The Dragonprince's Heir (32 page)

He had protected me. He'd sacrificed himself to save my life, no less than if he'd lain down beneath the dragon's claw. And now he was a wildfire. Now he was ablaze with rage and power.

And he knew about Mother.

I remembered what he'd shouted at the dragon.
You dare to strike what is mine?
Even now the dragon gave a dying wail. How long would that vengeful fury keep King Timmon alive to suffer? How much of Father's humanity would survive it? I remembered Laelia's warning. I remembered Father's bleak intent for the weapon he had made me. It had a job to do.

The sword had fallen from my hand when the dragon's claw first hit me. Now I scrabbled in the dark, praying it was trapped with me in this little cage, and breathed a sigh of thanks when my questing fingers found its hilt.

As I had expected, the strange blond blade cut through the woven stone like it was paper. I carved a gap that I could wriggle through and climbed out into the night. The fire still raged above me, a huge tower of curling, hungry flames, dense as stone and dark as blood. It hissed and roared and screamed, and it cast a mad dance of light and shadow across the plains.

There was no wild grassfire, because this pillar burned too hot. Everything within a pace of it was seared to a black glaze, consumed within an instant. The scar it left would be a perfect circle...like the one he'd left at Gath. I swallowed hard and turned toward the dragon's corpse.

Father stood not a pace away from me. The pillar's fire reflected in his manic eyes.

He smiled at me. "We have another lord to kill."

I shook my head. "You've killed enough for now. Let's find somewhere to rest."

"The night does not need rest."

I sighed. "But I do, Father. I nearly died tonight. Please, take me home."

"There is no home while tyrants reign. That's the one thing I never understood. What good to kill a thousand dragons if a man can still abduct a righteous woman from her home."

"She chose to go—" I tried to say, but he shook his head and cut me off.

"You are not a murderer," I cried. "I don't care what power you had to use, you are still a hero! You are a good man. And I need you." I had to gasp for breath. "I need you! Please, just take me home."

For a long time, he stared into my eyes. I held his gaze and
prayed
, searching for some spark of humanity. I only saw the fire. But then he reached out his arms and smiled kindly.

"Take my hand, and I will take you home."

I hesitated, but what was there to do? He nodded his encouragement. I braced myself and took his hand.

I'd half expected it but still was not prepared for the pain. Something in the borrowed power seared my soul like my father's quiet concentration hadn't done. It burned like liquid iron in my veins, and I felt a mad sense of motion. Then the darkness burst into a blinding flash right in front of me—a wall of snow-white light and heat. The same unstoppable black force drove me against the wall of light, but the light flared brighter, hotter, and yielded not a pace.

Then the darkness and the light alike were gone, replaced with the ordinary murk of natural night. An inhuman scream filled the air. I swayed and almost lost my feet. On the edge of falling, instinct made me raise a hand to catch myself on the wall before me, where the blazing, painful light had been. I tried to stop myself, tried to recoil, but my fingertips touched cool, rough stone. I blinked.

My hand rested on a wall of mundane masonry. I stepped back a pace and craned my neck, and saw its top six paces up with a walkway for the guards. Beyond this wall were buildings. I fell back another step and saw the soaring towers that held the Halls of Justice. And in the distance, the golden gleam of the palace gates.

We'd come to Sariano.

Father was on his knees beside me, head clutched between his hands, and he was screaming. For a moment I forgot the monster driving him. I forgot the pain. All I knew was my father's agony. I went to his side and threw an arm around him. "What's wrong? What happened? Father, what's wrong?"

He cut short the awful screams, but still he moaned in pain. "The wizards," he gasped at last. "They did this. How did they know? This wasn't here before. How dare they? Pah! I'll show them fire!"

I looked up at the wall. "They protect the City," I said. "You told them to. They are defending against...against dragons."

He laughed in scorn. "I'll show them dragon power."

"No," I said, gripping his arm. "No. You want the people to be safe. You want to save them. The wizards made the City safe. That's all they did."

"They dared to raise a wall against me!"

I fell back on my heels, staring open-mouthed. "The FirstKing build this wall."

He showed his teeth. "The FirstKing raised a wall of stone. The wizards raised a wall of Order."

"To keep the Chaos out."

He shook his head. "To keep corruption in. One good, hot fire might have cleaned this place, but the rot still grows inside the walls."

A new tack struck me then. I needed to get him to the Tower, and I could use his rage to get him there. I hated to think what damage he might do to our own people in his madness, but if Themmichus was there, he might know what to do. He might even have brought Laelia.

I turned my father to face me and tried not to wince at the madness in his eyes. "Father, we must go back to the Tower."

"Soon, my child. Soon. As soon as we reclaim what is ours."

I shook my head. "They've walled you out. You can't get in. But there is rot within your Tower as well."

He hissed at that and almost seemed to focus on my eyes. "My lair?"

"Your lair. The king left some men there to protect it. He left a governor to rule in Mother's stead. That is an injustice you could fix."

Father's eyes narrowed, and for a moment I thought it might have worked. Then he shook his head and grinned. "If I kill the king, his brood will fall apart."

"No! These are men, not monsters. They don't obey those laws."

"These
men are monsters."

"But you are trapped outside. Perhaps if you set right your lair—"

My father shook his head. "I will set right the world."

"But the wall—"

He silenced me with a comforting hand on one shoulder. "There are other ways to pass a barricade."

Then he turned on his heel and strode away, walking north in the darker shadows of the city wall. I chased after him, arguing the whole time, but I could not turn him away. At last we reached a carter's gate, wide and high with two huge doors barred shut and guards watching down from their places on the battlements.

They might not have seen my father cloaked in shadows, but they spotted me and shouted down, "This gate is closed 'til dawn!"

'Til dawn, I thought. A dragon's power wanes in sunlight, right? Perhaps by dawn my father could regain control. I turned to him. "It's only a few hours. If we wait—"

"I've waited long enough."

"The gate is barred! They will not let us in."

He showed his teeth. "They're soft. They'll bleed."

In answer to my father's will, two shards of stone came drifting from the ground, smaller than the ones he'd used to break the dragon, but these shone with sharpened edges and cruel barbs.

My mind raced, searching for some way to stop a murder here.

"But...but shouldn't vengeance come by daylight?"

"Oh, no," he growled, hungry. "It's sweeter if it's unexpected. It's more terrifying in the dark of night."

"This isn't you," I moaned, more to convince myself than him.

He sneered. "It should have been. It always should have been. What good is power unspent?" He raised his hand and pointed to the battlements.

"Guards!" I cried, desperate now. "Is there some other gate?"

One guard laughed. The other called down, "If you're clean enough, the Ardain gate will let you through."

"There," I turned to Father. "The Ardain gate. It's fitting in its way."

"It's several miles, and my feet are sore." He said no more, gave no more warning, just flicked his fingers, and the earthspun weapons flew.

I swung the sword my father made, and by some miracle I caught the first projectile in the air. I sliced it clean in two, and it dissolved to dust around the cut.

I shouted, "Down! Get down!" and heard the other shot crash into the wall's stone battlements.

Then Father struck me. Not with fire or power, but with the flat of his hand. In his rage, he sent me sprawling. As I fell, I thought I saw the gate begin to move. I could not look closer, though, because Father stepped over me with swords in either hand—one blade carved from obsidian and one from fire.

He towered over me, murder in his eyes, and growled, "Traitor!"

"No," I said, defiant. "I am faithful to my father's name. I'm faithful to my mother. You're the traitor. You're a murderer and a madman. You're no better than the dragonswarm."

He laughed. "You little fool. I
am
the dragonswarm."

"But you don't have to be! You used that power against them. You fought for men."

"And men betrayed me. Men are worse than dragons, child. It took me too long to see that."

I fought to catch my breath. My heart was pounding. "Maybe some men are, but Daven Carrickson wasn't. Isabelle could not have loved a monster."

"I remember her...." His shadow-dark eyes focused on something far away.

"She needs you, Father. Not a killer. Not the dragonswarm. She needs you."

He sighed and met my eyes. Then I heard a heavy
thud
, his head snapped forward and fell back, and he collapsed.

Where he had been, a vision out of nightmare stood proud and tall, stark black-and-white by moonlight. The Lord of Tirah. The retired Grand Marshall. Without the eyepatch, one glass eye glinted beneath his shock of wild hair. He wore a nightshirt with a Green Eagle's breastplate buckled hastily over it, and silken slippers in place of the heavy plate boots.

Arrayed behind him, just now emerging through the gate, was a whole squad of city guards with swords and crossbows at the ready. The Grand Marshall had brought two wizards as well—one tall and skinny, all in black, and the other with the crimson bands of a Justice. They stood a few paces off. They trembled inside their black robes.

I took some confidence from that. I scrambled to my feet and raised the sword. "What have you done?"

The Grand Marshall looked down, almost bored, at the monster now unconscious at his feet. "Saved your life, by the sound of things. And earned myself a double duchy, or some such nonsense. Take him to dungeons! See he stays asleep or we're all dead." He looked me up and down and chuckled. "Take the boy, too."

"I'm not a boy!" I shouted, brandishing the blade.

The Grand Marshall raised an eyebrow, unconcerned.

I pressed him back a step. "This is my father! You can't have him!"

The old warrior rolled the club in his hand, apparently considering my challenge. Then he shrugged and turned away. "All yours, Seriphenes."

I'd taken half a step after him, but now I spun back to the wizards.
Seriphenes
?

The skinny one stepped forward, malice sparkling in his dark eyes. He raised a gnarled hand in admonition. "Drop the toy, child."

I showed him my teeth. "Come take it from me. You shall not have my father."

He cackled. "I'm a Master of the Academy. What are you?"

"I am the Dragonprince's heir."

He sneered at that, and I felt a flash of warmth in the sword's hilt. I looked down to see a white-hot shine upon the blade, coruscating out in waves. He'd tried to scorch my palm and so disarm me, but where the rolling waves of heat touched my flesh, they died away.

I met the wizard's eyes and grinned. "You will need more than that."

He shouted rage and slashed his hand toward me. Ropes of air like chains of iron snapped around me, but I flexed against them and they fell apart. I took a careful step over Father's fallen form and raised the glowing blade toward Seriphenes.

"Antinus, you fool!" he hissed. "Will you do nothing?"

"I have seen no crime," the Justice said, but I thought I saw the hint of a smile twisting at his lips.

"We have our orders!" Seriphenes screamed.

"Indeed, but mine are not the same as yours." The Justice closed his eyes and whispered something more, then he was gone. A dreadful premonition hit me. I turned, and Father's body was gone. The Justice had him now.

I spun back toward Seriphenes and found a wall of fire rushing at me. I threw one arm up to shield my eyes and braced myself for the impact, but it rolled over me like a gentle breeze. I advanced once more on the wizard. "Where's my father?"

"Beyond your help!" The skinny little man began to swell, filling out with heavy muscles and rising tall before me. Taller than any man. He towered and bellowed down, "And I will crush you beneath my heel."

But I never slowed. I focused on a memory of the wizard as he was and threw a punch toward the giant's knee. It broke the old man's nose as well as his illusion.

He went sprawling in the dirt, and I lowered my sword to rest just above his heart. "Where is my father?"

Seriphenes was too afraid to answer, but then an edge of steel pressed the soft flesh of my back, just above my kidney. I froze. Behind me, a calm voice answered, "He's safely in a cell, as you should be, my little lord."

I sagged at the calm voice of Captain Tanner from Tirah. I might have fought for freedom, but Tanner was a good man. I had no wish to kill him, and he was a man prepared to take the fight that far. I'd have to find some other answer.

He prodded with the edge again, and I moved my sword's point away from the wizard's chest. Then I sprang away and spun, engaged his blade with mine and met his eyes. "I could kill you here," I bluffed.

He shrugged. "Perhaps. But I've seen you bound in chains before. I think steel would have its way."

"You've not faced me in combat. I trained at the feet of Caleb Drake. I could gut you."

"And a right honorable gutting it would be. But then they would finally find the nerve to fire." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the squad of city guards now spread in a tight half-circle. I couldn't count all the crossbows trained on me right then.