The Queen of Death

56

Kandler felt his heart stop.

Until that moment, he’d been able to hear his blood pounding through his veins. Despite the fact that he could not move, that Esprë had paralyzed him with her deadly powers, his heart had hammered away in his chest, faster than ever.

When he saw his daughter reach for the rope and begin the long climb back up to where the dragon queen rampaged, his heart halted in mid-beat. To have come all this way and fought so hard to save the girl, he couldn’t bear to watch her charge off to sacrifice herself on his behalf.

“No,” Kandler rasped, bringing his arms to his chest. The thrill he felt at being able to move again, even so weakly, paled at the pain he felt spreading across his tightening ribs. It felt like someone had sat on his sternum, meaning to crush the life from him.

The justicar wanted to say more, to call out to Esprë, to ask her—beg her—to stop, but he couldn’t suck enough air into his lungs to do more than whisper, “No.”

Esprë didn’t hear him. If she did, she didn’t look back.

He knew she couldn’t be that cold-blooded to him, not after all the years they’d lived together as father and daughter. He suspected that she feared she might lose her resolve if she turned around and saw him lying there on the floor, dying. If that was true, then his only hope right now was to get her to do just that.

“Esprë.” He tried to shout the words, but they came out as barely more than a whisper. He tried again, but with results no better.

Clutching his chest, he rolled over and spotted Burch. The effort took everything he had. When he tried to say the shifter’s name, nothing came out.

Burch lay there before him, curled in a ball, his eyes clenched shut. Frost tipped the shifter’s dark mane and furry arms, and he shivered as if someone had turned his insides to ice.

Kandler reached out and slapped Burch’s arm. The shifter’s yellow eyes popped open. They burned with determination.

Despite the cold that gripped him, Burch unfolded himself and rolled onto his back. Kandler saw the shifter’s eyes light up when he spotted Esprë climbing the rope.

“Esp-prë!” Burch growled.

Kandler fell back and stared up at the girl. His vision had been closing in on him since his heart had stopped, and now it seemed that he gazed up at her through a long dark tunnel. She was the only light at the end of it.

She’d gotten almost halfway to the upper floor by now, but she’d stopped climbing now. Her shoulders shook, and Kandler feared that she might lose her grip and come crashing down on the unforgiving stone. He tried to call out to her once more, but he couldn’t find the breath.

“Save them,” Esprë said, her voice raw. She did not look back down. “Don’t let them die.”

Then she started climbing upward again.

Greffykor nodded at the girl’s words. Then he chanted a few phrases in his native tongue. As he did, one of his claws began to glow.

The silver dragon reached out with a talon on that claw and tapped Kandler in the chest just as his world went dark. It felt like the tip of that talon might stab right through the justicar’s ribs. Instead, the glow flowed from the talon into Kandler’s form.

His heart started beating again. It felt weak at first, but within three beats it pounded as strong as ever. He opened his eyes and saw that Esprë had nearly made it to the upper floor.

He tried to leap to his feet, but his arms and legs would not work the way they needed to. He felt as powerless as a newborn child.

“Esprë!” he called out. The word felt strange on his tongue, but he tried it again. “Esprë!”

The girl did not stop.

Kandler flung his head to the side to see Greffykor leaning over Burch, his claw glowing once more. The dragon touched a silvery talon to the shifter’s shoulder, and the color that fled from his claw enveloped Burch’s form.

Where the glow touched, the frost covering the shifter melted away, leaving him soaked through. Soon, Burch stopped shivering, and his mouth twisted into a snarl.

“Don’t do it!” Burch shouted after the young elf.

Kandler’s stomach flipped when he saw the girl hesitate near the top of the rope. “Esprë!” he called. “Come back!”

Then he noticed the black glow spreading over the girl’s hands as she reached for the lip of the upper floor.

At first, Kandler couldn’t understand what she might be doing. Had she changed her mind about sacrificing herself to the dragon queen on behalf of the others? Would she try to kill the creature instead?

Then Te’oma’s white oval of a face appeared leering down over Esprë’s shoulder.

“No!” Kandler said.

He flipped over on to his belly and pushed himself to his knees. He spotted his fangblade on the floor in front of him and snatched it up in an unsteady fist.

The feel of the hilt in his hand gave Kandler hope. He was not a diplomat but a fighter. He solved problems not with his head but the edge of his sword. With a blade like this in his hands, anything could be possible.

The justicar didn’t think about how tired he was or how much the effort to get back up hurt or about the dragon standing next to him. He focused on Esprë and her alone. He had to get up there and stop her. He had to save her somehow, whether that meant finding a way to abscond with her on the airship or just killing every damn dragon that crossed his path.

Kandler staggered to his feet and looked up to see what had happed to Esprë. The silver dragon towered there before him like a moon blocking out part of the sky.

“Get out of my way,” Kandler said.

“I will not kill you,” Greffykor said, “but you will not interfere. The girl has made her decision—the right decision—and you cannot stop her.”

Kandler brought his sword over his head and slashed out at the dragon. Greffykor plucked back its claw but not fast enough. The fangblade hacked off one of the dragon’s talons, which clattered on the floor like a dropped dagger.

Unperturbed, the dragon stood up on its hind legs, stretched its wings, and buffeted the air with them. The resultant wind knocked Kandler from his feet. He managed to keep hold of his blade, but only by sheer determination.

The dragon slunk back down onto its haunches and regarded the two intruders. His silvery eyes shone like mirrors in the light cast by the glowing runes set into the various rings that hung about the cavernous chamber.

Defiant, Kandler struggled to his feet once more, this time using his sword as a crutch to help keep himself standing tall. Locking his legs into a warrior’s stance, he hefted the sword once more and prepared to charge. He meant to save Esprë now or die trying.

The justicar felt a taloned hand on his shoulder, and he spun about to find Burch standing behind him, a forlorn look on his face.

“Give it up, boss,” Burch said. “She’s gone.”

Kandler gasped at what he could only see as an act of betrayal by his best friend. He shrugged the shifter’s hand off his shoulder and brandished his sword between them.

“No,” he said. “No one’s going to stop me. Not even you.”

“What about her?” Burch asked, pointing upward.

Kandler craned his neck back and saw nothing. Esprë wasn’t there at the lip of the hole anymore, and neither was Te’oma. It took him a moment to spy what else was gone.

The rope.

“We’re stuck down here,” Burch said.

Kandler cast his gaze around the room, scanning the walls for some kind of opening—anything at all. There had to be another way to the upper floor: a set of stairs, a series of rungs carved into the tower’s wall, a flying platform—anything.

“Your cause is hopeless,” Greffykor said.

Maybe he could climb from one rotating ring to the next, Kandler thought. He sheathed his sword and leaped for the nearest one. He caught it halfway up its side, but as it took his weight it spun in midair—suspended in no way that the justicar could discern—so that he hung from its lowest possible point.

Kandler dropped back to the ground and bellowed in rage. “This can’t happen,” he said. “I won’t let it!”

“The choice is no longer yours,” Greffykor said. “Perhaps it never was.”

Kandler turned to Burch.

“Only one way out of here, boss,” the shifter said. “Besides dying, that is.”

Hope started to spark in Kandler’s heart, but the look his friend gave him snuffed it out. Burch pointed over Kandler’s shoulder at the dragon. “We got to hitch a ride.” Kandler scowled. He wondered for a moment if they could kill the dragon and then climb to the upper floor on the creature’s corpse. He knew it was nothing more than a desperate fantasy though.

“All right,” he said in a beaten voice, tinged with desperation. “What will it take for you to fly us up there?”

To Kandler’s surprise, the dragon did not laugh at the question.

“Put down your weapons,” Greffykor said, “and I will carry you up to where you wish to go.”

Kandler hefted the fangblade in his hand for a moment. Without the blade, he didn’t have a prayer of hurting the dragon queen, but the blade would do him no good down here.

He dumped the fangblade onto the floor. Burch’s crossbow and knife clattered there next to it.

“Very well,” Kandler said, feeling as naked as he ever had in his life. “Let’s go.”