Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3)

by Lauren Gilley

  Now, curled up on his side, he looked at his brother’s shape, a dark lump limned in silver moonlight. They were separated by only a meter, but it felt like a chasm.

  “Vlad?” he whispered, and even that felt like an obscene amount of sound.

  Vlad didn’t respond. He wasn’t asleep – Val was too aware of his heartbeat and knew that it was only resting, not dreaming – but he refused to acknowledge Val in any way.

  Only a meter away, and unreachable.

  “Vlad?” One more time, though it was pitiful. He was so alone…

  A thought struck, then. How had it not struck already?

  In the chaos of being captured, and hauled across the mountains on horseback, amidst the emotional tumult of all that had occurred, he hadn’t ever thought to try dream-walking. He hadn’t been calm enough to settle down and reach for the astral plane, and when he slept, it was with total exhaustion.

  Now, though, with a full belly, his anxiety settled by the routine of this new terrifying reality, he thought he might be able to manage.

  The more he thought of it, the more he realized that he needed to. That he had to reach out to Father, and ask when they could return, and see Mother, hear her sweet voice singing.

  He wasn’t wearing cuffs. In the dark, he could just make out the faint lines where the silver had chafed his wrists.

  He took a deep breath and resettled on his pillow. Thought about releasing the tension from his body, one muscle at a time. Shut his eyes and cleared his mind. Wiped it clean and then searched for the stars…

  It was dizzying; he was out of practice. But when he opened his eyes it was to the familiar view of his mother’s bedchamber.

  She’d always preferred soft, feminine colors – flower colors. Her four-poster bed was draped with lavender Turkish silk, soft minks, a sable lap rug from Russia. The tapestries on the walls wove gentle golds, and sky blues, and petal pinks: garden scenes, horses, birds on fruit tree branches.

  Eira sat in a straight-backed chair by the fire, though it was a warm evening, staring unseeing into the flames, hair molten in its glow.

  Val’s heart squeezed. “Mama,” he breathed, tremulous and tear-choked.

  She leapt up from her chair with a little cry of alarm, whirling to face him. Wide eyes, and open mouth, and another cry, this one anguished and choked and elated all at once. “Valerian,” she whispered, and nearly tripped over her long skirt in her haste to get to him.

  She went to her knees in front of him, reaching. And he reached for her, and then–

  Smoke. His arms turned to smoke when they touched, swirling. Because he wasn’t really here.

  Eira lowered her hands slowly to her lap, and Val’s eyes filled with tears. He’d known he was dream-walking, that it wasn’t possible to make real contact, but he ached for it. For her arms, and her warmth, and her scent, and her pulse beating beneath his ear.

  “Mama,” he said again, and his projection solidified again as the tears spilled over and poured down his face.

  “Darling. Oh, my precious boy.” She clenched her hands into fists on her thighs, and her eyes glimmered as tears filled them. But she smiled at him. Beamed. It was etched with worry and anguish, but it was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in weeks. “Val, sweetheart, I’m here. I’m right here. I’m so proud of you for finding me.”

  He sniffled, and hiccupped, and tried unsuccessfully to catch his breath.

  “Is your brother with you? Are you together? Are you safe?” Her voice trembled on the last word. She looked afraid to know the answer.

  He took a few hitched breaths, cleared his throat. He didn’t want her to worry like this; had to get the words out. He hadn’t thought it would hurt this much to see her. “We – we, y-yes, we’re together.” Except Vlad hated him. “And we’re s-s-safe.” No one had struck him with a crop yet. “We’re at the sultan’s court.”

  “Oh.” A soft gasp. She shook her head, and pushed the brittle smile wider. “You look – you look well. They must be feeding you.”

  “They know – Mama, they know we’re vampires.”

  She bit her lip, hard, until it drew blood. “Oh, darling…”

  Talking helped; his tears slowed, and his throat grew clearer. “The heir is, too. His father isn’t – the sultan. So he’s not purebred, he must be turned, but they give us blood, and they made us wear silver cuffs when we traveled, and–” He was out of breath. “Mama, I want to come home. Is Father coming for us? Is he negotiating with the sultan?”

  Her face crumpled. Her eyes shut, and tears slipped down her face. “Your father…sweetheart.” She opened her eyes again, the look in them painful to see. “He’s not here. The Ottomans are holding him. Mircea is the prince pro tem until he’s released.”

  “…what?”

  “The sultan’s envoy brought us the missive. Remus is being held until they’re sure he can be trusted to keep to the treaty. I had hoped that he was with you boys, but…”

  Val took shallow breaths through his mouth. If Father wasn’t here…if he was being held, too…

  He swallowed a sudden swell of nausea. “He’s not here. Mama, he’s not here.”

  “I know, baby.”

  “How…then how…how will he get us home?”

  She moved to touch him again, and caught herself just before her fingertips breached the illusion of his face. She was still crying, but silently, and her expression firmed. “Val. Love. I need you to listen to me, and listen carefully, alright?”

  Emotions slid over one another like layers of oil; he was adrift. But he would do anything for his mother, anything, so he nodded.

  “Your father will do everything he can to secure your release,” she said, and her tears finally dried, voice taking on the steel tone of the Viking shieldmaiden she’d been long ago. “But he can’t do anything that’s immediate. He has to come home first. It will take time to convince his captors that he is loyal to them, and to formulate a new treaty that will allow you and Vlad to return to us. You – we must all be patient. And careful.”

  She gestured with one hand, and he knew that, if she was able, she would have smoothed his hair back from his face, tucked it lovingly behind his ears. “I need you and your brother to be on your best behavior, to learn as much as you can, but to keep your heads down and stay safe. Don’t draw any undue attention. Mircea and I are drafting letters to the sultan – if he’ll read them.” She huffed. “Mircea is a good prince, but he’s young, and he’s scared. So I need your help, alright darling? I need you to be my eyes and ears in Adrianople. That’s where you are, right?”

  “Yes’m.”

  She nodded, resolved. Fixed him with a serious look. “I will get you back, Val. You, and Vlad, and your father. I will. I promise you that.”

  He had absolute faith. “I know you will, Mother.”

  Then the resolve crumbled into grief, and fear, and shining, shining love. “I love you, precious boy. I love you so, so much, more than anything.”

  He felt fresh tears sting his eyes. “I love you, Mama.”

  “Give my love to your brother for me, please.”

  “I will.” Though…maybe Vlad didn’t want it.

  She stood up and straightened her skirts. “Can you stay a little longer? You should come talk to Mircea and tell him what you know.”

  “Okay.”

  Mircea tried to embrace him, and his face fell when he remembered that he couldn’t.

  Val “sat” by his desk for nearly an hour, telling him what little he’d learned at the Ottoman court so far, and sometime after that he faded, waking on his pallet in Edirne as the sun was breaking over the horizon, the first pale light of dawn stealing across the tile floors.

  Vlad still lay on his side, facing away, and Val sighed. Hurry, Mama, he thought. I don’t know how long we have.

  ~*~

  “Radu,” Gregor said with his usual soft-voiced hesitance. A gentle prompt.

  “Oh. Right, sorry.” Val forced his gaze away fr
om the scene unfolding in the training yard – Vlad and Iskander Bey sparring with blunted practice swords, the clang of the metal ringing off the stone walls – and turned his attention back to the book he held in his lap. It was a collection of Turkish stories for children, and at another time he might have been enjoying it – might have reveled in his ability to read a new language so fluently – but dread was pooled low in his belly. This was their training time, and he knew that, sooner or later, he would be forced to give up his role as reader and pick up a practice sword of his own.

  He began to read again, and beside him on the bench, the eyeless boy relaxed a fraction and leaned in so their shoulders touched. Propped together. His brother didn’t want him anymore, but there were others who appreciated him. A small comfort in a sea of anticipated hurts.

  He read until a shadow fell across him. Then his tongue got stuck to the roof of his mouth and he looked up to see Iskander standing over him, sandy hair glued to his neck with sweat, smile wide and straight.

  “Your turn, Radu,” he said. “Up you go and pick out a sword.”

  Val set the book aside slowly, stealing a glance at his brother.

  Vlad stood in the center of the yard, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, sword held in his other hand. His hair had been braided before, but was sliding loose after his exercise, clinging to his temples, and jaw, and throat.

  Separated for the past few weeks – even just figuratively – Val now realized that he was able to see his brother with fresh eyes, and that Vlad was changed. Taller, more muscular. His neck thicker, his jaw squarer. Not a man, but no longer a child. His shirt clung to his arms, his shoulders and biceps taut with new muscle.

  A slave brought him a water cup and he drank half of it, and poured the rest over his head, fangs visible when he opened his mouth and panted.

  “Radu,” Iskander said, snatching his attention. He frowned now, concerned. “Are you well?”

  “Yes. Yes, sorry. Here.” He set the book gently in Gregor’s hands. “I’ll be back in a little while. Okay?”

  “O-okay,” the boy said, hands clenching tight around the book.

  Val stood and made his way to the wooden rack where the blunted practice swords waited, already dreading his lesson…and eyes trained on his brother.

  If Vlad felt his gaze, he didn’t show it, retreating to another bench and sitting on it heavily, accepting a second cup of water, gaze trained on the packed dirt and sawdust of the ground.

  He didn’t look at Val once.

  Disheartened, Val picked a sword – the lightest one of the bunch, one that hopefully wouldn’t pull on his arms and shoulders much. Unlike Vlad, he wasn’t getting broader or more muscular, was instead growing lean and more graceful, if that was even possible. Not the ideal dimensions of a warrior who hoped to work his way free of enemy territory.

  When he turned, Iskander waited for him, smile slight, but encouraging, tone warm. “Are you ready?”

  Val hitched up his drooping shirtsleeves and nodded. He brought his sword up to the correct angle and approached the center of the yard warily, already braced for an attack.

  The sword master, a grizzled janissary, watched from a post leaning against the wall, unconcerned. Iskander had taken over the lessons before the brothers’ arrival, one of the other boys had said, and the sword master rarely intervened in the lessons anymore.

  This was an improvement, in Val’s eyes, because Iskander was kind, and a patient teacher. But he was still much older, larger, and stronger, and Val still didn’t have the hang of swordplay.

  As if he could sense this – and he was oddly perceptive for a mortal – Iskander tilted his head to the side and gave Val a considering look. “Let’s try something new today.”

  “Oh…okay…”

  Iskander’s smile widened, and softened. “It’s alright, I promise. I want you to close your eyes, and try to relax for me. Can you do that? Take deep breaths. In and out, nice and slow, yes, like that.”

  When he registered the praise, Val realized he had in fact closed his eyes, and that his breaths were deep and regular, and that some of the awful tension bracketing his spine had begun to ease. Iskander ’s voice was low and smooth, his Turkish spoken with a slight Slavic accent. I’m like you, that accent said. Here against my will, but see how well I’ve adjusted?

  Val took a breath in, and let it out. In and out.

  “Now,” Iskander said, “I want you to envision yourself. Envision me, and the yard, and your sword. Imagine the dance. Because that’s what it is, sword-fighting – it’s a dance. Imagine that I strike, and that you parry. Think about your foot placement; the weight of the blade in your hand. Think about the shock up your arms when the blades meet. Imagine yourself doing it well. This isn’t a battle, Radu. It’s only a dance. And you’re a good dancer, yes?”

  “Yes,” Val murmured, because he was, and because he could see it suddenly: dodging, and spinning, and parrying, and slicing, his small feet quick across the ground, sawdust swirling around his ankles, clinging to his sweaty shins.

  And then…

  Whirling stars, and orange flames, and oh, he was traveling, dream-walking, heading for home, for Mother, and Mircea, and he was–

  “Radu,” Iskander said, and Val opened his eyes, and anger boiled up inside him, and he struck.

  The return to this plane, and the bright afternoon sun after the dark, was dizzying, but his footwork was sure as he advanced on Iskander – the interloper who’d pulled him from his trip home – with a sure swing that would have startled him at another time. He couldn’t wield a sword like that; at least, he hadn’t been able to before. But now…

  Iskander stepped back – danced back – and laughed, smile delighted as he brought his own sword up to parry Val’s attack. “Good. Come on, yes!”

  The bright sound of metal meeting metal, the sharp cry of steel crashing together. The shock of impact up his arms, just as Iskander had said… Val pressed his attack a few minutes before he realized that through his haze of sweat and adrenaline and flying dust…he was smiling. This was exhilarating. Was this the way it felt for Vlad? This rush of delight and aggression?

  Iskander retreated in a circle around the yard, letting Val hack at him with passionate, if amateurish determination. Then he braced his feet and held his ground, began to push back a little bit.

  At home, Val would have retreated then, but now, with his blood up, he gritted his teeth and tightened his sweaty palms on the hilt of his sword, and met the older boy strike for strike.

  “Good,” Iskander said again, and he sounded winded. “Left leg back – there, yes, good.”

  It was only a training exercise, and the first in which Val hadn’t had his sword knocked out of his hand within the first minute, but when Iskander finally lowered his blade and stepped back, grinning at him, he felt triumphant.

  Val smiled, and laughed, and tasted sawdust on his lips when he wet them. He forgot himself a moment, so high on this brief success. “Vlad, did you see? Did you see me?” he asked, turning to his brother.

  Vlad’s face was like a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. Closed-off, his mouth twisted, a displeased notch between his brows.

  Oh, that was right. Vlad hated him now.

  Val felt his smile falling, his stomach lurching, the joy fading.

  And then someone began to clap behind him. A slow clap, too loud in the momentary quiet of the training yard.

  On Val’s next deep breath, he caught a whiff of blood – of vampire – and tension stole over him once more as he turned to face the heir.

  Mehmet Çelebi, heir of the Ottoman Empire, was rumored to have been born of a Greek mother. His braided hair gleamed red-brown in the sunlight, his eyes the pale, bright green of glass. Val hadn’t been able to see much of his father in him, with his aquiline nose, and his narrow, winged brows, his elegant, long-fingered hands.

  He never tried to hide his fangs; they were always a little too prevalent, like now, as he co
ntinued to clap and walked into the center of the circle to join them. Smiling. He smiled like he knew a secret that others would kill to learn.

  “Well done, little one,” he said in Slavic. “You’re finally learning how to handle a sword.” His smile stretched, fangs winking in the sunlight, and Val wanted to take a step back.

  “Radu is improving every lesson,” Iskander said, tone gone cold and flat. “Everyone is.”

  “Yes, yes,” Mehmet said with a dismissive little wave. His green gaze stayed pinned on Val. “But this one. He wasn’t made for fighting. Much too pretty.” He tilted his head, and the movement held none of the soft concession it had when Iskander had done it earlier. This was all calculation, gaze sweeping down to Val’s boots and then slowly back up to his face. “Look at that hair. Like spun gold.”

  “If you’d like to spar,” Iskander said, “just give me a moment to catch my breath, and I’ll–”

  “No. I want to spar with this one.”

  Val hadn’t ever seen Iskander look startled, but he did now. “You can’t–” He caught himself. “Your grace…”

  Mehmet turned his head slowly, gaze low-lidded, almost lazy. But flashing like fire. “Are you arguing with me, Iskander Bey?” he asked mildly.

  Iskander’s hand tightened on his sword hilt, and Val smelled a spike of aggression in his sweat. But he shook his head and said, “No, your grace.”

  Wait, Val wanted to tell him. Stay here with me!

  But Iskander was a hostage after all, and he withdrew, going to hang up his sword and accept water from a slave.

  Val wanted to look at his brother, but Vlad hated him now…

  “Don’t worry, little one,” Mehmet said as he went to select a practice sword of his own. “I wouldn’t dare put a mark on your pretty face.”

  Val choked on his next breath.

  “Come now.” Mehmet stepped toward him, twirling his sword. “Would you refuse the request of the heir?”