by G. A. Aiken
Addolgar realized she was talking to him. “Uh . . .” Addolgar cleared his throat. “This is Braith of the Darkness.”
“Who is her kin, boy? I care not for her name.”
“She’s a Daughter of the House of Penarddun.”
His great-great-aunt made a sound that some generous soul might call a laugh. “Well then . . . that explains so much.”
“She’s here under my protection, Great-Aunt.”
“Is she?” Brigida sneered. “Well, you’re doing a bang-up job since she just beat up your kin and almost walked out of here to wherever she was headed.”
“It’s all a misunderstanding. I just need time to speak to her. So could you please . . . unhinge?”
“You’ll need some chains,” she replied.
“Chains?”
Brigida lifted her fist, and Braith’s body rose from the ground at the same time. Then Brigida dropped her fist hard and Braith slammed into the ground, knocked out completely from the impact.
Poor thing. If she wasn’t being thrown into trees or attacked by his kin, she was being mystically flung to the ground by his old, terrifying great-great-aunt.
It was really going to be impossible to talk to Braith in a rational, calm manner after all this.
Addolgar looked at his father. “Uncle Arranz leave those chains of his around?”
“Check our room, dear,” Shalin suggested. A suggestion that had Addolgar and Brigida staring at her while his father grinned and gazed off across the courtyard. Shalin’s pale, freckled face flushed a deep, extremely bright, red.
His poor mother lifted her skirt so it didn’t drag on the ground and quickly said to Brigida, “Why don’t I get your room ready, Great-Aunt?” She spun and practically ran off.
Brigida shook her head at Ailean, her white hair whipping around her brutally scarred face. “Another poor female you’ve turned into a whore, Ailean the Slag.”
Ailean didn’t have the decency to be a little humble. Instead, his grin stretched into an outright leer and the old witch sucked her tongue against her teeth before slowly walking up the stairs, refusing Addolgar’s offer of assistance.
“Get your bit of lizard, Addolgar the Cheerful. Let’s get her secured before she wakes up and tears the walls of this ridiculous place down around us.”
And based on what Addolgar had already seen . . . Braith was the one dragon who could do just that with very little effort.
Oh, and as for his battling kin? They were already starting to wake up, which meant the complaining would come soon enough because none of them liked to lose. Especially when they lost to a bloody royal.
Chapter 6
Braith opened her eyes and screamed at what hovered above her, “Gods! Death comes for me!”
The horrifying face of death curled its lip at her and growled, “Well, that’s charmin’.” Death sat back in its chair, hands resting on its knees. “This face is not me fault, ya know?” Death looked off, thought a moment. Its finger traced one of the deep gouges across its jaw. “This one actually is kind of me fault.” She pointed at the other side of her face, where part of her chin was missing. “And this one. A bit of barney at the pub.”
Braith studied the beast sitting next to her bed. There were so many scars on that face and neck. Gouges. One eye was crystal blue, but the other was a milky white and grey. But that was the eye she felt saw beyond scale and flesh to soul . . . so that it could steal it right from the body.
“What are you?”
That milky white and grey eye quickly locked on Braith, the blue one slowly coming along for the ride, sizing her up. “Don’t you mean who am I?”
“No.”
Those disturbing eyes narrowed and that damaged top lip curled. But before further words were spoken, the bedroom door pushed open and Addolgar—that idiot!—rushed in.
“What’s going on?”
“She asked me what am I.”
Addolgar’s brown eyes widened in what appeared to be panic.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean that,” he said quickly. “It was . . . it was the hit on her head,” he offered, nodding desperately at Braith. “She’s mad from that. You should ignore her.”
Death growled a bit, then stood. “I’ll be downstairs with your father,” it told him as it slowly made its way across the room. “Sort this out, boy. The Cadwaladrs don’t need anyone’s problems but their own. Understand?”
“I do.”
“Good.”
Death walked out of the room, slamming the door behind it and Addolgar let out a breath, shoulders slumping, arms hanging down.
“What the hells was that thing?” Braith demanded. “Why are you sending death to my room?”
Addolgar glanced back at the door, his hands lifting, indicating for her to keep her voice down. “That was not death,” he whispered. “That was our Great-Aunt Brigida.”
“Brigida? Brigida the Foul?” He nodded. “I thought she was dead.”
Addolgar shook his head and whispered, “She just won’t die.”
“I heard that, boy!” Brigida’s voice rang down the hall, and Addolgar’s pale human face turned paler. Braith did find it disturbing someone that old could hear a whispered comment behind a thick wooden door, but honestly, at the moment, Braith had other issues to deal with.
“Addolgar?”
He looked up at her, tried to smile. “Aye?”
She lifted her hands. “What are these?”
“Chains.”
“Why am I wearing them?”
“To protect you from yourself.” He seemed to calm down, his uncomfortable smile turning bright and cheerful. “See? I’m here to take care of you!”
Braith sighed. “Addolgar the Cheerful . . . you are such an idiot.”
Addolgar walked across the room and sat on his bed. The bed that Braith of the Darkness was currently on. She looked surprisingly cute on his bed, wearing his shirt and his uncle’s chains, and sporting that big lump on her forehead.
“I know you’re angry,” he told her.
“You threw me into a tree.”
“I had to.”
“You had to? And why did you have to do that?”
“Because if I’d stopped to discuss the situation with you instead, Braith, we’d still be there . . . talking. I didn’t have time for that. I didn’t know if your brothers would be coming back to look for you or if I’d be strong enough to fight them.”
“Addolgar, I’m trying to protect you and, unfortunately, now all of your kin.”
“The kin you just slapped around?”
“They’re still breathing, aren’t they? Because, usually, I don’t allow for that last part. I was just trying to leave. Your family decided to keep me here.”
“Because I’m trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection, you git!”
“And I don’t need yours, brat, but here we are!” Addolgar folded his arms across his chest and suddenly realized something. “You’ve made me angry.”
“I’ve been angry for hours now.”
“We’re not talking about you. You’re Braith of the Darkness. I’m Addolgar the Cheerful. I’ve earned this name, and you’re ruining it by being unreasonable.”
“You throw me into a tree—”
“That was for your own good.”
“—have me attacked by your kin—”
“You brought that on yourself.”
“—and leave me alone with Brigida the Foul, of all She-dragons—”
“She got away from us. Normally none of us would have done that. Not even to our worst enemy.”
“—and I’m being unreasonable.”
Addolgar nodded. “See? You do understand.”
Eyes closing, Braith sighed once more, her head dropping into her open hands. “I can’t believe I once thought you were adorable.”
“Really?” Addolgar grinned. “You think I’m adorable?”
That’s when Braith dropped to the bed, using a
pillow to cover her face.
“Wait. Does that mean ‘Yes, I think you’re adorable’ or ‘No, I don’t think you’re adorable’?”
When Addolgar pulled that pillow off her, she refused to open her eyes. She didn’t want to see his handsome face. This whole thing was ridiculous. She didn’t understand what she was doing. What he was doing. What anyone was doing!
“Well?” Addolgar asked her.
Braith finally opened her eyes and found Addolgar leaning right over her. “Well what?”
“Do you really think I’m adorable?”
Braith raised her manacled hands, gripping his chain-mail shirt with her fingers. She lifted her body up by pulling herself closer to his face. Then, while trying to rein in her anger, and failing, she snarled, “I am trying to help you!”
“I know,” he said simply. “We’re trying to help each other. Like friends.”
“Friends?”
“Aye. We’re friends now.”
“Are we?”
“Of course we are!” he replied cheerfully—just like his name. “Why wouldn’t we be friends?”
“Because you threw me into a tree?”
“To help you. You keep forgetting that part.”
Unsure what else to do, Braith released her grip on his shirt and dropped back to the bed.
“So are you just going to keep me here? Locked in chains like some human prisoner?” She studied him. “Maybe I should just shift to dragon and be done with all this.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” he told her with what seemed to be an astounding amount of confidence, considering what they’d recently been through. “I know you wouldn’t harm innocent humans, nor destroy my father’s property.”
Damn the bastard, but he was right.
“Look, Braith, once I’m sure you’re not going to do anything incredibly stupid, I’ll release you. And going to the Queen to tell her about your father—incredibly stupid.”
“So is hiding from her.”
“You’re not hiding. You’re trying to fix the problem. We’re trying to fix the problem. And we will.”
“This isn’t your fight, Addolgar.”
“It’s more my fight than yours. It was me they’d planned to kill. That alone will bring every Cadwaladr within a thousand leagues to exact revenge. Trust me when I say you don’t want to be in the middle of that shit storm.”
“What does it matter? Your family already hates me.”
Addolgar gazed at her for several moments before asking, “Why would you say that?”
“Because they attacked me in your father’s courtyard?”
“Only because you battered Ghleanna. And she only tried to stop you because of me. Actually . . . my kin was quite impressed. Once we wrapped up their wounds and snapped bones back into place. Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“My mother. And she learned from her mother. The females on my mother’s side are, what my father has always called when he was feeling nice, hearty.”
“Hearty’s good. The Cadwaladrs respect hearty.”
Braith couldn’t help but snort a little laugh at that while she tried to figure out where to put her damn hands with these damn manacles and chains on them.
“What’s so funny?” Addolgar asked.
“Lady Katarina wasn’t exactly what I’d call hearty . . . and you didn’t seem to have any problems with her.”
“Well . . . no. She wasn’t hearty. Not like you.” And Braith briefly entertained using the chains to choke the life from the big idiot. “But she’s a nice lass.”
“Addolgar, she poisoned you.”
“But she didn’t kill me. That’s what’s important.”
Her mother had been right, all those years ago, when she’d told Braith, “Males will always make excuses for the pretty.” It was too bad, really. Braith had always hoped Addolgar wasn’t like most males. But in the end, they were all the same, weren’t they?
“You’re sneering at me,” Addolgar noted.
“Am I?”
“Your lip is curled, so it does look like you’re sneering.”
“I don’t mean to.” She really didn’t. “I just don’t know how we’re going to fix this. My father . . . he’s destroyed my life, the honor of my bloodline. He’s destroyed everything. And for what?” she asked. “To take the throne of Addiena?”
“That seems like a foolish goal. He’d have to get rid of Addiena, which is near impossible with her Royal Guard protecting her. And then there’s her offspring, two of which are witches.” He shrugged massive shoulders. “In other words, the House of Gwalchmai fab Gwyar is not to be fucked with, I’m afraid.”
“Perhaps my father’s raised an army.”
“Wouldn’t you know if he had? Wouldn’t he discuss it with you first?”
“My father and I aren’t . . . close. We never have been. He wanted two things when he chose my mother as his mate: sons and her royal title. I was never part of his plan and I mean nothing to him.”
“Then why did he involve you in this at all?”
Braith admitted the sad truth. “Because he hates me. Always has. He knew I’d never go along with this. I’m a Daughter of the House of Penarddun, and our oath is our bond. He’s never had the guts to outright kill me, so he was hoping I’d go along, put up a fight, and one of the soldiers would do the nasty job for him. This way he keeps his talons clean and he still has his precious sons.”
She saw a very dark frown on Addolgar’s face, and he said, “Or you could have just gone along with his plan.”
“The honor of my mother’s bloodline means everything to me,” she snapped, “just as it meant everything to her and to all our female ancestors who came before us. You may be from the Cadwaladr Clan, Addolgar the Cheerful, but I’m a direct bloodline from the House of Penarddun. A Daughter. That means something to us. So, I’d rather be executed knowing I’d kept our honor than live a millennium in shame.”
Addolgar said nothing as he gazed into her face. She didn’t know what he was looking for or what he expected to find. Instead, she held his gaze until a voice at the doorway said, “Then we’d best figure out how to get your granite fists out of this, Braith of the Darkness.”
It was Ghleanna. She leaned against the door frame, a wet cloth held to her swollen cheek. Her nose had already been put back into place by kinder hands than the one that had knocked it out of joint.
“I don’t understand,” Braith admitted. “Why are you all trying to help me?”
The She-dragon shrugged, smirked. “Maybe because it’s nice to finally know a female with shoulders wider than mine.” She motioned toward the stairs with a tilt of her head. “Come on then, you two. We’d better start figuring out what we’re going to do before the rest of these idiots begin drinking again. They’ll be useless once the ale comes out.”
Ghleanna walked away, and Braith simply couldn’t help herself. She lowered her chin to her chest and tried to see how wide her shoulders truly were.
“Don’t worry,” Addolgar cheered as he grabbed her hands and pulled her up from the bed, the chains obscenely rattling. “Ghleanna actually meant that as a compliment. She loves her giant shoulders.”
Once on her feet, Braith looked up at the big, good-natured idiot. He grinned at her and all Braith could do was sigh, shake her head, and walk out of the room . . . her chains rattling along as she did.
“What?” Addolgar asked from behind her. “What did I say?”
Chapter 7
Addolgar walked past Braith and went to the table where most of his kin had assembled. He pulled out a chair for her next to his mother and turned. Behind him, he could see Braith walking from the stairs to the Main Hall. She had her head down as she walked, her focus on the chains between the cuffs that were on her wrists. So she was unaware of Bercelak walking up behind her, pulling his sword from the sheath at his side, his face a mask of rage and hatred.
Word of what had happened was spreading among their kin, it seemed, and Berc
elak had clearly made up his mind that Braith had betrayed his precious Queen. And for Bercelak the Unpleasant there was only one way to deal with a traitor to the throne.
Addolgar opened his mouth to yell a warning at Braith, but Ghleanna slapped her hand around his mouth, silencing him. He tried to run forward, but one of his good-sized cousins caught hold of him and held him back.
“Shhhh,” Ghleanna whispered against his ear. “We’ve all got gold on this.”
Addolgar rolled his eyes, disgusted by all his kin . . . and the fact that he hadn’t gotten in on the betting.
Bercelak was near Braith by now, his human body moving silently, the sword raised in one hand. If he moved fast enough and severed the spine at the base of Braith’s neck, it would be the fastest way to kill her, or any dragon, in human form.
Suddenly Braith’s head came up, and without missing a step, she turned and swung. Bercelak was close behind her now so that the chains didn’t stop her from making contact with his face.
Bercelak blinked, stumbled a step, blinked again, and fell straight back, crashing to the stone floor.
Shaking out her hand, Braith faced them. She stood there, staring, as the Cadwaladrs stared back. Until Ailean barked, “You lot owe me. Pay up!”
With groans and growls of disappointment, Addolgar’s kin began tossing gold coins on the table in front of his father.
Disgusted, Addolgar faced Ailean. “You bet against your own son?”
“Just like you, the boy doesn’t pay attention. And seeing that she’s just like her mother, he didn’t stand a chance against Braith of the Darkness.”
“Mum?” Addolgar said to his mother.
“Because I love him,” she reminded them all as she’d been doing for centuries. “That’s what I’m doing with your father. I love him. So, honestly—just let it go already.”
Holding a wet cloth to his head, Bercelak was helped into a chair by his younger sister Maelona.
Maelona wasn’t much like the rest of her siblings. Sweet and lithe in her human form, she took more after her mother than her father. A healer rather than a warrior. Which was good—a healer was clearly something this group needed.
