Page 31 of Dragons' Future

The look the priest gives me is so full of venom that I take a step back. Cyril secures the egg in a nesting spot, then Cyril comes up beside me. He moves slowly and keeps his hands up where the priest can see them. Cyril has an intense look on his face, the kind he gets when he is thinking.

"Who are you exactly?" Cyril asks, his voice utterly reasonable and collected. Like he is having a normal conversation.

"You know who I am. The High Priest of Orion who you swore to obey. Or did you forget that part?” The priest barks a laugh, which makes his face contort. Beneath the constellation tattoos, his skin is as smooth as a child’s, though his eyes have an ancient malice lurking behind the too pale irises. A face that has no age to speak of.

"I remember." I don’t know how he is managing to stay so calm, when my heart is racing with panic. The priest can hurt the eggs. Is willing to hurt them. We could never stop him in time. Cyril drapes his hands behind his back and offers the priest a bloody half bow. "Things have changed a great deal since that day for us both. Have they not?”

The priest snorts, but doesn’t stop Cyril from talking.

“I imagine there is something you want from us?” Cyril continues. “And that something is not our immediate death.”

“You think I care for your life?” the priest scoffs. “Why? Because you are a precious dragon? Or maybe you think I give a rutting horse’s ass about royal blood?”

“And yet, there is something you want,” Cyril presses. “You have caught us unaware just now, High Priest. You could kill us, yet are choosing not to. You’ve even alluded to an antidote for my father. That must mean you imagine a mutually beneficial outcome that could still come to pass?”

Tavias! I shout in my mind, making the most of the time Cyril is buying us. If I ever needed to be able to control my power it’s now. Tavias, can you hear me? We need help. Tavias!

There is no answer. Not even that singular awareness that I felt when I was breaking the eggs free. My mind speech is as elusive as it's ever been, my magic buried deep and out of reach no matter how desperately I fight to reach it. Useless. I’m bloody useless.

“For centuries the priests of Orion have maintained a balance with the dragons,” Cyril continues. “Held us at bay with the Equinox Trials and a false narrative. That ruse has ended. The truth is out beyond the walls of the citadel, and it cannot be contained. You know that. That's why we are still alive. You want to negotiate an alliance.”

Tavias! I shout with all my strength. He has to hear me. We’ve no other option.

“Let us talk,” Cyril urges. “Who are you truly? What is it you want?”

The priest offers a mocking bow. "Emric, of course."

"Emric? Named after the dragon of the ancient legend of the citadel?”

“That is how your story goes, isn’t it? Do you know the tale?” Emric turns to me, hatred in his gaze. When I fail to move he recenters the crossbow on the largest of the eggs, the one that's shivering and turning all shades of reddish purple, and knocks back the trigger. “Talk, scalewench. What’s the tale you’ve been fed?”

Ettienne makes a pained sound. I think he is trying to sit up and failing.

I yank on the mating bond with all my power.

“Talk,” Emric orders me. “Now.”

I clear my throat. The fear rushing through me has dried my mouth, making it difficult to speak. “A long time ago, when the dragons’ fertility was just starting to wane, Dragon Prince Emric made a deal with the goddess Orion to grant his beloved Illiana a child. The goddess guided Emric to a special place where a rare flower needed to make a fertility elixir grew. Illiana drank the elixir and bore a pup. But in return, she became mortal and died, while Prince Emric was shackled to the sacred ground that grew the flower. He became the first priest of Orion.”

I look at Cyril, hoping I got all the parts right. I’m not sure what Emric will do if I don’t say what he expects to hear.

Emric chortles. “A beautiful and tragic tale you tell yourselves. Of course you leave out the most vital part. How Illiana’s children were never stillborn, but butchered by the dragons. She and Emric were always human. Slaves. As their children were slaves. Playthings for a dragon dame named Roshana. Roshana took a liking to Emric. When he would not leave his Illiana, she became angry. She killed Illiana’s babes for sport, tearing them apart before their mother’s eyes, tormenting them until Illiana was nothing but a husk. Lost to grief.

“Emric had to do something. So he indeed prayed to Orion. And she heard his prayer, blessing him to find an ancient text. Emric was smart. Very smart. Smarter than all the dragons and humans around him. Still, he spent a decade deciphering the magical runes and maps. He did it in secret, placating Roshana the whole time. Letting his body be used. But he was rewarded. The maps guided him to this place, where rare plants bloomed indeed. Shackle weed. Wyrmwood. Lullying lotus.

“Eventually Emric lured Roshana here alone. And it was here that he unleashed his power. He took Roshana’s eggs like she’d taken his children. But instead of destroying the babes, he made her build a womb of wyrmwood here, and bind it with ancient runes painted in her blood. That womb became the heart of Emric’s power, as Orion had intended.”

“You are that Emric,” I whisper, the horror of it finally sinking in.

“I knew that if I spoke slowly enough even you’d catch on. I am indeed that Emric. The one who started the Order of Orion. That part you’d all got right. Do you know what our motto is? Justice for the past, peace for the future. A future where humans have immortality and dragons are but an afterthought that can never hurt our children again.”

“That’s why you stay here, in the citadel. You can’t leave because your power source is here… And dragons come to you for slaughter,” I whisper.

“Efficient, is it not? There are so few of us.”

Cyril says nothing. Even he’s given up on diplomacy.

Bile rises up my throat. “How can you speak of protecting children? You siphon the power of unborn hatchlings to make yourself immortal.”

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