He'd believed dragons were nearly extinct. For the last five hundred years their numbers had dwindled down to none and now he gazed up into the face of one. And not the one he had betrayed and made an enemy of.
But the dragon didn’t seem to notice him at all actually. It just stared as if it didn’t have a single bloody thought in its head.
That’s when he caught sight of a rider atop. And the person mounted on the dragon’s back did so with such casualness, Vesper gaped.
Black leather covered them head to toe, and they donned a skeletal mask like the one the innkeeper had given him. Maybe the innkeeper had somehow been playing dumb and he knewexactlywho Vesper was. Also maybe, somehow, where he would end up.
He staggered back as the dragon’s massive taloned feet struck the cavern floor. Dust stirred in wild gusts that stung his eyes and nose and yet, he couldn’t pull himself away.
And then another rider emerged.
Then another and another until five dragons landed in this cavern and Vesper’s back now braced against the cold, hard wall, one hand fisted in his hair and his other braced on the stone behind him.
When his gaze found Kyrith’s, she grinned so fucking wide, as if she could see how close he was to soiling his pants.
As the first rider slid from their mount’s neck, their vestige, a shimmery gray like aluminum and silver and chrome, wavered. It reflected in the dragon’s eyes in that way Vesper’s did when he possessed a creature. Each of them dismounted and pressed their hand to the snout of their dragon. Then the hue of their vestige absorbed into their touch, like water soaking linen.
Siphoning. That’s what it was. They had reclaimed their magic.
The fleshmeltedoff the dragons’ bones to leave barren skeletons that clattered to the floor with an earth-shattering boom. It was a bloody miracle the ground didn’t crack and give way beneath them from the sheer magnitude.
Vesper froze. He gaped at the bundle of bones, now nothing more than decay and death. They’d brought the creatures back. Renewed their form. Created flesh and life.
Impossible. The word repeated in his head.
He’d only ever played with death. He’d never breached the boundaries, never even tested them, but this—
They were essentially gods. And he couldn’t help but sink into unending shame, as if his entire life he had lived a lie.
Kyrith walked up beside him. She nudged him with her elbow and said, “Don’t faint now. You have impressions to make.”
After the dust settled, his attention snapped back to the riders to find them striding toward him.
Vesper’s stomachdropped.
Their capes lifted in the remnants of wind and billowed behind them like some great, ancient beings. The fabric, composed of oddly woven white threads like a spider’s silk, caught the dappled sunlight. The vines wriggled back into place, likely to gatekeep the bloodlace. Were those enchanted too? Fuck, everything here was so bizarre.
The first rider, clearly a man by his tall stature and muscular build, yanked off his mask to reveal a tanned handsome face and greyed hair slightly darker than Vesper’s. The man studied Vesper, but not in the same way people often did. He didn’t hold judgement in his eyes or look at him like some freak with hideous powers or a fallen prince.
He studied Vesper as if he couldseehis magic. Feel it too.
The man’s gaze slid to Kyrith. “I didn’t know we had a visitor,” he said, his voice a slow, throaty bass.
“Thought I’d find the scoundrel who was asking my name all over town,” Kyrith said. She shot Vesper a condemning look. “He has some things to tell us, Thorrin. Interested?”
As he stood there, his knees wobbling like a newborn fawn, his mind raced back to Callias’s instruction. Specifically his insistence that Moranians valued formality. So, he pressed two fingers to hiscavae, swept out his leg, and ensured his toe was pointed as he bowed his head.
A deadly silence swallowed the cavern disturbed only by the rhythmic pitter-patter of dripping.
Drip.Drip.Drip. Vesper’s heart pounded with each one.
He waited.
And waited.
A melodic laugh like a song severed the silence. Kyrith gasped for air, as if she couldn’t contain the laughter that ripped through her as she doubled over.
And then all the riders joined. Uproariously. Unrestrained.