Heir of Pendel (A Pandoran Novel, #4) (52 page)

Cian wasn't the one speaking to you. It was me. It has always been me.

My skull felt as if it might just crack open.

I used Cian's power to carry my voice to you. At the time, it was the only way I could communicate with you—through him. There was too much interference before. But things have changed since you opened the box.

In a whip of wings, the dragon moved behind me. How could a creature that size move so fast?

How can a person deemed so important be this ignorant?

I grit my teeth against my headache and my frustration. "I'm learning as I go. I didn't…grow up here, you know."

Irrelevant. Eris will not spare you for your nescience. Now tell me, my little petulant one. Where is the human?

All this talking in my head had zapped my patience. Actually, a part of me wished he'd just eat me and be done with it so I didn't have to suffer this migraine any longer. "Why did you bring me here?"

The dragon was quiet, that pupil seeming to swallow me in its depths. I held out the brooch that, I suddenly realized, was the exact same color as his scales: a rich emerald so dark it looked black. "You
did
bring me here, right?"

A beat.
Yes
. There was a very snake-like emphasis on the "s".

The dragon started licking one of its taloned feet. And when it was done with that foot, it started licking the other one.

"Then what in the world has taken you so long?" I asked.

You humans have an interesting concept of time.

I winced. "Yes, two weeks is a long time when a world is at war. I should be trying to help my friends overthrow my tyrant uncle."

And that is no marginal task for one little petulant princess.

I couldn't believe it. This dragon might actually be worse than my conscience. "Did you have a reason for bringing me here, or not?"

There was a series of glottal stops, which almost sounded like a chuckle.

I see why Darius locked you away in his castle.

"And no thanks to you, King Darius is dead."

Faster than I could blink, the dragon's teeth bared inches from my face and its deep growl trembled through my body. I froze, eyes wide.

I do not follow the laws of man, and I do not serve their leaders. I owe you nothing. I owe your people nothing. I belong only to Gaia, and if you want my help, I suggest you remember that.

I swallowed, terrified. "Yes. Of course. I didn't…I'm sorry."

The dragon snarled a bit longer as if to drive his point home (which, I felt, was a little excessive, considering) and then he went back to licking his paw—er, talon.

I didn't even realize I'd been holding my breath until those breaths started coming in short, hyperventilating bursts.

I am called Nexus.

His words came with another headache, but it wasn't as intense as before.

"Nexus," I repeated, tasting the word, liking the sound of it. It seemed as if it could be the name of a luxury vehicle, which, in a twisted sort of way, wasn't so far from the truth. And then I remembered Nexus could hear my thoughts.

"I'm Daria," I hurried to add.

Nexus's pupils narrowed at me in a way that made me think he'd probably heard my thoughts, anyway. A chill rolled through his body and he stood, arcing his wings behind him, almost completely filling the football-size field he occupied. I still couldn't get over the sheer size of him, and when he had his wings unfolded like that, he was almost overwhelming.

Climb on. I need to show you something.

Climb on? Was he serious?

His eyes narrowed on me.

All right. "You want me to climb…where?"

Did you want me to carry you in my talons again?

"Um…" I admired those enormous talons again, one of which was tapping impatiently on the rocks, reminding me fleetingly of the velociraptors in
Jurassic Park.
I blinked. "No."

Then climb on.

I hesitated, my gaze following the smooth scales of his huge belly, up past the joint where his wing was attached. Where was I supposed to sit? Never mind the fact that his scales didn't exactly have any footholds.

A soft grunt sounded from the base of his throat, and he tipped the edge of his wing toward the ground.

I haven't got all day.

Some smart retort about my waiting two weeks started forming in my mind, but I repressed it. Immediately.

Good idea.

I approached his wing and reached out my hand to touch the rib. The skin was covered in millions of fine hairs and was soft like suede, but with hard bone underneath. "Did, ah, the other riders climb up this way?"

No, but it's how
you're
going to climb up right now.

I grabbed hold of the rib and, with a grunt, hoisted one leg up over it. I still had no idea where I was actually going to sit.

You'll have to hold on to the grooves of my scales, for now. There's a small patch near the base of my neck that's better fit for human hands. You may thank my previous riders for that.

My gaze slid to the base of his neck, where his black, diamond-shaped scales fit together like tiles on a rooftop.

"I’m just supposed to sit—" My words were cut off with a twitch of his wing that sent me tumbling down the taut webbing until I landed on his back, right near the curve of his neck. I sat up, rubbing my elbow that had jammed into one of the scales. They weren't nearly as pliable as they'd appeared from the ground. The texture was rubbery, as if each scale had been covered in a thick coat of varnish, but they had about as much give as a block of granite.

Straddle my neck and hold on tight.

"There's no way I can straddle…"

I didn't have a chance to finish voicing my concerns. The dragon's wings lifted, and his legs shoved off the ground. With a squeak, I shoved my hands beneath the lip of a few scales, gripping them as if they were my lifelines, and I squeezed my thighs against his neck, which didn't end up being very much at all since his neck was so wide. And then he tipped his body back and
flew
. Faster and faster, higher and higher, gravity pulling me back as we punched out of the thick fog. Bright blue sky was everywhere, punctuated by a blinding sun—a sun he seemed to be aiming for. Wind howled past my ears, clawing through my hair and turning my eyes to cotton balls. My fingers ached from clenching the scales so hard and my right thigh started cramping, but I didn't dare loosen my grip. The world spun and shrank away below us as pressure pushed against my eardrums. I swallowed, and swallowed and swallowed until my ears popped and popped again. With a sudden jerk, Nexus leveled, practically knocking the wind out of me.

Nexus's wings stretched wide as we soared, his shadow following us, skimming the tops of the clouds below. The world was lost, hidden in a blanket of thick clouds, and the only sign of its existence were a few mountaintops, like spearheads poking through cotton.

I'd been airborne a few times before, thanks to the vox, but we'd never flown so fast or so high. I should've been terrified, but I wasn't. This…this
freedom
. The hundreds of miles of freedom in all directions, the horizon bending in a barely discernable arc. The smell of the sky, so pure and so fresh—so salubrious—like sunshine and summer and the air after a good rain. I wanted to bottle it up and keep it around my neck to inhale whenever I wanted. It was energizing and revitalizing, and soaring atop the world like this with Nexus made me feel invincible. And then Nexus dropped.

Wings tucked back, he aimed straight at the swirling clouds below. My stomach leapt into my throat and I shrieked, hair ripping back as the wind screamed in my ears. I gripped the scales so tightly, I was sure they'd amputate my fingers. Nexus spun and spun, and the world blurred in a hurricane of clouds. We fell so fast I couldn't scream. I tried to, but when I opened my mouth, air rushed in and filled my cheeks, while he plummeted straight through the clouds and toward the rocks and trees below. The ground approached too fast, and Nexus showed no signs of slowing down. He was going to kill us. We were going to hit those rocks in a matter of seconds, and we would be splattered like insects on a windshield. No one would ever know what'd happened to me. Down and down, the air screamed, and now I could see moss growing on the rocks…

Nexus jerked up so hard and so fast, my forehead rammed against the scales of his neck. Gravity pulled us down, trying to claim us as its own, but Nexus pulled harder, banking until we were soaring easily over the treetops. Gravity finally gave up and let go, and I lifted my throbbing head. I really needed to invest in a helmet. I sagged forward and loosened my grip just a little, and when I glanced down at my hands, I noticed thin rivulets of red running down my fingers.

It's much easier with a saddle.

"So riders don't usually ride bareback."

Nexus snorted, and wisps of smoke streamed from his nose like the exhaust from a jet.
Of course not. It's much too dangerous.

My lips thinned and I was about to comment, but then I noticed our landscape. I immediately sat upright, my eyes scanning, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

This is Campagna.

I'd never actually been to Campagna before, but from my private studies, I knew it was the easternmost territory on mainland and was governed by Lord Sterling Vega. Lord Vega was also Kenley Vega's father—Kenley, who had been Campagna's contestant in the games, who'd also helped Danton run off with the unity stone. No one had seen Kenley since those events, and seeing Campagna, I knew why. Campagna had been preoccupied with war.

The landscape had been obliterated, or at least this part of it. The ground was scorched and still smoking in places, as if it'd been consumed by a great fire. Charred rubble lay everywhere…wait. That wasn't rubble. Those were bodies. This was what Nexus had wanted to show me.

A brick dropped in my stomach, and it had nothing to do with gravity this time. I was suddenly glad I'd been stuck in the vale with Myez. If we'd crossed the mountain passes and found ourselves in the middle of this…

"Can you fly lower?" I asked.

Nexus dipped lower, and now I could smell the ash and smoke and…burnt flesh. I spotted deep blues and golds amidst some of the fallen. Those were Campagna's colors. Had my uncle attacked them? A swath of burgundy drew my attention.

It was a flag—a frayed and burnt flag, with a stripe of bronze down the center—fluttering weakly like a dying sentinel. That was Pendel's flag.

Oh, no.

Oh, nononononono.

My eyes widened with growing horror as I scanned the ground, suddenly noticing all the burgundy and bronze that had been so hard to see before, because the burgundy blended into the burnt soil so well. And now all I could see was burgundy. Sir Torren and his men had landed, and they had been massacred.

Nexus descended, but before his talons even touched the ground, I was already sliding down his neck. My boots hit with a thud and I landed in a crouch, then stood, wiping my bloodied palms on my pants as I took in my surroundings.

So much death.

I felt weightless and faraway as I walked forward, no longer feeling the ache in my ankle, refusing to believe what my eyes were showing me. Unwilling to accept the horror evident
everywhere
.

The smoke was so thick I could taste it, and my eyes burned. Had a dragon caused a fire like this?

Nexus grumbled behind me.
My fire wouldn't have left bodies. This was the work of gargons.

Gargons. Lord Vega had fought Sir Torren's men with the help of gargons, and he had decimated them.

I stared down at the body near my feet. The soldier was covered in armor, but it hadn't done any good against the gargons' flames. Raw and bubbly pink skin was visible through the cracks in his charred armor, and the hand holding his sword had been burnt so badly I could see bone peeking through the tissue. He'd been burnt alive. My stomach turned. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't peel my eyes from him.

"Were there any survivors?" I whispered.

I do not know, princess. I was not here when it happened, though I didn't detect any human life forms as I flew over on my way to you.

I nodded once, and I kept walking. Wanting this nightmare to end. Wishing I could unsee what I was seeing. Lord Vega had suffered losses as well, but nothing like Pendel. And then panic made my pulse soar. Was Alex here, too? Had he been here during this fight, with Thaddeus and Vera and Sonya? Was that the real reason I hadn't been able to sense him lately? Were their bodies on this field somewhere? I was afraid to look, but I also needed to look. I needed to make sure they weren't here, because if they were…

I shut my eyes and let my senses drift far, far away from me, as far as they would go.

Nothing.

"Alex…" I whispered. "Please…be alive…"

I took a deep, shaky breath and tried again, grasping for the thread I'd grown so used to feeling, the thread I knew to be him.

There
.

It was faint, but it pulsed from somewhere far away, like a lighthouse in a storm, and it gave me a little bit of hope. I opened my eyes.

A large mass of black drew my attention farther, and I walked toward it, realizing quickly it was the body of a fallen gargon. At least Sir Torren's men had managed to fell one of the demons. Its body lay in a nonsensical heap, legs bent unnaturally, its neck folded back too far. Those red eyes were still wide open, though a fire didn't burn in them now. They were dull and lifeless and cloudy in that terrifying, reptilian face. How I'd ever referred to a gargon as a dragon, I had no idea. After being acquainted with both, they couldn't be any more different. It was as if someone had taken all the beauty and might and elegance of a dragon, then warped it and corrupted it until it became this monstrous shadow of its former self. Just looking at its demonic face sent a tremor up my spine, and that was when I noticed the body on the ground beside it.