Dragon's Fire Read online

  A final bunker had been constructed in the Heartland, where two thousand low-born farmers and craftspeople, tagged with ice-crystal shockers, would be spared.

  And to maintain order, control, and secrecy, not even the lucky few he had chosen to save were to learn about the Burning until the command to gather in the appointed places of safety.

  “Then the world can start again, with me as its leader.”

  But even as pride resonated in his voice, the carnage grieved Lukan. He gnawed the inside of his mouth as he always did when he considered the many people who had died during his reign as emperor. Dmitri had been right when he had claimed Lukan would go on to perform atrocities beyond imagining.

  But now wasn’t the time to shirk his duty, his responsibility to his country and his loyal people. Not when the end was in sight.

  Intelligence revealed that, after the birthday dinner, Axel would re-enter the Heartland again for the first time since Nicholas’s birth in order to rescue him.

  “But I know his plan.” Lukan sneered. He would thwart the rescue.

  Lukan, Felix, and Morass would go to the cottage to kidnap Nicholas. The traitor would be imprisoned in a stone-cold room in a disused slaughterhouse in Cian. Tao and Lynx would be brought back here to his bunker. As Axel neared Cian, he would encounter a squadron of airships.

  Even if Axel survived the battle, he would arrive at the cottage to find the farmstead burning and the occupants gone. Lukan’s traitorous cousin would be forced to leave Cian empty-handed.

  Tomorrow afternoon, when the palace clocks chimed four, Lynx and Tao, and five hundred handpicked high-born, would survive the next Burning as Lukan’s guests.

  Both Axel and Nicholas would die.

  And Lukan would sleep soundly for the first time since Nicholas’s conception. Grim satisfaction filled him. “Let Axel finally experience the despair of failure before he dies.”

  But even as he reveled in the thought, his stomach knotted. Given their history, how easily would Lynx and Tao relinquish Nicholas? The plan hinged on Lynx and Tao giving up on sight of Morass. But if they didn’t?

  This one key risk to his plan remained. And no answer came to solve it.

  Lukan angled a knob on a control panel. A camera shifted to keep Lynx and Tao in focus.

  They set off at a brisk pace along the gravelly bank and then cut into the forest. Their tall, leather-clad forms vanished between the trees. Lukan’s hands flew across a series of buttons, flicking cameras on and off to find the ones along the trail Tao and Lynx had taken. He sighed with pleasure when he caught sight of them weaving through the trees.

  Despite Lynx and Tao’s insistence that Nicholas hurry, the traitor lagged behind them.

  His son’s insolence infuriated Lukan. The scar Lynx had slashed across his cheek after Nicholas’s birth pulsed. He tilted his head to catch a gleam of himself in the steel control panel. Although Kestrel claimed the scar had faded to a thin silver line, to him, it stood stark and vivid.

  The scar burned red as he watched his son.

  Chapter 3

  “Mom! Uncle Tao, wait! I can hear bees.” Talon’s mouth watered at the prospect of honey.

  “No, you can’t,” came Mom’s muffled reply through the dense forest wood. “Now move, or we’ll end up keeping Lukan waiting.”

  Talon rolled his eyes. As if he cared about keeping Lukan waiting. The man could wait all year and it wouldn’t be long enough. Still, Lukan’s imminent arrival and all Talon’s questions had clearly rattled his mom.

  “I don’t know, Lynx. When Talon says he hears bees, he’s never wrong,” Uncle Tao replied.

  Uncle Tao always said Talon’s ears made up for his terrible eyesight. Truth was, Talon saw life in black, white, and gray; no color clouded his vision. But he had exceptional hearing. Uncle Tao often joked it was the Winds’ way of reminding him that compromise was good. Talon wasn’t sure he agreed.

  “You know I can hear them,” Talon shouted back.

  A few moments later, Mom and Uncle Tao reappeared.

  Mom sighed. “Okay, Talon. You win. Go and get some honey. But be careful, bees sting.”

  Talon yelped in delight. “Not me, they don’t!”

  He burst into a run, scrambling over tree roots and snaking creepers in the opposite direction.

  Mom and Uncle Tao chased after him.

  Uncle Tao laughed. “So when am I going to hear these bees?”

  Talon shot him an impish grin. “Trade my ears for your eyes?”

  “No thanks.”

  They had gone some distance when Talon sprinted to a gnarled beech. He wriggled out of his knapsack and pulled out a scratched glass jar. It had been a present from Mom on his fifteenth birthday, and he cherished it. Especially at times like this.

  “Ah!” Mom grinned as she ran up to join him. “Even I can hear them now.”

  The jar clasped in one hand, Talon shinnied up the tree. A dozen or so bees met him as he neared the hive. He started to hum, holding himself steady against the gentle flutter of wings against his cheeks, arms, and hands.

  One by one, the bees settled on him. Still humming, he climbed to the hive. Careful to cause as little damage as possible, he extracted a small piece of honeycomb. He changed the pitch of his humming—a thanks to the bees. Grinning against the tickle of wings and feelers on his nose, he jammed the sticky treasure into his jar.

  Lid secured, he jumped, branch to branch, back down, landing with a triumphant thud. The moment his feet hit the ground, the bees clinging to him took flight. Not one had stung him.

  Talon held up the jar. “Now there’s a birthday present!”

  Mom shook away her bemused expression. “I would give anything to know how you did that.”

  “I keep telling you—”

  “Yes, I know. You keep telling me you and the bees talk to each other. Talon, I live in the real world, where bees and humans only communicate with stings and smoke bombs.”

  “Maybe one day if you stop being an adult and start being a teenager, you’ll know.”

  “I believe him, Lynx. I can’t explain what I’ve seen any other way.” Uncle Tao took the honey from him and moved a few feet away to a patch of sunlight. He held up the jar. A slim beam of light caught the side of it, making the honey shine like molten gold. “Delicious.”

  Furious buzzing rent the air. Talon spun toward the hive—and blanched. A black cloud raced toward Uncle Tao. Talon yelled a warning.

  “Tao!” Mom threw herself right into the bees’ path.

  Uncle Tao tried to dodge her, but she anticipated his moves, shielding him with her willowy frame.

  Stings from that many bees would undoubtedly kill her. And the ones that didn’t get her would target Uncle Tao. Today, Talon might see the death of everyone he loved.

  He froze, his mind racing to solve the problem. The bees had clearly taken exception to Uncle Tao having the honey, so this was one time when humming probably wouldn’t work to calm them. He yelled, “Throw me the jar!”

  Thankfully, Uncle Tao kept his wits. The jar sailed through the air right into Talon’s hands. Humming softly despite his fear, Talon glided into the swarm. He held out the jar like a peace offering.

  The direction of the cloud changed.

  “Talon, no!” his mom’s panicked voice screamed through the buzzing as she scrambled to her feet.

  Uncle Tao grabbed her. “Trust him.”

  The feathers around Talon’s face fluttered from a thousand beating wings. Not a single bee stung him.

  Never before had he charmed that many bees. The power he had over them was both exhilarating and terrifying. But if it kept his family safe, he’d stand here humming all day.

  Both Mom and Uncle Tao stood paralyzed, looking on in shock. Slowly, they came to their senses and backed away.

  It was only once they had gone some distance into the trees that Talon quit his humming. Released from thrall, the bees returned to their hive.

  Talon scampered o
ff to find his family. As long as no one had been stung, it had all been worth it. He had a delicious jar of honey to enjoy for his birthday dinner.

  He grimaced. And the annual visit from his father to dread.

  Chapter 4

  Lukan sagged against the console. He didn’t need to see his scar to know it burned crimson. This time with jealousy.

  Lynx had risked her life for Tao.

  Lukan clenched his teeth. She would never have leaped in front of an angry swarm of bees for him, any more than she would have anticipated his actions the way she had Tao’s.

  And Nicholas? Stopping a hive in full flight? If he had that much control over wild bees, how much more power would he have over the people of Chenaya? The world?

  Whatever happened, Nicholas had to be incarcerated and burned.

  But would a woman who risked her life for a friend easily give up her son?

  Lukan’s logic gave him the answer: Not even Morass had enough strength to stop Lynx protecting Nicholas. In a fight, Lynx could be killed.

  Lukan could not risk that.

  Deep in thought, he drifted away from the console.

  The click of his boots on the stone floor echoed around the silent bunker as he left the lair. He brushed his thumb across a reader, and an air-locked door wheezed open. Incandescent bulbs mounted in the concrete ceiling blasted a stark-white passageway with light. Out of habit—soon crucial for survival—he closed the door behind him.

  Slowly, he walked down the passageway, stopping to stare blindly through open doorways. It didn’t matter; he didn’t need to see the rooms to know what they contained.

  Each room was tailored to offer refuge to ten people. Utilitarian metal beds covered with practical woolen blankets—nothing like what the high-born now enjoyed—stood in crisp rows in each room. It was the first of many shocks his high-born would endure as he catapulted them from the steam age into a life powered by ice crystal and electricity.

  A water faucet protruded from one wall in each room, and a set of glasses waited on a metal table for the occupants. Communal showers, toilets, and laundry facilities adjoined each room. For the next month, privacy would be a luxury his chosen few would merely dream of. Just one more sacrifice for his high-born to endure.

  Lukan ambled to the dining hall. Nothing like the magnificent great hall upstairs, this room was equally as austere as the sleeping cubicles. A month’s worth of meals would be served to his guests at metal trestle tables. The kitchen would be staffed with low-born handpicked by Lukan for their excellent service to him as emperor.

  Opposite the kitchens he had built an infirmary, stocked with the best equipment and medicines the world had to offer. Priestesses would embed ice crystals into all newborns to guarantee loyalty to Lukan, their leader and benefactor.

  He had chosen only the best physicians to work here, to ensure his fledgling Chenayan nation had the best care possible as they moved into a new world. But what did that matter if he failed to come up with a plan to extract Nicholas without harming Lynx? He snorted. Without that elusive solution, there would be no Burning, no need for this bunker, or the staff he had selected to manage it.

  He opened the air-locked door to his private chamber. In the center of his book-lined room stood his elegant sleigh bed, the black silk sheets ready for him and Lynx. None of his guests would have access to his quarters, partly because Lynx would share them with him, and everyone believed she and Tao had vanished to Kartania.

  After the Burning, Lukan would rectify that so he could live openly with her as his wife and with Tao as his brother.

  The huge mirror on the only wall not devoted to books and musical instruments caught his reflection.

  He grimaced. Lynx would have never risked her life to save him. But when Tao was in danger, she’d neglected all else to save him. Lukan wanted to punch the mirror, to crush it to pieces, but resisted the urge. No sense in hurting himself. It didn’t change the ugly truth.

  If Tao had died, Lynx would have fallen to pieces. But if I were to die, she’d dance on my grave.

  “Fallen to pieces.” He mused on the thought. Could Lynx suffer a shock so great it would render her incapable of fighting?

  There was only one thing, other than killing Nicholas, that he could think of that would create that much trauma.

  “If Tao had died.” He fiddled with the silver buttons on his waistcoat.

  The answer was obvious: Tao had to die.

  The very idea repelled him just like . . . the salt on the slug had repelled Nicholas. It was an idea so reprehensible that Lukan didn’t think he would ever live with himself if he commanded Morass to kill his brother. Yet, without a second Burning to rid the world of Nicholas, Lukan would never die an old man in his bed.

  He picked a fiddle up off the shelf and plucked at the strings. The only way Lynx would ever play this beautiful instrument for him was if she were here. While Nicholas lived—

  He dropped the fiddle back onto the shelf.

  No. While Tao lives, I will never have Lynx. He owns her in exactly the same way that Axel owns my ice crystal mines.

  And Tao had never been faithful. Not the way Lukan had been. So as much as he loved Tao, he loved Lynx more. There was only one thing to do.

  Moaning softly, he forced his body to move, his hands to pull his informa from his pocket, to pull up the screen, and then he whispered, “Morass, I give you a new order. Before removing Nicholas, axe my brother.”

  The informa blinked back at him. Morass acknowledging the message.

  Lukan flopped down onto his bed and sobbed. It had come to this: He had to sacrifice one of the two people he loved to save the other. But no matter how much pain racked him, no tears wet his cheeks.

  Finally, his trembling muscles stilled.

  He stood and faced his mirror. Almost serene, his dark eyes stared back at him. Automatically, he adjusted his coat, perfectly lining up the silver buttons and trim. No one seeing him would ever know he had broken down.

  “Thank the Dragon.”

  Quick hand swipes smoothed his crumpled sheets, wiping out that evidence, too.

  He straightened his back and glanced at his watch. Even if he rode hard, he would never reach the cottage at Lynx’s appointed time. She’d be annoyed.

  It didn’t matter.

  After tonight, his tardiness would be the last thing on Lynx’s mind.

  Chapter 5

  Felix scowled down at the spread of tiles on the map between him and Raklus. For the first time in over sixty years of playing the strategy game with his old friend in Felix’s apartment, in this very study, Raklus grabbed the emperor’s block, represented on the map by an exquisite rendition of the Avanov crown—a winged dragon with glittering eyes. As much as it irked Felix to lose, it was testament to Raklus’s friendship that the man still played tiles with him when Felix always won. But today, defeat stared Felix in the face.

  Raklus laughed. “Come now, old friend, do not be such a poor loser. It is not every day I beat you. More like once in a lifetime. You must have had something grave on your mind today.”

  Felix most certainly did have something grave on his mind. Two somethings, in fact.

  Any moment now, he would have to ask Raklus to leave their cozy nest of chairs so he and Morass could drive in a steam carriage to the forest to meet Lukan and the Light-Bearer. The vehicular route had been used so infrequently that it would take much of the afternoon and all of the evening to get there. Not that he would ever tell Raklus that.

  With a dry cough, Raklus doubled over. He sounded older and sicker than Felix did these days. Raklus wasn’t long for this world. Instead of eliciting sorrow, anger spurted through Felix.

  Few of us are, if that dolt Lukan has his way and destroys everything tomorrow.

  Felix believed in winning, and he believed in power. Accepting his role as ultimate controller and protector of the throne, he had grasped as much power as he could in the most powerful empire the world had ever known.
As part of that drive, he had never had a problem with tactical killings, even on a grand scale, but to wipe out almost all of humanity? It was insanity on a level Felix could barely comprehend. With just a few thousand people left—most of them sycophantic high-born, a handful of tagged low-born, and a regiment of brain-dead guardsmen—the entire human species was threatened. All it would take was one bad flu epidemic, and mankind could be eradicated. No ancient curse, no matter how vexing, was worth risking that calamity.

  Felix’s anger turned to despair.

  If that wasn’t reason enough for some introspection, today was the last he would share with Raklus and his loved ones—even Axel, the estranged one.

  Other than Katrina, none of the people Felix cared about would be saved. Almost Felix’s entire family would perish in the Burning.

  And what can I do about it?

  With all the power he had? Absolutely nothing. There was no way to stop it. Killing Lukan would not solve the problem. He controlled the only means of triggering that catastrophe. The power-hungry megalomaniac had inserted the ice crystal that triggered the Burning in his own side. In doing so, the moron had programmed the trigger to his own life force. If Lukan died, the whole world died with him.

  Lukan had offered beds in his bunker to him, Katrina, Malika, and Felix’s grandchildren, but not to Stefan, even though Stefan had served for sixteen years as Lukan’s Lord of the Conquest in Treven.

  It wasn’t that Felix hadn’t fought Lukan for Stefan. He had, but Lukan had been adamant. For being Axel’s friend, Stefan would pay with his life. Lukan could never forgive Stefan for allying himself with Axel in his youth.

  Just as well he doesn’t know that Stefan remains Axel’s closest ally.

  For months now, Felix had hinted to Stefan and Malika that something big was coming. He had begged Stefan to send Malika and the children to the palace for a visit. But without the liberty to tell them the full extent of the threat, Malika had refused to even consider a holiday without her husband.