ELARA
ELARA’S PALMS WERE SLICK ASDIRECTORMIREYAWARWICK LEDher and Signey through the Mausoleum. The building was large enough to occupy half a small island off the coast of Beacon, surrounded by hemlock trees and windowless brick walls. Soldiers were everywhere, but there were no dragons; Irontooth was in Beacon with the commander, and even Zephyra had been unwilling to linger on the island after dropping them off. “This place reeks of sadness, of death,” she’d sent faintly.“It sickens me to think of Barret living here.”
Signey’s face was placid, but her emotions were so tumultuous that she was failing to keep them from leaking through the bond. It was killing her to be here, killing her to keep this from Jesper, killing her to see her father only to benefit the very people who had put him here. Elara tried to keep a dam between Signey and her own concern, because this was not about her. She was only here because being alone with the director was a prospect just as daunting for Signey as seeing her imprisoned father again.
Director Warwick stopped before an iron door with a closedpeephole. “Barret Soto is inside. I will be standing right here. What is your objective?”
“To find out how to communicate with the Gray Saint,” Signey said without inflection.
“And yours?” The director asked, turning her intense gaze on Elara.
“To contribute my knowledge of Iryan magic inasmuch as it relates back to the original objective,” she said carefully.
“Now that we’re here, I would like to make one thing clear,” the director said with eerie calm. “Your presence here is a last resort. The stakes are just high enough to justify your involvement, but I trust you even less than you trust me. If you don’t get the information I seek, you won’t graduate, Miss Soto, Miss Vincent. No one outside of this prison will ever see you alive again. Do I make myself clear?”
She summoned flame to her palm and held it under the doorknob as if she hadn’t just threatened two children. The added layer of security was something Elara had learned was common across Langley; fire locks were spelled to open only when the metal reached a specific temperature, and any deviation from that temperature alerted the person who had spelled it. She focused on the flame to distract from her racing heart, from how far they were from the mainland, from how hard it would be for Zephyra to come for them. She focused on the flame to ignore the pulse of fear she could feel from Signey through the bond; unlike Elara, her co-Rider had obviously never considered that the Mausoleum might be her grave.
Not like this, anyway.
Elara followed Signey inside, trying not to flinch when the doorslammed shut behind them. The cell was large but sparsely furnished. A single window was high up on the wall, with bars set too close to fit a finger through. A putrid chamber pot was in the front corner, as if Mausoleum prisoners didn’t even deserve the internal plumbing that many other buildings in Langley enjoyed. A bed with thin sheets and a single pillow was in the back, near a desk with a rickety chair. A man was slowly rising from that chair, haggard but smiling. Tears lined his eyes.
Barret Zayas Soto.
“Signey?” His voice was hoarse from disuse. He stepped forward, rail thin and blinking rapidly. “Signey, is that you?”
“Father,” she breathed, rushing into his arms.
Elara lingered by the door, allowing the Sotos to have their reunion. It was hard for her not to cry, too, even though she had never met Signey’s father. Five years. Signey had kept her head up while her father rotted away here for five years, and still, she had never lost her sense of justice. Even seeing him for the first time like this, she could tell that Jesper had his father’s chin, Signey his hair, Jesper his nose, and Signey his sharply intelligent gaze. Even with their executioner waiting on the other side of the door, it was heartwarming to witness the first steps of a family healing.
Barret caught sight of her over his daughter’s head and blinked. “Who is this?”
“Oh.Oh,” said Signey, drawing back just enough to gesture in Elara’s direction. “I found my Wingleader. This is Elara Vincent.”
“Vincent?” Barret’s brows furrowed.
“Her sister is the Childe Empyrean.”
Barret’s arms fell to his sides. He muttered something, pacing back toward his desk before returning to Signey. He ran his handthrough his thinning hair, then left it there, as if he’d forgotten what he was doing. The furrow between his brows deepened.
“‘But though his grave is nowhere to be found, all know the Gray Saint slumbers underground,’” he said. “‘When the earth splits open, and the fool outsmarts the wise, when all dragons have their Riders, then our champion will rise.’”
Now Signey looked confused. “Why are you quoting nursery rhymes?”
“It’s not a nursery rhyme,” Barret said grimly. “It’s a prophecy, and it’s about to come true.”
Elara stepped forward to join her baffled Firstrider, the two of them standing united against Signey’s father’s rambling. “I was the last Rider,” she said. “All the dragons have both now. But who’s the fool and who’s the wise? And when did the earth split open?”
Barret’s eyes flicked to the door, and he lowered his voice. “The Gray Saint told us all this years ago. He told us how to raise him. How to raise the First Dragon. He—”
“The Gray Saint is my ancestor.” Signey wrapped her arms around herself, as if this were yet another thing she wanted to protect herself from. “Gael Soto. Do you know about him, from your research into the family? Anything that you haven’t told the Warwicks?”
Barret blinked owlishly. He muttered something else. This time, when he walked back to his empty desk, he stayed there, his fingers splayed across the wood. “Years ago, the director’s son was sick. Very sick. He seemed marked for death, even after they moved him to Pearl Bay Palace. The sun and the island air, they hoped, would help. The war would be over with soon. Their son would be well.
“He was not well. And since they had exhausted all known Langlish methods, the commander turned to gods he did not believe in. He offered, four times, to end the war if your queen agreed to give him the Empyrean. He wanted her to use her divine magic to heal his son. When the queen refused, he burned the temple in the capital and held the High Santi captive. When the High Santi failed, the commander killed him and combined the santi’s remains with a dragon relic. Desperation makes monsters of us all. He was mad with it. But instead of the gods… someone else answered.”
“The Gray Saint,” Elara said.
“He’d been imprisoned. Slumbering,” Barret continued. “Something about the combination of two magics was enough to awaken him. But the Gray Saint was still imprisoned. The relic was like the narrow gap between two prison bars.” He pointed above him to demonstrate, though the window was several paces to his left. “He was no stronger than a toddler, hardly capable of affecting this world. He wanted his freedom. His power. In return, he promised to grant power. Control. Wealth beyond the pale.”
