Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  “Papa said the Dracae are dangerous.”

  Again, another path. Confusion beckoned and, for the moment, overrode Daniel’s biting sense that he needed to do something. Should he press about the tailor? Would Father listen? Antonius needed him. His family needed him. His gut churned and he smelled the woman’s horse and he remembered the man she fucked in the river and he’d been dropped into a roiling cauldron of what-ifs.

  Father frowned. “The Dracae, for all the dangers they pose to our kind, are not dangerous to the normals or the Shifters. We settled here because I foresaw hiding in their shadow would protect us from…” He rubbed his head again. “Lord God above, please give me guidance.”

  Daniel paced to one side, then back toward Father. They didn’t need guidance, they needed to react.

  He pointed around the church. “We need to get Antonius. We need to go home and tell Mama and Papa what is happening.”

  Father shook his head and grasped Daniel’s arm again. “Do not make sudden moves. Do not draw attention. Your friend will have to wait. We will come for him when it’s safe.”

  But he wasn’t safe. Not safe at all. “Father—”

  “Do not argue, Daniel!” Father growled. “I should have kept you here. I knew you’d come back as attached to that boy as your brother is to that girl but I wanted you to have a good first time. A loving one. Not many get that.” He looked up at the sky. “I was weak. I thought I could give you this one moment but my frailty has frayed the what-was-is-will-be.”

  Daniel opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. He did not understand Father’s words. He was not weak. None of Daniel’s parents were weak. Neither was Daniel. Marcus, perhaps in a small, measured amount Daniel knew his brother would easily harness. Timothy, though, had fallen into the arms of that girl and caused more of this moment than Father had.

  “We cannot help your friend now.” Father continued to watch the woman in front of the church.

  The part of Daniel that surfaced at the ruins wanted out. It wanted to drown all his questions and to rescue Antonius. No words, only actions. He wanted to do.

  But how could he allow himself to become a flailing thing? Flailing things do not consider the future, and right now, all he had was the future.

  But could he live that future without Antonius? Knowing that he let his love down because he made a Parcae-fueled decision? Because this moment felt fueled. Right now, every one of the “paths” felt more like a switch snapped against his back than like a trail into the future. And each and every one of those switches fell into the roaring blaze of Daniel’s indecision.

  He glanced back at the dormitory. What if he waited, as Father commanded? Would Antonius heal? Would he heal if Daniel threw open the doors and dragged Brother Tambor out by the scruff of his neck? Would any of them survive if Daniel made a scene?

  The soon-to-be future-seer did not know how to read the all too obvious what-will-be.

  So he took the path fraught with the least danger: He listened to his father.

  Out in the lane, an older woman clad in a finely embroidered cloak walked toward Livia Sisto, her head bowed and her arms open. Sisto spoke words Daniel did not hear, but understood. The approaching woman had been granted an audience.

  She threw back her hood. Ingund’s grandmother smiled at Livia Sisto, and held out her arms as if greeting a long lost sister.

  He’d seen her in the village a few times. The men always deferred to her, always whispered words about how she understood the ways of Thor and Woden better than a good Christian woman should.

  One of her daughters had moved to their lord’s estate and was now a lady in waiting to their lord’s lady. A son had gone to one of the larger cities to the east. Her other daughter had stayed in the village and married the stonemason.

  Livia Sisto smiled and clasped the old woman’s arms.

  “Oh, no,” breathed Father.

  “What?” How could Livia Sisto and Ingund’s grandmother greet each other as if they were family?

  “Your brother spoke the truth.” Father backed farther into the shadows. “Ingund knows we are Parcae because she has always known what Parcae means.”

  Daniel watched Ingund’s grandmother’s attendant lead Livia Sisto’s horse toward the stables. The two women laughed and held hands. “How is this dangerous to us, Father?”

  Slowly, Father led Daniel around the corner of the church, toward their tools. “Your brother is fucking the next dragons’ virgin.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The sun had dipped low on the horizon and long shadows spread throughout their farm when Daniel and Father returned home. Inside the house, Mama and Papa yelled. Outside, one of their goats yelled a response. Insects buzzed and their work horse snorted. The evening was not going to give way to an easy night.

  Mama burst through the door, Papa and Marcus directly behind her. “Is Timothy with you? Did he come home?”

  The slump Father had carried since leaving the village turned into a rigidity Daniel did not like.

  “He is not here?” Father looked directly at Marcus. “You allowed your brother to sneak off?”

  Marcus became as rigid as Father. He did not answer but backed into the house, Mama along with him.

  Papa stood in the door backlit by the fire inside. Shadows crept around his boots and his trousers, and flowed around his elbows and through his hair. He twitched slightly, a man-shaped ghost of scowling anxiety. “Do not blame Marcus for his brother’s indiscretions.” Next to his sides, his fingers flexed. “A past-seer will not always read the future correctly.”

  Papa’s voice carried more harshness than Daniel had ever heard from him in his sixteen years of life. The one sentence he spoke carried a simple message on its surface, one saying “the boy is not at fault,” but its deeper meaning rang through loud and clear: “Why did you allow this to happen, future-seers?”

  Future-seers, plural, as if Papa blamed Daniel for the day’s problems as much as he did Father.

  “My seer works no better than yours, husband,” Father said.

  Papa turned away. “We must deal with the present as it is.”

  Father closed his eyes. When he opened them, he nodded toward the house. “Come.”

  Inside, Marcus sat at the table, his back to the door and his front facing the fire. He didn’t turn when Daniel and Father entered. He didn’t respond at all. He only leaned forward as if he was about to drop his head to his hands.

  Father immediately set his tools on the floor and walked to his son.

  Daniel looked to Mama and Papa. “What happened?”

  Mama took Papa’s hand. “Your brothers went to Ingund today.”

  Papa pulled her close. “They stole horses and rode to the church in Lasau.”

  Lasau was the village a few hours’ walk to the west.

  Mama leaned against Papa. “Timothy and Ingund married this afternoon. Marcus returned only moments before you. He stood as their witness.”

  Daniel blinked. “Why?” He didn’t ask the question he wanted to ask: Why didn’t Father see?

  Why didn’t Daniel see? He didn’t need to be an active future-seer to know that his brother would engage in rash and idiotic behaviors.

  But maybe he had. Maybe Timothy’s indulgence of his own needs had been one of the paths clogging Daniel’s mind. How were they to be a triad if they did not, as brothers, work together to find the path that needed to be taken?

  Mama’s eyes blanked as she used her seer. “Father did not see because he was concentrating on your happiness.”

  Did Mama believe this to be Daniel’s fault? His stomach flipped and he stepped back. How did finding happiness with Antonius make this his fault? Father had said similar words about his wants and wishes.

  How was Daniel supposed to find the correct path through this tangle of possibilities?

  “I didn’t mean to lay blame at your feet, son.” Mama shook and reached for Daniel. “My seer felt it best to tell you the trut
h.”

  At the table, Marcus twitched. Father patted him on the back.

  “I thought they would return the horses,” Marcus said. “I thought they would come home and live with us because Ingund wants what Mama has but instead they left me. She will be a good wife for our triad. I thought they both believed that.”

  Papa’s eyes showed his seer. “They did. I think they still do.” He waved his hands at Mama and Father. “We would have welcomed her after we had the permission of her family.”

  Mama nodded. “Or we would have let them have their fun and allowed both to move on.”

  “Which is what I saw.” Father nodded toward Papa. “Timothy needed to explore what it means to be a man.”

  “We need to find them.” Papa pulled his jacket from his hook. “They cannot spend the night in the woods.” His sudden slap against the doorframe sent a shock through the entire frame of their house. “If we were Prime, this would not have happened.”

  Mama’s back stiffened and she turned away without speaking.

  At the table, Father looked down at his feet before returning his attentions to Marcus. “Livia Sisto appeared in the village today.” Father sounded hollow, as if he spoke from inside a log. “We watched Ingund’s grandmother attend to her needs.”

  Mama sucked in a real, terrified breath through her open mouth. “Only the Sisto woman? None of the men?”

  “Only her.” Father wrapped his arm around Marcus’s shoulder. “We’ll find your brother,” he whispered.

  Marcus nodded.

  Mama gripped Papa’s elbow. “If she is alone, she’s come to bind this village to the Dracae.”

  Papa nodded and his eyes blanked again. “Her grandmother went before we settled here. I think Ingund is the favored candidate.”

  “But she’s not a virgin,” Daniel blathered. “And married now.”

  Mama and Papa threw each other knowing glances.

  “Then Livia Sisto will likely take both Ingund and her new husband.” Mama walked toward Marcus and Father. “Or she will… deal with Ingund’s… problem.”

  Marcus looked up, his eyes huge. “Would she do that? We’re not active Fates! We’re not a threat.”

  “Daniel.” Papa lifted Daniel’s jacket from another hook. “Come.”

  Father hugged Marcus again. “We are Parcae,” he said. “We all carry the sins of our kind, active or not.”

  “What does that mean?” Shrillness inched into Marcus’s voice. Daniel’s level-headed brother, the one among them who should have known better, the one who normally had the steadiness to weigh all the circumstances of a situation, looked as if he was about to run screaming from the house.

  Mama’s hands dropped to the tabletop. The furnishing groaned and tipped, but it did not pop off its trellis supports. “Long ago, long before your parents were born, one of our kind perpetrated an act of war on the Dracae.”

  “A criminal act,” Papa said.

  “All Parcae are now, and will forever be, unforgiven in the eyes of the dragons.” Father inhaled quickly and exhaled slowly. “No matter our culpability.”

  “That’s stupid,” Marcus said. “I don’t believe that.” He shook his head. “That’s not the past the dragons see.”

  Father looked up at Mama, who in turn looked at Papa. All three of Daniel’s parents blinked in unison.

  “Daniel,” Mama whispered. “What do you feel is the correct future?”

  Daniel walked toward his Papa, his back as stiff as his mother’s. He might be fated to become a future-seer, but right now, he wished he had a clear understanding of the present. Whatever happened here was beyond him in every sense of the word. Politics leaked out of the past and onto his family and he could not see the source of the breach, so he could not plug the hole. Sadness and regret leaked from his parents and he could not offer soothing words, because he did not know the source of their breach, either.

  Daniel took his jacket and walked toward the door. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t see.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Papa held his torch high and nodded once toward Daniel. “The ruins offer a night’s protection.”

  If Daniel was going to run off with Antonius, he would have picked the ruins for their first night together. The location offered both protection and privacy.

  Maybe he should run now and make his way back to the church. Night might give them the cover they needed to make their way from this place.

  But if he ran, if he dragged Antonius from the world he knew—even a brutal world—if he made a great noise and demanded justice, where would that leave his brothers? His parents?

  Would Antonius want to be with him?

  Daniel stopped trudging along the path. He stood in the double pool of light thrown by his torch and his Papa’s. Cold seeped into his bones. Since leaving the church, his analytical voices had blocked his heart, and with good reason.

  Every time thoughts of Antonius forced their way into his mind’s eye—every time one of his parents mentioned “wedding” or “marriage” or “love”—he now forced them away. Antonius, alone in the dormitory, was safer than Timothy, even if only by a thin thread.

  Why was his mind dancing toward such words of commitment? Many of the young people in the village considered marriage at their age. Some did not. No one but Daniel considered such thoughts with a priest.

  They weren’t together. He wasn’t Timothy, who had been courting Ingund for many months. And he’d just spent the evening forcing thoughts of Antonius from his mind because his Father told him he had no other choice. Forcing them out by pushing his mind’s fingers into his mind’s ears and reciting a litany of family and by telling himself that his attraction to his friend wouldn’t help anyone, as Brother Tambor made so blatantly clear.

  He and Papa needed to find Timothy first.

  Timothy, Daniel’s triad-mate. The young man who was fated to be the present-seer to Daniel’s future-seer. The middle one. The one who should have known better not to run off.

  But maybe running off was the correct response in the moment Timothy made his decision. Maybe leaving behind the dust and debris of their Parcae heritage and truly living was the best choice.

  “I swear by all that is holy, you overthink every mote of dust and every drop of rain, son.” Papa bent his head forward and tilted his chin down and looked up at Daniel, as if looking over a cloth wrapped around his face. “Both you and Marcus.”

  “Every possibility must be considered.” Every single God-forsaken path.

  Papa motioned him to walk again. “It’s worse for future-seers. Your ability forces you to weigh probabilities.” He lowered his torch but kept walking. “You will need to tread carefully in the future, Daniel. For many reasons, the least of which is that the church is changing.”

  Daniel stopped walking again. Was this about his joy with Antonius? I love him, bubbled up in his throat, but he somehow managed to keep it down.

  How could he know if he loved someone this quickly? It made no sense, yet he knew the truth.

  “When you know what-will-be, the what-is is already pregnant.” Papa sniffed. “You lose the option—the journey and the joy—of finding your way to that child.”

  Daniel stopped again. “Tell me what you are trying to say, Papa.” He wasn’t in the mood for vagueness. He’d already heard enough from Father.

  Papa looked up at the sky. “I wish you and your brothers could find your own way. I wish that when the time comes to activate you, it would be your choice, with your choice of talisman, but the what-was screams that it will not be so. No matter what your Mama, Father, and I do, it will not be so. And I am very, very sorry for that, son.” He started walking again. “I am very sorry that as Fates, we are bound by our fate.”

  “Papa—”

  “We need to find your brother.” He whipped the torch around to illuminate the trees. They had not heard wolves, but that did not mean other creatures were not stalking their travel.

  “If t
hey aren’t at the ruins, they’ll be down by the pool.” Daniel was sure of it.

  Papa glanced over his shoulder. “Your mother could have been the present-seer of a Prime triad.” He whipped his torch again, but said no more.

  “What?” Daniel thought a triad was set at birth.

  Papa grinned. “My papa wasn’t Prime, but he was a better future-seer than most. He knew your father and your mother had fallen in love.” He shrugged. “Very much like your brother and his new wife.”

  Papa tapped his chest. “My papa knew I would be happy with them, so he arranged for your father and me to disrupt her activation.”

  “You disrupted her activation?” Why had he never heard this story before? “How is that possible?”

  Papa laughed. “I have many skills, son, most of which do not help us farm or your Father to build, but they still exist here.” He tapped his chest. “And here.” He tapped his head.

  Papa was the best cook on this side of their lord’s lands. What other skills could he possibly be hiding?

  “Your aunt—my sister—took your mother’s place and we took your mother. Her father never thought anyone would dare try, much less succeed, so he paid no heed to the possibility.” Papa laughed again. “Sometimes you can use the arrogance of our kind against us.”

  Daniel never suspected that his Papa and his Father were so… creative? Impulsive? He didn’t know how to describe their behavior other than to think they were lucky to be alive.

  Papa returned his attention to the path. “I am not surprised that your brother ran off with Ingund.” He waved his torch again. “Nor am I surprised that you feel an impulse to run off with your friend.”

  Of course Papa knew.

  Papa glanced over his shoulder again. “Heed what I say, Daniel. The church is changing. You’ve seen the men sent to our lands by the Emperor in Constantinople. We know that the local lords have turned to the Dracae for protection. We might once again become Roman, but this time, it will not be the Rome the other Parcae remember. This time, it will want more personal control. And it will not believe in possibilities and probabilities.”