God of the Abyss (12 page)

Where do you think the dragons learned to shift
from? My family was the first to shift. We learned to do it because we were
powerful, not out of necessity like the rest of them. That is the reason we are
royalty to the others.

I heard the door open behind me and felt Dylan
approach. He put his hand on my shoulder and laid his chin on his hand. My
friend was a goofball when he was tired. “Morning, Rojan,” Dylan mumbled. He
always knew when it was me or Rojan.

“Uncanny. Good morning, Dylan. Are the boys still
sleeping?”

“Uh huh. Where is Emrys?”

“He has not woken yet,” Shiloh said. He paused and
frowned. “Wait, that is odd. Emrys is an early riser. I will go check on him.”
He went around the cabin, for we had decided the previous night to keep Emrys
and Samorde’s tents as far away from each other as possible. After a moment,
Shiloh returned. “We have a problem.”

Emrys was gone and his tent was torn violently, as if
by a predator. I tried to scent for anything, but Ghidorah had joined us and my
nose was stuffed up again. When he leaned past me to peer inside, I fell over
with the force of my sneezing. Every inhale made it worse and I couldn’t catch
my breath. He looked at me like I was nuts, but Dylan pulled me away from him.

“What are you doing? Why is he allergic to you?” my
friend demanded.

“I have no idea why he is reacting like that. I am
wearing nothing he should react to and never met someone allergic to me. Now,
if we can continue, you should look inside here. I would myself, but…” Ghidorah
said, trailing off. Obviously his size made it difficult for him to move around
without contaminating the scene and any evidence we would otherwise find.

Dylan looked inside the tent. “What am I looking
for?”

“Blood. I smell blood.”

Dylan entered, carefully watching where he stepped.
After flipping through the blankets for a few minutes, he sighed. “I can’t
find–” He was cut off as the blanket caught around his foot and he fell. “Oh,
shit.”

“What?” I asked, trying to see inside while keeping
as far away from Ghidorah as possible. Dylan lifted his hand, covered in blood.

“It was under his pillow. Oh, god, I need to wash
this off.” He got out and held his hand away from himself. Shiloh shrieked like
a girl and ducked behind Azyle, who rolled his eyes. Shiloh cowered further
away as Dylan approached him.

“Are you afraid of blood?”

“It is dirty.”

“All Vaigdans are afraid of blood,” Azyle clarified.

Edward handed Dylan a cloth from his bag and Shiloh
tossed a small bottle of oil at him. “Please wash with that, it kills the
germs.” Dylan did so with no fuss and threw the cloth in the trash by the
campfire. When Shiloh refused to take the bottle back, Dylan put it in his bag.

“Emrys was attacked. It appears to be an animal
attack, but I hardly think a Guardian could so easily be killed. Besides, if he
were dragged off by anything, there would be a smear of blood. So either he
walked away, he was wrapped up in something, or he was taken by magic.” We all
collaborated around the dead fire. “I’m going to search for his presence on
Duran. You guys need to hold still because of how powerful you are. It’s hard
to spot a particular fish in a fish pond,” Dylan said.

He closed his eyes to focus and I could feel his
energy pulsing out. Azyle and Shiloh shuddered, but Edward and I were used to
the feel of his magic. All of the Guardians were powerful, but Dylan had an
innocent, unassuming aura with a deeper, incredibly powerful force. If I didn’t
know him so well, I would have worried, since I could never feel just how
powerful he really was because he used nominal energy like the other Guardians.
Someone could confuse him with a docile Guardian or even just a wizard… until
his true power came out. Dylan was very peaceful until his family was
threatened, and then the worlds themselves were at his mercy.

After a few minutes, Dylan’s magic receded and he
opened his eyes. “He is nowhere on Duran, but something is calling me.
Someone
is calling me.”

“Could it be Vretial?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Someone in trouble. I’m going to
go check it out. Make sure the boys brush their teeth, because I’m pretty sure
they didn’t last night,” he said to Edward, before turning to me.

I knew by his expression that he was determined to go
alone. “Wait, you’re taking me with you,” I said.
“They don’t need me here.”

“I disagree that they don’t need you. I think when
push comes to shove, they will turn on each other.”

“Then why are you trying to get them together?”

“Because I think after they turn on each other,
they will get their heads on straight and pull together. I know you hate it,
but you were trained to manage people. These guys are so much older than you,
but not Rojan. They don’t need to be led, they need to be directed.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing. However, I didn’t plan
on you staying here now. I think you’re needed somewhere else.”

I sighed, knowing exactly what he was thinking. We
were getting stares from the others.
“Whatever my father is up to, I can
deal with it later. You can’t go after someone you don’t know without backup.”

“If I need help, I can flash back. It may already
be too late for your father. You said he was always getting himself into
trouble. You have protected him your entire life, no matter how much he
ridiculed you. Are you really going to leave him on his own now?”

“If your mother dated a man you knew would beat
her to death, after everything she did to you would you help her?”

“Yes,”
he said without hesitation.
“As
horrible as she was to me, that was just who she was. She’s my mother, and if
she needed me… I couldn’t refuse to help her just in spite. Besides, she wanted
to get rid of me, whereas your father does love you.”

I sighed again. “Can you flash me to him?” I asked
aloud.

“I could, but I have no idea what situation he may be
in. I don’t want to flash you in the middle of a battle. I could flash you to
the castle and you could ask someone there where he is. Hopefully he would be
on Mokii, or you would need a boat.”

“I can’t be gone for days. You might have trouble if
Guardians are being targeted.”

“I can flash to you. If you’re not back by the time I
am, I’ll find you. And say hello to the sycophant for me,” he said, referring
to my father’s adviser.

“What are you talking about?” Azyle asked.

“I’m going to find someone who needs help, and
Mordon’s going on holiday,” Dylan said. The bright flash was expected; Dylan
loved that kind of parting speech.

*          *          *

I appeared alone in the throne room of my father’s
castle, but people were not far away. In fact, Rojio was coming closer.

Sit on the throne,
Rojan commanded.

No way.

Rojio will try to lecture you about running away.
You need to bypass that and get him to do what he’s told. You need impact. Just
sit down, talk loud, and ask your questions as if they were orders.

I sat. The throne was designed for my father, but I
always thought it was too big for him. Due to my dragon blood and years of hard
work on Shomodii, I was a fair amount more built than the king, and the throne
fit me too well. Like a noose.

It was obsessively tall and lined with dark blue
satin. The wooden sides of the backrest was studded with sapphires and etched
with meticulous designs. There was nothing feminine about the throne, but it
was over-the-top in elegance.

The huge room itself was simpler. Sturdy wooden walls
accented with swords, crests, and an unpretentious tapestry made the room
appear masculine and substantial. Obviously the room was designed to draw
attention to the chair and the man in it.

Rojio burst into the room with an air of noble
significance. He had always appeared to be put-together and proper, while also
extremely busy and important. He honestly believed that the entire kingdom
would fall apart without him. In fact, he hadn’t even been my father’s adviser
for that long; he was only a stand in for his older brother who was always
leaving the castle on assignments. As it turned out, Sade was building an alliance
to stand against my father and Rojio was expendable.

Sade wanted to take over the kingdom in order to
squander the minor kingdoms under my father’s rule. He believed the entire land
should be ruled by a king, which it already was, but that the king should have
complete say in the laws and governing of the land. My father only wanted to
rule his private kingdom and allow the smaller kingdoms to exist as long as
they followed his rules and paid taxes to him. As he was truly the king of all
of Mokii, most people appreciated him for his relaxed reign.

Outside of Mokii, the king had the last word, but the
people voted upon the laws for him to inflict. I liked Mokii because people had
a choice to live the kind of life they could not anywhere else. If they disliked
it, they were free to leave, or even live outside a kingdom.

My father trusted Sade even when I told him I could
smell the consultant’s deceit, so I had to take it upon myself to spoil Sade’s
plans. Rojio took over as my father’s adviser without hesitation and made it
his goal in life to treat me like a spoiled, rebellious brat.

His long black hair was pulled back into a leather
strap with immaculate precision and I had never seen him with a hair out of
place. While no stress showed on his face, sweat soaked into his dark blue
tunic. Embroidered over his heart was the same crest I had been forced to wear
for many years; a gold draxuni. His pants were black, matching his leather,
carefully polished boots. A gold belt was strapped around his waist with a
sword. Although he always had the sword with him, I assumed it was a
decoration, for I had never seen him use it no matter what danger the king
encountered.

I considered the pompous, all-too familiar face and
hoped that he refused to tell me anything so that I could burn him down a few
notches. Predictably, he froze when he saw me.

“Mordon,” he said after staring for a few minutes.

By using my first name and not even a title, he was
treating me as a child. Until a person earned their family name, they were
considered to have none, so children were referred to by their first name. For
everyone else, everyone who had earned their name, only family and very close
friends referred to a person by their first name.

“You came home.”

“To an empty kingdom,” I said, my voice steady and
nonchalant. Of course it wasn’t empty, but I was purposely disregarding
everyone else. Even as my stomach churned, Rojan approved. I was saying the
words we were both raised to use. “Where is my father?”

“On vacation,” he said. I didn’t even have to sniff;
I recognized that waver in his voice. He was lying and he knew it was too dumb
to get past me.

I smirked. “I don’t care what brainless scheme he has
planned or what land he is trying to overthrow. I’m not here to stop him from
overtaxing people. Tell me where he is.” The man hesitated and I noticed he
aged a lot in the last five years. Perhaps keeping the king alive in my absence
was too much for the adviser.

“I will prepare your room and inform the cooks of
your return.” He turned his back to me and reached for the door. Before he
could touch the handle, I shot a ball of warm fire at it. My fire didn’t cause
any damage, but it certainly made a nice threat. He recoiled and turned to me.

“I am not done with you. I gave you an order, not an
option. Tell me where he is.”

“He wanted you to have a good life. He did what he
could to help you,” Rojio said, probably afraid that I was angry with my
father.

I wasn’t, though; I just wanted to get him behind me.
I do believe my father was doing what he thought was best for me when he tried
to suppress Rojan, but that didn’t make it okay.

I sighed. “You are trying my patience. I should eat
you and find him myself.” Rojan chuckled. Yes, it was usually him who
threatened to eat people, but it was rewarding to see the fear in someone’s
eyes when they knew I was part dragon and believed I could actually eat them
whole.

“Right after you left, we were attacked by Sujike-mor
and your father was injured. He recovered, but he was left conflicted. Some
dragons hounded the kingdom for months, demanding you be handed over to them,
for they refused to accept that you were gone. Finally, one day they gave up.
Over the years, Ishte-mor changed. He stopped making his kingdom better and
monopolizing power over Mokii.”

I had to roll that over in my mind. It wasn’t like my
father to act without self-gain. “What has he been doing for the last five
years?”

“He opened a school for the rich and poor to learn
side-by-side and study both academics and magic. He spent money to provide
better food and education to orphanages.” The man spit his words like they were
too outrages to speak.

“Investing in the future generation is nothing to
scoff at,” I scolded him. “I just can’t imagine that man doing anything kind.
You still haven’t told me where he is.”

“About a year ago, he decided to stop dragon hunters.
Most people believe the dragons are extinct or myth, but many who do believe in
them hunt them. He started with research and then sent spies to learn from and
thwart Sujike-mor. About five months ago, a dragon contacted him, saying that
she needed his help. She told him that dragons were being poisoned and hunted
by other dragons and she needed his help to stop them.”

“A dragon said she needed the help of a sago?” I
asked.

Trap,
Rojan said, stirring with agitation.