Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  I’m going to lose my family. The thought danced in Daniel’s head. He had to choose. No matter what he did or what he said, he was about to lose either Antonius or Mama.

  “We will go with you!” he yelled. Maybe if they gave in, he could change the future. “Give me Antonius’s antidote.” Daniel’s voice grated out of his throat more like his chisel over wood than like words spoken. “Let Mama go! Please. We’ll go with you.”

  Not your talisman! screamed through his head again and he cringed, but it didn’t matter. His life didn’t matter, only Antonius’s. Timothy felt the same way, for Ingund, and Daniel knew he agreed. Knew that taking on an eternity of slavery to the Emperor would give their loves the chance to survive.

  They would take on this future. They would not manipulate and cut the fabric of other people’s lives.

  “No,” Marcus whispered. “We are not as weak as you believe us to be.”

  “Marcus!” Daniel hissed. “I see. We have no choice.”

  The future said they had to do this. They had to take this responsibility. No one was as bound by fate as Daniel, Timothy, and Marcus, who were about to become Fates.

  “Run,” Timothy whispered.

  If they ran, someone would die.

  Faustus pressed the tip of his dagger into Mama’s throat. “It’s a shame to end a triad capable of birthing Primes.” He twisted and a welt appeared. “Good breeders are hard to find.”

  Mama groaned.

  “Leave her alone!” Timothy yelled. He didn’t run. He lunged for the rock on which Faustus held their mother.

  He lifted his dagger to her throat. “Do you think this brings me joy? It does not! The future demands sacrifices. As it becomes the present, the sacrifices will only become greater. Don’t you three see the truth? We need to shape the world now before the fabric of what-was-is-will-be becomes so thick we will no longer be able to shape what comes!”

  Was Faustus insane? Or was he the exact opposite—more sane than any of them? Daniel didn’t know. He couldn’t know. He’d never know.

  He’s going to slit her throat. The pain of killing their Mama would haunt Faustus for centuries. He’d console himself with whispers about necessary sacrifices. Because the future made him do it.

  Faustus moved the dagger to slice.

  And flew backward.

  Daniel burst up the side of the rock, as did Timothy and Marcus. Below, on a slippery, small dip in the boulder’s surface just above the rushing waters of the river, Antonius hooked his arm around Faustus’s neck.

  “Antonius!” Neither man could steady himself. The boulder on the river side was too wet, too slick.

  Antonius used Faustus’s arrogance to his advantage.

  Ghostly pale and weak, he looked up at Daniel. His eyes spoke the truth: I love you.

  Be strong.

  Both Antonius and Faustus fell.

  “No!” Daniel almost dove. He almost went after Antonius, but Marcus held him back.

  This was not the future Daniel wanted. Antonius needed the antidote and he needed safety, not hidebound past-seers making decisions about the what-will-be based on a history only they could see. Not present-seers dancing through the moment like drunken jesters. Not—

  Every single one of Daniel’s thoughts submerged under a harmonized flood from his brothers. They sang to him as if they were male sirens. They stood on far rocks and sang echoing tones. Daniel stood on his own rock, singing his own song for them.

  They formed a rigid triangle inside the flowing fabric of the what-was-is-will-be and when one was struck, they all vibrated. They all sang.

  They were locked together, now and forever.

  Marcus gasped. “Timothy!” he yelled. “Take Mama!”

  Timothy’s eyes glazed. He snarled, his face crinkling as if his eye hurt as much as Daniel’s.

  “Cyrus!” Mama screamed. Her seer flared through the trees, a high, clear, even brightness that felt more than sounded like the vibration made by ringing glass.

  Timothy’s musical call overtook Daniel’s mind and his entire perception snapped to the present-seer of his triad. His brother’s body twisted expertly, maneuvered perfectly, and he scooped their mother off the rock.

  “Let me go!” Mama screamed. “Don’t take me from my triad! They’re going to kill my husbands! They’re going to—”

  Daniel knew before his brothers felt the wave. He knew before his mother convulsed. The what-will-be opened wide for him and he saw: An armored fist backhanding his father’s cheek. Papa swinging up into one of the trees and pulling daggers from his bracers, one in each hand.

  Father and Papa would not allow Faustus’s men to follow. They believed that their sons would get what Antonius needed, and that they would find Ingund, because their talisman’s context was one of functioning and stability. Papa might be an assassin’s son with skills he wished long-gone, but he served the balance of justice, not a ghost emperor.

  For them, that balance meant giving their sons a chance and a choice. It meant making up for their past transgressions. And it meant accepting their fate to make sure the future they wanted came to pass.

  “Cyrus!” Mama shrieked. “Corbus!”

  In the second before the wave of a broken seer flared through the forest, Daniel felt sliced open.

  His mother convulsed and tipped forward, vomiting onto the stream’s stones.

  Daniel felt her retch. He felt his own body retch as well, as it slammed into the hard, tight bond that was his connection to his brothers.

  Make your future dragon. He cringed.

  He was no longer Daniel, Antonius’s friend and, as he’d hoped, his lover. He was now Daniel, the future-seer of a Prime triad—because, as he’d feared, the future had sliced open his soul and extracted what it felt was its fee.

  The what-was-is-will-be would always have what it felt was its due. Daniel saw that now. If a person was to cross the flow of its streams and pass through the flutters of the banners it cut from the fabric of the universe, that person needed to cut open the veil and pay the toll demanded.

  That person needed to offer a sacrifice.

  Antonius vanished into the river. Daniel became a Prime future-seer.

  He no longer had a choice. No options. The pattern of the universe was about to reveal itself and right now in the what-is he paid the fine. He was about to see clearly even if he didn’t want to. Even if all he wanted was to ask for his payment to be returned and to be allowed to walk away.

  But it was too late for that.

  It was too late for that when Livia took Ingund. Too late when Faustus’s men burned their farm. Too late when the arrow lodged in Antonius’s shoulder.

  It had been too late for too long.

  Daniel had no choice, now. No choice but to pick up the shattered pieces of the sliced-open self he used to be and become the new Daniel, the Prime Parcae. No choice but to give a tailor the fight he wanted.

  Daniel was about to become a man of power. A man of arrogance. A man who was about to harness the power of the Dracae to make the liar Faustus pay.

  He had no choice but to move forward, into the what-will-be. No choice but to become a future-seer who would survive, no matter how much it hurt.

  Or who he had to manipulate to make it happen.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alarms clattered through the trees.

  Daniel sensed the two beasts, one already outside the settlement and a second about to exit. Two dragons who filled the world with swirling colors and energy.

  Daniel groaned. The space behind his right eye felt as if it would explode the way that the demon who’d destroyed their home had.

  Marcus also pressed on his own forehead. “They’re coming.” Every one of his muscles jerked and he flung his arms around as if possessed.

  Mama did nothing but whimper. Her eyes glazed. Spittle ran from the side of her mouth. She… was gone. As gone as Father. Gone, as Papa would soon be.

  All gone. Antonius, too. Gone… />
  “Daniel!” Marcus slapped his face. “I see your past at the ruins. I see you sensing our talisman.” He pointed toward the alarms. “We need to go there.”

  Behind them, yells echoed through the trees. Faustus’s men.

  Timothy flailed but somehow kept his wits and pulled their mother into his arms.

  Marcus burst out of sight into the bushes, into the clearing between the forest and the settlement’s walls.

  Done, popped into Daniel’s mind more as an image than a voice. He was done with his pre-Fate life. Done with his life with his parents. Done, it seemed, with his potential life with Antonius. Done with the pain and the caring and the love. Done being normal. He wouldn’t fall apart. He wouldn’t consider Antonius’s fate. He wouldn’t let his mind and his body rip themselves apart the way his life had just been ripped from him.

  But maybe the dragons would help Mama survive this.

  Maybe.

  He did his best to ignore the pain, and threaded his arms under their mother’s shoulders and knees. “Get our talisman,” he said to Timothy.

  His brother nodded.

  Ahead of him, on the other side of the bushes, Marcus yelled at a man Daniel knew he would immediately recognize. The man would not recognize him. The dragon, though, would. But the dragon had the sense to understand that right now, recognition was not the important factor of this moment.

  “Our mother!” Marcus called.

  Daniel stumbled out of the trees behind his brother, his mother limp in his arms. Her weight was too much, and her body too limp. He dropped to his knees in front of a new war stallion. A huge animal, one with a coat as black as the night itself.

  The man on the stallion’s back wore the same black bracers on his forearms he’d worn that day in the pool, but now he also wore full maille-covered black-leather armor. And on the strap over his right shoulder, a Legion insignia gleamed.

  But the human half of the Dracos—the man named Ladon—stared down at Daniel as if he and his brothers were the foulest, ugliest hellspawn who ever dared to breathe the same air as he and his dragon.

  You know what to do. Daniel’s seer knew what to say. It knew how to tear away the frayed edges of this man’s past experience with Fates.

  Could he do it? Could he deliberately manufacture a present to insure the future he wanted?

  In Daniel’s arms, Mama’s seer popped and fizzed. She’d lost all control and her seer ground against Daniel’s mind the way his rasp ground against carving wood—or against flesh.

  His mother’s mind bled out onto the dirt.

  Marcus spun his arms. His body screamed the same as Daniel’s. Same as Timothy’s. Their mother died and the what-was-is-will-be screamed and there was a dragon nearby. A hidden dragon who prowled the trees behind them, where Faustus stalked.

  A vision slapped the inside of Daniel’s skull: A seething Faustus punching one of his men because the brothers got away.

  “We…” Daniel said. “Our…” He looked up at Ladon, but did not finish his words.

  Faustus survived the fall. Did Antonius? Perhaps everything would be fine. Perhaps the dragons would help not only Mama, but also Antonius.

  That future would not happen if the Dracae turned the brothers away and if the man named Ladon refused them access to their talisman.

  “They killed our father, but our papa holds them off. Father told him to. Father said—” Marcus yelled.

  Mama fell. She fell from Daniel’s arms. Her seer fell from her mind. Her limbs wanted to fly but they fell along with her body. She fell into the what-was and Daniel did not sense her anymore in the what-will-be.

  And Daniel fell, too.

  The pain tightened around both eyes and tiny moments popped in and out of his awareness. Moments gone: Antonius smiling. Moments now: Timothy readied himself. Moments to come: This man named Ladon laughing a hearty laugh as he slapped Daniel on the shoulder.

  They appeared in Daniel’s psyche as reality and he saw the people presented, heard their words and their breathing. Their scents filled his nose and his body soared in response.

  But they were not now. They were not his immediate future.

  Out there, in the trees, far enough away that he’d given his sons the time they needed, their Papa also dropped to his knees.

  And Corbus, the assassin’s son, took one final blow.

  A wave of power broke through the trees. Marcus heaved, but held himself. Daniel knew he convulsed with Mama, but he didn’t feel his muscles. He didn’t hear his teeth chatter. He knew only that they needed their talisman and they needed it now.

  The man named Ladon dismounted from his steed. He quickly pushed between Daniel and his mother, his features worried and purposeful. He straightened Mama’s neck before he placed his ear to her mouth.

  “Mama!” Marcus shoved Ladon off and pressed his ear to her chest but Daniel knew it was too late. Too late for any other path than the one they ran right now.

  “They came for us,” Marcus croaked. “They claim we are part of their family. That we are to be a tribute.”

  Daniel’s seer whispered: Marcus formed his explanation in a way that would sway the Dracos by using words such as “family” and “tribute.”

  Daniel did the same. “For the new Emperor. But our fathers spit into our mouths this morning. Both in turn, in each of ours.”

  “They said to run.”

  “So we ran,” the brothers said in unison.

  Ladon’s face softened. He no longer held his body as if he’d sooner flay the brothers than look at them. He relaxed. Not greatly, but enough.

  Marcus’s seer sang out to Daniel—and to Timothy. Daniel’s sang out to his brothers. And for them, in that moment, the what-was, the what-is, and the what-will-be truly became the fabric of the what-was-is-will-be.

  Timothy leaped from the bushes and Daniel and Marcus moved mirror-opposite each other, their arms up and out, propelling their brother higher.

  Ladon countered but Timothy’s manifesting present-seer compensated. He landed on Ladon’s chest, his knee in the bigger man’s throat.

  Ladon roared. He punched but Timothy dodged and ripped Ladon’s Legio Draconis insignia from his armor’s straps.

  Timothy’s hand thrust out. Daniel wrapped his hand over his brother’s, weaving his fingers through both Timothy’s and Marcus’s. They did not acknowledge Ladon, nor did they pay heed to the dragon appearing on the edge of the clearing. They stared at the metal they held as all remaining normalcy blasted from their bodies.

  The world blossomed. Multiple versions of Ladon and his beast spread before Daniel. One iteration swung to dislodge the insignia, but most did not. Most watched, fascinated. Some, stunned. The beast circled, his hide dancing with all the colors and patterns of his kind, most blasting signals of fascination. Some, stunned shock.

  In the trees, Faustus’s men backed away. They sensed the other dragon and her human, the Dracas, and would not take them on without reinforcements.

  In some iterations of the immediate future, they didn’t get away. Some iterations left the trees littered with many more Parcae corpses than the brothers’ dead parents.

  A brief flash under the iterations, a future that could have been but was now forever lost: Papa bursting into the clearing. He would have saved Mama. They would have hurt for the days remaining to them, but they would have been fine.

  The bloom snapped back into a fabric and Daniel gasped. He looked down at the metal insignia he and his brothers grasped. They saw the fabric now. Saw it clearly, as if they needed to look through the rosette window to understand what they viewed. They had to use this particular pattern of colors as an overlay. If they didn’t, they’d see nothing. The glare would be too bright.

  But this window only pointed in one direction.

  A tiny woman emerged from the trees. Her black armor was identical to Ladon’s, as was her authoritative posture. “I told you they’d come for us! The Emperor still believes us part of the—” She st
opped, her sword half drawn, her gaze darting from one brother to the next.

  She pointed at Marcus. “You are Fates.”

  He nodded.

  “And the source of the flare of power that just occurred.”

  He nodded again.

  Behind them, the invisible second dragon growled.

  The woman snatched their talisman. “You let Fates activate holding our insignia?”

  She is the human half of the Dracas, Daniel’s seer whispered. He knew the same way he knew the positions of his brothers, or the angle of the sun. This small woman who took up more space than her larger brother was a force in and of herself.

  Ladon stepped between his sister and the brothers. “I will not cut down children.”

  He thought them children? But of course he thought them young. They had only just entered their sixteenth year.

  The human half of the Dracas clinked her sword against her scabbard. “They are men! And active.” She scowled at Daniel.

  Calm her. Their survival depended on what happened in the next minute. They needed to use the same swaying tones and terms with her that they had used with Ladon.

  “We mean you no harm, Dracas. Of this we swear.” Timothy bowed his head. “I am Timothy.”

  Marcus bowed as well. “I am Marcus.”

  As did Daniel. “I am Daniel.”

  “Not all of our kind is in league with the devil.” Marcus stood. “Not every Fate dances with the Sins.”

  Timothy held out his hand. “Please return our talisman.”

  They did not falter, nor did they cower. They faced the dragons, tall and strong, even if they all trembled all the way to their bones.

  The Dracas could destroy them now, if she wanted. If she never returned their talisman, they would never be able to use their abilities.

  But Ladon pried the insignia from his sister’s hand.

  Daniel closed his fingers over the two metal dragons. He glanced over his shoulder at the trees and, for the first time, asked a question of his seer: Will Faustus return?