Chapter Twenty Five
Dagan
‘Ceee?’ I tried again, struggling to focus on the elf instead of the ash field.
‘Yes, Cedron. He was sent to trade in Tempit, and convinced the King to send me in reply to Earl’s…peace offering.’
I gave him a confused look. The elf sighed.
‘When Earl attacked Firo eight months ago, it was without the King’s consent. Earl sent young girls to Tempit as slaves in order to appease him.’
My eyes widened.
Annie!
‘The King accepted it easily. He’s grown too comfortable and arrogant in his reign to realise Earl is planning to overthrow him.’
I don’t care about the stupid king! Did you see Annie? I wanted to scream.
‘Don’t worry; I’m going to get you out of here. I’ll help you get to Tempit and save Firo.’
I sighed in relief, glad words weren’t needed.
‘You’ll need to be able to move on your own, so I’ll start cutting back your…blood intake.’ He circled around me, staring at my back and frowning. ‘…Or maybe I should increase it and let those come through first. Having them half formed would be problematic.’
I stared at him like he was crazy.
‘Trust me, you don’t want half-formed wings, the pain would distract you.’
Great. I thought, But how am I supposed to move with giant wings on my back?
I knew how big my wings were in dragon form on the field; they were longer than my body.
‘I’ll look after you, and I’ll keep you informed on what’s happening. I need to wait for my accomplice anyway, so we have three months to get you in shape.’
I groaned, already dreading it.
Dagan wasn’t a naturally chatty person, and I couldn’t form words properly. A lot of our time was spent in awkward silence, him helping me eat, bathe, relieve myself. Not anything I wanted anyone to help me with, let alone a stranger.
‘Earl has been planning a coup ever since he was sent away from Tempit. Usually the King waits until his children turn twenty five before relocating them to Lar, but Earl has shown an alarming interest in the King’s dark magic.’
So he really does have dark magic.
Yes, Firo answered, surprising me. A dark power that no human should ever possess.
‘Earl wants that power for himself, but he didn’t inherit it. For dark magic to be inherited the parents must both possess magic, and pass them onto the child. This balances out the power of the dark magic a little. If a child is born with just dark magic they are still-born, usually killing the non-magic mother too. The King’s children only live because they have no magic.’
Does that mean the King has another magic too? I asked Firo, seen as my physical mouth wasn’t co-operating.
Yes, he was originally born in Arswing, and inherited foreseeing magic. He can use water or reflective items to spy on people.
But doesn’t that mean he knows Earl is planning a coup?
Yes, to a degree. He knew it before Earl left Tempit…but now you are blocking his magic. Any of Earl’s plans involving you are invisible to him.
Why?
Immortals are too powerful for his magic to work on. He cannot see into the immortal realms or spy on the immortals. So any plans Earl makes involving Ignatius and you he’s ignorant of. This makes him overconfident and believes Earl is no longer a threat. He views the attack on Firo the equivalent of a temper tantrum. He has grown too lax and arrogant in his long reign. It will be his downfall.
‘The only way Earl can gain dark magic is to kill the current owner, then he will inherit both of the King’s magic…which is the last thing we want. Earl would be a bigger tyrant than his father. Someone needs to kill the King before he gets a chance.’
I gave him a dubious look.
I’m not killing him and gaining dark magic. I mentally tried to tell him.
‘As an elf I would be a better host for such magic.’ He said, his gaze demanding I agree.
Do you agree with that? I asked Firo.
I think no being should wield such darkness. But if an elf must do it, it should not be Dagan.
I didn’t know why, but Dagan’s name sounded familiar. Where had I heard it before?
‘Earl will dispose of his siblings before killing the King. Hopefully that will give us some time.’
Yeah, time to grow some wings, which was not fun. Even when most of my senses were in the ash field the pain was excruciating. Every nerve and muscle was in constant spasms as the wings slowly grew.
Weirdly, Dagan seemed to know a lot about wings and massaged my back to ease the spasms, caressing the nubs that started to form. I was starting to worry he had a fetish.
After two months I was relieved to see the wings weren’t as big as I feared they’d be, reaching to the back of my knees. I could no longer sit down though, having to lay on my side while my personal wing-carer fussed over them.
‘You need to stretch and exercise them regularly, otherwise they’ll be useless. It would be unforgivable to waste them.’
I tried to turn my head, looking at his wistful expression, full of longing.
He may be an elf now, I thought, But he used to be a farry.
While Dagan looked after my physical body, Firo insisted I start moving my dragon self, leaning to use my unfamiliar body parts. Firo herself couldn’t move anymore, too weak, but she watched and encouraged me as I learned to move my tail and wings. My physical body began to respond, so Dagan began cutting back on Firo’s blood.
I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to fly, but I could now fold them neatly against my back.
‘Now we wait.’ Dagan said, ‘And hope my ally gets here before Earl makes his move.’
I’d been in the dungeon eleven months when Dagan’s ally showed up. By then we’d stopped Firo’s blood completely, her presence a faint but constant spark in the back of my mind.
What’s that? I was startled awake by a quiet rumbling. The whole ground was shaking, the noise growing louder and louder. I glanced over at Dagan, who was awake, but not concerned.
‘About time.’ He muttered, glancing over at the dungeon door where the usual guards were absent. ‘It looks like Earl is making his move.’
I listened, hearing screams and sounds of fighting coming from above in the castle halls.
‘He will come here when he’s killed all his siblings and take you to Tempit with him.’
No thanks, I thought, my attention going back to the shaking ground. Cracks were beginning to form next to Dagan, the concrete being pushed up.
What kind of monster can push through concrete?
Finally the concrete parted and a grey, shaggy wolf crawled through the hole, looking irritated.
‘Wha?’ I drawled out, starting to question whether I was back in reality.
‘I guess going out that way won’t work.’ Dagan sighed. ‘You’d get stuck. We’ll have to go through the castle.’
I was still too busy staring at the wolf to contribute to this.
‘Can you get us out?’ Dagan asked the wolf instead.
The wolf stopped shaking the dirt off itself and padded to the cell door. Out of the stone cellar the door was the only thing made of wood, with a high barred window for the guards to peer through and a little light to enter. Dagan had commented once that the dungeons had been here before the castle was built, but the King had changed the prison into a mansion, naming it a castle to appease his children as he banished them here.
I’d wondered how long Dagan had been a slave to know that.
The wolf stood staring at the door, not moving. I was about to whisper my questions of what the hell is going on? when saplings began growing up the door, weaving into cracks in the wood.
My whole body went cold.
That thing isn’t a wolf; it’s an earth immortal.
The door began to crack and split apart until there was nothing left except a pile of firewood, the plants immediately withered away. The wolf trotted away around the corner, out of sight.
‘We’ll have to be careful.’ Dagan said as he helped me stand. ‘We’re about to walk through a massacre.’
‘Why are you working with that thing?’ I hissed, backing away from him as far as my chains would let me. ‘Immortals can’t be trusted!’
‘I know that.’ Dagan said, eyes on the doorway. ‘But I’ve known him and his master a long time; they have the same goals we do. As long as we’re useful to him he won’t betray us.’
I doubt he sounded convincing even to himself.
I would have continued but the re-appearance of the wolf made my throat seize up. His fur was covered in blood and he carried a set of keys in his mouth. Dagan took them with no hesitation, not even noticing the blood.
‘Right, let’s get moving before Earl remembers you.’
Dagan had been right; this place wasn’t a castle, just a fancy mansion. The floors were carpeted, the walls coated with large tapestries. It was more enclosed, warmer, with mosaic glass windows rather than stone bar ones.
The carpets and tapestries were splattered with blood, some of the beautiful windows had been smashed, stray bits of glass all over the floor…And there were bodies. Most of them in the corridors were soldiers, probably the ones Earl couldn’t convert to his coup.
‘He would have instructed his men to attack while all his siblings were eating with him in the great hall.’ Dagan whispered, his voice lacking any sympathy at the sight before us. ‘Now they’ll have joined him there to slaughter them.’
‘Can’t we stop them?’ I asked.
Dagan gave me a cold look that made me tense, expecting him to attack.
‘Why would I help them? The royal family have kept me captive for two hundred years. I want them all to suffer and then die. If Earl kills all his siblings then only two of my sworn enemies are left.’
The wolf gave a loud snort, turning Dagan’s intense hatred to it.
‘You be quiet! I will kill the King and get my magic back!’
Wait, what?
I was starting to wonder whether staying with Earl would have been the safer option.
We were near the supposed castle’s entrance, which was also the great hall. We’d walked past it, almost at the unguarded gates leading us to freedom when the great hall doors opened.
Earl stepped out, covered head to toe in blood, and grinning from ear to ear.
Scribbled Thoughts 