Aflame: Legacy of Flames Book 3 (Paperback)

Dragons, as a general rule, did not enjoy being locked in cages.

The cell the mages had given me was nice, as far as prisons went. Not a dungeon, nor a cramped space like those in the Orion Stronghold, but a small room, sparsely furnished. If not for the bars in the small window atop the door, I might have been able to pretend I was in a hotel and not a jail. That, and the fact that the mages refused to let me out, not even to speak to my little sister.

Compared to some of the places my friends and I had sheltered in, the accommodations were nothing to sniff at. The mages had even brought me new clothes and had offered me top-grade cleansing spells that wiped years of grime off my skin. The Mage Lords had money to burn. Tons of it. Many shifters wouldn’t see this as a bad deal, and who knew, maybe it wasn’t the worst idea to stay here until London’s supernaturals had forgotten their numerous grudges against me. It was a relatively stress-free existence, though a boring one. 

But the fire inside me would never be quenched, not until the Orion League was utterly destroyed.

I paced the room one side to the other, grinding my teeth. That I hadn’t lost my temper and shifted into a dragon yet was testament to how badly I wanted to avoid pissing off the mages even more than I already had. While the mages’ prison was covered in protective wards which might even be resilient to dragonfire for all I knew, they’d never let me speak to Cori if I threw a tantrum and wrecked the place. 

That, and I saw the reasoning behind their decision to lock me away indefinitely, considering I’d helped a criminal escape justice and sent him to an unknown location where even the mages couldn’t find him. Oh, and I’d deceived them about the location of a powerful magical object because I hadn’t trusted them not to steal it for themselves rather than letting me use it to save my sister—or worse, let it fall back into the League’s hands.

I stopped pacing as the door clicked open, and Lord Smyth came in. As leader of the Mage Lords in this region, he would probably be quite reasonable to deal with under normal circumstances. As it was, since he’d had the misfortune of having to deal with an attempted assault on London by the Orion League and a surprise dragon shifter and her troublemaking allies in the same week, his patience had been thin from the outset. That I’d then lied to his face was apparently one transgression too far.

“Yes?” I tried for politeness, but frankly I had no idea how one was supposed to address a Mage Lord. Lord Smyth was a tall black man in maybe his mid-forties, who wore a tailored suit that probably cost as much as my entire annual income and had two modes: stern and slightly less stern. Today looked to be the latter.

“I apologise for leaving you alone for such a long time, Ember,” he said. “We’ve been busy, cleaning up the aftermath of the hunters’ attack on the city and assuring none of their monstrous creatures were left behind.”

I doubted the mages themselves had done much cleaning. As per usual, everyone else would left to foot the bill for the damages. It also didn’t sit well with me that the mages called the shifters whom Malkin had manipulated to fight on his side using the Moonbeam monsters or abominations. While I’d used the same terminology myself, shifters typically had a different definition of the word ‘monster’ than regular humans. And we knew damn well the League thought supernaturals were all abominations, the mages included.

“The hunters?” I asked. “Have you found their fortress yet?”

“No, we haven’t,” he said. “Are you quite certain that’s where they were operating from?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Surely there aren’t many places to hide a moving island.”

“I’ve learned not to be surprised at the lengths the League will go to in order to conceal their criminality,” said Lord Smyth. “I may have some more questions for you later, but I came to give you the opportunity to speak to your sister.”

My attention sharpened. “I can?”

Please, let me speak to her. I was Cori’s big sister, the only person left to take care of her after we’d lost everyone else in our lives. It was hard not to blame myself for everything she’d suffered recently—first being kidnapped by the hunters, and then when I’d rescued her from the Stronghold only for her to immediately be moved to another cell. That the mages treated their prisoners miles better than the League did didn’t mean she deserved to be locked up, not in the slightest. 

“Yes. She’s fine, don’t worry, though she still has gaps in her memory.”

“I told you why.” My nails bit into my palms. “The hunters drugged her. She doesn’t remember anything up until the moment she was taken prisoner, so she has no information to give you.”

“I can see your perspective, Ember, but I need to be sure that you aren’t concealing the whereabouts of any other League members. The ones whom you sought shelter with are still at large.”

He meant Giselle and Astor. No matter what I said, he and the other mages refused point-blank to accept they’d renounced the League years ago. “They aren’t League members. And I have no idea where they are.”

“The man found to be impersonating an employee was a League member. I’m sure you understand the dilemma this puts me in. You lied to us when you told us he was killed.”

“Because you’d have killed him yourselves without hearing him out,” I said. “He renounced the League and helped us get Cori out of their Stronghold. Then he helped us find safety when nobody else would. I owed him my life.”

As it was, all I’d been able to do was send him through a magical portal to what I hoped was safety, and the mages hadn’t been willing to accept that I really didn’t have the faintest idea where he’d ended up. The portal was untested and had been a last-ditch idea out of desperation to save Astor from certain execution at the hands of the mages. All for the crime of having worked for the Orion League. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d later renounced them, nor that he’d been manipulated into joining their ranks from the outset when Malkin had staged a dragon shifter attack on his family. 

In fact, I was willing to bet a lot of the Orion League’s current members had joined under similar circumstances. Malkin used the Moonbeam to take away shifters’ free will and ordered them to kill humans. Then he’d send his hunters in to kill or capture the shifter in question and recruited new members from amongst the surviving victims. It was the easiest, most efficient way to build an army who didn’t question their purpose. And it was all based on a lie.

Lord Smyth’s eyes narrowed. “Your sister can’t confirm your story.”

“That’s because she was unconscious. Have you talked to Will or Becks? They were with me the whole time. They can confirm everything I say is the truth. Kit, too, though he didn’t witness all of it due to being Malkin’s prisoner, too.” 

“Yes,” said Lord Smyth. “They said the same as you, but I’m afraid I can’t trust their judgement to be unbiased. They’ve lied to protect you before.”

“They don’t need to,” I said. “We only lied beforehand because we needed the Moonbeam to save my sister’s life.”

“And to save your hunter allies.”

“Because they aren’t hunters.” It was like arguing with a relatively amiable brick wall. “I appreciate that the League’s actions are unforgivable, but if anyone should hold a grudge, it’s me, and I don’t.”

Okay, I did hold something of a grudge against Giselle, as she was partly responsible for landing us in this mess. When she’d tried to steal and destroy the Moonbeam without caring that I needed it to wake up Cori, she’d ended up falling into the portal the Moonbeam had opened. While the mages had already been searching for her house, the blazing bright light the Moonbeam had created had been a dead giveaway of our hiding place.

“As I said, I’m considering all the evidence,” said Lord Smyth. “However, I’d like to offer you the chance to speak with your sister.”

“On what condition?” There must be a catch. There always was, with people like him. The mages saw everything as a transaction.

“Only that you tell me the truth. What do you know about the Moonbeam?”

“Not enough,” I said honestly. “I didn’t even know it could create portals until Giselle fell through one.”

“Conveniently.”

I bit my tongue, frustrated to have ended up on this subject again. Yes, I’d admittedly tried to repeat the process for Astor when the mages had broken the door down and I’d wished desperately for the Moonbeam to send him somewhere safe. But there was no guarantee that wherever the pair of them had ended up was any less perilous than a house swarming with angry mages.

“I really don’t know how it works,” I repeated. “I learned from Malkin himself that it can control shifters against their will and also boost their abilities.” Not exactly true. It was Giselle who’d told me that, but it hardly mattered now. And I hadn’t told him that the Moonbeam might hold the key to finding the other dragon shifters, because I didn’t even know what that meant. Perhaps the portal was actually a link to the dragon shifters’ home, if such a place hadn’t been destroyed a long time ago. 

But Malkin implied they were still alive.

I shoved the thought out of mind. Malkin would say anything, tell any lie, to gain the desired effect on his target, whether that were recruiting a new hunter or taking away my last hope of finding my fellow dragon shifters. 

“I really don’t know anything, sir,” I repeated, when Lord Smyth said nothing in response. “If I knew how the Moonbeam worked, I wouldn’t have fallen victim to its mind-controlling effects, too. And if Astor hadn’t helped me break free of the Moonbeam’s spell, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’d likely both be dead.”

I didn’t need to tell him the specifics. Like how Astor had had the bright idea of kissing me in order to bring me back to my human self. I had to maintain some dignity after I’d been stripped of almost everything else.

Lord Smyth looked at me for a long moment, as if weighing up the honesty in my words. “In that case, you may come with me.”

He opened the cell door again and beckoned for me to follow him down a corridor whose grey walls had an odd purplish shimmer that gave away the wards built into the surface. Mages didn’t always flaunt their power, but it was always present, overlaid with the general aura of wealth and prestige. The Mage Lord had presumably figured out I could snap handcuffs and locks with my bare hands, so he didn’t bother restraining me, assuming I’d be too sensible to run.

We passed by a group of black-cloaked mages. Their suspicious eyes followed me, projecting disdain and mistrust. Most mages didn’t particularly like shifters. Old prejudices remained, and while they didn’t want to hunt us into extinction like the hunters did, they made no effort to stick their necks out for us either. Of course, none of them had ever met a dragon shifter before, and I was pretty sure the Mage Lords had no idea whether to view me as a threat or an ally. Maybe that was why they’d decided I was better off locked up out of the way.

My dragon side raged at the injustice, but the burning desire to see Cori stayed my hand. Ahead, a room beckoned, bisected by glass, and on the other side of the glass sat my baby sister.

Not so long ago, we’d have almost looked like reflections of one another, albeit seven years apart in age. Her bright hair was freshly brushed and bounced past her shoulders, but mine was chopped shorter, and while my roots were already lightening to auburn, the black dye still hid most of the original colour. She looked healthy, unhurt, and not as dazed and shaken as she’d been when she’d awoken. Maybe she’d lost a little weight since being stuck in a coma for weeks, but her smile was practically radiant. It made me want to smile too, despite the circumstances, but the glass prevented me from hugging her as I wanted to.

I’d taken care of Cori as long as I could remember, and I had no doubt that I’d been her protector even during the years missing from my memories. She and I had both had no recollection of the years before we’d arrived in London, carrying nothing but the address of a safe house for shifters, and a notebook containing the little information we knew about our fellow dragon shifters. A notebook that was, to my knowledge, in the mages’ possession. As if they hadn’t taken enough from us already.

I swallowed my anger and smiled back. “Hey, Cori.”

“Hey, big sister.” At her grin, tears pricked my eyes. So many times, I’d been afraid I’d never see her smile again. Even after we’d rescued her from certain death in the Orion Stronghold, she’d been comatose and unresponsive for weeks, and we’d had to rely on spells and potions to keep her alive. When I’d finally snatched the Moonbeam from Malkin, I’d literally held her life in my hands, knowing if I screwed up again, I’d lose her forever. 

Now she was awake and alert, despite it all. Everything else fell away, including the mages standing guard behind each of us, as I leaned forward until my forehead brushed the glass. “You’ve no idea how glad I am to see you. Have any of the mages talked to you so far?”

“Sure, they asked me a bunch of questions.” Her smile faded. “It sounds like you got yourself into a boatload of trouble while I was out cold. I can’t believe I slept through all that.”

“Malkin used a powerful drug on you.” I hadn’t been able to ask about her experiences in the Stronghold yet, and I bloody well hoped the mages hadn’t interrogated her about it. She’d been through far too much already. “I don’t know how much the mages told you about—well, everything.”

“A lot, but I bet half of it was bullshit.”

I sucked in a breath and choked on it. “Cori.”

“What?” She cast a brief look at the mage behind her, who was studiously pretending not to pay any attention to us. “They didn’t order me not to give my opinion. And besides, I don’t believe anything a single person says about you that I haven’t heard from your own mouth. So, I assume it’s all lies.”

“Er…” She wasn’t wrong, and doubtless the mages’ account had fudged the truth on more than one occasion, but I’d also skimmed over some details in my own account, too. “If they told you that I stopped Malkin from bringing a shifter army to attack London, that part’s true.”

“Oh, I believed that.” She flashed me a grin. “Because obviously.”

I warmed inside despite my lingering worry that the mages would reprimand her for calling them liars. “Before that, we were trying to figure out where Malkin was hiding. We knew the only chance to wake you was—”

“The Moonbeam.” Her gaze flashed to the man standing behind me. “Yeah. And the mages stole it.”

The mage cleared his throat. “It was not stolen. The Moonbeam was not your possession to begin with.”

“Technicalities.” Cori scowled. “It’s not right to lock us up for taking back something that originally belonged to the dragon shifters anyway.”

“That’s, erm, not why they locked us up.” Not the only reason, anyway. “You do remember what happened right before they came into the room, right?”

“Oh.” Some of the certainty faded from her expression. “Yeah, the mages asked me a shit-ton of questions about that, and I have no clue what was going on. Looked to me like someone fell into a hole in the floor.”

“A portal.”

“Astor.” She pushed back from the table, bafflement flitting across her face. “I remember his name. I also remember he shot—” 

“Cori.” 

She closed her mouth. Blinked a couple of times. “Uh. He was a hunter, right?”

“Ex-hunter.” I’d known we’d have to have this conversation eventually, but I really didn’t want to do it with the mages listening in. “It’s a long story, but he quit the League two years ago and helped us get into the Stronghold to find you.”

Confusion clouded her vision. “Are hunters even allowed to quit?”

“Nope. He’s wanted dead by both sides, and since he escaped on my watch, the mages decided that we’re all to blame.” I glared pointedly at my guard. “It’s unfair to punish my sister for this, you know. She didn’t know any of that was even happening.” 

“Actually, Ember, they’re thinking of letting me go.” Cori’s teeth worked over her bottom lip. “With conditions. The mages think I can help them find the hunters, since I got to see some of their workings from the inside.”

“Shit. Don’t do it, Cori. They don’t have a clue what the hunters are really capable of.” The mages had got a glimpse of the hunters’ forces, but they hadn’t seen the inside of the Stronghold, nor the ocean-bound fortress they’d turned into their new base.

If the mages dragged my baby sister into danger again, to hell with this. I’d burn them all.

Whoa there, dragon. Where had that thought come from? I’d been cooped up for too long. I didn’t want to kill the mages, however much they’d inconvenienced us, and any violent notion I entertained was born of frustration and not reality. I’d been an absolute saint during my captivity, all things considered, but cooperating was the best way to keep Cori safe and for all of us to get the hell out of here as fast as possible.

Cori frowned. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”

“Cori, they think we’re criminals. And they don’t know the hunters like you and I do. Malkin… if he lived, he’s still out there. He wants me dead.”

Her eyes widened. “They said you killed him.”

“I wish.” I grimaced. “I burned down the warehouse while he was on the roof, but he’s a slippery bastard, and I bet he had a few tricks up his sleeve.”

“You breathed fire, huh.” Her grin was back. “Wish I’d seen.”

“Wasn’t even the first time.” I managed to smile back. “Bet that’s why the mages don’t quite know what to do with me. Because I might accidentally burn the place down.”

She snorted. “You would never.”

“I would too.” Since her captivity, I’d had a lot of practise at shifting back and forth between dragon and human, enough that the mages would have been lucky to have me as an ally. If I hadn’t deceived them. 

But the mages would never be our salvation. Of that I was sure.

“Ember, Coriander,” said Lord Smyth. “Your time’s up.”

“It’s only been a few minutes,” I protested.

“I’m afraid there’s an urgent meeting all mages are required to attend in due course. I’ll escort you back to your room.”

“Huh?” I winced as he pulled me to my feet by my upper arm. “That’s not necessary. Ow.”

He looked almost apologetic—perhaps he’d thought I was more resilient in my human form than I was—but he didn’t let go as he hauled me back towards the cell. Mages rushed up and down the corridors, and the tantalising scent of fresh air wafted through from an open window. Well, air as fresh as you could get in London, anyway. 

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Not the hunters?”

His lack of response made me turn my head to look at him. “The hunters? Did they attack again?”

“No. From what I gather, we found some of them ourselves.”

“You found—” I stumbled when he abruptly let go of me, all but shoving me into my cell again. I fought the urge to shove him out of the way to see what was going on, but he was already turning away.

“I have to leave,” said Lord Smyth. “I’d ask you not to cause any trouble in my absence, Ember.”

“But—” The door to my cell slammed on my protest. “Dammit.” 

I’d hardly had half a conversation with Cori, though it was a miracle I’d got even that much when she’d clearly been showing zero respect to the mages. Not that it didn’t serve them right for locking up an innocent teenager.

And now they were trying to bribe her, offering freedom in exchange for repeatedly reliving one of the worst experiences of her life. I’d been through several interrogation sessions myself, in which I’d explained everything I remembered about the escape from the Stronghold. Now that jail was abandoned, the information was all but useless to the mages, but since they hadn’t been able to find the hunters’ new fortress, they were reduced to asking the same old questions.

Twenty minutes crawled by, in which I amused myself by bouncing a rolled-up ball of paper across the cell and doing handstands against the wall like a kid confined to their room. The mages had offered me a few books, but I was too wound up to focus on the pages. Right now, the only book I wanted to see was the notebook that Cori and I had brought with us to London. The mages had had no right to take it.

I startled at a knock on the door. When nobody entered, I went and peered through the small barred window at the top. “Who’s there?”

A green light flickered, and the half-faerie, Kit, smiled at me through the bars. “Hey, Ember.”

“Kit. What are you doing here?” I’d half-wondered if my friends might try for an escape at some point, but since we hadn’t coordinated a plan before our capture, I hadn’t held out much hope.

“This place is weird, isn’t it?” he remarked cheerfully. “The walls are purple.”

“That’d be the wards. They let you out?”

He nodded, strands of black hair falling into his eyes. “Yeah. They couldn’t find evidence I’d committed any crimes, since I was unconscious for most of the action. I think I scared them. They let me go, after making me promise not to come back in.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t have anywhere to go,” he said unnecessarily. “So I never actually went outside the building. I glamoured myself and waited until everyone was gone before I came back in here.”

Faeries. Unlike the Sidhe, half-faeries could theoretically lie if they wanted to, but most instead chose to deliberately interpret the words of a command in such a way that let them do the opposite. “We did break the law. No way around it. Until they find Astor, we’re stuck here, and I don’t have the faintest idea where the Moonbeam sent him. Have you seen the others?”

He shook his head. “I slipped in here as soon as the mages left. You’re the first person I’ve seen.”

“Why did the mages leave?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Whatever it is, it’s urgent.”

“Weird.” We were supposed to be high-security prisoners, though admittedly the mages had used other methods to keep us caged that didn’t require them to be present in person. “I don’t suppose you can undo the wards?”

“No. Faerie magic has no effect on them. I’ve tried.”

“Damn.” I peered over his shoulder at the symbols etched on the walls, which promised a world of hurt to anyone who tried to break out. “Okay. Listen. Can you do me a favour and check whereabouts they’re keeping my notebook? And the Moonbeam?”

“Oh, I know where the Moonbeam is,” he said. “The mages keep trying to pass it amongst themselves, and arguing about why it won’t work for them.”

“Good,” I said. “We don’t need them using it on any shifters, even accidentally.” 

“No.” He frowned. “It’s odd. Malkin never mentioned the Moonbeam when he spoke to me in jail.”

“He didn’t?” I asked. “I guess he knew it wouldn’t affect you, since it’s made for shifters.”

“Maybe.” He tilted his head. “There’s someone coming.”

He disappeared. Or that was what it looked like to me, since glamour enabled faeries to hide themselves from anyone who didn’t have the Sight. In other words, everyone who wasn’t fae, which included the mages. Hoping he’d be able to get out without triggering any wards, I sat down on the bench and tried to position myself to look as if I’d been sitting there all along. Was Lord Smyth already back?

A rotting scent reached my nostrils. The smell of the dead.