The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga #1)(41)

Sybil. Her sister’s magic had been strong and Leona could still feel it in her veins, burning through her. It was fading quickly, but she’d relish in the ghostly resentment that tried to turn her stomach sour. But nothing could spoil this day, for it was the first day that dawned after she had known Yveun Dono.

The King had not explained himself—not last night, not with the dawn. She suspected he never would. He didn’t have to. He had made it apparent that he would take what was his. And Leona was nothing if not that.

She adjusted her grip on the handles, the clouds nearing. Throwing a look over her shoulder, she checked that Andre and Camile were still with her. Camile had the face of a cat; her curious amusement at Leona’s mood was apparent. Andre wore a grin that was half snarl. This man and woman were more her blood than Sybil had ever been.

Lysip was shrinking further and further behind them. When she returned victorious, she would seek Yveun Dono’s blessing to duel Coletta’Ryu. The woman was sickly, and would prove an easy kill. But to challenge a Ryu required the Oji’s blessing. After last night, and after she brought home Cvareh’s head, she suspected she may have that unprecedented blessing.

Before the first Fenthri broke through the clouds, the Dragons had called the seemingly impenetrable barrier the Gods’ Line, as it separated their world from the next. Boco, the bird-like creatures they used to fly between the islands of Nova, lost control of their wings as they neared the speeding winds that always wove through the clouds. Every Dragon who tried to descend on the back of a Boco fell violently through the line and was never seen again.

Certain death by falling into the afterlife had made attempts to descend unappealing. And for hundreds of years, no Dragons tried. When the Fenthri barely broke through the clouds, only to be shortly torn asunder by the winds themselves, Nova learned that it was not the afterlife on the other side of the line but another world entirely. Curious Dragons—fools—attempted to cross once more at the site of the first breach, but fell to their deaths. It was their corpses that provided the organs that led to the first Chimera being pieced together by the Alchemists.

Once the Fen had magic, the God’s Line was nearly obsolete. They still struggled, scraping together enough power to cross. But the technology they developed was finally in Nova’s grasp—a technology Dragons had been meant to have in their talons all along.

Leona re-centered herself on her glider, the bottom of her boots connected to the platform with magic and sheer will. She had descended a few times, though it never gave her much cause to be fond of the process. The wind was deafening, the clouds blinding. She pointed her glider nose down and plummeted forward.

Gravity was her friend. It fought vertigo and, in free-fall, she didn’t need to exhaust magic on keeping herself airborne. That magic was better spent holding a thin corona around her and the vessel to protect herself from the winds. Her fingers froze; her braid felt like it would rip from her scalp.

Magic cracked, reaching a crescendo as she pushed through, parting the clouds and opening Loom to her like an abysmal present.

The echoes of two more descents reverberated through the mountaintops that surrounded Dortam. Leona trusted Andre and Camile to be where they were supposed to be. If she couldn’t count on them to make a descent, she had brought the wrong Dragons as her left and right.

The blackened, pointed rooftops of Dortam reminded Leona of a porcupine’s spears. It was a sad, stinted world beneath the clouds. The people were smaller, the plants brittle and hard compared to the lush greenery of Nova. Fen were made of the rocks they cherished so much. Whereas Dragons… they were made of life itself.

“There!” Camile called over the wind.

Leona followed her finger to a broken rooftop. The second they got close, Leona could smell it. She could practically see gold on the ground.

“Xin are built like porcelain dolls. Little Cvareh bleeds from falling off his glider,” Camile jabbed.

Leona let her subordinates put down the annoying Dragon House. She even partook from on occasion, delighting in the verbal jabs. But this time, she stayed silent. The smell of blood was faint. It had long since disappeared on the wind. The trace that was left was little more than enough to make a mark.

She hated Cvareh. She hated House Xin. And she still fantasized about all the ways she could pull out Petra’s lying teeth one by one. But Leona wasn’t going to let it blind her. Sybil had underestimated her foe. Petra was nothing less than a monster, and if Cvareh was cut from the same cloth, he shouldn’t be written off lightly. All his appearances at the Crimson Court could be just that—appearances. Who knew what truly lay beneath.

“The trail goes cold,” Leona noted. Tracking Cvareh wasn’t going to be that easy, or even someone as incompetent as Sybil wouldn’t have failed. “We head for Mercury Town.”

“Oh, gross,” Andre balked. “It smells rancid there.”

“And where else do you think we’ll find talk of Cvareh?” Leona grinned. It was intended to be playful, but her smile was wide enough to show her teeth. She was the leader and it never hurt to reinforce that fact.

“Lead on. If we are to dredge up the worst, we must go to the worst.” Andre motioned a cherry colored hand for her to continue and Leona spurred forward.

If there was a Dragon in Dortam, talk of it would get to Mercury Town. Leona didn’t think for a second that Cvareh would get very far before a harvester set eyes on him. It seemed her sister had the same idea.