Truth of Embers

by Caitlyn McFarland

  Those people—some of them, at least—had to be related to Wingless in Eryri or Cadarnle. That made them his people. His responsibility. He’d come here to take Owain’s weapon away. Now, he wanted justice. Owain’s debt was mounting, and it could only be paid in blood.

  “Let me see them,” Kai said.

  Rhys sighed in resignation. He’d known she would ask. “Come.”

  Kai took his proffered hand.

  “Sweetheart.” Her father sounded horrified.

  She whirled on him. “Did you know their names?”

  Brendan straightened. “I do. Some of them didn’t want to tell...didn’t think we’d live long enough for it to matter. But I kept asking. I just...if I was going to die, I wanted to keep my name. And I didn’t think anyone else should go...forgotten.”

  “Tell me.” Kai released Rhys’s hand and took Brendan’s instead. They walked over to the bodies and made Ashem uncover them, staring at every empty, drained face. Rhys watched her lips moved as she memorized. When she had finished, she motioned for Ashem to cover them again.

  “We need to destroy the runes,” Ashem said.

  Rhys examined the stones set into the floor. “Can you claw them out?”

  Ashem dragged his claws across the stones. They didn’t leave so much as a scratch.

  “There.” Kai pointed. One of the columns that held up the roof had crumbled, leaving large chunks of rock scattered across the floor. “Smash them with those.”

  Rhys and Thabo went down a few floors and found a windowless room where the light of their transformations wouldn’t give away what they were doing to the sentries. They came back up and grabbed huge stones, joining Ashem in smashing the boulders down on the runes, scattering broken citrine over the white floor like bloodied drops of amber in snow.

  Rhys worked until his shoulders burned and his back ached, but Stars, it felt good to hit something. To focus some of the anger that built and built with nowhere to go. As they made their way around the circle, the hot, prickly feeling of magic in the air lessened and died.

  When it was over, he went to stand next to Kai. She stared at the broken gems, her lip curling. “They look like Jolly Ranchers. Bits of broken candy rolled around congealed blood. Delicious. Enjoy, Owain.” She kicked bloody citrine out of her way.

  When they were finished, Ashem and Thabo headed down the ramp. Rhys and Kai made to follow, but Kai’s mother stopped them.

  She indicated the bodies. “We can’t just leave them here.”

  Ancients, he was exhausted. His first instinct was to refuse, but that would solve nothing. Rhys called Ashem and Thabo back. Together, the dragons carried the bodies all the way down the ramp and into the city. There were only ten. Between the three of them, that made one trip. They buried the bodies in the sand, marking their grave with a circle of stones.

  When they’d finished, he turned to Kai. “We’ll come back after we’ve finished with Owain. Perhaps we can return them to their families.”

  Her face was blank. He’d expected more of a reaction when she’d seen the bodies, but Kai hadn’t so much as gasped or said anything beyond her comment about candy.

  Before he’d freed her from Owain, he’d worried that there wouldn’t be any of the girl he loved left.

  Heaviness settled over him. The night was a success, but between ten dead humans and Kai’s coldness, it didn’t feel like one.

  On their way back to the tower, Rhys hit his foot hard against a bit of stone mostly hidden by the sand. He swore and caught himself on hands and knees.

  The mantle slipped.

  “No!” He shoved himself up and sprinted back for the tower. The others called softly for him to wait, asked him what was wrong, but he couldn’t answer.

  He had to get back within hearing distance of the guards.

  As he crossed the threshold, someone screamed.

  Tane and Morwenna had locked up the guards. All ten of them were free. They’d cornered Tane. One of them had grabbed Morwenna and put her own sword to her throat. The rest were making short work of the humans. Already, three of them lay dead on the floor.

  “Stop. Owain’s guards, get in the vault.”

  The fighting stopped, but the damage had been done. Of the twenty humans they’d rescued, five lay dead, including the old Welsh woman who had called him Y Ddraig Goch.

  Rhys kicked one of the bottles of cordial. It shattered, sending viscous, black liquid spattering over the wall. Tane and Morwenna had emptied the vault already, so Rhys slammed the door and locked it. With the guards locked away, he dropped the power of the mantle.

  He’d failed to protect his people. Again.

  He turned to the stacks and stacks of bottles in front of him. Rhys didn’t know how many bottles one human life could fill, but he suspected it had taken hundreds of deaths to create this.

  “So much power,” Morwenna said in wonder.

  “So much death,” Rhys growled. She had the decency, at least, to look chagrined.

  They buried the murdered humans with the others. Then dragon and human alike carried as many bottles as they could down the ramp and just outside, into the shadow of the building. Ashem smashed each and every one with his spiked tail, black liquid draining into the sand.

  Let Owain see everything he’d worked for smashed into nothing.

  When there were about fifty bottles left, Rhys called a halt to the destruction. Morwenna had found another tarp in a storage room. She cut it into six sections, one for each dragon, and they filled their bundles with the remaining bottles of cordial.

  Rhys’s mind went numb as they repeated the process of entering the city, except in reverse. Loaded with human passengers and bundles of cordial, the dragons glided to the outskirts of the city, where they unloaded and became human. Huddling as close to Ashem and his barrier as they could, they trekked out of the city and into the desert, chivying the tired humans along.

  They cleared the barrier just as dawn was beginning to lighten the eastern horizon. Finding an outcropping of rock that would hide their final shift from the eyes of the sentries, each of the dragons took on human passengers again. Carrying their bags of cordial, they took to the sky.

  In all his life, Rhys had never been so tired. “We did it,” he whispered. But of course, it had cost them lives.

  Kai, who had given up the safety of her harness for her mother, was sitting farther up his neck than he was used to. She lay down against Rhys’s spine, one arm looped around a spike. He couldn’t see her, but he imagined she sighed.

  The first step in his plan was complete. They would reach Eryri in a week, weather permitting. If everything was going according to plan, she and the others would be busy preparing the archipelago for the final battle.

  All that was left was to convince Owain to go to war.

  * * *

  They left the Taklamakan Desert, the overladen dragons picking up even more baggage as they retrieved their travel gear from their camp. They traveled through the remainder of the night and on until dawn, then set down in the mountains a hundred or so miles from where they’d spent the previous day.

  Of course, the only reason Kai had the faintest idea of where they were on the globe was because Isi kept her filled in on their frequent breaks. Dragons, Isi had said, had an instinctive sense of navigation like birds or butterflies, but more refined.

  Rhys busied himself with camp setup and tense discussions with Tane and Ashem about what they should do with the humans, which left Kai alone to explain things to her parents.

  A lot of things.

  Once she couldn’t find any more excuses to stay away, Kai went to the tent she shared with Rhys and ducked inside. Her parents sat on the thin pad Rhys and Kai used as a mattress. Brendan sat in a camp chair. The dragons’ designs were so efficient and their drago
n bodies so large that carrying around human-sized camping equipment wasn’t really an issue.

  Unless, of course, they were also carrying several humans and heavy tarp-bags of that disgusting cordial.

  “So...hey.” Kai sat on the ground, her hands on her knees. “I guess you guys have a lot of questions.”

  Dad raised his eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been dreaming for the past couple of weeks, but why don’t you go ahead and start at the beginning?”

  So she did. She told them how, when they thought she was lost in the mountains for ten days, she’d actually been taken by dragons. Not in a bad way—she’d helped the good-guy dragons and in turn they’d taken her with them when they were attacked by bad-guy dragons, effectively saving her life.

  She told them the truth about the night Rhys had showed up in Colorado, worried because his sister had seen a vision—yes, a vision—that Kai would be kidnapped by Owain. Which led her off on a tangent, because then she had to explain the war and the mantle, though she couldn’t bring herself to say that Rhys was one of the warring kings. She could only expect them to take in so much at once.

  “But why you?” Mom asked when Kai started winding down. “Why us?”

  Kai grimaced. “So, you know how I was in that cave the first time I went missing?”

  Nods.

  “Dragons have this thing where they—” Oh, hell, do not say “mate” “—bond to one person for life. Usually it happens with other dragons, but I guess some human families carry a sort of predisposition for it...and we belong to one of them. Rhys bonded to me. And, um, Ashem, if you guys didn’t figure that one out, is bonded to Juli. That’s also why I can do magic with fire. Because that’s what kind of magic Rhys has.”

  “What kind of magic does Ashem have?” Brendan asked. “And where is Juli?”

  At the same time, her mother squeaked, “You are dating a dragon?”

  Kai rubbed her temples. “It’s a little more permanent than dating.” Was it, now that they were sundered? Would Rhys’s people decide they didn’t want her anywhere near power and just toss her out?

  In a very Dad-like tone, her father said, “Permanent how?”

  Kai sighed. “As in married, Dad.”

  Brendan gave a hoot of laughter. “Rhys married you? Why?”

  Kai blushed. She knew he was just being a moron, but his tone hit a little too close to home. “He didn’t have a choice. Neither of us did.”

  But they did now. A few months ago, all Kai had wanted was a way to escape her heartswearing. If it turned out they didn’t love each other like they thought they had, she supposed...she could be free.

  The thought turned her stomach. It wasn’t about freedom anymore. Besides, being with Rhys didn’t make her less free. Maybe some people would see it as her subverting her wants for a man, but that was idiotic. She had seen the war firsthand. She’d been tortured. And those bodies...

  She was in this now because Rhys had to be the one to win. Not just because she loved him. She believed in the cause, and in him.

  And in herself.

  Brendan was still chortling at his own joke. Kai resisted the urge to punch him, reminding herself that they’d all gone through a lot of crap lately.

  Kai fielded questions for fifteen more minutes, her desire to be alone increasing by the second. She ignored it. At least she wouldn’t have to lie to her mom about why she’d missed Christmas.

  Actually, no. She would lie about that. Forever. The more time that passed, the less she wanted to talk about those weeks with Owain. Let them stay where they were, locked behind the doors of her mind, and rot.

  The tent flaps parted and Rhys entered. The tent wasn’t crowded, exactly, but there wasn’t a ton of extra room. He settled next to Kai, one hand braced just behind her, his arm brushing her back. He inclined his head toward the Monahans. “How are you?”

  Kai’s mother snorted. Her dad looked like he wished he could polish his shotgun.

  “They’re fine, considering the circumstances,” Kai answered.

  Her mother snorted again. “If being kidnapped and imprisoned is fine.”

  Kai closed her eyes, breathing deeply, and felt Rhys shift so that she could lean against his shoulder. She did. With him present, dealing with her family seemed infinitely more doable. “There are worse things, Mom. Trust me.”

  Isi poked her head into the tent. “Hi! Sorry, some of the humans are demanding an audience with the king.”

  “Wait, one of these warring kings is here?” her father asked.

  Isi looked from Rhys to her father in confusion.

  Damn it.

  In unison, her family swung their heads toward her. Kai put on a huge false smile. “Hey, guys, guess what?” She made a “ta-da” gesture, like they were on a game show and Rhys was the grand prize. “Rhys isn’t just my husband. He’s also the king. The one who doesn’t want to eat half of the human race and subjugate the rest.”

  Brendan absolutely lost it, guffawing so hard he almost fell off his chair. “Oh, come on, Kai the Fly. No way. Please don’t tell me that makes you some kind of queen.”

  Rhys’s arm tightened around her, and Kai reminded herself that this stupid brother had kept her from falling off Rhys’s back more than once during the grueling escape from the Taklamakan.

  Still, it was going to be a long flight back to Eryri.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Blinded

  It took Juli days to free herself from the cuffs—not only because it was difficult, but because dragon locks weren’t like human ones. They were activated by magic, so there was no way to physically manipulate them. She might have given up, if it wasn’t for Jiang’s thoughts about poison in Eryri.

  There were only a few people in Eryri important enough to poison, and to one degree or another, Juli loved every single one of them. Rhys was the most likely candidate, but since he and Kai ate together, anything that got to him would probably kill Kai, as well. Now that they were on their way back, her time was limited. She had to find out who Jiang’s contact was.

  She couldn’t give everything up for Kai only to have her die anyway.

  Two days after the incident with Owain, Kavar cooled off enough to come visit her again. He paced around and snapped at her, but they both felt the relief of being physically close.

  It only took the edge off for Juli, however. The longer she was with Kavar, the more she wanted Ashem. Not only in the normal “I miss you” way, which was bad enough, but in the biting, hollowed-out way of the heartswearing. Even spending time deep within their mental connection was little comfort for either of them. They needed to be together.

  But when she was with Ashem, she would still need Kavar. If Kai’s behavior when she’d been away from Rhys for nearly two months was any indication, soon her emotions would be completely unmanageable.

  Juli watched Kavar pace and wondered whether she was doomed to a nearly immortal life only to become a starving wraith—her body insatiably craving something her heart and mind would never want.

  It would drive her insane.

  Desperate, Juli told Kavar what she’d heard in Jiang’s mind—that he was supposed to be in Eryri to take the fall for poison.

  “You lie,” he said. “Poison is a coward’s way—a human way. If dragons poisoned each other’s food, Owain would’ve killed Rhys a thousand years ago.”

  “You think so?” Juli opened their connection and shoved the memory into his mind.

  His eyes widened, then he spat Jiang’s name. “Owain can’t possibly know about this. He let Rhys capture me so Jiang would have credibility, but he would not have condoned my execution.”

  That was the end of that day’s visit.

  Juli sank back onto the couch, scratching at her chained fingers. She felt bad for Kavar. Bad e
nough that she wished she didn’t have to push. But her need to get free was more important than his hurt feelings. If she could find out who in Eryri was supposed to deliver the poison and who their target was, Ashem could stop it from happening.

  She needed the key. To get it, she would have to distract Kavar.

  So she decided to seduce him. Just a little.

  Ashem was not on board, but there were lives at stake. Besides, Juli was sure she could do it. She’d gleaned the most important thing she could about Kavar: he was jealous. Growing up in Ashem’s shadow had been difficult. Ashem, cantankerous as he was, had been the golden son...at least in Kavar’s memories.

  Firstborn, best at everything, beloved. Ashem was the day, bright and blazing, and Kavar had been the night. Younger brother, adequate instead of gifted—in his own mind, that was. Kavar wanted to be great on his own, without Ashem looming over him. He craved recognition. Appreciation.

  That, more than anything else, was the reason he’d followed Owain.

  Juli shared her thoughts with Ashem.

  “He was not less loved. If anything, our mother loved him more.” He sounded exhausted. He had plenty of reason. At the moment, he was flying somewhere over the Pacific with several humans on his back and loaded down with camping gear.

  Juli didn’t have brothers or sisters, wasn’t sure who her father was and didn’t care for her mother. However, she’d been part of Kai’s family long enough to recognize the sullen tone of sibling rivalry. And besides, she’d seen both their memories. “Don’t be an idiot, joon-am. Your parents loved you the same. Besides, the truth is less important than how Kavar felt. How you felt.”

  “I don’t have feelings,” Ashem said, voice dripping with distaste.

  Juli sighed. “You are ridiculous. I love you.”

  Her love for Ashem, however, didn’t negate her need to get close to Kavar. She had to find the key.

  Kavar came again the next day. Since he apparently couldn’t help dropping an innuendo every few sentences—and since his main goal was still to cuckold his brother—Juli didn’t have much work to do. She let him fluster her. Flatter her. The first time she let herself blush, he became wickedly smug. The first time she let him come close without jerking away, he was out-and-out delighted.