Throne of Dragons

Then there was Lenore, whose image still haunted Devin’s mind even as he tried to walk away. Leaving Royalsport wouldn’t just mean leaving behind the promise of a life that was something different, something more. It would mean leaving her there in the castle, alone. It would mean a lifetime thinking of her, and yet never seeing her.

His mind made up, Devin turned back toward the castle.

There was a space in the crowds of the marketplace now, perfectly circular, admitting no people. The strangeness of it caught Devin’s eye, because people packed in on every other side, barely an inch of ground not taken up by someone in the bustle of the market. Even Devin had to push and twist his way between people, yet not one person set foot in that open circle. The strangest thing was that they didn’t even seem to notice that it was there. They walked around it without even looking into it, glanced to neighbors instead, pushed others aside rather than risk walking in the space.

Devin looked into it though, and at its heart, he saw a single figure, in robes of white and gold, sitting upon what appeared to be an abandoned crate of apples. He was eating one of them, and that seemed almost as incongruous for Master Grey as the strange empty circle he was somehow maintaining for himself.

Devin pushed forward, fighting his way into that circle. As he met its edge, there was a brief moment of resistance, his thoughts trying to tell him that there was no circle, that he was imagining it all, that there were some lovely sides of mutton just over there that he should—

He took another step, and the sensation was gone. He stood over Master Grey, who sat there calmly, tossing away the half-eaten apple and looking up at him.

“What are you doing here?” Devin demanded. “You haven’t been in your tower. You weren’t there for the forging of the sword, or for the return from the battle, or any of it.”

Around them, the people continued to flow, giving no sign that they’d heard Devin raise his voice.

“I was where I needed to be,” Master Grey said. “And I am now.”

There it was, an answer and not an answer, like always. It was enough to make Devin turn for the edge of the circle again.

“You already decided not to do that,” Master Grey pointed out.

“How can you know what I’ve decided?” Devin demanded, turning back to the sorcerer.

Master Grey shrugged. “This is the spot where you decide. Had you kept walking, you would not have seen me here, and I would have been forced to find… another. As it is, you realized how important destiny is, and so you turned back.”

Devin thought of Lenore again, of her sitting there in the castle, of her sadness, of her beauty. “It wasn’t about destiny.”

“You may believe that,” Master Grey said. “I do not have that luxury.”

“What do you want?” Devin asked. “You talk in riddles, but you never say what you want out of all this.”

“I want what I have always wanted: what is best for this kingdom, and for humanity,” Master Grey said, his expression suddenly piercing. “I want you to be all that has been promised. I want what is to come to be something the world we know can survive.”

“And what’s coming?” Devin demanded.

Master Grey shook his head and sighed. “Too much.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“We don’t get answers!” Master Grey snapped back, and it was so rare to hear him raise his voice that way that Devin took a step back in shock. “Even I only get fragments of it, to piece together as best I can. We perform our parts in this, and hope that it is enough.”

Devin bit back his anger. There was no point trying to argue with the magus; it would only mean more riddles, never a real answer.

“And what’s my part in this?” he asked.

“For now,” Master Grey said, “it is to return to the castle. There will be rooms there for you for as long as I wish it.”

“And then?” Devin asked. “I’m not going back unless you tell me more.”

“You will,” Master Grey said. “For her.”

He didn’t need to say who he meant; they both knew. Devin didn’t ask how he knew what he felt about Lenore, either. It seemed that Master Grey knew plenty of things he shouldn’t.

The sorcerer stood, grasping Devin by the shoulders. “Forging the first sword has taught you the skills you need, but it is just a beginning. The Unfinished Sword…the sword of all swords…it must be found. And it must be finished. And only you are made for this task.”

He stepped away from Devin then, striding into the crowd. The bubble of space around him seemed to burst as soon as he stepped from it, people crowding in around Devin too tightly for him to follow the sorcerer. His mind was still reeling.

“What unfinished sword?” he called out over the crowd, but there was no answer.

The sorcerer was already gone.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

“There will be a celebration at the turning of the moon,” Lina said, and Nerra smiled. Her friend seemed always to look for bright things in the life of the island.

“What is there to celebrate here?” Nerra asked, grinding corn with a quern, the heavy stone scraping down upon it as she and Lina walked it around and around. Today, they were working on milling flour to bake with, helping to produce the bread and cakes that their small community needed.

“That we are still here,” Lina said. “That there are still things in life that are joyful.”

It was hard to be sad when Lina was around. It seemed that even the most bestial of those with the dragon sickness brightened up as she passed. Nerra wished that she had the same gift, but every second seemed to fill itself with thoughts of the home she had lost, the family that she would never see. Would Lenore be married now? Would Erin have come back from wherever she had run to?

“Here, let me help you,” Nerra said as Lina started to lift a completed sack from her side. She went over, helping her friend with the weight of it, the two of them taking it toward a pile of similar sacks out in the open air of the village.

They’d only gone a few steps before Lina stopped.

“I don’t feel…”

Something twitched in her face, the lines of the dragon sickness seeming to shift and move across her skin. Nerra stared in horror as her friend’s features seemed to move like water affected by a breeze. Lina cried out, fell to her kneels, collapsed.

Nerra felt as though her heart was being torn out as she watched Lina writhing on the floor, her body seeming to twist out of shape even as she watched. One arm seemed to crack and twist, becoming something else, while her eyes stared up in horror, eerily the same as they had been before.

The attack had come out of nowhere. One moment, the two had been working together in the village, the next, Lina was screaming. She was doubled over in agony now on the floor, hands clutching her belly. A few seconds later, and Nerra was staring down at her newly acquired friend, watching her body tear itself to pieces.

Finally, she fought past her shock enough to cry out, to seek help.

“Kleos!” she called out. “Somebody fetch Kleos!”

She could already see him from the corner of her eye, running toward this, trying to get there in time to help. All the while, though, Lina was screaming, until even her screams broke into something else, something guttural and strange and twisted.

Kleos stood over her, staring down, his face filled with pity. “It… this happens sometimes. The sickness can be held at bay for years, then come upon someone in a rush to try to transform them.”

His words were tinged with sadness, but it didn’t seem like enough to Nerra. He wasn’t doing anything, wasn’t trying to change anything, wasn’t trying to help her.

“Why are you just standing there?” Nerra demanded.

“This is the dragon sickness at work,” Kleos said. “There is nothing that can be done.”

On the ground before Nerra, Lina continued to shift and change, utterly inhuman now.