There was no mistaking, both the voice and who it was referring to. The tower had grown deadly silent, even the fight outside seemed to have stopped, or maybe the dragons had just relocated.
"Won't you come up and join us, Lukas? Have your parent never taught you eavesdropping is rude." My grip tensed around the handle of my saber as I walked up the last few steps, through the hole in the floor into the room above. Three pairs of eyes locked on me and I felt exposed like I had never before in my life.
Yao stood the farthest from me, close to the wall, arms folded in front of his chest as he watched me with cool calculation. Kiku stood a few feet away from him, his seemingly soulless eyes trained on me as he carried his usual polite smile, that only this time, appeared more sinister than anything. Matthew at last stood closest to me, his hands were balled into fists at his side and he shook with barely suppressed rage.
Strangely though, despite Matthew being apparently close to exploding, his rage seemed helpless and the by far most dangerous aura came from Yao. I had never seen him with this expression of cold indifference, and it made my insides squirm in something akin to fear.
It wasn't the expression per se, it was the difference, the difference to what I had come to believe was his real self, a kind ruler who wanted the best for his people, who wanted to end this war to finally settle peace in his lands. This person before me now was someone entirely different.
"You took your sweet time Lukas, I expected you much earlier." Yao greeted me, but the smile accompanying his words didn't reach his eyes.
"What is going on?" I asked, noticeable strain in my voice, but even though my question sounded kind of dumb, I couldn't help but ask. The tower shook again, as something huge slammed against its side, and a loud scream tore through the air, but neither of us dared to look which dragon it had been.
"You haven't figured it out? It should be obvious from this getup here." Yao made a wide sweeping gesture with his hand, encompassing the room and its occupants but I was more perturbed by the obvious disappointment in his voice. He seemed genuinely so, as if he had expected, no counted on me to figure it out.
"You lied." I said, eyes darting between Kiku and Yao, Matthew, for the time being, didn't appear to be much if a threat.
Yao just shrugged. "Is that all?"
I remembered the day when Yao invited me to tea and cake, how genuinely concerned he seemed about me, about the country and its future. Somehow I couldn't believe that this was the same person I had so readily offered my trust to. Hell I had basically eaten from his hand, not even checking what it was that he had been feeding me.
I felt a wave of anger rising in my gut, and I wanted to drive my sword through Yao's still smiling visage. But mostly I was angry at myself, that I didn't see through it, that I let myself be fooled, because I wanted to believe that at least one of all those court snakes was an honest person. After all the betrayal I had gone through I had still stepped into the next one as easily as a sheep that followed its butcher.
"You planned all this, you fooled all of us, even Arthur and his friends, just to rub it in my face? And what about Ludwig? Was he in on it too, did you tell him to create a diversion so that you could set your precious little plan in motion?" My voice had gradually risen while I was speaking, until I was nearly shouting at the end, saber pointing accusingly at Yao's chest.
"Ah, you're worried about Ludwig's loyalty? How utterly heart-warming. Don't worry, not everyone betrayed you. Well, he might as well have anyway. I counted on you to create a scene, but what Ludwig provided was marvelous. I couldn't have planned it better."
I gritted my teeth, the condescending tone of Yao's voice was almost enough to make me snap.
"What about Tino, was that part of your plan too?" I noticed out of the corner of my eyes how Matthew flinched at my words, almost as if he felt guilty about it. But that, of course, was impossible.
Yao shrugged, a dismissive gesture that only added to the fury currently boiling in my veins. "It wasn't part of my plans, but I decided to let Arthur have the illusion of free will, so I let him play around. Now, would you have the courtesy to take your toothpick out of my face? That's quite rude."
I trembled with rage, but I could hold out my arm only so long without getting tired, so I reluctantly lowered my arm into a defensive position. Even though I was the only one with an obvious weapon in the room, I felt strangely overwhelmed, as if I was, by far, the weakest link in the chain.
"See, that's better." Yao seemed pleased. "Now, isn't there a question you are dying to ask?"
For a moment I didn't know what he was referring to, but really, there was just one thing I desperately wanted to know at this point. "Why?" I hated how my vice trembled, how it betrayed my emotions, but there was nothing I could do about that. I had been on edge for so long now, that it was finally taking its toll.
"I'd like to know that too." Matthew spoke up for the first time since I entered the room. Much of his anger had subsided, though, leaving behind only tired resignation.
Yao opened his mouth to answer, but he was interrupted by a deafening scream from outside, followed by an even louder roar. "The cavalry has arrived." Yao concluded, clapping his hands together as if that was exactly the cue he had been waiting for.
I needed a moment to process the information, my brain had a hard time keeping up with all the new information, but the instant I realized what Yao's words meant and in two quick steps I was at the small window next to Matthew. A rectangular of crystal blue sky greeted me, not a cloud in sight, but then a giant shadow flew past, one I barely identified as Ember, and then three slightly smaller shadows entered from my periphery, fanning out in the air to tail behind the fleeing dragon. I suddenly felt sick to my gut.
"Which one did they get?" Yao asked from behind, with some sort of idle curiosity. "Judging by the scream, one of yours just bit the dust." Before I could answer I was tackled out of the way and Matthew's finger dug into the stone opening. He jumped to try and get a better look, yelling on the top of his lungs that sounded like 'Liberty'.
The three dragons, I had only seen them for a short amount of time, and it was hard to tell with their speed, but there was really only one thing their presence could mean. The Imperial Talons, a group of specially trained Dragon Tamers, functioning as a manifestation of the Emperor's will. Only as far as I knew they had been stationed at the border to overlook the fighting. But now they were here, chasing after Ember, and as sure I was that he could take on almost every opponent, I could only doubt when it came to Talons, three of them at that.
I turned around to face Yao, who had now been joined by Kiku standing at his right and who was still smiling his cold little smile. "You bastard." I grit out between clenched teeth, hands white knuckling around the hilt of my sword, and I was almost overwhelmed by the urge to kill the two of them on the spot. "What have you done?"
"You didn't think you could play around forever, did you?" And just like that, all the false pretense of friendliness was dropped and the cold from Yao's eyes had migrated to the rest of his body, making him seem more like a stone statue than a human. "It was quite entertaining, I'll admit that, but enough is enough. You mortals, always busy with meddling and sticking your nose where it doesn't belong and then coming to me crying when you burnt your curious little nose."
The shadows in the tower room seemed to grow with every one of Yao's words, as did the menace that radiated from his body. I felt a cold shiver of pure, unadulterated dread rise in my core and I had to grip my word even tighter in order to not just drop it in terror.
"I have waited an eternity for this, you have no idea, all the preparations, the tiny details, the patience, just to get you here. It is ridiculous; really, how a meager human like you, could ever rise to such importance, but here you are, holding the key, without even knowing it."
Involuntarily, I took a step backwards. Yao's words didn't make any sense, but the threat in them, the sheer presence he suddenly had developed was almost enough to make me flinch. And still I couldn't wrap my mind around what his words implied. I had known, through mostly guessing, that he was quite older than his physical looks would suggest, but to have it spelled put like this, having him separate himself from us mortals by insinuating that he was, indeed, immortal, was frightening in its very own way.
And not to forget that I had not the slightest idea what key he was referring to.
"What do you mean?" I demanded to know, voice growing more and more urgent as the sounds from the battle outside wafted in. I wanted nothing more than to regain my spot at the window, but I felt that this was infinitively more important than anything that was going on outside. Matthew had returned his focus on the conversation, he was pale and there were distinct tears glistening in his eyes, but the predominant emotion seemed to be anger, evident in the trickle of red, stemming from his bitten lip.
"You're special." Yao conceded, nodding his head to Kiku once, before he turned his back on me to walk over to a small table I hadn't noticed up until now. I didn't get to see what he was doing over there though, because an invisible force slammed me into the nearest wall.
I groaned, stars dancing in front of my eyes, and I hoped, oh god I hoped, that I didn't get another concussion. Only when the pain in my head subsided did I see the source of power, a sigil drawn on a sheet of parchment, in something that was too red to be coincidence. It seemed Kiku had the scroll hidden in his sleeve and finished the sigil just now with a drop of his own blood.
Blood magic was not uncommon, most dragon magic was basically drawn from their blood, but for a human to use it with such ease was unusual. I tried to free myself, but the invisible bonds kept me firmly in place, I couldn't even loosen the effect a bit. The saber had been knocked out of my hand and was lying uselessly on the ground.
"It's time to sleep now, Mr. Williams." Kiku said, with an almost sickening friendliness to his voice and he raised his still bloodied thumb and pressed it against Matthew's temple, utilizing the shock the other had fallen in to bypass any possible resistance. Matthew's eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped down like a sac of rice.
"Let me go." I growled, increasing my struggle, just as the fighting sounds from outside grew in volume. It was a relief to know that Ember was still up and fighting, but at the same time, I knew that with every passing second his strength would wane, and eventually he would fall prey to his enemies. I would have wished for him to escape, flee as far away as possible, but I knew he wouldn't leave me, he would always come back for me.
"We can't do that." Yao said, still back to me, busy with whatever it was that he was doing. I strained my neck, but I wasn't able to see past his shoulders to get a look at the table. "Do you know how long I have waited for this? How long I have been trapped in this feeble body, to wait, hundreds and hundreds of years for you to show up?" Yao finally turned around again, his eyes glowing with a faint red as he glared at me accusingly.
I swallowed hard, there was a lump in my throat that made it hard to breathe as the sudden revelation hit me. "You're a dragon." Something flashed through Yao's eyes, a shade of gold and then the red was dimming down to his usual dark brown.
"Not just any dragon, the dragon. I was the first, and as it now seems also the last true dragon. I have roamed the skies for millennia, undefeated and scarcely challenged until I was cursed by a witch and forced into human flesh to serve her. Me! Serving a puny human, can you imagine the insolence?
"She got what she deserved, that little bitch, I had patience, I waited, and finally she made a mistake, left a loophole in an order and I turned on her and killed her, ripping her heart out and watch her dying eyes as I devoured it in front of her.
"Oh but she was good, her death wasn't enough to lift the spell, I was still bound in this form and would be until all eternity. But I refused to be defeated this easily, I spent years with research, I kempt through every corner of the world, I even became the Emperor of this stupid little country that I once had represented in war, just to get my hands on you. Because you carry her blood, you mated the dragon whose blood she used to bind me, you carry his mark, and your blood will release me."
All the information swirled around in my head, as I desperately tried to grasp at their meaning. And from somewhere deep in my memory, a story rose, a story that Mathias had told me, the story of his birth and his capture, the story of his downfall. And with the story came name, the author of the strange old book that had let me to Mathias in the first place, the woman who had imprisoned him underneath the estate, and the woman who had left a door open, despite her words. She must have been more powerful than even Mathias realized.
"Freydis." It came out as nothing more than a breath, but the effect it had on Yao was instantaneous. His face contorted into a grimace, teeth bared in a hiss and eyes glowing scarlet red again. But as quick as he had lost control over his features, he had it back again, smoothing over into another one of his false smiles.
"Can you see now the length I had to go to, just to get you here? I needed to wait thousand years just for the spell on Ember's prison to lift and then I had to manipulate the circumstances for someone to free him. And it couldn't just be anyone, no, Ember wouldn't accept anyone as his mate, and even with you I was taking a gamble."
I felt a cold wave of rage wash over me at his words. He had implied, not only implied but openly admitted to having staged the killing of my parents, along with everything that preceded and followed it.
"Why the effort?" I spat, hands balled into useless fists as they were outstretched and bound to the wall. "Why the rebellion, why the two year wait? Why not just kill my parents and then kill me the moment I freed Ember?" Why did you even bother with all the additional deaths?
"I know what you want to hear. That this, too, was part of some kind of elaborate plan, that I had a good reason for all the extracurricular activities, but the truth is, I didn't. I just wanted to make sure that this country, no, this world falls apart when I'm done. The war, as long as it had been going on, had burnt itself out, a few more years and we would have peace. My advisors were yapping at me to end it, to allow peace, so I decided to rekindle the flame. For me that counts as a good reason, but for you I suppose… not."
I grit my teeth, doubling my effort to break free, but all I achieved was a hateful glower in Yao's direction, and a straining of muscles in my arms. Still I couldn't fight of the slight suspicion that Yao's words were more than a bit delusional. Sure, after waiting a millennia, two more years shouldn't matter much, but somehow I felt that Yao wasn't that patient anymore.
"Oh don't pull that face on me. You know I could have been so much worse. I have been Emperor for centuries, and I have left you humans live mostly undisturbed. You should thank me for my mercy, I could have wiped you all from the face of the earth."
I couldn't help it, I snorted. It was a humorless, sardonic sound, that came more out like sharp puff of breath, but I really didn't care. "You wish. As I see it, you're powerless, aside from what little political power you managed to retain. You had to upstage this rebellion, you had to, because you had no other way of reaching me. You had to orchestrate this whole elaborate plan, just to get me here today. And you needed him." I jerked my head in Kiku's direction, "to get me confined. You did nothing of it yourself, because you can't do a thing."
"Don't mock me." Yao hissed, eyes growing impossibly red for the third time, and I even spied two sharp canines as he spoke. "I can still crush you under my heel like an insect." Kiku made a step forward, seemingly alert suddenly, but he immediately stopped as Yao shot him a glare.
"Is that so?" I had given up on breaking free of my bonds; instead I focused all of my rage and anger into taunting Yao. "So why is it that everything you have done so far is talking?" I had barely time to register that he was moving, before Yao's fist connected solidly with my jar, knocking my head back against the wall.
"Don't. Mock. Me." Yao growled, as his finger dug in my freshly bruised jar, but I refused to back down. My resistance was fueled by despair, with every passing second the likeability of Ember's defeat, and so far I had no plan whatsoever on how I would get out if here unscathed.
"What are you gonna do to me, huh? Hit me again while I'm defenseless? Has being human made you weak?" Yao's response was immediate, and I had to fight off another wave of dizziness as I recovered from the next close encounter my head had made with the wall.
"Mr. Wang, please don't damage the specimen." Kiku's polite voice sounded completely out if place, in the middle of the carnage that was my ringing head. And even more strangely, Yao released me almost instantly, taking a few steps backwards and pulling over his smooth mask again.
"We should proceed with the extraction." Kiku suggested, his politeness doing nothing to mask the obvious enormity of his statement.
My head still hurt, but even in my dazed state I realized that 'extraction' couldn't possibly mean anything good.
...