Hidden Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon Book 7) Read online

  “Everything go okay?”

  “For now,” he whispered. He gestured toward the stable. “The stable girl is going to ask questions the minute she has someone to ask them of. Let’s get this over with before we have more company.”

  She led him through the gardens and around the back of the palace, a substantial hike considering the place was built into the side of a mountain. But he followed her without comment. He trusted her. Was proud of her and her abilities. As much as the silent wraith of fear threatened to take control from the dark recesses of his mind, he held it at bay. They’d made a choice together to come here, and he planned to see it through.

  “Here.” Dianthe pointed up to a small window in the side of a tower near the back of the palace.

  He scanned their surroundings, then did some quick logistics in his head. “That’s the back of my mother’s ritual room.”

  Dianthe closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you, but I saw her there. I saw her chained.”

  The temptation to ask her if she was sure was almost unbearable, but he knew she wouldn’t say it if she wasn’t. Now he was afraid. This was the one place he’d hoped to avoid.

  “That’s where she did it.” His voice caught, and he held up his ring by way of explanation. “Her ritual room.”

  Dianthe cupped his face in her hands. “You can wait for me here. My vision showed her alone. I can try to get her myself.”

  He shook his head. “No. We said whatever we did, we’d do together. I won’t let her do that to me. I won’t let her win. I’m facing this.”

  “There are no winners or losers here, Sylas. It’s natural you wouldn’t want to go back there.”

  He met her gaze and held it. “I’m going.” Even as he said it, it felt like he was standing on a cliff and leaning over the edge. His stomach waited for the drop.

  She nodded. “Our packs aren’t going to fit through that window.”

  He shrugged out of his, then helped with hers. He stacked them between the shrubbery along the side of the palace.

  “Ready?”

  He gave her a nod. Hand in hand, they flew straight up to the narrow window. As they closed in, he wondered if he’d fit through the opening, but it was wider than it looked from the ground. With one firm kick, he knocked in the glass, then slipped inside, into the dim interior.

  Dianthe landed behind him, still clutching his hand. He looked around to see if it was safe to drop their invisibility. The room was empty except for a heap of gray leather in the corner. No, that wasn’t leather. His eyes adjusted to the dim light, and what he saw chilled him to the bone. He wished he could save Dianthe from this, but she’d already seen it in her vision.

  Still, her face, once she’d taken in the room as he had, showed a range of emotions. He supposed the smell hadn’t come through in her mind’s eye. This prison smelled of death, and its contents reeked of things worse than that fate. It stank of blood and dark magic. He very badly wished to leave immediately. But that was Aborella, chained and skeletal in a heap near the wall, and those were her wings, rotting across from her. Was she even alive?

  He dropped their invisibility, and his mate released his hand. Dianthe strode around him and crouched next to the fairy’s body.

  Hesitantly, she laid a hand on her shoulder. “Aborella?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Aborella squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore the scent of fresh air, lavender, and honey that had reached her nostrils. At first she thought she must be dreaming. She prayed that she wouldn’t wake up. Once she was sure she was awake, she thought the scent had been brought about by Eleanor’s dark magic. It reminded her of Dianthe, and she feared if she opened her eyes, Ransom would be standing there with her friend’s head dangling from his fingers. What a cruel trick to play on her. Remind her of a happy memory, then wake her and let her find she was still in hell with her wings rotting, hanging from a nail in the wall.

  “Aborella?” a soft voice whispered to her.

  Now she was hearing Dianthe. The smoky scent of dragon mixed with the lavender. Strange. She sniffed for Eleanor, but there was no new tang of blood and dark magic. Unable to resist any longer, she opened her eyes.

  Dianthe and Sylas stood in front of her. Goddess, the illusion was good. Tears ran down her cheeks at the sight. Was this magic, or was she hallucinating? She couldn’t tell anymore what was real. Not for sure.

  “I’m going to get you out of these chains,” the hallucination of Dianthe said. “Sylas, I need your help. Her waist is raw and her back…” Dianthe’s breath hitched. That’s exactly how the fairy would sound if she saw the raw meat that was her back.

  “Are you real?” Aborella asked her. Dianthe looked real. Sweat beaded on her lip, and her eyes were terribly sad. Aborella wasn’t sure even the best magic could produce such a sophisticated likeness.

  “Yes, Aborella. I’m here. We’re going to help you. We’re going to get you out of here.” Dianthe reached out and touched her face as Sylas broke the chain that held her to the wall, then went to work on the manacle welded around her middle.

  They were real! She had to tell them—before Eleanor came back—she had to make sure Sylas and Dianthe knew how sorry she was.

  “I tried to warn you,” Aborella rasped through parched lips. “I sent my bird, my familiar Abacus, with a note warning you that Eleanor’s spies had seen me in Everfield. But that snake Ransom shot her down. My message didn’t make it to you. He found it and then she suspected me.”

  “It’s okay, Aborella.” Dianthe stroked the side of her face, her voice as soft as a feather. “There will be plenty of time for you to tell us more once we’re somewhere safe.”

  “She knew I’d been in Everfield,” Aborella said again. “I didn’t know about the raid until after it happened. I didn’t see it coming. I think I was too close. I never told her your identity. She tortured me, but I didn’t tell.”

  Sylas’s gray eyes met hers, and she thought she saw pity there. She didn’t deserve his pity. She’d done horrible things to the dragon. To all his siblings.

  “I saw the orbs. I saw your mission. I tried to keep it from her, but…” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “My wings. She took my wings.” She saw Dianthe’s gaze dart to the wings shriveled and hanging on the wall across from her, and the horror she saw reflected in her eyes brought the trauma back in full. More tears slipped down her face. She was too weak to wipe them away.

  “You had to tell her something.” Dianthe swept her tears away for her. It broke Aborella’s heart. So much undeserved kindness.

  “I tried to lie. I tried to delay. Somehow she always knew. There was so much pain.”

  “I understand,” Dianthe said.

  This time Sylas spoke. “Your plan worked. She didn’t catch us, and we have the orbs.” The band around her waist finally broke, and Sylas tossed it to the side.

  “Can you stand?” Dianthe asked. “Sylas will fly you out of here. We’ll go out the window.”

  Aborella gave her best effort to get to her feet. In comparison to Dianthe’s, her arms and legs looked skeletal, and her normally purple skin had turned gray. She dismissed a swell of embarrassment at her appearance as she swayed on her feet. Overuse of magic, underfeeding, lack of light—they would have been a fatal combination for any fairy who didn’t have the benefit of a dragon’s tooth.

  Sylas reached for her, but she held up a hand.

  “Wait. There is something I must tell you. I know where the Paragonian orb is.” Aborella wanted to escape. She wanted to leave immediately, more than anything. But this was the only chance for the Defenders of the Goddess to get that orb, and she owed it to Sylas and his siblings to help them.

  “Where?” Sylas asked.

  She raised her eyebrows. “All this time, it was right under our feet. We had no idea. No one remembered the history. No one cared.”

  Dianthe held her shoulders, steadying her. “What did you see?”

 
“The location wasn’t in my vision, but when I saw what it looked like, I remembered. It made me laugh actually. All that power… the key to the thing Eleanor wants the most… right under her feet.”

  Sylas’s brow furrowed in agitation. “Where exactly is it, Aborella?”

  Aborella laughed until she coughed from the effort. “It’s in the mosaic.”

  “The mosaic in the veranda? Here in the palace?” Sylas exchanged glances with Dianthe at the revelation.

  “The witch queen had quite a sense of humor. She bribed the artist commissioned to create the crest: a dragon wrapped around a fruit tree. If Eleanor had known the queen at all, she would have suspected she was behind the artwork. Medea, the witch queen of Darnuith, had met Tavyss, Eleanor’s brother and the true heir to the kingdom of Paragon, in the Garden of the Hesperides. The garden is known for its golden apples. All those years I stepped over her legacy, her last jab at Eleanor. The empress passes over it every day, never knowing that a piece of the key to what she seeks, what she has sought for hundreds of years, is right there for all to see.”

  Now Sylas’s eyes widened, and Aborella felt the intensity of his stare. She trembled in his presence. Truly, she was so weak, and she deserved to die at his hand.

  “Sylas, you’re scaring her,” Dianthe whispered. “Aborella, we won’t hurt you. We’re going to get you out of here. We just… this is a lot to take in.”

  “You say the orb is in the mosaic? Like, it’s part of the picture of the dragon wrapped around the fruit tree?” Sylas clarified.

  Aborella nodded. “It’s gold. One of the apples hanging from the tree. They all look identical at first glance. But one is the orb.”

  “By the Mountain.” Sylas swore. “And you say Eleanor is looking for the orbs as well?”

  Aborella sighed. She was so tired. So weak. How she wished she could just fall asleep. “She’s looking for the book. The golden grimoire. She’s been searching for it for Hera for centuries. Those orbs hold the key to reaching the book. It’s here on Ouros, and if Eleanor finds it, she will use it to kill the goddess of the mountain.”

  “I heard her say that before, when I was her prisoner.”

  “I couldn’t believe the depth of wickedness to her plan. Hera has been helping her. The goddess of the mountain is currently in a deep sleep thanks to their blood magic. Hera promised that if Eleanor finds the book and uses it to kill the goddess of the mountain, Hera will raise Eleanor to take her place. Eleanor will become a goddess.”

  Dianthe covered her mouth with one hand. “She’s insane.”

  Aborella sighed. “You might think so, but there are forces at play here even I don’t understand. I know her, Dianthe, probably better than anyone. Eleanor has dabbled in magic that is slowly killing her. Evil magic. Blood magic. It’s the type of magic one might learn from a god. Don’t dismiss her as crazy. She is mad, but her madness is fueled by a dark and terrible truth.”

  “Should we try to get the orb while Eleanor’s gone?” Sylas asked Dianthe.

  His mate closed her eyes but shook her head. “I can’t see it.”

  “I can,” Aborella stated. “You must retrieve the orb now or it will fall to Eleanor.”

  Sylas stared at her and stroked his chin. She knew what he must be thinking.

  “I hurt you. Worse, I helped Eleanor hurt you in unimaginable ways. I am sorry, Sylas. I am not the same fairy I once was, thanks to your mate.” Her eyes shifted to Dianthe. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “It will be faster if we fly around the outside of the palace. I’ll have to carry you.”

  As soon as she agreed, Sylas swept her into his arms. Aborella winced as the stubs of her wings brushed against his arms. But then Sylas stepped into the sunlight and the heat of the afternoon baked her skin. She closed her eyes and moaned.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “Go now. We’re running out of time.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They had to move fast. There was no other choice but for Sylas to carry Aborella. She had no wings to fly, and he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. Even as weak as she was, she was too powerful to allow to fall into enemy hands. He stopped short of actually trusting her. Not yet anyway. Oh, he believed she’d changed as much as a person could, but he wasn’t ready to put his or Dianthe’s life in her hands.

  He wasn’t sure he could ever forgive her for what she’d done to him and his family, not entirely. Her wicked magic was behind Marius’s murder, and she’d tried to kill Raven and her sisters, along with other serious crimes. Her actions were beyond overlooking no matter how much she repented. But he could and would treat her humanely, and he’d trust Dianthe’s judgment about her visions.

  He slipped out the window and around the palace to the grand veranda. Keeping three people invisible required concentration and a drain of power and magic. He was relieved there was no one there when he landed on the mosaic of the dragon and the fruit tree. The jeweled floor twinkled up at him. Funny how things came back to you. He remembered playing here as a child, the stones smooth and colorful under his bare feet.

  A configuration of black diamonds formed the body of the dragon, its topaz eyes staring out of the floor for all eternity. The artist had created a curled red tongue from red rubies. Brown agate and emeralds formed the tree the beast wrapped around, and in the tree was perfectly round golden fruit. They might have been apples or some otherworldly variety he’d never tasted. But they were all large, round, and gold. Why had he never noticed how strange they were, perfect round crystals rather than constructed of pieces of jewels like the rest of the mosaic? Now that he knew what was hidden there, they stood out as laughably obvious.

  “Which one?” he asked Aborella.

  At her prompting, he set her on her feet, and she lowered herself to the floor, crawling across the picture and resting her hand on each golden fruit. “I need to feel it,” she murmured and closed her eyes. “This one.” She pointed to the bubble of gold crystal closest to the dragon’s head.

  Sylas focused on the one she’d selected. There it was—the inner light, the swirl of bubbles within. If you weren’t paying attention, it would look like a trick of the light, simply an unusual sparkle in a faceted gemstone. And who really paid attention to the floor they walked over every day? “It’s like a universe trapped in glass.”

  “Sylas?” Dianthe pointed over his shoulder.

  From their high vantage point, he could see over Hobble Glen, all the way to the river that divided Paragon from Nochtbend. There was definitely a formation of black and red crossing the river. The Obsidian Guard was coming home.

  “The suns are descending. She’s retreating from Nochtbend before the vampires wake.” Dianthe gripped his arm.

  “If she’s in Nochtbend at sundown, Demidicus will hand her her ass. She’ll have thousands of vampires draining her troops dry.” He sprouted talons from his right hand. “Stand back.” These orbs were supposed to be indestructible, right? Sylas was about to test that theory.

  Dianthe helped Aborella clear out of the way. Sylas jumped and brought the full weight of his fist down on the mosaic. The floor shattered into pieces, coming apart at the masonry that held it to the obsidian. He used his talons to pry up the orb. “Got it. Let’s get the packs and go.”

  “I’m not sure we should bother with those packs,” Dianthe said. The guard had picked up speed and was riding hard toward Paragon.

  Sylas shoved the orb into Aborella’s hands and swept her into his arms. “Hold on tight to me, Dianthe. I’m going to move fast. I can only keep the three of us invisible for so long, and we need to get through that gate before the troops arrive.” He showed her the seal of the palace he’d stolen off the horse’s bridle. As long as he could keep them invisible, they should have no problem slipping through the wards.

  She gripped his hand. “I’m with you.”

  They took off together, soaring over the grounds and slipping past the
guardhouse, then veering behind Hobble Glen. By force of instinct, he headed toward the hills on the edge of Everfield.

  “No, Sylas. We can’t go to Everfield. She’s stationed troops there,” Dianthe said.

  Exhausted, Sylas dropped his invisibility and swerved in the only direction left to take. He flew east, toward Darnuith, into the black mountains.

  The moment they crossed the border, snow and wind howled into them. There was a reason Sylas had avoided coming here until he had no choice. The borders of Darnuith were protected with magic that made it always winter. A magic spell intentionally rendered the environment unbearably cold to strangers. It wasn’t long before he felt Dianthe struggling to fly.

  “My wings are freezing,” she yelled over the gale-force winds. Her wings were icing over. Much longer and they would freeze entirely, and then she’d come crashing down.

  “We have to land.” He dropped to the snowy mountainside and gathered her into his arms. They didn’t have the gear for this weather. Aborella rested, helpless, in one arm, and Dianthe pressed herself against him, desperate for his warmth. He wrapped his wings around both of them.

  “We need to find shelter,” Dianthe yelled. “Someplace to warm up until we can figure out what to do.”

  He searched the mountainside. The suns oozed lower behind the mountains. Aborella didn’t even have shoes. “It’s been a long time since I was here. We’ve got no warm clothing or gear, I’m too tired to fly us out of here undetected, and the nearest rebel safe house is in Mistcraven, which is at least a ten-mile hike at altitude through icy terrain.”

  Aborella’s eyes loomed large inside the shelter of his wings, her grip firm on the orb. He regretted laying things out as grimly as he had. She looked like she hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days and was a filthy, bloody mess. Although there was nothing but terror in her expression, she didn’t say a word, just hugged the orb to her chest as if she trusted he would not abandon her as long as it was in her grip.