A Kingdom Scorched

by Linn Tesli

  Everine had known it would happen, though she wasn’t pleased to have to deal with this request so soon. She could understand why Sol wanted Berg to come to Bermunnos but there was so much to mend between them, and Everine had made her decision.

  ”You can tell her that I’m staying in Êvina. It’s my home now, as it once was.”

  ”I did. Still, Sol insists.”

  “"I’m not going back, old friend. At least not any time soon. It’s decided.”

  Ondox stepped closer and lowered his voice. ”I understand your decision, but I must warn you. Sol is in a bad place. She has lost everything. She rules alone now, and you risk making an enemy of her. Moreover, being an enemy of Sol equals being an enemy of Bermunnos. As long as Bermunnos is nest to the gryphons, we are obliged to side with the Earthlings if it comes to that.”

  Side? There should not have to be a reason to pick a side. They had fought for the same goals, had they not? ”I’m sorry. I don’t wish to put you in a difficult position, but I want to stay with both of my children. I can’t choose one over the other. Tell Sol I’m sorry too, and that she’s more than welcome to visit us whenever convenient. Ayva says Bermunnos can keep their neutrality if they wish it. I still want us to be friends.”

  ”Understood. I’ll deliver your response, though I fear the outcome.”

  Ayva allowed Berg to crawl over to Ondox. The boy rubbed himself against the gryphon’s downcast wing while pulling at the fur on his front leg. Ondox bowed his head, nudging the boy with his beak. Berg’s eyes widened before he placed his hands on the gryphon’s brow and leaned his head closer.

  “You look like your father,” Ondox laughed. “How strange it is.” The two of them stared at each other as Ayva stood.

  ”Will you stay for a while?” she asked.

  Ondox lifted his head again, and Berg rolled onto his back against the gryphon’s paw.

  ”No, I ought to be headed back straight away. There are strange currents in the air, and I would not want to encounter a dragon on my own.”

  “You’ve sensed them, too?”

  ”The beat of something so large in the air is hard to ignore,” Ondox said. ”I hope to see you all soon, in any case. Take good care of that pup, Ev. It seems you have a knack for fostering peculiar children.” He winked at her again as though he knew something she didn’t.

  As Ondox took to the sky, Everine looked at her daughter. ”Could you give him to me?”

  Ayva lifted Berg away from the flowers he was nibbling on and carried him back to Everine.

  She inspected her son’s face. No one could know about his powers, if he had any. She had to protect him and, right now, Êvina seemed the best place to do so. She lifted her head to meet Ayva’s probing gaze. Everine’s shoulders slumped. They had given each other a promise not to keep any more secrets. She sighed and let her mind’s guard fall to allow Ayva to see what she thought Berg had done. If it were anything more than Everine’s imagination, Ayva would see the truth. Perhaps she could help.

  The blue in Ayva’s eyes shifted, and images from Berg’s short life swept across her irises. It was as spectacular to behold as ever. There was a time when the visions had frightened Everine. She had to learn to accept Ayva’s powers as part of who she was, and she had turned into someone Everine had never imagined—robust, powerful and compassionate. Was it not for Birken, who knows if either of them would have seen this day?

  Ayva folded a hand over her brother’s head as the visions disappeared. ”I don’t know what he did, but we tell no one until we know more. Not even Gaija. I don’t trust her with such a secret.”

  Everine nodded, and Ayva embraced her, the boy stuck in the middle. Everine swallowed back the fear that had been rising in her gut. She had spent her entire adult life worrying about her loved ones. For a brief time after Ayva’s ascension to the throne, Everine had felt unusually blissful. Perhaps that was all the happiness she had deserved, and now came the time to pay penance for all the pain she had caused. She would pay the price if she had to, but that didn’t mean her children should pay too.

  7

  LEGACY

  - Ayva -

  Another scroll had proven useless. Ayva put the scroll back on the shelf marked ‘Sonûdor, History.’ She lifted Berg away from a heap of scrolls he had been rolling around in before he was able to rip them beyond repair. She offered him a candlestick instead, and the boy crawled underneath the marble desk where Everine sat.

  They had searched for days in the Great Library, yet nothing. There were hundreds of thousands of scrolls, however, and there was bound to be something of importance somewhere. It was just a matter of finding it. She glanced at the surrounding bookcases. Six aisles of bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling, covering the walls from one end to the other. It could take some time.

  Everine looked up from one of the many scrolls on the marble desk while Berg crawled under her skirt only to reappear on the other side.

  ”I think I found something.”

  Ayva walked over to her mother. The glint in her eye was coated with concern.

  ”We know that some Earthlings have powers of witchcraft,” Everine said.

  ”Most of the peoples of Aradria usually have one every hundredth generation or so. Why?”

  ”Well, we also know that the old Queen of Earth was an Earthling. This…” Everine waved a parchment in the air. “This has information on her bloodline. Perhaps there’s something here to help us?”

  That was unlikely. ”What does Georganna have to do with Berg? Other than being of the same kind? She died over two hundred years ago.”

  The boy lifted his head at the mention of his name, then rolled on his back to play with his toes.

  ”I’m reaching, I know.” Everine sighed. ”But it says here that Georganna had a sister, a witch sister. If Berg has any powers, it could be that he has a witch in his bloodline.”

  Ayva lay a hand on her mother’s shoulder. ”That was so long ago.”

  ”How many Earthling witches do you know of?” Everine asked.

  There was only one. The one who now sat as the sole ruler inside Bermunnos Mountain.

  Everine smoothed out the parchment. ”They must be related. Every hundredth year a witch is born to every magical bloodline…”

  ”It makes sense, seeing as there is only the one that we know of. Though I guess there should be at least one other since Georganna’s passing. But I still don’t know how this has anything to do with my brother.” Ayva stepped away from her mother, searching the endless amounts of scrolls for something more current. Everine was reaching too far back in history, wasn’t she? She had suffered so much as Ayva’s guardian, given up on everything to protect her sister’s child, while always placing her own needs second. And now she might be forced to do everything all over again. Ayva shook her head. She had lost much as well. Protecting her family was as important to her as it was to Everine. However, neither of them could protect Berg if they didn’t learn what he was. They had to treat all the information like it was valuable. Every breadcrumb could lead to an answer.

  ”Keep looking,” Ayva said.

  ”Perhaps we should ask Gaija after all?”

  They had been over this. No one could know. Especially not the wild elf shaman. It was a fair chance that Gaija knew something they didn’t and any information she had might prove valuable, but there seemed always to be some other hidden agenda to what the shaman chose to say or do. She had hidden the truth about Ayva, and even Archenon. Also, now it turned out she had been hiding more from them than they realized. Ayva wondered what it was Gaija knew about the dragons. The news of a dragon’s return was cause for concern. However, there was so much to be concerned about. The lands had to be rebuilt. They still needed to recover from the recent battles. Their relationship with Bermunnos was weakened, and there were still battles to come. In the middle of it all, Ayva was forced to consider what her brother was and what that meant—for all of them. No, they had to keep Gaija
in the dark. At least for a while.

  ”Ayva...” Everine’s voice was a whisper in the room.

  “Yes?”

  Everine picked up Berg, nestling him in her arms. ”It says here that Georganna’s sister... her name was Sol.”

  Sol? As in their Sol? That would make her possibly as old as Gaija, or even older. Was that even possible?

  “It can’t be?”

  “It could be a coincidence, but I have come to believe that coincidences are rare. It might be that Sol has deceived us. If she’s truly Georganna’s sister, then she knows more than she has told us.”

  Ayva was less than happy about being kept in the dark. She was High Queen. If those around her would not share their secrets, how then could she rule the way her people needed?

  “If! Either way, we need to find out. What more does that say?”

  Everine closed her eyes briefly, took the scroll from Berg’s grasp and rolled it in on itself. ”Nothing. It stops with news on an uproar. We already know how that went.”

  ”There has to be more.”

  Everine let Berg crawl off again, then placed the scroll back onto the shelf it had come from, tracing the other scrolls with her fingers.

  “There’s nothing for over two hundred years.”

  “Nothing of what?” a voice sounded from somewhere on the walls. Ayva turned around until her eyes settled on the single painting in the room, a depiction of the Mother Tree. Rhastoc was dangling on the frame by his hind feet.

  “You need to stop sneaking up on people,” Ayva said.

  The enlarged squirrel banged a nutshell against the frame with no luck of opening the shell, then swung himself out into the room, made a turn in the air and landed with ease on the marble floor. He scurried forward, eventually climbing onto the desk and settling in front of Everine.

  Berg turned his head at the sight of the squirrel and Ayva carried him closer to allow him to meet Rhastoc properly.

  “Such an ordinary woman… and such an extraordinary child,” Rhastoc mumbled.

  “Do I know you? I feel like I do?” Everine asked.

  “Rhastoc is the name, milady. I’ve been around.”

  Ayva touched the squirrel lightly on his head and held her palm out. Rhastoc hesitated, then gave her the nutshell. She placed it on the desk, grabbed the bottle of ink and hit the shell with it. The shell cracked, exposing the acorn inside. Berg poked Rhastoc in his stomach and giggled. The squirrel gave him a lopsided smile, then pinned his claws around the acorn and flicked it into his mouth, to Berg’s great delight.

  “Now,” Ayva said, “why are you here?”

  “Oh, that.” Rhastoc chewed away at the last bits of the acorn, not missing a crumb. “Well, I have some news. Some good, some less, at that.”

  Everine was glowering at the squirrel, in high contrast to Berg’s toothless smile. Ayva wasn’t sure if Everine had ever officially met the squirrel, though Rhastoc was known to pop up in the most unusual places. He might have lurked around Bermunnos from time to time for all she knew.

  “Are you going to share or not?” Everine asked.

  Rhastoc cocked his head this way and that. “You never did have much patience. Very well. First, Sonûdor is waiting for their queen. Everything is ready for the coronation. They want to know if she’ll be leaving the white city soon.”

  “Tell them that she’s planning to leave soon. We have only been waiting for the airspace to calm and Zadewi has agreed to escort her when it does. The scouts tell me that the Vulkan eagles seem to have retreated either to the Vulkan wastelands or Caradrea for now, so I believe she’ll be able to travel very soon, though there are a couple of matters to attend to first.”

  Rhastoc blinked and waved his small arms in arching waves, as though they were wings. “Good. As long as they fly north before the next full moon, the sky should be safe enough.”

  “I guess you’ve heard about the dragon?” Ayva asked.

  “I hear many things, which is why I also have another piece of information to share.” The squirrel’s gaze shifted between the women. “Would the Prince of Fire happen to be around?”

  “Prince of Fire?” Everine asked.

  “It’s what the wild elves are calling him now. And Hadeth knows it.” The squirrel lowered his squeaky voice. “He has put a bounty on Kenith’s head. If he returns to Lycobris, there’s no shortage of those who will try to catch him. The bounty says nothing of whether he is to be alive or not upon delivery.”

  Ayva’s mouth dropped. That was awful. They all knew that Kenith had to return at some point, and now the people he was to rule were the same people who might want to take his life. Kenith might be a Lycobrian, but his past already tainted his experience with other Lycobrians.

  Rhastoc stuck a claw between his front teeth, digging out a leftover from the acorn, then licked it off. “I’ll see you around, ladies. My Queen. Boy.” He somersaulted back off the table.

  Berg frowned as Ayva put him back down yet again. He crawled after the squirrel, who was bouncing away from him.

  The squirrel stopped midair. No, he froze, suspended an arm-length off the floor.

  Ayva gasped.

  Everine was frozen still, too. Berg, however, rolled underneath the squirrel, giggling. The boy reached out and stroked a hand on the squirrel’s stomach.

  “Berg,” Ayva said sternly.

  The boy rolled to his bottom, tilting his head at Ayva.

  “You can’t… whatever it is you did.” She knelt next to her brother. “Did you not want him to leave?”

  Berg shook his head.

  “I understand. It’s a special gift you have, but you can’t keep him. He isn’t a toy, and he has somewhere else he needs to be. Now, where were we before?”

  Ayva brought Berg back to where he had been when Rhastoc froze and went to stand where she’d stood.

  “Now, undo what you did.”

  Berg shook his head again.

  “If you undo it, I promise to take you to the garden and sing you a song before bedtime.”

  The squirrel bounced back to the floor like nothing had happened. He scurried back to the painting, leaped onto the frame, jumped into the canvas, and disappeared.

  “Charming creature,” Everine said.

  Ayva shook herself. Everine didn’t know what Berg had done.

  “Yet usually right, if only in parts,” Ayva muttered. “It’s time to summon everyone and have Gaija tell us what she knows. You’re well enough now, and we can’t wait for that dragon to start torching things.” Ayva hugged her mother, whispering in her ear, “I have to deal with this, but I promise, once Kenith and Thyri are safely on their way, I will do everything in my power to figure out what is happening to Berg.”

  Everine hugged her back, and her body relaxed in the embrace. “I know you will.”

  “I need to gather everyone. Do you want to join us?”

  Everine unfolded another scroll on the desk. “I’ll stay here a while longer.”

  Everine wasn’t about to stop looking for answers on account of bounties or the sudden return of dragons. But Ayva had to. She briefly wondered why she had not frozen still like the others, but her responsibilities were that of all of Aradria, not just her closest family. It would have to wait. She sighed and stepped out of the room to find the one person who might have the answers she needed.

  8

  A HISTORY OF DRAGONS

  - Ayva -

  Miro and Thyri were whispering to each other as Ayva swept into the council room. Her arrivals had become like a whisper in the wind; silent, yet powerful. Becoming High Queen had given her abilities she was still trying to figure out, and her newfound immortality made the element inside pulsate with its own life, continually feeding her information and energies from those around her. It would take time to master, but she had never felt so strong.

  She glanced at Archenon standing guard by the doors. Unlike most, he didn’t have an energy about him that she was able to read. She would have
to figure out what to do about him as well. He was like an empty shell since the Nhêoryn had been stolen, like there was nothing of him left. He followed direct orders and nothing more. He would have to wait though, as with a lot of other concerns. There were pressing matters that took precedence. Besides, she was about the only one who cared what happened to him. They all had their problems, and matters of a once Heartless King were understandably not their primary concern.

  Kenith leaned against a window frame, gazing to the sky. Tendrils of flame encased his body, his breath plastered onto the glass like the moisture would on a hot summer day. Niila peeked his way but remained on the opposite side of the table with her hands clasped in her lap. He had been distant ever since the dragon first awoke. The cleft between them was growing. Fire and water had always been opposites, and though they might not see it themselves, Ayva did. She also sensed the love they had for one another. If anyone could defy the forces of nature on account of the heart, it would be them. Still, only time would tell, and Ayva feared for them both.

  “Welcome,” Ayva started. Her gaze shifted around the group of them, her friends and given family. Also, among all the people she trusted the most was Gaija. The wild elf shaman was still a mystery to Ayva, and she was confident that Gaija was still keeping secrets from her. Ayva had hopes that some of those secrets would finally be revealed.

  “We have gathered to learn what we can about the arrival of a creature most of us thought was gone from Aradria.” Ayva gestured at Gaija. “Please, enlighten us.”

  “Wait,” Thyri said. “Should he be here for this?” She raised her eyebrows at Archenon.

  “He’s not what he was. There’s no cause for concern.” Ayva could feel them staring at her. All of them. They didn’t trust him, even now. “Very well. Archenon, would you please keep guard outside?”