CHAPTER SEVEN

ELARA

ELARA COULD FEEL THE BEGINNINGS OF A HEADACHE DRILLING AT her skull. Outside the divine plane, her body sat on a bed in Nobility’s upper cabins as the drake flew them to Joya del Mar—a roughly two-hour flight from Beacon. The queen had picked up Elara in the Langlish capital and, before retiring to a neighboring cabin, had suggested that Elara call on the gods for advice. Elara had been willing to wait until after the trip, until she could go to an Iryan temple and speak to all three of the gods at once, but Aveline was right about the urgency of their situation. No more Riders from their side had joined Iya yet, but that yet loomed larger with each passing day.

And each passing day, they got closer and closer to his deadline.

Within the divine plane, the goddess Irie looked as exhausted as Elara felt. Cold fire raged around them, consuming a forest that would never truly burn. Irie’s pearl-white robes rippled wide enough to brush Elara’s face, as gentle as a mother’s caress.

Iya has given the Langlish an ultimatum, Elara said. Pleaded, really, because she already knew how this conversation would end. Unless they join him, they’ll lose control of their dragons. We can’t let that happen.

And how—those golden eyes were heavy with judgment—do you propose we stop it, Maiden?

Iya can break dragon bonds. If you could show me how to do that—

Irie made a sound that was just shy of exasperated. You could use our power to tear a seam between worlds, returning the dragons to our realm and avoiding this entirely. Yet you ask for more power?

We’re at war against the most ancient dragon of them all. We can’t win without the rest of them!

That was why they were going to Joya del Mar to begin with. Iya had raised the stakes beyond San Irie’s and Langley’s abilities to deal with him alone—dragons or no dragons. Joya del Mar rested on the opposite side of Étolia, as far away from Langley as it was possible to get while still being on the continent, which made it their last hope of keeping Iya from conquering his way to the Silver Sea that wrapped around the southern and eastern coast of Nova. Aveline had proposed a conference with representatives from all the major powers to discuss the threat that Iya posed, but, after Elara’s failed mission and Iya’s announcement, she was no longer willing to wait for them to write back to her.

She’d also insisted that the Maiden Empyrean needed to be present in both Joya del Mar and Étolia for these discussions, unknowingly saving Elara from the unholy awkwardness that followed her and Signey around like a bodyguard.

I thought, Elara said, daunted though she was by the prospect of having another of these conversations, that you trusted me to be your new Empyrean. I thought you agreed to lend me your power and let me decide what to do with it. I thought—

We thought you and every Empyrean before you would do as you were told, Irie interrupted. The anger in her voice was enough to shake the ground beneath Elara’s feet. The longer you take, the more chance there is for you to be corrupted. Why should we continue to pour our magic into a weapon too dull to cut?

Elara’s throat closed at the idea of disappointing the very gods she had revered her whole life, just as she had disappointed the people of Deadegg, just as she had disappointed Reeve. Had Faron ever felt like this? Had she felt constantly weighed down by a pressure that threatened to cleave her in pieces? Or was it the very feeling of eyes on her that led her to disappoint them before they could expect too much from her?

Please, Elara whispered. I plan to do as you have asked. I do. But the situation is delicate right now. If we tear the Langlish away from their dragons like Iya has threatened to do, they’ll think we’re no better. They’ll attack San Irie again. You’ll be sated, but my home will be imperiled, and I can’t do that to them. We’ve been through so much. She slid to her knees, her head bowed. I know you have little reason to trust me, but I have always been faithful. If you heard Faron’s prayers, then surely you heard mine. To end this war of dragons, I need to make sure they aren’t the catalyst for further unrest. And for that I need time. Please… help me.

Irie was silent. Elara didn’t dare stand or lift her head. If the goddess could hear her rapid heartbeat, hopefully she would take it for passion rather than simply fear. Then: We cannot help you break the dragon bonds, Maiden. Iya created the bond through a bastardization of summoning and draconic magic, such that each is indistinguishable from the other. Our powers do not extend so far into your realm.

There has to be a way, Elara said, scrambling desperately to her feet. If Iya can do it, even now, there has to be a way.

We have told you the way, Irie said without sympathy. If you insist upon stumbling down another path, you will be walking alone. And that is your mistake to make.

Please—

Irie’s answer shook the world again, suffused with an ancient anger that Elara tried not to take personally. Iya is a creature of the past. Perhaps that’s where the answer lies.

In the past? What should— The burning forest of the divine realm began to swirl out of view, replaced by gray metal and seafoam sheets. “Wait! Irie, wait!”

But the goddess was gone, and Elara’s soul was back inside her body, miles above the ground. Her discomfort escalated into anxiety that made her heart race and her skin buzz with prickling energy. The gods wouldn’t help her. They could help her, she knew that they could, but they wouldn’t. Not after two failed Empyreans. Not after Iya’s emancipation. Elara didn’t believe she could do this alone, but there was no winning against Lightbringer without the dragons. She closed her eyes, pressing her fists against her eyelids to keep from crying.

All right, then. If the answer to breaking dragon bonds was in Iya’s past, there was only one person besides Iya who might be able to find it.

Although he was a dracologist, one of his proudest research projects was only tangentially related to dragons: the Soto-Zayas family tree.

Signey had told her that once. Lindans, the people from the Ember Sea island of Isalina, had been conquered by Joya del Mar for longer than Elara had been alive, but Barret’s family tree was one of many ways he had kept Signey and Jesper in touch with their culture. Now it might be the key to their victory. Just as soon as Elara could find a fireplace.

It was nighttime when the carriage trundled into the courtyard of the Palacio Real in Joya del Mar, which was surrounded on four sides by high brick walls with a tower in each corner.

A small group of soldiers already waited on the stones as Elara and Aveline exited; the squad featured at least twice the number of guards as they had brought with them. The carriage was led away to the stables, and Elara tried to study her surroundings without looking distracted. To the left and right of them were gardens, both walled away by large boxwood hedges with arched doors clipped into them. Winter jasmine, bright yellow blossoms on slender branches; hellebore, with its plum-colored roselike folds; and deep orange pansies thrived indifferently against the frost. It must have been magnificent in the daytime, but the starlit blooms were breathtaking in their own way.

When she turned her attention back to the soldiers, they stepped to the side to reveal a familiar face. Or as familiar as someone could be after being seen in profile from across a room.

“Maiden Empyrean, Your Majesty,” said Doña Pilar Montserrat, dipping into a bow. She spoke patois like a native. “Welcome to the capital city of Avara.”

Doña Montserrat was around Aveline’s age, with skin the color of wet sand, freckles dusting the bottom half of her oval face, full lips, thick eyebrows, and medium-sized brown eyes. Instead of wearing the colorful dresses the Joyans seemed to favor, with their three-quarter sleeves and flowing skirts, the doña wore a fitted suit: a short-fronted black jacket over a loose white shirt, high-waisted pale blue trousers with a fall front, a sapphire waistcoat peeking out from the jacket’s lapels. Her wavy hair couldn’t seem to decide what shade of brown it wanted to be beneath the moonlight.

The last time Elara had seen Doña Montserrat had been at the San Irie International Peace Summit, where she had attended as a representative of her cousin Rey Christóbal. It seemed that she represented him in more matters than Elara had thought.

Aveline smiled a counterfeit smile. “Good evening, Doña. Thank you for your warm welcome.”

Doña Montserrat straightened from her bow. Elara would have made her own greeting, but the lady hadn’t taken her eyes off Aveline. “It’s been quite some time.”

“Two months, in fact.”

“Nearly three,” Doña Montserrat corrected. “I thought we’d hear from you sooner.”

“I had nothing to say to you.”

The two women stared each other down. There was a tension in the air that Elara couldn’t put a name to, like seeing swollen gray clouds for hours before a thunderstorm.

Elara blinked. “Are we going inside…? It’s cold.”

Doña Montserrat and Aveline turned to face her as one. From their expressions, Elara could tell they had forgotten she was there.

The doña cleared her throat. “Yes, of course. My cousin is waiting. If you’ll follow me.”

The inside of the palace was lavish. In the main hall, stone walls were covered with mosaics, the ceiling bare and the floors light brown marble. Doña Montserrat took them through an arcade that lined one of the gardens that Elara had seen before. Through the shadowy trees she could glimpse cerulean reflecting pools coated in thin layers of ice and elaborate sculptures on marble pedestals. Then they were in another corridor, with cream walls and portraits of former reys and reinas that watched from gold frames, before the doña finally threw open the doors to a reception hall.

Rey Christóbal Montserrat sat atop a dais on a simple high-backed chair of gold and crimson. He appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties, his brown hair oiled into neat waves beneath his crown and his full beard speckled with silver. His eyes were brown like Doña Montserrat’s, but they sloped downward at the corners beneath his thick eyebrows, making him look tired. His peach skin had a red flush, and he was wearing all black—black jacket, black waistcoat, black shirt, black trousers. Around his neck was a heavy gold brooch shaped like a tree with an eye in the bark, each leaf intricately carved—the symbol of the House of Montserrat.

The mosaic behind him, Elara noticed, was a large tiled portrait of that same symbol.

Doña Montserrat joined her cousin on the dais as Elara and the Queenshield dipped into bows. But Rey Christóbal stood up and walked down the two steps to greet Aveline with his arms out as if expecting a hug. “You honor me with your presence, young queen.” His patois was colored by a Joyan accent. “I hope your trip was comfortable.”

Aveline clasped her hands in front of her. “Very much so, thank you. Have you received any threats from Iya?”

“And here I thought you would be tired from your travels.” The rey looked bemused by Aveline, watching her as if she were a jester who had asked to be crowned. “Not as yet, but I don’t doubt that we will soon.” He lowered his arms, coming to a stop a polite distance away. “At least we were prepared for the eventuality of a dragon war. I’m sure Pilar took you through the gardens we’ve newly replanted for Solstice. Keeping our plants and flowers in bloom all year round strengthens our various nature spirits—a necessary precaution these days. Rather land hungry, the Langlish.”

Elara thought this was a wild assessment coming from the king of another empire, the very empire that had colonized Signey’s ancestral island of Isalina, that had been one of the empires that brought slavery to San Irie, but she kept her mouth shut about that. Filing his words away as a reminder to read up later on Joyan magic, she straightened from her bow and said, “Thank you for having us, Your Majesty.”

“Have you had time,” Aveline broke in, “to consider our request?”

“It was kind of you both to come all this way to invite us to your conference in person,” said the rey. “But I hate to discuss such matters on an empty stomach. My cousin will show you to the chambers we have set aside for you, and we’ll talk over dinner.”

Aveline looked as though she wanted to argue, but ultimately all she did was nod. “Thank you for your generosity.”