Dragon's Fire

by Gwynn White

  Unfortunately, with all these positive changes, fear of Lukan was also waning. His boys were becoming reckless in their disregard for their guardsmen, little realizing it was only Tao’s mantle of invisibility that allowed them to sneak off unseen. They had taken to trying to slip past their guards on their own in defiance of Lukan’s rules.

  It wasn’t a healthy, life-preserving development.

  Dmitri had been quite vocal in the need for Tao to rein them in—but without revealing the truth of who he was or how he bent light to shield them.

  “You know what I mean,” Grigor said. “How do you get onto the palace grounds without anyone bothering you?”

  “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

  “Haha. Very funny,” Meka said, joining in the conversation.

  But Tao could see Grigor wasn’t convinced. He gnawed the inside of his mouth, wondering what he could say to trick Tao into spilling his secrets.

  Never going to happen, my boy.

  Grigor tried another tack. “How do you know so much about us?”

  “You forget I have spent every day with you for months now.”

  “Nah. It’s more than that.” Grigor rolled onto his back again and stared at the watery sky. “You know things about us, about the palace, that no . . . person . . . who wasn’t . . . descended from one of the Sixteen would ever know. How is that possible?”

  Despite the dread hanging like a mantle over him, Tao grinned. He had made it very clear to them at their second meeting that he didn’t approve of the terms high-born and low-born.

  They tried to accommodate him.

  He found it interesting that it didn’t cross Grigor’s mind that there could be other Avanovs in the world, apart from the three he knew.

  “I know people who live at the Palace.”

  “What people?”

  Meka leaned over and nudged Grigor with his boot.

  Grigor scowled at him.

  Meka gave his brother a decisive head shake and mouthed, “Stop it.”

  A sigh, and Grigor settled back to watch the clouds flickering through the leaves.

  The exchange intrigued Tao.

  Meka wanted answers as much as his brother did. Tao spent most nights ghosting their bedchamber, so he had heard every conversation Meka had initiated with Grigor on who Tao was, where he came from, and how he seemed to evade all detection. But unlike Grigor, for Meka, it was just that—talk. He would do nothing that risked what the boy considered his precious meetings with their strange visitor.

  Tao stood. It was time to put the lesson of the day into practice.

  “If you have finished eating, perhaps you would care to swim? Get yourselves vaguely clean before you go back.” As innocuous as that sounded, his sons’ response would determine whether the illusion in the cage held or not.

  “Go back?” Meka moaned, not moving an inch from his spot on the grass. “We still have time before the guardsmen come.”

  “Yes,” Grigor chimed. “We’ll swim later.”

  Tao suppressed a burning desire to command them to obey him. Instead, he uttered the very last thing he wanted to say. “Fine. If that is your choice, then that is what you must do.”

  A long, mournful sigh oozed out of Grigor. “You must be an amazing father.” He eyed Tao with calculating determination. “Are you?”

  Tao grunted at the flattery. It might have counted for something if Grigor hadn’t been fishing for information. “You be the judge. But as I always said to Nicholas, don’t forget to pick up both ends of the stick.”

  “Huh?”

  “Simple, Grigor. Be willing to accept the results of your choices. The consequences.”

  “Oh. Those.” Grigor brushed the air dismissively. “Now that’s not as fun.”

  “Precisely, but it is the responsibility of choice.”

  “I’ve never really got that,” Meka added. Anything to delay going home, even if it meant appearing stupid.

  Tao suppressed a smile; Meka was the arch manipulator. It was as if the boy had taken lessons from Felix himself—and that wasn’t a compliment.

  “It’s simple, Meks. Today, you and Grigor have fished, caught, and gutted the two biggest trout of your lives. Right now, you stink of fish innards and have nice, yucky, yellow stuff smeared down your shirts.”

  Both boys looked down at themselves in surprise as if they had never noticed their ragged clothing before.

  “In addition,” Tao continued. “You have cooked that fish, spilling grease down said shirts. You have also eaten honey and bread, and have grubby streaks down your clothes, hands, and faces. You have decided not to swim to clean up. That’s fine by me. But don’t whine when you get back to the palace and Lukan punishes you for sneaking out of the cage.”

  Meka sat bolt upright. “Is that what’s going to happen?”

  Tao didn’t need to be a seer to know what lay in his boys’ future if they disobeyed him today.

  Trouble was, he sensed that there was more to it than just simple punishment. But when he had quizzed Dmitri, the seer had brushed Tao’s concern aside. Tao had realized then that, just like he held information back from his sons, Dmitri held things back from him, too.

  That didn’t stop him from saying, “My view of the future is a little better than yours, so I think it is a good deduction.”

  Tao suppressed a joyful laugh as his sons stripped off to swim in the frigid stream. Satisfied, he rinsed their threadbare shirts and set them to dry on a branch.

  Lanky and lean, they both had the potential to be handsome men when fully grown. Now they needed the characters to match, and molding them was his job. Assuring his sons became good men was something he did with pleasure, and it was why he had willingly gone along with Dmitri’s plan even though he didn’t know all the finer details.

  Grigor was the first to clamber out of the water. Mind churning, the boy sat in the weak autumn sun to dry off. Finally, he looked at Tao. “You always make things seem so easy.”

  “Things are easy, Grigs. Just make the right choice and stick to it.”

  Grigor looked unconvinced. “Sometimes choices are difficult.”

  “Sure. I know that. Better than most.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’ve made sacrifices for what I believe.”

  “What do you believe?” Grigor was not giving up today.

  “I believe it’s time to get you back home before it’s too late.” Tao couldn’t resist calling to Meka, still splashing about in the stream. “Get your butt over here and get dressed, or I’m sending you back naked.”

  “Dragon’s tits,” Meka moaned under his breath. He started sloshing to the bank, then stopped. “Do you have somewhere else to go today? Is that why you’re dumping us early?” He sounded as hurt as Tao knew he felt.

  Tao suppressed some of the love he knew radiated through his smile. “Just get moving.”

  “Do you? I suppose you do.” Meka’s voice sounded distant, more thoughtful than Tao had ever heard him. “You have your own son, but you still spend all this time with us.” A frown. “You are so weird.” There was no condemnation in that judgment.

  “As a matter of fact, I do have somewhere else to go today, Meks. That’s why I’m dumping you early.”

  This was the baited hook. Would his boy agree to go back to the palace, or would Meka disobey and trail him? Tao knew Grigor would follow where Meka led.

  “Can’t we come with you?” Grigor looked at Tao almost shyly. “To your house, I mean?”

  Tao laughed, even though Grigor had made no effort to get dressed.

  “Is that so funny . . . that I want to see your home?” Grigor struggled, but failed to hide his embarrassment.

  Tao regretted his mirth. “No, Grigs, please forgive me. It’s just—well, you wouldn’t like where I live.”

  That was true enough, seeing as Tao spent all his time with them in the turret. It took a massive amount of self-control not to materialize before them to insist they
clean their filthy living space. But it was just one more prohibition in dealing with his sons.

  He had to come up with a creative solution to solving the squalor they lived in. Right now, he had no idea what that was. He handed Grigor and Meka their damp shirts.

  “So will you take us? Maybe we can meet Nicholas. How old is he, anyway?”

  This was one question of Grigor’s Tao could not ignore despite the urgency of getting them marching back to the palace. “Nicholas is sixteen. Just like you boys.”

  “Older or younger?” Grigor asked, shrugging on his shirt.

  “You, Grigor, are a full two months older than he is. He was born on the night the Pathfinder comet crossed the sky.”

  Both boys looked at him blankly. They had never been told about the comet.

  It was a discussion for another day.

  “Now come, let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” Meka asked, pulling on his boots.

  “You are going home. If all goes well today, I will see you tomorrow. Same time, same place.” If it didn’t go as Tao hoped . . . well, it would be some time before his boys saw him again.

  “Aw, ple—”

  Tao’s hard expression stopped Meka’s mouth.

  “Okay, okay,” Meka groused. “Come, Grigs, let’s go.”

  As Tao expected, his blond boy took the lead in collecting their fishing rods and tackle bags. Shirt unbuttoned and hanging out of his trousers, Meka started for the trail through the woods to the palace.

  With a last look at Tao, Grigor followed.

  Tao watched them walk a little into the trees and then set off in the opposite direction. He had not gone far when he heard Meka, and then Grigor, following him.

  His heart dropped. It felt like he had died a second time.

  That’s it. The illusion goes, Dmitri said in his head.

  Tao opened his mouth to plead for more time for them to reconsider their choices, but he let it close with the words unsaid.

  Meka and Grigor had to grasp this double lesson in obedience and in respecting the limitations Lukan imposed on them if they were to survive long enough to learn the skills needed to bring Lukan down.

  Tao nodded to Dmitri. Do it.

  Feigning ignorance of them following him, he led his boys deeper and deeper into the forest to where Bird’s presence called to him.

  Even in his pain for the choice they had made, he acknowledged that they were more at home here now. They didn’t fall over logs or trip over snagging creepers the way they had when he first started bringing them out. In fact, he had to listen carefully to hear them sneaking along behind him. He led them in silence until a familiar hissing drew him to an ash tree.

  Bird.

  Panic, joy, and sorrow rushed at Tao. He stopped, hesitant.

  As ridiculous as it was, his chest where the axe had fallen felt ready to burst open again. He pushed the emotional ache aside. He wanted this—needed it. It was closure for his life.

  Cautiously, he stepped into a clearing at the base of the tree. Ragged leaves almost obscured an untidy mass of sticks cluttering the fork of a branch. He could have used his new levitation skills to get to the nest, but that would shock his boys and blow his cover.

  A bittersweet smile at how Nicholas had climbed trees—the way everyone else climbed stairs—flitted across his face. He followed his cub’s example and scrambled up the branches to the fork.

  The hissing intensified.

  Would Bird remember him? Recognize him when his body exuded no mortal smell?

  The sound became agitated, frantic. It was followed by a screech.

  When powerful wings beat the air in front of his face, Tao’s face split into the broadest grin. He held out his arm, and his falcon landed on it as if he had never left her.

  “Bird,” he crooned, stroking her back. “That always was such a stupid name. But I never wanted you to have a real one. I thought it would make you a pet, not the wild, magnificent creature that you are. Silly of me, really.”

  She leaned in to his caress.

  Reveling in her silky gray-and-black plumage, he whispered, “I’ve brought two boys to meet you. They are special to me, just like you.” He started the slow climb down the tree, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was still holding his arm when he hopped back onto the ground.

  “Meka and Grigor Avanov,” he called out. “Two boys who have yet to learn the meaning of the word obedience. Stop hiding—badly—and step out here. Slow and quiet.”

  A sigh from Meka, and both boys came forward, their eyes huge and their jaws gaping as they took in Bird.

  Grigor was about to speak when Tao put his finger to his lips.

  Bird was becoming restless.

  Tao held up his arm, giving her space to flap her wings. She looked at him once and took off back to her home.

  “That’s incredible,” Meka whispered, awed. “Why does it do that?”

  “Her name is Bird. We’ve been friends for years. From before you were even born. I came today to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?” Meka stepped forward. “Where are you going?”

  Before Tao could answer, Grigor, who had been watching with a face clouded with suspicion, grabbed Tao’s arm. His dark-haired son felt the chamois-soft leather of Tao’s shirt and then jerked the sleeve up.

  “You have a problem, Grigor?” Tao’s voice was mild, although he knew exactly what troubled Grigor.

  A serendipity from today’s terrible lesson.

  “I do. I saw that falcon’s talons. I know a little about falconry. It fascinates me. I found a bunch of old books in our schoolroom about it. I’ve read them all. No one can just hold a bird of prey without wearing gauntlets. Not unless they want lacerations. But, look, your arm is perfect.” He glared at Tao with hard brown eyes and then tossed Tao’s arm aside. “It makes no sense. I want answers.”

  Tao knew Grigor had been reading up on the subject—after all, he had been the one to plant the falconry books in the pathetically stocked bookshelf in the boys’ classroom for Grigor to find.

  Meka was no reader.

  It was one of the reasons Tao had decided to come to Bird today, of all days.

  Tracking down his falconry books after so many years had been a long shot. At first, Tao suspected Lukan might have destroyed them after Tao’s so-called defection to Kartania, but he had been wrong.

  He had found them tucked away in Lukan’s new bunker—along with a shrine of other treasures Lukan kept on a bed of velvet: two bracelets with Lynx’s name engraved in the silver, Tao’s falconry books, and, most surprisingly, a small picture of Lukan, Tao, and Axel, painted when they were about Meka and Grigor’s age. It had been in the back of one of Tao’s books. He clearly remembered the day they had sat—or, in reality, stood—for the painting. It was just before the final breakdown in Lukan and Axel’s relationship. Lukan must have found it at the back of the book and added it to the collection.

  The shrine had filled Tao with sadness.

  But that hadn’t stopped him taking the books. Or the painting, which he had slipped into the back of the heaviest, driest tome for Grigor to find. He knew Grigor hadn’t spoken the whole truth when his son said he had read all the books. That one was still under the boy’s mattress, unopened.

  The fact that Grigor kept it hidden was testament to the truth that the book was not the kind of material Lukan would want his so-called son reading. Grigor had known that instinctively, partly because it was the first book he had ever seen printed by an actual printing press. Tao had taken a huge risk in giving it to his son, but he needed something to answer Grigor’s questions on who he really was. Also, it would provide an opening to tell his boys about Nicholas.

  Hoping to defuse some of the tension, he scrunched his nose and said with a twinkle in his eye, “Um . . . if you don’t mind, those books, they’re not that old.”

  “Answers,” Grigor snapped, not in the mood for humor. “Like where do you come from?”

  O
ne look at his twin’s uncompromising face, and Meka hissed, “Grigor, no! Do you want him to leave?”

  “Shut up, Meka. I don’t listen to you.” Grigor’s eyes hadn’t shifted from Tao. “I can see what I can see, and I don’t understand. I want the truth.”

  Meka grabbed his brother’s arm and spun Grigor around to face him. “You heard him say he’s leaving. Stop pushing this.”

  “Are you happy to be taken, Meka?”

  “Taken?” Meka frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “He—” Grigor looked for Tao, but he had stepped back into the fourth dimension.

  Tao watched through the haze as Grigor turned a full circle in the clearing. “Tao? Hey . . . this isn’t funny. Where are you?”

  “Dragon’s stuffing testicles!” Meka yelled at Grigor. “I told you not to push it, but you always know better even when you don’t—and now he’s gone.”

  “You are not my master, Meka,” Grigor yelled right back. He shoved Meka’s shoulder.

  Tao’s heart sank when Meka shoved Grigor in turn. He considered stepping out to stop a full-blown fight, but Dmitri appeared at his side. From Dmitri’s stern expression, Tao guessed the seer was here to stop him acting from the heart and not the mind.

  Fingernails digging painlessly into his hands, Tao stood helplessly as Grigor swung his fist up.

  It smacked Meka under the chin.

  Caught off guard, his blond boy staggered back and crashed against the tree trunk. Meka yelped as a gash opened on the side of his face. The boy’s eyes widened with shock and then anger as blood smeared onto his hand. With a furious yell, he flew at Grigor, dragging his brother to the forest floor. He pummeled Grigor’s chest and face, leaving stinging bruises before Grigor managed to wriggle away.

  Grigor lashed out at Meka.

  Always more agile, Meka deflected the blow and delivered a winding fist into Grigor’s solar plexus.

  Tao winced against the spasm as the air gushed from Grigor’s lungs. His dark-haired boy crumpled into a heap on the leaf litter.

  The sun dipped below the horizon.

  Tao closed his eyes.

  As regular as clockwork, the guardsmen would have arrived at the cage to collect his sons.