Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Marcus slammed the assassin’s head against the table and pressed his blade into the base of the man’s skull. “You did not sense him?” he asked Ladon.

  Ladon wiped the blood from his cheek. “No.”

  The brothers were young. Their sense of others was not as refined as Ladon’s. But a Shifter assassin should not have gotten by any of them—nor should he have gotten by Daniel’s future-seer.

  He spun his daggers and scowled at the other patrons. How many of the men eating their stew knew foreign assassins hid nearby? How many of them were also assassins?

  Reckless, he thought. Stupid.

  Light flashed off his blades. He turned in a circle for everyone to see and growled the most vicious sound his throat could make.

  The tavern’s normals cowered.

  Marcus pressed the point of his knife into the Shifter’s skin and blood oozed from the wound. “Will this kill him?”

  Ladon squatted next to the would-be assassin. “Is this your real face, barbarian?” he asked.

  The Shifter spat and cursed in his unrecognizable language.

  The clans must be changing and producing new abilities. Daniel had heard rumors of a Shifter family with the ability to sway animals. Perhaps this man could hide from everyone—Shifter, Fate, and dragon.

  Ladon stood. He wiped at his cheek again. “A blade into the head is often enough.”

  Marcus twisted the dagger. More blood dripped down the man’s neck.

  Daniel unfolded his seer. It rolled outward over the man, and out the tavern door into the night, looking for the answer to one simple question: Why?

  An unsurprising answer danced into his head. “The Emperor is angry. You and the Dracas claimed his tribute.” Daniel sneered and tapped his temple.

  Three years since Faustus had tried to use them as a gift to curry favor with an Emperor, and they were still suffering the consequences. The ruler of Rome still thought he could claim the brothers as his property. Still thought he could send assassins and spies.

  Still steal. Still destroy. Though the Prime Fates behind this did not do the Emperor’s bidding. They did their own, and manipulated the old fool to do theirs.

  Ladon mimicked Daniel, tapping his own temple. “I did not claim tribute.”

  Daniel chuckled. Of course Ladon didn’t claim tribute. Neither Ladon nor AnnaBelinda wanted Fates in their midst. But yet here he was with his past-seeing brother, protecting Ladon, the human half of the Dracos, who only wished to shame him into good behavior.

  Daniel drove a blade into the assassin’s thigh. The man’s high-pitched scream grated through the little tavern.

  “Besting his cutthroats will make the old fool livid.” Make them all mad, he thought. Make them come for him and his brothers. Make them show their faces and pay for what they did.

  Daniel twisted his blade.

  Marcus’s past-seer joined Daniel’s, and together, they tested both the what-was and the what-will-be.

  “You should have asked for five times your payment, scum.” Marcus pressed his blade deeper into the man’s skull.

  Daniel pulled his dagger and wiped the Shifter’s blood on the man’s tunic. The assassin’s wounds closed but did not fully heal. He’d live, but the agony would rack his body for days.

  Marcus’s seer rippled again. “Three others. Outside.”

  Ladon gestured at the entrance.

  Daniel’s seer sang. He clasped Ladon’s forearm, his brow crinkling. “Women.” The Emperor of Rome sent foreign women to kill Ladon.

  The assassin laughed.

  So did the future. Unbidden, uncalled, the future dropped down onto the present and laughed and laughed and danced on Daniel’s what-will-be grave. It threw kisses and it wiggled its hips and it stole away children. It took lives and it destroyed.

  A future that was not near, nor was it present. Yet it wanted Daniel to understand that it was coming for him, but unlike Ladon, it liked his distractions. It liked his pain. Unlike him, it would make the best of silences deep in the night.

  The room swayed—no, he swayed, but he held himself. His head throbbed. Swaying would only make it obvious to the assassins. “Women will be our ruin.” Swaying only let the future win.

  “Not me, dear brother.” Marcus gestured at Ladon. “Him, most definitely.”

  Ladon’s lip curled at Marcus’s joke.

  Daniel’s seer pulsed. “Your beautiful fate will find you one day.” Where were these prognostications coming from? His seer slapped him across the face and he had no choice but to whimper like a little baby.

  “You are the only beautiful Fate here, Daniel.” Marcus kicked the assassin when he tried to escape.

  “Skewer him to the table.” Ladon pointed at the Shifter before waving at Daniel. “Arrows, my friend.”

  Daniel did not respond. He could not. The future talked to him and he had to listen.

  Marcus rammed a poker through the Shifter’s shoulder. The man, now pinned to the table, screamed.

  Daniel shivered. The sense of women stealing, of women giving and taking, of feminine help and feminine hindrance, wrapped around his head like a suffocating scarf. He looked at the Shifter, then at his brother.

  “Women.” He frowned as he slid his dagger into its scabbard and drew his own sword. The women outside would not surrender. They were about to step out into a fight. “Take care with your fate, Ladon-Human. Only your fate will stand between you and your ruin.”

  One day, another Fate would stop what Daniel could not. Had not.

  What use was he?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The small woman in the night’s shadows shot an arrow at Daniel. He responded by throwing his dagger at her heart.

  She dropped dead on the dirt between the tavern and the stable, into a pool of blood and silk. A second woman, also armed with a bow, met a similar end.

  His seer sang out between the buildings more as a warning to the Shifters than to see anything important. He was fast. He was strong. The assassins died simply because he was better.

  He was useful. He was true to his purpose. He’d sworn his loyalty to his talisman and to the dragons and he would prove that he did not go back on his word.

  He never had. He never would.

  Not all of the assassins were women. But they were all exceptional fighters.

  The Great Sir stayed back. Ladon threw punches. Both wanted answers.

  Marcus would past-see what needed seeing. Daniel wanted to make sure none of the villains returned to the Emperor and the Fates in Constantinople with news of his “stolen” triad. Not one of them was going to rip apart his life again. Not Faustus. Not the plague-riddled Emperor. Not the nebulous women about whom his seer whispered. Not AnnaBelinda. Not Ladon. Not the many Sisto enthrallers.

  Not these assassins who could sneak up on a Prime future-seer.

  He was Daniel of the Draki Prime. He was one of the most powerful seers walking the many kingdoms. His seer told him so. He would go forth from this evening feared by the entire world.

  Feared for centuries.

  If he didn’t, they would continue to harass his family. They would come for his niece, when the time came to sell her off to a new triad. The what-will-be even showed a slight chance of an invasion of Dragontown. They would continue to take and take and take.

  Daniel broke the last bow-wielding woman’s arm.

  He would have smashed her head against a rock if Marcus hadn’t pulled him off her unconscious body. “Stop!” Marcus yelled. “Daniel! Stop!”

  He punched his brother.

  Ladon threw him across the open area in front of the tavern. Ladon picked him up like he was nothing more than a blanket and threw him into the waiting clutches of the invisible Great Sir.

  The beast wrapped his big hand-claws around Daniel’s arms and bound him like a cage.

  Ladon peered at his eyes. “Is this what you saw? Is this why you wanted to come out here? To bloody the ground and terrify the normals?”
r />   “Let me go!”

  Ladon stepped back. “You need to go home.” He waved to Marcus. “Take him back. Tell Sisto what happened.” He waved at Daniel. “He needs an enthralling to get his anger under control or he’s going to get himself or one of you killed.”

  The Great Sir let go. Ladon walked away toward the stables to fetch his horse. Marcus stood in front of Daniel, his arms crossed and his face stone cold and disbelieving.

  “I knew your belly still boiled,” he said. “But I’m the past-seer. You are the one who is supposed to see moments like this and stop them in their tracks. Not me.”

  Behind Daniel, the invisible Great Sir moved away to vent behind the stables. Too many normals peered out the tavern’s door and through the windows for the beast to safely breathe his fire.

  “They’re going to kick us out of Dragontown,” Marcus said. He looked over his shoulder at Ladon, who argued with the tavern owner. Ladon handed the man a bag of coins.

  The owner immediately quieted and began directing his men to clean up the bodies.

  Corrupt bastard, Daniel thought. He wiped the blood on his hands onto the grass under his feet.

  Marcus slapped him hard enough that Daniel’s jaw slid to the side. “You are going to get us kicked out of Dragontown!” he hissed. “Look! You know I’m right! You’re going to make Brunhild homeless because of your whoring and murdering.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone.” Daniel rubbed his jaw. “They were assassins.”

  “Ladon wanted to question them and now they are all dead!” Marcus looked as if he wanted to hit Daniel again. “You have always been insufferable. Timothy might be impulsive, but at least he doesn’t hurt people.”

  Daniel rubbed his face. Did he want to hurt people? “I want to hurt myself.” Why did it take three years to figure out the obvious? Pain. Whoring. Fights. Running the entire perimeter of Dragontown in the hot noon sun just so he didn’t have to come inside and listen to the happy couples. They broke through the numbness.

  “You are pathetic.” Marcus walked away and left Daniel sitting on the grass in the center of the blood-made circle he’d accidently smeared onto the ground.

  “Maybe I’ll call up a demon,” he muttered, and ran his finger over one of the smears to add a menacing crosshatch pattern.

  A man appeared directly in front of Daniel. His indigo hood shadowed his face. His dark leathers hid him in the shadows.

  Daniel didn’t jump or startle in any way, probably because the man enthralled him to stay still. Daniel looked over his shoulder. His enthralling abilities were also keeping him from everyone’s senses except Daniel’s.

  “I was wondering when you’d come back.” Daniel rubbed at the blood on his tunic. His seer provided another bit of obvious information: “You had nothing to do with this.” He waved his hand at the bodies scattered across the grass. “You would not provide so much entertainment.”

  The man shook his head.

  “Will I ever see your face?” Daniel slapped at the spy with his seer. “No. I never will.” He looked up at the night sky. “Not with these eyes.” Not under this sky.

  His seer was filling his mind with stupidity again. The dreams. The rants about women. The unfathomable warnings. “I’m tired,” he said. Too tired to be only nineteen years old.

  The man stood. He looked over his shoulder and vanished just as Ladon walked out of the tavern.

  “Papa’s ghost is here.” Daniel also stood.

  Ladon stared at him for a long moment. “I do not know what to make of your ramblings, Daniel.”

  Too much blood had soaked his tunic. The fabric stuck to his chest. Daniel pulled the shirt up and over his head.

  He stood in the middle of the clearing, on the grass with the blood-marks, half-naked and suddenly cold, in front of the man he’d spied on just before his Fate-ness destroyed his world.

  “I watched you and Livia fuck in the pool by the village,” he said.

  “She wants you healthy,” Ladon said.

  “So much for my proclamation of women ruining our lives, huh?” He wadded up his tunic and tossed it to the side.

  Ladon shrugged. “I like women.”

  Daniel chuckled, which turned into a chortle, which quickly turned into a cackle.

  Ladon grinned.

  “I don’t,” Daniel said. “Well, I do, but I don’t, you know?” He sucked in his breath and bent over at the waist. He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe? “I don’t know.” He sucked in his breath again. “I don’t know anything.”

  Ladon grabbed his shoulders. “You need to go back. Ask Livia for an enthralling. She’ll set your head right.”

  “No, she will not.” No one could set his head right. He was the opposite of right. He was all that was wrong in the past, present, and future. “That ghost came on Ingund’s Beltane. He took Papa’s wares to my aunt.”

  Ladon pulled him straight. “What did you say?”

  “I’m the son of the assassin’s son!” Daniel yelled. He waved his hand at the corpses. “The Guard had nothing to do with this. If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.”

  He pushed Ladon off. “I didn’t want to be Draki Prime! None of us did. We didn’t have a choice.”

  “Daniel…” Ladon tried to wrap his arms around Daniel. He tried, and the beast snuck up and also tried, but this time Daniel used his seer the way Sisto had trained him to.

  Daniel backed into the shadows.

  And Daniel ran into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  If he stepped into the river, he’d float back to the Roman ruins. If he crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at the stars above and let the water wash him away, he’d be truly home by this time tomorrow.

  Home with his Mama and his Papa and his Father. Home where he and his brothers had a choice about their talisman. Home where Ingund and Antonius both lived with his family on their farm.

  He whipped a rock across the gurgling water. Moonlight reflected off its surface, but he could not see the opposite shore. Branches rustled. A wolf howled.

  What was there could see him, even if he couldn’t see it.

  Daniel dipped his fingers into the cold water and washed the blood off his hands. He dipped again, and scrubbed at his chest.

  “You were correct. You will never see my face.”

  When Daniel looked up, the enthraller spy crouched on a log two paces to Daniel’s left.

  “I almost threw my last dagger at you.” Daniel continued to wash the blood off the skin of his abdomen. It stuck to the fine hair below his navel and he picked at it absently.

  “No, you did not.” The spy hopped off the log. “You knew I was here the moment you made the shore.”

  He had. He’d followed the spy without thinking about following the spy. “Not that I realized what I was doing, enthraller.”

  The spy walked silently to Daniel, and crouched next to him just as silently. “You came here so that you would not be alone.”

  Daniel dropped onto his backside on the river’s pebbly shore. “I’m a future-seer. I am never alone.” His brothers’ seers always touched his mind. His own seer always whispered. And the future babbled constantly.

  The spy also sat. “You asked for a boon. I’m here to provide.”

  Daniel closed his eyes. “He died in the river and Faustus had his men stitch up his death to give me false hope. False hope will give the Fates in Constantinople leverage over the Draki Prime—and thus the Dracae—in the future.”

  “Sometimes the political manipulations of Fates are not as well-hidden as they believe them to be,” said the spy.

  Daniel humphed much like Ladon had earlier. “I am smarter than most other Fates,” he said. “I see no reason to hide that truth.”

  “You are also as arrogant as most Primes,” the spy said.

  Daniel opened his eyes. “I guess that levels the field.” Mowed down all the fighters, too.

  The spy watched the river from i
nside his hood’s shadows. “The question is not how you and our enemies manipulate expectations to out-future each other. The question is who is Dragons’ Legion and who is not.”

  Daniel frowned. “You make less sense than my seer.”

  The spy chuckled. Pinched between his fingers, gleaming in the moonlight, the spy held an arrowhead. “From your friend’s shoulder.”

  He dropped it onto Daniel’s hand.

  His future-seer curled around it before his fingers did. The what-will-be danced and yelled and wiggled as if it was the Beltane dragons’ virgin.

  As if it offered escape. Nothing else. Nothing more. Was his seer broken? Was he broken? Yes, to both questions. Daniel of the Draki Prime was the smart and arrogant idiot his brothers thought him to be.

  He let the arrowhead slide from this hand and onto the pebbles. “I see only chaos,” he said.

  The spy stood. “Yes.” Then he vanished.

  Daniel sprang to his feet. “I know you are still here!” he yelled. “Is he alive?” He turned in a circle. “Please tell me if he’s alive. Please.”

  He dropped to his knees again. “I promised I’d come for him. I promised.”

  Daniel rolled onto his side. He stared at the rushing river, at the cold water. The stones pressed into his ear. Others pressed into his shoulder and his hip.

  He cupped the arrowhead and pressed it into his palm until new blood flowed. Pain, he thought, not really understanding why he cared.

  Daniel closed his eyes. Perhaps sleep would help. Perhaps not. He didn’t care enough to look.

  The Great Sir placed him onto Ladon’s horse, in front of his Lord, so that Ladon could make sure Daniel didn’t purposefully dump himself off the side.

  Ladon took him home.

  Livia made him breathe her calling scents, as did Andreas. They were both as angry as they were concerned, and both wanted to slap some sense into him. He breathed their scents and he smiled so they would think him all right.

  Marcus made him study the scrolls. Timothy made him play with his niece. The dragons made him lights and wouldn’t allow him to run the perimeter alone.