Page 63 of Court of Talons

An oculus set high above seems slightly less black than the surrounding space. It’s full night now, so there’s nowhere near enough light to see by, but just knowing that light had been here, at one point, and that it would be again, is enough to slow the hammering of my heart.

I inch forward to peer over the edge of the precipice.

An enormous cavern stretches before me, as broad as the tournament field and as deep as the coliseum is tall. Beneath me, down the side of the rocky cliff, something glistens thickly—and the scent is clear. Salve. The salve from that large vat is being poured over the side of this precipice, to coat the rock wall. There must be a reason for that…

A noise, a scrape, and I freeze in place. There’s something down there.

At that moment, a flash of light scores across the oculus, then another. I yelp and stagger back, lunging for the nearest bar, before the sound of explosions peppering the sky registers in my mind.Fireworks. Lord Rihad is setting off fireworks. Bursts ofwhite and red and yellow are illuminating the sky visible through the oculus in quick bursts.

Something shifts again in the cavern over the edge of my rocky cliff, and despite my hammering heart, I creep forward, once more on my hands and knees, until I can barely peek over the lip of the precipice. Another burst of fireworks erupts, and I glance up instinctively.

When I drop my gaze again…I’m staring into an enormous eye.

With a choked-off scream, I flop on my back, but it’s as if my arms and legs can no longer move correctly. I sprawl like a bug, trying to gain purchase as I watch a long, vicious head angle to the side and crane up, stretching toward the oculus. The sound of metal scraping on stone rattles through the cavern, and the head snaps down again, rearing back with a slide of creaking scales to focus on me.

By this time and by mere luck, I’ve managed to scuttle my way back to the bars, and I lurch through them as the creature’s muzzle peels back from tree-trunk teeth to snap at me. The sound makes my ears ring, but I can’t speak, can’t move.

Another burst of fireworks lights up the space beyond, and the head twitches back skyward. I sense more than see the eye focusing on the ceiling, straining toward the distant lights.

Then, in the beam of another soaring stream of fire, that eye fixes on me.

It’s a lizard, I realize. A lizard withwings. A dragon like those in the sandy desert of the south, I think, though a hundred times larger than any of those dragons should be. Its head is deep bluish-black. Its snout is lined with burnished gold, and it has not one pair of eyes but two, angled in a sharp slant, each of them gold with black pupils and more than half my height. Sharp, vicious horns spike up from its temples. The dragon’s neck is thick and sinuous, the better to balance its head, butthat’s all I can see of the creature. It doesn’t lift its wings, though I can only imagine how broad its span must reach. Even what I can see of the lizard is achingly beautiful, its predatory profile magnificent in another flash of fireworks, its eyes furious and intelligent. All four of them.

My mind suddenly flares to life again.

“You’re aDivh,” I whisper. The truth of it is obvious, but I can’t reconcile what my eyes are showing me with what I believe—know—to be truth. “But Divhs don’t stay here, they can’t… they don’t stay here. They go home.”

The dragon simply watches me with two of its massive eyes, head cocked, as if it can understand my words.

Despite the danger, I slip through the bars again, approaching the great cavern on wobbly legs. The creature shuffles back—whether to lure me out or give me space, I don’t know. When I reach the edge of the precipice, another flash of fireworks overhead throws the entire basin into bright light for an extended moment, and I see the great iron shackle holding the enormous dragon in place. The chain is long, and the cavern immense, so the creature could…possibly…fly. It just can’t leave.

Then the light flashes again, and I see something else.

“Yourwing,” I gasp—for I see it now. The right wing of this enormous, majestic dragon looks like it’s been slashed to shreds, its delicate leather torn and scarred. The wing hangs awkwardly from its body, and as I stare, the creature huffs a warning, with a trickle of sulphury smoke streaming up from its muzzle.

A second later, it lunges at me, and I bleat, scrambling backward from the snapping teeth, barely missing being made the creature’s next meal.

“I’m sorry!” I manage, trying to stuff my heart back down my throat. The snap was a warning I know, a warning not to get too close, not to stare too hard.

A warning I’m happy to heed.

And yet… “How is it you’re here?” Unreasoning sorrow touches my voice. The dragon shuffles a few short steps below me, hauling the heavy chain with it, but the chain doesn’t look so sturdy as that. It’s not what’s holding the dragon still. The bird’s damaged wing is doing that. Or…something even worse.

“Who did this to you?” I whisper, and in the darkness, my hiss seems to carry deeper into the cavern. But the creature doesn’t turn again at my voice, doesn’t react to me at all. It’s not bonded to me, like Gent. It’s not my place to know its secrets or its?—

Her.

The thought is so clear in my mind that I fall back again against the stone precipice, trembling like a bug once more. I stare straight up into the far-off oculus, wondering what just happened, if anything just happened. Wondering if I’ve been given the precious right to know a new Divh’s thoughts—a right that’s not possible, like this Divh was not possible, this bold and mighty dragon, lifting its wings below?—

Her wings.

The words cascade through me, blasting every other thought away. And as I stare, I see an image of the dragon in her full glory, soaring toward the sun, her great wings pumping with razor-sharp spikes at the tips, each of them a separate spear, her neck outstretched, her breast as blue as raw sapphires shot through with ebony fire.

The image disappears again. I can sense nothing more from the creature, the Divh, the immense dragon in the cavern below me. I don’t know why she’s here, but something very wrong is happening in the underbelly of the First House for this to be possible. Something wrong and dark. I know so little about the mighty, extraordinary Divhs, but I do know this: you can’t keep them in this world. It’s not their world. They will die if they stay too long…or theyshoulddie.

I creep once more to the edge of the stony outcropping, staring down. Though the fireworks still explode overhead, I can no longer see the Divh, can no longer hear the snap of her teeth. I should go, and yet, a sudden aching maw of loneliness opens up within me.

Forgettable, forgotten.