Breath of Dragons (A Pandoran Novel) (18 page)

"Danton, it was never my decision in the first place."

Chapter 9

Mercedes of Mosaque

V
oices.

Soft and fluid. Quiet. Whispers in the dark. Fading in and out like a gentle breeze. A scent, sweet as honey. A touch of warmth. Drawing me back. Beckoning and guiding.

And then I became aware of myself, that I was a conscious, living being. I couldn't move, however, though my mind told me I should be able to. There was some kind of connection my brain had to an external body, but that connection had been severed, somehow. Try as I might, I simply couldn't open my lids to see.

More whispers.

More…

The gentlest touch brought me back. There was a spot on my forehead that felt particularly warm, and with great effort, I opened my eyelids.

A face loomed over me. I didn't recognize this face; it was round with small features, and it belonged to a young woman, probably just a few years younger than me. She'd started in surprise when I'd opened my eyes, and then she pulled her hands back from my face. She muttered something that I didn't understand, her thin brow knit together, and she said, "Preen-ciss, drink thees." There was a cup in her hands.

I tried to sit up, to do as instructed, but my body wouldn't cooperate. It felt heavy and sluggish, like my veins were filled with lead.

The girl misinterpreted my struggle as protest. "Eet is nit poison, preen-ciss," she urged. "Eet will help." And then she noticed my physical battle with an, "Oh!" set the cup down, and helped me sit up.

"Thank you." My voice scratched and my tongue felt like sandpaper.

She handed me the cup. It smelled of lemongrass and ginger and something else, and when I took a sip, a tingling sensation spread through my body. Whatever it was, it infused my veins with strength and lifted the fog from my mind.

I sighed and leaned my head back on a…headboard. I was in a very lavish bed, buried beneath a pile of white silks, and gossamer draped from four large, mahogany posts. Bolts of bright sunlight beamed through a pair of pellucid glass doors, and a warm and sticky summer breeze ruffled the diaphanous draperies that framed the door, falling from ceiling to wooden floor. It was the kind of room one admired in travel magazines featuring exotic abodes in tropical locations—particularly for romantic retreats. "Where am I?" I asked.

"Mosaque," the girl replied with the same accent.

Everything slowly came back to me: the plains, the sabres, the gargons. The white dragon. I didn't remember anything after that, but somehow I'd ended up right where I'd intended to be: in Mosaque, the capital of Gesh. Except… "You haven't by chance seen a young man—"

"Aleg-zander?"

It was the same accent Vera had when she said Alex's name. I nodded, suddenly anxious.

"'E stepped out a few meenits before you woke, preen-ciss."

"But he is all right?" I asked. "He isn't hurt or anything?"

She eyed me down her little nose. "'E seems in perfect health to me, but 'e 'as been very worried for you, preen-ciss."

I sagged with relief. "Did he say where he was going?"

The girl wrung a rag in a bowl full of water that sat on the floor beside my bed. "I made 'im go end eat some food because 'e 'ad nit eaten all day. 'E does nit like to be away from you, no?"

I smiled at her. I did not like to be away from him either, and I hoped he wouldn't be gone long. I really needed to talk to him. "And Vera…?" I asked.

The girl made a funny face. "Veranna is with her ladyship, and now thet you are awake, her ladyship would like to spick with you."

I was about to ask who "her ladyship" was, but then I suddenly remembered: Mercedes.

"May I fetch her now?" the girl asked.

"Of course," I said.

The girl stood and grabbed the rag and the bowl.

"Excuse me…" I started.

She paused on her way out, water sloshing in the bowl.

"I didn't catch your name."

She pushed a clump of brown hair from her forehead. "Ansha."

"Ansha," I repeated. "Please, call me Daria."

She eyed me a moment, then whisked herself away through the doorway, closing it after her. She wasn't gone very long. Or maybe I dozed off in between. I was in such a state of euphoria and relaxation that I wouldn't have put it past myself. But Ansha returned only to take her leave, and then Mercedes Bellona of Gesh appeared in the doorway.

I remembered Mercedes from the games in Valdon; Mercedes was not a person one forgot. She was a fiercely beautiful woman. Her long, white hair fell in a plait to her waist and she wore a sort of wrap for a top that exposed lean but strong arms decorated in golden bands. Panels of pale blues and whites fell loosely from her waist to her ankles, as if her skirt were an ocean drifting around her, and she wore flat sandals that tied around her feet and disappeared beneath the fluid skirt. She looked like some kind of Grecian warrior queen.

Her dark, exotic eyes fastened on me. Being the object of Mercedes' scrutiny was like being under the lens of a microscope. Every flaw and blemish illuminated, every freckle and pore studied and measured so that you could be promptly identified and categorized. I just wasn't so sure she liked what she saw.

"I am glad to see that you are better," she said in that sultry voice I'd remembered. Her accent was slight, like Vera's. "May I come in?"

"Yes, um, of course…" I replied. Even though by title I was technically her superior, the natural power and confidence she exuded made me feel like a child before an empress.

Mercedes sat on the edge of my bed. "You look much better than you did yesterday."

Yesterday? "How long have I been here?"

Her expression turned thoughtful. "About two days."

"Two…
days
?"

"There was quite a lot of poison in your body," she continued. "A few minutes more and the spirits would have taken you. But you are strong. You shouldn't have made it this far without a healer. Your Aegis is very gifted, but it takes a true healer to cure what ailed you." Her eyes settled on my shoulder.

I glanced down; my shoulder was exposed through the thin shift with spaghetti straps I'd been clothed in. The skin puckered in the shape of a star where the puncture had been, but the skin around it had returned to a normal shade. No more oozing yellow or black and purple veins. I trailed my fingers over the smooth bump.

"I'm afraid you will keep the scar," she said.

I dropped my fingers and looked up at her. "Thank you. For all you've done. I…I owe you my life."

She waved her hand dismissively. "I have spent a good deal of time in Veranna's company and have spoken with Aegis Del Conte." She clasped her hands and glanced down as her brows knit together. "It was not Veranna's place to give away the location of our passage in Thieves, and she would be in a good deal of trouble for it had the situation there not supported her claim that you were in danger enough to utilize it."

I felt the sudden urge to defend Vera. "I know the shortcut in Thieves is a secret—and I swear I will not share it with anyone—but Vera only suggested it because we were in trouble and I was wounded…we didn't have much time and she was worried for my life. If there are any ill feelings about it at all, they should be directed at me. Vera was only doing her duty as my Aegis."

Mercedes regarded me like she was trying to make sense of what I was. "If Vera had been doing her duty as your Aegis, she never would have let you come on this errand in the first place. For that matter, I am surprised Aegis Alexander Del Conte agreed. They must both really believe in you."

They did, and this statement didn't help the weight of the burden I felt. "Do you have any idea what could have tempted Myez Rader to turn against you?" I asked.

Mercedes shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. I have discussed this at length with Veranna and Aegis Del Conte. Myez Rader has a somewhat shrouded past; I only know what he's revealed since the day we met. He has always had a slight edge against King Darius, but I did not believe it cut this deep. I can't imagine what Lord Eris offered him that would cause him to defy the code and our agreement." A shadow past over her face, and there was a look in her eyes that warned me never to cross this woman.

She took a deep breath, clasped her hands in her lap, and the moment passed. "That is not why I have come to speak with you, though. I would like for you to tell me the last thing you remember."

I'd hoped she'd have some light to shed upon the mystery surrounding Myez Rader, but alas, he had just added himself to my ever-lengthening list of unsolved mysteries. I really wished Alex had been here when I'd woken so that he could have debriefed me on all that had transpired while I'd been out cold. After a bit of thoughtful vacillations, I answered Mercedes' question. "We had been crossing the Shattered Plains," I started slowly, "and then we were rescued by a group of men who were sitting on very large…I don't know what they were. Some kind of large animal."

"The durát." She nodded, encouraging me to go on.

"Then we were attacked by gargons," I continued, "and…then I think I remember seeing a great white dragon."

Her eyes flickered over my face without expression. "You did. A few in the city saw it as well, and I've gone over it with your Aegises, but neither of them seem to know what made it wake."

"You don't know either?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Not exactly, though this entire city is thrumming with excitement. Everyone wants to meet this wielder of the skies who is waking the dragons."

Wielder of the skies? I set my cup on the stand beside my bed and folded my fingers in my lap. "I don't know what you mean about wielding the skies, your ladyship, and I am certainly not waking any dragons."

"Please. I'd prefer it if you called me Mercedes. Your father and I never recognized titles between one another, and I would like the same friendliness with his children." There was an emotion behind her gaze that I couldn't pinpoint. "If, of course, that is all right with you."

It was an interesting sentiment coming from a woman who was all control and strength, though that particular path of conversation would have to wait till another time. There were too many other things to discuss that were more important. It did, however, leave me wondering what her history had been with my father. "That's fine," I said. "I would like that."

She looked pleased. "I understand you have spent the vast majority of your life on Earth."

I nodded.

"What do you know of dragons?" she asked.

"Only what I've read," I admitted. "That they existed before and during the time of Galahad, but were killed off after the Great War and haven't been seen since. That they are somehow tied to Gaia's spirit and therefore can't be resurrected simply with magic—like gargons can."

"Nothing else?"

"Is there something else?"

She regarded me a moment, then looked out at the middle-distance, collecting her thoughts. "I must begin by saying that out of all Gaia's sects, Gesh is famed for its superstition. I cannot deny that Gesh has deserved its reputation. However, while I understand that some beliefs have been taken to extremes—which is true in every culture—in the case of dragon lore, the people of Gesh are anything but superstitious.

"Gesh has practiced the rites and rituals the other territories have long forgotten—save, perhaps, a few of the Arborenne. But they are such a whimsical and eclectic race, there is no set belief to unify them, such as how Gesh believes in the Draconi…" She paused and pressed down the folds of her skirt. "I am being somewhat tangential. My point in telling you all of this is that dragons have existed since the beginning of time. It has been centuries since the last of them disappeared, and though the rest of this world may have chosen to forget, my people have not. We have not forgotten that the dragons were sentient beings, unable to be tamed or controlled by man or magic. We have not forgotten that our ancestors tried and failed and died pursuing the endeavor." She looked straight into my eyes. "And we have not forgotten that there are those born with dragon's blood flowing in their veins, and when they have need, the dragons will answer."

I sat there in silence beneath her scrutiny. She truly believed I was the cause of the white dragon, but this was ridiculous. I was a lucky young woman with
human
blood who might just be a little bit crazy. "Your…Mercedes." I spoke carefully and with respect; I didn't want my next words to sound impertinent. "I appreciate your thoughts on this—I really do—and I know I am very ignorant when it comes to this world, but I have to disagree here. The dragon just…rose from the mountain, on its own accord. I swear that I had nothing to do with it. If there is someone with the blood of dragons, as you say, then that person is still out there. It is not me."

Her dark gaze was steady, and she was quiet for so long that I was certain I'd offended her.

Way to go, Daria. Insult the woman who has taken you in and saved you from death. Some guest you are.

"You may not know this," she said at last, "but there is a peculiar bond between Cian, the elemental of wind, and the dragons. It has been so ever since the beginning of this world. You share a tie with Cian, do you not?"

I opened my mouth to downplay her assertion, but hesitated. The past few days had irrefutably shown me that Cian was there, ready to help in a time of need. I could no longer argue the point my father had been saying from the beginning. "Yes," I whispered. "I believe so." But the relationship was rudimentary.

Her eyes flickered over my face with subtle satisfaction. "The augurs have long since spoken of this day, when a child of the wind will bring back the dragons of old. Many have forgotten, but we have not."

Another hot breeze ruffled the draperies. I wasn't sure how our conversation had taken this turn, but given the current circumstances, I didn't really have time to be sitting around discussing dragon lore and prophecy. What we needed to be talking about was getting to Pendel. Tran had told us to sail from Gesh to Pendel because he'd believed the portal system too risky, and Alex and I had agreed with him. But our circumstances had changed. Drastically. Eris knew where we were, had sent enemies after us every step of the way, and if what Myez Rader had said about the shadowguard was true, we couldn't afford the two-week, round-trip journey by sea. Stefan needed us
now
.