I thought about asking whether that included him, but the troubled look on Kira’s face made me hold my tongue.
“The hardest elements to combine are the two opposite ones,” Doran continued. “Fire and water make steam, while earth and air create sandstorms. We’ll work our way up to those. You can already do lightning, so we’ll skip that.”
“We want to learn to make lava,” Slade said. “Or at least be able to stop it.”
“A good choice. Probably the most deadly and destructive of the combined elements. Fine, you two can work together today, while Auric and Reven will make fog.”
“Fog?” Jasin asked. “How will that be useful?”
Doran crossed his arms. “Not everything is about striking your enemies down. Sometimes there are better ways of handling things. Fog can conceal and confuse. It can hide a huge group of soldiers on the battlefield. It can make it easier to escape from a bad situation. And when you get good enough, you can make clouds and cover the sky with them too.”
“It sounds perfect,” I said, thinking of all the possibilities. With both Reven and Jasin’s magic flowing through me, I could create entire storms on my own.
Reven and I moved closer to the forest, while Jasin and Slade headed for the edge of the river in case they had problems. But as I faced Reven, I began to have doubts this would work. I didn’t know him all that well yet, and his bond with Kira was new. Jasin and I had become close, despite our differences, and Slade and I had an easy understanding and friendship. But Reven? He was hard for all of us to get to know. Kira had often commented on how Reven pushed her away or locked her out, but it wasn’t only her that he kept at a distance. Combining our magic took a connection, and the man was a wall of ice that was nearly impossible to cross. Luckily, I knew how to fly.
“Fog would have been useful in your previous profession, I imagine,” I said.
Reven let out a soft grunt in response. “Those days are over.”
“Yes. I wanted to thank you again for what you did for my father. You didn’t have to do that.” Reven had taken the contract on my father’s life to make sure no one else did, even though it ended his career with the Assassin’s Guild forever.
“I wasn’t going to kill him,” Reven said, sending me a sharp look.
“No, of course not.” Damn, I was really bungling this one up. “I simply meant that I appreciated how you handled it, and the sacrifice it required of you.”
“It was time to move on from that life anyway.”
“And yet you went back to them to ask for their help. Was it a problem, since you failed to complete your last mission?”
He smirked. “It was, until I turned into a dragon in front of them and made it rain in the middle of the room.”
I grinned back at him. “I would have loved to have seen their faces.”
“All right,” Doran called out, interrupting us. “Try to reach for your partner’s magic through the bond. It might be difficult to find at first, but it’s there. Once you’ve found it, grab tight and let it loose with your own magic.”
I stared into Reven’s cold blue eyes, searching for him within the bond. Jasin was easy to find, like a bright spark jumping behind my eyes that grew stronger with my attention on him. Slade was harder to find, but when I focused on him, his steady, strong presence filled my mind. Creating a storm of sand or dust with him wouldn’t be too difficult, I imagined. But when I searched for Reven, I felt nothing.
“This isn’t working,” Reven said.
“It will. It took a long time for me and Jasin to figure it out, but we did eventually.”
“The two of you are close,” Reven said, his lip curling as if the idea bothered him. “But you and me? We have nothing in common.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” I tilted my head, studying him. “Jasin and Slade both let their emotions dominate them. With Jasin it’s obvious, but Slade is just as guilty of it, he just doesn’t react as passionately or as hastily. His emotions build up under the surface, until they can’t be contained anymore. But you and I—we think things through. We take our time. We research different options before we come to a decision. We both value knowledge above most other things. Our lives have been completely different, but we’re more alike than you think.”
“I suppose,” Reven said. “Although you value knowledge for the sake of having it. I value what it can do for me. It’s a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.”
“True, but we still prefer to trust our minds more than our hearts, which can make it difficult for us to open up to people or can lead us to make bad decisions. I made mistakes with Kira that I now regret. I kept secrets from her about who I was, because my mind told me it was the best thing to do at the time. Maybe if I’d listened to my heart, things would have been easier.”
Reven was silent, staring at the river’s flowing water. Behind us, Jasin let out a shout as he and Slade made the ground rip apart and lava shoot from the cracks, while Kira and Doran applauded.
“Maybe you’re right,” Reven finally said. “I locked away my heart for so many years I’d convinced myself I didn’t have one anymore. Kira forced me to realize I was wrong about that.”
I chuckled softly. “She has a way of making us confront the things about ourselves we would like to ignore. Annoying, isn’t it?”
“Very.” Reven let out a long breath. He glanced over at Jasin and Slade, the star pupils of today’s training session, as they made lava spurt into the air. “We can’t let them show us up. How do we do this?”
“Jasin and I found it easier if we were holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. Maybe that would help?” I stretched out my hands toward him, palms up.
Reven rolled his eyes and grabbed my hands. “Fine.”
His skin was cool against mine, and his eyes were the pale blue of the early morning sky. When I searched for him through the bond this time, I found a small, cold ripple. I grasped onto it, pulling it toward me, unwilling to let go, and the ripple became a wave, growing stronger the more I tugged at it. Now that I knew what he felt like in my mind, I was certain I could find him again, and it would be easier next time.
When Reven’s breathing suddenly changed and his eyes widened, I knew he’d found me through the bond too. His fingers tightened around mine and something passed between us. The air around us began to grow murky. Fog rolled off the water, creeping around the forest, becoming thicker with each passing second. Soon, I couldn’t see anything except Reven. The rest of the world had been cut off, hidden away by the magic we’d created. I saw the wonder in his eyes as he took it in, and then we grinned at each other. Somehow, I didn’t think we’d have a problem connecting anymore.
29
Kira
Over the next week we trained harder than we ever had before. We faced each other in teams and one on one. We fought with our weapons, with our magic alone, or—for the men—in their dragon forms. Doran barked out orders the entire time, pushing us to fight harder, to keep going, to never back down. He gave us tips on the other Dragons’ weaknesses and showed us how to use our powers together to defeat them. We learned more from him than we had in the entire few months we’d known each other.
And I worried it still wouldn’t be enough.
Every night, we returned to our rooms in the inn, exhausted, beaten, bloody, and burnt. My men and I had no energy for lovemaking—we simply curled up in bed together, all five of us holding each other tenderly, and my touch healed my mates while we slept. Our bonds grew stronger, and with it, our magic.
The other Dragons had hundreds of years on us. We would never be as strong or as experienced as them. But we had something they’d lost over the years—love.
The days rushed by, and soon it was time for another bittersweet goodbye as we said farewell to Slade’s family and the town that had sheltered us not once, but twice. We packed our things, hugged everyone tightly, and then prepared to take off—and that’s when I noticed we were one person s
hort.
“Where’s Doran?” I asked, as I glanced about.
Slade frowned. “It’s not like him to run late.”
“I saw him fly away last night,” Leni said. “I assumed you knew, so I didn’t mention it.”
I took a step back as my knees nearly gave out on me. The world spun around me, and I felt like I might actually throw up. “He left?”
“Oh Gods,” Auric said, his eyes wide. “Doran had the map with all the battle plans. If he took that with him…”
Jasin swore under his breath. “That bastard. I knew he’d betray us!”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Brin said, though her voice wasn’t very convincing. She rested a sympathetic hand on my back. “There must be some explanation.”
“Yes, exactly.” I clung to her words, desperate to hold onto hope. I refused to believe my father would betray us, after everything he’d done. “He told me to remember he’s on my side. Maybe he’s not really betraying us but trying to help us in some way.”
Slade wrapped a strong arm around me. “I know you want to believe that, but it doesn’t seem likely. If he was helping us, he would have told us his plan, not sneak off in the middle off the night.”
“The Water God warned us about this,” Reven said. “He said Doran would turn against us because he would never be willing to give up the power and his own life.”
“But why would he help us all this time only to betray us?” I asked.
“Because he wanted us to trust him!” Jasin growled. “Now he’s run back to Nysa and he knows all our weaknesses and our plans.”
“We’ll have to completely redo our strategy,” Auric said, his brow furrowed. “If that is even possible.”
Jasin’s eyes flashed with anger. “We can adjust some things, but he’ll be able to anticipate which ones. We’re doomed. We might as well call this all off now.”
“We can’t call it off,” Brin said. “We’ll just have to do the best we can.”
I stared at my mates, feeling their rage and frustration through the bond, and knew they were right. My father really had betrayed us. Everything he’d told me was a lie. All this time he’d been working for Nysa, acting as her scout and her spy, like he always did. And we’d played right into his hand, doing everything he asked, falling for all of his lies. In the end, he was as corrupted as she was, and there was no redemption for him.
I clenched my hand around my sword, feeling the magic within it. “We’re going to continue with our plans. And when we come face to face with the Dragons, we’ll destroy them.” My voice hardened into steel. “All of them.”
We set off for the Spirit Temple, which was in the middle of a large plain just south of Soulspire. We’d advised all our allies to meet us in a valley east of there on the day of the Fall Equinox. It would take us a few days to get there, and it never escaped my mind that Doran was hours ahead of us with all of our plans. My mates pushed themselves hard, flying as fast and as long as they could, and every night they were completely exhausted.
On the last night before we expected to arrive, I tossed and turned beside my men, unable to sleep. All I could think about was facing my father, and what I would have to do to stop him. Eventually I stood and walked away, hoping the quiet forest would bring me some peace.
I found Enva sitting on a large rock nearby, like she’d been waiting for me for hours.
“Hello, Kira. Come sit beside me.”
I leaned against the stone, gazing across the dark forest and listening to the quiet sounds of night. “Did Doran really betray us?”
“It seems that way. He’s heading to Soulspire now with your battle plans. I’m sorry.”
I covered my face with my hands as I tried to gain control over my emotions. “I can’t trust my mother. I can’t trust my father. I’m not even sure I can trust you. The only people I can count on are my mates.”
“Yes, as it should be.” She patted my arm softly. “Doran had to return to Nysa. He is bound by magic to be loyal to her. He might have been able to resist it for some time, but when she calls him through the bond, it’s difficult to ignore.”
“Does he even care for me at all?”
“Yes, I’m sure he does. He did save your life as a baby, and he has watched over you your whole life, much as I have. But he has been bound to Nysa for nearly a thousand years. Their lives are entwined. It’s difficult for him to fight against her, even for you.”
“I feel so stupid. Everyone warned me not to trust him, but I wanted to believe in him.”
“You’re not stupid. You wanted a father. There is nothing wrong with that.”
“There is when he now has all of your secrets and can turn them against you.”
“Don’t give up hope.” She smoothed my head softly, the touch so nurturing it surprised me. “You and your mates were chosen by the Gods to protect this world. I have faith that you’ll succeed.”
I leaned against her body, which looked frail but was surprisingly sturdy, especially considering she was a ghost. “I wish I didn’t have to kill my parents,” I whispered, giving voice to the thing I’d kept inside so long and was afraid to admit.
“I know. I wish the same thing.” She sighed and continued stroking my hair. “It’s a terrible situation the Gods have placed us in, but there’s no other way. If it makes you feel better, I believe by ending my daughter’s life, you will be freeing her. She wasn’t always like this. She was brave, and kind, and passionate. Sometimes a little too confident, arrogant, and reckless, but she took after her father, my Fire Dragon. Like him, she would do anything to protect other people, which is why she imprisoned the Spirit Goddess inside herself. Now she’s become corrupted and I don’t recognize her anymore, but I know my daughter is in there somewhere, screaming for all of this to end.” She took my face in her hands gently. “Deep down, Nysa wants you to win too. I truly believe this.”
I nodded slowly and she wiped away a stray tear I couldn’t hold back. “I’ll do my best to free her.”
She wrapped her arms around me. “I know you will. You’re the only one who can.”
With those words, she vanished.
I sat there for some time, listening to the sounds of forest, thinking about Enva’s words. I didn’t know if she was right about my parents or not. The more I learned about myself and the world, the less I truly knew for certain. All I could do was listen to my gut and hope it led me down the right path in the days to come.
A branch snapped behind me, and I sensed Jasin approaching. His strong arms slid around me, and I relaxed against him. He said nothing, simply held me close, letting me draw upon his strength until I was ready to talk.
“Now I know how you felt when your father betrayed us,” I said.
“It’s a terrible feeling, isn’t it?” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “It’s horrible enough when your parents believe in something you know is wrong, and no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, they won’t be persuaded to see your side. When they turn against you for those same beliefs, it’s like a dagger in the heart.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “You were right about Doran all along. I should have listened to you.”
“I wish I’d been wrong. Gods know I’d do anything to save you from going through this and from suffering the same hurt that I did.” He smoothed my hair away from my face and gazed into my eyes. “But we’re not defined by what our parents do. We make our own choices, and we can choose to make better decisions than them. Or we can try, at least.”
I turned in his arms and pressed a kiss to his lips. “When did you become so wise?”
“I’m spending too much time with Auric obviously.”
I snuggled up against him. “I like that the two of you are close.”
“We’re a family, all five of us—thanks to you. You brought us together, and you made us work out our differences and fight for a common goal. You made each of us want to be better people. And no matter what happen
s, none of us will ever betray each other. Or you.”
The truth of his words flowed through our bond. My adopted parents were long gone, my birth parents were my enemies, but my mates…they were forever.
30
Kira
As my dragons soared over the peaks of the mountains, the valley beyond it came into view, and with it, our army. It was the day of the Fall Equinox, and hundreds of men and women had come to fight for our cause. I was honored by their bravery and their belief in us, but also felt the heavy weight of their lives hanging over my head. I was responsible for all of them and would mourn every life lost in my name.
On the eastern side, Onyx Army soldiers were assembled, their scaled black armor decorated with the yellow markings on their shoulders that meant they were from the Air Realm. Mixed in with them were others in golden armor with the symbol of House Killian on their chest, representing the royal guard. The King had truly come through for us, and by sending his troops he was showing the world he stood with us against the Dragons. If we failed today, it would likely mean the end of his reign.
To the west, a more ragtag group of men and women had gathered, which I assumed was a combination of the Resistance, the Assassin’s Guild, and Cadock’s people. They wore common clothes and whatever armor and weapons they possessed. Some were bandits. Some were farmers. Some were assassins. Many were seasoned fighters, but many more were not. Yet they were all here, willing to fight for what they believed in. I prayed we weren’t sending them all to their deaths.
In the center, large tents had been set up, and that’s where we headed. Faces looked up at us and cheered or simply stared in awe as my four dragons flew overhead. As we descended, I heard shouts about the ascendants and cheers for the Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and Citrine Dragons. The men might not love the names, but as Brin had said, they’d already stuck.
Her Elemental Dragons: The Complete Series Page 59
