The grey of Latriis’ scales was deceptively dark; though they seemed to catch the light with ease, when she slipped between shadow and sunlight, her scales darkened more dramatically than Coquina expected. They were closer in colour to Scella. Yet when Latriis re-emerged, her brightness returned to more closely mirror Frigus. It was as if she were dappled with light snow.
Tidi rocked from side to side, her body shaking with excitement. Though not as strong, Coquina shared it, waiting with bated breath for their questions to be answered.
They weren’t the only ones. The whole crowd leaned forward as one. Even Scella and Frigus appeared mildly interested, their heads cocked sideways as if even they did not know everything about what their Dux was about to say.
Latriis straightened her neck. Long, gracefully-curved spikes glinted like icicles, acting as a sharpened crown as they jutted from her head.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering,” she began, her voice low and yet somehow reverberating enough to reach every ear in a rumbling echo, “where I have been this last quarter.”
Quarter? So Latriis really had been gone a long time.
“Well, wonder on.” A smile cracked her snout. “My business was private. But its consequences involve every single one of you.”
Her eyes swept the crowd ever more. Coquina briefly noted the shape of a dragon arriving late, creeping over the peak of a mountain as they tried not to be noticed. Latriis’ gaze lingered on them, but she said nothing.
“Yes, all of you.” Her smile twitched, widening. “I see you. Concils. Mators.” Though she didn’t move anything but her eyes, the sharpness of her gaze perfectly picked out each dragon with precision as she made her way across each mountainside. She reached Fresto, and added, “Subils.” He flinched.
Before Coquina could even prepare, Latriis’ gaze was settling on her and Tidi. And then it was moving again. “Humils and Medicors,” she added, casting each word aside, showing little care for either.
At Coquina’s side, Tidi deflated, her shoulders sagging. She’d thought this a spying adventure, that no-one would know she was here, that their presence was dangerous. But Latriis didn’t mind. If anything, delight flickered in those strangely dark eyes, as if she’d expected their presence all along.
By the time Latriis finished her circuit, Tidi wasn’t the only one unsettled. Many other wings flicked in and out, tails squirming like oversized worms, as they awaited their Dux’s next address.
“It wasn’t by mistake that you found your way here,” Latriis continued. Tidi slumped even further. Coquina perked her head up, listening closely, just as her friend had told her to. “I made sure to leak this meeting’s details, just a little. If I truly wanted secrecy, I would not have set it in the clan’s centremost point.”
It all felt so obvious now. Coquina almost felt like laughing. Such a careful Dux would never have made it even possible for them to join if she hadn’t wanted them. But why did she want them?
“She wants something doing,” Tidi muttered, as if hearing the unspoken question. It made sense. Latriis was hardly going to force a Precil to do her dirty work for her. That was a far more fitting job for those lower in the clan -- the likes of Coquina.
“Listen closely,” Latriis said, and Coquina obliged, head snapping up. “The Hiedium clan has stayed in the shadows for too long. The other clans will have begun to think us solitary. Not a threat. Harmless.” She hissed the final word as if it were some terrible disease she was anxious to be rid of. Her dark eyes flashed, the sea-blue waves within crashing against one another. “But these long, silent years were necessary. Now, we go unwatched, barely noticed by our neighbouring dragons. The perfect time to strike.”
Coquina flinched at the harsh way she spat the final word. Her gaze shot to a different dragon with every change in tone. Each one folded beneath her sharp gaze.
“But we will not simply march from the borders and strike. No, we are much smarter than that.” Her gaze flicked to Fresto. “First, we set them against each other. We make them unwise to who the true enemy is.” She looked at a dragon lower on the slope of Coquina’s very mountain. “Divide and conquer, is that not the tactic?”
Her eyes landed on Coquina. The waters in her gaze were cold and chilling, snatched from the depths of Hemï and forced to reside forever in her stare. She didn’t blink, nor did she move. Coquina’s chest tightened and her head throbbed, the frost on her back growing so vast she was sure that ice had embedded itself in every crack of her scales, stinging with every twist it made towards her heart.
In the edges of her vision, the ice extinguished the fire.
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