Chapter 5

Not a word was spoken as Coquina and Fresto soared towards the Peak Circle. The world had fallen eerily quiet, as if even the earth itself was stunned into silence.

The moon stared down at Coquina in a narrow silver glow. As she looked over at it, scarlet trails seemed to engulf it, slicing it in two. It wasn’t a moon to her, for those few moments. It was the body of a dragon, pale in death, with the stars around it specs of scattered blood.

She clenched her eyes shut, slowing to a glide as she fought to chase the memories of blood away. They remained. She couldn’t stop seeing his body. Perhaps it was the dark of night that drained life so easily tonight, letting only death rule, until even with her eyes firmly closed she could still see it everywhere.

As her wings began to curve downwards, she beat them to keep her aloft, her eyes jolting open. Glints of brown and grey scales met her. Fresto had turned to check she was following.

She nodded once, and he flicked back around to fly forwards once more. Reluctantly, she followed. His tailspikes twitched not far from her snout, the closest spikes still painted with a dripping scarlet.

She didn’t want to look, but there was nothing else to focus on, and so she let her eyes remain settled on that bloodstained tail. Every inch of her wanted to wipe it clean and remove the last evidence of today’s sickening ordeal. But she knew removing the stains wouldn’t truly let her forget. Teffré blood would forever stay there, an endless reminder of the life that those very spikes had extinguished forever.

Coquina could feel that blood clinging to her spikes, too. Though it went unseen, it was there, and it made her throat harden. She could barely breathe. Every time she did inhale, a coppery taste would fill her lungs, and she desperately wanted to spit it away.

Finally, the eight peaks huddled at the horizon, and she shot towards them, desperate to feel something beneath her claws. The night air pressed at her, and her wings were growing heavier. Perhaps it was natural exhaustion, or perhaps it was that she simply didn’t want to move anything anymore.

Fresto glided ahead of her and down the nearest slope, landing gently in the centre of the peaks and turning his head to face the cave. Slowly, Coquina followed suit, and touched down behind him. Her claws immediately sank into the mud, hiding from the moon’s glow.

A scaled shape shifted, looming from the dark of the cave. Patches of white caught in the moonlight. Breath coming in short rasps, Coquina hung her head as Latriis’ shadow settled over her.

“It is done?” Latriis asked, her voice seeming to echo from every mountain surrounding them.

“Yes,” Fresto answered. He lifted his tail, letting the Dux see the blood coating his spikes. “One clean swipe. We were seen by none but him.”

“I see.”

Coquina dared to lift her eyes enough to see Latriis’ expression. She regretted it immediately. The Dux flicked her gaze from Fresto to her, and scrutinised her, dark eyes narrowed.

“You were unable to complete my task?” There was a new note to her voice, something dangerous. It made Coquina shiver.

“I-I’m afraid not,” she forced out. She searched for some way to justify her inability to do her job, but beneath the thump of her heart, few thoughts could be heard.

“Why?”

Coquina’s tongue flicked out, unable to stay still in her nerves. She took a sharp intake of breath. With no explanation Latriis would be remotely satisfied by, she had no option but to brave the truth.

“I didn’t want to kill him,” she began, ashamed at the murmur of her voice. She forced it to raise in volume and clarity and tried again. “It wasn’t right to kill him. Wasn’t there another way? Couldn’t we have just… tied him up in enemy territory, and--”

“There was no other way,” Latriis snapped. “If the guard had been allowed to live, he could have talked. Whether he would be listened to or not is uncertain, but we cannot afford any uncertainty.” Her voice fell to a hiss, laced with low fury. “I have been planning this for decades, white dragon. I will not be stopped by a simple question of whether something is right or wrong. I do what is right for my clan. There will be many casualties. He will only be the first.”

Her words shook Coquina’s scales and let the crawling frost of fear return. She gulped. “Understood, Dux.”

Though she didn’t fully understand. Why was it that no other dragon seemed to have a problem with this? Was death and blood just to be expected?

Perhaps there were others who thought the same, but they would never have the courage to stand before their Dux and speak their dissatisfactions. Opinions that opposed the Dux would have to be covered over, buried by clan loyalty. And Coquina had no choice but to do the same.

The threat that hung off Latriis’ voice didn’t need to be explained. As her dark eyes pierced an icy glare, Coquina knew that if she disobeyed again, the next blood to stain the earth would be her own.

Latriis jerked her head to the side. “You’ve done well, Subil Fresto. I will see to your promotion at the Prisol’s rise.”

“Thank you, Dux,” Fresto said, before unfolding his wings and vanishing into the night.

Silently, Coquina waited for her own dismissal. But it didn’t come.

“I am not sure you do understand, Coquina,” Latriis said, her voice silky. “I do not want to have a Proeliar in my clan that I cannot trust to complete a job for me.”

A hammering filled Coquina’s ears, barely letting the words be audible. She was sure the Dux was able to hear her heartbeat with clarity.

Maybe Latriis wasn’t threatening death. What she hinted at now was something far worse. Coquina remembered the vulnerability she’d felt outside Hiedium’s borders, the lack of safety, the softness of her underscales acutely obvious. A tremor, long and cold, crawled along her spine.

“I apologise, Dux,” she tried, doing her best to keep the note of desperation from her tone. “I promise, any job you give me in future, I will complete. I won’t fail you again.”

Latriis twisted her head to the side. “But how can I know for certain? I do not allow uncertainty, white dragon. Remember that.” Her eyes flashed with deepest indigo as she stared downwards. “Prove it to me. Prove you will not fail me.”

“But how?” Coquina asked, though she knew the answer already. Her tongue felt dry.

“You will complete another job for me. Another… disposal. And this one you will complete yourself.” Latriis cocked her head to the side, horns stabbing sideways into the black void above. “If you cannot, then you are of no use to me or this clan.”

Coquina’s heart dropped. Her chest felt empty, hollow, a gaping chasm filled with only piercing fear. She risked a glance at the Dux’s eyes. One word was written there, unspoken but brighter than moonlight as it shone from her gaze, and that one word filled her with a deeper cold than any other ever could.

Reicio.

An outcast, one driven from their clan, destined to roam forever outside their clan borders with safety always a snatch out of reach. Coquina had never thought her Dux would remove a healthy, working dragon from the clan for one failure, but her failure could well have been catastrophic. Besides, one look at Latriis was enough to tell that she was not one for forgiveness.

“Of course, Dux,” Coquina said hurriedly, the words racing from the throat, fleeing the implications of that one dreaded word. “When would you have me complete this task?”

Though she did not look at Latriis’ eyes, the spark in her gaze shivered through Coquina. “At tomorrow night’s end.”