Dragonheart Core

Chapter 181: Threats of the End

Chapter 181: Threats of the End

Ealdhere was starting to become uncomfortably used to threats.

Abhalón was more feathered about it, disguised beneath kinder words and layered entendre, where one would come to their own conclusions about the befoulments they would soon be drowning in. More entertaining, almost, as he got to piece together what exactly would be done to his reputation or what trade deal would fall through. The Darlingtons were no strangers to threats, against their house or its members, and Ealdhere had grown familiar with the doublespeak there.

Not in Calarata. Here, Lluc promised to rip out his entrails through a rat-hole in his stomach, and Ealdhere just had to listen to that. If he wasn't terrified, he'd bemoan the lack of creativity.

"Silvers only," Lluc repeated, as though he hadn't just beamed that damnable fact into Ealdhere's skull for the past twenty minutes. "If you allow a single Gold into my dungeon, you will wish you had died there."

Ealdhere nodded again. Sometimes he already did.

"I will only be gone for a week." Lluc adjusted his wolf-brim hat, the sweep of his elegant robes—more polished than his preferred appearance, though worried and wearied with grime from general existence. "Take more corpses than normal. Give out nothing. Obey the Dread Crew."

The Guild had been open for long enough to cement itself into Calarata like a parasite, and Lluc had been there every day since its inception. But it didn't sound like an excursion, not with how Lluc's face was split in a snarl, tension ground between his brows.

It sounded like a mission, almost. Something to pull him away for a week that he would rather wish he didn't have to do. But what would summon the Guildmaster away from his position?

"I don't like it," Lluc muttered, as though Ealdhere was a particularly uninteresting wall he didn't care about hearing his secrets. "Varcís out, the Silent Market struggling—there's too much happening."

Ealdhere, very deliberately, showed no reaction. He could pretend to be a plant so Lluc didn't follow through on his threat of evisceration.

It was curious, though. Varcís Bilaro, the famed Dread Pirate, ever a shadowy figure that had been only a rumour before he came to Calarata and then was the ground upon which the city was built. But as much as he was entwined with Calarata, he was rarely seen, even at his Adventuring Guild.

And for Lluc Cardena Ferré, his First Mate, to say he was out—well. There was something to be noted about that information, if Ealdhere wasn't anything other than someone trapped in a Guild with no promise of escape.

No promise of freedom, despite what had led him here. Now he was just an exotic face in this land, drawing sketches and analyzing corpses at the behest of those that held his chains.

Once upon a time, he lived in a palace with servants at his beck and call.

He wasn't the first heir—nor even the top three—to the Darlington Family, that he knew. Ealdhere had always taken some solipsistic pride in that, in how he wasn't as vain as his older cousins; it was him that adventured across Abhalón, delving into the tamed dungeons and eventually spreading his wings to the wider world. He had enjoyed that freedom.

How long had he been in Calarata?

The first few moon cycles were understandable. His dalliances had lasted months before, including a memorable stint in distant Nesre?a in the wake of their calamitous eruption, but never this long. He was fastidious about sending letters to his family, if only to regale them with stories of his exploits.

But no one had come for him. He was a noble missing from an esteemed family of a powerful land, and his absence had elected nothing.

Ealdhere decided not to think about that. There were no happy thoughts he could summon from that. So instead he stared placidly at the world around and gave Lluc nothing to suspect about him.

Without a target to bury his metaphorical hatchet in, Lluc just snarled and swept out of the Guild without so much as a glance back, door slamming against the frame. Off to– whatever it was. He wasn't the type to actually tell Ealdhere what was going on.

The Guild echoed hollowly in his wake.

Ealdhere exhaled, brushing hands over his Scholar's robes. There was a charcoal stick behind his ear, mussing up his scarlet hair, and stains over his fingers—he had been halfway through a new drawing of the crocodile after a new juvenile had been spotted on the third floor, trying to find an easier way to manage it than the bulk of its armour, when Lluc had swept into the Guild and dropped that explosion in his lap. A week free—though he wasn't foolish enough to deceive himself into thinking it was actual freedom, instead of merely a week without Lluc hovering overhead. The Dread Crew would still keep tabs on him, and he couldn't leave. He knew that.

He shook out his hands, flexing his fingers, and headed back to his room. Even the false comfort of another door to shut was appreciated, though shadows stretched long through the windows and the faint blood of corpses in the below-ground storerooms.

His drawings littered the walls here, pinned up and scribbled over as new information filtered down to him. There was a vague recollection of other Scholars in distant Adventuring Guilds being adventurers themselves, delving within to chase their own queries, but Ealdhere had the arguable position of being Unranked. He had no chance of surviving such a mission.

So instead he withered in his prison and made a collage of what scraps survivors could tell him.

He set his charcoal stick on his desk, neatly tilted so it didn't spread soot over the wood. Perhaps he could take the evening to himself instead, without someone glaring over for progress he couldn't give.

"We have a week alone," Ealdhere said conversationally to the sapling.

It had grown recently, the tallest of its pale leaves brushing at the ceiling. Since his discovery of its… diet, he had moved it away from the window to replace with other trimmings, giving it a place of honour on the ground so that it had the most room to grow. It was taller than him now, its caliper widening and extending thorns. Perhaps the only upside of his captivity was that he was fed enough to supply blood to two creatures, though he had been feeling faint as of late. But pricked fingers meant little against discovery.

And he had so much discovery left to make, if he wanted an alliance for his freedom.

Ealdhere was halfway through the outline of the ridged scales along the crocodile's snout when something moved in the room beyond.

He paused, lifting his head. It was night now, only darkness outside, but there was the unmistakable sound of the door opening, despite the runic wards he knew were littered in the stones around.

Ealdhere set down his charcoal, heading to the entrance hall, and came face to face with an intruder.

He froze.

"Hello, Scholar," said the Marquesa de Wolf.

She was closing the door behind her, nudging the butt of her quarterstaff against the base. It had grown more moss since he'd seen it last, creeping up the edges of her robes as well. The green rippled against her dark skin.

In another world, she could perhaps have been a comfort. Her Leóran accent, lilting on the edges and softer than the bite of Calaratan words, another foreigner in this unforgiving land. She had a cadence that spoke to practiced eloquence, a deliberation to her words that only the learnèd could muster.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

But he remembered her talk of a maverick, of fourteen throats slit out in Calarata with nothing to serve as reason, of the glint in her eyes.

Of Gonçal, asking why she would want to draw Lluc's attention.

Ealdhere did not particularly trust her.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said, lacing his hands together. "But you'll have to wait until morning—the Guild only entertains visitors before the daily delve."

She smiled, a warm, bright thing that reflected in her face like honey. The petals of a valencan-flower, entrapping wandering flies within its grasp. "I'm not here to ask about delving," she said. "Instead, some questions about the dungeon prior. I am allowed—did Lluc not tell you?"

That was a lie; Ealdhere didn't need his two functional eyes to see that. But everyone in Calarata lied, and he couldn't quite figure out whether it was a notable lie. The kind people told from an allergic reaction to the truth, or the kind people said when they wanted something else.

"The Guildmaster did not," Ealdhere said, sharper than he necessarily wanted. "You will have to wait for him."

She did not look like she intended to wait.

The air was wrong, though he knew he was much too weak to believe it to be anything like a Gold-sense. Perhaps it was just his latent aristocratic instincts, though quashed by his current conditions. But this felt different.

The last time the Marquesa de Wolf had arrived at the Adventuring Guild, she had come with Gonçal. But she was alone, now.

He was Unranked. For some strange reason, he was very aware of that fact now.

"Lluc isn't here, is he?" The Marquesa said, instead of asked. It was too confident.

Ealdhere licked his lips. "He will be, " he said. "Tomorrow."

She cocked her head to the side. There was something bird-like in the motion, in the glint of her amber eyes. "He will not." A confirmation.

Then she stepped forward, tapping her staff along the ground. Mana sparked under her dark skin, reflecting gold, as she scanned the hall. What false subservience she'd shown in front of Lluc burned away for something altogether harsher, teething into her face like power. Ealdhere took a step back.

"Your notes on the dungeon," she said. "How many floors, what creatures, what defenses it has mustered. Have you managed any alchemic refinements yet?"

Ice crackled down his spine. "Excuse me?"

The Marquesa glanced at him, brows raised. "Your notes on the dungeon," she repeated, with deliberate slowness, as though he simply hadn't heard her. "Give them to me. Or do I have to take them?"

She couldn't. That was everything he knew about the dungeon—its potential sapience, the creatures, the depths, everything he had gathered. His plans. His alliance. Gonçal's words echoed back to him. "What do you want?"

The Marquesa stared at him. "Let me put it a different way," she hummed. It was the sound of branches shifting in the deep jungle, moved by a predator's claws. "You are the Scholar, no?"

Ealdhere didn't know what answer she wanted. He nodded.

"Perfect," Marquesa said. "And you are going to do your job like a good little Scholar, or else I am going to bury you in this Guild for the rats to consume."

It wasn't a question. But it was a threat.

Ealdhere was too familiar with these. They were never comforting.

Something within the Marquesa's robes moved, the clack and clitter of claws moving through a copse of trees. Moss crept down her staff like rain from a storm. She never dropped her smile; it stayed and it burnt, sharper than a smile should be.

"Now, Scholar," she said. Part of him noticed that she never used his name, only his title. A separation. "Give me your notes, and then turn around, so you have a chance to mock them up again before your master cuts your throat. That's it."

She paused, a little smile creasing the corners of her face. "Actually. Stay."

Her palm glowed gold as she raised it to face him, mana simmering under the surface. It wasn't a spell—it was hardly anything. But Ealdhere froze all the same.

The Marquesa de Wolf disappeared into his room. A clattering din of noise and chaos bubbled under the gap, but he didn't move; even the memory of his power, of the threats he had grown to cower under keeping him still. It was just paper. Just information. He could remake it easily, with the iron trap of a mind he'd developed.

But she was getting precious secrets he'd sworn to protect.

The Marquesa left his room, arms piled high with papers, with parchments, with all the past months of work. Victory gleamed through her eyes, though she barely looked at him—much as with Lluc, he was nothing more than an obstacle to break past. Without power, he wasn't someone she cared about.

He had been a noble, once.

Ealdhere watched as the Marquesa shuffled the papers together so they more easily fit in her grasp, a stack some several hands-width thick. She pressed a finger to her lips, a mocking call for silence, and disappeared through the front door. As like before, the wards didn't so much as react.

Then she was gone, and Ealdhere was alone.

He stumbled back to his room in a daze, every muscle clenching and mind trembling. Strangely forest-scented air surrounded him, the vampiric mangrove shifting its branches, though untouched. The room was not so lucky. It was ransacked, papers ripped from the walls so harshly the corners were still pinned by nails. There was nothing left. She had taken it all.

Why hadn't he tried to stop her? Had it been a spell that kept him pinned?

Or had it just been his own cowardice?

The Marquesa de Wolf had all the information on the core, all the scraps he'd gathered and collected and built together in an effort to understand the first sentient dungeon he'd ever heard of. Born from a dragon's corpse, assembling into a living, breathing ecosystem with creatures he'd never encountered before. A marvel, as much as it was a monster.

The dungeon had tried to kill him. Had very nearly succeeded, if only he hadn't recognized the creeping vines covering the entrance. He had only known tamed dungeons before this—he should want this one to have its core claimed, to remove the fangs so handily carving through the throats of all the adventurers who entered it.

It had kidnapped a human, one they still hadn't rescued. And instead of hate, that made Ealdhere want to protect it. To ally with it, should Gonçal successfully convince it of his earnestness.

Ealdhere couldn't entirely parse apart his feelings on the matter. He didn't know what was right or wrong, not anymore, not after Neus' scarlet-splattered head and the darkness of Alami choking on ink had filled his vision every time he closed his eyes, or the darkness in Lluc's face.

But he knew he didn't want the Marquesa having the core.

Ealdhere collapsed in his chair, wood creaking under his weight. His palms scoured into the sockets of his eyes.

He didn't want her taking the core—and there was nothing he could do about it. Even with Lluc gone for a week, he was still bound to the Guild, still caged here, and he couldn't tell anyone to stop her when she was doing whatever everyone wanted. He couldn't do anything.

Gods, he hadn't prayed with understanding since Abhalón, since all deities had ignored his pleas for mercy from Lluc's shackles, and certainly not to any gods that lived in this land of murderers, but some strange instinct pulled his hands to press into his shoulders as he bowed his head. He couldn't do anything. All he could do was voice his desperation.

"Don't let her take the core," Ealdhere murmured, eyes closing. "She will destroy it. She will ruin what makes it unique. It doesn't deserve that. Help it, please."

He waited, for a moment. Only silence.

Then sound.

Something low and crackling, the pulse and flex of bark breaking along seams. Ealdhere flinched, imagination filling with whatever druidic beast the Marquesa kept in her service, spinning in his chair–

But it wasn't the door opening. It was the sapling.

Perhaps he shouldn't call it a sapling, being taller than him, and certainly not now as its trunk split, crimson bark splintering as a cavernous void opened underneath instead of the heartwood he knew should be there. It was black, then deeper red, then moving, then growing.

And then something emerged through the gap.

It was a monster.

Every part of it twisted and rebounded, many-jointed and towering overhead. Skin of crimson bark, thorned jutting through the gaps, twisted around on itself like armour. Though it had an upright build, one of its arms was missing, a snarled mass of bark and thorns filling the gap. Its legs bent backwards, claws digging into the soft wood of the floor, a short tail thrashing. It clicked its claws together, hissing a low rasp like punctured flesh.

It had pale white eyes, a muzzle split through with a fanged maw. There was nothing human in its eyes.

And yet it was achingly familiar.

Ealdhere stared at it. He hardly dared to breathe.

It tilted its head to the side. It could kill him instantly, he knew, and it didn't. It watched him instead. This wasn't of the gods. But he knew what it was.

He stood, slowly. It tracked him with its white eyes. Its remaining arm clenched its claws.

"The dungeon is in danger," Ealdhere said. "Can you tell it the Marquesa de Wolf is coming?"

The– the non-dryad, the beast, the spirit, the manifested mangrove kept watching him.

And then it nodded. Its muzzle split into a fanged grin.