Light My Fire
Page 45
Dagmar briefly closed her eyes. “Annwyl . . . why haven’t you told any of us this?”
“No one asked.”
“Oh, Annwyl, come on! Everyone asked.”
“They didn’t ask me. Not one of you asked me what the tower was for. You just asked me what I was building . . . which was always a tower.”
Dagmar frowned and glanced off. “We didn’t ask you what it was for?”
“Nope. The only one who asked was Fearghus. At the very beginning. And he just smiled and nodded and said, ‘That’s a lovely idea.’”
Dagmar crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you telling me that Fearghus knew what that tower was? He always knew?”
“Of course he knew.”
Dagmar rubbed her hands over her face. “I am starting to realize that Fearghus is more like his mother than any of us realized.”
Annwyl stared at Dagmar with narrowed eyes. “What did you think I was building the tower for?”
Dagmar gazed at the queen and then . . . lied her ass off.
“Oh . . . nothing. We . . . didn’t have a clue. That’s why I was asking. Yes. That’s why I was asking.”
Celyn could only blame himself when he was put into that headlock. And he really didn’t help the situation when he kept screaming, “But you report to me! Show me some respect!”
It got so bad that finally their mother yanked them apart.
“Both of you, stop it!”
“I can’t believe that Uncle Bercelak put him in charge of anything except the queen’s bowel movements!” Brannie screamed.
“Well, someone had to wipe her ass!” Celyn shot back, which got him a slap to the back of the head from his mother.
“I said stop it! You should be congratulating your brother! And you stop egging your sister on! Now apologize!”
“Sorry, Mum,” they said together.
“Not to me, you little idiots. To each other!”
“I’d rather have my scales removed!”
“I’d rather be covered in acid!”
Ghleanna grabbed them both by the back of the neck and squeezed. Rather hard. “I. Said. Apologize.”
“Sorry, Brannie.”
“Sorry, Celyn.”
Ghleanna released them. “I have no problem with healthy competition between my offspring. But when one of you does well, the others are supposed to be happy about it. That’s what we do! Do you understand?” she bellowed.
“Aye.”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Aye!”
“Good! Now I’ll hear nothing else about it.”
“But,” Celyn quickly asked, “I’ll still get a feast to celebrate my promotion, won’t I, Mum?”
Ghleanna gripped her son’s face between both her hands and said, “Of course you will, my little hatchling. I am just so proud of you!”
“Thanks, Mum,” Celyn said, and he tried not to laugh when he saw his sister making gagging motions behind their mother’s back.
“Now I’ll go find Annwyl and see when we can have this feast, and you two be nice to each other. Understand?”
“Aye.”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Aye!”
“Good.”
Elina walked up to them with her bow and quiver. “If you look for Annwyl,” she said, “she is gone.”
“Gone?” Ghleanna’s eyes narrowed. “Gone where?”
“I do not know. But I would not worry; she brought Court of Vipers with her.”
Now one of Ghleanna’s eyes twitched uncontrollably. “Court of . . . Vipers? And who exactly is that?”
“The Nolwenn, the Northlander, the She-dragon with white hair—the young one, not the queen—and the brown female who is size of hairless bear.”
Now Celyn and his sister were standing behind their mother, trying not to let her see their expressions.
“And you call them Annwyl’s Court of Vipers?” Ghleanna pushed.
“Yes.” Elina gestured to her sister, who was dragging two extremely large buffalo behind her. Gods, the woman was strong. And lethal. There was one arrow each in those buffalo. No more, no less. “Do we not, sister?”
“What?”
“Call the queen’s friends her Court of Vipers?”
“That we do.”
“And that’s a . . . what? Exactly?”
The sisters said together, “Compliment.”
“A compliment? Really?”
“Of course,” Elina replied.
Kachka explained, “Who would not want a court of plotting, vicious women standing behind them as they face their greatest foe? I know I would.”
“As would I,” Elina agreed.
“They will help Queen Annwyl to keep her sheeplike people fat and happy. Who could ask for more in such a decadent, imperialist place as this?”
“I . . .” Ghleanna, her mouth open, looked at her son, then her daughter, then back at the Rider sisters. Eventually, she shook her head and walked away.
With their mother gone, Brannie first hugged Elina, then Kachka, while both women stared closely at the She-dragon.
“Welcome to the family,” Brannie said around tears of absolute joy. “Now I must call to my sisters and brothers for the feast, because it’s going to be amazing!”
The Riders watched Brannie head off.
“Your sister is skipping like child,” Kachka noted.
“She is. She is very happy right now. And I owe that to both of you.”
“Why?”
“Just because.”
“Whatever,” Kachka said. “I will get these buffalo to the kitchens.”
Elina caught her sister’s shoulder. “Annwyl has invited both of us to stay here. On Garbhán Isle. For as long as we want.”
“You have to stay,” Kachka replied. “You are now bound to this dragon like property, which means I have to stay because I am the sister of such a weak-willed female. How could I hold my head up anywhere with such knowledge?”
Celyn smiled. “And I love you, too, Kachka. Now that we’re family.”
“Shut up,” she said to him. But he saw her grudging smile as she dragged the day’s kills across the courtyard.
“You like to poke bear, do you not?” Elina asked the foolish dragon.
“I really do. It brings me such entertainment.”
She took his hand. “Then you best come with me. I must show you how to outrun my sister’s arrows.”
As they headed toward the training field, Elina was forced to stop when Celyn suddenly did. She could tell by the look on his face that something troubled him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Do you really feel trapped here? I mean, after this ridiculous brand of a bear—”
“I like bears.”
“—I thought that you wouldn’t mind if I—”
Elina covered his mouth with her hand. “I have accepted the fact that I am a pathetic female who deserves nothing in life. I am sure that Glebovicha’s headless corpse is rolling around in her funeral pyre at being proven right about me.”
Celyn gazed at her with wide, confused eyes and removed her hand. “I have no idea if that means you are happy or unhappy to be mated with me.”
“I am extremely happy that I am mated to you forever—”
“Oh!”
“—which disgusts me.”
“Oh.”
She gripped him by his chain-mail shirt and pulled him close. “So you must spend the next few centuries, Dolt, making sure that I have no thought in my head but the pleasure you are giving my body. Do you think you can handle that?”
“Well, Elina of the Ridiculously Long Name, I am more than willing to try and try and try until we are nothing more than exhausted, sweaty bodies writhing on the ground to the great embarrassment of everyone around us.”
She stepped back and patted his wide chest. “Then I think we will be just fine.”
Epilogue
Talan stretched his arms over his head and yawned. He
’d grown tired of examining these scrolls although they were filled with a bounty of knowledge. Brigida the Foul had an extensive library of arcane books and scrolls in her Outerplains cave that would help him expand his skills. But unlike his sister and cousin, he had no need to spend every minute of every day learning. Not when there was a world to explore. A new world.
Through the lines of magick, Talan felt Brigida’s return. He waited for her to enter the chamber since he had much to tell her. He heard easy footsteps approaching and said, “I didn’t think you needed that damn walking stick. I bet you just use it to beat people over the head with. Anyway, it’s a good thing you’re back. It’s getting a bit unwieldy out there, and you should—”
“Talan?”
Talan looked over his shoulder, his heart stuttering a bit in his chest. “Mum?”
She smiled and Talan bolted out of his chair and ran to his mother, sweeping her up in his arms and hugging her so very tightly that if it were anyone else, he’d fear he’d crush her.
But that was the thing about Annwyl the Bloody. She was so very strong. Amazingly so.
She kissed his face over and over between hugs. “My son. My handsome son. I was afraid I’d never see you again.”
Talan had never wanted to be away from his mother this long, but the Brotherhood had not allowed visits from or to any of his kin. He’d accepted that because he was getting what he wanted from the monks. But gods, how he’d missed his mother.
When he finally set his mother down, a still slow-moving Brigida came around the corner with Talan’s aunts and Izzy. Unlike his mother, it seemed that traveling through mystical doorways didn’t sit well with them. Even powerful Morfyd looked a tad pale.
Yet his mother . . .
Talan looked deep into her eyes and he saw it there. The rage. It tinged the irises of her eyes. Others called it his mother’s insanity, but that was too easy. His mother was far from crazy. Instead, she was a whirlwind of death and destruction. But a whirlwind that loved her kin and, especially, her children.
He hugged Annwyl again before going to his aunts and cousin. He was greeting Morfyd when he heard the squealing and knew that Rhi had walked in. She ran to her mother and sister, hugging them both as if her very life depended on it. That’s when the crying started.
Laughing and rolling his eyes, Talan turned to see his sister and mother staring at each other like two wary jungle cats.
Gods, the pair of them.
Talan walked over to his sister and shoved her into their mother’s arms.
At first, they both looked horribly uncomfortable, but then Annwyl wrapped her arms around her only daughter and held her so very tightly.
“It’s all right, Mum,” Talwyn soothed. “I’m fine. I promise.”
Brigida, who’d not bothered to watch any of the reunion but had continued to make her slow, painful way across the chamber, ordered, “Come on, you lot. There are much more important things to see.”
They followed after Brigida, the only sound in the caves Rhi, Izzy, and Talaith’s constant, uninterrupted chatter. The Kyvich that had accompanied Talwyn had gone off hunting and Magnus was asleep somewhere in one of the alcoves.
They walked up and up inside Brigida’s home until they reached an opening that led to a stone ledge.
Having already seen this, Talan, Talwyn, and Rhi stepped back so that their mothers, aunts, and Izzy could step out on the ledge and look down over the valley beneath them.
“What am I supposed to see?” Annwyl asked.
“I’ve been hiding them from prying eyes,” Brigida replied, “but the number just keeps growing.”
Dagmar frowned. “Them?”
Grinning that frightful grin, Brigida raised her walking stick and slowly swiped it through the air. As she did, like a curtain, the protective illusion was pulled back.
Annwyl took in a startled breath as she moved farther out on the ledge.
Brigida gestured to the thousands of dragon-human offspring who had set up camp in the valley, waiting for their orders while they trained in battle and weapon techniques.
“More have been showing up every day,” Talan explained. “Ready to fight. Ready for war.”
Brigida smiled and announced, “Welcome to your new army, Queen Annwyl.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Big thanks to Eileen J. Bell, O.D., for taking a few minutes out of the end of my eye exam to answer my eye-related questions for fictional characters that will never come to see her for an appointment. Your patience with me, Dr. Bell, was greatly appreciated.
Continuous, never-ending thanks to Dean M. for his battle and combat expertise on this book and all my others. Your help and willingness to answer all my many questions will always make me the “Squeaky” to your “Charlie.” Heh.
If you love the Dragon Kin series by G.A. Aiken,
don’t miss the brand-new Call of Crows books
written under her pseudonym,
Shelly Laurenston.
The first one will be available next April!
New York Times Bestselling Author
Shelly Laurenston
“Laurenston has a gift with words and humor.”
—USA Today
THE UNLEASHING
WINGING IT
Kera Watson never expected to face death behind a Los Angeles coffee shop. Not after surviving two tours lugging an M16 around the Middle East. If it wasn’t for her hot Viking customer showing up too late to help, nobody would even see her die.
In uncountable years of service to the Allfather Odin, Ludvig “Vig” Rundstrom has never seen anyone kick ass with quite as much style as Kera. He knows one way to save her life—but she might not like it. Signing up with the Crows will get Kera a new set of battle buddies: cackling, gossiping, squabbling, party-hearty women. With wings. So not the Marines.
But Vig can’t give up on someone as special as Kera. With a storm of oh-crap magic speeding straight for L.A., survival will depend on combining their strengths: Kera’s discipline, Vig’s loyalty . . . and the Crows’ sheer love of battle. Boy, are they in trouble.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2014 by G.A. Aiken
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-3159-8
First Electronic Edition: December 2014
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3160-4
eISBN-10: 1-4201-3160-5