Queen Of The Great Underworld

58

This time, she heard me. Or she saw me. I couldn’t be sure. But either way, she released her grip on the mainmast and abandoned the sinking galleon. With one heavy pump of her good wing, she leaped to the docks.

Wood cracked and crumbled beneath her, falling into the churning sea. Kyhan clawed toward me, her gaze locked with mine.

And behind me, screams began anew. Everyone thought the dragon was coming to eat them; they didn’t know Kyhan would never harm a human.

Well, not before all this. Now? I couldn’t be sure.

My heart pounded as the great Drakontos rex prowled forward, head low and wings arched. Her talons gouged into the docks, and bloodred fire burned deep in the back of her mouth, behind a hundred knifed teeth.

“Kyhan,” I said, as gently as I could. How many times had I actually met her? Ilina had far more contact with the big dragons than I, but Kyhan had seen me before. With Ilina. Multiple times.

I kept my hands lifted toward the great dragon. From here, I could see that her scales were duller than they’d been, and her eyes sunken inward. She was ill. Starved. Abused. If she’d been LaLa, I could have taken her in my arms and kissed her nose, but Kyhan was as big as my bedroom. She was a wild creature, not one who obeyed my commands.

And yet, as she reached me, Kyhan rested her chin on the docks at my feet, her golden eyes turned upward to me. Her wings pulled in, and the rest of her body lowered as well.

“Hello, my sweet.” Slowly, I began to kneel. Heat rose off her scales in waves, cooling as the shock and anger wore off. A soft groan worked through her throat. “Poor Kyhany,” I murmured.

“Now!” a man shouted.

Bowstrings twanged and a volley of arrows flew in from the north, dragging a heavy net behind them.

Latticed ropes crashed onto Kyhan, and at once, I realized my mistake. All of my focus had been on her, and none on my surroundings. While I’d been distracted—while I’d kept Kyhan distracted—police and soldiers and guards had staged themselves at a distance, just out of my peripheral vision.

“No!” The scream ripped from me, but I was too late.

So was Kyhan. She reared back, but the arrows plunged into the water, drawing the net tightly over her, and pinned her great wings to her sides. Flame curled from the back of her throat, but there wasn’t enough to save her. The fire died at the tip of her tongue.

And then, her golden eyes shifted back to me, and she surrendered. Breaking free of the ship had taken all her effort, and now she was resigned to captivity once more.

“Go,” I rasped, reaching for the net. “Try one more time.” But before I could even touch the net, everyone swarmed in: soldiers and police to Kyhan, Galadriel and Luminary Guards to me.

I was surrounded. The white-uniformed men took my hands and arms, drawing me away from the fray of everyone struggling to contain Kyhan. I thrashed, feeling as wild as the dragon, but it was no use. The Luminary Guards were bigger. Stronger. And there were ten of them. “Stay still!” one shouted.

“Let me go!” All I wanted was to get back to Kyhan, but I couldn’t even see her through the wall of bodies. “Let me go!” I jerked my arm free, only to find another’s hands clasped around it.

“Release her!” Galadriel shouted.

All ten Luminary Guards stepped away, and I started to run toward Kyhan again, but Galadriel stood in my way. It was over. Kyhan was lost to me.

I crumpled to the ground with a desperate sob.

“Oh, Mira.” Galadriel pressed her hands to her heart. “What a brave thing you did. Are you all right?”

Adrenaline rushed through my veins and my chest squeezed. I was not all right. But what could I do but nod? The movement was jerky, and I was certain that nothing I did right now looked natural.

Galadriel extended a hand to me, her smooth brown fingers in a delicate arc. “Let me help you up, dear.”

We were in full view of everyone who could bear to take their eyes off the dragon.

I counted the masked guards ringing us. Still ten. Twenty-five Shadow Spires in the city. Fifty people gathering nearby, gawking at us, and at the display on the docks behind us.

Innumerable cries from Kyhan.

“Mira.” Galadriel’s voice was firm. She still held her hand toward me.

Hating myself, I placed my work-callused hand in hers and allowed her to pull me into a brief hug. “Don’t do anything to jeopardize your freedom,” she murmured.

I gave a jolting nod, but couldn’t bring myself to give voice to assurances of my behavior. It was all I could do to keep my trembling at a minimum, and my tears caged inside me.

“Good.” Quickly, she smoothed my hair, straightened my dress, and pulled me around to survey the activity on the docks.

The burning galleon was half-drowned by now, and a terrible shrieking came from within. Not a shrieking of the ship, but something else. Something real. Something terrible.

I staggered forward, but a Luminary Guard held me back.

“Stay,” said Galadriel. “It’s too late for them.”

“For them,” I repeated, like a question, though it wasn’t one. I already knew what she meant, and it made my voice tight and high. “How many dragons?”

“There were three aboard the Whitesell. I suppose the other two are lost now.” Disappointment filled her tone—the kind of upset that came from a bad investment or a burned meal. Like the loss of two dragons was simply an inconvenience that she’d have to deal with later.

Seven gods. What if the other two were LaLa and pookie?

My knees gave out and I would have fallen to the ground again, but one of the Luminary Guards stepped forward to hold me up, and a spark of clarity hit. They weren’t LaLa and pookie. The voices were too big, too loud to belong to anything other than a large species.

It was a cold comfort. Two dragons were dead. One was captured and on the verge of death.

I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand her. She felt none of this devastation for lives lost, but it was the only thing I could feel. All I could hear were the shrieks of the dragons burning and drowning within the ship.

The Great Abandonment threatened a catastrophe of tremors and landslides. Why didn’t the ground open now and swallow everything?

Right before my eyes, the Whitesell was sinking into the sea. A brigade had already put out fires on the neighboring ships and on the docks, while police and guards coordinated to secure Kyhan and push back the growing crowd of onlookers. Because of course people wanted to gawk at her suffering.