A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(26)

The soot, all that remained of the dragon, dusted over Lucy as soft as a baby's breath. The gentleness of its demise seemed wrong, like a sour note in a choir. Lucy threw her arms over her head and edged under the shelter of a nearby tree. The guards stood around in disbelief, trying to salvage what lanterns they could from the attack on the dragon.

Lucy's whole body sagged with relief that the voice from Zerkalo had been right. The flames had been the dragon's downfall, when all other weapons did nothing but make it angrier. Without the flames, the dragon might have moved on to do untold more damage.

As the dust settled, the groans of the wounded filled the air, and slowly the guards began to process the dead and hurt, sorting through rubble and calling out orders to each other. No one was paying any attention to Lucy. No one would notice if she slipped away. 

She had to find Joon. If the voice had been right, and the worlds were merging, she needed to find the source of the darkness and destroy it as soon as possible. 

Lucy took the moment to turn and start down the steps to the city below the hill. She grabbed a lantern and kept her head down, limping as the pain from the Samg's bite pulsed in her foot with each step. She was hoping that everyone would think that she was just a noblewoman who had been trapped during the fight and was heading to a physician in the city to see to her wounds. She couldn't be detained by anyone if she wanted to still sneak away and get back to Joon.

She was only a few steps down when a man's voice followed her.

"Miss! Miss, please stop!"

Lucy froze for a second, but then pressed on, hoping he wouldn't have the energy or time to chase her down. But, unfortunately, he did.

His leather armor creaked as he ran down the steps and came up behind Lucy, and then she felt his hand on her arm.

"Miss Shubin," he said, spinning her around.

She winced on the inside at her name in his mouth. He knew exactly who she was, which meant he knew not to let her go.

Putting on her best terrified face, Lucy burst into tears and collapsed. The guard, startled, struggled to support her and stop her from tumbling backward.

She looked up at him through a shower of tears. "What was that thing? I need to get far away from here!" she sobbed, adding in an edge of hysterics that she hoped would make him uncomfortable enough to want to either help her or get her away from the others as soon as possible.

The guard frowned. "Miss Shubin, please pull yourself together. You need to follow me right now."

Lucy kept up her wailing, refusing to let him help her up, but soon she saw that he wasn't going to give up. He called over his superiors, who glared at her as they clustered around in a semi-circle. She wasn't going to get out of here on the merit of her hysteric tears.

Sighing, Lucy swiped her eyes on her sleeves and stood up. No use pretending anymore. "Fine. Lead the way," she said.

If the guards were at all surprised at her sudden change in emotions, they didn't show it. Instead, the senior guard motioned for her to follow him and walked through the rubble and passed the gates to the palace.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked.

"Lord Koshmar wishes to speak with you." The guard would say no more.

Lucy bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Koshmar. Her mind immediately went back to the sight of him, his eyes closed and his brow furrowed. Had he done something to bring that dragon to life? Was he somehow involved in what happened? Lucy didn't want to find out, but she didn't have much choice as the armed guard ushered her past all the cowering nobles stuffed into all the rooms they passed.