Steelhands (2011) (61 page)

If he let himself get singed, though, we’d be having some words. No amount of him taking me out to dinner was gonna make it all right for him to go and get hurt.

“Oh,”
Raphael murmured, sounding like he was attending a meeting of the Brothers and Sisters of Regina, not boiling in the stewpot. “Isn’t that just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life?”

“Quiet,” Adamo said. Privately—for the very first time—I almost agreed with Raphael. I could be in awe of something and not want it to kill me at the same time.

“I want you all to know that I consider it an honor to die at your sides,” Toverre muttered, like he couldn’t keep it down anymore. I didn’t blame him, really. He’d tried as long as he could; some people just didn’t have the stomach for fighting.

“No one’s dying here,” Gaeth said quietly, patting Toverre on the back. In the dimness of the tunnel, I thought I noticed something strange about his eyes. One of them looked darker than the other. “Don’t write my Cornflower off just yet.”

Just as he’d said that—like I really needed proof they were connected on the inside—I saw a blue-and-silver head protrude from the
flames, which themselves were rapidly petering out. I guess we’d got lucky, and the dragons themselves had to be fireproof, or else what was the point?

Both girls looked singed in the aftermath, but it was the kind of thing that’d polish off in time—that was proof Toverre was rubbing off on me, if nothing else.

As soon as she was clear of the flames, Cornflower lunged again, and I heard something metal go flying, hitting the wall and falling to the ground of the tunnel. I couldn’t tell who it’d come from, though, and neither of them seemed particularly injured. I guessed they didn’t miss a cog or two the same way people missed limbs. Clearly pissing mad—I don’t know how I knew, but I just
did
—Ironjaw whipped her tail around quick, scoring the walls and catching Cornflower across the face, though it only stunned her for a second.

“Deadlocked,” Ghislain said, as Cornflower’s sinewy body reared up to claw at Ironjaw, who was beating her small wings to try to fan what remained of the flames our way.

“You don’t really think you can hide back there forever, do you?” Troius called, so I guess he hadn’t choked on his blood
or
burned up. Our luck wasn’t perfect, then. “Come, now. My reluctance to kill you right away may have spared you thus far, but do you really imagine that boy can square off against me?”

“Seems to me like he’s doing all right,” Adamo shouted back. “Seems like your girls are pretty evenly matched, actually, since we’ve seen that your fire’s about as useful as a boat with no oars in this place.”

Troius said something else—probably an idiot rejoinder about how he thought he was only toying with us or some trash; I’d read it a thousand times in my da’s old romans—but I couldn’t hear him, because the whispering in my head’d just gotten a whole lot louder.

I know that smell
, it said, in a woman’s voice that reminded me a bit of Antoinette’s, though it wasn’t exactly the same, either. It was the voice I’d heard during my fever, but a whole lot clearer now, speaking words instead of babbling a whole lot of gibberish.
I’ve been waiting for you
.

All of a sudden, though I couldn’t’ve said why, I felt like it was drawing nearer. Even though I knew the voice was inside my own noggin, trapped between my ears, I could feel whatever it was coming closer to me over the screech of metal and the sharp scrape of Ironjaw’s wings
against the cavern wall. I lifted my hands to my head, pushing my thumbs against the temples. Everybody was so busy watching the fight, they didn’t notice me. And I was so busy trying to clear my head, I was the only person looking at the ground, which meant I was the one who got to see her first.

Past all the boots, something bright shifted underneath the rubble. I knew what it was before it poked its golden crown through the hole Cornflower had made. It was a dragon, with patches of silver steel around her snout, making her look like a doll that’d been sewn together from a bunch of separate parts. She lifted her head, questing about like a dog scenting its prey; Ironjaw and Cornflower were too busy with one another to pay any attention to her.

But that was okay, because she was too busy looking for something to pay any attention to
them
.

Then she looked straight at me.

At once I felt a roaring in my head, like I was being held under rushing water, and it was impossible to concentrate on anything else—not Raphael and Luvander standing tense in front of us, or Adamo shouting back and forth with Troius, or even the dragons locked in combat, jaws around each other’s throats now like wolves going in for the slaughter.

You
, said the voice, as the dragon pulled its way out of the hole, standing between us and the fight.
I really have been waiting
.

Toverre tugged at my sleeve.
He’d
noticed. But I shook him off because now wasn’t the time, and
yeah
, I’d seen it. Did he think I was blind?

For me?
I wondered.

Of course
, the voice replied.
I like you. That foolish big man thinks he can call us all to him with
his
blood, but that’s not how it works. I want you
.

Ironjaw knocked Cornflower back and metal grated against the tunnel wall, sending up sparks everywhere like we were in the middle of a forge. I didn’t know what that damned dragon meant, or why she was talking to me, or if I could even do anything when I didn’t have one of those handy circles in my palm like Gaeth did, but if this meant she was my dragon, then I had an obligation to help out.

Even if I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.

“Okay, so help us!” I bellowed, as loud as I could—almost as loud as
Adamo managed during class when he caught some poor bastard napping.

Without blinking, the gold dragon whipped around, folding her wings in tight to make use of the small space and launching herself like a sleek, long missile right at Ironjaw’s chest. She caught our enemy off-balance and sent Ironjaw over onto her back, giving Cornflower time to get up and shake just to see if anything crucial’d been knocked loose.

“No!” I heard Troius shout. He sounded pretty furious, which made me downright tickled. “This shouldn’t be
possible
. The fail-safe—only the Esar should have control over her at this stage! How are you commanding her?”

“Guess you should’ve asked an expert, Troius,” Adamo yelled back. “I could’ve told you—nothing’s as contrary as a dragon!”

“Except maybe a woman,” Luvander added, his eyes on my girl.

“You in charge of that one?” Ghislain asked; it took me a second to realize he was talking to me, but only because of how I was staring at the dragons battling it out in front of us. Two on one now; the odds were definitely in our favor, though Ironjaw was clearly the best trained of all three.

“Maybe,” I said, which was as honest as I could get without betraying how out-of-my-mind piss-terrified I was.

My girl—if I could call her that—was screeching something fierce, beating her wings and scraping at the rock. All of a sudden it was real hard to tell who was winning and who was losing. I couldn’t see Ironjaw anymore, and my heart was about pounding out of my chest when I felt another rumble in the earth—this one coming from somewhere behind us.

“Do they just keep popping up out of the ground like daisies in spring?” Raphael murmured. “If so, I would like one as well.”

“Brace yourselves!” Adamo hollered, and everyone grabbed on to somebody else, since the walls didn’t exactly seem safe at the minute. The very foundations were shaking with all the excitement, and if this kept up, then eventually the tunnel was gonna collapse around us, and it wouldn’t matter who was on whose side when we were all caved in.

Moments later, with a horrible screeching sound like metal being shorn in two, another dragon burst through the ground in an explosive shower of gravel. Gaeth threw himself in front of Toverre, and Ghislain was shielding Luvander
and
Raphael at once, but I could still see—
enough to realize that this dragon, too, looked different from the others. She was the dull color of old piping, and her wings looked half-finished, though that didn’t seem to be hindering her progress any. She seemed to believe nothing should stop her, and so nothing did.

Oh, her
, the voice in my head sighed.
What a show-off. Has to be finished quicker than the rest of us, and now here she is trying to steal all the glory
.

Is she on our side or not?
I asked, fighting down the panic I felt.

Who knows?
was the cryptic reply.
That’s where the big man lives
.

Everyone froze, but the new girl didn’t rush us. She didn’t even so much as glance in our direction. Instead, with another screech, she launched herself up toward the ceiling, shearing through the rock with her thick iron claws in an attempt to barrel straight through. If she wasn’t careful, she was gonna bring the whole tunnel down around us.

It didn’t seem like she much cared.

Whatever was up above was more important to her than our little fight. I could see the dragons staring at her for a brief moment, pausing in their fight to wonder at her actions, same as the rest of us. Then they started up again, not distracted for too long.

“That’s where th’Esar is,” Gaeth said, turning his head to watch her, same as the rest of us.

“Shit,” Adamo muttered, looking back toward our dragons. Cornflower and my gold beauty had Ironjaw pinned, and there were terrible tearing sounds coming from that direction; I saw a few silver gears go flying. It was like watching vultures tear apart a corpse.

Just pin her down
, I said, feeling sorry all of a sudden. She was only following orders, trying to protect her man. Maybe she didn’t know how wrongheaded he was.

Don’t worry
, my girl said.
I’ll teach you to outwit pity
.

The tunnel was a tight fit even for me; it was lucky that we’d decided that just the two of us should press on, since Ghislain would never have made it past the first turn.

We were traveling steeply upward, the rough stone snagging on my sleeves. Antoinette seemed unaffected though it was catching on her skirts, and I was surrounded by the noise of fabric ripping.

It was better than the alternative—the strange, sweet whispers of a distant voice, one I only half recognized. I tried to tell myself that it had been Antoinette calling out to us, but I knew that wasn’t the case. There was nothing else it could be but the remains of the voices from the fever. At least now I knew what it was.

All further speculation could be saved for later. I was here to protect Antoinette—though I was certain she didn’t need my help, if rumors and my own assessment were true—and help her make her case.

I knew the Esarina though Antoinette clearly knew her better than I did. She knew her well enough to call her by her given name; I was backup, there to snipe in fast and buy the main event some extra time should the negotiations turn to fighting. This was a job I knew well, almost as though I’d been born for it. It had a little to do with diplomacy and a little to do with flight-time reconnaissance—a humorous combination of those things that everyone told me I was suited, both of them as different as different as could be.

And the Esarina’s given name being the inspiration, I could only
assume, for
my
dragon, was a strange turn of fate that didn’t escape my notice.

“Keep your focus,” Antoinette told me. She hadn’t been reading my thoughts—that wasn’t how a
velikaia
’s powers worked, at least to my understanding—but it was possible I was projecting. I was used to hiding my emotions at the diplomat’s round table, but not when the pressure was so high, and this job reminded me more of being in the sky than being trapped in the bastion all day.

I found that source of calm within me and let my nerves go. When I’d been in the air, I liked to imagine bundling them up and throwing them over the side like a ship getting rid of deadweight. This was the same principle.

I was ready then, and Antoinette was satisfied.

Almost immediately after—I wondered somehow if she’d known—we came to a dead end.

“Here we are,” Antoinette said simply, tracing the uneven lines on the stone wall with her palm. She was searching for a trigger of some sort, I realized, to open a secret door. It took her a few moments—the first time I’d seen her not know the answer straightaway—though she found it at last after kneeling on the stone and sliding her hand against a lump in the rock. We heard an agonizingly loud creak, then the wall shifted by a few inches, just enough for us to draw in our breaths and squeeze through.

I opened my mouth to offer to lead the way, but Antoinette was already pushing herself into the open space. An instant later, she’d made it through, leaving me to follow behind.