Dagny: An Inheritance Cycle Fanfiction.

14. A City of Liars

Final word count: 2347 words.

May I present: the first ever Tornac POV!!!!

Yeah, it was originally from Arne's perspective, but I was struggling with that. So I tried writing from Tornac's point of view, and it flowed easily. It's a lot more lighthearted this way, too. Arne's version of this chapter was dark. And melodramatic. Personally, I find this version kind of funny. Though it has serious bits and gives an insight into Tornac. I hope, anyway.

Okay, enough of my waffling.

That awful, keening sound came again, echoing through the city, echoing from the granite cliffs that rose high out of the ocean. That howling roar was the sound of pure grief and pain, unadulterated, undiluted. It shook the city of Teirm, rippling from the outer wall through close stacks of stone buildings, making the glass windows of the castle tremor in their frames.

Tornac shuddered involuntarily, caught in the grip of a sudden cold feeling. The sound of Sverrir's roaring woke long-dormant, primordial instincts. Primitive, animal parts of his mind were telling him to run and hide. Sverrir, he thought desperately, I'm sorry. Please. Come back, speak to me. We can find her, I promise. She's alright.

He hoped she was. The dragon, of course, wasn't listening. Sverrir had ignored every attempt to communicate with him for hours now, since he had crouched on the city wall and begun his eerie lament. At first, they had tried to find Dagny, to get her to find out what was wrong, make him stop. In the process, they had realised that she was missing.

"Gods above and below," Lord Emedin complained. "Can we not get that infernal animal to be silent?!"

He pounded his fist on the golden arm on his throne for emphasis. Tornac felt his jaw clench with irritation.

"I would advise, my lord," he said, with all the civility he could muster. "That you not speak of a dragon so disrespectfully. They tend not to be very forgiving of insults."

Emedin peered down from his throne to look at him. Tornac was infuriated all over again by the position they'd put him in, at the foot of the dais like a supplicant.
"I'll speak of it how I like!" Emedin fumed. "That creature's rabid! It's mad! It's dangerous!"

Wrong on all counts but the last, Tornac thought. He would've liked, at that moment, to see Lord Emedin find out just how dangerous a dragon could be. He remembered vividly the way the soldiers had screamed at Belatona, as Sverrir set droves of them ablaze and tore their bodies apart like cloth dolls with his razor claws.

Beside Emedin, his lady wife looked bored and not at all embarrassed by her husband's stupidity. While guardsmen marched in and out of the throne room, reporting one after the other that they could find no sign of the Rider, she had sat on her high-backed throne, idly toying with a cabochon ruby ring, twirling it around and around her finger. Tornac had started to wonder if she was doing it purposely to annoy him.

She spoke for the first time in roughly an hour. "My noble lord makes a valid point," she said.

Tornac, for his part, doubted Lord Emedin had ever made a valid point in his life.

"The business of the city cannot go on with this din," Lady Brigitta continued. "Something must be done."

Tornac gave a half-bow that was intended to be mocking. "And what would my lady suggest? His Rider cannot be found. He refuses to hear our communications and will continue to do so, most likely, until his Rider is found."

Lady Brigitta raised one plucked eyebrow condescendingly. "So we are to wait for the Dragon Rider to return? That does not seem like a very reliable plan, Prince. Particularly since the dragon's distress seems to indicate his Rider is likely dead."