by TR Rook
“I am Khatlah, youngest prince of four.” He held out his hand, and Brand took it hesitantly, shaking. “That is the way of greeting in your realm, is it not?” Khatlah wondered.
Brand nodded slightly. “What is your way of greeting?”
Khatlah bent forward so fast Brand only managed to blink and placed one soft kiss on each of his cheeks. Sitting back down, Khatlah smiled softly. “That is our proper way of greeting.”
“You greet strangers like that?” Brand asked incredulously, taken aback by such an intimate gesture.
“You have experienced the greetings of a foe,” Khatlah replied, “but now you are a friend.”
Nodding, Brand looked everywhere but at Khatlah.
“I have duties to attend.” Khatlah stood, then bent down to pick up the tray. “But I will see you this evening. Meanwhile, feel free to roam the palace, make yourself familiar.”
Brand looked over at him then, catching the brief smile flitting over Khatlah’s lips, then he turned and left the room. Brand sat still on the mat, thoughts flitting from one thing to another to a third, never quite settling on anything to ponder more deeply. Sighing, he got up and strode over to the door. He might as well take Khatlah up on his words—to roam the castle. It wasn’t like he had much else to do.
Not really wanting to meet lots of people, Brand opted to go up the grand staircase, and not down, when he reached it. It was beautifully done, wide, set in gold and ascending the four stories of the palace. Brand followed it up to the fourth story, hoping that there would not be too many people on the top floor. There was only a small room, however, and right across him an ornate door.
Shrugging to himself, Brand went over and opened it, recoiling at the brightness of the sun as it was revealed. Blinking his way through the momentary blinding, Brand stepped outside. The palace proper was just three stories—the fourth was the roof. And on the roof there were... dragons.
Brand stared, eyes wide at the creatures in front of him. He stepped outside, letting the door shut behind him. The dragons had the whole roof of the main wing, except where buildings had been set up at the four corners, at the base of the towers. The wings that surrounded the main one were four stories high, creating a wall so that the dragons couldn’t possibly be seen from the ground. Thus why Brand had not seen them when he had been in the courtyard.
The dragons were too big to fit inside the buildings, so Brand guessed they housed food and gear. There weren’t many dragons on the roof, that would’ve been impossible no matter how big the roof was, but the few that were there were scattered, most of them asleep.
Brand’s eyes fell on a red dragon, which was the only one not lying down. It looked back, its yellow eyes cold and ruthless. It was a predator, a dangerous one, and it was the dragon of the Commander—Brand could not forget the sight of the magnificent beast. His eyes slid away and saw that several feet behind the red dragon lay the one that had been hurt by the three men with whom he had travelled.
Brand swallowed, and then slowly started making his way towards it. The red dragon followed his every move, poised as if to attack at the slightest motion. Brand looked at it from the corner of his eye. The dragon was full-grown—the hurt youngling was nothing compared to it.
Reaching the youngling, Brand crouched down. Its wounds were bound and it was breathing properly, so he hoped it would make a successful recovery. It was currently asleep, its head resting on the ground, eyes closed.
Movement from behind brought his head up and he groaned in pain as he was roughly dragged to his feet and pushed up against the wall surrounding the entire roof. Blinking to clear his sight, he stared right into the scowling face of the Commander.
“What are you doing on the roof?” he demanded.
“Khatlah said I could roam the palace,” Brand explained, his hand gripping Kamoor’s arms, hoping fervently he would not choke him because Brand was not strong enough to fight him. “I mean no harm. I am merely curious.”
“Curious, indeed.” Kamoor reached up to tilt Brand’s head just so, staring into his eyes, just as he had done the other day. “Eyes like yours... I have seen them before.”
Brand frowned.
“They are exactly like the eyes of the wolf-creatures that reside in the woods,” Kamoor continued. “Why do you bear the eyes of such a creature?”
Brand saw no reason to lie; it would only make it worse for him. “Because I am a shifter. You know the tongue I speak, surely you must also know that there are shifters on the other side of the mountain.”
“I have heard stories.” Kamoor pressed him more firmly against the cool wall, tilting his head the other way. “If you can indeed shift into the wolf-creature, and if you as human share its eyes, is it safe to say that you share other traits with it as well?”
Brand frowned, not understanding what Kamoor wanted from him.
“Like, say, the sense of smell?”
“I do not understand,” Brand spoke.
“Do you have a better sense of smell than anyone else?” Kamoor asked sharply.
“I...” Brand was taken aback by the question. “I do not know. I was born like this, this is normal for me. I do not know if your sense of smell is better or worse than mine. I do not know if you can see better or worse than me, because I have always been like this and I know nothing else.”
“I think it is safe to say that you do.” Kamoor’s tone of voice did not change, but Brand had the strange feeling that he was satisfied by it.
“Why do you want to know?” Brand demanded.
“The men you came here with are not the only ones,” Kamoor told him quietly. “They are part of a larger group of men here to kill our dragons and take them to the other side of the mountain, where we know not what happens to them. We patrol the woods, but have not been able to locate them while they stay hidden in the mountains. So we need something, someone, who is used to the woods and can find them easily. And what someone better than you, who has the eyes and senses of a creature of the woods?”
Brand wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “You want me to... help?”
“We need an advantage,” Kamoor replied stonily. “Every day they kill more dragons. Mostly younglings and yearlings who do not have the experience or defences of the adults. We need our dragons. We rely upon them—and they rely upon us.”
“Your comrades will not like my help,” Brand pointed out, thinking about one man in particular. One that apparently happened to be the crown prince.
“Sakoptari may be above me in daily life,” Kamoor said, “but amongst the dragon riders, I am in charge and he will do as I say. And if you are not here to kill our dragons, as you claim, you will help us get rid of those that are.”
Brand nodded hesitantly, but it was enough, because Kamoor let him go. Brand sagged against the wall, hand going up to his neck. Kamoor’s grip had been hard and steady, but he did not think he’d have bruises. He hoped not. It was worse with his ribs, they were sore and tender after being squished against the wall.
“When will we be leaving?” he questioned.
“When the current patrol comes back bearing news, we will act according to what they have to share. There is no saying however, when they will be back. We will just have to wait.” So saying, Kamoor turned on his heel and stalked off.
Brand stared after him, watching that straight back, how his black clothing stretched across his broad shoulders... Shaking his head, Brand turned and found himself meeting the eyes of the red dragon. It stared back at him for a long minute, then it turned its head away and lay down, its back firmly to Brand.
Looking back at the youngling, who was still firmly asleep, Brand sighed and stalked off as well, going back the way he had come. His life was becoming complicated again—and he could not make up his mind on if it was a positive kind of complicated, or a negative one...
“How do you know my language?” Brand asked Khatlah, trying to distract himself from the awkwardness of the looks he was getting in the banquet hall. “
We know nothing about your people, back home.”
“You are not the first to cross the mountains with honest intentions,” Khatlah told him. “Some of your people have come here, seeking shelter, a different life. We have given it to a few of them, those that vow to never return to what they left. And in return they have taught us their language.”
Brand cast a quick look around at everyone gathered in the enormous hall, but he could see no one with the look of his own country. The colour of their skin varied greatly, but none were as pale as Brand—and he had thought himself quite tan back home. And everyone had slightly tilted eyes, nothing all like the rounded shape of his own. No one shared the colour of his eyes either, because none were shifters.
In that, he was all alone and no one knew, because he did not really want it spread. Unless the Commander was prone to gossip—which he highly doubted—it would not be known unless he himself chose to share it.
Khatlah had come to his room earlier in the evening, bearing a new set of clothes that he was to wear to the banquet being held. They had eaten, and people were milling about and talking. Brand, who was feeling anything but comfortable, was hiding away in a corner with Khatlah, who had followed him willingly.
“You really should mingle,” Khatlah told him. “Get acquainted.”
“I see no point in it,” Brand murmured. “It is not like I am going to stay here for very much longer...” He did not know what was to happen with him after he helped locate the rest of the dragon killers, but he highly doubted that he would be let back into the palace. He was a lowly wolf-shifter and firewitch from across the mountains, so far out of his element he could drown in it. Not that there was anything to drown in—there were only wide stretches of dry, oftentimes cracked, ground or dunes of sand.
Khatlah’s small smile faded, his eyes boring into Brand’s. “You are leaving?”
Brand shrugged helplessly. “I do not know. My life is a mess and I do not know anything. All I know is that I am here now, but come tomorrow...” He let the sentence hang, knowing Khatlah would understand what he had trouble finding the words to say.
Khatlah turned away, but Brand caught the flash of disappointment in his eyes. “Will you follow me back to my room?” Brand asked tiredly. “I am not sure I will find it on my own.”
Khatlah nodded, then led the way out of the banquet hall. He did not speak, and Brand found that he did not like the silence stretching on between them.
“I do not understand how you can be disappointed in me,” he spoke up. “I do not belong here, and I have only been here for a few days. There is nothing about me that fits in here. Even amongst my own kind I am peculiar.”
Khatlah’s tension seemed to ease slightly, and he slowed down so that he and Brand could walk side by side. “I am disappointed because I thought I had gained a friend, only to find out that that friend is not planning to stay.”
Brand swallowed the big lump suddenly getting stuck in his throat at the words. “You should not want to be my friend. I am only trouble, a peculiar creature that not even Lorcan can put a label on. And if Lorcan cannot—“ He stopped abruptly, not wanting to go down that bitter road. Another reason he had left Fort Vortigern.
“What do you mean? Why are you so peculiar? You look just like any normal foreigner to me, except those strange eyes and those powers.”
“Exactly!” Brand exclaimed. “I am a warg, a wolf-shifter, and that is all I am supposed to be. Yet I am also a firewitch. It does not make sense! Shifters only have the magic to shift, but they bond to witches to balance out their powers, though gaining nothing of their own except that bond. And here I am, both shifter and witch, and I know not what to make of myself, what to do with myself.”
“Maybe you are just gifted,” Khatlah replied. “Like no one has been before you. Gifted with both sets of magic, incapable of being bound to anyone in particular. Maybe you are supposed to make your own fate, instead of getting bound to some witch’s.” Khatlah stopped in front of Brand’s door, turning to face him. “And who is Lorcan?”
Brand caught the slightest hint of anger and suspicion in that voice, and before he could stop to think he took a step forward, pinning Khatlah to the door, and kissed him. Khatlah gasped in surprise, but quickly subsided, his hands coming up to grip Brand’s shoulders. Brand had never kissed anyone before, but instinct drove him as he tilted Khatlah’s head to the side, taking the kiss deeper.
They were pressed together, no space between them, and they seemed to get even more entwined as the kiss continued. Khatlah’s arms slid around Brand’s torso, one gripping his shoulder still, the other traveling up to tangle in his hair. Brand kept his own arm firmly around Khatlah, the other crept up to cup the back of his neck, the soft feel of the head-cloth under his fingers instead of the hair he really wanted to feel.
This is it, he thought, dazed. This is what I’ve been looking for.
“Khatlah!”
Brand broke away from the kiss at the angry voice, and he watched as Khatlah ran the back of his hand over his lips, almost guiltily, before looking up, dread in his eyes. Brand followed his gaze and watched as Kamoor stalked towards them, his eyes burning in anger.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” he snapped, shoving Khatlah away from Brand and into the wall next to the door. “Helping yourself to the handsome stranger, huh?”
“You have no right,” Khatlah forced out through clenched teeth. “No right to interfere in my life! You gave me up a long time ago and you cannot be mad at me for moving on!”
Brand took a step back and found himself with his back flush up against his door. He stared hard at the ground, wishing suddenly that they would just have their argument in their own tongue, instead of keeping to the custom of speaking a language everyone present could understand. He felt like an interloper, no matter that Khatlah had kissed him back because Brand had kissed him first. And apparently he had had some relationship with the Commander in the past, and Brand had thoroughly pissed off the man who had asked for his help, the man who held Brand’s fate in his hands. Because a lot could happen on the mountain, and no one could argue if he had been killed in a so-called accident... or if they said he really had been out to get their dragons. No matter what he chose to say, the people would believe it and there was nothing Brand could do about it.
Kamoor kept Khatlah pinned, eyes still burning in anger and his breathing slightly sped up, but he eventually let Khatlah go with a snort of contempt then turned to face Brand. Brand did not back down from that cold stare, because he could not show any weakness in front of Kamoor—that would certainly be the death of him.
“The scout patrol is back. We leave at dawn.”
It took a few moments for the words to make sense, for the surprise at not being yelled at or beaten to register. Brand nodded, his gut clenching painfully at the various scenarios of the trip running through his mind.
“What?” Khatlah’s head moved from Brand to Kamoor and back to Brand again. “What is going on? Where are you going?”
“He will be helping us for a little while,” Kamoor told him coldly. “If he wants to come back after... that is up to him. It would not be for you though, that much I can assure you.” With that, Kamoor turned and walked off, not looking back once.
Brand looked at Khatlah, who seemed stricken. He had a hard time catching his breath, and his eyes were filling up. If that had been someone back home, Brand would not have a single care, but it was Khatlah... the only one to be nice to him, and whom he had just kissed, for some reason he did not want to dwell upon.
“Come on.” Brand wrapped an arm around Khatlah’s shoulder and guided him into Brand’s room. Khatlah’s breathing became worse, and he bent over when Brand let go of him to close the door, gasping for breath. “Breathe,” Brand told him, going over to him and kneeling on the floor so that he could see Khatlah’s tear-stained face. “Come on, just breathe. Calm and steady.”
Khatlah’s eyes locked on his and he did a
s Brand told him, taking first a shaky breath, then another until he had calmed down. The tears however, did not want to stop and they started trickling faster as he got his breathing under control.
Brand pulled Khatlah down to the floor and into his arms, holding him tightly as Khatlah cried. “I know we are almost strangers, but if you want to talk I am here,” he whispered. “I am not good at this sort of thing, but I promise I will try.”
Khatlah sniffled, then burrowed his head further against Brand’s neck. “Kamoor and I were never lovers,” he started, his voice trembling. “We never got that far. We kept dancing around each other, very much in love. Then one day, out of the blue, he suddenly accused me of... of...” Khatlah could not continue, but Brand could very well understand just what he had been accused of, by their argument outside. “But I did not do what he accused me of, I did not! And I do not know where he ever got that notion, because the man he accused me of being with was only passing through and I had only exchanged a single word with him.” He shook in Brand’s arms, his tears wetting Brand’s clothes and skin.
“You are still in love with Kamoor,” he commented, the only thing he could think of saying.
Khatlah nodded against him, a sob escaping him. “But I like you a lot, too. I really do.”
“It is no matter, because Kamoor is still in love with you.”
“He hates me,” Khatlah countered. “After that... he has not been able to be in the same room as me. So he is not in love with me, he hates me. He will never look at me the same again because of that time, and I did not even do anything! I am hated for something I did not do, for some low lie someone has fed him. Why would someone do something like that?”
Yes, why would they? Brand rested his chin against Khatlah’s head, the material of the head-cloth soft against his cheek. “Sometimes people act like they hate a person when they really don’t. They act like they hate them because they have no other choice or because they know no other way to act. But the real feelings can be quite the opposite.”
