Hoard

Once again, a stunned silence fell, filled by the distant background music of water and ancient machinery.

“Have you lost your mind?” Emeralaphine finally asked, her voice oddly conversational, even casual. “Serious question. If we have to put you down, I’m taking your hoard.”

Tiavathyris cleared her throat loudly. “I believe, in that event, my claim is as good as yours.”

“Very well, then. Standard rules: one divides it, the other picks her half. Unless you wish to fight for it?”

“I’m not one to back down from a challenge… But after dealing with an insane Izayaroa, I doubt I’ll be in the mood. I’ll divide, you pick.”

“I’ll divide, you pick.”

“Before you proceed any further with the disposition of my estate,” Izayaroa said in a biting tone, half-turning her head to glare over her shoulder at Emeralaphine, “I suggest you ladies fix your attention on the situation in which we actually stand.”

“The situation is you spouting the most imbecilic blather I’ve ever heard,” the white dragon retorted. “I should think you would appreciate the deflection, Izayaroa. We have our differences, to be sure, but I have never known you to…embarrass yourself this way.”

“Nor is it like you to be so shocked by the merely unconventional,” Izayaroa countered. “Upon consideration, I find it is just as Vadaralshi said. Our mate was bested by a superior male. By draconic custom, that which belonged to Atraximos now belongs to Ar-Kaln: his hoard, his lair, and his wives.”

“I…I was joking,” said the smaller green, who must be Vadaralshi. “That was a joke. In a hundred years, Izayaroa, you’ve never taken anything I said seriously. This is when you start?”

“A good point is a good point, regardless of who says it or why.” Izayaroa turned her warm, mysterious smile on Kaln, who belatedly realized he had just been standing there in stupefaction while the dragons argued.

He decided to keep doing it for a while longer. It wasn’t as if he had a better idea.

“Mother, you cannot be serious!” Vanimax hissed.

“There is no way to say this without sounding condescending,” said Tiavathyris, “so I shall simply have to trust you will forgive me. Izayaroa, this man is not a dragon.”

“I’m glad she said it,” Emeralaphine rumbled. “I would have made it last a lot longer. There would have been adjectives. Many adjectives.”

“He is not a dragon,” Izayaroa agreed, still studying Kaln with that…bewitching little smile. By all the gods, she was lovely… And he himself, Kaln realized, was in something akin to shock. Heavens only knew what his face looked like right now; it couldn’t possibly be the best presentation he’d ever put on. “He is a godling. He has demonstrated himself to be a match for any dragon in power. If you cannot find it in yourselves to be intrigued by what he is, consider… What he will be.”

“Godlings are rare indeed,” Tiavathyris mused, now studying Kaln with a contemplative expression.

“Gods are rarer,” Emeralaphine snorted. “Most godlings never complete the transition. Most don’t survive.”

A thread of uncertainty and rising fear shot through the confusing torrent of emotions whirling inside Kaln. What in all the hells had that Entity cajoled him into? Why had he been barmy enough to listen to it? He could be off to live as a rich advisor to some backwater king, not up to his neck in…in what, exactly?

“That is true,” Izayaroa agreed, taking her golden eyes off Kaln for just a moment to glance back at Emeralaphine. “As with all things… It depends upon the individual, and the circumstances.”

Another short silence fell. Kaln sensed that this would be an appropriate point for him to say something. He legitimately couldn’t think of anything.

Then the blue dragon chuckled. Vanimax turned a stare of anger and betrayal upon her, which she ignored.

“How embarrassing that I was so slow to catch on,” Tiavathyris said suddenly. “Or perhaps, too hidebound. I think you for walking me through it, Izayaroa. Your logic is indeed sound, and…one most not be too bound by convention.”

Her body shifted, swirling away in a display of power that Kaln not only saw but found he could feel through the dragon-aligned energies at rest inside him. Which was interesting, but he spared little thought for it, being fully occupied by the sudden presence of yet another unfathomably beautiful individual.

Really, it had to be the circumstances. The stress. He was a man with all the usual needs, but until today he’d never found himself too horny to focus when it mattered. But…damn.

She was, of course, like the others: long taloned feet, scaled forearms, claws, serpentine tail, arching horns, slitted green eyes. Her hair was also green, and trimmed above her shoulders. While Izayaroa and Atraximos in their humanoid forms had both corresponded to human ethnicities Kaln recognized, he did not know what people (if any) Tiavathyris resembled. She had skin several shades darker than his own, with a uniquely tawny hue; her cheekbones were high and aristocratic, her eyes narrow and tilted upward at the outsides. In contrast to Izayaroa’s simple attire, she wore a garment the likes of which he had never seen before, seemingly constructed of arrangements of beads and metal plates that made it resemble armor, if armor could be made entirely of jewelry. And if any armor would leave so very much of her bronze skin exposed. Displayed, in fact, to her full advantage.

She was nearly as curvy as Izayaroa, but more trim, her limbs lean and defined. Her abs looked like he could grind wheat on them.

“I, um,” Kaln babbled helplessly. “The, ah…”

Tiavathyris smiled at him. It was the same calm, wry smile he’d seen several times already on her reptilian face, but also… Definitely the knowing expression of a strikingly beautiful person accustomed to rendering others speechless on sight.

And then she knelt before him, right beside the Empress, lowering her green head. “I cannot but acknowledge your strength, husband. By right of conquest, I am yours.”

“I…am…very confused,” Kaln admitted. Maybe not the most impressive position he could take, but at least it was a complete sentence.

“He’s confused,” muttered Vadaralshi. Vanimax slapped his tail against the floor in agitation, scattering old bones, but seemed unwilling to interject again now that Izayaroa had stated her position.

“It’s not as if we can force your hand, Emeralaphine,” Izayaroa said, glancing over her shoulder again. “But, if you’ll forgive me for pointing it out, should you find the arrangement untenable, your position here—”

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Emeralaphine huffed, pacing forward. Her daughter made way, watching expectantly, as the white dragon approached the steps. “This is rather a departure, you know. I cannot say I’m entirely sanguine about the idea. But, having taken a moment to consider… Well, in the worst case, if I find him too unbearable, I can always leave later.”

She shifted just like the other two, and then was standing before him on the stairs. She, like Atraximos, took the humanoid form of one of the local Evervales people: eerily pale, with blue eyes and hair as white as her scales. Emeralaphine was also the most voluptuous of the three, her soft figure a contrast to Tiavathyris. Or…well, maybe not that much different, he just had a better view of it. Because…

“My, my,” Emeralaphine said with open amusement, smirking at him. “The strongest reaction yet. It’s not a contest I’d ever have entered on purpose, but any victory is sweet.”

Izayaroa shot her an irritated look, and Kaln belatedly shut his jaw, wrenching his gaze back above her neck by sheer force.

“Mother,” the blue dragon said, grinning, “it’s customary in that form to add clothing.”

“What? I…oh, drat.” Emeralaphine glanced down at her nude body disinterestedly. “Details, details. I can’t remember the last time I even did this… Let’s see.”

Light coalesced around her, swirling into dust, clinging to her form and solidifying. She was left in a gown of pale blue, threaded through with faintly iridescent patterns.

It was a beautiful dress, if simple in design. Kaln felt a pang of loss, and then furiously resolved to get himself under control before he got into real trouble here.

“Be honored, husband,” Emeralaphine instructed, kneeling before him. “Few indeed even among dragons have been able to command my submission. I shall expect you to maintain your worthiness. Indeed, I believe we all expect great things from you.”

“Just…wait, please,” Kaln begged. “Ladies, this is…overwhelming. What is going on? I can’t take over as… I’m not even a dragon!”

“Why is he the only one here with the sense to see that?” Vanimax snorted.

“You are something altogether more rare,” said Izayaroa, still smiling up at him. “Worth, I believe, making an exception for.”

“There are some of a dragon’s duties you cannot perform,” Tiavathyris added, her immaculately sculpted lips curling up on one side. “And things you will doubtless expect that we will find confusing. There will be accommodations and compromises to be made, husband. But I guarantee you will find all of us more than pleasing enough to compensate.”

Kaln stopped breathing for a second and had to re-start manually.

“It hardly seems necessary to enumerate all that you stand to gain by this arrangement, husband,” Emeralaphine added with a fetching little smirk. “You were brave enough to seek your destiny within a dragon’s own lair, and have proven yourself worthy to claim it. Why hesitate now?”

He forced himself to stop. Stop reeling, stop reacting, and think. Inhaling, exhaling. Confused emotions whirled within him, but Kaln deliberately separated himself from them, a trick he had been taught as an apprentice. When there was work to be done, the mind must be calm and the hand steady.

The three heart-stoppingly gorgeous dragonesses offering themselves to him just gazed up at him from their kneeling positions. They were all smiling, now. Wise, sly, knowing smiles. The expressions of women who were in full control of a situation.

It was surprisingly easy, now that he made the effort, to push aside the torrent of lust they had so easily ignited in him. That was a skill Kaln had practiced, and it was purely embarrassing that he’d fumbled it this badly so far. Attractive people, and people rich enough to hire attractive people, had innumerable reasons to stick their meddling fingers into the Royal Archives. Yes, these women were beautiful—more so than any other person he’d ever seen. They were offering him power, wealth, and pleasure beyond reckoning…

But why? Once he asked himself that question, he knew he had to get out of here.

It was the Entity all over again. No, worse… It was Haktria, and the Lord Scribe. It was people with power and knowledge, attempting to tie strings around him. Strings they could then pull at their leisure, to make him dance. Strings they could cut, when it came time to discard him. This was only a new variation of a familiar pattern.

He didn’t need to know what was going on to know what would come after.

“Ladies.” Kaln was pleased to find his voice calm again, even and poised as it should be. “I am more honored by this than it is possible for me to express, and I say that as someone who has made the command of language his life’s work. Surely no mortal has ever been paid such a compliment, and I will cherish the memory for the rest of my life.”

Their smiles widened in unison.

“However.”

The smiles shrank.

“I fear I am not so wise or clever as you ladies. It would be insane to presume that I even could be. No, I’m simply not smart enough to understand exactly what you’re up to. But I am not too stupid to see that you’re up to something.”

He took one deliberate step back from them, feeling a slight welling of the power inside him as their intent sharpened. They were not planning to attack, he sensed, but somehow he had just demanded a great enough share of their focus that his dragon-aligned and apparently deific powers reflexively prepared to match whatever was about to come next.

“My apologies for the intrusion, and this disruption of your lives… Though to be perfectly frank, it sounds like you deserve all of it and worse. My Empress, you have my word I will keep your secret. I suspect you are right: it will not be possible to keep word of this from spreading. But when the world begins to learn what happened here, it will not be from me.”

Kaln bowed, as deeply as he could without taking his eyes off them.

“And with that…this is farewell.”

The power had already reared up within him—not strongly this time, but prominently enough that it took a much slighter effort of will than before to grasp it. Especially since, now, he was directing it to do something he already knew it could.

Kaln’s first voluntary, deliberate use of his dragon-escaping teleportation took him clear across the huge chamber, past the three elder dragons who had knelt before him, then past the three younger ones in their larger forms who were looking on with various expressions of frustration and amusement. He now stood just before the great arched exit to the tunnel that led outside, hearing behind him the clatter of huge bodies disrupting piles of bones as they turned to follow his progress.

“Wait!”

She moved like Atraximos had in his first lunge at Kaln, crossing the chamber with such near-instantaneous speed that he couldn’t be sure whether it was some kind of magic or she was just physically strong enough to propel herself that way and suffer no ill effects. Still the power did not react, telling him this wasn’t an attack. Izayaroa stepped up alongside him, holding up one clawed hand in an open gesture, and somewhat against his better judgment, he found himself pausing, and turning to face her.

The Empress inclined her head to him in a nod so deep it was nearly a bow. “Kaln, I apologize. It was not my intent to manipulate you—at least, not specifically. I am so unaccustomed to…explaining myself that I simply failed to recognize a moment when that would have been the correct thing to do.”

He wasn’t affronted at the familiar form of address; she was the Empress of Rhivaak, his Empress, and whatever she chose to call him, that was what he would answer to. His shortened name was less startling than “husband.”

Kaln hesitated, studying her expression, which now seemed open and genuinely contrite. He knew, intellectually, that his decision to get out of here had been the smart one, but… He honestly could not remember the last time someone had offered to actually explain something. It was refreshing.

“I apologize as well,” Tiavathyris added, arriving in the same manner, with Emeralaphine a step behind her. The White Wind looked more miffed than repentant, but Tiavathyris at least bowed to him, her face full of sincerity. “This was not Izayaroa’s error specifically, but a flaw to which we are all prone. She’s right; it is more appropriate, in our dealings with you, to be forthright. Will you hear us out?”

Emeralaphine said nothing, just folded her scaled arms across her impressive chest and looked expectant.

He should leave. It was still the smartest thing to do—or the least stupid, anyway. But of all the people by whom Kaln had been jerked around over the last year…these were the first who had apologized, much less offered to explain.

And they were so gorgeous…

“I suppose,” he said very carefully, “it would be pretty rude of me to turn my back on such an

earnest request. Even if we cannot part as friends, there’s never a call for needless discourtesy.”

Izayaroa blinked once, languidly, and then a smile of sheer infectious delight spread across her features. “You’ve read my treatises?”

“Your Excellency, everyone has. I mean…everyone in the Royal Archives, at least. We live by them.”

“If it need be said, Kaln, you have my permission to call me by name,” she replied, and though he knew she had to be more than capable of putting up a front, the warmth in her expression seemed real enough that he could feel it in his own chest. Real enough that he missed it keenly when it faded a moment later, leaving her face more serious. “Let me be frank, then. The arrangement we propose would be every bit as…unconventional for us as for you, but the advantage for us is too great to pass up.”

That was a surprisingly complex thing to react to. Advantage wasn’t exactly flattering, but on a certain level it was as reassuring as disappointing. There definitely had to be something in it for them, aside from his own raw charisma. But…

“That’s more believable,” he acknowledged, “but I don’t understand exactly what advantage that is.”

“You are a godling now,” Emeralaphine stated matter-of-factly. “To have devised and executed this plan, you must have a greater understanding of the process of apotheosis than the average scribe—greater than most mortals, I should think. Undoubtedly, then, you also have a strategy in mind for what comes next. But you must also be well aware that this is the most dangerous and uncertain part of the process, no matter what preparations you have made.”

Kaln kept his mouth firmly shut. Godling? Apotheosis? Did the gods not predate…everything else? Revealing ignorance here seemed like a terrifyingly bad idea. At best, they’d decide he wasn’t worth the effort after all and shoo him out; at worst, they might conclude that thing with Atraximos had been a fluke and a man with anti-dragon powers didn’t need to be running around at liberty. Despite how unbelievably easy it had been to slay one dragon, he didn’t like his odds against six.

“Admittedly,” said Tiavathyris, “going from the consorts of an elder dragon to those of a godling is, at best, a lateral move, and in many senses a downgrade. This will certainly introduce a great deal of complication and effort into our lives. But, provided that we serve you well, at the end of the process we will be the consorts of a god.”

Izayaroa smiled again, that warm, enticing smile as full of promise as it was of slyness. “And to attain such a prize, we are willing to embrace a little difficulty in the meantime.”

“I…see,” Kaln dissembled. He saw a little, at least the basic shape of what they wanted from this. “And by effort and difficulty, you refer to…?”

“Guiding your apotheosis,” Emeralaphine stated, smirking. “The process is…let’s call it finicky. Without a plan, and the rather significant power it takes to put said plan into action, even if you survive, your incipient godhead may take a form you don’t much care for. Just look at the damage Atraximos has already done, locking the nature of your power into countering dragons. What a limited sort of god that would be.”

“Aside from the fact that we have a vested interest in coaxing your godhead away from dragonslaying,” Tiavathyris added, “the opportunity to help shape a new god is utterly priceless—particularly if we are to spend eternity as said god’s wives, as is the plan. Do not take this as a threat, Kaln, but in our offer is a stick as well as a carrot. Your power is such that you could trample roughshod over every mortal you have ever known, but by the mere fact of what you now are, you move in entirely different circles—in a realm occupied by such as gods and dragons. In this realm, you are the newest and least of us, and most of your new peers are powerfully motivated to eliminate competition. This is why most godlings do not survive to complete the process.”

Damn the Entity for goading him into this. If Kaln ever had the wretched thing at his mercy… No, that was silly, this was entirely his own fault. He had known the whole time he was following that thing around that it was a terrible idea, and had deliberately done it anyway. No matter how sweet the bait, it was his choice to bite.

A lesson that seemed relevant to his current dilemma, too.

“More than our guidance, the benefit of our experience and power in shaping your own destiny,” Izayaroa continued, her golden eyes fixed earnestly on his own, “you will have the benefit of our protection. There are many powers which would move to destroy a new godling the moment they became aware one existed. Few of those would dare trifle with a godling and six dragons.”

“Particularly considering who three of those dragons are,” Emeralaphine added, raising her chin and looking smug. “To be sure, the kids aren’t nothing, but the three of us have more than earned our respective legends.”

“Wow, we aren’t nothing,” commented the blue dragon behind her.

“That feels like a promotion,” Vadaralshi agreed.

“Or at least acknowledgment,” Vanimax muttered.

“Pheneraxa, do not incite your siblings,” Emeralaphine snapped, glaring over her shoulder.

“A thousand pardons, mother.” The blue dipped her head deeply, not bothering to disguise her smirk.

Well, at least now he had names for all of them. Funny how the first dragon he’d seen was the last whose name he’d learned.

“It needn’t all be work, all the time,” Izayaroa said, ignoring the byplay. “This arrangement, as Tiavathyris noted, will involve…compromises all around. There will be something of a learning curve, for each of us. But Kaln, whatever arrangements you have made to continue your own apotheosis, I am confident in asserting that we are the better option for you. Most of those powerful enough to help you will be more inclined to remove you before you truly become competition. We have a vested interest in your success, as we have explained. And further…while I would not go so far as to say we are harmless to you, the nature of your power as Atraximos forced it to develop means we are by far the least dangerous to you in particular of any possible guides and guardians you might have. This truly is the best option, Kaln, for you and for us. I believe that sincerely, upon my word of honor. And,” she added, her full lips widening again in that entrancing smile, “while you are learning and growing in your power, you will be able to enjoy all the privileges of the head of a dragon family.”

There had been quite a bit in that speech which Kaln thought deserved some closer analysis, but that last bit truly caught his attention.

“Ah…forgive me, I’m not very well-versed in dragon family dynamics. By ‘privileges,’ you refer to…”

“She means sexual rights,” Tiavathyris answered, now smiling as well—again with that sly, knowing aspect, and more than a hint of warmth. “As our husband, you are entitled to have any of us at your whim. And to be clear, no more than that. We are not yours to order about, in general. A dragon’s submission is conditional and specific.”

“Though that’s one of those compromises mentioned,” Emeralaphine mused, studying him now with a pensive expression. “If we are to be your teachers and guides, this will necessarily be a more…interactive relationship than normal. We were accustomed to mostly ignoring, even avoiding our last husband when he was not specifically exercising his prerogatives.”

“I think this promises to be a breath of fresh air, rather than a hardship,” said Izayaroa. She blinked once, languidly, the motion too sultry to have been anything but deliberate. Her eyelashes were amazing… “But there we stand, Kaln. Our agenda, our desires, and how I believe it best serves your own interests to join with ours. I apologize that I was not more forthcoming in the first place. What say you, then?”

In unspoken unison, all three knelt again, smiling expectantly at him. With all of their feet on the same plane, now, even kneeling their eyes were barely below his own, their upswept horns rising above his height. Dragons, even in their humanoid forms, were so tall.

And Kaln, once again, had to exert internal force to make himself think clearly. He didn’t think that final aspect of their offer had been placed there by accident; these three surely understood the emotional effect it would have on him to be outright offered sexual obedience by three impossibly beautiful women. They were canny old creatures, and recognizing that fact helped him cool his blood before he embarrassed himself again.

This was…familiar.

The Head Scribe, praising and promoting Kaln for his entire life, right up until the moment he became politically inconvenient, and then casting him aside like so much trash. Haktria, all her coaxing and coaching and enticement, her sweet talk of his potential and his bright future, and the ultimate betrayal that made it clear she had planned on it from the very beginning—had known, from the first second she began twining him around her fingers, that her plaything would be burned to destruction simply by proximity to her.

The Entity, cajoling and manipulating him, skillfully teasing all his weak points, stoking the flames of revenge in his heart to goad Kaln along this path in spite of his better judgment. Perpetually refusing to explain what it truly wanted, what it was leading him toward—placing him in this situation without preparing him at all for the repercussions. Why the hells had it wanted to make him a godling? What did it get out of that?

It was all so familiar: powerful creatures who saw him as a plaything.

Except…

He met each of their eyes in turn. Green, ice blue, fiery gold. Their gazes knowing, wise, unfathomably ancient…and subtly pleading.

They had explained.

Oh, it hadn’t been their first impulse, but it had hardly taken any prompting to get it out of them; the first sign of resistance and they had laid their cards on the table, told him what they wanted from him, why they wanted him. The very same question the Entity had stubbornly refused to answer no matter how he confronted it. The one Haktria had always deftly avoided, distracting him with some new pleasure any time he dared ask why someone like her would be interested in someone like him.

They could be lying, of course. But…their explanation made sense. It was plausible for them to want exactly what they claimed, and that was what none of the others had ever offered him. A sensible reason, an assurance that they would not turn on him—not out of any promised personal attachment that could be withdrawn on a whim, but because of a vested interest that linked his success to theirs.

It made sense. It could work.

Even if it was a distraction from his revenge…oh what he could do to his enemies with the full wealth of Atraximos and three elder dragons at his side. Why, with Izayaroa alone as his wife, he would hold such a rank in the Empire that he could simply order those who had wronged him to suffer. She might not allow him that privilege—probably wouldn’t, based on her philosophy of rule—but even so, the options this opened up…

And…by every heaven in order, they were just so beautiful. Obviously this whole thing about “sexual rights” would have to be approached with care; whatever the draconic custom, Kaln was not about to lay a finger on anyone who didn’t eagerly want it. Still, just the possibilities on offer…

Kaln cleared his throat. “Forgive me, but…I’m afraid I am still mostly ignorant of your ways. I don’t know the proper etiquette…”

“We are dragons,” Emeralaphine stated, raising her chin in pride. “Ceremonies are created by those whose lives are short and whose presence is weak, to lend weight to their words which they do not innately possess.”

“For us,” said Tiavathyris, “whose word is backed by as much power as any king, to state a thing is to make it true.”

“A dragon you may not be,” Izayaroa finished, “but you are at the least our peer, now, and so it is for you. Claim us, Ar-Kaln Zelekhir, and we are yours.”

“Then…” Kaln drew in a breath, let it out slowly. He straightened his posture fully, and felt a surprising smile spread across his own features. Oh, yes. This was going to be worth everything he had suffered. “I do.”