SummerDanse (11 page)

The magician’s beautiful hands reached up and drew back the hood.

It was Anazian.

Oh, my son, my son. Well met at last, at long last. Let me clasp you to my bosom, let me touch your face. Oh, it is really you. I see your mother in your smile and in the light of your eyes.

Oh, my son, my son. You have done so much, sacrificed so much of your life in our cause. My pride in you swells my heart nigh to bursting. It is really you? Are you really here? I pray your indulgence, let me touch your face yet again, assure myself I do not dream.

Oh, my son, my son. We sit here poised on the cusp of victory, a victory of which we would have little hope if not for you. Join me in a celebratory cup. Let us lift our glasses aloft and toast one another. Let us taste the sweetness of anticipated victory.

Oh, my son, my son.

Everything froze. My heart. My breath. My very thought. In an instant of clarity, I saw it all, how I had been toyed with by these two powerful men.

Then my flight instinct took over.

I spun on my heel and made a dash for the nearest door. Laughter followed me. I turned the handle, but the door didn’t budge.

Looking over my shoulder, I found the two of them advancing toward me. I smacked the door in frustration. The other doors would also be locked, but perhaps a window would offer escape. I ran to the nearest one and tugged with all my strength, but it might have been nailed shut for all the good it did.

Desperate, I slammed my fist into the glass and shattered the pane. My hand passed through, glass shards slashing it. But I had not chosen well, for the window I’d broken was a small one, far too small for me to get out. Footsteps drew near.

A weapon. Perhaps I could protect myself from them that way. Disregarding the blood flowing from my hand, I ran to the fireplace, snatched up the poker, and turned to face my adversaries. Grasping the poker in both hands, I held it in front of me.

They approached. I held my ground, back to the marble fireplace, ready to smash their heads if necessary to escape. They stopped just out of range.

Zhantar smiled, and it no longer looked benevolent. “Now, Donavah, do you not think this is poor repayment of my hospitality?”

I stood breathing heavily, eyes flicking back and forth between him and Anazian.

“Come now,” he went on. “Surely you can see that your behavior is quite absurd. This is no way to treat your host and his beloved son.”

“I never told you my name,” I said. Did he think I was a complete fool?

He raised his eyebrows. “You are right, Anazian. She is a sharp one. Now, Donavah, no one needs to get hurt. Put that down, and come speak to us in a rational manner.”

I just gripped the poker tighter.

Anazian waved a hand lazily in my direction, then unclasped his black cloak and threw it over the back of a nearby chair.

The poker suddenly heated up, burning my palms. With an involuntary cry of pain, I dropped it, and it clattered loudly on the stone floor. The odor of hot metal filled the air.

Zhantar shook his head. “You are only making this harder on yourself. You must know that it is futile to try to escape. And if you keep trying, we will be obliged to make your life far more miserable than you have yet known.”

I still stood my ground, trying to ignore the pain.

“My father,” said Anazian turning to Zhantar, “let her stand there as long as she likes. The loss of blood from those cuts will weaken her soon enough. Let us sit and enjoy the spectacle.”

Oh, how I hated him. How I hated them both.

I could not give in and submit, nor would I be able to resist them long. My right hand was indeed bleeding profusely from several gashes. Even now I could feel myself weakening. I leaned back against the marble. It was cool, and I pressed my palms against it. But that didn’t really help, and I grew dizzy. I imagined I could smell my own flesh burning. I struggled to stay standing. My breath came in gasps, and Anazian laughed at me.

I don’t know how long I stood there, but as my strength waned, my hatred waxed. They might have me cornered this time, but they would never beat me down.

Eventually, I slid to the ground. Everything went black, and I passed out.

I wandered in a hazy dream world. Anazian played Talisman and Queen with Zhantar as I looked on and tried to guess their next moves. They didn’t speak as they battled it out, trying to Secure the Queen’s Heart.

Rennirt licked the blood from my hand and swelled with power, his green eyes glittering beautifully in his dark, handsome face. Grey, a knife hilt protruding from his back, held me close and tried to kiss me one last time as he died. I wept, and Chase licked my tears.

Everything went white. Anazian’s laughter filled my ears, going on and on for endless hours until I screamed for him to stop. Angry, he filled my mouth with stones that burned my tongue and stole my maejic.

Zhantar stood before me, and I pummeled his face with my fists. He simply smiled at me and offered more wine. I tried to push him away, but someone had tied my hands behind my back. He approached, and I couldn’t move. He threw the wine at me, and it etched a labyrinth into my face.

Xyla snatched Breyard from the ground and ate him, his bones crunching between her teeth. Traz beat her with his wooden staff, so she ate him, too. Then Yallick mounted her, and they flew off into the sky, where Mama and Papa danced against the backdrop of the setting sun.

I woke up back in my room, my blistered palms painful and one hand swaddled in bandages that smelled of healing herbs.

“And finally, those eyes open,” said a voice I recognized. Still a bit drowsy, I couldn’t quite place it, nor did I care to try. What I wanted was to go back to sleep, but without the unsettling dreams.

Then a man leaned over me, offering a cup from which to drink. An old man with short-cropped white hair and black beard. Zhantar! And now his smile looked shrewd and threatening rather than kind and concerned.

I lifted a hand and knocked the cup away. It clanked and rolled across the floor. I paid for this action with a sharp wave of pain, but it was worth it to see the look of surprise that replaced Zhantar’s smile. He shrugged and sat back down in the chair next to my bed.

“My son suggested that perhaps it would be wise to bind you, wrist and ankle, to the posts of your bed. His methods are rather more brutal than mine, I give you that. But perhaps more effective.”

The implicit threat in his calmly spoken words was clear. I would have to go very carefully. I closed my eyes and willed myself to fall back asleep.

“There will be none of that, young lady,” Zhantar said. “I wish to speak with you, and you will listen. If you give me any trouble, my son will be happy to take over.”

Reluctantly, I sat up in bed, but I refused to meet his eye.

“Now, before we begin, let us make something perfectly clear. I know who you are, I know what you are, and I know where your friends are.”

I tried not to let my reaction show. Could it be true? No, he must be bluffing. He couldn’t possibly know where the mages had gone.

“So the question is, what are we to do with you?”

“Why not just kill me?” I growled. “Or is it that your precious son can’t manage to do it no matter how hard he tries?”

Zhantar moved closer to my bed and leaned over me. “Killing, my dear, is too good for you. If you do not keep a civil tongue in your mouth, I will personally make sure that you wish for a very, very long time that you were dead.”

I averted my gaze.

“Now, allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Zhantar, DragonLord.” He paused to let that sink in. He wasn’t just a dragonmaster, he was the chief of them all. I was still trying to take that in when he went on. “The fact is that I am intrigued by your power. It is very great. Oh, it was amusing to watch you lie about having ‘a little magic.’” He let out a small laugh as he resettled himself in the chair. “As if a little magic were sufficient to bring the red dragons back from Stychs.”

I gasped aloud. How did he know so much? Did he indeed know everything?

“I propose we begin again, this time being honest with one another. For let me remind you that you have not been entirely truthful with me any more than I have been with you.”

I just glared at him.

“Well, I shall go forward as if we have an agreement. I hope you will come to find I am worthy of the truth in return.”

His arrogance left me almost breathless. How could he possibly imagine I would ever come to trust him, when I was being held captive in his own house?

“Ah, I perceive from the indignant lift of your chin that you object to the treatment you have received here. I confess that my means have been duplicitous. But I ask that you listen to what I have to say, then you can judge for yourself whether the ends called for them.

“But first, you need to eat.” He rose from the chair and went to the door, where he spoke quietly to someone on the other side. He then went to the window and stood looking out. I tried to put the pieces together.

Well, at least I now knew why Anazian had turned traitor. The thought struck me that maybe he hadn’t “turned” traitor at all but had been a plant from the beginning. That would explain why the mages had been “discovered” by the dragonmasters—their betrayer had lived among them for years.

Now the timing of the attacks made sense, too. When Xyla and I had joined the mages, Anazian must have guessed at the significance. Perhaps Yallick had even told Anazian about his suspicions that I was the one spoken of in the prophecy. That would certainly explain why Anazian had tried to kill me, as well as why the dragonmasters had attacked the mages in the mountains. Small pleasure it was to consider the irony that their attack was the very thing that sent Xyla to Stychs to get the red dragons.

But what about now? Why had they captured me and brought me here? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to kill me?

Nilla came in with a tray. Her normally placid face looked tired, grey, and worried. She frowned as she watched me eat, and when the injuries to my hands made it hard to handle the spoon, she fed me the broth herself.

When she’d gone, Zhantar resumed his seat.

“A new age is dawning,” he said, as if there had been no interruption. “The time of the kings is ending, and we who are powerful in the arcane arts rise up to take their place.”