve another speck of our mercy. The fact that we have not killed you ought to be enough,” he snarled, his teeth snapping together. Whirling around, he whipped his tail in Navan’s direction, catching hi
m in the legs, sending Navan buckling to the hard ground. He scrambled to his feet, his shoulders heaving in anger. A moment later, a jet of searing fire erupted from Cambien’s mouth with a deafening roar, forcing us all to stagger backward.
“Stop it! Playing a game of who’s got the bigger grudge isn’t going to do anyone any favors,” I yelled above the noise. The fire faded.
Cambien grinned. “I thought you were going to say something else just then. If you’re wondering, the answer would certainly be me.” He chuckled.
I rolled my eyes. “We aren’t here to steal anything from you,” I explained. “My coldblood friends aren’t like the ones who came to your planet before. They want to fix the wrongs that have been done to your kind, to stop you from having to give up your planet. They understand that you were forced to fight back in the end, and while they might not agree with your methods, they can see why you did it,” I ventured.
“A philanthropic Vysanthean?” Cambien laughed sarcastically. “I’d more easily believe in a Lunist going on a killing spree.”
“Believe it or not, that is why we’ve come to see you,” I insisted. “Freya said you were the only one who could help.”
A flicker of curiosity glinted in his eyes. “Freya, eh?”
I nodded. “We want a cure for our friend, but we also want to help you reverse the corruption of the opaleine so that your species doesn’t have to get in those metal deathtraps and head across the universe. Freya said you could set us in the right direction.”
Without warning, Cambien sat up on his scaly haunches, and his body twisted upward in a column of blazing fire. The heat blistered against our faces, forcing us to lift our hands in protection. As the fire swirled back down again, the flames disappearing into the ground, a figure remained.
Cambien had assumed his humanoid form. I’d been expecting an ugly monster of a half-man, half-dragon, but the Draconian standing in front of me was unusually handsome. He was tall and broad-set, his scarlet-tinged muscles rippling beneath the cut sleeves of a loose, amethyst tunic, his strange-colored skin dappled with the same pattern of scales that Freya and the other Lunists shared, though his were a rusty shade of red. His face was angular, with cheekbones and a jawline to rival Navan’s, and the same intense amber eyes that had stared down at me from his dragon form.