In the Wake of the Wicked (Veridian Empire #1)

68. Leo

68

Leo

T hese tunnels felt neverending. It was all I could do to force myself forward with the burning, acrid scent of flames and closeness of the stone walls threatening to overwhelm me. Fire bit at my heels as I sprinted, and I prayed to whatever was listening that the others were safe. That I was taking the brunt of it in order for them to get away.

Heat flared at my back, sparks brushing against the raw flesh. This torn shirt was doing nothing to protect against the open flames. My breaths came out harsh and rasping, like a blade was being ripped across my throat. How much longer could I do this? How much longer till the smoke and flames overtook me, till I couldn’t draw breath?

Maybe it’s for the best .

The thought pushed on my mind, making me think of the thousands of people who would wake once I died. Chaz would wake. Rose’s uncle. It would be so easy; twenty-seven years of loss, of pain, gone in an instant.

Rose and Rissa flashed across my hazy vision. Horace and Lark. The people I loved, trapped here in this trial. I had to make sure they were safe, no matter what waited for me at the end.

I stumbled along as the fire chased me, nearly tripping over my own feet when the tunnel veered sharply to the right and began sloping downward. I descended faster and faster, gravity pulling me along so quickly it was all I could do to stay upright. The flames raged on, fueled by whatever twisted enchantment powered the island. I craned my neck back to catch a glimpse of blazing tendrils reaching, stretching, almost at my ankle?—

I fell to the ground, my knees hitting the rock with a crash. The fire swarmed.

A hand appeared in my face.

“C’mon,” Horace grunted.

Shock filled me as I gripped his hand and he hauled me forward into a small side tunnel I hadn’t been able to see through the smoke. The fire kept down its path, oblivious to our hiding spot, but we only took a moment to catch our breaths before Horace guided me through this subsection of the mountains with a torch in his hand.

“Never thought I’d be so happy to see you,” I said in between coughs, expelling black soot from my lungs.

“You can kiss me later,” he said dryly. “I got your sister and Lark, too.”

I closed my eyes, relief flooding my chest.

“Where’s Rose?” he added.

Distress crept back in. “I’m not sure. We got separated. I think she might be following a path to the top of the mountain.”

He nodded as we ran. “We’ll go back up once this is over. She’ll be fine, Leo. It has to end sometime.”

Sooner than I expected, pinpricks of natural light appeared in the distance, marking the bottom of the mountain. Morning sunlight streamed through the entrance of the tunnel, so bright I had to cover my eyes as we stepped onto level ground.

Something soft and furry slammed into me. Rissa’s wet nose slid along my arms in her excitement. I laughed and rubbed the backs of her ears, taking note of areas where her fur was singed, but nothing life threatening. Glancing up, I saw both Lark and Horace smiling faintly at us, the pair of them tired and covered in cinders but alive and well.

“What happened to all of you?” I asked.

“I was keeping watch outside. The fire came out of nowhere,” Horace said, crossing his arms. “Smelled it through the tunnels, but couldn’t get back to you. It was like a wall blocking me out. I traced a path around the mountain trying to find a way in when these two popped out.”

Lark bent down to scratch Rissa’s side. “I wouldn’t have made it without her. She could smell the way, even through the smoke, and led us right to Horace. What about you and Rose?”

I quickly recounted our tale after we’d left the big cave. As I spoke, I took in our surroundings, surprised to find us not at the forest where we’d entered the mountain, but on what looked like a beach. The rocky path under our feet bled into smaller and smaller pebbles until it became sand, the shoreline meeting blue waves just visible around a curve.

A strange noise punctuated the air. A beating sound that made the wind ripple.

Lark shot me a concerned look. At her side, Rissa growled, a low, ferocious rumble, her ears peeled back to her head.

I strode onto the sandy beach and turned the corner, and was met with the sight of brilliant turquoise waves crashing against white sand and birds squawking above us.

And an enormous dark beast hovering over the ground.

I halted in my tracks.

Vicious horns, a long, curved neck, teeth that shone in the sun. Four sets of claws capable of removing a head from its neck. Navy and silver scales covering a body so massive, so powerful, I had to rake my gaze upward to take it all in.

From its claws dangled a small figure, dark hair streaming in the wind as the creature set her down in the sand.

“Is that…” Lark trailed off and gasped behind me.

I took off at a sprint, Rose’s name on the tip of my tongue before the word fell to ash. In my next breath, the beast—the dragon —shifted.

Into Nox Duma.

Horace cursed. “That’s impossible.”

A moment later, that pit in my chest where I felt my loss of magic suddenly exploded with power. My Shifter instincts erupted so violently I could see every individual grain of sand, could hear Rose and Nox’s shaking breaths and heartbeats all the way across the beach, could taste her scent on my tongue.

My magic had returned.

Whirling around, I saw Lark’s shadows swirling, creeping at our feet as if they couldn’t control themselves. My sister launched herself at me and shifted midair back to her human form, then threw her arms around my neck.

“I’m never eating pheasant again,” she mumbled.

I let out a laugh as I kissed her forehead. “I’m glad you’re back, Rissa.” My smile faded when I looked over my shoulder at Nox and Rose. “But we have another problem to deal with.”

We stalked toward the two of them, a protective, possessive instinct in me rising and clawing at my skin as I watched Rose scramble away from him. If he so much as touched her?—

“Leo!” she called out when she saw me, hurtling across the slippery sand and into my arms.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” I murmured, grasping her face and examining her for any injury or burns.

She nodded. “You?”

“Better now.” Aiming a glare at Nox’s smug features, I snarled, “A dragon Shifter? What are you playing at?”

“I thought your kind didn’t exist anymore,” Rissa added, her tone level. She was always better at keeping a cool head than I was, even with her full Shifter blood racing through her, no doubt riling her senses.

Rose looked up at me from her tucked position at my side. “I didn’t even know dragons were real . ”

Nox chuckled darkly. “We’re very real, but as usual, history has been rewritten.”

It made sense now why I’d had such a strong reaction to his magic at the ball. Legend said dragon Shifters were the most powerful, most terrifying beings in the empire, back when the War of Beginnings ended and the magic had been dispersed. But there hadn’t been signs of them in over two centuries. Historical accounts claimed they had died out, their nature so volatile that they brutally killed one another out of a desire to be the strongest in the land.

“How is this possible?” I asked.

“You want to do this? Now?” When I held his stare, he sighed. “Your history ”—the word came out a hiss—“has painted dragon Shifters as violent monsters controlled by their baser instincts. But the truth is that the empire feared them. Feared their strength, their cunning and ambition. Those in power were threatened. They were convinced dragons would destroy the balance of magic and overthrow the throne. Two hundred and fifty years ago, the reigning emperor took matters into his own hand.”

Rissa stiffened next to me. “Did he have them all killed?”

The shrewd gleam in Nox’s blue eyes left, replaced with a pain I didn’t think I would ever understand. He cast his gaze over the rushing waves as he spoke. “In those days, the dragons were revered . Celebrated. Not the mockery of a myth they’ve become. The emperor knew slaughtering them would have only made them martyrs. Caused an uprising, perhaps. He didn’t merely want them dead—he wanted them to have never existed . To eradicate any chance of their survival. He and his advisors conducted…experiments.”

Rose sucked in a breath at my side, but Nox ignored it and continued. “They created a toxin that suppressed a dragon’s Shifter half and made it impossible for the same gene to be passed onto offspring. This was during the darkest time of conflict between dragons and the throne. They knew they were on the brink of war, a war they couldn’t come back from. And the dragons knew they couldn’t protect the rest of the Shifters from it. They allowed the toxin to be used on them in exchange for protection for their loved ones. Their people.” He swallowed hard, the column of his throat moving slowly. “They chose their own eventual extinction to ensure the empire never saw such violence again.”

The air was still as we took in his words. I struggled to comprehend his story that reshaped the history I’d so long believed. But I could tell he spoke the truth. His features were somber, his eyes hollow, his voice pained. Even after two centuries, he carried this burden of the dragons, this legacy that had been tarnished by those in power.

On a much smaller scale, I could understand this burden, too.

“If that’s true, then how are you here? Are there more dragon Shifters that survived over the years?” Lark asked.

“If there are more, they’ve been silent,” he said. “I’m the only one of my kind. I don’t know how the ability passed to me. Perhaps someone escaped the terms of the treaty, or their bloodline was simply too strong to disappear. When my parents saw the early signs in my childhood and guessed what I was, they tried to hide me away. But young Shifters are…unpredictable. Unstable.”

I glanced at Rissa, knowing far too well what that was like. The torment and isolation she’d faced because of her lack of control over her Shifter form had been brutal. And to face that as a dragon ? With one hundred times the power?

“Word got out,” Nox said straightforwardly, not allowing room for questions, then inclined his head toward myself and my sister. “Funnily enough, you and I have something in common. My father is— was the governor of Drakorum. Imagine how our people felt when they discovered their leader was illegally housing something so forbidden.”

Rose was taken aback. “Your father is the governor of your province?”

“ Was , darling.”

She pressed her lips together. “What happened?”

“The people were afraid. They accused him of experimenting on his own child to recreate the legend of the dragons and raise an army. He was eventually challenged for his position and lost.”

The crease in Rose’s brow deepened as she listened. “Where are they now? Your parents?”

A few steps behind us, Lark cleared her throat. “Rose, in Drakorum, a challenge is—it’s to the death,” she said gently.

Rose sucked in a breath and took a step toward Nox, her hand outstretched. “Nox, I’m?—”

“Don’t apologize. I don’t want your pity. I want your understanding . I was taken from my home at fourteen years old and placed in an orphanage, but soon after, the one who’d taken my father’s place realized he could use me instead of restraining me. He brought me into his home, effectively a prisoner in a gilded cage. Anyone of importance who knew I existed was threatened into silence, and everyone else was…taken care of.” Rose winced, but Nox’s face remained unmoved. “They kept me hidden, tucked away as their little secret.” His lip twitched. “Until now. I told you once, Rose, that I had no choice but to come here. To compete in this tournament. They want me to win. They want me to take back the strength of magic for Drakorum that’s been dwindling for far too long.”

“There’s no competition, not against a dragon ,” Lark said incredulously. “You could win this with your hands behind your back, yet you’re tied for third place. It’s as if you’re not even trying.”

“Well, now, I couldn’t show my cards too early, could I?” Nox said with a false smirk. His face fell, his tone darkening. “I don’t care if I win. I said as much when we first met, Rose. Why would I want more magic, more power, in the hands of the people who did this to me? To my family?”

“Why obey them at all, then?” I asked. “You could surely challenge the current governor. You could probably take on the entire chain of leadership.” Something hard settled in my stomach as I spoke, and I quickly added, “What do they have, Duma?”

His eyes met mine. “My sister. They have my sister.”