Embers at Galdrilene (42 page)

She stepped closer and Neria kicked out, striking her hard in the ankle and knocked her down. Anger surged through Sadira’s veins. As she picked herself up, Neria desperately tried to break loose from her bonds.

Sadira seized her sister’s ankle and felt power surging through her body. Her sister’s eyes bulged. Neria thrashed, a high-pitched scream escaping past the gag. Sadira watched, mesmerized as dark, oily shadows flowed from her hands. They burrowed into Neria. Her skin boiled where they touched.

After some thought, Sadira figured out how to draw the shadows back. She studied their effect on her sister. The skin was blackened and blistered. Neria trembled, her body racked by sobs. Ignoring her sister, Sadira spent some time working with the shadows. She was particularly pleased to find she could set them and tie them off. If she moved too far away, they dissolved. But as long as she stayed close…

Reaching out again with the shadows, she carefully circled each of her sister’s wrists and each of her ankles. She cut the rope bonds with the knife. Sadira looked down at the weeping woman and smiled. “Now, dear Neria, you have a choice. You can hold really still while I practice on you with these shadows, or you can struggle. The bonds that now circle your wrists and ankles, will only sink into your skin if you struggle. When you stop struggling, they will retreat. Let us see how still you can be, shall we?”

Under the torture of the shadows, Neria hadn’t been able to stay still. Sadira drew it out for as long as she could, but just before dawn, her sister had died. Even now, a year later, Sadira entertained herself with the memory of her sister’s screams.

She’d spent the year practicing what happened by accident the night she murdered her sister. Now, she commanded the shadows as if they were an extension of her body.

Sadira allowed the shadows to flow from her hands and they coiled about her head and neck like oily black snakes. Soon, she would use them, her pets, against her father. She would bend him to her will and take her place as the rightful heir. Not just a woman to marry off with a large dowry, oh no, Sadira was beyond that now. She wanted right of succession. Markene would have a queen and the old king would die by her hand. The remaining half-siblings and their cow of a mother would grovel at her feet, begging for mercy that wouldn’t come.

Her heart raced as a thrill shot through her at the thought. They would pay. All of them would pay for relegating her to nothing more than an obscure baroness when she should have been princess. She called the shadows back and watched them disappear. Soon.

The door to her chambers swung open as Drisa walked into the room. Her long, narrow face was dominated by her broad nose. Her thin eyebrows were drawn down in a severe scowl over muddy brown eyes set too close together.

“Sadira, aren’t you ready yet?” Her shrill voice grated in Sadira’s ears. “Honestly, I don’t know why you even bother dressing up, it’s not like anyone is going to notice you. This is Kalila’s coming out ball. Goodness, even the servants at least have a reason for being there. You are just a useless waste of space at an engagement such as this.”

She brushed past Sadira and looked at herself in the mirror, preening and smoothing her dingy blond hair. “Why father didn’t make arrangements for you a long time ago, I’ll never understand. You are pretty enough, even if you haven’t any worth. Surely there is an up and coming squire somewhere in the nation that would have you, but then perhaps not. Even they dream of wealth and power...and well, you aren’t going to help anyone gain that.”

“What do you want, Drisa?”

She turned and looked at Sadira, the scowl returning to her face. “Mother says you had better hurry. She is not about to delay Kalila’s coming out on the account of you.”

Kalila poked her head into the room. “Drisa, stop. Sadira is our sister and should be treated as such. Leave her alone and come with me, mother needs you.”

Sadira glanced at Kalila. Rich golden hair framed a heart shaped face. Kalila smiled at her and she saw sincerity in her sister’s deep blue eyes. She glared back. How dare this girl-woman be nice to her. Jealousy stung like a wasp. Her beauty matched Sadira’s and she had the station to go with it. She could have any man she wanted.

Drisa snorted and rolled her eyes. “There is nothing wrong with the truth, Kalila.”

Sadira watched as her sister flounced from the room. Soon, very soon.

As she started to turn back to the mirror, another figure came through the doorway. This was no sister, or anyone else she knew. Cloaked in black, the figure flowed into the room like a shadow and came to a stop in front of her.

She regarded it carefully. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“I am Alden and I am here for you, magic user.”

Sadira drew herself up, how could anyone know about her abilities? She’d kept the secret close to her heart. A small thread of fear wormed its way through her body. If she was found out, unless she could get away, she would die. Even if she got away, becoming queen of Markene was out of the question. Whoever this Alden was, she would have to kill him.

Oily shadows rolled off her hands and coiled about the cloaked figure, seeking beneath the material for the skin below. But instead of sinking into skin and making it boil and rot from the inside out, instead of flowing into a mouth to muffle the screams that should have issued forth, the shadows simply melted away.

Who was this that her magic could not affect? A sheen of cold sweat broke out on her brow.

“You are not the only one, dear Sadira, who can use magic. You are nothing more than a fumbling infant to me, child. But you could be more,” Alden said.

“I will be more, I will be queen of Markene,” she said firmly, hoping the shock and fear of her shadows melting away didn’t show on her face.

“Queen of Markene?” Alden’s tone turned mocking as he flowed farther into the room. “Is that as high as you can reach, child? Can you think no further than the boundaries of your pathetic little nation? Come now, surely you can dream beyond the horizon you can see.”

Sadira hesitated, uncertain of this Alden’s intent. “What do you mean?”

The shadowed face seemed to smile. “If truly you want nothing more than to become queen of this place, then I will leave you to your wishes. But I can offer you much more than that. I can offer you the world and power such as you have never imagined.”

“What do I have to do?” she asked, wary of the offer and yet pulled by the temptation of it.

“Come with me, of your own free will, sister killer.”

She gasped. “How do you know about that?”

He moved closer to her “I know a great many things child, and I hold the key to longevity of life and ultimate power.”

“What power do you speak of?”

“Dragons! Black as the deepest night.”

Sadira shook her head in disgust. For a moment, she’d thought the offer was real. “There are no dragons anymore.”

“On the contrary, there is a black egg just waiting for the right person to lay a hand on it. Waiting for someone willing, and strong enough, to make the sacrifice to hatch it. Are you her? Can you imagine what you could do with a dragon at your command? Do you still wish to be ruler of this one silly nation or do you wish to have the world bowing at your feet and praying for your mercy?”

She eyed him sideways. “All I have to do is come with you?”

“Of your own free will, yes.” He extended a hand that was nothing more than bones with skin like gray parchment stretched over them. “Take my hand and I will show you power. I will lead the way to a greater destiny, one that dwarfs the powers of a mere queen.”

Had her magic driven her insane already? Was she imagining all of this? All at once, she didn’t care. She reached out and grasped the hand.

T
he world around Sadira stretched, pulling farther and farther until, like a spring pulled too far, it snapped. Darkness enveloped her. Only the crushing grip of the cold, bony hand on hers let her know she was still connected to the world in some way.

Then the darkness was gone and she stood in the middle of a vast desert. The rim of a wide, deep canyon lay at her feet. In the west, storm clouds boiled while a sullen sun sat heavy on the horizon. Molten red, it glared from beneath the black clouds like a baleful eye. In the east a full moon rose into a darkening sky, its face cast in pale red as it reflected the light of the sun.

Around the edge of the canyon, a sparse forest of towering black rocks rose up, their jagged tops like broken teeth against the fading red light. Shadows shrouded the canyon below. In the distance to the south, the canyon floor rose to meet the desert. To the north, it ended in a vertical wall and the open maw of an immense cavern. Above the cavern’s mouth, a mountain reared up out of the desert floor.

A hot wind blew the layered skirts of her dress around her legs. Sweat beaded on her forehead and dried immediately. She had been taken far from her home by a skeletal man who could use magic, yet she felt no fear. Perhaps she was already insane.

If she was, she didn’t care. She looked at the cloaked figure next to her. “Where have you brought me?”

“The Shadderack Desert. This is Kormai, home of the black dragons.”

“I thought they were all gone.”

“All but the eggs,” he said.

“How many eggs?” she asked.

Alden looked at her. “Eight.”

“So there are going to be others coming to hatch the other eggs.” She wasn’t sure she liked that.

“Yes, they are coming. Two are on their way now. The others will come when we find them.”

Sadira looked down into the canyon. “I’ll not be placed beneath anyone. I will have my rightful place.”

“Of course,” Alden said soothingly. “I expected nothing less. You will be first among the Shadow Riders, but do not expect any who come to be loyal subjects. They will be much like yourself, ready to feel power within their hands.”

Thunder rolled among the approaching clouds and the wind picked up speed, peppering them with sand. Sadira ignored it. “What are you?”

“I am a Benduiren. I am what is left of a Shadow Rider after their dragon is killed.”

“Is that the sacrifice you spoke of? The one I will have to be willing to make in order to hatch an egg? Will I end up looking like you?”

Alden shook his head. “No. The sacrifice is half your soul. The draclet in the egg has no soul. You must give it half of yours so it can hatch–so it can live. Not everyone is strong enough to survive hatching a black egg. If you are not, you will die. Only if you successfully hatch an egg and your dragon later dies will you endure my fate.”

The wind whipped her hair into her face. She pushed it back out of the way. “And why is that?”

“If your dragon dies, it takes half your soul with it to the world of the dead. You will remain half in this world while the other half of your soul goes to the world of the dead.” He held out a skeletal hand, his black cloak flapping in the wind. “This is what is left.”

“But only if the dragon dies?” She wanted to make sure she understood what might happen to her. She didn’t care what would happen to the dragon if she died.

Alden nodded. “Are you ready to descend? Are you ready to make the sacrifice? Are you ready to see if you are strong enough?”