Dragonborn (The Jade Lee Romantic Fantasies, Book 1) (30 page)

"My lord?" she asked, as she set her feet on the floor, using the motion to draw her belly away from him.

"Were you looking at my mountain again?" His tone was strange, seemingly congenial, but there was an undercurrent of tension beneath, and she grew even more wary.

"I'm afraid I was looking at nothing more than darkness," she said.

"Yes, well, it won't be more than a day or two before you hatch." He smiled a kind of feral smile—both wild and civilized at the same time. But the emphasis was on wild, and so when he held out his hand for her to rise, she pretended exhaustion.

"Oh, my lord—"

"Do not seek to quarrel with me today, Natiya," he snapped. "I said, 'come.'"

He had not, in fact, said anything of the sort, but she knew better than to argue. So Natiya pushed to her feet, taking his hand when he still held it out before her face. Then, with a grip that could easily crush her hand if she struggled, he drew her out of her room, through the castle and then—eventually—into the courtyard.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

She didn't think he would answer, as he handed her up onto a large but docile horse, then mounted another himself. But, surprisingly he turned both their beasts—for they were tethered together—toward his mountain. "I thought you would like to see the inside of my garrison."

"I would, of course. But why?"

He flashed his pearly teeth at her. "Because I have something there which I think you would particularly enjoy seeing." And that was the end of their conversation as he kicked his mount into a fast trot.

His guards settled into pace around them. Natiya was not a skilled rider, and she needed all her concentration just to grip the hairy sides of her mount as the city streets flew by. She thought briefly of trying to escape, but discarded the thought. Even if she could safely jump from her beast to the ground, she would move too slowly through the crowded streets. The guards would be upon her in less than a beat.

Once again she found herself relaxing, enjoying the sights of the city on their too-fast, bouncy ride. She saw some rather impressive buildings, but mostly she noticed the people who scurried out of their way—a dirty, unkempt, resentful lot of peasants.

How odd that after only a few days in the castle, her sensibilities had changed so much. Not so long ago she had been one of the unwashed. It was only with the presence of the Emperor's lavish bathing pool that she had been able to cleanse away her daily grime. Except, of course, there was no daily grime now that all she ever did was memorize lists of possible traitors.

And as for those who gave her dark looks, she didn't blame them. They had to scramble out of the way of the Emperor's procession or be trampled. Indeed, the guards took little heed if their mounts kicked through food, wares or the occasional unwary urchin.

"Perhaps, my lord, we should slow our pace," she suggested, "to allow your people time to move their things."

He glanced at her, clearly annoyed. "You shall not escape, Natiya, no matter how slow we go."

She wanted to argue that she had not intended to escape, although that would be a lie. And she knew that any protest on behalf of the peasants would be brushed off as a mere excuse. So she held her tongue, reminding herself that Pentold would visit in the morning with a plan for her escape. There was little she could do until then.

They made it to the mountain in a surprisingly short time, especially since they could not take a direct route but had to accommodate the clogged city streets. Indeed, the base of Racho's mountain was a good deal closer than she expected and a great deal wider. Which meant Racho's man-made mountain was huge.

"Does the mountain accommodate all your troops?" she asked, simultaneously awed and horrified by the thought.

He simply shook his head, and she was left to wonder if that meant the mountain housed things beyond his garrisons or if his army was indeed larger than she had at first thought. Larger than anyone could possibly guess.

Now that they marched through a huge practice ground, they could move faster. Except, ever contrary, the Emperor slowed them down. He smiled at his soldiers, beaming with pride as his procession meandered through men practicing with sword, crossbow, arrow, even strange balls caught in a hand net.

"They are quite skilled," she said truthfully. Indeed, she very much feared that this army could take down a Queen dragon if it had such a mind.

"We will go inside here," was his only response as he dismounted. Then his soldiers stood back, blocking the way as the Emperor assisted her off her mount. It was disconcerting how much he touched her, never letting anyone close. At first she had thought it kind, was even flattered at his attention and grateful that she was not mauled by any of his ham-fisted guards. But she was rapidly understanding how suffocating the Emperor's attention could be. So she shook him off, following his guard into a doorway built into the side of the mountain.

The first rooms were regular, the stone and wood clearly sectioned just as in any building. She found soldiers of all types here, gradually growing older and seemingly more dour as she moved deeper and deeper within the fortress.

As the stones grew rougher, however, the walls less finished, she began to feel a change in the air. It was not as stifling as she expected, but the weight of it pressed at her from all sides. She found it harder to walk, harder still to breathe. And worse yet, she began to tingle. From head to toe, but centering mostly around the egg, she felt her body spark alive even as she felt compressed by the air and stone. She wanted desperately to take a deep breath of salty sea air, but the ocean was far, far away.

At last they came to a door made of heaviest stone, wrapped in loga metal by the looks of it. Without even a word from the Emperor, the guards melted away, taking up posts back down the hallway while Dag Racho gestured her inside.

"What is this place?" she asked softly, hating the tremble she heard in her voice.

"Prison," he answered with a smile. Then he pulled open the door, allowing a foul odor to escape but nothing else. Not even light came from the darkened maw. Then he pushed her inside.

She spun around, terrified that he meant to lock her in there, but he remained in the doorway, casually lighting a lantern and then grabbing a set of keys before he let the door swing shut with a ponderous thud.

"Why have you brought me here?" she asked. She hadn't wanted to. Indeed, she knew she was giving away her nervousness just by asking the question. But the air was so close, the dark so thick, she couldn't help it. She was more than nervous here; she was terrified. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Except, of course, close her eyes and pray Pentold found her a way to escape very, very soon.

"Come along, Natiya." Rashad's voice echoed eerily in the gloom. Add to that the way the shadows writhed from his flickering lantern, and she was hard put not to scream. But she held in her fear, and soon found herself waddling beside him as they moved deeper into the mountain.

She had no choice but to look around her. Her slippers were thin, and so she felt every pebble she stepped upon, every skittering creature that brushed against her foot, every slimy puddle that seeped its way through the fabric to coat her toes. She had to look down to avoid the debris on the floor, but once focused downward she saw also the bars at either side of the path. And once she noticed the bars, she couldn't help but look at the creatures beyond—poor, pitiful wrecks that had once been people. Once, but not now. Men, women, even children, all destroyed in mind or body by the weight of their own filth and the darkness that surrounded them. As the lantern light neared each cell, they crawled to the back corners and crouched in the deepest recesses like spiders.

"What were their crimes?" Natiya whispered. She knew the answer even before he spoke. There was only one crime in Ragona.

"Treason," he said. Then he stopped, raising the light higher to shine on a woman and her slumbering child. That any child could sleep in such a place appalled her. That the mother slept too made her think that perhaps they were both dead, and better off that way.

Then, from her side, she heard the Emperor sigh. "This is an evil place, Natiya, but every land must have one. Evil must be punished."

"And is their only crime that they plotted against you? No murderers? Thieves? Prostitutes?"

He smiled. "They did nothing but threaten my plans, Natiya."

She swallowed, seeing the gleam of madness in his eyes. He was actually pleased to show her this abuse of power. He wanted to impress upon her that he could do whatever he willed to anyone in Ragona.

"How long, my lord? How long have these souls been in here?"

He looked at her and frowned, clearly unsure of the answer. In the end, he simply shrugged. "It varies."

"The longest?"

His answer was casual as he began to continue down the hallway. "Many cycles, I should think." Then he turned to her. "But the shortest is no more than an hour. Would you like to meet him? We could discuss his crime."

She felt a shiver of fear not at his tone, but at Dag Racho's flippant attitude. He could be talking about his breakfast for all that he seemed to care, and so she slowed her steps, turning to challenge him, to see perhaps if there was something decent still inside him. Something she could reach.

"If I discuss his crime with you, will it make a difference in his punishment?"

He grinned, as if he had been waiting for just this question. "Why, of course, my dear, of course. But first you must meet him."

He led her deeper into the mountain. In truth, she tried not to look at the wretches around her, but she could not stop herself. Nor could she stop the thought that if she lost her struggle against Dag Racho, at least she would die cleanly in battle. This endless incarceration in darkness would be infinitely worse, and her heart bled for the beings around her. It didn't matter to her what crimes they had committed. Surely a day here would be enough punishment for even the most heinous of sins. Thank Amia that in the morning—

Pentold. In a cell halfway down the line. His face was swollen, his clothing torn and bloody. His greater injuries took a moment longer for her to recognize. Though he tried to hide it, she could tell that one of his arms was broken, and his breath came in wheezing gasps, likely from multiple cracked ribs. Clearly he had not been taken willingly. And just as clearly, his captors had not yet broken his spirit, for unlike the other inhabitants, he faced the light openly, sneering at both Natiya and Dag Racho.

"He was caught bribing one of my guards. I believe he was trying to arrange for your escape." The Emperor sighed as he hung the lantern from a nearby peg. "Pity, really, for I understand he was quite a great poet." He turned to her. "Well, my dear, what shall we do?"

A flurry of responses flashed through her mind. The egg, naturally, was no help at all. It had never experienced anything like this and had no suggestions; Natiya would have to find her own answers. Still, she had done her fair share of bargaining in her past, and so she stepped forward, simultaneously coming closer to Pentold's cage and further away from Dag Racho. "You must release him, of course."

The Emperor laughed long and hard at that, the sound growing instead of deadening against the stone walls. Perhaps it was the metal that made up the bars, but his humor echoed back to her a hundred, then a thousandfold. When it finally faded, his jeers continued to sound in her mind such that she struggled not to clap her hands over her ears.

"Not him, my dear," he finally said, when he could catch his breath. "You. What shall we do with you for trying to escape?"

It took a moment for his words to make sense, but when they did she felt horror slip into her thoughts as easily as the slime had penetrated her slippers. "Me?" she said, trying hard to sound as casual as he. "But—"

"Pray do not be tedious and deny it. Of course you have been trying to escape. I would expect nothing less."

She bit her lip, looking about her, seeing the dark, hearing the moans mixed with insane laughter. She smelled the filth and even tasted the horror in the air. She experienced the prison as an animal would—as her dragon would—with all her senses, searching for a weakness, looking for a point of vulnerability.

And in all that place, she found only one opening—from Dag Racho himself. She smelled pride on him. Pride not in what he had accomplished—his capture of all these wretched people—but in her. For attempting to escape, for converting Pentold to her cause, for daring to challenge him. After all, what challenges remained for a man who had already conquered all that he could see?

She straightened. Well, if challenge was what he wanted, she would be sure to give it to him. She had been too long waiting on someone else, hoping for something else. It was time for her to take control.

"Release him, Rashad." She saw the Emperor's eyes narrow at the use of his true name, but she continued as if unaware of his irritation. "Pentold's only crime is that he loves me. And if you are to incarcerate every soul who loves the Queen, then even this mountain will not be able to hold all your prisoners."

"And why should I release your lover to you?" His words echoed in a kind of hiss that she found disconcerting.

"I said he loved me. I did not say I returned the favor." She sighed as she turned to Pentold, her expression gentle. "You are a fool, my old friend, to risk so much on a woman who cannot give you what you want."