While she finished dying, he threw another log into the fire and sat in his lumpy chair. His would-be-assassin was dealt with, but now he needed to determine who sent her. And once he did… well, her death would seem peaceful in comparison.
He smiled to himself. He’d had a nice night, all things considered.
9
Drazen
Using a lantern to light their way, Drazen and Talin left camp and walked the short distance to the site of the only dragon’s nest to ever be found by humanoids. The sounds of insects filled the air as they strode through the tall grass, but there was something lonely about their music. Stars spread out in all directions overhead.
Usually, Drazen loved the stars. They brought a great sense of calm that eluded him during the day. But tonight they only made him feel small and insignificant. Even though Talin held the lantern, Drazen led, knowing the way even with his eyes closed. The grass brushed his legs as he moved, softly urging him to avoid a place that would only bring him pain, but he pressed on until he abruptly broke free of the thick grass.
Pain lodged in his chest as he stared out at the clearing. “It shouldn’t have been like this.”
Talin and his light stopped next to him. “Like what?”
“Sarfy and her sisterhood created this nest with such love. These eggs were their children.” He tightened his hands into fists. “If they’d lived, they’d have known instinctively when their eggs were ready to be brought to The Pool of Life. They’d have dug them out.”
A sisterhood was made up of three to seven female dragons who protected each other and chose to have their young grow up together. Many of the members of the sisterhood were littermates or relatives. And when it came time to build a nest, they worked together to scout out a location in the Prairie Lands. The two dragons furthest along in their pregnancies usually dug out the nest, while the others helped to widen it.
Only Sarfy’s sisterhood of dragons should’ve been allowed to walk upon this sacred space.
Closing his eyes, he imagined the day the dragons made their nest. He hadn’t been there, but Sarfy had explained the delicate process. Two females likely started it, digging down into the earth and creating a large cavern. Here, they would lay their eggs, then seal the opening using the sand and fire to create a glass-like seal over the opening. Over the years, their littermates, or other close females, would come too and widen the cavern, laying their own eggs.
Fifty years ago he and his men had cleared the space of grass and dug down into the earth. It was hard work, not meant for a human. But eventually, they broke the seal and opened the hidden nest.
And that’s when everything fell apart.
Now, looking down into the yawning opening in the earth, he wanted more than anything to forget those days. To walk away from this place of broken dreams and dark memories. But he couldn’t.
Drazen stared down into the darkness, a shiver running down his spine. It was as if the ghosts of those he’d unintentionally killed and destroyed haunted his every step.
At last, Talin slid down the twenty feet or so of dirt to stop at the mouth of the cave. He waited, lifting the lantern to light the way for his friend. Drazen followed, the loose dirt shifting beneath his feet until he regained his footing.
“This place seemed so different back then,” Talin said. A slight echo of sound followed his last word, echoing in the underground dragon nest.
Drazen sat on the dirt floor, letting grains of sand fall from between his fingertips. “Most of you were so full of hope when you came here.”
“We were all so eager to bring those eggs to the Pool of Life. It was like, if we can just hatch these eggs, then maybe everything that happened can just be like a bad dream.”
It hurt to recall, but even more to hold inside. “I had hopes too, but even stronger than my hope was Sarfy’s words: wait ten years before un-digging the eggs.”
“Great Father, they were wrong to push you.”
Drazen clenched another handful of dirt. “I shouldn’t have let them push me. A dragon’s secret is a powerful thing. I failed to keep it.”
The light from the lantern cast strange shadows over Talin’s face as he leaned against one of the dirt walls. “You’re so quick to lay all the blame on your shoulders.” Anger laced his words. “They’d exiled your brother. Your father had just died, and your mother might as well have been.”
“I gave Sarfy my word!” Drazen threw the words at his best friend, as if by spreading his misery, his terrible mistake would sting less.
Talin sighed. “It was wrong of them to dangle your brother over you in exchange for your knowledge.”
Drazen held the sand till the roughness of the grains pressed uncomfortably against his flesh. “The only wrong that night was my choice to tell them of the nest’s location.”
“I’m never going to talk you out of your guilt, although the Great Mother knows I’ve tried. But it looks like our support is being withdrawn, so you need to come to terms with your past and decide what you really want for your future.” His foot kicked at the dirt. “I’ll do whatever you want, but I don’t want to keep chasing something that you can only reach in your past.”
“My past.” The words felt like rocks in his soul. “Let’s see. My Sarfy’s dying words were the revelation of her nest. She entrusted me with her children and that of her littermates children. And in my desire to grab hold of what little family I had left, I traded the future of dragonkind for what…” the next words hurt to speak, “I lost my family. And these dragons were too immature to survive their hatching and become real dragons.”
“The Elders promised you they’d wait the ten years.”
His laugh sounded harsh, even to his own ears. “And everyone knows, the Elders keep their promises.”
“You aren’t the reason the dragons are gone. That damned man, or whatever he was, he was the one to poison the Pool of Life. The dragons made their choices when they laid down their lives to save the magic.”
Drazen rubbed at the pain blossoming in his chest. “I’ll never forgive myself.” He couldn’t. “I could hear Sarfy’s daughter. Feel the strength of her little heartbeat. And I let them take her to her death. Even when she was afraid.” His voice shook on the last words. “Sunbeam was Sarfy’s daughter’s name. She’d told me her scales would be golden, and she’d fly higher than any dragon before her.” His smile hurt. “She was so proud, like her mother.”
Those were dark days filled with the kind of pain only death and loss could bring. Even as he struggled to comfort his mother and find his brother, the emptiness of losing his father weighed heavily on him. He’d buried his bloodied body and waited, holding on to the sliver of hope that raising Sarfy’s daughter would give his life purpose once more.
But day after day, all he could do was to stare into the Pool of Life’s pale water, at the eggs beneath the surface. They were supposed to grow until the dragons were large enough and strong enough to break through their shells. Then, they’d swim to shore where their Dragon Tenders would check them over to make sure they were whole. But only a few of the hatchlings had the strength to completely breakthrough, the rest had drowned in the same place their mothers and fathers had died. Abd the hatchlings that did survive? They weren’t dragons. They were something sad and wrong.
The cries for help from the drowning hatchlings still haunted his nightmares.
Ten dragons.
Ten lives lost, one way or another.
All lost because Drazen had failed to keep his dragon’s secret.
“I have to let this go, don’t I?” Drazen asked, feeling the terrible ache growing in his chest.
Talin slid down the wall to sit in the dirt near Drazen. “Only if you ever want to move on. To find happiness.”
Drazen touched the sand again. Even though the many humans who’d come to retrieve the dragon eggs had trampled away the smooth egg imprints, he imagined some of them still lingered. “All right. When this is done, I mean reall
y done, I’ll move on. I have to.”
A cautious relief filled Talin’s words. “And what about your brother?”
“I’ll find him,” he said, without hesitation. “If he’s happy, I’ll leave him alone. If he’d not… well—“
“And what if he doesn’t want your help? He always did have a way of blaming you for his mistakes.”
Drazen almost smiled. “That’s just what little brothers do.”
They lingered in the near darkness for a short time longer before crawling back out and walking the short distance to camp where they’re informed that a group had recently arrived from Olarata. Drazen bathed quickly and his warriors prepared his room for guests. A short time later, three people enter.
“Welcome brothers and sisters,” Drazen greeted formerly, clasping each of their hands in turn.
Elder Faro was the last to clasp his hand, before pulling him into a tight hug. The green scales covering most of his flesh felt cool and strong beneath Drazen’s touch. But when the old man pulled back, he seemed to sense his apprehension, because he reached up and touched the tiny silver scales lining Drazen’s forehead.
“It has been too long, brother.”
“I am Larlah, counsel representative of The People.”
Drazen took his time turning to look at the woman. As his slow gaze swept over her, she had the grace to blush slightly. She was a large woman, broad of shoulder, with wide hips and a flat chest. Her face sagged, suggesting both her age and her lack of magic. She wore a formal tunic of pale orange with brown leggings. It was neither well made nor of a nice cloth but was a great deal nicer than most of the servants wore.
“You shall have to tell me more about this counsel of the people after we get settled; I’ve been away from Olarta for too long.” Then, he turned to the final woman. Kreftay looked far leaner and more haggard than Drazen had ever seen her before. “And I’m certain you have something of importance to discuss too, after coming to the Prairie Lands.”
They settled on the pillows around the fire, an assortment of foods and drinks spread out before them. His three guests chose Wipenhol, which had no doubt been brought by their servants, and ate politely from the trays of foods.
“It’s late,” Elder Faro said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Should we get to it then?”
“First,” Larlah began, but was cut off.
“I think Kretay should begin, for any of this to make sense.”
Larlah looked like she might argue, but thankfully stuffed another pastry in her mouth.
Kretay’s big eyes filled with unshed tears. “My magic is gone.”
Drazen reached out and touched her wrist. “Tell me.”
Her tears escaped, rolling down her cheeks. “A few days ago, I woke up, and it was just… gone.”
Drazen looked to Elder Faro.
“No one else can feel magic the way you do, so we thought coming here would be the best way to know, well, if it is gone for good or not.”
Kretay’s head fell forward, her long dark hair spilling down in a wavy curtain to hide the shame of her fears. For so long, all he’d heard of Kretay was that she was selling her healing mixes at an alarming rate. He’d been angry she failed to listen to his many warnings. But her misery brought him back to the fragile, young girl he’d known growing up.
“All right. Just give me a minute.” Drazen continued to hold her wrist, knowing it was easier to feel her magic with physical contact, as well as, her permission. After a moment, he brushed against her magic, shuddering at the feel of the shriveled remains of what was once beautiful. “There’s something here, but no more than a Servant might have.”
Kretay rose, sobs racking her body. “But why? Why did this happen?”
Drazen didn’t want to say it, but she deserved the truth. “You gave away your magic. Without the dragons, there’s no way to replenish it.”
She stilled. “It’s always about those damned dragons with you.”
And then she flung open his door and raced into the darkness of the camp.
Drazen tried to push aside his guilt as he spoke. “So that’s why you’ve come, it’s beginning.”
“Not exactly,” Elder Faro muttered, then added some strength to his words. “Things are getting bad back in Olarta. The Servants—“
“The People,” Larlah corrected, too loudly, “that’s what we wish to be called now. You Dragon Tenders don’t have dragons to tend to anymore, so we don’t need to serve you either. We are tired of being seen as below all of you, just because we don’t have magic. We’ve formed our own counsel and plan to have a say in the decisions of our realm.”
Drazen didn’t know what to say, so he simply turned to Faro.
The old man sighed. “That’s right. And they want us to be done searching for dragon eggs. They think it’s a waste of men and resources.”
Drazen considered the woman in a new light. Her abrasive personality had caught him off-guard, but now he saw it was just the negative behavior of a person newly to power and uncertain of themselves. And regardless, it seemed, she represented the largest, but least powerful, portion of their society.
“May I speak?” Drazen questioned, and they both motioned for him to continue. “I warned our people not to keep abusing their magic, or they’d lose it, and this has come to pass. No one listened. I also said that even those without magic would be impacted by the complete loss of magic in this world, but you continue to doubt me. What more can I do?”
Larlah lifted a brow. “We’ve accepted that things will change, but more than that, that they need to change.”
Drazen rubbed his eyes. They obviously didn’t care about what he had to say, so he’d let them say whatever it was they wanted, and then get some much-needed shut-eye. “Then why are you here, if not for my advice.”
“To warn you,” Larlah said, her voice almost laughably serious.
Turning to Faro, he waited to hear something more useful.
“The Dragon Tenders have finally realized how badly they need dragons to keep their magic, so they’re getting desperate. The Ser—or People, have finally realized this is their chance to be rid of magic forever.” The old man rolled his neck. “There’s a lot of fighting, some of it really bad, but we wanted to give you a warning to be careful. Desperate people are dangerous people.”
Now, Drazen sat up straighter. “Do you think someone might attack us?’
“I think,” Faro said slowly, “that some people would do anything to stop you from finding those dragon eggs.”
Larlah lowered her voice for the first time to a reasonable volume. “The smartest thing from a logical standpoint would be for someone to kill you. This whole mission depends upon you. So be careful. I don’t like magic, but I don’t want anyone dying over it. And frankly, from all I have heard of you, I think we could use your help in Olarta.”
He thanked them both and watched as Larlah left and Faro hung back.
The old man itched his scaly chest, revealed by his gaping robe. “I know I don’t understand the humanoids of this land as well as I did before, but my instincts are tingling. Something bad is coming for us.”
And then, Drazen was alone. All along he’d fought to bring the dragons back, to make things the way they were before, but he was beginning to realize that no matter what he did, he simply didn’t have that power.
10
Kadelynn
Days had passed among the strange trees, and Kadelynn’s sense of unease continued to grow. At first, there was just a soft sound, like the whisper of the wind, or the humming of a bee’s nest. But since she’d touched the tree, the sounds had grown louder and more distinct. She swore that what she was hearing were sounds of thousands and thousands of voices pleading for her to end their suffering. The voices seemed to be coming from the row after row of trees, but it didn’t make sense to her.
The trees were used to keep the Cahula’s powers, weren’t they? So why did she feel like the trees were evil, awful things?
“Time to switch directions,” Acker suddenly announced.
Kadelynn frowned. “Why? We’ve been going through the same rows of trees for days?”
“Trust me,” he mumbled under his breath. “You don’t want to keep going that way.”
“Why?” she asked, looking straight ahead. The only difference she could see was that the big trees seemed to grow closer and closer together until most of the path was hidden.
“Trust me,” is all he said.
Kadelynn tried not to feel annoyed as he led them between two trees. There was barely enough space for their horses to make it through, but it seemed that’s what they’d be doing now, weaving between the tightly spaced trees. She realized that she had hired Acker as her guide, so she couldn’t get frustrated with him for doing exactly that. She just wished he’d explain things to her better. It was as if he expected her to have blind faith, even though it wasn’t something he was willing to give her in return.
“Will we reach the end of the trees today?”
He took so long to answer that she thought he might not at all when he finally did. “Yes.”
“Good. I hate the way they make me… feel.”
He glanced back at her, his dark eyes unreadable. “I know your father is Lord Randall, but I’ve never heard much about your mother.”
She hesitated. Her mother was rarely discussed by her father or her people, but she did know a little about her. “My mother wasn’t a Stonebuilder. It caused quite the rumors amongst my people. She also wasn’t a lady. She was a commoner that my father fell in love with.”
He didn’t look surprised. “Do you remember her?”
“A little.” Why was he asking her about her mother? “She looked a lot like me, I’m told.”
Dragon Memories: A High Fantasy Reverse Harem Romance (Legacy of Blood and Magic Book 2) Page 9
