“I ran after Safani and killed him. I don’t know what he was trying to do. I trust you aren’t going to find fault with me for going into the Senate.”
“Well… as long as you didn’t touch anything… I suppose it won’t be a problem.”
There was the matter of the dead guards beyond the door behind him.
“If something is amiss, blame it on Safani.”
“… Fine.”
“What about the fire in the city?”
“Something went wrong with the Power generators, but they are working again. The fires are almost out, and there are fewer casualties than was first feared.”
“That’s good news.”
He walked down the steps. The stout man came up to Cain and reached for his arm.
“Still, you should come with us to the headquarters—”
He stopped. When Cain turned around, Septima had her hand on the stout man’s shoulder. Confused, the stout man looked from Septima to Cain and to Septima again before taking a step back.
Leaving the three behind him, Cain made his way down from the Senate hill. Wisps of black smoke hung above the city vista ahead, while white smoke rose from the chimneys of the houses around him.
Cain would commission a good tombstone for Fienna’s grave, as the Arlanders who had come to her funeral had asked. Ayana and the children who had surveilled Gladdis’s house also deserved more money for their troubles. He needed to find out exactly who Fienna had been helping all this time and continue her work. He needed a new job. He also had a feeling he’d be seeing the three agents again before long. There were busy days ahead.
A winter wind blew up the hill, but Cain found his heart warmer and lighter than ever. He hugged his coat tighter around himself and went on his way.
38ARIENNE
Arienne could not take her eyes off the slithering tongue of the dragon. She could feel Eldred’s Power in the violet haze over the dragon’s eight eyes. As much as her mind screamed at her to run, her legs refused.
This was a primal fear. She had beaten Eldred once; she was not afraid of him. But the fire-dragon of the mountain was a creature of legend, the guardian of Arland that went toe-to-toe against an Imperial gigatherion. There was nothing she could do.
The claws of the dragon swung toward her.
Arienne closed her eyes and waited for death.
But the dragon only left a deep scratch on the floor before her. Was he going to toy with her before killing her? But then, the dragon’s voice bellowed Eldred’s words. “This beast persists in its useless defiance.”
Arienne could feel two waves of Power colliding. The awakened dragon was battling Eldred inside itself. The dragon was morepowerful than Eldred, but the sorcerer had already created a room inside the dragon’s mind and settled in like a parasite. If half of what Eldred boasted about his sorcery was true, the room would be a veritable fortress. And Eldred, free of his constraints, would eat away at the dragon from within.
All Eldred needed to do was breathe fire once or strike her with the dragon’s claw and she would die, instantly. With all her might, she willed her feet to move.
“Where do you think you’re going? Do you really believe you will leave this cave alive?”
The door to the valley had melded back into the wall, and the key, Loran’s Wurmath, was wedged in the chains. She was trapped.
But there was one other place to hide. Eldred had left the portal open in the room of her mind; without a second thought, she jumped into it.
She had been to this room many times. But this was the first time her body physically entered her own mind. The room was in disarray from Lysandros’s attack. She ran to the window and crouched beneath it before carefully peeking out of it. The window showed not a pastoral scene of Arland but the interior of the cave.
“Hiding in one’s own mind…” The dragon, or Eldred, smacked its lips. “You truly are a rare talent. Only one other student of mine survived what you just did… But how long do you think your mind can withstand the contradiction? What do you think will happen if you linger there too long? Do you know what happens when a bag tries to go inside itself?”
With the portal closed, Eldred couldn’t enter this room. But Arienne still needed considerable courage in looking out the window.The dragon’s movements were awkward and slow. Eldred was still fighting the dragon from within.
Around her, Arienne felt a pressure like the one she had in Lysandros’s presence. The room was collapsing again. The doorframe creaked loudly as it leaned into an improbable angle. Eldred was doing the exact thing Lysandros had done. He was crushing her mind with the immense power he now had at his disposal.
If she didn’t do something now, everything was done for. She would die, and Loran and Arland would be pulverized by the Empire’s gigatherion. Eldred would roam the world in his dragon body. This room was her last bastion. But even that was falling apart.
