Ambushed (The Brindle Dragon Book 4)

by Jada Fisher

  It had been…confusing. It had started with her running from that healer with the black eyes, the first person who had purposefully tried to kill her. Then it had been that man in the clearing, looming over her with the shadows swirling all around his feet. Then it had been that woman in the darkness again, the one that Fior had so liked. She had been speaking and Eist knew it was important, but she couldn’t understand anything the woman was saying. Then it was her mid-year evaluations, and she was utterly naked in front of everyone.

  Fior chirped at her feet, looking up at her with concern. She wanted to soothe him, but she just didn’t have it in her at the moment. She felt tense, so stressed that if she was stretched any further, she would break.

  The beating of several sets of large wings caught her attention, and she drifted onto another balcony yet again. Curiosity piquing, she looked out into the night sky.

  The transition from her normal vision in the torch-lit hall to her new vision was smoother than ever, and soon the court blazed like daylight. Looking up into the sky, she saw several dragon riders landing wearily in the court.

  It took her a moment, but she realized they were the same ones that she had seen leave weeks ago. They were all battered and filthy, and Eist noticed there were at least three of them missing.

  That couldn’t be good.

  Several of the academy workers rushed toward them, and the riders practically collapsed off their dragons. The great beasts trudged along, seeming on the verge of fainting themselves, as the workers led the riders up to the healer’s hall.

  Eist watched them until they disappeared from sight. She hadn’t seen a group of riders so battered in her entire life, and she’d been at the academy for three years.

  Yacrist’s words echoed in her head as she stared at the empty courtyard.

  What if mid-year is too late?

  What if, indeed.

  Eist darted down the hall, looking this way and that, making sure no chaperone or other worker was about. The book in her arms felt weighty against her middle as she slunk down the hall, all of her mind telling her to get back to her room and stop breaking the rules so close to the mid-year performances.

  But she didn’t stop, and the next thing she knew, she was rapping on one of the dorm doors, Fior padding along curiously beside her.

  There was no answer for a moment, and she almost turned tail right then and there, but then she felt a muffled grunt and shuffling. A few moments later, the door swung open enough for her to see a narrow strip of Yacrist’s face and his bare chest.

  “Eist?” he murmured in surprise.

  “Shh!” she hissed, pushing past him and into his room. “Close the door!”

  He did as she asked, turning to her with sleepy eyes. “Eist, as much as I might like the idea of you showing up in the middle of the night, well, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “I know,” she said, worry causing her to bite at her lip. She tried to train her gaze up at the ceiling or down at the floor. Anything but Yacrist standing in front of her in just his sleeping breeches. It wasn’t fair how he looked so…so…sculpted. “I just— I needed to—” She let out a growl of aggravation and lifted the book so he could see it. “Do you want to read this with me?”

  His eyes snapped awake at that and he strode forward, gently taking the tome from her hands. “You changed your mind?”

  She nodded, not really able to find the words she wanted. He was suddenly very close and very undressed, and she realized that he hadn’t slept in her and Dille’s room at all for the academy year. Normally, he ended up in Dille’s bed at least once a month while Eist and her friend curled together in her own. What had changed? And why was she suddenly realizing that at all?

  “Let’s sit down then, shall we?”

  He crossed over to his cot, which she noted had a much nicer, broader mattress than hers, and sat far enough back on it that the wall supported his spine. It was too broad for Eist to do in one motion, so she knelt on it and clambered over to his side where she could be close enough to read, but not close enough to touch.

  Fior hopped on right along after her, curling up into her side and seeming to press her closer to Yacrist. As for Alynbach, he was sleeping soundly on the empty cot on the other side of the room.

  “How did you manage to be without a dormmate again?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I guess just another perk from my father being the Lord of the House,” he answered matter-of-factly, surprising Eist. “But if it gives Alynbach more time to sleep in my room instead of out in the caves, I don’t mind abusing the privilege.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you don’t,” Eist grumbled before remembering the man’s state of dress. Or rather undress. “Uh, do you think you could put on your tunic, or shirtsleeves?” she muttered, referring to the normal nightwear that her grandfather used.

  “It’s too hot,” he retorted, not even looking at her as his hands caressed the book almost reverently. “The Beginning Beasts,” he read. “Sounds ominous.”

  “Do you think this is a mistake?” Eist asked uncertainly.

  He shook his head and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer so he could spread the book out on his left thigh and her right. “No. If something told you this book was important, then we should read it, right?”

  “Right?” Eist echoed weakly, her cheeks coloring. She was distracted again. Why was she distracted? She hated it. “Will you read it to me?”

  He nodded, and soon his voice slipped into a low, comforting rumble as he narrated the pages.

  Long ago, before time or man or even death itself wandered, our realm was charged to powerful spirits. Beings of energy and light, connected to the ground, the water, the air itself, to tend to and care for their domains. These entities existed outside of perspective, outside of mortal concepts, cultivating and encouraging the realm to flourish.

  “That’s not the Three,” Eist murmured, her stomach twisting.

  “No, it’s not,” Yacrist agreed.

  “Then this book is probably illegal.”

  “This book was guarded by ephemeral, magical shadows. It is most definitely illegal.”

  Eist swallowed, her throat going dry. “In for a copper, in for a gold,” she said, nudging Yacrist to continue.

  These old spirits drew energy from our realm and returned to it in kind, continuing the cycle of growth as eons passed. But in the dark, across the lines that separated us from things we should not see or know, threats began to bloom.

  The spirits knew they could not let their realm stay so empty, so peaceful, otherwise it might be filled with dark and wicked things. So, they created their first child.

  It was a grand thing, scaled, with a long snout and gnashing teeth. It breathed fire like its mother, the earth. It had wings to touch its mother, the air. It had great, powerful legs to swim in its mother, the water. It was mighty, and powerful, and it was good.

  The great beast roamed the land, patrolling, filling it with a new kind of life. And the energy that fueled the Old Spirits surged through the beast, connecting it to the soul of the realm.

  “That’s the first dragon, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I’d be hard-pressed to think of what else it could be,” Yacrist responded, his fingers gently stroking her other arm. She told herself to ignore the motion and concentrate on his words, but that was easier said than done.

  “Don’t be smart.”

  “One of us has to.”

  She elbowed him again, and he kept on reading.

  As the ages passed, this beast grew old. It grew lonely. The Spirits realized that it could not subsist on its own. And so, they created it two mates, one of brilliant alabaster and the other of blackest obsidian.

  “The first black and white dragon,” Eist breathed.

  “Stop interrupting.”

  She glared at him but settled, her own eyes flicking over the words as he read them.

  And it is from this most holy three that the first clutch
was laid. Four eggs in total, the Spirits waited to see if life would bloom within them. And after enough time, they did.

  Born from one was a dragon of scarlet, from another was a dragon of sparkling amethyst, from another a mottled dragon of copper, onyx and gold—

  “Hey, that sounds like Fior!”

  “We’re never going to finish this if you keep interrupting.”

  Eist crossed her arms, sticking her tongue out at him. “I’m just saying. That sounds awful familiar, doesn’t it?”

  Yacrist sighed, seeming to be able to tell that she wasn’t going to let it go. “Yes. It does.”

  “But if this book is true—which, granted, we don’t know if it is—but if it is, then that means Fior’s not a runt or lightning struck or anything like that. It means that there’s a dragon species that he’s supposed to be!”

  Excitement rose in her gut at the idea. Although she had come to terms with her little guy maybe never being like other dragons, she was determined that they try as hard as they could to be the absolute best that they could be, but now the idea that he was exactly as he was supposed to be made her heart flutter.

  “I dunno,” Yacrist said uneasily, clearly not wishing to crush her elation. “If there was a species like him, wouldn’t someone know about it?”

  Eist shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. There seems to be a whole lot of things people have forgotten.”

  “Fair enough. Maybe the book will have more about the mottled one.”

  Eist nodded eagerly, and Yacrist returned to reading.

  —from the final egg, there hatched a new creature.

  With no scales, and no great form, it was different from any other. Long hair hung from her head and her flat face held no teeth. There were no wings upon her back or claws on her fingers. She could not breathe fire or fly or swim the depths.

  But what she could do was reach into the energy that fueled the realm like no other. She could draw on it, twist it, change it, ask it to do her bidding. And thus, the great witch Arwylln was born, and it was from her that all those who could wield magic would spawn.

  The spirits saw this new creature, with her soft skin and her strange ways, and realized she could not intermingle as the dragons did. She was a companion to them, part of a family, but she could not love, could not have children of her own. And so, they created others like her, born from the rain in her footsteps on a moonlit night.

  These new creatures were the first of man. And for many years, man and dragon and witch lived together, growing the energy and honoring the realm. Magic, as they came to call the gift of Arwylln and her children, flourished, and it was said that none were closer to the dragons than those with the heart of a witch.

  This time, it was Yacrist who sat back, staring at the wall like he was in deepest thought. Eist waited for several long moments before her curiosity got the better of her.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Arwylln… That’s the name that’s in the book we used to help you and your grandfather, right?”

  Eist paled at that, her stomach doing several acrobatic moves that she didn’t approve of. “Yeah. That book is supposed to be written by her.”

  “Well, probably not that specific book. It’s most likely a translation of a translation of a copy. But still. We have a book of spells from the very first magic user in all of our history.”

  The weight of that thought hung heavily on Eist and she let out a long breath. “How could I just find that in the library?”

  “Because you’re clearly descended from her.”

  “What?” Her voice was sharp as she reacted, but she couldn’t help it. The idea that she was somehow descended from some great and powerful enchantress was hard to swallow.

  “It says that all magic users are from her bloodline, and I don’t know what to call your vision and witch’s eye other than actual magic.”

  “No,” Eist objected stubbornly. “It’s not magic. It’s just…” She tried to find a word, any word, and all the while, Yacrist kept his eyes on her patiently. Finally, she gave up on finding the right word. “My parents weren’t witches or sorcerers, they were dragon riders.”

  “Maybe they were both.” Another sharp look from her. “Listen, your parents were near four hundred years old when they died, weren’t they? They lived through the great black dragon betrayal and countless wars. I’m just saying, maybe they had something helping them.”

  “You think that they hid their magic because of the laws?”

  Yacrist shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t even know. Maybe it manifested in ways that they didn’t realize, like extremely good luck, or healing better than anyone else. From what I’ve been reading, as magic grew more and more scarce, it drifted from humans being able to call on whatever energy that runs everything and more like being blessed with certain gifts.”

  “Gifts?” Eist repeated, memories welling up.

  “Yeah, like—”

  “I don’t need you to explain,” she quickly interrupted. “But I was told that my parents passed their gifts to me before they were taken. That was why I got so sick. Whatever had killed them tried to take me too. That was how I lost a lot of my hearing, and when my eye…did the thing.”

  “About that,” Yacrist murmured, trying to look at her sidelong like he did whenever he was trying not to look too invested. “Your hearing seems a lot better lately.”

  Eist shook her head emphatically. “No. There’s no change there. I’m just, uh, able to understand people’s lip movements better. Sometimes, even with their head turned a bit away, even from across the room, I can see what they’re saying clear as day.”

  “Interesting.”

  “That’s not the vision,” she grumbled moodily. “I’ve just been getting better at picking things up in large crowds.”

  “Of course. I’m sure you have.”

  “…you’re patronizing me.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. I am a bit. Look, I just don’t understand why you’re so resistant to all of this. Magic saved your grandfather’s life. It saved yours. Your best friend might also be a witch. You’ve had magic shoved right into your face, but you still seem to want to deny it.”

  “That’s because magic almost killed me!” She didn’t mean to snap, but once she did, the words just started pouring out of her. “You don’t understand what it was like when that woman was coming at me. She wasn’t human. There was something else in her, something dark and magic, and it wanted to tear me apart. It would have torn me apart if Fior hadn’t saved me.

  “I… I think it was the Blight inside of her. Somehow. Or maybe a tendril of it. The way she looked at me, it made me think that it’s somehow still alive and she was trying to bring it into our world. That she’d kill me for daring to stand in her way.”

  She didn’t mean to, but tears rose in her eyes, stinging at her lids. She hated that. She wasn’t weak, she didn’t need to cry, and yet that was exactly what she was doing. Even with her terrible hearing, she could tell that her voice was getting high and reedy. If she kept going, she’d hardly be able to hear herself.

  “Oh, Eist, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Suddenly she was pulled to his warm, muscled chest, his arms strong around her middle. It took her another moment to realize that he was hugging her, and Fior was anxiously pawing at her back.

  “I didn’t realize. I guess I should have thought about it.”

  “How could you have? I try to never talk about it.” She reached behind her to pat at Fior’s head, but she didn’t pull away from Yacrist. His embrace felt comforting, warm. For once, she wanted to be coddled.

  “Look, let’s give this a rest for the night. We’ve both got a lot on our plates tomorrow. I can keep it here, locked in my chest, if you like.”

  Eist let out a breath that she didn’t even know she was holding. “Yes. I think I would rest easier if it wasn’t in my room. I’m always afraid someone is going to find it.”

  “Don’t worry about it then
. I’ll take care of it.”

  Eist nodded but still didn’t pull away. “I don’t want to go.” The thought of walking down the halls that were lit far too brightly from her sight while still having the eerie silence of night was nauseating.

  “Then don’t,” he answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “But I can’t stay here, in your bed. It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Alright then.” He gently let go of her, and her body immediately missed his comfort. Without a look back at her, Yacrist got up and walked over to the other cot, waking Alynbach with several strong shakes. “Come on, boys, you guys can spend one night in the actual dragon bed my mother made for you.”

  They grunted, their eyes settling closed, but that quickly ended when Fior pounced on them, chattering what seemed like a whole lot of thoughts. The two heads groaned, and their body slithered off the cot, slinking over to a plush cushion that was nearly the size of Eist’s own mattress back in her own dorm.

  “Thanks, Fior,” Yacrist said with a grin before pushing the cot over until it was just a few inches from his own. “Behold, a bed that is not my own.”

  Eist felt herself flush from the sheer kindness of his act and clambered over to it. As she settled, Yacrist went over to one of his chests and pulled out what looked like a lush, soft blanket. He tossed it over to her before flopping back on his own cot.

  “There. Let’s settle in, shall we? No more magic talk until after exams.”

  “Thank you,” Eist murmured, laying on her own side.

  He extended his hand toward her, across the small gap between their cots, and Eist reached out, entwining her fingers in his.

  “You know I’m always here for you, right? No matter what I gotta do, I’m always going to make sure that you’re safe.”

  “Yeah,” Eist said, feeling her whole face flush as she answered. “I know.”