“To not lose their most powerful members.” Luke chimed in.
“Just so.” Queen Justine purred with a sober nod. “The Dragon clans suffered most, since we have the most powerful battle-magics. We lost many to nullification in those days – until my own power proved immune tonullax.”
“You’re immune?” Luke blinked, his eyebrows lifted in astonishment.
“I am, and so is my son.” Queen Justine nodded at Rhennic with a small smile. “But I had to wage my fight against the Chalice carefully in those days, to not lose my best fighters. The centuries-long battle I fought against them raised me into Queenship. And now we may have a chance to finish the job.”
“Do you know where the last members of the Chalice are hiding?” Adrian asked Queen Justine. “Where they’ve taken Layla’s friends? The Smoke Faunus informant we captured passed out from torture before she could tell us a location.”
“I do know where they are.” The Storm Queen spoke peaceably. “But getting to that excessively well-protected location requires two things I did not have until now – anullaxand a Royal Crystal Dragon.” She lifted a cunning eyebrow at Luke, then Dusk. “I was not entirely certain the Chalice were still alive, they have been so quiet these past centuries, but I knew they still had one fortress I had never breached. Now I know they hide there like rats in a sewer – and now we are able to come for them.”
“But why now?” Layla frowned, seeing a glaring problem in everything that had taken place. “If they’ve been so quiet these past centuries, just hiding, why strike now and risk themselves? If they know anything about me, they know I’ve Bound a Royal Crystal Dragon, and that Luke is my friend. They would know we have the right elements to breach their fortress.”
“Which is why it’s a trap.” King Huttr boomed, scowling. “They want you to come. If they simply wanted to damage you, they would have slaughtered your friends, not captured them and goaded you into coming. They want something else. And it is that unknown something that sets my hackles bristling.”
“Just so.” Queen Justine continued darkly as she sipped her coffee. “They want Layla and Luke inside their stronghold. Why? We cannot know until we get there.”
“But what other option do we have?” Layla asked, her heart twisting as her Dragon roared with a strangled sensation in her veins.
“None.” Queen Justine spoke, her gaze formidable but gentle as it settled upon Layla. Suddenly, she flicked her fingers at the servers. Rushing forward, they filled empty champagne flutes waiting near every plate. As Queen Justine took up her champagne, Layla blinked then followed suit, realizing they were about to have a breakfast toast.
“A toast.” The Storm Queen spoke with a subtle smile. “To Layla Price, the reason we are all here today. Who else but a Royal Dragon Bind could bring so many tremendous powers together under one roof?”
Layla paused with her champagne, a horrible roil of energy suddenly passing through her. It wasn’t the Storm Queen’s, but her own Dragon coiling inside her veins with a roar of pain and heartbreak – knowing the real reason they were all gathered here today. Luke’s magic, Adrian on the lam from the Crimson Circle, Dusk cracking with the pressure of too many stresses. And her human friends, abducted like pawns in a terrible chess game they didn’t have any answers to, it was all Layla’s fault. She felt that pit of blackness open deep inside her, felt it reaching out odious tendrils to try and strangle her Dragon as a tremor passed through her.
“Are you saying I only make friends with people who have power?” Layla spoke as she lowered her champagne.
“Or are powerful friends drawn to you?” The Storm Queen countered, her dark blue eyes flashing with astute awareness. “Beloved of the First of the Moroccan Desert Dragons, a man who rises like a shooting star from an ancient and formidable clan. Cherished by the First of the Egyptian Crystal Dragons, a man so powerful he must keep it a secret so he’s not a target to his King. A Royal Siren who would have been King, banished from his clan and become one of the world’s most prominent Courtiers. Friend to the Phoenix King before his demise, a battle-lord vanquished by none. Hunted by something dark, called only by the strongest of any century. Friend to a possiblenullax, even before your powers truly opened. And a Queen of Storms who feels your call, rioting through her aged body from afar. Yes, I feel your magic flooding me like a golden dawn, ever since we met. But I am not the Storm Dragon for you, child – though someone else of great power is.”
Queen Justine’s eyes filled with dark pleasure as everyone shifted around the table. She knew the avalanche she’d just rolled as everyone thought about the power they had as a group, called together by Layla’s Bind-magic. Raising her champagne, the Storm Queen had a demure sip, and everyone followed. As she lowered her flute, her deeply cunning gaze moved around the table with a pressure in Layla’s ears like a building thunderstorm.
But as the Storm Queen gave another secretive smile, her dark blue eyes flashing, Layla wondered who the real players were in this game of power – and if she’d just been deeply played.
CHAPTER 18 – PROVING
Standing at the edge of the packed dirt floor inside the enormous Roman coliseum, Layla gazed up at the wide winter sky, seeing storm clouds roil overhead. Waiting with Dusk, Adrian, Rikyava, and Rhennic, Layla fidgeted as she watched Luke move out to the center of the coliseum at Chambord, facing Queen Justine and King Huttr with his breath puffing in the chill air. No one knew how this magical proving was about to go, but as Layla saw the stubborn set of his strong shoulders and the flash of his fierce green eyes, she knew Luke wasn’t about to back down.
Whatever the two Dragon monarchs were about to throw at him, he was up for the challenge.
As if responding to the tension building in the coliseum, the winter sky heaved with dense grey clouds. The Storm Dragons at Chambord had been permitted to observe this testing of a potential new member, and in the rows of stone benches that moved up the steep tiers, Storm Dragons in human form settled into a watchful silence. At the higher open-air vaults, Storm Dragons in beast-form perched, flown in at the upper galleries to watch the proceedings. As Layla stood at the sidelines on the main floor, the entire thing suddenly made her think of gladiators facing off with lions and bears in the ring.
Except that for all his fitness, Luke was no gladiator – and Queen Justine and King Huttr were far more dangerous than lions and bears.
As Luke faced the two monarchs with nothing but his bare hands and his magic, Layla’s nerves cranked up to an eleven. A scorched bourbon-orange scent barreled off her, and standing beside her, Adrian took her hand with a reassuring presence. Rhennic glanced over at Layla with a thoughtful frown, but Dusk and Rikyava remained riveted, their attention fixed on the scene. Dusk looked pensive as he watched, but Rikyava kept crossing and re-crossing her arms over her chest, moving her fingers restlessly over the knives and guns in her rig as she scowled deeply at the proceedings.
Reaching out, Rhennic griped her shoulder. “Easy, cuz,” Layla heard him murmur in his elegant baritone. “Luke’s going to be fine.”
“I know, I know.” Rikyava bit back tersely. “I just wish there was a better way. He’s basically never fought with his magic yet, except for a few things I got to show him the other day down in the Guardhall.”
Layla’s eyebrows raised, having not known Rikyava was training Luke in fight-magic. Yet another secret he’d kept from her, but Layla blinked as she realized Rikyava had been withholding that information also. But Luke was his own person, and this was his magical maturation, Layla reminded herself as her attention returned to the show. Out in the center of the coliseum, Queen Justine was speaking to Luke and he was nodding, as if she were explaining how things would go.
It seemed they hadn’t started yet, just preamble, when suddenly Queen Justine set a hand to Luke’s shoulder. Luke stood firm one moment, but the next, Layla felt a blast of energy out in the middle of the ring. Luke was suddenly down on his knees with a short scream of pain. Layla felt her heart lurch, but beside her, Rikyava visibly trembled, setting her jaw with a small growl. As Luke twisted beneath the Storm Queen’s touch, King Huttr stepped forward. Setting a hand to Luke’s shoulder also, Layla saw a quick whirl of blood droplets surge through the air – and then King Huttr’s magic hit Luke like a sledgehammer, knocking Luke backwards like a bull, sprawling him onto his back in the dirt.
Beside Layla, Rikyava surged again, and Layla practically felt it when Rhennic clamped his hand down on the Guardswoman’s shoulder. Rikyava shrugged her cousin off and he let go, but even Dusk and Adrian had looked over now, Dusk blinking with a sudden awareness on his face as he watched Rikyava. Layla didn’t know what Dusk had understood. But as she watched Luke rise from the dirt, fury sparking in his hot green eyes at the treatment he’d just endured, wiping away blood from a cut on his lip, she suddenly felt Luke’s power.
It didn’t just surge out from him – it roared from him in a maelstrom. Layla’s eyes went wide as she felt it hit her, staggering her and Rikyava at the perimeter of the fight-ring, though not Adrian, Dusk, or Rhennic. As Layla watched, something enormous whirled from Luke, rushing through the amphitheater and causing dirt to lift into dust-devils all around him. Rage sparked in his eyes, making them flicker like Queen Justine’s as electricity sparked through the cold air. Far above, the clouds roiled into a deep dark thunderhead, where none had been before.
Beside Layla, Rhennic whistled low. “Fucker’s a Royal Storm Dragon. Well, I’ll be.”
