He fixed his eyes on the floor. “Maybe. Or maybe your blood dissolved the charm because you are a healer. Either way, I choose this.”
“Why?”
He forced himself to look at her face, hidden though it was. “Because, ngariad i, I have never loved anyone but you.”
She knelt before him, his hand still clutched in hers. “Please. There must be another way. Owain is coming. The Unsworn are going to be decimated, or worse, by the battle.”
He swallowed, shutting away his hopes, his desire and everything he had ever dreamed of having. “I would rather die Unsworn than be responsible for destroying the Seeress. Rhys needs you. Everyone needs you.”
He could tell she was crying, her voice broken and quavering. “What about what I want?”
He smiled. “You want what’s best, and that means you’ll let me go.”
She dropped her head. “That doesn’t mean you have to join the Unsworn. Cadoc, please. I’ve seen your death.”
Cadoc almost smiled. Sometimes, death was mercy.
If she wouldn’t say the words, he would. He’d heard them before. “The Unsworn are the first to battle, the last to leave. I have no clan. I have no family. In combat, should I have the choice of preserving my own life or the life of a heartsworn dragon or a dragon who could someday heartswear, I will forfeit my own. This I vow.”
“Pledge to me,” she said.
That was not what he’d been expecting to hear. “What?”
“Pledge to me. If I do this—if I agree to send you to your death—that’s what I want in return. Don’t leave me awake nights wondering if you’re with someone else. Not when I’ll already be wondering whether or not you live.”
If a travesty of a pledging was all he could give her, he couldn’t say no. “I pledge to you the love of my heart, the strength of my body and the whole of my faith.”
She repeated the words, and they were sweeter than the sweetest music he’d ever heard. She kissed him one more time. When she pulled away, the fabric was dotted with her tears. “Unsworn, I declare you, Cadoc ap Brychan o’r Draig.”
The words tightened around him, magic binding him to his vows. He stood and pulled her to her feet. Fighting the burn of tears behind his eyes, he took his hand from hers. His music had been taken from him, his fate sealed since he’d been born, destined to heartswear to the Seeress. His entire life had been leading to this moment, and he’d been blind not to see it.
One more time, Cadoc grinned. “Sing a song for me when I’m gone, ngariad i. And don’t miss me. I was never good at much but being a fool.”
With a wink, he left, pretending he didn’t hear her sob behind him.
He had done what was best.
* * *
Rhys met with the Council in the stone circle, knowing two hundred dragons would be moving in synchronized drills overhead. Kai stood beside him, green eyes serious. The wind tugged on soot-colored flyaways that had escaped her braid. She wore the leathers she usually flew in, even though it had been days, and, Ancients, she wore them well. Fierce and regal and so much more than the girl he’d met and begun to love in a cave in the Rockies. He’d needed her then because of the heartswearing. He needed her now because...
Griffith’s voice whispered into his mind, “Without her, I am not.”
Lust and infatuation and magic aside, he finally understood. He would make the Council understand, as well.
Kai was right, and this—what he was about to do—Deryn had wanted it, as well.
“Honored members of the Council, I’ve called this meeting to make an announcement. The Wingless who wish will be allowed to take part in the battle.”
His sister’s death was a millstone around his neck he wasn’t strong enough to remove. Her memory dogged his footsteps, her voice teased, half heard as he walked through echoing halls.
Iain.
Griffith.
Deryn.
His father.
His mother.
His heartswearing.
If the Wingless fought with them, maybe death would stop dogging his steps.
As expected, the Council broke into an uproar. It wasn’t nearly as loud outside as it was in the echoing vastness of the Council chamber.
“You’re just going to decree it?” Nerys, the Draig councilwoman, shouted. “We have been voting on this issue for decades! You can’t just sweep that all away!”
Rhys raised an eyebrow. “It isn’t something I decided lightly. However, I am the king.”
There was a quiet shuffling at this. Another reason he’d chosen to meet them outside. They were within sight of the beach where Rhys had used the mantle to temporarily silence them all only weeks ago. He indicated Kai at his side. “Tell your clans that if any of them who are sworn to Wingless wish to practice, the queen and I would be glad to share some of the techniques we have developed both before and after our sundering.”
He turned to the group of two dozen people on his other side—people he was both immensely grateful for, and disappointed to see. “Councilmembers, I would also like to introduce the envoys the Free Dragons of the Wonambi have been kind enough to send. When Owain comes, they will not take part in the actual battle, as they’ve sworn to remain neutral. However, they will link—perhaps with a few Wingless, also, should any of them volunteer—and provide an illusion large enough to cover the archipelago. I know one of the concerns with drawing Owain into a large-scale battle here was that humans would notice. Now they will not. If you have any questions—”
“Rhys!”
He turned, and so did everyone else present. Seren was walking down the beach so quickly that Iolani and Ffion had to scurry after her. All of them looked unhappy, but Seren was the one who had called his name, her voice desperate.
Stars, what is it now?
Rhys caught Seren when she tripped over her long skirts. This close, he could see through the veil. She’d been weeping. He looked over his sister’s shoulder to Ffion, but she only shook her head, all the color gone from her face. Rhys squeezed Seren’s shoulders gently. “Tell me.”
“Cadoc...” Her voice broke.
Rhys’s stomach dropped.
Iolani, calm and unruffled despite having to run across the sand, said, “Cadoc o’r Draig has declared himself Unsworn.”
Rhys stepped back as if she’d struck him. He stared from Iolani to Seren, his mouth working. Then anger flashed through him. Cadoc knew all Rhys was dealing with, and now he had to do something scalebrained like this? “Blood of the Ancients, what was he thinking? What possible reason in the name of the sundering Ancients could he have to do that?”
The Council and visiting Wonambi shifted uncomfortably at his outburst. Ffion raised an eyebrow in an expression of subtle reproof and cool self-possession he hadn’t seen since Griffith died. “Listen to what she has to say before you start shooting fire from every orifice.”
Seren’s voice broke. “I’ve seen... Don’t—please don’t let him die.”
Rhys’s fingers curled into fists. The vision. So much had happened, he’d nearly forgotten. Cadoc, dead, staring at the sky. So real. All of Seren’s visions had always been steeped in symbology. But this one had been so real. Why?
Could it be because Cadoc and Seren truly were meant to be heartsworn?
Rhys helped Seren to her feet. Tradition and law prevented him from doing anything about Cadoc. The Council controlled the Unsworn.
Ancients, why had he chosen now? Why couldn’t he have waited until after the war?
“Rhys!” Morwenna ran toward him from down the beach, as well.
Ancients, what now? She stopped in front of him, fighting for breath. “The evacuees have come back.”
The Council burst into shouting again. Rhys raised a hand and shouted, “Let her speak!”
Morwenna’s face was pinched with worry. As soon as silence fell, she said, “Owain’s soldiers have the archipelago surrounded miles and miles out to sea. The children, the elderly, the humans—they’re all stuck here. There is no escape.”
“Sunder me.” He exchanged glances with Kai. Everything they’d planned had come together and begun to unravel at exactly the same time.
* * *
“Brother, I need you!”
Ashem sat bolt upright in his bed. For a moment, he thought he was in Wales, and Kavar was in the next bed over, having nightmares about their parents’ death again.
He put a hand to his head. He hadn’t shared a room with Kavar in more than a thousand years. They were grown men. They’d tried to kill each other dozens of times.
And Kavar was in trouble.
Ashem was out of his bed in a second, barely registering that Kavar had reopened their connection. “What is it? Where are you?” And then, a final wave of reality crashed over him. “Juliet?”
“Listen,” Kavar commanded. “I’m bringing her home. We’re nearly to the archipelago, approaching from the northeast. She didn’t want to tell you because she thought you’d fly out to meet us and leave Rhys without protection. But the islands are surrounded, and Jiang is here. I thought I could break through the line and beat her to the island, but she’s catching up. She has a dozen others with her. I can’t outfly them any longer.”
“I’m on my way.”
Ashem grabbed his communicator and jammed it over his ear, then pictured the Unsworn commander he knew had troops in the area.
“Hestia, wake your soldiers. Kavar is incoming, but do not engage. He’s carrying my mate. He’s being pursued by dragons of Cadarnle, including Jiang. Capture her at all costs.”
He ran from his apartments and up the stairs to Rhys’s rooms—which was the nearest exit from the mountain—and leaped from the edge, transforming in the sky, ignoring the calls of the dragon who was standing guard.
Ashem homed in on his brother’s location through their connection, fine-tuning it with images sent by Juliet. It wasn’t until he was in the sky that he was awake enough to remember why rage was boiling in the back of his skull, and had been for more than a week.
Why, when he saw his brother, he was determined to kill him himself.
Kavar had hurt Juli. He’d raped her mind and left her to freeze for days. Ashem had tried hundreds of times to contact him. He’d tried to leave Eryri. But after Deryn’s death and with Owain’s imminent attack his departure had been impossible.
Then, finally, Kavar had decided to bring her back. Poor, sensitive Kavar. None of his friends were good enough for him. He betrayed them all sooner or later.
And yet, after only a few weeks, he was bringing Juliet home.
All those thoughts were driven from Ashem’s mind as he neared the northern island just as the sun was rising out of the eastern sea. A green-clad mountain thrust from its center, surrounded by a fringe of white beach. Unlike the ovular central island on which Eryri stood, this one was long, low and crescent-shaped.
As fast as Ashem had flown, Hestia and her Unsworn had beaten him there. And Jiang’s dragons had already overtaken Kavar.
Four circled him in the sky, hemming him in and driving him toward the water. Each of the dragons wore onyx somewhere on their body, meaning Juliet would be useless in the fight against them. Ashem didn’t mind. Venom had always worked well enough for him.
Ashem heard Jiang taunting Kavar. “I told him you were a traitor. I told him he should have killed you!”
It was a testament to Kavar’s exhaustion that he didn’t retort, only tried, over and over again, to break free of the circle. Hestia and her Unsworn attacked from the outside, but they were rebuffed. Only one dragon got close to breaking through, the red-orange of his carnelian scales afire with the rising sun.
Cadoc.
Ashem remembered with a shock that he flew with the Unsworn, now. The wind-for-brains fool. But he was here, and he’d always been one of the best warriors in Eryri.
Then, even Cadoc was rebuffed. Kavar was alone.
Ashem had never seen someone else attack his brother. Every time they came to battle, he and Kavar were always matched against each other. No other dragon could withstand the deadly yellow venom. Kavar had been sincere in his efforts to kill Ashem, but Ashem’s heart had never been in it. By being the one to face Kavar time after time, he had ensured that his brother lived.
Seeing him under attack now sparked a rage that Ashem hadn’t felt since he was a child. He didn’t slow, didn’t warn them he was coming. He charged straight through the Unsworn and the dragons they were fighting, bursting through the line breathing a cloud of yellow that dropped one dragon instantly and had the other three—including Jiang—swerving out of his way.
“Have you come to help, Ashem? It’s about time you got rid of him.” Jiang’s voice was silky. The Lung were capable of influencing emotion, and though dragons only had the extra energy to produce magic when they were in human form, Ashem felt the tug of her words. Only belatedly did he realize this could have been a trap—Kavar might have lured him out here, set him up.
Then his brother faltered and dropped toward the sea, catching himself a hundred feet lower than he had been.
This was no trap. Kavar was exhausted.
“Kavar is dying,” Juli said into Ashem’s mind.
Unacceptable. “He will not die here. I’m going to kill him.”
Ashem banked and swooped back toward Jiang and the remaining dragons. The Unsworn, including Cadoc, had lured most of Jiang’s soldiers away over the island and were fighting them there, which left only Jiang and two others for him.
He’d faced far worse odds than that.
Ashem had used most of his venom in that first pass, but still had enough in his saliva to do a significant amount of damage. He chose the nearest dragon and slammed into it, sinking his jaws into its shoulder. The dragon roared, flapped twice, then plummeted into the sea.
Jiang swore, then curled her undulating form in the other direction and flew back out to sea, the last dragon trailing after her. When Ashem glanced back over his shoulder, he saw that Hestia and her Unsworn had grounded and captured the dragons who’d come after them in one of Rhys’s traps.
Seeing that things were taken care of there, he turned on a wingpoint, ready to chase Jiang down. She’d caused enough damage. Rhys didn’t want casualties, but Ashem was more than certain he wouldn’t throw a fit if that casualty was Jiang.
Before he could beat his wings more than once, Juli cried out.
He’d forgotten Kavar.
His turn had brought him right under his brother, and he could see the wound. A great gash in Kavar’s belly that dripped blood like rain into the sea far below. He didn’t know why dread rose in him like it did. He hated Kavar for what he’d done to Juliet. But suddenly, vengeance was the last thing Ashem wanted.
He led them to the island. They landed, and Juli slid off Kavar’s back as quickly as she could. “Change! Hurry!”
She’d been speaking to Kavar, but both brothers obeyed.
By the time Ashem was human, Juliet was cradling Kavar’s head in her lap. Kavar looked gray.
Ashem pressed his hands to the wound in Kavar’s stomach. “Sunder it, you cannot die.”
Kavar gritted his teeth, his breathing unsteady. “Don’t think you’ll be rid of me yet.” He jerked his head down the beach. “But isn’t he one of yours?”
Ashem turned.
A figure sprawled on the beach, Hestia and two Unsworn Mo’o working frantically to stop the bleeding from dozens of wounds.
“Stars. Cadoc.”
He wasn’t moving. Seren’s vision was coming true.
“Juliet, put your hands here. Stop the bl
eeding.” Without waiting to see if she obeyed, Ashem stood and sprinted toward him through the sand.
Chapter Thirty
A Lifetime
Seren paced the audience chamber as the sun rose. She couldn’t settle, couldn’t stop moving. Cadoc was out on patrol, and she’d woken an hour ago in the nauseating grip of premonition.
She laced her fingers together only to pull her hands apart and ball her hands into fists as she paced. She couldn’t stop picturing his face. Her lips formed his name over and over and over again. She remembered the hard planes of his body, the soft pressure of his kiss.
This premonition was for him. She knew it to her bones.
Today was the day he would die.
She’d thought she could let him go for the good of the people. All her life, she’d done her best to be who they needed her to be. She was the Seeress—she had to be more than the average dragon.
But she wasn’t more. She was herself. She couldn’t be the Seeress if it meant she had to let Cadoc die.
Seren cut off her pacing and picked up her trailing golden skirts, sprinting to the locked lattice gate.
“Let me out,” she said to the guards on the other side.
They spun on her, surprised. “Lady Seeress?”
Seren threaded her fingers through the gold lattice and shook it slightly. “Let me out. I have to see Rhys.”
They exchanged nervous glances with each other. “We can’t. Protector Iolani has left strict orders that you aren’t to be allowed out until the threat of attack has passed.”
Iolani. “I command you to open this gate.”
The guards looked uncomfortable and shook their heads.
“Then get Rhys,” Seren snapped. “Bring him to me. Now.”
“My lady—”
“Go!” Seren shouted.
Shocked to find her shouting at them—Seren herself wasn’t sure if she’d ever shouted out of anger in her life—one of the men ran off down the hall.
Seren paced, wringing her hands and muttering to herself. Every moment the nausea built, her blood rushed in her ears. The windows of the room were so large she could go through one of them, but she’d wanted to at least tell Rhys. The premonition had never come upon her so strongly—not even when she’d taken off after Deryn on the ill-fated journey north to see their mother.
Truth of Embers Page 30
