Flora and fauna encroached on the narrow, ruby-tiled walking path. Flowers uncurled their petals in a vibrant rainbow of color. There were thorny vines that had the most delicate of buds, long stalks that drooped with too-heavy blossoms, and spindly wide-leafed trees that clung to each other like happy drunks.
Two large, mostly harmless, trees sheltered the garden from prying eyes that might glide past on the back of a boco. Yveun’s cautiousness had led her to plant the giants of her little kingdom, his concern that her “hobby” be discovered by someone undesirable was both charming and unnecessary. Dragons never saw plants as anything more than ornamentation.
It was a battle easier conceded to her mate than fought. She would kill any who learned the truth of her garden before they could utter it to another soul. And if she was honest, she liked the shade the trees gave, even if it made the garden a touch cooler in the ever-encroaching winter.
“Coletta’Ryu.” A woman emerged from around the bend of the path. Ulia. She kneeled, head bowed.
“He has returned?”
“He has, my queen.”
Around the woman’s neck was a pendant—a small white flower, lacquered. Her mate had his collars of gold, tempered only to his magic, nooses at his command. Coletta’s markers were far subtler, yet known well enough, and just as effective.
“This flower . . .” Coletta shifted her fingers, reaching up to touch the delicate petals of a flower identical to the one Ulia wore. “Do you know what it is?”
“A snow bud.”
“Indeed. An unassuming name, isn’t it?”
“It is.” There were times, brief times, when Coletta wondered if the little buds that did her bidding actually agreed with her unique approach to conflict. But the second she exhausted mental capacity on such musings, she remembered that she didn’t care. Obedience earned in fear was no different than that engendered through love, honesty, or deceit.
“Do you remember what it does?”
Ulia’s eyes fell on the living version of her pendant, still cradled in Coletta’s long fingers. She was young for a flower—just thirty-nine—but Ulia had proved her loyalty in a very short time.
“Paralysis,” Ulia said finally.
“Yes, but only the stigma.” Coletta touched her fingertip to the red knob that extended out from the center of the flower. “The petals actually provide the antidote to this natural immobilizer. Most don’t even realize these properties exist, since consuming or brewing the flower neutralizes the negative effect.” She dropped her hand and stepped over to the kneeling girl. Coletta reached out the same hand, guiding Ulia’s face upward to meet her eyes. “Remember that, Ulia. One thing can both give and take away.”
“Should I fall from your favor, it would be an honor too great for a wretch like me to die by a potion crafted by your hand, Coletta’Ryu.”
The corners of her mouth twitched upward in the nearest imitation of a smile Coletta would ever give. “Yes, sweet Ulia, you will never betray me.”
“Never.” Ulia slowly, reverently, and with the slightest scent of fear in her magic, brought Coletta’s hand to her mouth, kissing her knuckles once.
“Now.” Coletta pulled her hand away, her dominance reaffirmed. “Take me to dress for dinner.”
“My queen, Yveun’Dono is . . . occupied.”
“I realize.” The girl was young enough to underestimate her. It was endearing, to a point. “I would care to look on him before he is finished.”
“As you wish.” Ulia stood and bowed her head as Coletta strode past. She waited three breaths before falling into step behind.
There were two entrances to Coletta’s garden—one to her private quarters and one to Yveun’s. She rarely had reason to cross through the latter. Barring dinner, her mate usually came to her.
Her own portion of the Rok Estate was smaller but no less opulent than the rest. Red lacquered beams cut across a pitch-black ceiling, every fourth beam framed by two posts on the whitewashed walls. It was simple, striking, and reminiscent of all her favorite poisonous flora.
At the end of the hallway stood her primary sitting room. Hexagonal in shape, every wall had a door, perfectly centered and mosaicked in ruby. The door directly across from the hall was her bedroom; spiraling right around the room were the portals to her bathing room, second laboratory, library, and dressing room. Of these, the little buds that served as her personal handmaidens were only given permission to enter the last.
“Do you have a preference this evening, Ryu?” Ulia asked as Coletta seated herself on the oxblood leather ottoman at the room’s center.
“I do not.” All her life, the world had whispered of her shortcomings, What a terrible Dragon she made. Coletta cared nothing for fashion and in many cases preferred function over form. She appreciated fineries, but only insofar as they had purpose. But ignoring trivialities uncluttered her mind, allowing her to dedicate all her energy to a singular focus: domination. In this way, she was one of the greatest paragons of her species. If only the rest of Nova knew.
“How about the lavender?” Ulia asked from behind her. “It brings out the shades of wine in your skin.”
Coletta smiled, wide and wicked, at the word. Rarely did she reveal her nubby teeth and rotten gums, ravaged by years of poisoning herself for the sake of immunity, for strength. But thoughts of her grand display on the Isle of Ruana—and of Petra shuddering on the floor of the Rok Manor—made it near impossible to contain her pleasure.
By the time Ulia’s footsteps neared, Coletta’s face was as blank and composed as daylight: emotions drawn inward, face passive, eyes hard—this was the way to greet the world.
Ulia presented a simple, armless sheath that slipped over Coletta’s shoulders and split into strips at her hips. They danced and swirled around her legs as she walked. The silken material stitched with gemstones betrayed its finery, but it was otherwise simple. It showed off her thin frame and the soft, squishy skin clinging to her bones.
Demure. Frail. Delicate.
Three things no Dragon wished to be. The world whispered it of her, even as she slipped death into their drinks and food, and between their ribs.
“I do not need you to escort me to the dining room this evening, Ulia,” Coletta said as they traversed back through her garden.
“As you wish.” The girl gave a small bow. Coletta appreciated her unquestioning obedience, even when she broke form. Actions like that kept Ulia close. If the girl knew it or not, they kept her alive.
“I would, however, ask you to see that wine is set out.” She felt the corners of her mouth twitch again in a near-smile. But letting the same person see her smile more than once in a single week—in a single day no less—was far too much. “Go to the cellars. There should be a newer vintage from a winery here on Lysip.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Coletta gave the girl a nod of dismissal and started in the opposite direction.
Yveun’s halls were cluttered compared to hers. Ironwork, reminiscent of the fanned wings of a Rider’s glider, arched over her with curling tendrils of metal lacework reaching down in wide, concentric circles. Beyond was what Coletta had termed the sailcloth room, a billowing half-glass roof that looked like the puffed sail of a lake boat. On and on, the walls were adorned and the floor gleamed with a proud, polished finish.
On and on, Coletta ignored it all.
She listened, but there was not another soul to be heard. Even magic hearing would not have revealed a single sound. Yveun had likely sent away every Dragon, high and low.
Nearing his chambers, Coletta pressed on a wall. It looked no different from anything else, the wood paneling near flawless. Near flawless. A small groove betrayed the narrow door that swiveled open at her insistent force.
Clicking the door back into place, Coletta found herself in an unlit, narrow hall that ran parallel to the first. There were many secrets in the manor, and she made it a point to know them all.
Coletta walked without light, running her
fingertips along the wall as she proceeded with measured steps. She avoided pushing magic into her eyes, for that could be sensed—or worse, smelled. The darkness slowed her steps, prevented the carelessness of haste that might give her away.
It seemed, however, there were some allowances that could be made for noise.
Yveun, for all his strengths, was still a man and a Dragon. A man with desires, and a Dragon bent on domination. When the two forces combined, the results were hardly silent.
Coletta heard them—heavy breathing, gasping, grunting, growling. Ahead, a few beams of gray light broke through the darkness. Coletta walked toward them like a beacon.
Where the main hall sloped downward, her private corridor remained level. She now found herself peering down at a familiar room—Yveun’s private sleeping chamber.
Blood dripped from his back where long gashes, already healing, had been dragged across his skin. Beneath him, a woman as green as Coletta’s fauna writhed and arched her back as they rutted like dogs and sounded much the same. Yveun’s face twisted, his head thrown back in a snarl of pleasure that was nearly drowned out by the smacking of his hips against the woman’s backside.
It was the first time she’d laid eyes on the creature her little buds had selected for their Dono. Fae, they had said her name was. Little and less was known about her, but Coletta knew the one thing that mattered more than all others: Yveun had taken a liking to her.
Unlike Leona, he had charged forward with this one. He had mounted the creature like an animal, and like an unbroken boco, she was fighting back. The lovers rolled over, and Fae swiped at Yveun’s face, drawing yet more blood. He snarled in kind, digging his own claws down her arm.
Their mouths met before smearing golden blood over each other’s skin.
They were drunk on each other. Coletta watched as her life mate, her king, sexed another woman in a way he had never done to her. His face contorted in bliss; Coletta looked away, having both seen and affirmed enough.
Fae might own the Dono, but Coletta owned Fae. Everything was moving according to plan on Nova. Now, before she’d give in to the demands of her quietly grumbling stomach, she would check in with her odd little Fenthri to see how things were progressing down on Loom.
ARIANNA
When dusk settled upon the world, Arianna was nothing more than a white smudge against a gray sky.
She peered down at Holx through her modified goggles from the rooftop of one of the airship yards. She’d been scouting since the afternoon, observing people’s comings and goings, studying the flow of machine and man alike.
The home of the Ravens’ Guild was unnaturally quiet. Or perhaps the quiet was too natural. Arianna heard howling winds and cawing birds, benign sounds at odds with the screeching trikes and revving engines Holx was famous for.
The one guild the Dragons supposedly hadn’t touched had, nevertheless, ground to a slow crawl in the wake of the fall of their world. It was unnervingly somber, a quiet testament to the devastation the Dragon King had reaped from his sky city.
Malice sparked within her and was promptly quieted by the thought of Yveun. Looking down on her, his claws on her flesh . . .
Arianna rubbed her neck, urging tension and the memory away.
She had a job to do, and there wasn’t nearly enough time to properly prepare for it. All she had was some basic information from Louie—oddly specific in some areas, completely blank in others—and whatever she could observe before nightfall.
It wasn’t nearly enough time to break into the guild’s hall.
As the sun fell behind the clouds that perpetually blanketed Loom’s sky, Arianna rose. She held out her hand. Magic pulled against her palm, drawing out a line from her winch box like a serpent from its den. The cord was cast in gold and tempered to her magic alone, the closest thing to a loyal friend she had at the moment. It was time to shake off the dust that had settled on her shoulders in Nova.
Arianna looped the cord around a heavy pipe that ran around the rooftop, clipping the line to itself. She walked to the edge of the building and put everything else behind her. Up here, she didn’t need to be Arianna the Master Rivet. She could cast aside the loose ties to Nova as Ari Xin’Anh Bek. She would ignore that her shroud of anonymity as the inventor of the Philosopher’s Box, the Perfect Chimera, had been lifted. She certainly wouldn’t spare a thought for Arianna, the rebel who had twice failed to slay the Dragon King.
She was merely the White Wraith—nothing more, nothing less. She was a vessel for her benefactors. All the rest, she would leave on the rooftop.
With a wide step and a whir of gears, Arianna tipped herself over the edge.
Golden cabling spun from the spools attached to her belt by the winch box. She ticked off seconds in her mind, calculating how much line she’d used based on the speed of her free fall and the distance covered. She’d know when to stop and swing onto a ledge, to magically unclip her line and cast it toward the next building, swinging from ledge to ledge until she reached her target.
Holx was a city of layers, each stacked on the next to create a labyrinth of tracks and walkways. She followed one track now; it had virtually no lights along its sides and would be almost impossible for Fenthri eyes to pick out in the growing dark. But with her Dragon eyes and refined goggles, she had little issue.
“Follow the red-lined trike path to the guild,” Louie had instructed. It was one of his more oddly specific notes, and was followed immediately by one of his decidedly less specific: “Once you get to the end, you’ll figure out a way in.”
Thanks, Louie, Arianna thought grimly as she reached the end of the red-lined path. Arianna waited for headlights and the roar of engines to vanish before easing herself down from the mostly abandoned upper paths she’d been traversing. But where there should have been an egress awaiting her, she found instead the fresh cement of a portal recently sealed.
She looked back up. There hadn’t been another ledge on her descent, no other obvious doorway. “Up” wasn’t an option, and before her was blocked, which only left . . . down.
The depths of Holx held a darkness that even her goggles and eyes couldn’t penetrate. She presumed she was somewhere close to the ground, or already below it. She might even be closer to the land known as the Raven’s Folly—the Underground—than she was the airship. She dared progress no farther without some kind of light; begrudgingly, she drew the duller of her two daggers.
She pushed her magic into the hilt and up through the blade—just enough to heat the metal to a faint, reddish glow. She’d fix the dulled point later. For now, the ambient light of semi-molten gold was enough to reflect off her surroundings and give her a rusty picture of where she was.
To her right was another track that dead-ended in a walled-up portion of the guild. Below and to her left was a perpendicular road that intersected with a narrow bridge. Arianna squinted. She moved her blade left and right, watching the shadows dance away in opposite directions.
One shadow didn’t budge.
Letting loose more slack in her line, Arianna’s winch box clicked her further down the narrow gap between guild and street, leaving no doubt she had crossed the threshold into the Underground. Just above the narrow bridge, she cycled her legs in a running motion along the wall—back and forth, building speed.
One hand on the dagger, the other on her winch box, she prepared for her one chance to successfully make this jump. There wasn’t even a ripple of apprehension across her nerves. At the apex of her parabola, she pulled the linchpin on her cable.
Arianna’s stomach shot into her chest as she went into a free fall. She clutched the dagger with all her might.
The wooden bridge groaned under her, sagging with her weight. Arianna tumbled and dug her free hand into the grooves, using claws and splinters to gain purchase on the decaying walkway.
Now her nerves raced. Her chest heaved. Her eyes dilated, adrenaline providing a clarity no magic could ever match. Arianna grinned into the blackness,
holding her cooling dagger away from both herself and the wood.
It felt good to be back at work.
She rolled onto her stomach and hopped up. Letting the fading heat of the dagger continue to give her just enough light, Ari summoned her gold line back to her spool. When it was wound up tightly, she focused on her next challenge.
The door was old and rusted, and the lock looked equally frail. Arianna sighed. She had so wanted an actual challenge when it came to breaking into the guild—the opportunity to exercise a bit of finesse.
With a smash of her boot, the door nearly fell off its hinges and alerted the ghosts of the Ravens’ Guild to her forced entry. This doorway had been long forgotten; not a soul stirred in the dark tunnel it revealed. She moved forward fearlessly, guided by the light of her dagger.
Eventually, she came to a circular room with six connecting archways. Arianna paused in the room’s center. Bruising had started to blossom on the fingers that clutched the dagger, working up her wrist with slow purpose. As her magic exhausted, her body began to break down, one burst blood vessel at a time.
She had to find her way up before her light faded.
In the thin layer of dust that coated the floor, a single track led from one hall to the other. Someone must be using this old intersection.
The two halls breathed from one to the other as if they were old friends, whispering little secrets. Wind pushed the flaps of her coat against the backs of her calves ever so slightly. Arianna chose her path based on the knowledge that cool air sought out warmer temperatures.
Her suspicion was affirmed as the hallway began to rise. The faint roar of engines guided her upward past two forks.
She was nearly breathless from magical exertion by the time she saw light, and Ari took a moment to compose herself. The faint glow of a doorway three pecas away told her she’d finally found a way out. She didn’t know if it would lead her into the guild proper; she wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d somehow overshot the hall entirely.