“You will be able to take the mantle from here,” one of the guards said. “We can call in the vees.”
“No. I have records from my great-grandfather. Fragments. I will have to get close enough to touch Rhys. However, if I gain the mantle in this way, the Sunrise Dragon will multiply my magic tenfold. When we go to war with the humans, I will be unstoppable.”
Kavar lifted Juli from the floor. Owain, caught up in his victory, wouldn’t remember to move her to a room where she wouldn’t freeze to death.
The war still wasn’t over. But now, instead of killing Rhys, Owain only had to get close enough to touch, and the mantle would be his. Not only the mantle, but the extra power of the Sunrise Dragon.
He would be invincible.
Kavar thought of Juli. Her pain. How he’d violated her in one of the most intimate ways. Guilt dug cold fingers into his gut.
He wished victory didn’t feel so empty.
Chapter Twenty-six
Those with Mighty Wings
Rhys adjusted the plate on the table once, then again, waiting for Kai to come back from yet another meeting with the Wingless—the second in as many days. He had yet to declare public support for them, and this morning she had not been pleased. Add that to the news Ashem had brought—that Kavar had attacked Juli, and that Owain knew about the Sunrise Dragon—and perhaps it was no wonder both of them were on edge.
But just as he couldn’t force her to sit out of the fight, she couldn’t expect him to make political decisions—decisions that would deeply affect hundreds of lives—because of their personal relationship.
Ancients, every time he thought they were safe, something else came between them. The stress of being sundered from her made him irritable. It had been weeks, and he still felt like he was missing one of his limbs. But irritability meant that he ended up driving her away, which made him even angrier.
Time to break the cycle.
He pulled out a bottle of mead that Powell had given him. The Draig councilman remained firmly anti-Wingless, but Rhys knew that it was because he loved his people and worried the Wingless would betray them.
That was no excuse for bigotry, but Rhys had to work with the people he had.
He laid out the dinner he’d made, refusing to allow himself to fuss. It was only dinner. Only him and Kai.
He’d just poured the mead when someone knocked on the door. When he opened it, Deryn swept in like a hurricane.
“Sunder it, Rhys, Powell and Athena got into it again and they need someone to mediate. You’re home. You do it.” She inhaled, and her eyes popped open wide. “What is that? It smells amazing. I hope you made enough.” She darted into the kitchen, barely glanced at the table, then opened the pot that had been cooking over the coals for hours and pulled out a shred of beef. She dropped it into her mouth. “Ancients, that’s good. Evan can’t cook. I’m moving in with you.”
He trudged after her, willing himself to remain calm. He’d put too much on her lately. Despite her breezy behavior, there were dark circles under her eyes. But he needed tonight. “I know I’m asking too much, but can you handle it? Aderyn. Stop eating that.”
She gave him the side-eye and moved to the table, where she picked up the glass he’d poured for Kai. She inhaled appreciatively and swirled the amber liquid. “I’m tired, Rhys. You’re not the only one who has someone to go home to, you know.”
“Evan is with you when you’re out,” Rhys said, annoyed that she was right. He would have pointed out that Evan and Deryn weren’t heartsworn and the fate of the world didn’t rest on their relationship, but he and Kai weren’t sworn anymore, either. The fate of the world did rest on Deryn. More, even, than it did on him.
She put the glass down and sighed, running her hands over her hair. Somehow, she did it without mussing any of the braids in her...however it was her hair was done. Up. With things in it. “Fine. I’ll go—”
The door opened and Kai came in. Rhys straightened and just stopped himself from running a hand through his hair the way Deryn had. Something about seeing her made him feel like a juvenile at his first festival—eager to dance, but afraid of tripping over his own feet.
Kai smiled awkwardly. “Hey.” She looked like she was about to say more, then she saw Deryn. “Oh. Hey, Deryn. How’s it going?”
“You two. Get it together. I’m having this.” Deryn picked up the cup she’d discarded and tossed back her head, draining the mead in several long swallows.
“Aderyn—”
He didn’t get further than that.
Deryn’s body stiffened. She set the cup back on the table, but only made it halfway. It fell to the tiled floor, shattering. Deryn crumpled into a puddle of azure skirts, her body convulsing.
Rhys hit the floor on his knees, pulling her onto his lap. “Deryn!” He tried to hold her, but she writhed, her body arching and out of control. Then, just as suddenly, she collapsed.
Utterly still.
Rhys’s head spun. He couldn’t breathe. Everything felt surreal, as if he’d sped and the world around him had slowed.
He turned her over, afraid of what he would see.
Deryn’s eyes were open wide enough to show whites all around her turquoise irises, as if she’d been surprised. The skin around her mouth had turned purple. Her lips were black.
“No.” He pushed a stray braid from her forehead, but he knew she wouldn’t respond. He recognized the signs of Azhdahā venom when he saw them. “Deryn?”
She was dead.
There, and then gone.
His sister was dead.
Strong, small hands gripped his shoulder. Kai said something, but he couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see anything except Deryn, and the surprise on her face. Glass crunched as Kai took off, leaving their rooms.
Rhys touched Deryn’s hand. It was warm, but her fingertips were black. Her eyes stared at nothing, and her body sprawled across the floor, lifeless.
This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be true. Any second now, she would move. Any second she’d blink and laugh and tell him he was a wind-for-brains fool. He’d fallen for her prank. Any second.
He was still kneeling on the floor when Kai came back with Ashem. Ffion and Morwenna arrived. Then Evan.
Evan made a noise like a wounded animal and dropped to her other side. Only Ashem’s barked warning stopped him from slicing his knees and palms on the broken glass of the cup when he leaned forward to press one hand to her cheek. “No.” He let out a torrent of words in Welsh, anguish clear in every one.
Ashem knelt next to Rhys and took Deryn’s wrist, her hand flopping lifelessly in his grasp. He checked for a pulse, then said, in a voice like an empty wind, “She’s gone.”
Kai, who stood directly behind Rhys, caught him as he sank back, her arms around his neck, her whispered words of sorrow flowing over and around him. Vaguely, he registered that Ffion was clearing away the broken glass, and then that she and Morwenna were kneeling at Deryn’s side, as well.
Ffion joined the circle, then, and Evan clutched her, sobbing. She was crying, as well, silent tears streaking her face. Morwenna sat, staring, her expression dry-eyed and vacant. As if, like Rhys had, she expected Deryn to jump up and laugh at a prank well executed.
But she wasn’t coming back.
He clutched Kai’s arms. All his life, he’d been treading dark water, and Deryn was one of the few things that kept him afloat. Without her, he would drown.
Cadoc and Seren arrived, then. Ashem must have called them, able to speak into their minds with his magic. Seren cried out when she saw her sister, gloved hands catching at Cadoc’s wrist. Then she was beside Rhys, touching Deryn’s cooling forehead. “I didn’t see this. Why didn’t I see it?”
There wasn’t much more room around Deryn’s body, but Cadoc managed, sinking to the floor at
her head, between Seren and Ffion. He put his hand to his mouth, his face crumpling.
Tears welled in his eyes, and he kissed his fingers and reached down to close Deryn’s eyes. “Dance with the Stars, little sister. May the wind carry you well.”
There was silence, then, except for the tears.
After a long moment, Cadoc stroked Deryn’s hair and began to sing Pais Dinogad, an ancient lullaby. Seren joined him, their voices weaving a tapestry of sound that seemed to separate them from the rest of the world, pulling them out of time. It was mostly nonsense, a song from mother to son, describing his father’s hunting prowess.
“Ni ddihangai’r un oni bai’n nerthol ei adenydd.”
And none could escape, but those with mighty wings.
Rhys touched Deryn’s cheek. Images flashed through his mind. Deryn sparring. Laughing. Her boots on his desk, her face when she called him a scalebrain and a fool.
Her life had filled a place in his heart. Now that place was shockingly, tearingly empty but for the barren echo of memory.
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed by her cooling body, keeping watch. One by one, they stood, until only Rhys knelt on the floor.
When Owain had taken Kai and Seren, there had been things to do. Plans to make. Hope of getting them back. But this...He couldn’t plan for this. Couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t change it.
He touched her blackened lips. Azhdahā venom. It had to be Kavar’s. But Kavar hadn’t sent a bottle of poisoned mead—it wasn’t the Azhdahā’s style. Nor any dragon’s. Poison was for cowards—for those so desperate to accomplish their means they didn’t care about the dishonor.
Owain and Jiang.
Owain’s people couldn’t know he’d stooped to this. If there was a crime worse than heartswearing to a Wingless, poisoning might just be it.
Owain had stolen his sister just as he’d stolen Rhys’s heartswearing.
Rhys leaned against Kai, and her touch dulled the edge of his grief just enough for him to stand, still cradling Deryn’s body. In death, she was limp and loose in a way that belied the taut grace she’d had in life.
Ashem put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me lay her upstairs. There are arrangements to make.”
Rhys swallowed. He didn’t want to let Deryn go. To let her go was to accept that she was gone, that her soul wouldn’t somehow find its way back. He had never left her behind if he could help it. He couldn’t leave her now.
As if reading Rhys’s mind, Cadoc said, “It’s all right, boyo. You aren’t leaving her behind. She’s gone on ahead. We’ve got to carry on until we meet her there.”
This time, when Ashem tried to take Deryn from his arms, Rhys let him. When her weight disappeared, he felt unanchored. Out of control. He was at once drowning, lost and adrift.
Then Kai was there, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding tight. He caught her up as if she was the anchor he’d been missing. She was so small compared to Deryn, so light. He buried his face in her shoulder and let the tears come. She didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stood, her hands rubbing his back in slow circles, her tears falling on his shoulder.
Rhys didn’t know how much later it was when he regained control. Ashem was seated at the kitchen table with both the bottle of mead and the glass Rhys had poured for himself.
Fresh horror struck him.
He had poured that broken glass for Kai.
If he hadn’t lost Deryn, he would have lost Kai. Again. Completely and forever. His sister or the woman he loved.
He’d rather have died himself.
Ashem poured Rhys’s mead into the bottle without spilling a drop, then took the glass and wrapped it in a towel. “Who cleaned up the broken glass?”
“I covered my hand with a cloth and threw it all down the garbage chute. It’s probably already been incinerated,” Ffion said.
“Good.” Ashem took them all in, his golden eyes shadowed. Then he sat hard on the kitchen chair, the poisoned bottle in front of him. “Ancients, she’s gone. I can’t believe she’s gone. Kavar and Juliet, and now...” He covered his face with his hands.
“We...we must tell the Council. Allow them to announce it to the people,” Ffion said, her birdlike voice quavering. “Owain will be on his way once he hears about this. This battle we’ve planned...” Her voice broke. “It’s still coming.”
“We should increase the guard on Rhys.” Morwenna rubbed her hands together over and over, knuckles white. “Without Deryn, he’s the only thing standing between Owain and victory.”
“Does it matter?” Rhys asked, his voice harsh. “I’m sundered. He’s as good as won.”
“Of course it matters,” Kai said. “Owain is a monster. As long as you’re alive, there’s hope.”
“Where did you get that mead?” Ashem asked.
Rage exploded inside Rhys, and he growled, “Powell.” A gesture of goodwill, Kai had told him. He would wrench open the man’s jaw and force-feed him the rest of the mead himself.
Ashem caught him by the shoulder. “I will handle Powell. You call a meeting of the Council and start the arrangements for her—her funeral.”
Rhys ripped free of Ashem’s hand, but he didn’t try to head to the door. If he saw Powell right now, nothing would stop him from murdering the man.
He didn’t care if he was sundered and Owain had won. He didn’t care about the mantle. Or about saving humans. Or the responsibilities of being king.
He was going to kill the white dragon. Even if it meant dying himself.
* * *
Kavar couldn’t go through with it.
He paced his rooms, far closer to the center of Cadarnle than the ones in which he’d stashed Juli. Owain hadn’t allowed him to take her back there. Instead, she’d been moved to Kai’s old cell and drugged out of her mind. Despite the manacles and collar, Owain wanted to make sure she didn’t have the chance to spy. Kavar’s instructions were to leave her and fly to Eryri and kill Ashem.
But he couldn’t.
Kavar paced back across the room. Owain had been vacillating about the attack on Eryri. Though he’d been sending vees out in waves for days, positioning them close enough to attack at a word, he hadn’t gone himself. As always, the number of casualties the battle would cause held him back.
Which was why Kavar hadn’t left on his assignment to kill Ashem. He’d needed time to think, and he’d gotten it.
Though he’d only been reconnected to his brother for a couple of weeks, Kavar missed Ashem’s presence in his head. Ashem had tried to reopen the connection more than once. Kavar had allowed it, but only for a moment. Only long enough to tell him that his precious Juliet wasn’t slated for immediate execution.
Kavar growled and spun to pace in the opposite direction. He’d bargained for six months. He’d earned six months, and Juli had to go and ruin it by getting caught. There was no point to her even being in Cadarnle now. He couldn’t be close to her. Couldn’t even use her to rile Ashem.
And when it came to Juli, he didn’t trust Owain.
The white dragon promised many things, but as soon as it no longer coincided with “the greater good” Owain would break his promise. If Kavar left Juli in Cadarnle, chances were she’d be dead before he’d been gone a week. He’d been an idiot to think of Owain as a friend. To want a place where he had to prove himself over and over again. He’d never demanded the same of Owain, wouldn’t dream of it.
He was finished.
Sunder it, he was going to have to take her back to Eryri.
Not that she meant anything to him. She’d freed him once, likely saving him from execution. He was simply returning the favor.
Kavar’s vee—under Demba’s command—had been among the first to leave, while he had still been sitting in a cell. Now he was glad. He wouldn’t have to explain himself to anyo
ne who found out what he was doing.
By “explain himself,” of course, he meant “kill.”
Decision reached, Kavar strode along the side corridors of Cadarnle, a barrier hiding him from prying eyes. He peered around the corner at the guards at Juli’s door. Each wore a black stone strapped to their wrists.
Good thing he’d had the foresight to replace the polished onyx charms with useless obsidian.
Kavar sent the guards to sleep with a thought, and they collapsed in a heap. He relieved the captain of her keystone and pressed his palm the door.
It swung open. Instead of the bed, where he’d laid her, Juli lay on the floor inside, mostly unconscious. The room was frigid. Kavar slipped his arms under her back and picked her up. She was disturbingly cold.
He strode into the hall, and light fell across her face. Her lips were purple. Sunder Owain. He probably wouldn’t even have bothered to kill her himself, he’d have just let her die of exposure and claim it was an accident.
Kavar carried her back to his rooms, where he stoked the fire, then laid her on the rug before the fireplace. He packed, throwing things haphazardly into a bag that he slung over his shoulder.
The cold would be one thing he didn’t miss about Cadarnle. In fact, going rogue—which he planned to do after he returned Juli to Ashem—had many positives. He’d make it clear to Ashem that once he was settled—preferably somewhere in the mountains of their homeland—he would expect his six months per year. Especially after sticking his neck out for both of them like this.
Twenty minutes passed. Juli didn’t stir, but she did warm up. Kavar dressed her in his spare winter gear and wrapped her in a blanket. Then he picked up an extra harness he’d stolen shortly after his return from Eryri, coiling the leather over his shoulder and around his torso.
Perhaps, even then, he’d known it would come to this.
Casting a barrier around them both, he left Cadarnle the way Juli had entered—the little-used entrance that led to a cluster of boulders against the hill. It was dark, though the sun would’ve been well up farther south. Carrying Juli, his bag and the harness, he hiked half a mile through rocky hills, until he was sure he was too far away for anyone to see him transform.
Truth of Embers Page 27
