by K.N. Lee
Perdan took another rat-sized scoottail from the stick they had over the fire. He didn’t seem to mind the taste or the texture and ate it all within seconds.
She watched him with her jaw hanging as he tossed the bones into the fire and rested on his back, his arms folded under his head.
“You can always hand me yours if you don’t want it.”
“Considering we have nothing else, I’ll make do,” she said to him.
They were without shelter, thirsty, and starving. There was no other choice if she wanted to survive.
The storms continued to light the sky with flashes of color and loud bangs that shook the valley. They never let up for a moment. Lightning and thunder flickered across dark skies. This was a forsaken place where no one should ever venture. Yet, there they were, hopeful to find a mysterious treasure.
Rowen had no idea what the Red Dragon could or would do. But, her last prophecy showed it to her. That must mean something. Even if she just needed to meet the dragon to prevent a fate worse than her own hanging, she knew deep down inside that she had to do it.
“This is a good time to practice, Ro,” Feyda said, scooting closer to her. “The fire is dying. See if you can give it new life.”
She nodded and popped the last piece of meat into her mouth. She rubbed the grease from her fingers onto her cracked lips.
“Grab the flames and feed it more energy.”
The flames started to dwindle, barely licking the thin sticks they’d gathered during the day, and the brush they’d stuffed into the center. They needed that fire to burn stronger if they were going to survive another cold night, but Rowen didn’t tell Feyda how each time she attempted this new skill it drained her. Not only did Feyda want her to keep the fire burning, but she had Rowen create thin lines of fire that chased the scoottails into Perden’s traps.
Her power was keeping them alive.
Instead, she sucked in a breath and narrowed her eyes. Much better than she was the first time, she lifted one hand and twirled her finger. The flame jerked and flickered toward her. Embers flew into the air like fireflies.
“Good girl,” Feyda whispered, squeezing Rowen’s shoulder with joy. “You’re doing it.”
She raised her hand, and the flame followed, gaining height and power. Then, with a twist of her hand, she made the flame swirl and burst into a raging fire that lit up their surroundings.
Perdan sat up, his eyes widened. “That was new.”
Smiling, Rowen nodded. “It was. It felt a little strange, but I like it. I can tell that I’m getting more powerful.”
“Good job, Ro,” Feyda said, rubbing her hands and face in front of the fire.
“Thank you. Maybe, once we are free from this valley, fed, and had our fill of fresh water and wine, you can teach me some more.”
Feyda smiled back at her. “I’d like that. You’re a fast learner.” She glanced at Perdan. “Unlike someone I know.”
“You can’t be talking about me,” Perdan said, and indignant look on his face. His cheeks had already began to sink in from malnutrition. Rowen hated what was happening to them.
“I am,” Feyda said. “Took you two years to learn a simple Charm of Deep Sleep.”
He scoffed. “That’s because you had me practice on the pigs back in Reeds. Not the best of specimens.”
Feyda chuckled and returned to warming her hands.
Drained, Rowen rolled onto her side, facing the fire. Though she could barely keep her eyes open, she took out the map and gave it one last look. They were so close to the last marked spot. One more day and they might find another clue that would lead them to the Red Dragon.
She folded the map and groaned at how tired she was.
“Get some sleep,” Feyda said, rubbing Rowen’s back. “We have much ground to cover tomorrow.”
Nodding, Rowen drifted. There was one face she saw when her dreams took over.
Rickard’s.
This time, her body tensed and her heart raced. This was not a dream. She tried to wake up, to sit up, but while her mind was awake, her body was paralyzed.
This was a prophecy.
Instead of panicking, Rowen controlled her breathing and focused on what the prophecy had to show her. This was her greatest power. One she didn’t even tell Feyda and Perdan about.
Rickard took her by the hand. This time he wasn’t leading her to the gallows. Instead, he lead her down a path of golden stone that cut through a lush rose garden. The green vines wrapped around white pillars and a wall of rose bushes rose higher than their heads. It was a sunny day, with a purple sky customary for a Withraen spring afternoon.
She followed him, and she was not afraid. Dragons flew above their heads, swirling like vultures. What were they waiting for?
“Are you paying attention?” Rickard asked. His voice was hollow and seemed to come from faraway even though he stopped and stood right in front of her. He was dressed in a fine black suit. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and his face was still clean-shaven. She could even smell the scent that had become so familiar to her that she would know if Rickard had been in a room long after he’d left.
“Ready for what?” she asked.
He held his finger to his lips and grinned. “Shh. I’ll show you.”
Together, they walked to the end of the golden road to a cliff. Rowen gasped as a red dragon flew up from the destruction below. She fell to her knees and gawked at the horrific scene. Dragons were blowing fire onto humans who ran in all directions screaming with their children in their arms.
“What is this?”
Rickard stood beside her, stroking her hair, but he didn’t reply.
The screams grew so loud that she had to cover her ears with her hands.
Blood splattered on Rowen’s face as the Red Dragon dropped Lawson’s body on the ground before her.
She screamed at the sight of his face. Blood was caked around his mouth from the poison. His eyes were rolled back into his head, and his skin was a pale gray. This was not the Lawson she knew. She wished she could forget that image. It was a cruel sight to see.
Rickard leaned down and laughed, infuriating her.
“What is this?”
Her scream filled the valley as Rowen shot up from her dream-like state.
Her heart raced and her face was wet with sweat. Her vision cleared and what she saw made her blood run cold.
Captain Elian Westin knelt down before her, a wicked grin on his face.
Gavin and Siddhe stood on either side of her, and Feyda and Perdan were gagged and tied with ropes. Siddhe held a dagger in her hand and flashed its steel under the moonlight as she folded her arms across her chest and tapped it against her arm.
Rowen swallowed. The grins on their faces were almost more terrifying than the prophecy she’d just witnessed. Now, she wished that she hadn’t made the fire bigger. It made them vulnerable and easily traced.
“What is this?” Elian repeated. His soft chuckle made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “It’s my lucky day.”
Chapter 15
What a splendid turn of events. Elian glanced over his shoulder at his prisoners. Feyda, Perdan, and Rowen were bound and gagged next to the crackling fire. He and the others had trailed the trio for days, keeping their distance, buying their time. It seemed that patience did indeed pay off, and now he had his map, his daughter, and two fresh sorcerer souls to consume.
“What now?” Gavin asked in a whisper.
Siddhe lifted her dagger. “I can slice Rowen’s hand off and we can carry it with us the rest of the journey to finding the Red Dragon,” she said. “That way, we don’t need to drag her along. I’ll slit their throats and we can be on our way.”
Gavin’s eyes widened in horror. “Wait a minute. No one said anything about killing her.”
“What do you care?” Siddhe asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t,” he muttered. “But, she’s just a girl. A severed hand won’t do us any good once the b
lood dries. Just get her to bleed on the map and let them go.”
“We can collect her blood in a vial,” Siddhe pointed out. “Easy.”
Shaking his head, Gavin sighed. He clasped his hands in front of his face as he tried to reason with Siddhe. “No. It’s not easy.” He raised his brows. “What is wrong with you?”
Siddhe shrugged.
Elian weighed both of their plans. Siddhe was right. They didn’t need to waste time dragging her along. But, he wasn’t sure he could kill his own daughter. There was something there that hadn’t been explored and he had a feeling he’d need her.
“Gavin’s right,” Elian said.
A smile came to Gavin’s face. “I am?”
“We will take her with us,” he said. “I’ll kill and suck the souls out of Perdan and Feyda, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Good idea,” Siddhe said.
Gavin’s smile dropped. “It is not!”
“Shut up, Gavin,” Elian said.
Gavin threw up his hands. “You two are lunatics.”
Elian could already feel the surge of energy the souls of two sorcerers would give him. Energy was a resource he’d been low on for the past week.
“Captain,” Gavin said, standing in front of him. He blocked Elian’s view of the terrified prisoners.
“Move, Gavin. Or I will have to move you myself. Trust me, you won’t like it if I have to do that.”
“But, Captain, think about it. They obviously know about the Red Dragon. Right? Perhaps there is something we can learn from them. Say…like who they’re working for, and what they had planned on doing with it once they’d found it. If you kill them, you have no idea who might come after us.”
“How do you know Feyda isn’t doing this on her own?”
“Come, now. Do you really believe that? No, I think she’s an agent for someone with enough money and power that we don’t want to anger them. Besides, do you think it’s a coincidence that Rowen is with them?
Elian paused. He thought about what Gavin said. How could he be so blind? None of this was merely a coincidence. This was all someone’s grand design. Now, he wondered who the Dragon was that rescued Rowen from his ship.
The crackling of the fire filled the silence as Elian weighed his options.
He refused to say it again, but Gavin was right.
“He’s right,” Siddhe said, and they both turned and looked at her as if she’d grown three heads. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Siddhe just proved that miracles do happen.
He stroked his bead and strode over to Rowen. She looked up at him with terror in her big, gray eyes. Why did she have to have his eyes?
He pulled her up by her arm and took her away from the others. Once around the corner of the mountain, he removed her gag.
She opened her mouth and he clamped his hand over it.
“No use screaming. There isn’t any food for miles, which means there isn’t anyone looking for food. So, save your energy. No one is going to hear you.”
He removed her hand and she licked her lips. “What do you want? You have your map. Let us go.”
“I want to know why you were looking for the Red Dragon.”
“Who says I was?” Rowen asked.
“Don’t be cheeky with me. Tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is the Red Dragon? Why are you looking for it?”
Elian growled and yanked her closer. “That is none of your business. I am the one asking the questions. You’re in no position to play this game.”
“But, Father,” she said, softly. “Tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll say it.”
He froze at her calling him father. He let her arm go and closed his mouth, swallowing a lump in his throat.
For a moment, he was taken aback and lost a bit of steam. Calmly, he closed his eyes and breathed in. “How did you meet Feyda?”
“I don’t remember.”
His anger resurfaced and he rubbed his temples. Was this what all parents had to deal with? If she wasn’t his daughter, he’d have tortured her for answers. Never in all of his life did he even think of having children. Whenever he was with Nimah, it was all about her. She consumed his life and he was more than willing to give her more. If it wasn’t for her family and their prejudices against humans, he’d still be with her.
And, he’d be looking at Rowen very differently. He might have even looked at her with love.
He took her by the arm and brought her back to the fire. He pulled the map from his pocket and held it in front of her face. “Tell me what I want to know. Or, I will let Siddhe here practice her knife skills on your friends.”
Rowen looked to Feyda and Perdan who both had tears in their eyes and begged her from behind their gags.
“I don’t know what you want! I don’t know anything,” Rowen insisted.
Elian forced her to her knees. He had enough of this.
“Bleed,” he said. “Or they die.”
Chapter 16
Harrow Hall sat proud and grim at the summit of a tall, grey mountain. Rickard curled his lip at the sight of it as he caught an updraft and allowed it to carry him higher, climbing in lazy spirals.
Two, small bronze scouting Dragons swooped down to confront him as he neared the courtyard designated for Dragon landings. They jerked their heads upward, giving the traditional territory challenge in Dragon body language. Rickard responded by tilting his body back, using the great sweeps of his wing for lift and balance as he bared his underbelly to them, signaling peaceful intentions.
They flew to his side and escorted him down to the cold flagstones of the courtyard. He closed his eyes and breathed through the familiar draining sensation of shifting back to human. The bronze dragons shifted back as well.
“I am come to speak with Her Grace,” Rickard said.
“How are you to be announced?” one of the guards asked cautiously.
“As a friend…from Withrae.”
The two guards exchanged frowns, and Rickard spoke up. “I assure you, I come in peace as a friend to the duchess, and since she is in disgrace with the duke, she can use all the friends she can get.”
The other guard nodded, suspicion still written on his face. But, he went inside the keep and returned a few minutes later with a minor species of majordomo. The florid-faced, rotund little man seemed all too glad to have any kind of guest to tend to, even one who refused to give his name.
Rickard fought the urge to grumble as they climbed what felt like a ridiculous number of stairs. Really, couldn’t Nimah have picked a receiving room that was a few floors lower? As if flying all the way up that gods-forsaken mountain wasn’t enough, it was really beyond the pale to make guests trudge all the way up the tallest tower. But then, he thought sardonically, every princess needs her tower.
The fussy majordomo brought them to a set of double doors. Rickard noticed the paint on them was starting to peel, and the gilt was tarnished. He almost enjoyed the majordomo’s confused announcement of an ‘anonymous’ visitor. The damask curtains were dusty, and the brocade cushions were threadbare. The same could be said for Nimah, Duchess of Harrow. She looked as if she had aged ten years in the three weeks that Rowen had been missing.
Nimah was too well-trained and well-bred to show any surprise or recognition upon seeing him. She simply dismissed all her attendants and sat still and quiet, waiting for him to make the opening play. He was not one to disappoint.
“Your Grace,” he said, doing the pretty and bowing low enough to make a mockery of a prince bowing to a duchess.
To her credit, she played along and simply nodded at him. For a woman banished to the mountains in shame for the crimes of her daughter, she was remarkably dignified.
“Where is my daughter?”
Well, that was one way to cut to the chase. It seems that standing up to a husband was too much to ask for, but, being defiant in the face of a prince for the sake of her daughter was nothing at
all.
“Indeed, that is the exact question I came all this distance to ask your Grace,” he drawled, watching for the half-second her eyelids flickered.
“I swear upon the teeth of my ancestors that I do not know,” Nimah said, the whites of her knuckles showing for the span of a heartbeat as she wrung the handkerchief in her grip. To make a vow upon the Dragon teeth of one’s ancestor was serious enough that Rickard actually believed her.
The relief he felt was astounding. Rowen was on her way to being well and truly ‘lost.’ The Withraen royal prophecy actually stood a chance of being fulfilled.
Nimah looked nervous. He was familiar with that flitting gaze of a woman who was afraid of something…or someone. The someone wasn’t hard to guess.
The duke.
He was sympathetic, but not patient.
“What do you know of the Withraen prophecy about the half-blood Dragon?”
Nimah’s cheeks paled, but she shook her head, hesitant at first, and then with resolve.
Clever woman. If she did know the prophecy, she chose well to keep it a secret. Any mother would.
He chose silence as his weapon to force Nimah to speak further, knowing she wanted to deep down inside. If she was going to trust anyone, it should be the Dragon who could restore her favor with Withrae and save her from the duke—the Dragon who could truly protect her daughter.
Rickard examined her face and smiled. She knew more than she let on. She just wanted to know if he knew the answer.
Taking a gamble, he clasped his hands and exhaled. “If you knew anything about the prophecy, you’d know that it would take the half-blood and her father to find the Red Dragon. It cannot be done without the other. Do you see what I am saying, Nimah?”
Her bottom lip trembled. “But, I do not know if Elian knows she is his daughter.” Tears came to her eyes. “He’ll kill her before finding out.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
Nimah raised a brow, a tear slipping from the corner of her right eye. “What can you do? You don’t even know where she is.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I have a journal—one where I can communicate with all of my agents around the realm. Cota in Lindenhall. Cook…formerly of Elian’s crew. And, a powerful sorceress named Feyda who I commissioned to take Rowen under her wing and guide her to the territory of the Red Dragon.”
