Son of Khyber

CHAPTER TWENTY — FOUR

Fallen Lharvion 21, 999 YK

A chill gripped the air, and the stone felt cold against Thorn’s cheek. It took a moment for her to get her bearings. There was no pain. Whatever injuries she had suffered had been healed. But she was stretched out on the hard floor, and Steel wasn’t in her hand.

She opened her eyes And saw the skull. It towered over her. Each of the curved teeth lining its vicious maw was longer than her forearm. She could have crawled inside one of the vast eyesockets. Bone, teeth, and the curving horns atop the skull were all as black as basalt. Disoriented as she was, it took Thorn a moment to recognize it for what it was: the skull of a dragon. She stared at it, puzzled.

As consciousness returned, Thorn realized that she’d been moved. She wasn’t in the passage in Fallen. She was lying on the floor of a vast cavern. Or was it a cavern at all? Now she could see that it wasn’t stone beneath her. It was glass or crystal, dark purple in color. As if the entire chamber had been carved from a massive Khyber dragonshard. Even as this information clicked into place, she realized something else. She was naked.

A voice echoed through the room. Drego. “So this is where you keep them. It’s touching.”

Thorn’s first thought was to cover herself, but she pushed it from her mind. She’d been a soldier before she became a spy, and on the battlefield, privacy was a luxury. It was anger that drew her to her feet. “Where are you?” she snarled.

“Here.” Now the source of the sound was easier to track. He was standing just behind the enormous dragon skull. “Just admiring your collection.”

She stalked around the skull, armored in her fury. What she found was enough to break her angry resolve. Drego had his back to her. The wall before him was covered with niches, scores of alcoves of various sizes. Each alcove held a skull, and for a moment it seemed that the sightless sockets were all glaring at Thorn. The bones came from creatures of many races. The polished, slender skull of an elf sat alongside the remnants of a human skull that had been split apart by a blade. A narrow silver crown sat atop the shattered remains. Drego was examining what appeared to be the skull of a massive tiger, though there were certain elements of jaw and skull that seemed more human than bestial.

“He’s certainly seen better days,” Drego said, resting a hand on the skull of the great beast. He glanced back at Thorn and smiled. “You, on the other hand, look lovelier than ever.”

Thorn didn’t return the smile. “What is this place? And what have you done with my clothes, you twisted bastard?”

Drego laughed. “There’s no knots in my lineage, I assure you of that. As for your clothing, it’s just waiting for you to claim it.”

He pointed. Following his gesture, Thorn saw the gown standing just beyond the skull, supported in midair as if worn by an invisible woman. The red silk was the color of wet blood, set against panels of black so deep it seemed more like shadow than silk. Long gloves of red leather rose almost to the shoulder, seemingly filled by unseen flesh. She’d seen it before. In her dreams.

“This isn’t real,” she murmured.

“Perhaps,” Drego said. “Or perhaps this is the one thing that is real. Don’t you want to see how it fits?”

“No,” Thorn turned back to him. “Who are you, really? What is this place?”

“I may be the only friend you truly have,” Drego told her, running his fingers along the top of the tiger’s skull. “And this is a place you carry within.”

“If you’re such a great friend, give me answers instead of questions.”

Thorn knew that she couldn’t trust anything in this place, but the man was a perfect match to Drego-from the gleam in his eye to his mischievous grin. “Perhaps I could. But you aren’t asking the right questions.”

It’s a dream, she reminded herself. Punching him won’t solve anything.

“Oh?” she said. “What should I ask?”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I know the answer to that,” she said. “Nyrielle Tam. Thorn, of the King’s Dark Lanterns.”

“That’s two answers,” Drego said. “You began as one. You became the other. And how did that happen?”

It was a surreal conversation to be having, all the more so while surrounded by skulls. But if it was a dream, there was no reason to hide from it. “My father.”

“How so?”

Memories rolled through Thorn’s mind. The few images of her mother, before she’d returned to Aerenal. Her father, dressed in his red cloak and armor. And the man who came to tell her of father’s death. “He was a hero,” she said. “He loved Breland, and he died for it. Breland is part of us. And in the service to the king… I guess it just seemed like the only way to be close to him again.”

Drego brushed an imaginary tear from his cheek. “And so we know how Nyrielle became Thorn. But what brought you to this place? You’ve got all the pieces. You just need to put them together.”

“Well, my true and only friend, perhaps you’d like to get me started?”

He shrugged. “Why are you here with the Son of Khyber?”

“It’s my mission. To learn what he’s doing. To kill him, if need be.”

Thorn didn’t fully believe her own words, and it was no surprise that Drego didn’t either.

“Really?” he asked. “All of this is for Breland? No doubts about yourself? You’re not concerned about, oh, killing people with a touch?” He looked over his shoulder, studying the racks of skulls. “Good to know.”

“What do you know about that?”

Drego met her gaze, and his eyes gleamed like silver. “It’s not about me. It’s about what you know. But you don’t want to face it. You’re afraid that you have an aberrant dragonmark. That you belong with Daine. And maybe you do, mark or no.”

Thorn could feel her anger growing within her. The fire was burning in her blood, the heat she felt when the strength surged through her. But this wasn’t a swift burst. It was slowly building, threatening to burst through her skin. The air grew even colder. Or did it just feel that way because of her feverish heat?

“What do you know?” she asked.

Drego raised his palms. “I’m not your enemy. I can tell you this: you have no dragonmark, but you have been marked. Look around you. Tell me what you see.”

“A lot of skulls, and a Thrane asking for a bloody nose.”

“Not simply skulls,” Drego said. “Remains of the fallen. You remember Drulkalatar, don’t you?”

He ran his fingers along the enormous tiger’s skull, and now Thorn realized what the strange proportions reminded her of. The demon. Drulkalatar Atesh, the tiger-headed fiend she’d fought in Droaam.

“But he was… swallowed,” Thorn said. By a dragon.

“I imagine so,” Drego replied. “But look beyond the trappings and to the room itself. Where are we?”

A cave. She looked around, searching for anything unusual. The chamber was quite large, but now Thorn realized that there were no exits. They were sealed inside. Within walls of purple crystal. A giant “Khyber shard,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Drego said.

He reached back to scratch his neck, and that’s when Thorn realized that the pain was gone. The shard in the back of her neck was missing. The Khyber shard in the back of her neck.

“Yes,” Drego said, even though she hadn’t spoken. “Why do you think it hurts?”

Earlier, Thorn had thought that the skulls were glaring at her. Now she realized that they were. Every skull had shifted in its alcove, so the sockets were facing her. Drulkalatar’s eyes glowed with emerald flames, and she could feel his malevolent thoughts pressing against her mind. Now there were whispers, faint voices speaking just beyond the range of hearing.

“Prisoners yearning to be free,” Drego told her. “And quite a collection it is.”

The whispers were growing louder. She could hear pleas and promises, tormented cries and vows of vengeance. “But I didn’t kill all these people,” she said. “The shard was an accident.”

“Was it?” Drego said. And now his voice changed, becoming an echo of her own. “Come now, Thorn. What do you really know about what happened that night?”

“Who are you?” Thorn asked. The skulls were howling now, the chattering chorus hammering against her thoughts and threatening to drown out her words. “Who are you?”

“The answer lies below,” Drego said in Thorn’s voice. When he spoke again, it was with his words. “Are you hurt? Nyrielle?”

The words mingled with the cacophony around her, and the noise pulled at her, tugging her down. Dizzy and disoriented, she dropped to her knees. She couldn’t see Drego anymore, but his voice still sounded in her head.

“Thorn?”

She collapsed to the ground, giving in to the frenzy around her. As the darkness overtook her, Drego spoke a third name.

But the word was lost in the madness, and the world faded to black.

“Nyrielle? Are you hurt?”

Thorn was lying on the hard ground. She winced as consciousness returned. Her left arm was bruised but unbroken. It was the shard in her neck that caused her to gasp. It felt as if the shard were a burning dagger pressing into her spine. The words of the dream came back to her, and the memory of the screaming skulls. Prisoners yearning to be free.

“Thorn?” It was Drego, running a hand along her face. “Can you hear me?”

Thorn opened her eyes. The smell of burned flesh and hair were enough to tell her that she was back in Fallen. She was fully dressed, and she could see Steel next to her, still buried in the stranger’s corpse.

She looked at Drego. There was none of the smirking bravado she was used to. He seemed truly concerned. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just… passed out for a moment.”

“You’re sure you’re not hurt? You screamed, and I thought… your arm…”

“It’s nothing,” she said. She raised her left hand and flexed her fingers. “See?”

She rose to her feet. The three people she’d fought were sprawled out just as she remembered, along with a fourth feral man whose burns spoke of Drego’s handiwork. “What were these things?”

“Victims of the Keeper of Hopes,” Drego said. “Left with one single solitary hope: that if they spill enough blood in their master’s name, he will lift his hand from them. They feel no pain, sorrow, or remorse. It’s amazing what a man is capable of, when he’s fully committed to the cause. And killing was all that these poor souls had left to cling to.”

“So this is the touch of an angel.” Thorn pulled Steel free from the corpse. “Very well. I had my doubts before, but if you and Daine can destroy this thing, I’ll be at your side.”

“We’d better find the others,” Drego said. “This way.”

Thorn grabbed his arm before he moved away. “Drego.”

“Yes?”

“When I was unconscious… what did you do?”

Drego looked puzzled for a moment then rolled his eyes. “Please. You were only down for a few moments, and I’m not one to take advantage of a friend.”

So it was a dream. “We’re friends, then?”

“Was that ever in doubt?” Drego asked. He winked. “I may be the only friend you truly have.”

He sprinted down the hall before she could respond.