The Nothing: A Book of the Between (35 page)

Vivian nodded. “If—when—Zee kills Aidan, every one of them will know. I would expect them to turn all of their attention to her death and her killer for a moment. But not long. Dragons follow a leader but they are also independent. They won’t just fall apart, and they’ll be outraged.”

Zee wanted to paint her again, with that expression of obstinate courage. But he was destined to die holding a sword, not a paintbrush or a chisel. He would content himself with knowing she was engraved on his heart and soul.

“Long enough,” Kraal said. He turned his gaze on Isobel and Lyssa. “You two must wait in hiding until you see Aidan fall. Then run as fast as you can for the Pool, fill your vessel, and make the door to the Cave. Understood?”

“I understand.” Isobel’s hand rested on the little girl’s tumbled curls. Lyssa just nodded. Bob perched on her shoulder. Poe stood protectively at her side and she held the cub in her arms. She was so tiny, so young for so much responsibility. And so much danger. Even if she won through, she would always be maimed physically, psychologically. Zee tried to smile for her, but his lips refused to cooperate.

“The griffyn stays behind,” Kraal said.

“No.” All of the women spoke at once.

Kraal raised his hands in a gesture of frustration. “Talk to them, Zee. It’s cute and all, but this is war. The birds are bad enough, but at least they take care of themselves.”

“Her name is Grace, after the lady with the Dreamsphere,” Lyssa said, her small jaw jutting stubbornly. “And she stays with me.”

Zee looked down at the child clinging to the cub as if it were a living teddy bear, and shook his head. “I’m not taking anything away from her.”

His fingers itched for the sword, for the chance to release his grief and rage in battle. He was about to reach for Vivian, to give her one last kiss and try to find a way to say good-bye, when a sharp hiss from Kalina drew him back to the view point.

“You need to see this.”

Zee peered down between the rocks. A man stood on the dragon throne next to Aidan. He had a knife and they appeared to be arguing. Hope and regret warred in his heart. The need to kill Aidan with his own hands was overpowering but dead was dead.

Other dragons emerged from the streets in response to some signal invisible to him.

“The alarm,” Isobel said. She looked as though she were sleepwalking, all of her attention focused on something Zee could neither see nor here. “They know about us.”

“We go now,” he said. “Hurry!”

And so, there was no time in the end to tell Vivian all that he wanted to say. Not even for a kiss. One last look between them, and then she was shifting and he felt the magic shield form around him. Without a backward glance, he took to the cliff, letting himself down, handhold and foothold, while dragon wings beat the air above him and Kraal jarred the earth as he ran down the hillside toward the plain with an ear-shattering battle cry.

AIDAN JOLTED WIDE awake from deep sleep, all senses on full alert. Sunlight poured into the sleeping chamber, which meant she had been asleep for only a few hours. Nothing moved around her. Her sharp ears picked out only the sound of the unceasing wind. She saw only the walls and ceiling of golden stone. Nothing moved. She smelled only dragons and the hot, dry earth.

Letting her mind run through the dragons’ thoughts, she found the same mild disturbance that had been going on for days. Most of them slept, dreaming of food and of the golden river. There were eddies and swirls of discontent, a lot of hunger, but no outright danger. Finding themselves in the City of Dragons, a place of legend none of them had ever thought to see, had gone a long way toward calming their rebellion.

Whatever had wakened her was not a current threat; maybe some intimation of the future. Because the peace wouldn’t last. Their hunger would continue to escalate, their anger would return. She would be unable to hold them, and she couldn’t kill them, at least not all at once. If she picked off one or two, the rest would turn on her, if Teheren didn’t do it first.

She needed to set them against each other. So far, Teheren had foiled all of her experiments in that direction, calming altercations, quieting rebellions. He needed to die, and soon, but he was stronger than she, and he never seemed to sleep. Even now, he was awake. She could sense him, even though he sent nothing out over the channels. A quiet, brooding presence, watching over the fitful dreams of her offspring sleeping in his chamber under his protection.

For a brief flicker, she thought she sensed another mind, familiar, but not one of the dragons in her flight. On her feet, she lifted her head and scented the air but came up empty. Whatever she thought she’d sensed had dissipated. Still, sleep was out of the question and she did not lie back down.

Legends had never spoken of dragons owning human slaves, but she thought they must have. Hands had built the spacious rooms with their wide doorways, high ceilings, and glassless windows. Hands must also have hauled in the loads of luxurious sleeping gravel. The city itself was empty, not a dragon to be found. No bones here, either. The bone fields they’d flown over would account for most of that but not all. Something had gone wrong with the dragons of the Forever.

Which only made her task easier. Killing all of the dragons she’d brought with her would be challenge enough. The regret that she could not avenge herself on the Old Ones, though, that rankled. Most of her long life, she had dreamed of the moment when she would confront and kill the King of the Dragons. And now, it seemed, there was no King. Unless the dragons had moved on deeper into the land. But if so, why? Following food, perhaps? Seeking water?

She dragged her heavy body out of the sleeping chamber, through the sunning room, and out into the wide street, all the while tuned to the channels, listening for danger. The streets were empty, all of the dragons resting after the long journey. Nothing to impede her progress to the massive throne at the head of the mud pit.

Based on her mother’s stories, she knew this had once been a pool of sparkling water, filled by a waterfall fed by the golden river. How the gold was transformed into water was part of the mythology of the place. Now the cliffs were dry and barren. Not so much as a trickle passed over them to fall into the Pool beneath.

In one version of her plans, she had reigned here as Queen over a few worthy dragons, her vengeance completed. But this—the endless nothingness, the pointlessness of a place called the Forever that was nothing but a barren land—this pleased her more. All that remained was to end the rest of the dragons.

Something tweaked at her senses, something out of place. Intruders. And she was pretty sure she knew which intruders. Before her thoughts could betray her over the network, Aidan shifted into human form. While she was human, there was less chance that any of the others would tune in to her thoughts. They’d get static, of course, and if any of them took the time and trouble to tune in deeply, they would hear her. But they would have no cause to do so, all sound asleep in their comfortable new lodgings.

She would not raise the alarm. Let the stupid worms sleep until the dragon slayer was upon them. He’d rejected her, refused her offer of alliance. But now he had arrived to unwittingly do her work for her, and this was good.

“I fail to find the humor.”

Aidan startled, looking about wildly for the speaker. Teheren, damn his soul to endless torment, hiding in the shadows somewhere behind the throne. How a dragon of his size and coloring could conceal himself so well in broad daylight was a mystery. But he’d spoken in the Old Tongue, which meant he must be in dragon form. She heard the warning go out, the other dragons stirring and waking.

She was about to shift back herself when he materialized in front of the throne in his human form, a dragonstone blade in hand.

“That’s not your throne.”

Aidan kept her eyes on his, peripheral vision tuned to the blade. Death was all well and good, but it was too soon. She wasn’t ready. Leaning back, crossing one naked thigh over the other, she let her eyelashes droop over her eyes and gave him a slow, seductive smile. “Care to join me?”

“You want them dead. All of them. Why?”

“You’re no fun.” She thrust her bottom lip out in a pout and leaned forward, reaching out to touch his face.

He slapped her hand away with a force that stung and reminded her of the weakness inherent in this form. Enough of games. With a feral snarl, she began to shift, but he pressed the flat of the blade against her thigh. “Shift one more cell and I will cut you.”

Aidan’s breath froze in her throat and she held perfectly still. Death by dragonstone was agonizing and slow, and the slightest movement could mean a cut to her skin. In human form, perhaps it would do no harm, but the tiniest cut was death to a dragon.

Down below, the others were gathering. He was an upstart; she was the Queen. If she was patient and careful, she could use them against Teheren.

The news that she was captive in her human form spread rapidly alongside the warning of intruders. They gathered in a wide half-circle around the throne. Teheren turned to face them, speaking aloud in the Ancient Tongue.

“Treachery! Intruders are in the land. Your Queen has chosen not to alert you, though she knew. I hazard a guess that she knows also who is coming.”

Aidan laughed, scornfully. “You are all so pitiful. Yes, follow the great Teheren. He will be your savior, as he has been of the dragons in this land before you. Look around. Where are they? Ah, yes. Lying in the great boneyard outside the city. Why? Because he is such a great and noble leader. He dares to use dragonstone against one of his own kind. Yes, I’m certain he will lead you well in a battle against the Warrior and his company.”

The murmuring spread through the ranks like wildfire. One of the older dragons sent a direct question over the channels.

“He came with us into the Forever. How can you say he led the dragons to slaughter?”

The truth was a gamble, but she had nothing left. “No. He did not enter with us. Did any of you see him in the Between? No, you did not. He joined us in the night and made pretense he was one of ours.”

She let this register, trying to look both brave and pitiful.

“This much is true,” Teheren said, at length. “I am the last of the dragons of the Forever. My people died of famine and thirst. You see what has become of the land.”

“Or the land is cursed,” Aidan said. “Cursed because he has murdered his own people with the dragonstone. It is Teheren’s crimes against dragonkind that have turned the promised land into a desert. Kill him and the land will become fertile again. The river of gold will flow, and the Pool of the Forever will become life-giving once again.”

She felt their blood surge at her words, and yet they hesitated, reluctant to move against one who had served as leader and guide.

“Oh, my foolish ones,” she intoned, infusing her voice with deep sorrow. “Allow him to kill me with the dragonstone blade, and who will be next? Perhaps he is the one who has invited the intruders into the land through some secret way we do not know. My life is a small thing, but you are the future. All that is left of dragonkind in all the worlds. Do not allow this deceiver to destroy you.”

The ploy was working. A bold young dragon emerged through the ranks, snorting flame and ready for battle. Another joined him. Teheren released the dragonstone and shifted into his dragon form. He was larger than the others, the sun blinding on his red-gold scales as he cried out, “I will defend myself if I must, and yet I say to you that she lies. You would be better to turn your attention to the threat that is coming—”

His voice was cut off as the two dragons attacked, one on each flank. Aidan bent to pick up the fallen knife, taking care to keep the blade well away from her own skin. She watched the battle, suppressing a fierce desire to shift and join in. Teheren was a match for the two. He was mostly taking evasive maneuvers, holding fast to his philosophy that no more dragons should die.

Aidan hoped he would survive. She wanted the pleasure of killing him herself. The last of the Old Ones. Not the King, her father. It was too late to exact that vengeance. But a descendant. One fully deserving of her long-simmering hate. And so, she sat on the throne in her frail human body, watching the battle, listening to the thoughts of the dragons, and waiting for the Warrior to come to her.