Bad Times in Dragon City (15 page)

“The Imperial Pact has been in place for centuries and has served us well,” Chiara said as she and her husband descended the stairs. “We were there when it was forged, and we all approved it.” 

C
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WENTY
-F
IVE

“You have a very loose definition of the word ‘we,’” I said.

“You weren’t there,” Chiara said with a sneer as she and Nicoló hauled up short at the end of the stairs, keeping their distance from us. “You don’t know the horrors we faced. The dead of centuries had risen from their graves to battle against us, and all of the peoples of the land had been pushed back to the harbor in Watersmeet. The last overloaded boats had left, and those of us who remained behind had made our final preparations for our last stand when the Dragon made us his offer.” 

“You let him eat you,” I said. Belle goggled at me, but her horror grew as she realized her parents weren’t denying it. 

Chiara looked like she wanted to smack me, but instead she spoke. “He offered us sanctuary, a home here on his mountain where we could build a city that could keep us safe from the Ruler of the Dead. All he wanted in exchange was our loyalty and the bodies of our deceased.” 

“Without which he would fade away and die too,” Schaef said, his voice filled with awe. 

“It was an arrangement that worked to everyone’s benefit. What good were the dead to us? Had we not struck that deal, we would have joined them soon enough and become soldiers in the Ruler of the Dead’s army too.” 

Chiara spread her arms to take in the entirety of her home, her district, her city. “And just look what we’ve done with that. Look what we’ve built. We’ve created a beacon of hope in this sea of death, an oasis of life in this desert of doom. 

“How can this be wrong? I ask you that.
How can this be wrong?
” 

Belle stepped between us and her parents. “Where’s Fiera, mother? What have you done with her?” 

Chiara gave her daughter a condescending shake of her head. “Not a damn thing. I would have been happy to feed her remains to the Dragon, just as I hope mine will nourish him when my time comes.” 

“Don’t you mean ‘if’?” I asked. “It’s all very convenient for an immortal people to sign a pact that puts the rest of us in the Dragon’s stomach. How many elves have been sacrificed to the Emperor over the centuries? How many dwarves?” 

Johan shrugged. Dwarves lived could live for centuries too, but even they died eventually. 

“Now,” I said. “How many gnomes? How many halflings? How many goblins, orcs, and ogres?” I pointed at my chest. “How many humans?”

“You blame us for these long lives we must endure?” Nicoló finally opened his mouth and spoke. “Long after the color has drained out of our days, we still linger here, too entrenched to change, and too drained to even envision how we might.” 

I wasn’t having any of that. “I suspect it beats having the Dragon pick his teeth with your bones. You sold us out. You knew the rest of us wouldn’t remember what you’d done. As we died off, you built this damn city of yours on our corpses, and you had the Brichts help you bury it deep enough that you thought we’d never find out again.” 

“You think it’s so easy?” Chiara said. “That’s why the Imperial Pact holds us to such a high standard. If one of your kind’s corpses goes missing, who cares? But if an elf cadaver disappears, we pay the ultimate price.” 

“You mean your daughter does.” I glanced at Belle. “Why isn’t it one of you going in her place? She didn’t sign that disgusting deal.” 

Nicoló stepped forward, and I put my hand on the butt of my gun. He stopped though, his lip trembling. “I wanted it to be me,” he said. “I insisted upon it.” 

“Nicoló!” Chiara hissed at her husband, but he ignored her and pressed on.  

“It’s my fault, after all. I bought that trouble for my family, knowing full well what it meant. I should be the one to pay that horrible price.” 

Chiara grabbed her husband by the arm and spun him to face her. “You cannot. I won’t allow it!” 

“So we let them take Bellezza instead? I cannot live with that. I cannot endure!” 

“You have no choice in the matter. If we cannot produce Fiera — or a substitute — the Dragon will come for us himself, and then he may devour us all!” 

“And haven’t we had enough of life?” Nicoló said to his wife. “In the end, would that be so bad?” 

“Where’s Fiera?” I said before Chiara could answer. 

“She’s dead, you idiot,” Chiara said, her voice laced with menace. “You should know. You and that brat hanging around your shoulders killed her!” 

I’d gotten so used to having the dragonet around I’d almost forgotten I had him with me. I realized then what had kept Chiara and Nicoló in check. As fast and lethal as they were at this range, they could probably have killed me before I’d even had a chance for my shotgun to clear leather, but they weren’t ready or willing to take on the dragonet. 

I don’t know if that reluctance was rooted in a respect for the dragonet’s abilities or in what the Dragon would do to anyone who threatened his heir, but I was happy to take advantage of it. I let my hand drop from my holster. 

“She was about to kill us,” I said. “Me and Belle too. Should I have let that happen?” 

“She would never have hurt her sister,” Nicoló said, his tone dark and bitter. “But you would be no great loss to this world.” 

“What did you do with her body?” 

“Nothing!” Nicoló said. “Not a damn thing.” 

“Come on now,” I said to both him and Chiara. “At least one of you had something to do with it. A body doesn’t just get up and walk away.” 

“Ha!” Nicoló burst into an insane fit of laughter. Chiara reached out for him, troubled concern gleaming in her eyes, but he pushed her away, continuing to cackle like a madman until he was out of breath. 

As he recovered, he wiped the tears from his face and sneered at me. “That’s exactly what happened,” he said. “I watched the whole thing from the balcony. I sent Ford down to retrieve her corpse in the middle of the night. As he landed on that ledge near her, she climbed down out of the burnt branches and murdered him in the dark!” 

Belle covered her mouth in horror. “And you did nothing to stop it?” 

“Why would I?” He snorted. “My daughter had come back to me, and all it cost was one human life, right?” He shot me a hateful, scornful look. 

Belle turned to her mother. “Is this true?” 

A cold demeanor clamped down over Chiara as she confirmed her husband’s confession with a simple nod. “She took the flying carpet Ford had brought down there to gather her upon, and she left.” 

“Did she say anything?” 

Chiara looked away and swallowed. Belle grabbed her mother by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Did she say anything?” 

Chiara blinked back the tears brimming in her eyes. “She spoke to us in a voice that I hadn’t heard for hundreds of years.” 

“Whose voice was it?” Belle had to shake her mother again. “Whose?”

Nicoló answered for Chiara. “I’ll never forget that voice, no matter how many centuries I live. It belonged to the Ruler of the Dead.” 

Belle recoiled from her parents as if they’d burst into flames. She shook her head back and forth, saying, “No, no, no, no, no.” 

I reached up to calm the dragonet, who’d started to sink his claws into my shoulder as he grew agitated. “And what did she say?”

Nicoló looked at me with withered eyes brimming with despair. “She said, ‘This one is now mine. Soon I will come for the rest of you too.’” 

C
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WENTY
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IX

“Where is she?” I said to Chiara and Nicoló. “What’s left of Fiera, where is she?” 

“You leave her alone,” Nicoló said. “Isn’t it enough that you’ve sullied one of my daughters already?” 

I raised my hand to smack the jackass down. I’d had enough abuse from the “higher” races to fill me up for one of their lifetimes, much less mine. Under most other circumstances, he’d be fast enough to stop me — even with the dragonet on my shoulders — but Nicoló had been doing dragon essence for countless decades, and the drug had taken its toll. I figured I had a shot, and I meant to take it. 

Belle beat me to it.

She slapped her father so hard he fell over backward and landed sprawling on the floor. Whether that was from the blow or sheer surprise, I couldn’t tell. A livid red mark appeared on his cheek, and his own hand went to it, touching it as if it was something he couldn’t begin to understand. 

“Bellezza!” Chiara’s voice sounded like a gunshot. “How dare you?” 

Belle turned on her mother then, and Chiara flinched away from her. “How dare I? I cut this man out of my life for you, for your honor, for my family. The only man I’ve ever loved, and I’ve barely seen him in the past ten years, all because I couldn’t bear your disapproval one moment longer.

“And now! Now you tell me that you let Fiera’s body sit in that tree long enough for her to be possessed by the Ruler of the Dead, all because you couldn’t deal with what she’d done. And to top that off, you expect me to die for that mistake! 

“How dare
I
? I should have damn well dared a long time ago. When the Dragon comes to collect his meal, one of you will have to pay that debt. I will have no part of it!” 

The blood drained from Chiara’s face. “You cannot do that.” 

Belle stepped back from her mother and spat on the floor between them. “I am no longer a part of this family. I hereby renounce my name and my rights. I am a Sanguigno no more!” 

I glanced over at Johan, who’d been edging toward the exit as he watched the entire scene. I shot him a look to ask if Belle could do something like that. He gave me a wild and confused shrug that I took to mean “This unthinkable thing has never come up before.” 

The color returned to Chiara’s cheeks. The shock left her face, forced out by a cool and calculating glare. “When I said you cannot do that, daughter, I meant it.” 

“I no longer consider myself your daughter,” Belle said. “Deal with the consequences on your own.” 

“What you consider yourself has no bearing on the situation, my dear.” Chiara spoke to Belle as if she was addressing a slow-witted child, probably human as well. “The only thing that matters is what the Dragon thinks. He’ll see your declaration as a cheap ploy to try avoid the punishment your parents have assigned you to bear, and he will not be pleased.” 

“If the Dragon’s displeased, does that mean he chews harder when he eats you?” I asked. “It seems like you’re dead either way.” 

Nicoló pushed himself to his feet, still holding the cheek that Belle had slapped so hard. “You cannot deny your blood,” he said to Belle. “Only death could ever free you from us.” 

“That can be arranged,” she said, her words dripping with anger, frustration, and menace. 

I had no doubt that Belle could kill her parents. If she started in on the task, I’d probably leap to her side and lend her a hand. But that wasn’t going to get her what she wanted. 

“Belle?” I said in as soft a voice as I could manage. 

She snapped her head around to glare at me. I knew she wasn’t angry at me, as such, but her fury at her parents was bound to spill over on anyone else in her path. “What?” 

“It won’t help. You kill them, and that only leaves you. The Dragon will take you either way.” 

She stared at me like I’d stuck a knife straight into her and starting twisting it about for fun. She knew I was right, but she couldn’t stomach it. “Maybe I’ll take my chances,” she said. “Offering up two of the oldest elves in Dragon City might take the edge off his appetite.” 

“There’s only one way this works out well for us, Belle,” I said. “We have to find Fiera. Or what’s left of her anyway. We do that, and you’re free and clear. You can deal with your parents later.” 

She steamed at me, her face flushed red. She’d gotten herself worked up good. She’d finally told her parents exactly what she thought about them, and she wanted blood. I thought maybe she’d knock me flat for pointing out what a bad idea that was. 

Instead, she kissed me. Hungry and hard. 

I kissed her back in a way that meant to make up for an awful decade apart. It couldn’t hope to manage that here, though, and we had other matters that needed our attention for now. 

Our lips broke apart. She looked up at me with something like hope in her eyes. I smiled down at her, and her face split into a relieved grin. 

Nicoló made to grab me. “Get your hands off her, you filthy —!” 

He never got to finish the sentence. Belle spun about and belted him in the nose. He went down hard, bouncing his head off the floor. 

Chiara went to check on him and dabbed at the blood streamed from his face. He’d live, although he’d probably think twice about grabbing at me in his daughter’s presence again. 

“We should go,” Johan said. He’d already moved onto the balcony and was waving Schaef back in. 

“Bellezza Sanguigno!” Chiara launched herself to her feet. “You may not leave here. I forbid it!” 

“I was serious,” Belle said as she guided me toward the exit, keeping herself between me and her mother. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you ever again.” 

“Forever is a long time, young one.”

Belle stopped to glare at her mother one last time. “I won’t let the Dragon take me alive. I’ll fight him tooth and tail, and I’ll kill myself before he can take me. And when he comes here looking for someone to replace Fiera, I’ll leave it to you and Father to figure out which one of you leaves with him.” 

With that, she spun on her heel and left the last remnants of her family behind. 

I was just about to follow her when Nicoló called out my name. “Gibson!” 

I filled my fist with my gun and turned to face him as Chiara helped him to his feet. “You’re just a fling for her, you know. A fleeting dream on a warm night. She might love you for her entire life, and you her, but when she’s my age, she won’t even be able to remember your face.”