Blood and Ashes

by N M Zoltack

  Not only that, but his one burning question had never been answered.

  Had any of the dragons ventured south to Vincana? Did his homeland burn?

  Perhaps they could kill the beast, Tenoch and Vincana together, and then, the two continents could separate. It could be as it had been before King Jankin declared himself the ruler of all of Dragoona. Then, he would not have to marry Rosalynne after all.

  It was not that he did not care for the woman. She seemed a good enough woman and a decent person, who strove to do what she thought was best, but Marcellus did not love her.

  No, if he loved anyone, it would be…

  He coughed and cleared his throat, realizing that as he had been lost in his thoughts, many had gathered and were waiting on his word.

  With a flick of his wrist, he motioned for them to follow, and he started to march. He was not going to tell any of them about his plan to free—

  His unnecessary plan.

  From behind a tree, the woman he sought to rescue stepped. Her eyes were wide, her face a bit pale where the shadows did not touch her.

  “A moment,” Marcellus ordered, and Flavius held up his hands to stop the warriors.

  The prince forced himself to walk over to her instead of with great haste.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her. “Uninjured?”

  “I wish to ask that of you.”

  “Any injuries I have sustained are manageable,” he said with a wry smile. “I—”

  “Not all injuries are physical,” she returned, for the first time meeting his gaze.

  And in her dark blue eyes, he saw the truth.

  Somehow, she knew.

  She knew what he had done.

  Vivian placed a hand on his shoulder. Perhaps she shouldn’t. While the others could not overhear their hushed tones, they were clearly visible, but she did not seem to care.

  He moved to place his hand on hers, but she lowered her arm too quickly.

  “We all must do what we must,” she said, her gaze shifting in the direction of the fatal battle between himself and his father.

  Marcellus winced. “War can come against one on all fronts.”

  “Indeed.” She pointed to where the dragon had submerged. “Who was the one to slay the dragon?”

  “It was all of us,” Marcellus said. “It wasn’t one stab, one thrust, one blow. We used the ship to injure the dragon, to submerge him, but he tried to crawl to the surface anyhow. He couldn’t get his wings up, couldn’t get above the water, and drowned.” He lifted his eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

  “I was… Have you heard of the Lord of Light and Darkness?”

  Marcellus stroked his chin. His scruff was starting to grow in. “I’m not certain if I am familiar with that title, no.”

  "He was the one who orchestrated the deaths of the dragons such that all three of them… slumbered? Were dead for a millennium? If they even were dead," she mumbled.

  “You think there is another—”

  “No. There will be a Lady of Light and Darkness, but whether she will help the world or condemn it as the lord had, that was not foreseen.”

  “And you do not have any notion who she might be?”

  Vivian fell silent, and Marcellus could not help but wonder if perhaps Horatia or Valeria Bellius or one of the other Valkyries might just obtain that title one day.

  “Where had you been heading?” Vivian asked.

  Marcellus rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled ruefully. “Um, forgive me…”

  “Do not tell me. You thought I would need to be rescued. Oh, my dear man, no. No, my days of needing to be rescued are long over.”

  “So you had been rescued once?”

  “Rescued… Kidnapped…”

  “Kidnapped?”

  “Well, not with Ulric.”

  “Ulric,” he repeated a bit sullenly.

  “You do not know all of my tale, do you? Tend to your dead, and then you and I…” She trailed off, her gaze once again headed toward his father’s above-ground resting place.

  Marcellus winced. “You do not have to call me by a title, Vivian.”

  She brushed some of her long hair back and then gathered it at the nape of her neck and used a leather thong to tie it back. “You and I, Marcellus, shall go to Atlan Castle, and we can see if the marriage can still take place. The people need stability and unity now more than ever.”

  “Indeed it does,” he agreed readily.

  And his mind was ready, eager even, but his heart, his heart was so much less so.

  7

  Rase Ainsley

  The street rat would never forget the look of disgust and misgivings on his older sister’s face. Leanne Ainsley was all he had left, but she found him lacking, thought him a terrible person, didn’t understand him at all.

  All Rase Ainsley had ever done was try to make her happy and to give her the world. They had so very little growing up, and then their pa had been murdered, and life had just gone from worse to worst in the blink of an eye. Rase resorted to whatever means he had to in order to feed himself and Leanne and their ma and even Leanne’s friend Maxene Byron.

  But Maxene died giving birth to her baby.

  Her baby died too.

  Rase’s ma had been killed by Rase’s enemies.

  Yes, Rase had enemies. He tried to make allies, but all he ended up doing was helping people so they would help him back, or else he was using secrets and blackmailing people into doing his bidding.

  Leanne had been attacked because of his enemies.

  Death had come for most everyone Rase had ever cared for, but that would not be the case for his sister. Not anymore. Rase would do anything and everything in his power and then some in order to assure she lived the life she chose for herself, whether she married or not. He would support her in any and all manners and fashions. No longer would he push for her to wed merely so he could be certain she would be taken care of once he died, for he was fairly certain he would be the one to die first, given how violent and perilous his life had become.

  For a time, Rase lost Leanne. Physically but also emotionally. Mentally. Something like that. She had been so afraid, not talking, unwilling to leave the house he had acquired for them.

  But then the dragons seemed to have touched her somehow. She had magic, and she could heal people.

  Somehow along the way, his older sister had become so much stronger than he was.

  She was in the castle still, healing those wounded from the attack by the Vincanans, but Rase had left. He was going to prove her wrong. He would right some of the wrongs he had committed. The world could be a better place because he was in it, couldn’t it? Surely the Fates weren’t so cruel as to have had him been born and suffer through so much only to have a knife in the back before he reached fifteen.

  The issue was that a lot of people who Rase had wronged had turned on him, and Rase had done what needed to be done. He sought revenge against those who had hurt Maxene and his ma and Leanne. As for the man who had murdered his pa, well, the man wasn’t ever to set foot again in Atlan.

  Atlan. The city was a disgrace, almost in ruins. So many had fled the site, which also would make things harder for Rase, but he would not make excuses.

  One person he knew could not have left the city was the blacksmith. Sure enough, the man was hard at work, toiling away, hammering a red-hot blade.

  Rase cleared his throat.

  The blacksmith glanced over, ignored Rase for only as long as it took for him to realize who he was, and then shook his hammer at the street rat. “You aren’t wanted—”

  “I need to know how I can repay you,” Rase blurted out. “Please. Tell me what I can do for you?”

  “You? Do for me?” The blacksmith laughed and laughed and returned to work.

  “There must be something I can do,” Rase insisted.

  For a good twenty minutes, Rase hounded the blacksmith to no avail. Eventually, the blacksmith stepped toward him with the hammer raised hig
h, and Rase darted away.

  Maybe he could find someone else to help, but he would need to be careful, or else the one who would need assistance would be himself.

  8

  Advisor Aldus Perez

  The former champion stood straight and tall in his cell. The moment Aldus stepped up to the bars, the lit torches on the opposite wall cast shadows on Bjorn’s face, rendering him almost a dark, mysterious blob of a man.

  “Why did you return to Atlan Castle?” Aldus asked easily.

  The man said nothing, as stoic as could be, yet now that Aldus had stepped forward, he could see the signs of battle on the man. Bjorn had fought in the battle, at least somewhat, or perhaps his injuries had occurred after the fighting had finished and once he had been captured.

  “The queen made it quite clear what would happen if you were to return, did she not?” Aldus asked.

  All this time, Bjorn had been staring straight ahead, through Aldus. Now, he shifted to meet the advisor’s gaze.

  Aldus inhaled sharply and clasped his hands behind his back. He had not been present when the queen had banished Bjorn from the city, but everyone knew the man was not to return. It was indeed possible that the queen had never once uttered the punishment that would befall Bjorn should he come back. Mayhap the queen had been naïve enough to believe her word would be enough to keep him away.

  “You risked your life,” Aldus continued, “and for what?”

  Bjorn remained stiff and immobile.

  Aldus’s thoughts raced. There was one he sought more than any other, that of the elusive and some might even think mythical Li princess.

  But Aldus’s magic had alerted him to her existence. Even more so, he had seen a vision of her face.

  And a royal painter had drawn that face.

  Aldus turned about, secured one of the lit torches from its post on the wall, and crossed back over to Bjorn. From within his surcoat, Aldus removed the drawing and managed to unroll it with a flick of his wrist.

  “Do you know who she is?” Aldus demanded.

  Bjorn’s gaze slowly shifted to the parchment. The man blinked once before facing forward again.

  That blink… had it been because he did recognize her? Or had it merely been a coincidence? The man was not blinking as often as most.

  With a scowl, Aldus decided to press further. “She is someone of great importance, and I think you know exactly who she is and where she is.”

  Bjorn said nothing at all.

  “She is the daughter of Yijun and Melitta Li,” Aldus says. “She is the Li princess. Some have been whispering about her lately. Are you the reason why those whispers started in the first place? Have you turned your back on your queen, Queen Rosalynne, to throw in with a princess with no crown, no people, no army, nothing at all? What precisely does this Li princess think is here for her?”

  Bjorn crossed his arms.

  A statue. The man was a statue or else a tree, so stiff and hardly moving was he. His lips never parted, and he had yet to say a word.

  But that was all right. Sometimes silence could be rather telling indeed.

  “You sought to marry Rosalynne,” Aldus continued. “She, in turn, banished you. I thought her decree a bit harsh, but she had not consulted me. Women can be a bit… emotional. But she was right to not agree to marry you because you have gone ahead and asked the Li princess for her hand, haven’t you? Or do you plan to once you’ve helped her secure the throne? Are you working with Prince Marcellus somehow? Is that why you were at the castle? Were you using him to try to assassinate the queen? Maybe take out the prince at the same time. And the king. We can’t forget that King Antonius had been spotted during the attack.”

  There were times when Aldus opted to be silent. Most people would not be able to stand the stillness and would fill the quiet with their voices. The stoic Bjorn would have been perfectly content to stay there without saying a word.

  It was a gamble for the advisor to ask all of those questions, but with Bjorn, Aldus had to read his facial expressions, look for any twitches or flinches, anything at all that might be telling.

  But the man merely refused to react at all.

  Frustration had Aldus snapping his fingers. A prison guard approached.

  “Do whatever you have to do to loosen his tongue,” Aldus spat out. “Beat him. Torture him. Anything at all. I want him squealing like a boar.”

  “Y-Yes,” the guard mumbled, almost bowing with his head as he nodded.

  If Bjorn wouldn’t talk to Aldus, then he would not speak at all.

  9

  Olympia Li

  The vicar lumbered along on the horse. Why he acted as if his back was all stooped like that, she did not know. She walked beside the horse, the animal a mare who seemed to be incapable of moving any faster than her lackluster pace.

  She pulled a hood over her head the moment the castle walls came into view, and the sight of the guards milling about and the frenzied activity caused her heart to leap into her throat.

  “What happened?” she murmured, not expecting the vicar to know the answer.

  “An attack, I believe.”

  “The Vincanans assaulted the castle?”

  “It appears so.”

  Olympia scowled and shook her head. “And the point of that is what precisely? By the Fates, I do not understand why the two sides are still at odds with each other.”

  “You believe they should be one and the same? United? Against the dragons perhaps?” the vicar asked as they passed by unmolested by the guards still rushing about.

  She lowered her head, hoping none would get a close look at her face. To think that at one time, she had hoped to be hired as a scullery maid to work in the kitchens in an attempt to locate her brother. Bjorn had been right to tell her the plan was foolish, despite how much she had been agitated to hear his opinion at the time.

  Without him, she felt a bit lost. Not because she needed him or anyone else, but to have an ally, a friend, someone she could rely on.

  Oh, how far she had come in her opinion of the man from Maloyan. At first, she merely wished to use him as a guide to Atlan as he had made the trek from his city to the capital previously. Now, he knew her secret.

  And he had been in the castle during the—

  Unable to help herself, she grabbed the arm of a guard walking by. “The Vincanans attacked?” she murmured without looking up.

  “Are you daft? Oh, you were with the… Apologies, my lady, vicar. I did not mean... Yes, the Vincanans attacked, but they were repelled. The fools were beaten off and fled like the cowards they are.”

  “The queen?” the vicar asked.

  “Alive and well, as far as I know,” the guard said. “There is no threat any longer, but would you like for me to accompany—”

  “No, no. My…” Aldwin Lehr shakily reached out and placed a gnarled-fingered hand onto Olympia’s shoulder. “My magian-in-training will assist me.”

  The guard nodded and hurried off as if he had been interrupted from a most important endeavor.

  “Magian?” Olympia murmured once the guard had departed from hearing range. “I am not familiar with that term.”

  “At one time, vicars were not the only ones to be engaged with the Fates and bringing out the people’s faiths. Magians worked alongside them.”

  “Were all magians females?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are there no more?”

  “When the dragons three died, the anarchy and rage and war and constant fighting caused many to fall away from the faith. Many of the magians turned to become alchemists…”

  Olympia shuddered. How unfortunate. Female alchemists were cursed, and all of them met horrible ends caused by their ambitions and greed. How any woman still wished to be one as if they could be the one to avoid the curse eluded her.

  “Are there female alchemists?” she asked.

  The vicar said nothing, perhaps because they had reached the stable. He made a show of struggling to get down,
and she helped him. A stable hand came over to take the horse, and she rushed to adjust her hood that had fallen when Aldwin came down.

  He leaned heavily against her. "Yes, there is more, at least one that I know of."

  Olympia said nothing at all, her stomach roiling. How could she judge the female alchemists when she herself was ambitious to a certain degree? And yet, now that she was going to her twin, the throne was a dream she almost had forgotten about.

  “Do not worry,” Aldwin murmured. “We will not go in through the main entrance.”

  “Good,” she said.

  He brought her around to a stone wall. Although she saw no visible outline, he touched a certain spot, and a crack appeared. He shoved his shoulder into the area, and the door pushed in.

  The secret door opened to a stairwell that descended all the way to the dungeon, and Olympia’s heart pounded so swiftly she could scarcely breathe. Perhaps her twin was a guard.

  Aldwin lumbered along, shifting away from her, and he briefly halted before a cell for some reason before continuing on.

  Olympia glanced into that particular cell and paused. A man was crumpled up on the floor, and she inched closer. There was something familiar about him…

  Bjorn. He had been badly beaten, to the point of unconsciousness.

  "Oh, Bjorn," she whispered. "Bjorn, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault, but don't worry. I promise to return. I'll come back for you. Be strong."

  “We should not dawdle,” the vicar called, his voice low.

  “I am coming,” Olympia said, but she gripped the bar, wishing Bjorn’s body was closer so that she could reach through the gap and touch him, brush back his hair, maybe wake him so that she could give him hope.

  Fate of Life, Fate of Peace, watch over Bjorn for me if you will. Keep him safe, and give him hope. Let him know I will come for him. For once, I can save him.

  “Now,” the vicar hissed.