Page 83 of Caress of Fire
But could she? Her heart broke in anguish if she so much as entertained the idea of Fedryc not coming back. She didn’t know anything. She only knew pain, despair and anger. The last one was a lifeline to her sanity, and she held on to it with an iron grip.
“Look at me.” Silva’s voice came from the top of the stairs. Marielle didn’t need to look up to know the Draekon girl was sitting on the throne. Fedryc’s throne. “I want you to look up at me, worm, and see what the pure of blood should look like. Look at the glory of your Goddess made flesh.”
When Marielle kept looking stubbornly down, a Knat-Kanassis soldier stepped close, grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back roughly. Marielle looked up, knowing it would do no good to maintain her stubborn streak. Silva could easily decide she was not worth the trouble and kill her there and then.
Marielle stared at the slim figure of Silva, sitting in Fedryc’s throne, the very image of satisfaction on her face. Behind her, the golden dragon lay, fast asleep. Just another display of how little Silva thought Marielle a threat.
“You are fooling yourself if you think you can scare me.” Marielle bit out each word. “Fedryc will come back, and then he will give you exactly what you deserve. You and your mother.”
“Ha, yes!” Silva laughed shortly, but her eyes shot daggers as she got to her feet, then climbed down the stairs slowly, each step measured for maximum effect. “My dear cousin. He’s dead, you know that, right? Not even you can believe a Draekon rejected by his dragon can win in a battle against Lord Anion and Chazal. There is no hope for you. There never was.”
“Then why don’t you just kill me already?” Marielle was surprised at the bite of her own words but she was too far gone to care. Silva was right. So she had nothing to lose. “I’ll tell you why. Because with all that power you think you have, you know deep down that you’re just a scared little girl. A scared little girl with a tiny dragon who will never be half as powerful as Nyra.”
The slap almost made Marielle’s head snap to the side but she couldn’t move, as the guard still held her by her hair.
“Abomination!” Silva shouted, her eyes wide and crazed, insanity rising to the surface like a disease. “I am only keeping you alive until Lord Anion comes here as the new Lord of Aalstad and takes power. Then you will know the heat of a dragon’s purifying flame. Everyone in Aalstad will know.”
Marielle gasped as she understood what Silva had in store for her. She wanted Chazal to burn her publicly to show all those left in Aalstad what would happen to those who defied the Knat-Kanassis.
Just as she was about to spew another round of insults at Silva, Marielle was silenced by the door to the throne room opening to reveal the tall figure of Isobel Haal, flanked by two Knat-Kanassis guards. Closely following was Hydrad, her emerald dragon. Marielle watched in silence as Isobel walked up to the throne steps, her eyes set unflinchingly on her daughter. The blood red gown she wore was torn and stained from her stay in the dungeon, and her face was lined with soot, her hair dirty and out of place. Isobel’s eyes went from Silva to Marielle.
Her expression was one of terrified disbelief as she stared at Marielle, down on her knees, held by the hair by a Knat-Kanassis guard.
“Silva!” Isobel stopped short of touching her daughter as a soldier stood between them, a foreboding expression on his face. “My darling, what have you done?”
Silva stared at her mother and a brief warmth showed on her features, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. Behind Isobel, Hydrad hissed with fury at the guard who threatened Isobel, but the man didn’t even glance at the beast.
“I have done what you were too afraid to do.” Silva spoke to her mother with a mixture of warmth and contempt. “I took what was ours. What was always supposed to be ours.”
“You killed Aymond.” Isobel bent over slightly, like she’d received a blow to the stomach. Her face contorted in disbelief and pain as she looked up at her daughter. “Why would you do such a thing? He loved you.”
“Love?” Silva frowned, her expression returning to one of detached iciness. “Love is a fable those of low rank hold onto to give their miserable lives a sense they don’t have. Aymond was weak, he was a traitor to his blood and he deserved to die.”
Isobel took this in, swaying softly like she wasn’t a grown, powerful Draekon woman but a blade of grass bending in the wind. “So many lives,” Isobel whispered. “The innocent people in the border town, all those children. It was you, too?”
“They deserved it, Mother.” Silva nodded in response and if she saw the tears blooming in Isobel’s eyes at her words, she didn’t show it. “I have restored the sacred dominion of the Draekons over all other creatures.”
“This isn’t you. Who did this to you?” Isobel’s question was a desperate plea and her voice broke with tears. “It was this Lord Anion, he’s the one who put you up to this.”
“Don’t you remember?” Silva smiled and it lifted her face with true evil, transforming her harmonious features into a mask of madness. “You’re the one who told me the old stories. How your great-grandfather fought for the Knat-Kanassis in the Civil Chasm, how he hid his allegiance pledge in the old desk but you never found it. Well, I did. I found it, and what I read inside told me everything I always knew.”
Silva reached into the folds of her gown and withdrew an ancient scroll, its paper faded and brown, but with ink still visible on its surface.
“All we needed to know was in there.” Silva showed it triumphantly to her mother, who now sobbed quietly. “Our low fertility and our small dragons aren’t a result of some recessive genetic defect. It’s a curse. We of pure blood have been cursed for allowing the abominations to mix our blood with theirs. All we need to do to regain our power is to cleanse the world of their disease, and our dragons will be restored. We will rule this Earth together, Mother. And then, we will purify Dagmar.”
“Sordied sangui.” The Knat-Kanassis soldiers in the room all raised their closed fists, shouting in unison. “Mors abomina.”
Isobel stared at her daughter, wide-eyed and wordless. The Draekon woman swallowed, hard, then looked down at Marielle with such sadness, such regret.
“Please, daughter.” Isobel approached, but was again prevented from reaching Silva by a soldier whose eyes were as feverish as they were cold. “Don’t do this. Marielle is with child. A child of our family.”
Marielle stared at Isobel, surprised to see the plea in her face, the loyalty she’d never expected. Silva cried out in disgust at her mother’s words.
“She’s a cow. She got pregnant faster than I thought.” Disgust and jealousy made Silva’s lips curl. “But it won’t matter. That horror growing in her belly will die with her, and with it, the stain on our bloodline. After this, finally, Lord Anion’s seed will take hold.”
Isobel shook her head, like she could just shake off the words, the madness from entering her body. But it was too late. Silva was too far gone.
“How long have you planned this?” Isobel’s beautiful, musical voice had turned into a crone’s croak. “You are the one who killed Asha. I can’t believe it.”
