Chapter 13
Amber launched right back into her normal routine of aiding Lapis and the other dragons as soon as Casmir left. It was scary, actually, how easily she was able to deviate from her tasks when he arrived and how easily she fell back into the familiar pattern once he was gone.
This one-track mind that was so similar to when Crimson had complete control over her was starting to mess with her mind. Sometimes, she thought that her memory gaps weren’t due to the dragon’s control, but rather her own doing.
She shook her head, focusing on her task at hand. The blank obsidian slab in front of her seemed to taunt her, as did the sharp, slightly curved stone Lapis gave her to carve with.
:You can help with some of the human knowledge: the queen had said when Zephyr dropped the slab, along with many others, onto her desk. They were perfect squares cut from a variety of different rocks and then polished. Lapis had mentioned that the importance of the events recorded corresponded to the rarity of the stone it was carved on. :You know lots about human traditions and customs, right?:
She could only nod and Lapis left her to work. She didn’t mention that she barely left her house due to her being an Unlocked, which resulted in her knowing less about the customs.
She did know some, like how there would be an annual Summer Gala, set on the anniversary date of Serena Heidurn’s defeat. Or how there would be an initiation of sorts that every teen had to go through if they wanted to join Autarcus Academy. It was something she had done herself, when she was just twelve years old, and she had passed. And if they wanted to join the soldier ranks at the Regias, the initiation would be more intense, so she heard. She made a mental note to ask Casmir when or if he decided to visit again.
She also remembered her father mentioning something to her, though the memory was hazy now. He had said something about a tradition in the past where people would go to specific locations scattered throughout the city and forests and find monuments dedicated to the various abilities that were wielded by the Unlocked. They’d pay their respects, and in return, the Unlocked would repay them by offering their abilities as a form of protection and help during the harder times.
Obviously, that tradition had since been broken and the monuments were taken down. She had no idea if they actually existed in the first place, but she trusted her father that he wasn’t making things up. She liked to hope that this tradition was an important one many years ago. It was nice to imagine people like her being respected rather than feared.
As Amber tried to dig up these memories from wherever they resided in her mind, she found out that carving things was harder than the other dragons made it seem. When she asked for a demonstration, Zephyr merely ran his claws along the stone and flapped his wings a few times to blow the dust away. When the winds died down, a beautiful and intricately carved slab was left sitting on the ground. He nodded toward it as if saying, just like that.
If only it was that easy.
She picked up the sharp tool that the dragons had given her, carved into a rough imitation of their claws. It wasn’t going to be enough for her to cut through the stones.
What if I just… Amber’s finger sparked as it lit up and she started to trace images onto the stone. Smooth lines, both thick and thin, ran across the slab once she was done, with wisps of green curled up from the carvings. Speaking of the carvings, they glowed softly if turned to the light, as if some of her own powers had gotten fused within the stone. Nothing burned or corroded away though, which was good. The last thing she wanted was for one of Drakania’s information slabs to be ruined because of her.
Oh, hey, I did something right, she thought, moving onto the next slab and repeating what she had just done. She was delighted to find that her earlier success wasn’t a fluke.
Amber had no idea how much time had passed, but she was soon aware of a pile of newly carved slabs on the ground, and nothing left on her desk. She was done for the day. No doubt there would be more slabs to “carve” the following day, but she was glad to have a break for now.
She had carved about ten slabs for Lapis, each one depicting images of the important “human customs”, as Lapis called them. Her finger was sore from dragging it across the stone. Parts of her skin were blistering, though it wasn’t something that a bit of healing paste couldn’t fix. Or she could go to the healing caves and have Ametrine fuss over her for three days and lose valuable work time.
Nah, healing paste would be fine, she thought. That’s what I usually do in the past.
Besides, it was important that her blisters healed quickly because Lapis had unofficially appointed her to be the human-dragon ambassador. And in addition to that, she was tasked with recording anything the dragons claimed to be of interest. A very important note to consider was that the dragons found anything the humans do to be interesting.
:What do humans eat?: Lapis asked one day. She looked genuinely interested and glanced at the slab that Amber was working on. She was slowly drawing an image of farmlands with rich, fertile soil and an abundance of crops and produce. :Is that dirt?:
“Uh, yes and no,” Amber explained. “It’s a plot of land where we plant stuff to eat.”
:So humans eat plants: Lapis seemed confused, as she had seen Amber eat meat before. :But you also eat fish:
“Humans eat plants and meat to get different nutrients.”
:Ah, that makes sense: Lapis looked at the slabs again and headed out the cave. :I’ll let you work on those food slabs. Thank you for documenting this, it’s really interesting:
“It’s no problem, Lapis,” Amber said, focusing on the slabs once more. “And thank you. I find your dragon customs very interesting too.”
The arkey that Casmir returned to her was sitting inside a cloth pouch inside her bag. When she took it out, a bright white light shone from within, almost blinding her if she didn’t close the pouch immediately.
She wasn’t the one who gave it to him, it had been Crimson who snuck it into the stone box. She had no intention of giving him an arkey because one, arkeys already caused her a lot of problems and she didn’t need to put those problems onto him and two, he had no interest in gaining new powers, only learning about them. On top of that, she didn’t even know there were light arkeys in Drakania. In one of her passing conversations with Lapis, the dragon mentioned that there were fewer of certain arkeys left in the dragon city, similar to how there were only a few of certain types of dragons.
Given that Spingroll was the only light dragon she actually saw, it was possible that the light arkey in her bag was one of the last ones left. It had to be more than a coincidence, she just wasn’t sure why yet.
It was a powerful arkey, that’s for sure, and without a doubt more powerful than hers. Being able to manipulate light was an insanely advantageous skill, and part of her was relieved that Casmir had given it back, insisting that he had no use for an arkey. Who knows what the Diavian Guard could do if they had an Unlocked on their side. She knew they’d immediately change their views on the Unlocked, and would probably be overly apologetic to try and get her on their side too.
Amber dropped the pouch back onto her desk and rolled up her sleeves. She wrinkled her nose when she saw the veins of green swirling up her arm. They held the power that her arkey granted her, storing it when she wasn’t using them. Sure, most of the power was kept in the actual stone, but as time went on, bits of energy would leech from the arkey, latching onto the closest living thing. The green swirls were harmless, though she did notice that if she used her powers too much, they’d glow brightly. With an almost half amused smile, she thought that Crimson would comment on the swirls and ask Amber to use her powers so she could see the “pretty light shows”.
It had been so long since she used her powers excessively, and the markings were fading. Now, the most intense sort of thing she did with her powers was create the wispy green energy dragon, or using her powers as a source of light.
She wondered if she could still remember the offensive and defensive moves that Casmir taught her. The ones that combined knife throwing and her powers. The ones he made sure were ingrained within her muscle memory should any unforeseen circumstances come up.
As some sort of test, she stood, pacing around the center of her cave and drew a knife. With the other hand, she conjured up an energy ball. The balance of her body was completely off and her posture was horrible, but she managed to complete the routine that Casmir taught her. She stumbled at the last step, losing control of her powers at the same time and fell. The ground was burned black where her palms collided with stone.
“That was terrible,” she hissed, dusting herself off and picking up her knife. “I’m out of practice.”
“I wasn’t gonna say that, but sure,” Casmir’s voice carried over to her, causing her to spin around.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. It was really more along the lines of demanding. It had barely been a day since he left, but based on the expression he was wearing, whatever he had to say couldn’t be good news. It seemed that every time they spoke, it was to discuss whatever update the city had announced. Rarely did they ever talk about random things anymore. “You left. You weren’t supposed to be back for another year, if your past visiting times indicated anything.”
He ignored her comment and instead, reached into his bag.
She saw the leather bound cover and knew exactly what it was before Casmir pulled it out. But she kept silent and waited. Waited until he took out the book and showed it to her. She kept her face neutral, even if her surprise threatened to show. She didn’t so much as shift in her spot, in case any one of her movements gave away her thoughts.
But it was mostly because she didn’t want to lash out and say something she might regret later.
The engraved dragon on the worn cover stared back at her almost smugly, as if saying “look what we’ve got here”. She broke her neutral mask and glared right back, letting Casmir mistake her look as anger or disbelief.
“I found it in the library,” he said quickly, holding both hands up in mock surrender. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, I had no idea either,” she said, though her tone was sarcastic. “I didn’t know the library kept books that more resembled personal journals.”
He seemed surprised that she didn’t immediately have an outburst, and took that as the prompt to continue.
“I thought that… I sort of hoped I read this wrong,” he said. He flipped through to the last page and seemed to read it again. “But this was so interesting, and I read the whole book. I couldn’t stop. Then I hoped that this last entry, actually the book itself, was just a new way of writing history books, and it wasn’t—”
“That it wasn’t my father’s?” Amber cut in. “That, somehow, his personal belongings ended up in the library of all places?”
“Yes?” He held the book in his hand, not sure if he should put it away or give it to her.
“Who’s even in charge of the possessions of those that are dead?”
“I dunno, those at Regia Diavum?”
“And they thought that putting a dead man’s belongings into a public space was respectful?” Amber asked. She didn’t know how to express how offended she felt. “I… I’m not gonna try to understand why they thought that. They do so many questionable things.”
“This was also in the section that no one really goes to,” he said. “On the very top floor.” By this point, Amber had taken the book from him and was flipping through the pages frantically, as if searching for a particular thing. She paused on a page that depicted a red stone with bands of purple and gold, not unlike her own. She felt a smirk tug at her lips and didn’t bother hiding it. This was certainly interesting information. What else were you hiding, Dad? she thought.
“I hope no one goes to that section,” Amber muttered. “It should be restricted, with how paranoid the ruler is about certain things.”
She flipped the page, slowly reading each entry as she walked to her table. Taking out her own notebooks and journals, she scribbled down anything worth remembering.
The last entry caught her off guard.
[they’re coming, i can hear them closing in. i’ll try and hold them off, but in the end, only one can remain. i can only hope that it’s me]
“Who’s they?” she asked, pointing to the last entry. “D’you know?”
“No,” Casmir said. “I think maybe the dragons? It seems like he wrote it in a hurry, though.”
“Does it say anything about how he died?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. She had flipped through the whole book by now and there was nothing about his death.
Casmir shook his head apologetically. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I know you want to know what happened to him.”
“I guess we can’t have everything we want,” Amber said. A wave of anger and bitterness washed over her at the thought of never figuring out her father’s death. A part of her thought that Casmir knew, he just wasn’t telling her. Another part argued that there was another reason why the Captain of the Guard didn’t say anything to her when she demanded to know. She dismissed those thoughts quickly.
She didn’t need any reasons to be upset.