Page 24 of A Matter of Destiny

I twist my head toward the ceiling, not wanting to see any of this, but I can smell it. There’s a wash of stale sweat, a bitter sort of scent, when Ensyvir pulls off his black silk shirt, then a clinking sort of rustle as he opens his belt, and dear kings above, why is he doing this? I close my eyes again, and something whispers inside my chest like the end of a blade.

I wanted it to be Doshir. I wanted Doshir to show me how to fly.

Ensyvir’s laughter booms through the room, tugging me out of my thoughts. There’s another scent now, a strange one, something that makes me think of flames and stone. I turn, almost against my will.

Ensyvir is naked now, but I can hardly make out the contours of his body. The air around him is rippling, distorting like waves in a pool, and his body seems to be swelling. He looks almost like he’s on fire, and I turn toward Varitan, expecting to see the strange man with the cloth wrapped around his head shooting fire at Ensyvir as well. But Varitan is standing in the doorway with his hands raised in front of his chest, almost a defensive posture. There are no flames, just a strange scraping noise against the stone. And another low, growling rasp of air.

Everything seems to be moving very slowly, like it does in a fight. The walls of Ensyvir’s tower jump out at me, each wrinkle in the stone burned into my mind, every crack and shadow dancing in the light. Varitan’s shoulders rise as he breathes, and the lamplight licks the strange angles of his face, and some part of me hisses that he really does not look quite human. Then again, I realize with a strange, stumbling sense of shock, neither does Ensyvir.

And, when I turn back to the spot where His Majesty’s Royal Advisor just inexplicably shed his clothing, I don’t see a human. I don’t see a man.

I see a dragon.

The dragon’s eyes are the color of blood, brilliant and terrifying against scales so dark they seem to have been stolen from the shadows beneath the ground. For some reason I’m reminded of a story from long ago, back in the orphanage, a story about how a dragon once trapped an entire of elves in the darkness beneath the Barrier Mountains. Out of all the stories I’d heard about wicked elves and scheming dwarves and ravenous dragons, only that tale gave me nightmares. I would wake in the darkness of my bunk, gasping for air, convinced that I’d been trapped beneath the mountains, that all the stone and dirt of the entire world was pressing down on my chest and I’d never be strong enough to pull myself free.

I shiver. The dragon narrows his red eyes. He pulls himself up, then slinks around the perimeter of the room like a cat. He’s huge, this dragon, so enormous it almost hurts to watch him, and yet he moves carefully. It’s as if this room has been designed to accommodate his bulk, or perhaps he just knows its dimensions well.

The dragon stops before Ensyvir’s desk, which is now so small I could crush it beneath my clawed feet. He sits back, then tilts his massive jaw to look down at me. Twin plumes of thin gray smoke rise from his nostrils.

“Rayne,” the dragon rumbles. “Child.”

He tilts his head toward the door.

“Is she not glorious?” he asks Varitan, who says nothing. The dragon continues as if that were the response he was expecting.

“Rayne,” he purrs, and I find I do not care for the sound of my name on those lips. “My weapon.”

My back stiffens, and my claws scrape against the stone. Something burns deep inside me, something that I suspect I should not let out. I force my jaw closed and meet the dragon’s eyes through a haze of smoke rising from my own nostrils.

He’s Ensyvir, of course. I should probably feel more surprised that the King’s Advisor turned out to be a dragon. The stars above only know what the dragon Ensyvir sees in my expression, but he moves forward, slinking across the room like a liquid.

“Yes,” he purrs. “This is your destiny, Rayne. This is what I have given you.”

The growl rising in the air comes from me. With a bolt of shock, I try to clamp it down. Ensyvir’s jaws open, but whether those exposed teeth are a threat or some form of draconic laughter, I can’t tell.

“Varitan,” Ensyvir barks. “Open the sky gate.”

The strange man with the scarlet cloth wrapped around his head moves forward silently, as if he’s trying not to attract any attention. He stops at a chain hanging beside the door and begins to pull. There’s a creaking sort of squeal from deep within the wall, and then a sprinkling of dust falls into the space between me and the black dragon. It smells of old wood and ants. Ensyvir’s jagged teeth glint in the moonlight.

“Child,” he says. “Weapon. Let me show you the gift I’ve just given you. I think you’ll find it’s much more satisfying than being a part of some human army.”

There’s another shuddering, metallic squeal, and then a band of moonlight falls across the black dragon’s tightly folded wings. I look up, to the square in the roof that’s rapidly retracting.

The sky gate. My mind is still piecing it together, recalling the complaints I’d overheard about the way the ceiling in Ensyvir’s tower leaked and the stories of castle guards who’d sworn they’d seen a dragon pass over the grounds late at night, when the shuddering stops with a faint, dull slam. And then I’m staring up at the velvet darkness of the night sky and the thousands of stars shimmering above us. Ensyvir makes a noise like a snort, and the air swirls around me as he unfolds wings almost as large as the entire room. He turns to me, teeth gleaming in the light of a thousand stars.

“Come,” he growls.

With that, the dragon jumps. I stagger backward, my tail clattering across the paving stones and upsetting a locked cabinet that falls to the ground with a boom like a crack of thunder. By the time I’ve recovered, the sky gate is empty. There’s nothing above me but the stars.

I swallow hard. Fear still feels the same in this new body, like cold iron in my gut. I flex one wing, then the other, wondering. Will I know how to use these, when the time comes? What is Ensyvir going to do to me on the other side of that gate?

I glance down at the cabinet I’ve just knocked over, and it occurs to me that I could crush it now. I could feel wood splinter beneath my claws. Kings, I could probably release the fire simmering in my chest and burn everything in this room. I’m a weapon, aren’t I? And isn’t that what weapons do, destroy?

“Go on,” a voice says from beside me.

I glance down and see Varitan staring at me, his strange pale hair almost glowing through the circle of his scarlet scarf.

“Go use the gift you’ve been given,” Varitan continues, his eyes narrow, his hands clenched around the silver spire.

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