Truth of Embers

by Caitlyn McFarland

  But perhaps it would be best...

  No. Not for Ashem. For all of their talk of hate, if Ashem killed his brother, he’d never forgive himself.

  “It’s fair,” Kavar said through gritted teeth, his knuckles white where he held on to Ashem’s wrists. “You took more than you bargained for. Kai was paid for when Juliet released me from Eryri. The Seeress will cost you.”

  “She is not a bargaining chip.” Ashem seemed intent on matching Rhys’s earlier, animalistic growl.

  “Enough.” Juli sent a mental prod at Ashem. “You don’t want him dead.”

  Ashem thrashed his spiked tail, sending up a spray of snow. “I do.”

  “You don’t.” Juli put a hand on the arm he had locked over Kavar’s forehead. Slowly, she pushed it up and off. She was so tired.

  With a face like a thunderhead, Ashem released Kavar and stepped away.

  Kavar opened his mouth, and Juli held up a hand. “Don’t you dare speak. I won’t stop him from trying to kill you again. Don’t be an idiot.”

  Kavar’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared, but he didn’t speak.

  Interesting. Insults rolled off Ashem—apparently that was not the case with Kavar. She’d known that they were different. She supposed over the next six months she would learn just how much.

  With her magic, Juli imagined she’d make quite a formidable spy.

  “We can’t miss this chance,” she whispered into Ashem’s mind, making sure all of her thoughts were fully shielded from Kavar. She was still working on that, shielding one—almost always Kavar—while letting the other in. Not easy, but she was getting better.

  “Sunder the chance.” Ashem closed the distance between them, crushing her against him. He brought his mouth down, hard and hot, and kissed her with passion and fury that set her head spinning. Despite his words, it was a kiss goodbye.

  Juli returned the kiss just as fervently. “I will still be with you.”

  He encircled her mind with his, an embrace far more intimate than anything physical they could do here. “If he tries anything, run. I will find you and bring you home.”

  That brought her to the second plan. One that had less to do with the war than her peace of mind. One that she hadn’t run by either of them. “You should open your bond with Kavar.”

  Ashem let her go and stepped back. He and Kavar exchanged a glance. In unison, they said, “What?”

  “There’s no time to argue.” Which was why she’d left it until now. “Ashem, you’ll want to know how I’m doing, and you know I’m as likely to lie and tell you I’m not in trouble as tell the truth. Kavar...” She really didn’t have a reason Kavar might want to be connected to Ashem, but it didn’t seem to matter. Ashem and Kavar were staring at each other as if for the first time in a thousand years.

  “No prying,” Ashem said. “No looking for military secrets.”

  Kavar’s mouth fell open, as if he couldn’t believe Ashem was considering it.

  “We really do need to go, folks,” Cadoc said, shifting Seren in his arms.

  Kavar gazed at Juli, then Ashem. “Fine. Agreed.” He clasped Ashem’s wrist, and they shook hands.

  Juli knew the moment the old, unused path between their minds reconnected. There was an echo, like when she was a child and her parents had two landline phones. Once, during a phone call with Kai Juli had gotten them both and held one up to each ear. Hearing Kai’s voice in stereo had been disconcerting, and she’d hung up one of the phones after less than a minute.

  She didn’t have that option now.

  Ashem and Kavar dropped each other’s arms. Neither spoke. Juli wasn’t sure either of them could.

  Kai moved to Juli’s side and touched her shoulder tentatively. The caution in the movement was so un-Kai-like that Juli had to blink away the prick of tears again.

  “Jules...I’m not leaving you.” Kai glared at Kavar. “You can’t stay with him. He tried to eat me. Twice.”

  The shouts from below were getting louder. Cadoc shifted Seren again. She moaned. “Rhys. Chief. Really. We need to go.”

  “Then go and transform,” Ashem barked. He stayed where he was, but the others moved away to find clear spaces. Morwenna shifted first, and Cadoc, still human, laid Seren carefully in the snow to help the red dragon with her harness.

  Juli would not cry. She would miss Ashem, but she’d still be able to talk to him. This would be the longest she’d been away from Kai since they were five. “We live thousands of years now. Six months is nothing.”

  Kai’s grip tightened. “It’s definitely something.”

  Juli pulled her into a hug.

  Rhys hovered nearby, something white in his hands. Kai’s raven flying mask. Juli bit her lip for a second before she trusted herself to speak. “Take care of her. I’m counting on you.”

  Rhys took her hand. “I will never be able to repay what you’ve done tonight.”

  Juli squeezed his fingers behind Kai’s back, still hugging her friend. “Survive. Make sure she does, too.”

  Rhys handed Kai the mask, then backed away to transform. Cadoc had lifted Seren’s blanket-wrapped body from the snow and was securing her awkwardly on Morwenna’s back, the Seeress bundled like a saddlebag between Morwenna’s wings at the base of her long, sinuous neck. Once Seren was tied on, Cadoc transformed, as well.

  Finally, Kai let go. “If you really think you have to do this, be careful. This place...” She shivered, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Don’t let him find you.” She licked her lips and forced a smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

  One last, hard hug, and Kai was gone.

  Ashem pulled her into his arms again, kissed her, then let her go. He backed away and changed into the black dragon in a flash of darkness deeper than the night.

  “Doset doram,” Ashem murmured into her mind. I love you.

  “Be safe,” Juli replied, knowing he’d feel the undertone. She loved him, too.

  The dragons of Eryri took to the sky.

  Shouts echoed up from the entrance they’d come through, close now. Juli watched her friends and her mate as the night swallowed them. She hugged herself. With only Ashem to hide four dragons, they’d have a hard time of it.

  But they would make it.

  The shouts grew too loud to be ignored, and Juli turned away from the sky. “Come on,” she said to Kavar. “You need to find Owain before he realizes you aren’t where you’re supposed to be.”

  Kavar was dazed, Juli could sense it. He couldn’t believe she’d actually stayed. He’d known what he was doing at the time, making that deal—anger had made him want to hurt Ashem as badly as possible. That, compounded with the longing the heartswearing brought on, had driven him to do what he’d done. Now, however, he wasn’t sure. “What about the four guards on Kai’s room?”

  Juli waved his words away. “I erased the memory of you taking their charms the second they were knocked out. They won’t remember you interfered.”

  Despite the artic frigidity of the air, Juli’s eyelids were drooping of their own volition. Wherever Kavar was going to put her, it had better have a comfortable place to sleep.

  “Don’t underestimate him. He agreed to this, but he’s still Kavar,” Ashem murmured. She cloaked herself in his reassuring presence. For a moment, she wished so hard that she’d gone with him that the pain was almost physical.

  Kavar was looking at her like she’d grown a third head. He had expected Ashem to kill him. Instead, he had Juli, and he was closer to his brother than he had been in a thousand years.

  It had been her biggest gamble of the night, hoping that there was a part of Kavar that was tired of war with his brother.

  She’d been right, as she tended to be. Now she was perfectly placed to find out everything she could about Owain’s plans and feed them t
o Ashem. Dangerous, yes, but she was heartsworn to one of his most trusted generals. Kavar would protect her whether he wanted to or not.

  No dragon would ever let anything happen to his heartsworn.

  Chapter Nine

  Breakable

  Owain woke when Kavar slammed through his door, the heavy wooden thing bouncing off the stone wall behind it. He sat up in bed and cursed, an odd, heavy feeling behind his eyes. “Sunder it, Kavar, what are you doing?”

  Still in the previous day’s clothes, Kavar looked as if he hadn’t slept. “They’re gone.”

  It didn’t make sense at first, as if his friend had just spoken in a language Owain only partially knew. When Kavar’s words sank in, Owain shot out of bed. “The Wingless?”

  For once, the Azhdahā didn’t smile. “Both.”

  Owain stopped. His heart beat in his ears.

  Both.

  His scouts had sent a report late last night that Rhys had been taken by his Council and forcibly returned to Eryri. At first, Owain had been disinclined to believe it. But the reports kept coming in, citing Ashem’s presence as well as Rhys’s. At length, Owain had believed.

  Besides, Rhys wasn’t devious enough to come up with a plan that could fool Owain. He hadn’t had the time.

  “It cannot be true. How could he have done it?” Owain grabbed the clothing he’d laid out for the next day and started to dress. “When?”

  Kavar’s nostrils flared. “I don’t know. They could be five minutes gone or over an hour. I’ve sent out two vees to search for them. They must have had something—some weapon—that forced anyone they came across to sleep.”

  Owain paused, studying Kavar. The man had been his general, his closest friend, for more than a millennium. Something about what he said was...off. “Was it Azhdahā magic?”

  Kavar nodded slowly, as if remembering. Or, perhaps, thinking. “It could have been. My brother is heartsworn now. Rhys’s magicians could have invented something that amplifies his power.”

  Envy seized Owain at the thought that Rhys’s people might have been able to accomplish something he hadn’t. He reached out to Jiang with his mind—she was sleeping elsewhere tonight, as she did from time to time—and jerked her awake.

  “What?” she snapped, trying to hide how groggy she was.

  “Who do we have in Eryri?”

  He sensed her disgust that he’d woken her. Jiang was not generally an early riser. “No one placed highly enough to do anything worth waking me.”

  Owain dismissed his anger before he lost control. Losing control meant making decisions he would regret. “You were grooming someone.”

  “I was.”

  “Rhys has taken his heartsworn. Whoever you’ve got, tell them to be ready for Rhys’s return.”

  “What?” Jiang fumed for only a moment, then took control of herself with alacrity. Her ability to accept a situation and begin to search for solutions efficiently and quickly was one of the reasons he admired her. “I thought you didn’t approve of my methods.”

  He didn’t. Poison—which Jiang had been suggesting for years—was a coward’s way. But Rhys had escaped him one too many times. The war dragged on, and humans grew more numerous and advanced. He would end this, even if he had to gather all the dragons of Cadarnle and fly to Eryri himself.

  Even if he had to sink to methods no dragon had stooped to in tens of thousands of years.

  “Contact your operative. Make sure he’s ready.”

  “He will be.”

  Owain shoved past Kavar and into the hall. Rhys had come here, to Cadarnle, and he hadn’t even tried to kill him. Coward. Owain paused halfway down the last set of stairs and narrowed his eyes. If Rhys had been so close, why had he left Owain alive?

  That had been a massive mistake.

  For the first time in a thousand years, Owain teetered on the brink of forcing Rhys into one final battle. Only the potentially catastrophic number of casualties stayed his hand. But Owain couldn’t afford to lose face. If Rhys managed to wiggle out of death again—if his cousin struck one more blow that made Owain look like a fool—it would be time to end it.

  Perhaps it was time to prepare.

  Owain and Kavar descended the last of the stairs that separated his chambers from the door to the Seeress’s room. He’d wanted her close. He’d taken every precaution he could, and somehow Rhys had been here, in his home, stealing his things in the night like a common human thief.

  Owain threw open the door to the chambers that had once held his Seeress. The guards were scattered across the floor, just sitting up. Many of them were holding their heads or other wounds, groaning. Owain strode past them into the hot, firelit room.

  The bed was empty.

  His Seeress, gone. His chance to win the war, gone. All his plans, blown away like powdered snow. Neither Kai nor Rhys would die today. Owain would not strike a blow for his people. He would not get rid of his infuriating cousin or—at long last—gain the full power of the mantle. The power he would have had if Ayen hadn’t killed his mother and destroyed his life.

  Ayen, whom he’d trusted. Who had set him up, encouraging him to explore the darkest avenues of magic then reporting to his mother as soon as Owain went too far. Rhys knew what his father had done. How could he not? He might hide behind the lie that he wanted to protect dragons by keeping them away from humans, but he only wanted the power. Just like his father.

  Red misted Owain’s vision. He shouldn’t have listened to Jiang. He should have killed the Wingless girl when he had the chance.

  He spun and went back into the hall, where Kavar gaped at the unconscious guards.

  “All alive,” the Azhdahā said. “Rhys left them alive.”

  There was awe in Kavar’s voice. Admiration when he said Rhys’s name.

  That would not do.

  Owain drew the dagger he kept at his waist and slit the first man’s throat. He placed his hand on the head of the next and blasted it with all the power of ice and cold he could muster. The man fell, dead. Sunder it, that had been a mistake. His magic would show. He’d have to have Kavar throw that man in the fire to make it look like he’d been burned.

  Kavar stopped him with a hand on his arm. “What are you doing?”

  Owain jerked free. He gutted the next one, slitting him from neck to navel where he lay on the ground. The man woke and screamed before he died. Owain didn’t stop, only moved to the next one, then the next. Cold. Methodical.

  Rhys could not be a hero. Owain’s people hadn’t responded well to his execution of the traitors who had wanted to help the Wingless. They were too caught up in emotion to see that—in the grander scheme of things—it had been a necessity. An example.

  Still, the last thing they needed this morning was to hear a romantic story about how Rhys had managed to rescue his heartsworn and the Seeress right out from under Owain’s snout without killing a single guard. That would sow discontent. He couldn’t have an army that muttered behind his back.

  “Don’t you see, Kavar? Rhys came in and killed our people.” Owain stabbed the next guard through the eye. “He came in the night and slaughtered us so he could take back his possessions. He knocked these guards unconscious, and then he murdered them in cold blood. These mates. Parents. Siblings.”

  Owain grabbed the last man by the hair, wrenching his head back to expose his neck.

  The man’s eyes opened, then widened when he saw the dagger. “Majesty, no!”

  The man had a name. Owain knew it, but decided not to think it. He sliced the guard’s throat. Blood spurted. The guard gurgled, spasmed and died. His work done, Owain wiped his dagger on his black pants and turned to Kavar. “Rhys must have cut the talisman from inside Kai’s neck, or her remains would be splattered in the hall outside her rooms. I don’t suppose they are.”
<
br />   Kavar was gripping a knife at his hip, staring at the dead guards. He cleared his throat. “No. She is not splattered in the hall.”

  Disappointing. “Find the talisman, and don’t wipe off any bits of the Wingless that are clinging to it. Those are the parts I need. Bring it to my rooms, then take care of the mess. After that, call up six more vees and sweep the area for Rhys. If they’re still close, I want them captured.”

  Without waiting for Kavar’s response—the Azhdahā would obey, of course—Owain reached for Jiang’s mind and prodded her awake again.

  “What?”

  “The headdress you wore when Rhys swore you into his vee. Does it still have his blood?” Part of the ceremony had involved Rhys smearing his blood across Jiang’s cheeks, and plenty had gotten caught in the metal links of the headdress.

  Hot excitement curled through Jiang’s thoughts. “Of course. You told me to keep it.”

  “Bring it to me.”

  Rhys might have succeeded in rescuing Kai, but he wouldn’t have her for long.

  Owain stripped off his blood-soaked jacket and threw it in the fire in the Seeress’s room. The old man in the corner was stirring. Owain thought about killing him, too, but decided against it. Six was enough. No need for extravagance.

  He stared into the flames, fascinated and repelled. He’d controlled fire once, but it was strange to him now. Deadly and alien. He touched his face, glad he’d had the Seeress heal his eye the first day she was in Cadarnle. Quetzals could heal, but Seren’s power—which could regrow entire eyes and bring one back from the brink of death—was completely unique.

  Perhaps he should wait, but the anger he’d been reining in was eating away at him as surely as fire ate away his bloodstained clothes. Besides, he needed to wash off the gore that had spurted onto his skin.

  Owain headed for his rooms. Kavar and Jiang would be there soon. He might not be ready to attack Eryri with all the might of Cadarnle, but he was going to allow himself a little revenge. It would cost the immediate advantage of attacking while Rhys was in too much pain to think, but his cousin would suffer longer, this way. Nothing would ever be right for Rhys again, not from this moment until his inevitable death.