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The king was in the midst of the throng, laughing and making merry—with one of those who was to die, Dimitri noted—as though there were nothing wrong or untoward. Dimitri looked at the king’s companion, knowing he had less than a day to enjoy his liberty. Perhaps only several at best to live. He had no doubt Toroth would make a spectacle of them all. It was an unsettling feeling to possess such foresight.
Dimitri watched the man jest with the king. As pleasured as that individual felt tonight, he would be in a world more pain as he met his end in one of the most unpleasant ways imaginable. He would be made a scapegoat for an imaginary crime. His land and all his assets would be seized. He would die for nothing except greed. His name and his line after him would be forever shamed—for a crime of which he had never been guilty.
Nausea rose in Dimitri. Informing on legitimate crimes was one thing, but this went a step too far. Already, his soul felt blackened with the knowledge of what was to come and his part in it. The order had been given. Guilt already stained Dimitri, and yet he had done it and would do it again, as he did everything that was asked of him, no matter the cost to his own soul, to survive in this cursed place.
Why do I do it? he asked the enchanted stars above, but they held no answers. Neither did he. Did he? Was there truly no choice? Panic flooded him once more. It rose with the rage and nausea, a maelstrom engulfing him until his senses were overwhelmed and he could not see the ballroom before him. Everything collapsed inward, trapping him, confining him. He could not breathe. Could not break this. Could not escape.
Dimitri fled, stumbling in his haste into the cool gardens under the real stars and moonlight, to a dark corner that matched his soul, where no one could see him fall apart. In the darkness, alone, he gave in to the panic, unleashing his desperate hold on it in relief. The cold air stabbed into his lungs with each sawing breath, the pain a welcome relief. He was alive. And whilst he drew breath, there was hope.
But, the moment of peace did not last. Before he could take another breath, before the sweet scent of her honeysuckle was barely in his nostrils, hands slid around his waist. Blinded by rage and panic, he spun around and slammed the body up against the wall, but then the familiar perfume teased him. His vision cleared, and Dimitri realised it was Rosella. His rage slackened and his face paled. He loosened his grip, horrified, and tried to back away, but she held him all the tighter. Even in the darkness, he saw how her eyes glittered with the absence of wit. How much had she drunk?
Too much, as always.
She pulled him closer, the drink-fuelled lust clear to see. He raged against that, too, as anger clouded his vision once more. How shallow, gluttonous, and selfish they all were. Beyond the brink, he gave in to the beast within him, crushing his lips against hers. Anything to block it all out, burn through it.
His tongue slipped into her mouth, urgent and seeking, and she responded in kind, the taste of something intoxicating and sweet bleeding across his tongue. She tugged him clumsily towards the rose bushes, staggering to a more private corner. Her hands slipped to his breeches, tugging the laces and grazing across him until he throbbed, filled with the need for relief. Without thinking, he found his hands halfway up her thighs, her skirts gathered up, and pushed her back against the carved hedges, clenching his fingers around her soft buttocks.
She squealed and squirmed in his grasp, and he scented it before he saw it. Blood. Had he cut her somehow? Been too rough? The maelstrom within him stilled as his own blood drained away until he was cold to his core. Then he espied it. Blood upon her arm. A thorn had nicked her skin.
Not him. Relief washed away the darkness for a moment before the next wave rolled in. She was already over the moment. Drunk and giggling, she tugged him closer, but his rage and panic had faded, replaced with something sour and sickening that curdled in his gut. Dimitri dropped the silken fabric and staggered backwards. Crumpled, it covered her, but she was a crushed rose now, the scrunched fabric scarred by his hands.
Gods only know what her father will think.
Then again, she was so inebriated, she might not even remember what had happened. With the barest thought, he healed the cut upon her milky skin with a smudge of magic, and before she could entangle him again, he slipped into the shadows and fled.
10
DIMITRI
Away from the overwhelmedness of the ball—and Rosella—it was far easier to clear his head. Dimitri fled blindly, the taste of Rosella still upon his lips, no matter how much he rubbed at them until he finally stopped, far away from the noise and light. He was surprised to find himself in the royal gallery. A stroke of something unearthly ran down his spine. What had brought him there, of all places? He walked across the smooth floor with his eyes closed, slowing his breathing, filling his lungs with clean, cool air. Here, it was not polluted with drink, food, sweat… and the scent of greed. There was only darkness and silence.
Why do I do it?
Rosella’s face swam before his mind’s eye. He envied them, but the more he acted like the rest of them, the more he hated himself for it. It was like his own personal brand of torture. He pushed thoughts of her away. No doubt he would go to her later—he always had to—but he relished this moment of reprieve.
He stopped and opened his eyes. Dimitri stood once more before the portrait of Saradon. Not the meek, sitting study, but the one of fire and might as Saradon stood tall, wreathed in flame and darkness. He seemed even more foreboding in the dark gallery, and the stillness of the air, the utter silence, muffled even Dimitri’s racing heart—but not his mind. That was as sharp as a razor, unclouded by the drink that corrupted the rest of them.
This was an opportunity.
The king conspired to commit the ultimate crimes in his greed. Dimitri could not imagine a more horrific way to punish those who had done nothing wrong aside from the usual pettiness of the court. They were all as bad as the king, but Toroth was the worst of them all. The sum of their sins.
Now Dimitri’s panic and rage ebbed, he saw potential. It would not be easily done, yet perhaps it was more possible than ever. The kingdom of Pelenor had bled for years, but the king had not staunched the wounds. Money. Men. Never-ending tithes and taxes to fund his lavish lifestyle and meaningless conquests.
Dimitri would not be the only one who desired Toroth to fall. Indeed, as his spymaster, Dimitri knew exactly who sought that end, if only for their own greed. Now it was time to use that knowledge, he thought for the first time. A sudden wave of clarity rushed through him, cleansing his mind. How could he achieve it? He stared into Saradon’s frozen gaze, as if the painting could tell him. Saradon had done it. The half-elf with no magic had nearly crippled the kingdom.
How? Dimitri asked, but no answer came.
Perhaps it would be as simple as exploiting those who sought Toroth’s downfall. Bribery, extortion, threats—but Dimitri rankled at that. Such things were beyond his nature, though he did it daily for the king’s bidding. Perhaps it would not be so terrible, for the greater good, but his gut told him that sowing badness would not lead to noble ends. Perhaps he could band them together, united on a common front, though they should hate him, regardless of his part in their greatest desires. Dimitri could not bring himself to that end, either. To do all that and still be hated.
No, perhaps Saradon had the best idea of all—to break the wheel. Dimitri could see Saradon’s Mark, the riven circle, burning bright upon his chestplate, as though it were living flame itself. That was beyond Dimitri. He was so close, but he did not have the assets, men, and alliances needed. He would be hard-pressed to find the former, and it would be nigh on impossible to secure the latter.
Moonlight bloomed across the shining floor, illuminating him where he stood amongst the inky shadows and casting its glow onto the foot of the canvas before him. Dimitri froze. Within the portrait itself, in the crystal raised before Saradon, the smallest glittering called him closer. It was such a lifelike painting, Dimitri thought, but the way it twinkled… Paint did not have such properties. He silently stepped forward. Tucked inside the faceted surface of the illustrated crystal, he saw runes, faintly glowing blue and silver. Lunar runes. He had seen few before. These were old and fading. It was a wonder he had noticed them at all. If the moon had not shone at that precise angle, at that precise moment, he would have seen nothing.
Could he read them? Dimitri bent closer. The alphabet sprang into focus, and he murmured the runes aloud. They were scripted in the elven tongue of Auraria—unusual enough in itself—and too subtle to be graffiti. These had been painstakingly included. If they were to only be visible by the light of the moon, they must have held some weight. And yet, he doubted they had been put there with Toroth’s knowledge or permission… or the same of any monarch beforehand.
“‘The Heart of a Dragon shall resurrect him. The Heart of a Dragon will cast him down.’ That makes no sense.” Dimitri frowned at the cryptic message. As he stepped back and glanced at the painting in its entirety, he noted where the runes were written. On an illustration of a Dragonheart. Who would go through so much effort in order to leave a nonsense message? There must have been more to it than he could see, he surmised. What was he missing?
“The Heart of a Dragon shall resurrect him. The Heart of a Dragon will cast him down,” he repeated, murmuring it to himself as he raked a hand through his hair. Was it literal? He was not familiar with the intimate details of Saradon’s legends, only that the Dragonhearts had been used to make his power far greater than it ever would have been otherwise. Dimitri did not know much about the Dragonhearts, either, other than they had fabled powers of some kind—perhaps more than he had realised. If that were the case, it was no wonder the king hoarded them under ward and key.
