Her wings were gone. That was inescapable. It meant she wouldn’t be able to fly of her own volition, which was less than ideal. She would always be less than what she had been. Her armor was battered and due for a polish. She’d lost her shield, her sword and her dagger in Fae. She’d used them mostly for defense, on the rare occasions that she had used them, but still, she felt compromised without them.
She doubted she would ever feel invulnerable again, with or without her weapons.
Bree set aside her helmet and shook out her hair, her lips thinning at the sight of her empty scabbard. That sword had been an excellent weapon, an ancient one blessed with powerful runes. She wished she hadn’t lost it. The Fae wouldn’t even use it, because it was steel. What a waste.
She reasoned that she might as well see the worst of the damage. She removed her hauberk and jerkin, relieved that she didn’t have much pain left. She tugged off her linen chemise, then swept her hair over her shoulder, angling the mirror over the sink so she could see her reflection in the full-length mirror.
There were two scars on her back from the loss of her wings. They had ragged edges, a reminder that the wings had been torn away, but were healing rapidly. Was that because of the Pyr’s salve or her own nature? Maybe it was a combination of both. But there was no sign of them growing back. Her wings were gone forever.
So was the tattoo that had been on her left arm for centuries. Her skin looked naked without it. Bree felt like a shadow of her former self, which made her frown and push that idea away with impatience. The raven tattoo on the back of her shoulders was still there, which was a little bit reassuring.
She crouched and checked the pouches that hung on her belt. Her runes were still in one, and all accounted for. She’d used up the poison that she kept in the second, the sedative that she’d smeared on her blade to take Kris down. She’d used it all, given his relative size, in the hope that it would have some effect. There was a feather from an eagle she’d seen a long time before, a smooth stone from the river where she’d met Siegfried, a single round piece of amber from that dragon’s hoard. She arranged the collection in a line on the tiled floor.
It was a pretty meager collection for several thousand years of existence.
That had never bothered Bree before but now she felt that her life had been hollow.
Worse, she felt lonely.
With Kara trapped in Fae, Bree was the last of the Valkyries in the mortal realm. Admittedly, she might have once been the greatest of her kind, but the world they had reigned was indisputably gone. The old man was a shadow of his former self and she had to admit that it was unlikely he would ever rise in youthful vigor and blow the horn, summoning them to war.
What if Kris was right again? What if Ragnorak had come and gone without a battle? She had to admit the possibility of the old man not noticing or not caring.
What if her life would continue forever as it had been before meeting Kris? She knew she wouldn’t find it as satisfying as she once had. She’d changed in his company and in more ways than the loss of her wings.
What if there had been no point to her existence at all? If the old man completely faded, would she disappear from existence, too? Bree had to concede that she might vanish from the mortal realm, and eternity in Valhalla wasn’t an enticing prospect.
She wasn’t going to fade to obscurity without a fight. Somehow, she would return to Fae to save Kara, though the simple truth was that neither of them might manage to escape. Maybe dying in battle was the only honorable end and the best prospect.
She couldn’t help it if a part of her yearned for a different ending, an impossible one.
Doubts or not, Bree would ride to war one last time. She’d either save Kara or be exterminated in the attempt.
There was a soft tap on the door. “You okay?” Kris asked.
“Just checking my kit.”
“I am my kit,” he said with such dragon confidence that she smiled. “If you don’t mind sharing, I’d like to clean up then get something to eat.”
“I thought you ate already.”
He scoffed. “Hours ago and it was eggs. I’m starving.”
She bit back a smile at his appetite. Bree shifted, not wanting Kris to see what she had become, and unlocked the door.
Kristofer wanted to whistle, after he’d washed and dressed. He went down to the kitchen with Bree, certain that he’d convinced her to give them a chance. She smiled at him as they crossed the threshold and he stole a kiss. Rafferty was making more coffee and Melissa was on her cell phone.
“No, I don’t know anyone named Eithne. Who does she say she is?” Melissa listened for a moment, frowning slightly. “She has a story about dragons?” Her skepticism of that was clear.
Rafferty held up the coffee pot and Bree nodded agreement. She’d brought her mug down from the bedroom and was dressed much as she’d been when Kristofer had first met her, with the exception of her boots, which were at the front door.
Kristofer headed for the fridge and conferred quietly with Rafferty about their options.
“No, don’t give her this number,” Melissa said into her phone. “I don’t need every dragon-crazy person in the UK to be able to call me up out of the blue. What’s that? She’s in Edinburgh?”
Rafferty froze and pivoted to face Melissa, who was staring at him.
“Why is Edinburgh important?” Bree asked Kristofer in a whisper.
There was a newspaper on the counter, its sections scattered after someone had read it. Kristofer looked for the front page, then realized there were several newspapers mixed together. He found the article about the dragon that had appeared over Edinburgh the night before and showed it to Bree. He was watching Rafferty and Melissa, but he heard Bree’s gasp.
He looked down to see that her face was white.
“But he’s dead,” she whispered and seized the paper for a closer look. “He can’t be back.” But there was no conviction in her tone.
“What do you mean, back?” Kristofer asked, even though he had guessed.
Bree poked at the newspaper, obviously trying to keep her voice down and not interrupt Melissa’s call. She wasn’t very successful. “This is the dragon Siegfried killed. I helped him. I was there! There’s no way he’s alive again!”
She couldn’t be faking her reaction.
She was shocked, more upset than Kris had ever seen her. Her hands shook so much that he thought she’d drop her coffee. Given the size of her beverage, that was an ugly proposition. He plucked the mug out of her hand and ushered her to one of the seats in the kitchen. She had a death grip on the paper as she read it hungrily.
Then she raised her gaze to his. She looked smaller to him and was definitely paler.
“It can’t be,” she whispered again, but he heard her doubt.
He’d had a feeling that she might know something about this dragon. The creature looked alien to Kristofer, so much rougher and darker than the Pyr that it seemed like an alien species. He was vaguely reminded of Drake, who was much more ancient than any of the modern Pyr, and who more closely resembled a dragon carved of anthrasite than the younger Pyr. The younger dragons had glossier scales, which often resembled gemstones, but Drake was more like solid rock come to life. Just a glimpse of this one had made Kris think of Bree’s story about a dragon she’d helped to kill eons ago.
Her reaction made him want to comfort her, but there was no denying the truth. This dragon was in the news, after all.
“Could there have been two?” he asked.
She shuddered from head to toe. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Looks like we need to.”
“Okay, give me her contact info, please.” Melissa wrote on a pad of paper, repeating the information back to verify it. “Okay, thanks. I’ll follow up.” The other person said something and Melissa smiled. “What’s a day off without dragons?” she said lightly and ended the call. “How can she know that dragon?” she demanded of Rafferty.
“What makes you think that?” Melissa asked.
“I helped to kill him,” she said with conviction. “I saw him die, and I saw his corpse rolled into the sea. I helped. He didn’t move again. He was dead.
“This is the dragon Siegfried hunted?” Kris asked again, for Rafferty and Melissa’s benefit, and Bree nodded.
“We hunted him together. Siegfried struck the killing blow, but I was there. I saw him breathe his last and die.” Her lips set. “He can’t be alive again. He just can’t.”
But the picture showed that he was.
“Tell us about it,” Kris invited as he sat down beside her.
Rafferty eased into another chair at the table, his gaze bright, and Melissa stood behind him. “Please do,” he said.
Eleven
Bree sat at the counter in Rafferty’s kitchen, her mind filled with memories. She ate what Kris put in front of her while she chose where to begin, but she didn’t taste the food. She was reliving the past. She finally drained her mug of coffee and put it down. “Once,” she began. “There was a dragon.”
“Not once upon a time,” Rafferty suggested with a smile.
“No, not once upon a time,” Bree said, her voice hard. “Once upon a time suggests that this is a fairy tale or that there will be a happy ending. The ending wasn’t happy then, and it’s a lot less happy if he’s alive again.”
Rafferty nodded and sobered, chastised.
She was aware that Kris was watching her closely, but she didn’t look at him. “Once there was a dragon. He had a lair in the far north, beyond the lands favored by men. It wasn’t known exactly which distant mountain he had claimed: people knew only that he hunted at irregular intervals. All would be fine for years, decades, even centuries, then he would be seen in the sky. He was a predator but he didn’t hunt to ensure his own survival. He found joy in killing—no, in wholesale slaughter—in burning villages, in snatching women and children, in destroying warriors who dared to defy him. No one could stand against him when he had an appetite for destruction. He enjoyed his power and his ability to create terror. He was wicked to his very marrow. His name was unknown so men called him the Wrath of the Gods.
“Nice,” Melissa said softly, then whispered to Rafferty. “I have to go and get a burner phone to follow up with this woman. Bring me up to date later?”
Rafferty nodded and Melissa kissed his cheek before she left, as if dragon business at her kitchen table was no big deal.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Bree frowned. “No one knew how old he was, or when he had come, much less where he had come from. He had always been there, always been a threat, always pillaged and killed and burned. There were stories from time untold about him, stories that were old before I and my sisters even took our first breath. There were always explanations for his attack—that he flew out to punish people for their wickedness, for example—but these were just the tales of men. The truth was that he did as he wished, answering to none.”
“What did he look like?” Kris asked.
“Not like you,” she said with a shake of her head. “He was large and dark, a scaled monster, primitive in appearance like this one.” She indicated the paper, unable to refrain from a shudder. How could he fly out again, after all these years? “He was an apocalypse in himself.”
“The wrath of the gods, indeed,” Rafferty mused.
Bree turned a spoon on the table. “By the time I heard of him, he had retreated. No one knew why. He was said to be asleep, slumbering on a mound of plundered treasure. He was said to have gathered it, from ships and graves and the collections of rich men. There was a tale that the riches had been gathered by the gods to pay a ransom and that he had stolen it. There was another tale that he had once been a man himself, one appointed custodian of the hoard but whose greed for riches had turned him into a dragon. I don’t believe that was the case. I think he was always a dragon.”
She saw Rafferty purse his lips and frown down at the counter.
“Was he immortal?” Kris asked.
“He was long-lived, at the very least. By the time my sisters and I began to ride out and choose from the slain at the old man’s command, this dragon had been sleeping so long that he had almost become a legend.”
“Wait,” Kris said. “He was older than you are?”
“Absolutely. In his silence and absence, fear rescinded. People had begun to talk about locating his hoard and claiming it for their own. The richness of his hoard had grown to fantastic proportions, a collection of gold and gems beyond all belief. I suppose it was inevitable that someone did seek him out, that someone did rouse the dragon, and that the dragon was awakened with his appetite renewed.”
She took a deep breath, remembering. “The warrior who did so was said to be a hero, a champion, yet he was not a king or even the son of one. The king was old and feeble, but he had many sons, each as desirous of the crown as the next. Remember that in those times, the sons of kings did not always inherit the throne, not unless they could prove their merit in battle. The king had to be both a ruler and a champion, a man his warriors would follow and one with a reputation for triumph at war.”
“The warrior cultures,” Rafferty said. “I remember them well.”
Bree wondered again how old he was, then continued. “The warrior who yearned for the dragon’s hoard was ambitious: he sought a feat that would prove him worthy of ruling his people and one that would make him the hero of many tales. It had to be a deed that the old king would not undertake, and one that the old king’s sons would not contemplate. This bold warrior decided upon claiming the legendary dragon’s hoard, perhaps because his confidence was too great for his abilities, perhaps because he didn’t believe the dragon still lived. He left the village with much acclaim and journeyed north.”
“My sisters were intrigued by his bravery. They teased each other about his prowess and his audacity—never mind his virility—and made wagers about who would claim him for her own. We had no doubt of his ultimate failure. Perhaps his moment of departure marked his doom and we could smell death upon him.” She smiled. “Perhaps it was easier for us to believe that the dragon would triumph. I know I did.”
“Did the warrior have a name?” Kris asked.
“I’m sure he did, but I have forgotten it.”
“Then he did fail,” Rafferty guessed.
Bree held up a finger. “He rode out, brash and bold, my sisters in attendance. He traveled with a comrade, a loyal friend who had captured my attention long before.”
“Siegfried,” Kris guessed without hesitation.
“Siegfried,” Bree agreed, no longer surprised that Kris was so perceptive. “When Siegfried was born, his mother died in the delivery of him. His father, a warrior himself, despaired of his son’s future without a mother to nurse him, and called for his runes to be read. I liked to watch when the runes were read. Sometimes I saw more than the mortal reader did. This reader, though, saw that Siegfried was destined to kill a dragon. What an uncommon destiny! His father was encouraged and spared no expense in his training, which meant ultimately that the champion chose this skilled warrior to be his sole companion. I had watched Siegfried for many years and knew their roles should have been reversed.”
“What did you admire about him?” Kris asked, his expression impassive.
“His skill at warfare, certainly, and his loyalty. The pair faced various challenges—attack by bears, by a band of thieves, hunger and snow—and I saw that Siegfried’s abilities were no less than those of the comrade he followed. He was less inclined to bravado, but still of the lineage of warriors. He was intrepid. He had as good a claim to the crown as the man he accompanied, and it could be argued that he was more inclined to use his wits.” Bree spun the spoon. “A mortal warrior must find a balance between confidence and humility, an acknowledgement that one’s abilities aren�
��t boundless coupled with the sense of when to take a risk. It is a wise warrior who has an accurate measure of his powers, and often that assessment determines his longevity.” She fell silent, realizing that she’d just learned that lesson herself. She’d never thought it applied to an immortal, but her injury had changed her.
“Did they find the dragon’s lair?” Rafferty asked.
“They did. In the middle of winter, months after their departure. They came upon a scorched land and realized that the dragon had been active in the vicinity of his lair if not near their village. The land was black and not a single thing grew. It was striking in the sunlight, the earth burned to black cinders, the snow in white drifts atop it, sky blue and fierce above, and silence fit to hurt the ears. Even the wind seemed to have abandoned the place. The champion was encouraged, though Siegfried advised that they learn more before attacking. His comrade would not be swayed, for he was certain that the quiet meant the dragon had abandoned this abode.”
“Despite the burned land,” Kris noted. “You did say Siegfried was the thinker.”
Bree nodded. “The champion reasoned that the dragon had flown to warmer lands, where there was more to plunder and destroy. They argued and he suddenly climbed to the great dark portal, moving so quickly that he left his accomplice behind. He stood on the threshold and shouted a dare to the dragon, for taunting was a part of the battle ritual of his fellows. It was a show of bravado, for he believed the dragon to be gone and never expected a response.”
“I’ll guess he got one,” Rafferty said.
“More of one than he could ever have imagined. He had time to gloat to Siegfried, time to unsheathe his sword, time to take a step into the darkness. He had time to believe he had won and to consider the repercussions of that. Then the earth shook so mightily that both men stumbled and fell to their knees. A roar erupted from deep inside the mountain, a roar that would strike terror into the most fierce of warriors. Indeed, Siegfried retreated and hid, which his companion called cowardice.”
Dragon's Kiss (The DragonFate Novels Book 2) Page 23
