The Last Dragon: Book Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The prince hurried us down a narrow hallway, up a flight of stairs that looked seldom used from the amount of dirt and debris lying about, and into a section of the castle that had expensive carpets so thick the sounds of our passing was silent.

He opened another door and ushered us inside but didn’t stop there. We crossed a sitting room, a dressing room, and then he moved aside a tapestry that hung from ceiling to floor. Another door was hidden behind it. He opened the door and inside was a small suite of windowless rooms, a musky smell, and dust.

“Sorry, I didn’t have time to clean it up,” the prince said.

“You? Clean?” I asked.

“This is one of a few safe places in the palace, known only to a select royal few, and yes, I clean it—or should have. People will know you entered the rooms outside, and we will create the impression you are staying there. Clothing, food, wine, and water will be placed there.”

I understood. “You think someone is going to come after us.”

“The mages. But their magic will do them no good if they cannot find you. A guard will stand outside the door to the outer suite of rooms, food and such will be delivered there, and word will spread that you are living there. But my father is more than angry and there will be hell to pay.”

“We need to talk. The four of us, and of course, your brothers as well,” Elizabeth said.

The prince paused, pursed his lips and said, “We will not invite them, and I will not attend but promise my support for whatever my father agrees to. I will share this information with my brothers.”

I saw what had been unsaid and headed off Elizabeth’s further questions, “Your father is scared to have all six of us in the same room. The ceiling might fall in on us, or the drinking water might contain poison. He’s smart.”

The prince turned to me. “You and I need to talk about our swords one day. There is a third, and I’d like to hear about it, how you met, and there should be a bottle or two of wine between us.”

“We will do that. It’s quite a story.”

He stood for a moment, and then said, “I am meeting individually with two of our top generals tonight, ones we completely trust as much as family. The first of them awaits me.”

He left and I used the heavy iron bar on the door behind him. A tiny hole at eye-level gave me just enough sight to see who stood at the door the next time someone wanted in. Elizabeth sagged on wobbly legs to the bed nearest her, with no attempt to clean it first. At Crestfallen, she had been immaculate in her apartment, so it was a major difference.

I felt the same.

She said, “What about Bran?”

“I asked the prince to send him home and to pay him well.”

She closed her eyes and I realized the luminous crown still sat on her head. I shut it off and looked at the three candles burning. That was all the light we had, but a dozen more unlit candles were in the bedside table.

“I have never been this tired, not even when we walked across the desert south of Dagger.”

“It has been a long exhausting day,” I agreed. “But you should be proud of yourself. I never would have believed you could gain a private meeting with a king in a single day.”

“Your crown was the last key.” Her voice trailed off in volume and the last words slurred as she slumped sideways.

I went to her and lifted her legs on to the bed and covered her. A sofa was against one wall, and I decided to sleep on it because it was closer to the only door. As I closed my eyes, a stray thought entered as if on cue. The only door? What sort of “safe” apartment has only one way in and one out?

I used one of the lighted candles to light another, a fat candle intended to last the night. I’d hardly closed my eyes when a tapping came from the door. At the peephole, I found the prince and the king. I threw the iron bar aside and let them in.

The prince supported his father. He placed him on my sofa. Elizabeth leaped to our side, “What’s wrong with him?”

“He passed out.”

I knew why he’d been brought here. I searched and found the swirling red mist inside him, and the dark spot of evil black. It had been the size of a pea at the ball. Now it pulsated and was the size of my thumb—and was growing. The king was dying.

*Anna, Help me,* I demanded and hoped she would respond.

*I’m here.*

*Look into the neck of the king with me. The blackness.*

She didn’t argue, ask silly questions, or hesitate. She was inside my mind, so could “see” what I did when I moved to the king. The black was swelling and near his throat, already cutting off the airway.

Elizabeth asked, “Can you do something?”

I waved her off. If the swelling continued, his throat would soon close, and he would suffocate. Before that happened, I’d used my sword to open his throat with a slice of the blade and place my fingers inside to allow him to breathe if necessary. Rational thinking returned as I realized he would choke in his own blood and I’d have killed a king right in front of the Heir Apparent. I’d never survive the day.

Anna said, *Magic is forcing it to grow. The essence was placed there to draw upon by a mage and use the power to increase the size that horrible black thing.*

*What can I do?*

*The essence!* she shouted in my mind as much as if she yelled in my ear in sudden understanding, *Use it! Drain all the power. All of it. Pull the power stored in the essence and use it to lift everything in that room into the air. Suspend it all.*

She was right. I tapped into the essence and felt the power flow from it to me. I spread it out, lifting the bed Elizabeth had slept on, the sofa, a counter near a wall, a chair. Soon, everything in the room was lifted off the floor and the black supply of essence no longer grew.

It didn’t shrink, but I was using an amount equal to what was being forced into it. I fought to think of something that would use more of the magic—and failed.

*You,* Anna whispered fiercely.

*Me?*

*Lift yourself. And the king and anyone else in the room. Make everyone float in the air.*

The idea was preposterous, but so was the floating bed and other furniture. I knew Elizabeth best, and part of my mind took hold of her body and I strained to lift her.

“What’s happening?” she shouted. “What are you doing?”

“I need to drain more power from the essence,” I grunted as she floated a few inches off the floor.

The prince was as amazed as I was, but the black remained the same size. It was as if even more essence was being forced into the king’s neck. I lifted the prince, then the king, and with sweat popping out on my forehead and armpits, started to levitate myself, my mind stretched to the limit of keeping us all in the air, along with the other things.

I couldn’t lift myself. I concentrated harder.

Anna shouted in my head, *Me too. I’m sucking as much of it away as I can.*

My hands shook. Sweat ran. My head was close to exploding.

The blackness winked out of existence.

Everything fell to the floor, we included. The furniture crashed, a leg of the bed broke, and both Elizabeth and the prince grunted in surprise.

The king clutched his throat—and smiled. His eyes were bright and looked at me. “Thank you.”

Demonstrating my ability to always come up with a witty response, I said, “Huh?”

He said, “It closed my throat so I couldn’t talk and barely breathe. You saved my life.”

*And me,* Anna’s voice danced in my mind. *I helped. Tell him that.*

“Have I told you about our friend, my little sister, Anna?”

“No,” the prince said.

Elizabeth laughed.

I said, “We will talk about her tomorrow.” My energy level, now that the emergency was over, failed. Not only was I not floating but falling. The floor rushed to meet me.

When I woke, Elizabeth was beside me in the bed. She woke when I moved and said, “You’ve been asleep all night and all day. It is almost night again.”

“What’s happened?”

“Oh, quite a lot. The king seems fully recovered and has promised me an army, supplies, support, his treasury, and my choice of his sons. If nothing else, that man holds a grudge for people trying to choke him to death.”

“The mages?” I asked.

“Last I heard, four had died, two were being hunted. I mean, literally hunted by dogs and rewards were offered for their heads. The king doesn’t want their bodies attached to collect the reward, he’s that angry.”

“What else?”

“The two generals the prince mentioned are gathering their men and preparing to march.”

“March? To Dagger and Kaon? There is a sea to cross.”

“In the Brownlands on the other side of the sea is a natural harbor with a river. About every boat in this harbor will be sailing there, no matter if it carried ten men or a hundred, then they will make another trip and another.”

“I’ve missed a lot, I guess.”

“There’s more. Landor is ruled by a cousin of Malawi’s king. He has already dispatched two of his sons, one to Landor, and one to Fairbanks. They will send their troops to meet us when we land our men at the Brownlands.”

“Fairbanks doesn’t have an army,” I said.

“Or navy. But it does have fighting men who will go to war to protect their homes.”

My mind was clearing. “How will we ever get all those men to the north of Dagger to meet up with Prince Angle?”

“We won’t. But we can send a group by ship to coordinate the attack on Dagger, Vin, and Trager attack from the north and Fairbanks, Landor, and Malawi attack from the south.”

I was about to tell her I had to sleep again when Anna came to me. *We got here. We’re near the top of a mountain and found the dragon.*

*Will it live?*

*She, not it.* Anna corrected me gleefully. *Will she live? Yes.*

*What is so funny?*

Anna pushed a burst of sparkles and tinkling sounds at me as she said, *She’s sitting.*

*Sitting?*

*On an egg, silly. The last dragon is going to hatch a baby.*

I should have been happy, but the first thing that entered my mind was that the Young Mage would find out and send every mage, Wyvern, every soldier, headhunter, bounty hunter, outlaw, and any man willing to risk his life for a fortune he and his descendants for generations couldn’t spend. He would send kitchen maids, fishermen, carpenters, cobblers, and more to kill the dragon.

They would all head for my sister. Sisters, I corrected.

But they couldn’t arrive before I did. I said to Elizabeth, “Get me on the first boat. Promise me.”