Breath of Dragons (A Pandoran Novel) (11 page)

And that fact also made him my…

Cousin
.

Alex still gripped his sword, but it had dropped a little, like his arm suddenly felt too heavy, and his eyes looked through Myez rather than
at
him.

It was Vera who finally broke the silence. "Idiot."

I wasn't sure who she was calling the idiot, but right then I felt like one. "We've got to get going." It was my voice, but it was like someone else was using it. "Vera, I believe you know where the shortcut is."

The half-giants burst into the room, and this time there were more than just two. There were five. Vera's eyes darted back and forth, and she growled, "What is this?"

Now that Alex's sword had pointed in a new direction, Myez stood, his palms outstretched. "I told you: I am a businessman."

"Business be damned!" Vera said. "Mercedes won't stand for—"

"I'm afraid what Mercedes will and will not stand for does not matter. Lord Eris simply made a better offer."

"The king has more!" I said. "Tell me what you want and you will have it!" I hated using a man I despised as collateral, but I was desperate.

Myez absently touched the golden hoop at his ear. "Unfortunately for you, you cannot give me what I want. All the gold in this world isn't worth what Lord Eris has promised."

The half-giants pressed in and attacked. We fought back, and to my acute disappointment, they were faster than the full-blooded giant. Their blows knocked me easily off balance, and there wasn't much space to move in this cramped room. Somewhere I heard Myez say we were to be kept alive, but I was too focused on staying alive that I didn't hear all of it exactly.

I was the first to be caught with my arms twisted behind my back, and my bad arm throbbed like someone was trying to dismember it. I struggled against my captor's grip, but chains had more give. Vera's arms had met the same fate, and it was Alex who continued fighting. He was amazing to watch, really. So fast and fluid, so unpredictable with perfect control. The three remaining half-giants stood around him, unable to get near.

Myez watched, impressed, but when Alex started downing his half-giants, "impressed" quickly transformed to "irritation." More half-giants entered the room, and Alex was moving to attack when Myez held a knife at my neck. "Stop or she'll be wishing for death."

Alex saw me, and his sword stilled mid-sweep. Fury swept over his features, but in the end he dropped his sword on the ground with a clatter, resigned. The two nearest giants grabbed his arms and secured them behind his back.

"There, you see?" Myez lowered his blade, and then he lashed out across my cheek fast as a whip. My cheek burned and I cried out as warmth dripped down my jaw and neck.

Alex jerked against his guards, furious.

"If you try anything," Myez continued, "she will pay for it. Do we understand each other?"

I'd never seen such hatred cross Alex's face, and still I felt none of it.

Myez looked at the fallen half-giants near Alex's feet. "Perhaps I should've sent the girls," he mused. "Take them below, and see that they stay put until Master Thaddeus Mendax arrives."

Chapter 6

Heart of Darkness

A
fter Myez Rader had stripped us of all our possessions, Alex, Vera, and I were escorted out of his office by the half-giants. Myez, in his infinite wisdom, spared five giants for Alex alone. They led us deeper underground through a maze of hallways and twisting corridors until we reached the dungeons. It was dark down here. Dark and damp, with the pungent aroma of sewage and ripe body odor. Strange whispers and growls and inhuman cries echoed down the stone corridors.

We passed rows of barred doors and windows. All were dark, but sometimes I caught the glint of eyes, torchlight refracting in the silvery, slit-like pupils. A black, skeletal hand with claw-like black nails gripped the bars of another cell. I couldn't see the face that belonged to it, nor did I want to. It made some strange clicking sound in its throat as we passed, and I was suddenly thankful for the bars and our half-giant escort.

A blast of sound, like a symphony of train horns, blared down our corridor with so much force, it came with a gust of hot air that singed my nasal passages. The sound was followed by shouts and yells that sounded human, though I couldn't be sure. The half-giants didn't seem concerned, merely annoyed, but I found it unnerving. The size of a creature making a sound that powerful—well, it made me wonder how in the world they got it down here.

We finally reached our intended cells. Apparently, the maze of corridors we'd just walked through housing creatures from Pan's Labyrinth was considered the low security section. Our cells were in the floor, like an oubliette, with small metal grille hatches for entry. Or maybe they were keeping us in the sewers. I guessed I'd find out soon enough.

One of the half-giants unlocked a grille then shoved Vera inside. I listened for her landing, which was farther down than I'd hoped. When it was my turn, I braced myself for impact. The hard floor jarred my ankles and knees and I fell forward, catching myself with my bad arm. I clenched my teeth and groaned in pain as the grille above closed and locked over my head. My world turned black, except for the golden grid of flickering light above.

It took a bit for my eyes to adjust, but once they did, I saw that my cell was more like a burial chamber. It wasn't much larger than a casket, perfectly rectangular and carved out of the hill. There was a dark pile of something in one corner that smelled sour and rotten, but the cell was otherwise empty. I found the cleanest segment of flooring I could and sat, leaned against the wall, and proceeded to stare at nothing while cradling my left arm. On occasion, I heard a distant cry, but for the most part, this area of the dungeon was quiet. Alex and Vera were just on the other side of these walls—if only I could talk to them, maybe work out some kind of plan, but instead I was left with only my thoughts for company.

And my thoughts were not welcome company.

I'd read books about being trapped in dungeons. Of course, it's nothing like experiencing it first hand. Like in the Count of Monte Cristo when Edmond Dantes was trapped in the Chateau d'If for
six whole years
. But that was a novel. Not once did I believe Alexander Dumas would actually leave him there to die. If he had, there wouldn't have been a story. When you're reading, you can pretty much always guarantee that the author isn't going to kill off the main character (unless you're Alfred Hitchcock), so if the main character ends up in a rat-infested, rank and fetid dungeon, the main character is probably going to get out somehow.

The problem with real life, however, is that you're not a main character. You may think you are one, but once you step out into the world—or worlds, as mine would have it—you realize it's more likely you've been cast as that negligible "jogger girl with brown hair." You're nothing but a clip on the big screen, probably without speaking parts and completely inconsequential to the actual plot. The world moves as it has always done—without you—and it doesn't care if you live or die. The sun rises and the sun sets without your help, and your big ideas of change and reformation seem idealistic at most. If the world were a river, you'd be a dead leaf floating on top of it, dissolving into your constituents until you were scattered like dust. But the river would rage on.

Those were my thoughts as I sat uncomfortably for the second time in my life inside of a dungeon. Having experienced it before only made this second time so much worse. My ignorance wasn't around to fuel my hope. I knew that good didn't necessarily win in this world, and I didn't have a father around to come to the rescue. The only other person who might have succeeded in rescuing me was trapped in a cell right beside mine.

Losing a parent changes a person. That safety you felt is suddenly stripped away, leaving you standing alone and naked in a cruel world. Responsibility rests on your shoulders, and if you drop it there will be no one to pick it up. So instead you hold it up, straining with everything you've been taught, hoping it'll be enough to keep you from being crushed.

But I couldn't dwell on that. Remembering my own vulnerability would never help me get us out of here. I didn't know how long we'd been in our separate cells. Hours? A day? Time doesn't move when you're trapped in complete and utter darkness.

Myez had taken everything I owned. Including my bindingbooks. Since we'd left Valdon, I'd wanted nothing more than for Stefan to write, but right then I pleaded silently that he hadn't. I didn't want his words in Myez Rader's hands.

Bringing those bindingbooks had been a terrible idea.

"Stefan, I'm so sorry," I whispered in the darkness. I had left him with a bigger mess than I'd realized. War threatened him from the north, and I was the one piece that could stop it. It was a marriage that could save thousands of lives, and Stefan had chosen not to even mention it to me. But if all of this had happened since we'd left the castle, how had Alex already known?

My heart ached for Stefan. I hated that I couldn't be there for him, but if I were still there, I probably would have been whisked away to Orindor in a white dress. It was so easy to forget how archaically this world operated. From my studies, I knew many kingdoms had been founded and fortified based on advantageous marriages. My grandfather had threatened me with this since I'd arrived in Gaia; I had just never
actually
and
seriously
considered the implications of such conventions.

But could I do it? Could I marry a man I did not love in order to save lives? I'd never considered such a question before, and I couldn't believe I was asking myself this now. To do so would be sacrificing my self, because my heart belonged irrevocably to Alex.

Alex, who had always expected this to happen, which was why he'd fled to Alioth in the first place. But he'd made me a promise. He'd promised to never leave my side.

…unless you ordered him to.

I sighed, wrapping my arms around my knees.
He would be here soon: Thaddeus.

A bubble of anger suddenly rose up inside of me and I yelled, slamming my bad fist on the floor. I kept slamming it and slamming it, distantly aware that it
ached
, but I didn't care. I wanted the pain. I hit the floor for every lie. For every bruise and cut. I hit the floor for Stefan and the shadowguard and Lord Commodus's offer.

I hit the floor for my father.

And then I slid onto my side and curled up into a ball, my face hot and wet with tears, and was overwhelmed with exhaustion and pain.

I didn't know how long I'd been asleep. I absently reached for the necklace at my throat, then remembered that Myez had taken that, too. He had forgotten one thing: the little branch of Dragon's Breath berries was still in my boots. But a lot of help they were.

I sat up. I felt exceptionally weak, and my back and hips were stiff and aching. Stone was not meant for sleeping on, yet I slept on it more often than not these days. I clutched my left arm to my chest, glaring at the small, golden grid of light that taunted me above. Were Alex and Vera still in their cells? I had no idea, but certainly Myez wouldn't have bothered imprisoning them if he hadn't planned on handing them over to Thad, too.

Thad, my cousin.

And then it made me wonder: What could Eris have offered Myez that would make him betray decades of allegiance to Mercedes? It wasn't gold, and Myez had made it very clear that his preferred currency was information.

I paused.

You can give him information.

I might as well start designing my tombstone. It would never work.

If you stay down here and wait for Thad to come, you're good as dead, anyway.

I made up my mind, and with that decision, I grew so excitable it was like I'd just downed an entire pot of coffee. I also silently thanked my conscience for finally saying something useful.

"Please work," I murmured to myself, then yelled at the top of my lungs, "Hey!"

I waited. Nothing.

"Hey, up there! I know you can hear me!"

The light above flickered as a shadow passed over the grille, but still nothing.

Fine.

I screamed and yelled everything I could think of. Anything to get someone's attention. I
had
to get their attention, or I wouldn't even get a chance to try it. Finally, it was the yelling, "Your mother is a gargon," part that finally got the attention of one of the half-giants. I didn't see his face—just a patch of darkness over my grid. And then when the half-giant finally spoke, all he said was something that sounded like, "
Grrrmmmrrrgglllrrr
."

This was my chance. My only chance. "I have information for Myez Rader."

The loquacious half-giant grumbled again and backed away.

"I know the location of the Pandors' box!" I yelled.

He paused near the edge of the grille.

I took a quick breath. "Myez Rader already knows I am the last of the Pandors, and I can tell him the location of the legendary box of my ancestors. If you don't believe me, go and ask him, but I swear when he finds out later that he'd had this opportunity, I wouldn't want to be you."

The half-giant hesitated before my grille. Then with another eloquent growl, he left. Whether he left to speak with Myez or stand farther down the hall to avoid my psychotic outbursts, I didn't know. But if this didn't work, I would have to accept my fate.

I waited and waited. And waited.

And waited.

I sagged against the wall. My arm felt like I'd stuck it inside of a woodstove, and the grille above blurred every time I looked up. There was nothing else I could do. Thad was going to come and take us away, and I didn't know what would happen after that.

Metal jingled outside the grille and I looked up again. The light was blocked by shadow, and with a loud creak, my grille opened.

I hoped against all hopes that it wasn't opening because Thad had arrived.