CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

FARON

THAT NIGHT, GAEL SOTO CAME TO FARON IN HER DREAMS.

He stood unmoving in the center of Deadegg’s town square. Even though the sun was high in the sky, Deadegg was quiet and still. There was no wailing from babies bouncing on their mothers’ hips or screaming from children too young for compulsory education, begging their fathers for the money to buy a cherry drink. There was no bleating of goats clogging the narrow roads or barking of stray dogs in search of scraps. Even the storefronts appeared to be empty, wooden shutters drawn closed, awnings lowered and doors chained up.

There was just her and Gael and the city of Deadegg around them, as silent as fog.

“You lied to me,” Faron said instead of wasting time trying to determine if any of this was real. “You’re trying to raise the First Dragon.”

Gael tilted his head, his hair sliding against his smooth cheek like rivers of ink. “I have never lied to you, Empyrean. I told you that I wanted something from you in exchange for my help.”

“You didn’t tell me the whole truth, then,” said Faron, well versed in the many forms a lie could take. “You made me think that you needed me. But that’s not quite true, is it? You only need me if Commander Warwick doesn’t give you what you want first.”

“It sounds as if you think you have me all figured out. So why don’t you tell me?”

“I’m sick of your games, Gray Saint. I want the truth, or I swear to Irie I will never summon you again.”

Gael studied her in silence, his hazel eyes sliding over her face with so much intensity that she could almost feel it. Faron didn’t blink. In a battle of wills, she had few peers. He would meet her as an equal or not at all.

A faint smile bloomed on his face. “All right, then. The truth.”

“What do you want from me?” Faron demanded. The question seemed to echo around the empty town, louder and louder until it were as if she had screamed it.

What do you want from me?

What do you want from me?

What do you want?

“I want the same thing you want, Faron Vincent,” Gael said, cutting through the clamor. “Freedom.”

“From?”

Gael moved then, and, at first, Faron thought that he was going to approach her. Her mind flashed back to the feeling of his fingers on her face before she pushed the memory away. But he was only stepping closer to the wall that surrounded the dragon egg before them, staring up at it the way so many Deadegg children had done in the past.

“They say I went mad a long time ago,” he said. “But what does that word even mean? I made certain choices that led to my downfall, yes, but that could be said of any leader throughout history. As punishment, I was imprisoned in a place they call the Empty. There, I slept, unable to age, unable to think, unable to leave. Until, against all odds, I was awoken.” Gael looked at her over his shoulder, his eyes as deep as an endless field. “Do I seem mad to you, Empyrean?”

The gods had never told her about the Empty. Reeve’s books had never mentioned it. One version of the legend claims that the Gray Saint and the First Dragon went into stasis somewhere and will return one day once certain conditions are met. Well, at least she could confirm for Reeve that the legend was true, if not the conditions.

“Who woke you?” she asked.

“Gavriel Warwick.”

“How?”

“I’m uncertain. But I was weak then. Weaker than I am now.” His hands flexed. “I am still weak.”

“But you’ve gotten stronger,” said Faron, gesturing around them. “You can come even if I haven’t called. You can speak to me even in my dreams. You grow more solid every time I see you. What happens when you regain full strength? What has the commander asked you to do?”

Gael turned to face her fully now, and there was a guilelessness to him that she had never seen before. “The First Dragon was a threat to this world. It was he, not I, who brought dragons into it, and he thought that giving humans such a gift meant that he should rule them. In the divine plane, dragons are considered animals by the gods. In the mortal plane, he wanted them to be worshipped like the gods. But while other dragons genuinely came to care for their Riders, the First Dragon only cared about destruction. So he was locked away, and, because we were bonded, I was locked away with him. His story became my own.”

“And you think I can help you rewrite that story?” Faron considered this. “You’re great with words, but you keep missing something important.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re lying to the best,” she whispered, as if they were sharing secrets in the dark. “I know the rhythm of deceit. I always recognize a tell. I can craft a lie so subtle and sweet that it will dissolve in your mind and make you question what you thought you always knew to be true.” She smirked. “You want to turn me against the gods. You want me to believe you’re this misunderstood innocent. But I am the queen of dishonesty, and you are full of shit.”

When he approached her this time, she met his gaze straight on. Her eyebrows rose, daring him, taunting him, inviting him. His face was a stone mask, but his eyes blazed with emotion. Anger. She was getting to him.

“I am telling you the truth, Empyrean. I’m the only one who ever has.”

“You want me to believe you?” She lifted her chin. “Tell me what the commander wants from you. No more secrets. No more lies.”

“You’re the most arrogant, frustrating, stubborn woman I’ve ever met.” Gael sighed. “The commander wants to raise the First Dragon. In exchange, he wants the power to conquer the rest of the world under Langley’s banner. But instead of unleashing the First Dragon, he woke me.” Gael didn’t seem to notice the lack of space between them, and it made what he was saying feel intimate somehow. “Faron, that dragon… is a dangerous creature. This is the first time in centuries my mind has been my own, and the honest truth is that locking him away was the best thing for this world. The commander cannot be allowed to succeed in his plan. No one can control that beast. I tried and, well. You’ve heard what happened.”

“How can we stop the commander if he’s already freed you?” Faron reached out then pressed a hand against his pale skin. Even here, he felt solid. Real. “And why do you even want to stop him from freeing the First Dragon? We’ve read about you. Together, the two of you were an unstoppable power. In my experience, men who have tasted power are loath to give it up.”

“He tasted power. The Gray Saint. But it wasn’t his power. He was nothing more than a symbol, chained to the will of a creature that was always hungry for more. The Gray Saint is the story they tell about me, the villain that the First Dragon made me, the worst parts of myself. But I told you my name, my real name, when you summoned me. Because all I want is to be that man again. I was a good man, once. A hero.”

Faron hesitated, searching his face for signs of deceit. Instead, Gael looked pained. Perhaps even a little desperate for a way out of this. She recognized that kind of desperation. It was the same emotion she’d been feeling since Elara had bonded with a dragon.

“I am awake in the Empty. But he is not. Not yet. If you can master the art of commanding living souls before Warwick succeeds in unleashing him, you can bring the First Dragon to heel. You can free me from him. Please.” Gael placed his hand over hers, his fingers gentle around her own. “I never wanted to be the villain of this story. I only ever wanted to protect my people.”

And she believed him. Damn it, she believed him.

Or, at least, she wanted to. After all, she knew better than most what it was like to have other people write your story for you. To have people who had never spoken to you decide that they knew everything about you. To have your entire life forever changed by one simple act—and to be trapped in the consequences of it.

Maybe he was lying to her, but everyone lied. People and gods alike. He was still one of the few willing to help her and Elara, and for that alone she would trust him.

“All right,” she said. “All right. If this will save Elara… if this will stop the commander, then all right. But if you’re lying—”

“Trust is a fragile gift, Faron. It’s only right that you refuse to give it away. But I’ll prove myself to you, I swear it.” Gael’s eyes darted upward before returning to her face. “I think you’re going to wake up now.”

Faron jolted upward in bed, trying to wrap her mind around the sudden change in scenery. A tray was on her side table; the scent of roasted breadfruit and scrambled eggs wafted from beneath its cover. The temple, she reminded herself as she bit into a slice of breadfruit. She would go back to the temple today. She had to talk to the gods. She had to ask them about the Gray Saint and the Empty. She had to confirm Gael’s story before she shared it with Reeve and Elara.

Eradicating the dragons will destroy the threat of the Fury, but it will also destroy their Riders along with them.

Including your sister.

Faron swallowed hard, the food turning to paste on her tongue. Maybe she would bring Reeve with her to Seaview Temple. She didn’t think she could make it through this line of questioning without some support, and, unfortunately, he was the only one available.

Reeve stopped at the opening of the wall that surrounded the grassy yard of the temple, a tight expression on his face. “I’ll wait here.”

Faron considered pressing the subject. There was no point in bringing him along for support if he wasn’t even going to come inside the building. But at the same time, she understood his hesitancy. Reeve generally approached the Iryan faith with a mixture of scientific curiosity and polite deference. One memorable summer, Faron had caught him reading a stack of books the height of her arm about Iryan summoning magic and ancestral spirits. Just because he couldn’t perform it, he’d said, didn’t mean he shouldn’t research and respect it.

But Reeve’s father had also given the order to burn several of San Irie’s temples to the ground. A Warwick stepping inside one even now would feel like a crime.

“Okay,” Faron said at last. Be careful caught on her tongue. Elara had told her about finding Reeve in Port Sol, about the shopkeeper who had spat in his face. The people of Seaview hadn’t experienced the visceral horror that those in Port Sol had, so it seemed unlikely that Reeve would be hassled in these streets. But unlikely wasn’t impossible. Faron couldn’t decide if she wanted to care or not.

“Are you actually going or…?” Reeve drawled, resting his elbows against the stone wall with an amused smirk.

Faron decided she definitely didn’t care.

“Empyrean,” said Irie as soon as the sunroom door closed. “It’s been a long while since you’ve summoned us—”

“We missed you,” Mala interrupted. She stood between Irie and Obie, the curly-maned, big-eyed emotional heart to their divine detachment. “Are you all right?”

“Reeve’s been doing research,” Faron said, focusing on a point over Mala’s head so she wouldn’t be distracted from business. “He told me that in one story the Gray Saint never died. That he’s imprisoned somewhere called the Empty. Is it true?”

Silence followed her question, a silence that said as much as any words would have.

Faron took a deep breath to control her temper. “What would have been the harm in just telling me that?”

“The reappearance of the Gray Saint, as well as your interest in him, worries us,” Irie responded. “Your situation has made the right thing to do… a complicated matter for you. We knew what he was likely to want, and we knew you couldn’t be coaxed into giving it to him if you didn’t know anything about it. Or about him.”

Faron’s cheeks burned. The fact that she’d spent the last month in Gael Soto’s company, under his tutelage, didn’t matter as much as the realization that the gods were still treating her like a child incapable of making her own decisions. When they hid things from her, they narrowed her choices and undermined her ability to make informed ones. She should not have learned about the Empty from Gael, whom she had no reason to trust.

And after all she’d done, she should not have been learning now that the gods didn’t trust her.

“Well, the Langlish might be planning to break the First Dragon out of there before I can be ‘coaxed’ into it,” Faron said with only a hint of the anger that coursed through her body like poison. “Elara thinks the commander has already begun the process with her bond and the Gray Saint’s reappearance. Tell me where the Empty is, so I can protect it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Empyrean.”

“But the commander—”

“Hasn’t found it yet and can’t be led there by you accidentally if you don’t know where it is. The best protection is for its location to be lost to time.”

“We don’t even know where it is,” Mala added. “Truly. We know where it was, but the world has grown and changed and shifted so much since then.”

“But you could find it, right? If I summoned you, you could—”

“Empyrean.” Irie narrowed those unfathomable eyes. “Your stubbornness betrays you. Why do you really want to know?”

The fact that she even had to ask made Faron’s temper flare hot once more. She couldn’t tell if they were being honest with her. She couldn’t tell if they would be honest with her. And they had the nerve to stare at her with suspicion, as if her problems were a mystery to them. As if they’d hardly thought of her since she’d seen them last.

She was their chosen champion. She was their connection to the mortal plane. She was the weapon they had pointed at the Langlish Empire and their beasts of fire, and what had she ever gotten in return?

A past, present, and future defined by blood and flame.

“What if,” she asked, “the Gray Saint has the power to break the bond between my sister and her dragon? What if he could teach me, and I could use that power on the First Dragon—”

Obie turned his head away as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. Irie’s expression was exasperated. And Mala was the worst of all, wavering between betrayal and pity. Faron’s mouth snapped shut, tears prickling at her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was humiliation or rage that clogged her throat, but she swallowed down everything she wanted to say next. She was afraid of what would come out if she kept going.

“It simply isn’t worth the risk,” Irie said into the silence. “The Gray Saint and the First Dragon are so much more dangerous than you realize, and now that one has awakened, the continued existence of these dragons will likely only make them stronger. The time has come for you to meet your destiny, Empyrean. You must exterminate them before it’s too late.”

“What about Gael? Does he deserve to be exterminated, too?”

Another thick silence followed her words. A thick silence during which the last thread of doubt over Gael’s intentions shrank to nothing. He had told her his real name. The gods did refuse to see him as anything but the Gray Saint, perpetually tied to the First Dragon. And they all agreed that the First Dragon was too large a threat to the world to be freed.

Which meant that he had told the truth about this power being the way to break Elara’s bond.

While the gods continued to keep her in the dark.

Irie frowned. “How do you know that name? Empyrean, have you—”

“If you guys would just talk to me, I wouldn’t have to”—Faron withered slightly under Irie’s harsh gaze, the golden flame of Irie’s pupilless eyes communicating her anger better than any words—“research all this. My sister’s in danger, and you won’t help me. So I’m trying to help myself. Is that so wrong?”

“This will help you,” said Mala. “Don’t you see what dragons have done to this world? Their power is so vast that only someone with equal divine magic can actually end them. Only you. We gave you our magic for exactly this, and some sacrifices need to be made—”

Anger won out in Faron’s vortex of emotion, spiking through her. “My sister is a Rider. You keep asking me to kill my sister for you. Because it’s what you want. What about what I want?”

“Empyrean—”

“No! All you ever do, all any of you ever do, is take and take and take from me, and the one time I ask you for something—”

“Besides the incredible divine power that you waste on childish races,” said Irie.

“—you refuse to help me and then ask me to give you more? Elara is more than just my sister. She’s the best person I know. She’s my hero. She’s the saint. Any time I’ve ever needed her, she’s been there for me. She gave up her dreams for me. And I can’t—” Faron realized, to her horror, that she had started to cry. “I—I need to do this for her. What’s the point of all this power if I can’t help the one person who needs it the most?”

“You prayed to us to help San Irie win the war. Your prayer was the first we heard when we entered this plane, and your strength enabled you to channel our magic,” Mala said. “We are gods, Empyrean, and the Iryans are our people. Because of us, they are suffering, and they will only continue to suffer until the dragons are gone. Unlike you, we don’t have the luxury of prioritizing one person over all the rest.”

“If I’m only the Empyrean because you heard me first, pick a new one,” Faron snapped. “Because I won’t kill my sister to save anyone.”

Irie looked even more tired. “We’ve seen this level of arrogance only once before. It is tragic, how much you sound like the Gray Saint.”

How is it arrogance to want to save my family? Faron wanted to scream. What else are you keeping from me?

But the room was a blurry swirl of greenery through the curtain of her tears, and she couldn’t breathe in here anymore.

“You don’t stop being the chosen one just because the war is over,” said Obie, and the rare sound of his voice ensured that those blunt words chased her from the room. “The sooner you accept that, the sooner we can move past this.”