“It isn’t shock,” Oliver said through gritted teeth. “Fury. Rage. Hatred. One of those.”
Romanus tucked his chin and smiled in that smug way again. “It will take some time for you to come to terms with your new situation.”
“What situation is that? My imprisonment? Being forced to watch helplessly while your sons rape my cousins?”
“They’re not merely my sons. They’re your uncles,” Romanus corrected, sternness flashing in his eyes, flexing the muscles of his throat. But then he turned and said, “Come.”
Against his wishes, Oliver followed. They passed through the solarium and out onto the balcony, where Oliver was forced to squeeze his eyes shut against the light and grope blindly for the railing. He tipped his head down, and cracked his eyes open.
The gardens spilled down in grand terraced steps below. Three stories down, a flagstone patio waited, bearing ornate fountains on all four corners, and a sundial in its center, a wicked point that glittered in the sun. The fall, he reasoned with a sense of relief, would surely kill him. He would need to move quickly, though, if he was to avoid Romanus grabbing his robe and hauling him back up.
He tightened his hands on the stone rail, until the grit dug into his palms, scratching them. The muscles in his arms trembled. He was still so weak, it would be an effort to heave himself over the balustrade.
“Have you ever wondered,” Romanus said, tone conversational, “why you’ve been afflicted with a recurring fever your whole life?”
“No.” A gust of wind lifted into his face, pushing his snarled hair back. A few stray leaves scuttled across the patio below. “My father took me through the marshes when I was a child, and I contracted marsh fever. It’s not a mystery.”
“It isn’t marsh fever. It never has been.”
Oliver glanced over at him, finally, frowning. “The hell it isn’t.”
Romanus had grown even more smug. Excitement glittered in his gaze, and the sight of it set Oliver’s stomach to rolling. “If it’s marsh fever, how do you explain its disappearance when you bonded with your cold-drake?”
“The sapphire. Its magic…” But he’d been carrying it in his pocket all along, even once the fever had gripped him again, when it had become dull and lifeless.
Romanus shook his head. “The sapphire was a way to bind the drakes. It did nothing for you.”
“But—”
“For a time, your drake satisfied your body’s natural need.”
“Mywhat?” He felt his brows shoot up. His pulse accelerated, and his palms turned slick with dread where they gripped the rail.
“The fever isn’t something that’s afflicting you, Oliver. It’s something innate inside you trying to come out.”
“I don’t…no. No.” He shook his head and regretted the dizzy spell it produced. “No. You’re a liar. You’ve always been aliar. Who’s to say you even are my grandfather? This is all just some twisted…” Breathless, reeling, he closed his mouth and eyes.
When he opened them again, Romanus watched him with fondness. It was a startling and unpleasant expression on his cruel face.
“I know what you think,” he said, “what all of your so-called friends think. That I am conquering your lands out of base avarice. That I am power hungry, and want only to spread my reach across the map.
“But the truth is that the world should be ruled by the most powerful. My heirs shall inherit Seles, and their children will possess the old drake blood magic. And the most magical of all my progeny shall rule here, as king. His birthright.”
“I’m a bastard,” Oliver said, weakly, his voice a shivering thread of sound. He thought he might faint. “The only right I have is that which was given to me by Erik.”
Romanus sighed and tsked. “Oh, Oliver. Erik is nothing.Nothing. And I hope that, soon, you will understand that.” Then he gripped the rail and hiked one boot up onto it. Then the other. Then he stood on it, balanced on the centers of his feet, hair streaming like a white banner in the wind.
Oliver stumbled back a step. “What are you doing?”
Romanus glanced back over his shoulder, still smiling. “Showing you your inheritance.” He started unfastening his tunic.
“I don’t…look, I don’t need to see…”
But the latches came open, and then the belt. Romanus slipped his tunic down off his shoulders, and it slid down his arms and landed in a silken puddle on the balcony. Beneath, his skin was white and smooth as porcelain, his muscles sharp, distinct, carved from marble. And all down his back, an expansive tattoo that looked like dragon wings.
“Watch,” he said, faced forward, and jumped.
Oliver gasped. He didn’t care if the bastard plummeted to his death—he hoped he did, in fact—but he’d never expected for it to happen.
But the Immortal Emperor Unchallenged of Seles did not plummet to the flags below. Instead, he twisted in midair, and he seemed to stretch, his body flexing and elongating in a way that Oliver’s eyes refused to comprehend. It was as though his vision blurred and doubled, and slid away from the sudden, bursting flurry of impossible motion. A series of sharp cracks and pops filled the air. And then, amidst a blinding flash of light, aroar.
The wind intensified, regular bursts that stung Oliver’s cheeks. Where Romanus had leaped, there now hovered a massive purple and scarlet drake, four-legged, with six horns, and a spiked ball of a tail that whipped back and forth and severed a tangle of ivy growing up the wall.
His eyes were blue-white, glowing like gemstones. And when his jaws opened, and he roared again, he looked as though he was grinning, all his white dagger teeth on display.
Oliver was dimly aware of rushing footsteps behind him, and hands caught him and slowed his descent as he collapsed.
The last thing he saw, before unconsciousness claimed him, were those huge purple wings spreading and propelling the drake—the emperor—up into the radiant brightness of the sky.
THE END
