Daniel had foreseen a whole different type of gutting with Timothy, which was, he was also certain, the underlying cause of this morning’s thrown pots.
Women. At least Daniel’s many companions never held grudges. He glanced at the smaller, supposedly sweeter one.
Most of the time, they didn’t hold grudges.
Shit, he thought. Why didn’t his seer flick out that bit of useful information last night?
Because he hadn’t wanted that bit of information last night. He’d wanted two handsome morphers to help him forget the trials of the world.
Maybe Marcus was correct. Maybe he was an idiot.
The two Shifters pulled on their trousers, both glaring accusing stares in Daniel’s general direction. Daniel held his back straight and pushed them through the door.
Timothy’s seer rang through the cool early-morning air as the two men stumbled out onto the patio. Daniel’s brother completely ignored the two Shifters—he made no eye contact, no changes in his stance to indicate that he saw them in his path, no seer pings directed at their persons. In fact, the energy of his seer moved deliberately away from the two Shifters and toward Daniel.
Both men’s faces rounded as if they’d just seen a specter—and Daniel immediately realized what his brother had just done. He’d shown these two Shifters that the Draki Prime were not Fates they could easily overpower, nor were they Fates who feared Shifters.
Daniel’s unnamed ex-companions scurried down the steps, and Daniel’s sense of menacing grudge dissipated into the brightening morning as if overwritten by the sun’s warm rays.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” he said to his brother.
Timothy glanced at his own apartment door. In the three years since they’d come to live in Dragontown, the Shifters had spun between pitying them, fearing them, and on a few occasions, outright hating them. The night they’d set their parents on their pyre, the entire town had watched in an awe equally divided between pity for parentless children, fear of the three Parcae families that spawned the brothers, and a palpable hatred that coated everyone’s tongues, Shifter, Fate, and dragon alike.
“Ingund does not wish me to train with AnnaBelinda,” Timothy frowned and rolled his broader shoulders. Now that they’d reached their nineteenth year, he’d grown a good two inches taller than Daniel and Marcus, and significantly wider at the shoulders. With each passing day, he looked more and more like Father.
And with each passing day, Daniel and Marcus grew to look more like Papa. They might have been born of the same pregnancy, but Daniel was sure that Livia Sisto had been correct that night at in the ruins: Timothy was the son of Father and Daniel and Marcus the sons of Papa.
Timothy ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair, then over his equally thick and dark beard. “I’m a Prime present-seer, yet I do not know what to say to my wife. She does not believe me when I speak the truth.”
His brother was not sleeping with the human half of the Dracas, though he wanted to. He might lie to himself and his wife and say that he would never do such a thing, but the future-seer of his triad knew the truth.
It would happen. Not now. Not any time in the next three or so decades. But one day, Timothy would get his wish.
Ingund was not a stupid woman. She probably smelled it on her husband.
“Your insistence on calling the Dracas-Human ‘AnnaBelinda’ is not helping.” Daniel reached through the door of his rooms and yanked his belt off the chair by the door.
Timothy frowned. “I’m her present-seer. I should know what her name is.”
Daniel shrugged. They’d had this conversation the night Marcus drunkenly told his brothers that the daughter of some high-powered Roman senator gave the name Ladon to the Dracos-Human and it stuck mostly because the man didn’t care. Timothy had sat back in his chair, his face and body showing a great deal of determination, and took it upon himself to find the “correct” name for the Dracas-Human. He said it would be his gift to his Lady.
Ingund had not been pleased.
Daniel buckled his belt over his tunic before slapping his brother on the shoulder. “What do they have planned for us today?” He always welcomed a distraction.
Timothy’s seer rang out through the porch, a bright music that felt to Daniel like the sweet melody of a clean and clear wind instrument as much as it sounded that way to his mind’s inner ear.
Daniel’s brother frowned. “Ladon is down from the manor.” He pointed out over the alley between their building and the neighbor’s across the way, toward the town’s open center square. “He and the Great Sir are off on another clandestine encounter.”
“Again?” Ladon, Livia, occasionally Andreas Sisto—they would leave for a week or so and return with little or nothing to show for it.
Last year, AnnaBelinda left for two full seasons.
“Who is he seeing?” Daniel released his seer. Ladon, like all members of the Legion, was well within the domain of his talisman, though non-Legion business was often not as clearly readable as were warring and protecting.
“It’s probably another Burner hunt,” Timothy said.
Burners made excellent excuses to leave Dragontown. Burner chaos also hid encounters from all seers, including the Draki Prime.
The chaos was consistent, which meant that Ladon and the other members of the Legion were likely not actually hiding any clandestine encounters.
As the future-seer of the Draki Prime, he should know, either way. His job was to check for the Dracae, yet they rarely consulted their Fates.
Daniel hit the timbers of his door’s threshold. “When will they trust us?”
Timothy’s lip curled. “Perhaps when you stop whoring?”
Daniel shoved his brother. “Be glad I do not break your nose!” he yelled.
Timothy held his ground. He shook his head and walked away.
Daniel slammed his door and made his way toward the stairs and his past-seeing brother.
Time to get the Dracos to understand that there was a reason a Prime triad now lived in their town.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ladon adjusted his dagger belt. “I am not meeting anyone. There has been Burner activity along the coast,” he said. “You two know this.”
Burners meant a fight. Daniel pointed at the gate. “We will help.”
Ladon turned away. “We do not need your help,” he said. “And we most certainly do not need your protection.”
The Great Sir nudged Daniel to accent Ladon’s point. Marcus, he ignored. Timothy hadn’t bothered to come down to greet Ladon.
They stood in front of the main stables, where Ladon and AnnaBelinda kept their travel horses. Today Ladon favored his huge war stallion, the big beast he’d ridden out the gates when he brought the brothers their talisman three years prior. The animal pawed and snorted, as all good stallions did, and made sure the humans in the area understood that he was, in fact, the most beautiful and commanding horse that had ever graced Dragontown with its presence.
Daniel did not like this particular animal.
“Yet my seer is saying the opposite.” Daniel opened his seer wide and allowed it to flow out over Ladon, the Great Sir, and the stallion.
Not that he looked into the future. He honestly did not care what his future-seer said about this little trip. The point was to get Ladon to bring them along. The looking was not of the most importance, only the evidence of the act.
“Why are you so determined to come along for a Burner fight?” Ladon shook his head and adjusted his stallion’s saddle. “You three are not yet skilled enough.”
“I can hit any target from thirty paces,” Marcus said.
Ladon laughed. “At thirty paces, a strong Burner explosion will still sever your Parcae head from your Parcae shoulders.” Ladon opened his hands and mimicked the bang that came with a Burner death.
“Yet you go out alone,” Daniel said.
Ladon tightened his saddle straps. “And here I thought a Fate triad c
ould read the world and understand when not to act like children.” He nodded toward the brothers’ home. “Timothy has the right idea.”
Marcus closed his eyes and pinched his lips together.
Ladon settled the straps and turned toward Daniel and Marcus. “You want to fight Burners? Then you go out with Andreas or Livia only if they have determined that the Burners in question are suitable for a training exercise. Do you understand? I will not have you two blowing off your fingers because you are as disobedient as you are obstinate.”
He turned away.
Daniel sent out another wave of non-specific future-seeing. “My seer is telling me that you need us,” he lied.
Ladon stopped fussing with his saddle and twisted his head as if listening. “Dragon says you are fake-seeing again.”
Daniel threw his hands into the air and made a face at the Great Sir. “Fake-seeing? Because I don’t ask my seer a specific question? My own brothers cannot tell! How is it that you can?”
The great beast shrugged. Golden-green patterns moved along his side. And just to add insult to Daniel’s injury, the Great Sir raised his front limb and slowly, one at a time, extended and retracted his talons as if boredom had set in and he needed a good talon cleaning to occupy his mind.
Marcus pushed Daniel’s shoulder. “I damned well can tell when you’re fake-seeing, brother,” he said. “Sisto can, too.”
Ladon chuckled.
Daniel looked up at the sky. “That is not the point!” The point was to get them out into the field. The point was to prove their worth.
Ladon pointed at Daniel. “This need of yours to bury yourself in danger and daring is counterproductive.”
Daniel looked up at the sky. All his conversations circled back to recklessness. The whoring. Their fight training. His desire to go Burner hunting. All of it.
“I am a future-seer. Why shouldn’t I use it to have a little fun?” he asked.
Ladon threw his saddle bags over the back of his war steed. The big horse snorted yet again. He was a smart stallion, and one of the few horses who had learned never to fear the two dragons. This horse also happened to be thoroughly black, which made him particularly Dracae-attracting.
Both Ladon and AnnaBelinda dressed in black. Never, not once, in the three years Daniel and his brothers had lived in Dragontown, had any of them seen either human in any other color. Even naked during Beltane, they opted for black body smudges.
Ladon ignored his comment, as did Marcus.
“The point,” Daniel said, “is that your Prime triad is telling you that you need us,” he lied yet again.
Ladon looked between Marcus and Daniel, then back to Marcus. “He’s going to follow me, isn’t he?” This time, he pointed at Marcus. “And you are going to follow him because he’s your brother and he’s an idiot.”
Marcus nodded his agreement.
“I will never get used to the ways of Fates,” Ladon said.
“Yes, you will.” Daniel pointed at the Great Sir. “So will you, my friend.”
The Great Sir snorted much like the stallion. Ladon’s eyes took on the looking-at-distant-objects stare he made when talking to his beast. Most of the normals didn’t seem to notice, or they didn’t care.
“Do you two promise to stay out of the way?” Ladon asked. “Observe only.”
Marcus looked at Daniel, who looked at him. Both their seers rang out. “Yes,” they said in unison.
Ladon straightened the saddle bags. “Get your things, Draki Prime.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
They stopped at a tavern outside the village north of Dragontown. The sun set behind the trees and the hills, and spread the same glorious colors over the land as the beast spread along his hide.
Outside of Dragontown, the two dragons preferred to mimic the environment and to stay hidden from the locals. The Great Sir climbed a tree with a cooked chicken and made himself appear as nothing other than another large branch.
“That cannot be comfortable,” Marcus said.
Daniel shrugged. “The Great Sir prefers the stability of the tree over the shoddy workmanship of the tavern roof.”
Marcus squinted, and his seer rang out. “Aye,” he said, and walked toward Ladon, who paid the stable hand to feed and water their horses.
“Food,” Ladon said, and pointed at the tavern door.
Daniel sniffed the air as if he were a bloodhound enthraller. “Something is not right.”
“Your seer is telling you this?” Ladon asked, though he, too, sniffed. “Burndust.”
Marcus’s seer danced over the tavern again. “One of the normals inside won a battle with a duster,” he said. “He won’t stop talking about it. Says he ‘bested a ghost.’ The tavern owner is about to cut off his drink.”
So one of the normals had an interesting day. “Duster” Burners fizzled to nothingness instead of exploding. Daniel and Marcus had yet to meet such a Burner, or one that caused a massive explosion, for that matter. The Dracae had been quite protective of their Prime triad, even if they did not trust the brothers with Legion business.
According to Andreas Sisto, there was no way to know what kind of Burner you faced until you stopped its heart. They were unreadable in the what-was-is-will-be, so not even a Prime Fate would know.
A living Burner smelled worse than the dust they left behind. Ladon and the Great Sir had not scented a live Burner, only the dust, so no fight tonight.
Ladon patted Daniel on the back. “This would be a good time for you to practice. Burndust messes with all seers, but skilled Primes can sometimes see around it.”
Whose wife was cheating? Whose cow was about to calve? Who was about to be cheated by the barkeep? Daniel did not care, nor did their lives matter, but Ladon asked him to practice, so he practiced.
He stepped into the tavern first, and unleashed his seer more to see who squinted than to test the future. His senses identified no Shifters or Fates, but it was always a good idea to check—and to declare his Prime-dom—anyway.
Marcus rolled his eyes as he walked by. Half the crowd stopped eating and stared as Ladon took up a place at a table off to the side. About half of the eaters looked at the door as if they expected the Great Sir to twist his way in.
Daniel grinned and took up a seat next to Ladon. They sat at a side table, one tucked between an exterior wall and the steps leading up to rooms above. It did not provide the best view of the crowd, but it also did not allow the crowd a good view of them. They had a direct path to the exit, in case the Great Sir needed them outside.
The table, at least, wasn’t sticky, nor was the floor. The owners kept a clean house, even if the roof wasn’t far from a good leak or two.
The barkeep dropped mugs onto the table. “Stew tonight, gents,” he said. “Rabbit, carrot, thyme, other roots.”
Ladon nodded and handed the man the appropriate coins.
They would be well fed and cared-for tonight. Daniel turned his back to the other patrons, but allowed his seer to look forward to the evening. No Burner fight tonight, but that did not mean he couldn’t find a distraction.
Every night needed a distraction. He’d learned that fairly quickly after their activation. Something, or someone, to distract his mind and seer from the silence inside the dark. From the memories, and the future-seeing of himself remembering again during the next silent, dark night in which he found himself alone.
He did not whore. He did not court danger when he ran the perimeter of Dragontown’s fortifications in the dark. He did not seek wolves.
He sought action, and if that action allowed him—and anyone who came with him into that evening’s dark—some fun, then so be it.
Fun should not be enough of a reason for the Dracae to continue their distrust of the brothers. If anything, his fun gave him the practice Ladon so wanted him to have.
“I want you to sleep tonight, Daniel.” Ladon sipped and stared at Daniel over the rim of his mug.
Marcus did not look at either Lad
on or Daniel, only picked at the tabletop with one of his daggers.
Daniel sniffed. He grinned and specifically looked at the nightly desires of the other patrons. “Looks like I’m out of luck in this pit of pig shit, anyway.”
Marcus slammed his dagger into the table. “And you wonder why our training has stalled. Why the Sistos won’t allow any of us to accompany them on important trips. You know damned well how helpful any of us would be to Livia when she goes out on recruitments.” He poked Daniel’s shoulder. “But you do not set a good example, brother.”
Ladon humphed and leaned back against the wall. “I would like to know why we have seen an uptick in Burner activity. I would also like to know what days are better for hunts, and when to expect returns.” He sipped at his mug again. “All things a future-seer should be able to tell me.”
“If your future-seer cared about anything other than his own belly full of anger,” Marcus said.
“Did you two plan this little talk?” Daniel looked around. “Is Timothy going to walk through that door? Is Sisto here to tell me to grow up or he will enthrall me into a shadow of myself?”
“Daniel…” Marcus said. “You need to—”
A star-shaped blade flew by Daniel’s ear. Ladon twisted out of the way, but not fast enough to miss a nick to his cheek.
Daniel spun around, a hand on one of his daggers, and unleashed his seer. Marcus, next to him, mirrored his actions down to lifting his own dagger from his belt.
A small, dark-haired man stood in the tavern’s door. His dress looked foreign—silky and loose. His features were just as foreign, but smooth and sharp.
He yelled in a language Daniel had never heard before.
Not a normal, Daniel’s seer screamed. “He’s a Shifter,” he said.
Marcus moved right, while Daniel moved left. Ladon vaulted the table and had a hand around the man’s throat before he could throw another of his star-shaped blades.
He lifted the foreign assassin and tossed him into the tavern.
Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories Page 15
