Brindle Dragon Omnibus 3

by Jada Fisher

  The All-Mother didn’t answer right away, a pained look on her face. It was strange to see so much guilt on the face of someone she considered a high deity, but at least they seemed to understand where they went wrong.

  “It was when witches and magic was banned, wasn’t it?” Eist asked, putting the pieces together herself.

  The All-Mother nodded slowly. “Its machinations were…subtle. And when it finally made a move, we threw our everything into countering it. We didn’t even realize it was a distraction until it was too late, and it had already gotten your kind to turn against each other.”

  “Of course you didn’t. Because you assumed you knew better.” Eist was surprised at how heated Ain was getting. Sure, it was awful to learn that the gods that he had worshipped since he was a child had actually helped lead to the near destruction of everything, but normally he was much more…flippant about everything.

  She guessed that Dille being hurt had sobered him. Interesting.

  “You came to this realm and tricked us all. You don’t belong here. I say we go ahead and feed them to the Blight and let it devour them like it should have.”

  “You can’t,” the slender woman retorted with boredom. By process of elimination, Eist guessed that she was the Storm. Curious, she didn’t look anything like how Eist had imagined the god of nature and retribution. Then again, the Storm had always been the most abstract of the Three, the being responsible for a bountiful harvest or famine. The one who could be called on as a savior or for destruction.

  “Like hel—”

  “Oh, calm down. I don’t mean you physically can’t. I’m just saying that, if that creature does manage to swallow us, all of you will be next. We’re the only things stopping him from devouring all your world right now.”

  “How?” Dille asked calmly. “You’re human now. I can feel that you don’t have any magic. In fact, compared to the world all around you, the three of you are practically a void of magic.”

  “Because, as long as we live, part of the Blight is still tied to our old, destroyed realm. A place of ash and torment, devoid of all life. Should it absorb us and take the seal buried within each of us, it would finally be able to summon itself in its entirety to this realm and destroy you within moments.”

  “One moment,” Elspeth said, standing up from where she had been lingering. “What do you mean, ‘its entirety’? Are you saying the thing that has been tormenting us for millennia is only a piece of the creature?”

  “It is a majority, but not an entirety, yes,” the All-Mother answered. “And I do assume that its unification with one of yours has allowed him now to tap in all the magic that is overflowing in your world now. It will be stronger than it has ever been, so it would be in your best interest not to let us die.”

  “A convenient enough story,” Fjorin said, his face certainly quite angry. Eist wondered at the blatant fury but then reminded herself that while she had been aware that there was something…off about the Three for a long time, it was coming as a jolt to most of the people around her. Their whole lives had been built on the thought that their gods were perfect and benevolent. Not interlopers from another world that had already fallen to the enemy.

  “No,” Eist said calmly. “She’s telling the truth.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Ale’a asked, her tone sharp but curious.

  “I just do. Besides, she already confessed most of this to me before.”

  “I what?”

  Eist looked to the All-Mother with surprise. “In my dream. You came to me and you were all glowy. You confessed that the three of you royally screwed us over by creating the veil and trying to get subjects to be more powerful and fight the Blight.”

  “I… Oh.” She frowned, and Eist found herself studiously staring at the woman’s face. “Perhaps things have gotten scrambled in the fall. It will come back to me in time, I am sure. Your minds perceive things so…limitedly.”

  “Hey, you don’t get to insult us while also contributing to the destruction of our home.”

  “So, you’re why the dragons have been getting smaller, with fewer types being born?” It was the first time her grandfather had spoken, and Eist nearly jumped at the sound of his wise voice. She had forgotten he was there for a moment.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re saying you somehow didn’t notice that?”

  “We noticed, but we thought it an effect of the Blight, not ourselves.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “We know that we have made grave miscalculations, and we know that you owe us nothing, but please believe us when I say we never intended to hurt any of you. We love you, all of you. You’ve been our new home, our new people, for thousands and thousands of your years. We wanted to protect you from the Blight, not make you more susceptible to its clutch.”

  “Well, that didn’t quite work out,” Ain muttered. Eist would have missed it entirely if she hadn’t been looking in his direction.

  “No, it did not.”

  “Are we done with all the lamentations now?” the Grandfather asked, although it seemed strange to think of the little boy as that. “Now that she’s up, I want to take a try at that wound again.”

  “Why would me being awake affect that or not?” Eist asked, still trying to wrap her mind around the entire situation. She was sitting in the bed of the leader of the dragon riders, and the Three were scattered around her in human form. None of them were as painfully or ethereally beautiful as that glowing woman that she had seen in her dream. Just normal, everyday people.

  “Well, I think I needed your permission.”

  “Permission?” Dille echoed. “Since when does magic need permission?”

  “I don’t know, maybe since the destined one over there has more dragon’s blood in her than anybody else alive in this realm,” the grey-eyed woman muttered.

  “O’Kaino, enough,” the All-Mother hissed at the Storm. O’Kaino? A curious name for a god. Goddess? Was the Storm technically a man or a woman? It was all so complicated.

  “What?” the woman asked dryly, grabbing the pitcher in front of her and looking down it dispassionately. “Is there mead in this? Thousands of years watching your kind get drunk makes me want to try it now.”

  “One of the th-three wants to be d-drunk,” Athar muttered. “What is happening?”

  “I can fix that for you, you know.”

  Athar looked to the Grandfather. “The what?”

  “That stutter. I can fix it. Make it go away.”

  A long moment passed before Athar answered, shifting a bit in his seat. “You tend to Eist first.”

  “Right, good point. The matter at hand.” The young boy turned to Eist, coming close to the bedside. She searched his face, looking for some sort of hint that what used to be a deity was right beside her. But all she saw was a dark-skinned young man with deep, deep black freckles scattered across his soft, serene features. “Will you let me heal you?”

  “Sure,” Eist said with a sort of lazy gesture. “Have at it.”

  He placed a hand on her middle, his other hovering above her hip. Eist laid back, uncomfortable with his touch but understanding that it was necessary. Now that she was somewhat over the shock of yet again suddenly waking up after battle, she could feel the magic swirling all around them again.

  It seemed impossible, but the energy was even thicker than before, like someone had suddenly dumped too much water into a garden and the soil was struggling to absorb it all. It seemed to sit in little pools on top of everything, dripping down the sides and settling in the pit of her stomach like a weight.

  A good weight. Warm and comfortable in her belly. She felt like she could slip under the presence of it all and sink deep, deep down into its pocket. Was this what their world once felt like? Before the invaders? How did they ever get anything done?

  And yet, with all that swirling, churning, powerful stuff, there wasn’t a drop of it coming from the boy next to her.

  “I don’t think i
t’s working,” she said with a sigh.

  “I don’t understand it,” the Grandfather said, his hand going to his chin and rubbing thoughtfully. “I would think it something with me, but I was able to heal your friend just fine.”

  “Huh.” Eist looked him over, trying to ponder, and before she really thought about it, she reached out for his hand. “Here, let me try—”

  She never finished her words, a lance of golden light shooting out from where they connected for just a moment. But that moment left an impression, because that heady, syrupy feeling quadrupled in power and she found herself absolutely inundated with the rush of it all.

  “My gods…” she whispered, gasping as every bit of her body was awash in power, pleasure, and pure, undiluted magic.

  Her fingers bit into his skin, holding onto him, wanting to drink up everything she could from the deity made flesh. She loved it. It poured over her like a soothing, fizzing, intoxicating rush of water and she didn’t ever want it to stop.

  “Let go!”

  Eist startled, the reverberating call breaking through the drunken stupor of her mind, and the Grandfather wrested his arm from her grip. It took her several moments to come down, her thoughts dripping like tree sap, and it took several breaths before she could comprehend what she was seeing around her.

  The young boy was leaning heavily against Dille, who looked completely unsure what to do. His face was a pale gray and sweat dappled his forehead. The All-Mother was on her feet, stool having fallen over behind her, while the Storm seemed to be trying to badger Ale’a to get her some of that mead she had heard so much about. Everyone else was watching her with expressions that ranged from shocked to horrified. Which was great, really.

  “What just happened?” Eist asked, looking at her hand. Her vision was practically overwhelmed with everything going on around her, tinting the whole world gold. But now her limb was practically a beacon in her eyes, glittering like a star.

  “You were absorbing him,” the All-Mother said, sounding like she was trying to restrain her tone.

  “Oh, that’s something I can do?”

  “No, it’s not supposed to be. I don’t understand. The only creature that ever has been able to do that to one of our kind is the Blight.”

  Eist’s insides went a little cold at that. “That may be…because…the Blight planted some of itself inside of me.”

  Now all of the eyes in the room were definitely on her, and every single pair held terror inside of them.

  “It what now?” Dille asked, setting the Grandfather back on his feet since color seemed to be returning to his face.

  “Yacrist told me this when he…when he had me in that cell. He said he could tell that my parents were sending pieces of their gifts to me, so he sent some of himself too. Or itself…because he wasn’t Yacrist then. But you know what I mean.”

  “What do you mean he sent some of himself?”

  Eist shrugged. “Just a piece of him. It was supposed to kill me, and that’s why both my grandfather and I got that terrible fever. It’s what took my hearing. But instead of killing me, apparently, I just…made it my own? He said that was why we were destined to be together, like our paths were predetermined to get all wound up in each other.”

  The All-Mother sighed and slowly picked up her chair before settling back down on it. Even in her human form, she had a regal and powerful sort of grace that spoke of a warrior. “You took what it was and made it your own,” she repeated, as if she was turning over the phrase so she could understand it better. “You took a piece of the creature that has destroyed eleven realms, devouring them piece by piece until there’s nothing left, and you made it your own.”

  “Apparently?” Eist answered. “It certainly wasn’t intentional. I was eleven.”

  “You were…eleven.”

  “I told you: destined,” the Storm said, halting her pestering of Ale’a. “I also told you the moment that her parents first looked at each other that their offspring were going to be connected to the old magic of this world. Something to fix everything we messed up.”

  “I’m not a thing,” Eist contested hotly.

  “Ugh, don’t be oversensitive. I haven’t been alive long enough to deal with it. She’s clearly our sign that we’ve done more harm than good, and this place is trying to figure out how to purge us.”

  “Yes, thank you, O’Kaino. I’ve only had four hundred years to listen to your whining about her parents’ romance.”

  “It wasn’t whining,” the woman countered. “I was just warning you that you were meddling in things that were bigger than even us.”

  “Yes, I am very aware, thank you. I led them as best I could. How could I have known that they would have—”

  Eist was yet again surprised when her own grandfather cut in, sounding angrier than she had heard him in years. “My daughter believed in you, worshipped you, until the day she died. And you’re telling me that you didn’t actually understand the path you were leading her down? The one that took her, and my son-in-law, to their death!?”

  The All-Mother stiffened and for once, she didn’t look very repentant. “I did what I thought I must. It is not easy fighting—”

  “I don’t want any more excuses!” the older man snapped. “You are responsible for all of this now! It’s you three that were arrogant enough to—”

  Eist held up her hand, and it actually worked. “You know, I realize that this all might be cathartic, but I’m actually pretty hungry. Please tell me that someone, somewhere, went to the cafeteria to get me food.”

  “Are you really thinking about food right now?” Ain asked, finally at least sounding a little amused.

  “She wouldn’t be my granddaughter if she wasn’t,” her grandfather remarked, finally coming over to kiss her forehead. “I’ll go get you something. All your favorites.”

  “Young W’allenhaus,” the All-Mother said curiously. “I find that I have a pain in my stomach that is most discomforting. Is this the hunger that you are speaking of?”

  “You’re kidding me.” That was Ale’a. “You’ve never been hungry or eaten before?”

  “Well, of course we have. As deities, we require energy the same as any living thing. We just require it…differently.”

  “You mean worship,” Athar pointed out astutely, to which the All-Mother and the Grandfather nodded solemnly. Meanwhile, the Storm was running her fingers over a marble bust in the corner like it was absolutely fascinating.

  “Well, don’t you worry,” Eist tried to say with some sort of levity. “Braddock’s biscuits practically are a form of worship.”

  5

  Just Like Everybody Else

  “Huh, your hip is healed.”

  “Huh?”

  Eist looked down as Dille finished pulling away her bandages to see that the wound had indeed closed. That explained why it had stopped hurting to the point that she had forgotten about it.

  “When do you think that happened?”

  Eist closed her eyes for a moment, thinking back. A lot of events had occurred in the two days since she had awoken, and some of it seemed more real than other parts.

  For example, the Storm, which was supposed to be the embodiment of nature, power and retribution, had found out that she loved mead. And not in the same pleasant way that Eist had enjoyed being light and bubbly for a few hours, but in a…very messy way.

  And the Grandfather had learned that he really liked food. So much so that he also learned if he ate too much, he would profusely vomit. That had not been a particularly pleasant lesson for all of the people around him, either.

  And the All-Mother? Well, the All-Mother wanted to know everything and anything all the time. From drinking, to sleeping, to handshakes, to decorum. One would think that being a goddess that watched over humans for centuries upon centuries would have taught her more about culture, but Eist guessed there were certain things she had never paid much attention to.

  Like modesty.

  “I was down
in your archives, quaint little things, aren’t they?” the All-Mother said, walking right in the door with cobwebs in her hair and dust streaked across one of her cheeks.

  “Do you mind?” Eist snapped.

  The All-Mother looked up from the book she was holding, confused. “What?”

  “I’m getting dressed.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

  “I just—” Eist let out a sigh as Dille threw a blanket over her. Ever since she had been in Yacrist’s custody, especially with the whole bath…thing, she found herself more concerned than ever about who saw her body and how. She wanted it to be on her terms and only then. She’d had plenty of feeling powerless and like she didn’t own herself and didn’t need to feel that ever again. “Just turn around, okay?”

  “Of course, whatever you say.”

  She did as Eist asked but continued to talk as the young woman got out of bed and threw a casual housedress over herself.

  “What are you up to, as it were?” the All-Mother continued. “I know that your leader said you needed quite a lot of rest after the battle. Apparently, you performed more than your fair share of spells and maneuvers.”

  “I don’t know exactly what my ‘fair share’ would be, but yes, I was pretty exhausted. And actually, I’m going to go take a bath in the hot springs.”

  “A bath?” the All-Mother repeated curiously. “Wait, yes, I know that. My priestesses used to cleanse their body before entering my inner chamber. You need cleansing?”

  “Yeah, I think it’d feel nice. I know I was kinda washed when my wounds were bandaged, but there’s something to be said for soaking in hot water and rinsing off all of the past few days.”

  “I see. Perhaps I should try this ritual of which you speak?”

  Dille crossed to the goddess and gently took the book from her, her nostrils flaring. “You know, I think that might be a good idea.”

  “Would it?”

  “Yeah, you, uh… You kind of smell.”