Dark Hope of the Dragons Read online

  “Kota is from Trylum. He is of the Fi’erthaga tribe. I think he might be more suited to your aggression level.”

  Dephithus mustered up a firm handshake. The Fi’erthaga, the Dragon Warriors, were a tribe as legendary in their land as the Legion was in Imperious.

  Vicor sized them up together and nodded his approval. “I leave him in your capable hands, Kota.”

  The dark-skinned giant nodded, his gaze never moving from Dephithus as Vicor walked away to go coach the rest of his practice group.

  Cheerful sort. Dephithus stepped back to ease the angle of his neck. “The reputation of your tribe precedes you.”

  “As it should,” Kota responded abruptly, his voice adequately deep for his size.

  “Perhaps you would care to back it up,” Dephithus snapped, his newly blossoming quick temper jumping in before a rational thought could stop the words.

  Both moved into a fighting stance. Even before Kota advanced, Dephithus began to regret his words. Now he would most certainly get the beating his deteriorating manners deserved. Kota moved fast, distracting Dephithus with a bold right-handed jab and flipping him into the air with a sweep from his opposite leg. Dephithus landed on his back hard enough that it knocked the wind out of him and his sore chest protested with a painful spasm.

  Embarrassment at being dropped so easily fueled his temper to a molten rage and he hopped to his feet before he fully had his breath back. The effortless and graceful upspring won him an approving grunt from his opponent.

  Dephithus was ready for the next attack. Blocking quickly with his arms and legs he moved in aggressively on every opening that Kota left him. None of those rare openings gained him any ground and he hit the floor six more times in the first half-hour. After that, his lack of sleep began to wear on him and he hit the floor more frequently.

  As Dephithus struggled to rise one more time Vicor finally returned to them. This time, he was more than a little relieved to see the commander. His rage had long since burned out and he had very little desire to go another round with the relentless giant. Breathing raggedly and dripping with sweat, Dephithus looked over Kota, who was now standing at attention. Kota’s breathing was a little labored and a light sheen of sweat glossed his dark skin. Dephithus attempted a scowl of irritation, but gave it up before the more pressing need of catching his breath.

  Kota grinned, watching him as his chest rose and fell rapidly. The commander dismissed Kota before Dephithus had regained his breath enough to act on his irritation. It was probably for the best. He knew it would be another of many mistakes to try and seek some sort of vengeance for his current humiliation.

  “Feeling a bit humbler now, are we?”

  Vicor’s smug smile aggravated Dephithus more than Kota’s grin had. A voice in the back of his mind wondered when he had developed such a problem with authority, but he smothered the thought. Such questions only frustrated him so perhaps the answer was to stop questioning.

  “For now, perhaps.”

  Vicor scowled, but his eyes contradicted him with a glimmer of something like respect. Dephithus could only shake his head and wonder if he was not the only one suffering from inner crisis. A crooked little grin touched his lips and it was Vicor’s turn to look momentarily puzzled. With a shake of his head much like Dephithus had just done, Vicor dismissed their enigmatic silent exchange.

  “Very well,” he grumbled as if they had come to some agreement. “You will pull night watch at the third northwest guard tower six days a week. I expect you to arrange your fill-in for the seventh night. You will attend mounted combat practice three days a week and fit in some alternative practice the other four days.”

  “Isn’t that an unusually full schedule?” Dephithus objected.

  Vicor regarded him silently for a moment. “It is,” he finally agreed. The commander was quiet for a moment longer. Though he appeared to be struggling to keep it hidden, Dephithus could see doubt breaking free of the man’s solemn expression. “So is attending an outside tournament this soon after being raised. I will not allow you to let Lord Commander Mythan down at Dalynay.”

  Dephithus scowled. “I don’t intend to.”

  Commander Vicor nodded brusquely, but his look remained skeptical when he turned to walk away.

  A surge of longing hit Dephithus like a wall. He longed for Myara. He longed to have her as a practice partner. Someone he already knew. Someone he trusted and had no reason to hate. Then again, she too had been sound asleep that night. Comfortable in her bed while…

  Annoyed with himself, Dephithus pushed those thoughts away. Myara was the best friend he had ever had. There was no way he was going to allow this awful thing to come between them. Putting determination on like an armor, he went in search of her. A few well-placed questions revealed that she was in training, and he gave up his pursuit with little regret. The resolve that had driven him all the way to the training grounds had worn thin. Failing in his original goal, he went in search of solace elsewhere.

  The palace no longer seemed to mock him as it had for a time after his Dawning Day. He could almost make himself believe that Amahna and Rakas had drugged him somehow. Mostly, he tried not to think about it, forcing his thoughts in different directions every time they wandered that way. As the palace architecture wrapped around him, he wondered what other secrets those walls harbored. How many other nobles did it keep silent for? Like Hydra, the palace would never demand anything in exchange for its silence.

  The day wore on and he eventually made his way to the library. It was a grand room. Consistent with the magnificent architecture of the rest of the palace, it catered to the ego of its occupants. Three stories of elegant shelves were lined with countless books. Even the grand staircase, that rose out of the center and split off to both sides halfway up, was lined with books. Books on nearly every subject waited to answer old questions and prompt new ones. Many fanciful stories lined two of the upper level walls and the two opposite walls were lined with books on the art of war, chivalry, and the ever-important royal etiquette. Nature, geography and numerous other subjects claimed most of the lower shelves.

  The smallest section belonged to the histories. There were a great many parts of the history section that had been strategically omitted. Among them were books that dwelled on the Dragonkin and the religious orders of their time and many of the early wars. When he had questioned Avaline about the Dragonkin some said he resembled, she told him that information was in books stored away as relics of a time best forgotten. Mythan’s great-grandfather had believed firmly in moving on and leaving the darker past behind.

  Dephithus did not know what in those books was so awful that they felt it necessary to hide it away and forget it, but he meant to find out. It was the Dragonkin that interested him most. Perhaps, in learning of them, he could learn something of himself, maybe something that would help him understand what was happening to him now.

  On both sides of the stairs a tapestry hung, concealing a passage that was periodically rediscovered by young children grown bored waiting upon their parents in the library. Outside of those rare occasions, it was ignored. Dephithus lit a candle on one of the wall sconces and stepped into this dark passage. Halfway through was a locked door that led to a room behind the back wall of the library. Dephithus pulled the key out of his pocket that he had taken from Mythan’s bedchamber the day before. He had been told that the room had not been opened since Mythan’s great-grandfather first locked it.

  The lock was stiff at first. It felt as if the key might give before the door did. Then it shifted and the key turned until the lock clicked free. The door shifted out a fraction as he pulled the key from the lock. Slipping it back into his pocket, he stood staring at the door for a few minutes, a chill creeping along his spine and making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Chiding himself for being paranoid, he pushed the door open. The shadows created by the candle seemed to rush at him and he jumped back, hitting the wall behind him as the air around him was suc
ked into the room, extinguishing his candle. He stood frozen in the silence that followed, afraid to breathe as he waited for whatever sinister thing might accost him in the cover of darkness.

  When nothing happened, he dared a breath and then another. Leaving the door standing open he made himself turn his back on the unknown and walk away. Even on the other side of the tapestry he could not stop waiting for something to leap at him from under the stairs. Keeping his hand steady, he lit the candle and slipped back into the passage. The shadows wavered about eerily in the candlelight as he stepped into the room. Books were stacked in haphazard piles, some of which had long since toppled, at the base of half-filled shelves. It almost looked as if the process of storing them had been rushed for some reason, causing the movers to abandon order midway through the process. The ceiling was low, clearing his head by perhaps a foot. The room itself was smaller than his bathing chamber, though still large enough that the far corners vanished in darkness beyond the reach of the candlelight, and everything was covered over by a thick layer of dust.

  Clearing the cobwebs off two wall sconces, he lit them with his candle. It was strange the way the added light was no better at pushing back the shadows then his single candle had been. He breathed in deep, trying to calm his dancing nerves. All he succeeded in doing was inhaling enough dust to make him sneeze several times. He grimaced at how loud the sneezes sounded in this abandoned space. Setting the candle base on a stack of books that looked stable enough, he closed the door and sat down amidst the menacing shadows.

  Dephithus picked up the book closest to him and dusted it off, trying not to inhale the resulting cloud of dust. It was an old leather-bound book with the title branded in. The Kin of the Dragon, an insight by the Prophet Landross of the Benevolent Order of the Gold Rose. He had no idea what the Benevolent Order of the Gold Rose was, but this seemed as good a place to start as any. When he opened the book, the lights flickered, and he glanced around, one hand against the floor to boost him to his feet if anything looked amiss. Only silence greeted him. Scowling a warning at whatever might be there to see it, he settled again and turned his attention to the first page. He began to read.

  The origin of the Dragonkin is mysterious at best. We can only assume their nature to be of a relation to the dragons in some way, and therefore, also to the daenox. This, in itself, proves that their very existence is an ill tiding.

  The uneasy feeling of being closed in upon compelled Dephithus to look around the room. If the shadows were any closer, he could not tell.

  The daenox? What was it?

  It was strange to hear the Dragonkin referred to in a tone that was plainly unfavorable. No one had ever let on that the line he resembled was looked upon in any truly negative way. Perhaps they meant to protect him from that truth. Puzzled, he turned his attention back to the book. Before he could continue reading the feeling of being watched intensified to the point that he had to look up again.

  This time he was surprised to find more than oppressive shadows peering at him. A cat with fur so black it was almost blue, was sitting in the shadows beside one pile of books, watching him. An uneasy shiver swept through him. There had to be an explanation for the animal’s presence. Perhaps it had come in through the door when he had left it open to go re-light the candle. Still, that made no sense. Cats were brought into the palace only when rodents became a problem and they were gotten rid of just as quickly once they had done their job. It had been perhaps three years since there had been any need for cats in the palace.

  The cat regarded him serenely with its pale gray eyes.

  Gray eyes?

  Dephithus set aside the book and leaned forward onto his hands to get a better look at the animal. The cat rose up on its hind legs and pricked its claws into the third book down from the top of the stack. It pulled back then, almost as if trying to remove the book. Wary of those claws, Dephithus reached around the other side of the stack and tugged at the book, freeing it from the cats grasp and drawing it out. He sat down in his chosen spot and eyed the cat one more time. It seemed preoccupied with cleaning its paws now, so he looked down at the book in his lap.

  Like the other book, the title was branded into the leather cover. Dark Origins: Daemon Classifications and Incantations. As he opened the book the air shifted again, causing the flames to flicker. The pages of the book, all of them, were blank.

  Dephithus shivered again and set the book aside. The cat was no longer where he could see it. Eager to be away from the mysteriously empty book, he went in search of his furry visitor, to no avail. Feeling as shaky as he had right after finishing a few hours in the combat ring, he retrieved his candle and put out the two wall sconces. Maybe later, when he was not so tired and given to hallucinations, he would come back. As he shut the door behind him he heard a faint sound from within the room, like purring. The moment it clicked shut, he hurriedly locked it.

  Fiddling with the key in his pocket as he left the passage behind, he started wondering what other worlds might be unlocked within that room. What might he learn of the Dragonkin? Of the dragons that he knew only from his one visit to the stone dragon in the Imperious graveyard? What was it they said about curiosity and cats?

  Halfway to the library doors, he turned around and headed back to the passage.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In the following weeks Dephithus had very little time to worry about the change in himself. Commander Vicor continued to give him late posts in the guard towers around Elysium, so he slept well into the morning. During the afternoons, Vicor kept him busy during his free hours by pairing him up against the best and brightest soldiers Imperious had to offer in each form of combat. They were good enough that, even with his natural advantages, Dephithus had to fight fast and furious and his recently quick temper had an excellent outlet in those sessions. He was exhausted and sore each evening by the time Vicor released him, but he still took an hour or so to sneak into the dark archive room and browse through the books. He did not see the cat again and the pages of the book on daemons remained blank. Every visit he opened the book, hoping vainly for some explanation.

  The books he had taken time to read from were more confusing than helpful. He had trouble thinking of them as more than made up fancy like the romantic stories so popular with many nobles. The books spoke of a power called daenox, sometimes referred to as daemon power, that allowed people to alter the world around them. It had, according to these tomes, often been used to accomplish terrible things and was the source of daemons and undead visitors, neither of which he was inclined to believe ever existed.

  One book, called Practical Powers, claimed that daenox did not deserve its dark reputation and that it was merely a tool that could be used to make everyday life easier. An alternate way of going about things. From what he read in other books, few seemed to agree with that assessment. Even among others who spoke in favor of the power, few seemed to view it so innocently. There was talk of cults devoted to its worship and use. Towns falling to plague because someone who could wield that power wanted revenge for some misdeed or other.

  None of the books went into great depth on the subject or what had become of this odd power, which inclined him more toward the idea that most of it was made up. In addition, there was a second power spoken of that belonged to the dragons. The dragons were addressed as living, intelligent creatures. As of yet, he had come across no references to what had become of these sentient beings. The statues in city graveyards appeared to be the only remaining tribute. Having seen the one in the Imperious graveyard, he could hardly imagine such a magnificent and terrifying creature actually moving and breathing.

  The first book he had started reading on the day he saw the cat, which he had now dismissed as an exhaustion induced hallucination, was very opinionated about the daenox and the dragons, as well as the Dragonkin. The author, Prophet Landross, insisted that the dragons were born of the same evil that made the daenox and that the Dragonkin were as much an offspring of this evil pl
ague as the daemons. Toward the end of the book, he wrote very passionately of how the gods were deserting mankind for the sin of not only allowing these evils to exist but going so far as to honor an alliance with the dragons. The prophet was very adamant that all of these things must be banished.

  Since no dragons or daenox or daemons existed now that he knew of, it was reasonable to assume that either the prophet’s passion had been realized, or it was all a grand bit of storytelling. The notion of a human and dragon alliance was outlandish and the Orders of the Seventh House, which the prophet’s order was a branch of, no longer seemed to exist either, at least not that he was aware of. Another strong argument for believing none of it, and yet all of it was written of as if it had been real and the information secreted away in here for some reason. The whole mess confused Dephithus and he resolved to continue his studies until he could make some sense of it.

  The coming tournament in Dalynay did not concern him much. With Hydra’s power and speed backing him, along with his own naturally boosted speed and strength, he was almost undefeatable at the level he would be competing. It was unlikely that he would be dropped from his mount. If, by some chance, he did get brought down, he was getting better every day at the ground combat. With opponents like Kota to challenge him, he had no choice but to excel.

  Tower duty was a labor of sorts. It seemed his current partner wanted nothing more than to discuss the glory and honor of being in the Imperious Legion. It was a topic of conversation he found tedious of late. Darkin began to seem a pleasant companion comparatively. Dephithus did manage to engage with some semblance of the passion he had once had for the subject and Shianne did not seem to notice the distance in his eyes when they talked. Like many of the younger soldiers, most men and women in their teens and early twenties, she treated him like an old friend. It was an attitude that Dephithus could not seem to help being annoyed by. They did not know him. They did not understand who or what he was. He was a freak from birth and now he was tormented and twisted by what had been done to him. These strangers knew nothing of him.