The Empress stared out the window at the golden winter sky. She felt the chill even through the glass. It had never occurred to her it might be Merrick who’d tainted Kala, and not her. It explained her daughter’s connection to Ijanna, who was supposedly the daughter of Jonas Taivorkan. And now it seemed there was a third Skullborn, but who? Kala had no siblings, though Ijanna might.
And what of Corgan Bloodwine? Did
he
have any children?
Azaean shut her eyes and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t put Kala out of her mind. She saw her as a young girl, so vibrant and full of life, toddling about with that ridiculous dragon doll and laughing while she chased the squires with a wooden sword. She’d always pouted during her lessons, and she never quite looked comfortable in her dresses. She’d always seemed so bright and eager and kind.
The Empress wept. If Merrick were still alive he’d be able to comfort her, even though she knew she’d want to kill him for what he’d done to her daughter. But he was gone, and Llandrix missed both he and Kala, and with each passing moment she just fell deeper into despair.
They were both dead to her now. And the solitude Azaean so often craved was suddenly the last thing she wanted, but there was no one she could confide in, not truly, so the White Dragon sat alone, feeling hollow inside as she spilled her bitter tears.
Five
The windows were fogged over with heat, and only a hazy glow from outside penetrated the dank interior of the room. Black and purple tapestries hung from the walls, and the chamber was full with chests, tables and old trunks. Everything displayed signs of age, from the cracked walls and faded frescoes to the pieces of Dragian statuary lying broken on the floor. The air was musky and rich with the scents of perfume, sweat and sex, and the bed in the center of the room shook as a man and woman writhed and ground against one another atop the sheets.
Kala let out a gasp of pleasure as Tharus spilled his seed inside her. She held him tight for a moment, then pulled away and fell onto her back. Her body tingled, and moisture covered her naked skin like a blanket. Tharus rolled over and gasped for air for a moment before he rose up from the bed. Kala watched his chiseled body hungrily. His short-cropped hair glistened with sweat, and his black eyes burned like gems in the early dawn glaze. A thin iron chain jingled around his ankle as he walked to the window, the eternal reminder that even if Kala hadn’t bonded him with the Veil he still belonged to her, and always would.
“
I want to be alone,” she told him. “Get some rest, eat something. I’ll need you again tonight.”
Tharus stretched in the beams of gritty light. Kala watched his flexing muscles like they were supple strips of meat.
“Of course, Mistress,” he said softly. “I’ll be back to give you more.”
Kala closed her eyes. She heard the door close and lay there, sweaty and in bliss, listening to the rhythm of her own heartbeat.
Light desert wind pushed against the window. Her mind was still and calm. Eventually she rose and walked naked across the room, stretching like a cat and pushing her long dark hair away from her face. She shivered in spite of the claustrophobic heat.
Kala wiped the window clean with the palm of her hand so she could gaze out at the ruins of Corinth. It was a blasted city of cracked buildings and hollow towers, long-dried fountains and windswept dunes. Very few of Corinth’s structures were intact, and most of the buildings looked like they’d been stepped on by giants, which wasn’t far from the truth. Before the Rift War the Empire of Gallador was as mighty as Jlantria or Den’nar, but the Drage Kings had been more obsessed with magic and power than even Kala’s mother, which hardly seemed possible. When the Blood Queen launched her brutal campaign, Gallador saw a chance it couldn’t afford to pass up. The Kings allied themselves with Carastena Vlagoth and her monstrous legions, and while the armies of the Heartfang Wastes devastated Jlantria and Den’nar from the south Gallador and the Voss struck from the north.
Gallador and the Blood Queen held the upper hand in the Rift War for a nearly a decade, but in the end the Drage folded in on themselves. The Kings started to turn on one another, and as soon as the opportunistic White Dragon saw that chink in Gallador’s armor she acted to widen it. A few well-placed assassinations staged by Azaean’s agents were credited to feuding Drage Kings, and soon the northern empire was in a feeding frenzy, its body politic turned cannibal. It didn’t take long for the Voss, also, to exploit the situation – they’d already been seeking a way out of their alliance with Vlagoth, so as soon as they realized the Drage were a lost cause the cruel giants took the only logical course of action and destroyed Gallador using strategically placed Bloodnaughts and cunning timing. Magical explosions rippled across the north, and in a matter of days the powerful Empire of Gallador was reduced to a desert.
Kala had explored much of that waste, now commonly known as the Bonelands. Beyond the crumbled ruins of Corinth lay a rolling blight of black and red sand, so diseased and rancid that rain would hardly fall there anymore. Only scattered ruins remained of once-great cities. Still, the brave and stupid ventured into the Bonelands on a regular basis: greedy merchants looking for faster routes between Raithe and Kaldrak Iyres, treasure hunters who sought to plunder the buried coffers of Gallador’s sunken ruins, criminals escaped from the southern lands. Predators like Razorcats and Runefiends thrived in the Bonelands, and the largely uninhabited region allowed bands of the barbaric and mad to roam free, groups like the Charred Ones and the Chul. Pockets of Drage had survived the devastation and lived scattered in hovels and settlements, but most had relocated to other cities, where after a few years most of the prejudice and hatred towards the “traitor race” died off.
She stared out the stained window and looked at the crude camps erected at the edge of a blasted clearing that had once been Corinth’s central city square. Tents stood around a large hole in the ground that was over a hundred feet wide and impossibly dark. Crude cranes and pulleys hauled iron caskets filled with dirt. Slaves purchased in Raithe and Kaldrak Iyres toiled under the morning sun – it was just past dawn, but they’d already been working for several hours. Their bodies were covered in soil and sweat as they expanded the hole with picks and shovels. Bits of broken stone, the collapsed remains of Corinth’s monuments, were piled onto wheelbarrows and carted off to mounds at the edge of the city. Kala would have preferred to use magic to excavate what was needed, but Crogas had advised against it. Corinth’s Veilwardens had been a crafty lot, and using the Veil to breach what they’d buried was likely to bring about the destruction of what she so desperately sought. It had taken a long time, a lot of money and more than a few deaths for the Cabal to learn where the Scarstones were hidden, and they weren’t about to jeopardize their operation now, no matter how impatient they were.
The door to her chambers burst open, filling the room with grimy sunlight. Crogas the Red barged in, his bald pate glistening with sweat, his dark eyes and ears circled with blood runes. The Drage was a hideous creature, with jagged yellow teeth and a scraggly black beard. He was short and broad-shouldered in the manner of all people of Galladorian descent, and he wore a loose-fitting tunic with no sleeves, revealing his coarse muscles and sour male odor. His breeches were black and loose, and his heavy boots had been crafted from
nek’dool
hide. A
raak’ma
, the strange double-bladed scimitars of the Den’nari, was strapped across his back, but he rarely had need for the weapon, since he was one of the most formidable Veilwardens in the Cabal.
But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t stand to be a taught a lesson in manners,
Kala thought bitterly.
“
We have a problem,” he growled. He had a voice like granite, and he didn’t care about the fact that Kala stood there naked.
“
What now?” she snapped. She grabbed a thick green shirt and a pair of Tharus’ trousers. She shot Crogas a derisive look while she dressed. “Don’t bother knocking, by the way.”
“
I won’t,” he said. “Hurry up and get dressed, we need you outside.” He turned to leave.
“
Tell me what for,” she said, “or I’ll make you wait all day.”
Crogas gave her a sour expression.
“You forget your place, Kala Azaean,” he said. “Don’t think your surname grants you some special treatment.”
“
I know my place, Crogas,” she said. “And it’s on equal footing with
you
. Now tell me why I’m jumping at your command.”
“
You talk too much,” he said.
“
So do you,” Kala laughed. “You also like to order people around when you have no place to do so. I haven’t been with the Cabal as long as you, but you and I were both selected for this task because our talents are suited for it. So try not to be such an arrogant ass.”
Crogas watched her silently. Kala slowly dressed and bound her hair up with an iron clasp she retrieved from one of the small tables.
You can’t outwait me, Drage,
she thought.
I’ve spent a lifetime waiting, while you have the patience of a child.
“
The slaves found the first Scarstone,” Crogas said.
“
That’s fabulous!” Kala smiled. “It’s about time we made some progress – show me where!”
Crogas led Kala to the lower level of the ruined manor. Large cracks in the wall did little to hold off the stifling heat, and chunks of stone had fallen away from the ceiling, covering the floor with rubble and leaving gaps above which revealed the wasted skies. Only splinters remained of most of the interior doors, and every room in the house had been ransacked of anything useful long ago. Drifts of dust were everywhere, and the walls had been scratched, stained and marred by animal claws and fires. Wide stone steps led down from the manor and sank into the dirt like a shore dropping into the sea. The air was heavy with heat.
Dust-covered slaves labored all around the sinking hole, pulling up barrels of dirt and stone and sinking in knee-deep sediment. The air was a din of grunts and angry shouts. A few dark clouds floated in the distance, black and twisted like fire smoke. Kala knew clouds of that color and shape weren’t likely to loose rain but poison, just another of the sadistic dangers offered up by the Bonelands. The Cabal took measures to protect themselves and their slaves from the baleful rain, but many others had perished to the roving deathtraps, unaware of the danger they posed until it was too late.
Crogas stopped at the edge of the pit, planted one boot on the rim of crusted soil and pointed down to the bottom of the hole.
“There,” he said. “Do you see it?”
The pit was more of a sinkhole, over a hundred feet wide at the top and nearly forty-feet deep, with steep slopes of dark sand and soil running like a funnel to the bottom. Broken rocks jutted from the slope like angry teeth. At the nadir of the hole was a slate of black stone covered with silver runes and ebon dirt. Drazzek Ma’al stood upon it, his dark leather armor covered with gritty soil, his long silver hair unbound and his chiseled face stained with soot. He easily fit within the space of the disc at the depth of the pit.
“Goddess,” Kala whispered. “It’s enormous. Much bigger than we anticipated.”
“
I’d say so,” Crogas grumbled. “There are supposed to be thirteen Scarstones. And this is only one.” He waited for that to sink in, and after a moment Kala understood. She’d clearly seen the layout of the Scarstones in her visions, and each individual rune had been spaced at a considerable distance from the others. When they’d thought the Scarstones were each roughly the size of a fist, that hadn’t been an issue, but at this size… “Assuming your visions were accurate,” Crogas said, “we might have to dig up this entire section of the city before we can get to them all.”
In spite of the disheartening revelation, Kala watched the Scarstone hungrily. Even in its dormant state she felt its power saturate the air. Soft voices carried away from the artifact like slivers of sound.
“We’ll dig up all of Corinth, if we have to,” she said plainly. “We need to get them all uncovered, and soon.”
“
There are a few problems with that plan,” Crogas said acidly. “I have to study it and see if it’s safe to use magic in its vicinity. We can’t risk using the Veil to help us until we do.”
Kala started down the slope. Her tall leather boots were made for riding, not climbing, so the going was slow, but Drazzek pushed his way up the sides of the pit and helped her down the rest of the way. His black eyes were like pearls, and his ghastly Allaji skin lent him the appearance of a specter. A two-handed
raak’ma,
identical in every way to Crogas’, was strapped lengthwise across his back with leather bindings. The slaves watched in fear and awe, several of them making signs of Corvinia’s cross or offering their eyes to the sky in prayer to the Dead Sea Gods at the sight of the twisted runes.
“
Careful!” Crogas shouted down at Kala. “What the hell are you doing?!”