C1 Chapter 1

Tibaur padded along the dark passageway. The cold of the stone floor snuck into his bare feet, and he welcomed the feeling, it was comforting, solid. He could see nothing, but he didn’t need to, he knew every step of his path by heart. This place was like an old friend, and it was his alone. A secret set of halls and stairs that led from the Archon’s chambers to the throne room of the Amber Aerie.

His fingers tapped a rhythm on the hard surface of his newest discovery: a silver encased and jewel encrusted book. Maybe the book’s creator thought that words alone were not enough for someone of high stature.

And perhaps they weren’t. Six knew what his ancient predecessor’s motivation was for his collection. Generations ago, some dragon lord found and collected an entire library of ancient tombs. Tibaur wouldn’t complain if it was the jewels that had enticed him, not when they were turning out to be very fascinating for his own purposes.

Very fascinating, indeed.

He approached the top of the first long set of stairs and slowed without thinking, his feet recalling the path he had strode so many times. Each step was a familiar one. From the length of the stairs to the depth, each a perfectly even stone.

This was the third reference he had come across that mentioned the great fissure; the breaking of the realms. The first had been in a tomb about the legendary Shifters of the great war, but he had gifted that book to Scet.

He longed to re-read it now. It was unfortunate that he hadn’t thought to take a copy of the passage. He couldn’t regret giving it, however, despite his current inconvenience. There were no others he knew that had the unique skills necessary to find the five remaining orbs...and no other that would be trusted not to use them to their own advantage.

Dangerous things, the orbs.

No, the book and its maps to the old temples was meant to be Scet’s; he and his mate were the only ones to be trusted with it.

His fingers paused in their rhythm. And hadn’t trust become the rarest of commodities? By his count, those he would bet his life on had dwindled down to a handful of men. His court a nest full of vipers, twisting and pulling at the threads that held the Aerie together, each desperate for a larger chunk for themselves. Greed was the nature of dragons, after all.

But he still had Dynarys.

His fingers tapped their tune again. Yes. Dynarys he could trust, because he was the only lord with both the power and the right to take Tibaur’s place. And yet he hadn’t. So Firestriker had become his right hand. The lord he could trust above all others. To the underworld with his advisers and their incessant push for pure blood. Hadn’t the traitor Portus come from the purest line of all?

Tibaur found himself on the fourth floor, his internal monologue distracting him so that he’d forgotten traveling most of the passage. The stairs terminated at a small landing, only wide enough for one. A forgotten servant’s passage, no doubt. It allowed him to slip into the throne chamber, which consisted of the entire fourth floor, from behind a solid wood panel.

The panel was cool to the touch and swung outward on well-oiled hinges, hardly a sound made.

Tibaur loved this time of day, before the dawn broke, when the world was quiet.

Or it should have been.

Somewhere, paper fluttered, a weak sound that held Tibaur frozen, one foot in the air, his restlessness tamed in the moment. He listened, keeping his breathing shallow, and tilting his head. He was on the verge of slipping into the chamber, but found himself hanging back, lingering on the dark landing instead.

Someone was in the throne room. It shouldn’t have been possible since the only entrance other than the one he was occupying was the main doors. No one was allowed in without Tibaur’s express permission. The ornate double entrance was guarded by two sets of Dragon lords and another several sets on each floor below. The ground level was guarded on all sides by the Aerie’s Shifters at all times.

His mind snapped to the most likely scenario. There had been evidence of a traitor in the Aerie. It would have to be someone the guards wouldn’t think to stop. Or someone that knew enough to get past the forces.

In the throne room, there was a mechanical click and the release of a spring before something clacked off the wall next to him.

Tibaur swallowed. The sense of dread that he was normally able to temper exploded to the forefront. He was under attack.

He waited, hoping for the familiar rage of the beast within, hoping to feel the dragon slam against his control.

Nothing. Not even a flicker of dismay. The dragon refused to respond.

Even now, in this dire circumstance, he was on his own. He thought, for a moment, about summoning his guards. They were just outside the door any time of the day or night, but looking for protection smacked of weakness and would bring about questions that he would rather not answer. Questions such as why his beast was taking an attempt on it’s life so passively.

He edged around the corner of the door, protecting as much of his head and body as possible, and gathered the lantern that lay just within reach. A flint lay on the tray and Tibaur’s trembling hands struggled to light the contraption.

A dragon struggling with fire. Pathetic.

When he succeeded at last, he held the lantern high and directed it into the throne room. Long shadows danced wildly, highlighting piles of books and shelves that he’d had moved into the space. Plenty of places for an enemy to hide. He studied the room, assessing the risk, calculating the angle the bolt had flown.

Keeping that in mind, he moved from the passage, flitting from shelf to shelf. The light flickered as he moved, delving into shadows, and chasing them across the floor. Eventually, he had traversed the entire room, revealing nothing.

How in the six realms could that be?

He raised the lantern higher, pushing into the shadows, searching for signs of something amiss. How was it someone had even entered the throne room in the first place?

There. The flutter of a tapestry. There was one between each set of floor to ceiling windows on his left. Windows that did not open, so there should be no breeze to move the decorative hanging. He stalked that direction and ripped the tapestry aside.

The fabric protested, tearing along the center. Damn it, he would regret that later. These tapestries were some of the only true connections to the Lord’s long history, though no one knew what they truly meant any longer.

There was no one behind it, either, only an empty expanse of wall between windows. But as he studied the next window over, he found an explanation. The lower portion of the solid glass pane had been removed. Large enough for a man to crawl through. A whiff of outside air whisked through it and lifted a few loose pages among his book stacks. The sound that had halted him in the passage. It was more than likely that simple mistake had been what saved Tibaur’s life. Even a dragon lord would die from a well-placed arrow, or crossbow bolt.

He swallowed a snarl and then sighed, rubbing long fingers against his temple, dropping the ruined cloth on the floor where he stood.

So, it had finally come to this. For some time, Tibaur had ridden the edge of exposure. It was only a matter of time before someone discovered his weakness. Still, he thought his end would come through an outright challenge of his leadership, not a

cowardly attempt at assassination.

If he thought about it, though, the signs had been building for months, if not years. Portus, it seemed, was only the beginning.

Assassination. Someone wanted to remove him entirely. The Aerie would be thrown into chaos. A challenge would have allowed the strongest of the lords to take his place, but if he was simply ended without a successor? Every lord with a hint of ambition would vie for the position. By their very natures, the beasts would battle until someone wrested control from them all. There would be many deaths and more suffering.

But maybe that was this traitor’s plan; not to take control, but to pull the Aerie down around them all.

Warily, he worked his way back across the chamber, side-stepping the looming shadows of shelves and towers of books, back toward the wooden panel. There were lanterns along the wall, but he wasn’t in the mood to light them. The guard might notice, and he didn’t want to draw attention to this fiasco. Oh, he could tell them his dragon chased the attacker out, but that would mean lords trying to ensure his ‘protection’. It would mean more guards...and servants. He shuddered. Just the idea of having so many invading his space, slipping away the last remaining bits of his freedom...

The panel stood as he had left it, hanging open, its gaping entrance black with the darkness of the passage behind it.

He lowered the lantern.

There it was, not a crossbow bolt, though it had flown fast enough to be mistaken as one by sound alone. No, it was an arrow, with pure white fletchings. Not the arrows of any of his warriors. Tibaur reached down and picked it up gingerly by the shaft.

There were no mars on the perfect wood, but the tip, and a short distance up the shaft was darker. Tibaur ran his fingers down it, thinking, perhaps, there was a difference in the wooden finish. His brow drew together when his fingers came away damp and smelling slightly astringent.

Poison.

His chest tightened a little. How very close he had come to meeting death. He looked up, a new realization clicking in his thoughts. This assassin was very serious. Deadly serious. And not only that, but he had known of Tibaur’s passage. The shot came his direction the instant the panel slid open. He didn’t catch an intruder in the act, the man had been waiting for him.

He groaned, cupping his forehead. He’d hoped to keep this attack to himself, but with that kind of knowledge...well, it simply wouldn’t be wise.

He was going to have to alert Dynarys.

As the Aerie’s general, Tibaur’s safety was the man’s duty. And Dynarys did an admirable job, exceptional even, and he would be discrete, would keep the attempt quiet if Tibaur asked. But Dynarys was also cautious, and when the general got wind of what had transpired here, well, Tibaur was unlikely to be allowed a moment of privacy again.