by R. K. Ryals
“He’s my husband, too,” Catriona murmured.
“And yet you hate him.” Gabriella laughed. “So of course you wouldn’t care.”
Moaning, I rolled onto my side, ignoring the shooting pain in my leg as I clutched my stomach, my eyes opening. The queasiness was too much. I was still in the Hall of Light, lying on a thin pallet on the granite floor. Thudding boots hastened across the marble, the sound loud. Too loud! Everything was too loud. Rain clattered against the ceiling. Distant thunder rumbled, and voices rose above the din in a heated mass of chaos.
“It’s not possible to survive a wyver attack,” a male voice pointed out.
Daegan answered him, “Obviously, you’re wrong.”
“Stone …” It was Maeve’s voice, but I didn’t answer her. Nausea rolled through me. My hands clasped my ears.
“Silence!”
The order came from Lochlen. My palms clamped my ears, my eyes wide. Everything looked strange. A halo of fuzzy golden light surrounded everything.
“We can’t keep her here,” King Freemont pointed out. “We’ve made spectacles of ourselves.” His voice faltered. “My grandson is gone.” A female sob met his words. “We must get him back.”
Something exploded inside my head, a bright light that blinded me and pushed me into the floor. My cheek met cold marble.
“Stone!” Maeve cried.
Her voice made it worse. I screamed, the sound ungodly in the echoing hall.
“By the gods!” Gabriella exclaimed. “We’ve got to quiet her before she brings down the whole palace.”
There were running feet, the sound so loud I crawled away from it, my hands digging cruelly into the sides of my head.
“Did you find anything? Where is my son?” The Princess of Yorbrook’s accent grated on my sensitive ears when she spoke. I whimpered.
Cadeyrn’s voice swept over me, his calmness soothing. “My men saw them flying for Medeisia. Henri’s captor may be from New Hope, but there’s no doubt Henri is being taken to Raemon.”
“Stone …”
Maeve’s voice was hesitant when she approached me. I moved away, the flesh on my thigh protesting.
“Don’t touch her,” Lochlen ordered.
My body pressed up against a wall, my hand gliding up cool marble. Somehow, I’d made it across the room.
“Look at her eyes,” Daegan murmured. “They’re still white.”
My lips parted, my breath frozen in my chest. I could hear voices. Not just the voices of the rebels and the Sadeemians, but other voices. Familiar, frightening voices.
“We should kill him, sire. It’s one less claim to the throne.”
It was Captain Neill’s voice, the Medeisian guard who’d burned Aigneis at the stake, the same man who’d ordered Kye beaten. He was inside my head! Tugging at my hair, I slid to the floor.
“Get him out,” I begged.
Footsteps approached me, but they were cut short by a roar.
“I told you not to touch her!” It was Lochlen again, his commanding voice low and feral. “She’s full of wyver poison. Look at her skin. You touch her, you die.”
Maeve gasped.
“And you think he’ll trade the pendant for his son? Prince Arien can have more children, Your Highness. Another pendant is harder to come by.”
Captain Neill’s voice was loud, the bass tones reverberating through my skull. I couldn’t escape. Nausea kept me on the floor, the captain’s voice ringing in my ears.
“You bastard!” I cried.
Horrified gasps filled the room. I paid them no attention. The Hall of Light was transforming, altering into the sinister halls of a dark castle. I was in Medeisia, and I wasn’t. Neill stood across from me, his dark gaze meeting mine. Surprise flitted across his features before his lips quirked, a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes.
“Well, if it isn’t the young boy, Sax. Or should I say, Drastona?”
He watched me, his shady eyes swirling with shadows.
I stiffened and rose, my chin lifting. “I will kill you,” I told him. “One day, I will kill you.”
Captain Neill laughed. “Not today.”
His hand came up and I screamed, my body crumpling, the nausea completely overwhelming me. I gagged.
“Stay back,” Lochlen ordered.
It was the last thing I heard before the retching began, before my body began purging itself of the wyver poison. Black fluid covered the marble floor.
“By the gods!” Gabriella cried. “She should be killed! You heard her! She threatened the king!”
Catriona groaned. “Are you so willing to murder? Can’t you see she’s delusional?”
The retching continued, and when it finally stopped, I was too weak to stand. I just managed to back away from the mess on the floor when my knees met marble. Pain shot through me, fire lancing my thigh. It was enough to make me scream, but I refused to give in to the pain. My head was clear, the haloed lights fading from my eyes.
I gasped. “Raemon wants the dragon pendant.” My chest heaved. “The infant heir for the pendant.”
“What?” King Freemont bellowed.
Fatigue and weakness weighed me down. Dizziness overwhelmed me, but I didn’t cower. My head lifted. “It isn’t Raemon who controls the wyvers,” I panted. “It’s Neill, the king’s captain.”
I was losing the battle with weakness.
“Do something!” Gabriella insisted. “Do you hear her? She speaks treason. Delusional or not, she knows too much to be innocent.”
My palms met the floor.
“Restrain her,” Freemont ordered. “Take her to the tower.”
A breeze fanned my face, a pair of boots skewing my vision. “Do not make me claim the warrior rights, Father,” Cadeyrn warned. “I did it before, and I will do it again.”
Gabriella gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“It’s not possible to claim ownership,” Queen Isabella said. “Not now in marriage.”
Cadeyrn stepped back just as I faltered. I fell against his leg, my cheek pressed up against his leather breeches. It was humiliating.
“The right of war says nothing about marriage making it null. I’ve already claimed her. Would you have me consummate it, too?” Cadeyrn asked.
Stunned silence swept the room. I was too weak to protest.
“You wouldn’t risk it!” Gabriella hissed.
The muscles in Cadeyrn’s leg tensed. “I’d risk much for a queen.”
Gabriella laughed. “A queen! She’s no queen.”
I felt Cadeyrn’s gaze on the top of my head. It was heavy and comfortable. “Try telling that to her people.”
Again, there was silence. Cadeyrn knelt, using his body to support mine. Pulling my arm across his shoulders, he lifted my chin with his fingers. There, in the Hall of Light, knelt Daegan, his head bowed. Next to him were Maeve, Oran, and Lochlen. All of them were on their knees, their heads lowered. Around the hall were silent murmurs of, “My Queen.” I knew there were mice and other creatures surrounding us in the shadows; I could feel their presence.
I shook my head. “No.”
Maeve’s head lifted. “I owe you my life,” she said. “For that, I am your servant.”
Daegan rose, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. “You bear the mark of the condemned, you survived wyver poison, and you command a legion of spies. You’ve fought with me. Now I fight for you.”
Lochlen’s reptilian gaze met mine. His subservience disturbed me the most. “I bow to no one,” Lochlen said. “I kneel before you now as an ambassador of the dragons. Should we fight, it will be with you.”
Oran’s snout lifted. “The animals are yours to command.”
No one except Lochlen and I could hear him, but his words resonated down my spine. Cadeyrn stood, his arms bringing me with him.
“King Raemon wants the dragon pendant,” Cadeyrn told his father. “You give him immense power if you forfeit it.”
The king’s eyes raked the rebels before f
inding my wilted frame. “It’s prophesied by my people that you will bring death to a prince. Could it be you will bring death to my grandson rather than my son?”
The Princess of Yorkbrook wailed, anger and grief catapulting her forward. Prince Arien and Queen Isabella seized her by the arms.
My gaze met the king’s. “A year ago I was the bastard daughter of an ambassador who wanted to be a scribe. I knew nothing of prophecy or destiny. There is blood on my hands now. Nothing will ever wash them clean. I’ve seen too much death. I won’t walk away from this fight, even if it means losing more. There are too many people depending on our success.”
The king stepped forward. “And if that means losing my son or grandson?”
I didn’t flinch. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Pushing away from the prince, I stood erect despite my ripped, bloody dress, bare legs, and bruised body. I didn’t consider myself arrogant, but I had my pride. Daegan and Maeve flanked me. Oran sank to the floor at my feet.
The king gestured at his guards. They stepped forward, although they didn’t draw their weapons. My eyes locked with Freemont’s. We fought a silent battle, a powerful man with an army at his command against a girl who commanded nature. Neither of us blinked.
My gaze fell to the floor, to the bow and quiver of arrows spilled out across the marble. There was a stench permeating the room from the black puddle of wyver poison. It smelled like death and decaying things. I wondered if I smelled that way, too.
“Do you believe you’ve earned the right to rise up against the king of your nation, to lead your people alongside a prince?” Freemont asked. His curiosity was genuine. I didn’t hear censure in his voice, only interest.
I held up my hands. They were scratched, my palms covered in dried blood and shallow cuts. “I’ve fought the idea that I was the phoenix too long. I’ve learned something, Your Majesty. There is often more blood on the hands of a hero than there is on the hands of a scoundrel. However, there is one difference.”
The king’s gaze watched my hands. “And what’s that?”
Inhaling, I breathed, “Guilt.”
Freemont slumped, his face suddenly full of lines I’d never noticed before. His gaze found mine. “Immeasurable guilt,” he agreed. He looked to Cadeyrn. “Gather your men. We march now on Medeisia. No more waiting. You will leave in a fortnight.”
Two weeks. It seemed too soon, and yet my heart rejoiced. I’d be returning to the forests. I’d be fighting once more for the rebels. If I died, so be it, but I would die fighting for freedom. I would die knowing I’d done everything I could to save the condemned, the marked folk. But first, I was going to kill Captain Neill.
Gabriella staggered forward. “You can’t do this, Your Majesty!”
Princess Tara of Yorbrook fell to her knees. “My son! You place your grandson in danger all because of a group of tattooed peasants? It’s my son! Your heir!”
Freemont stiffened. “I can’t relinquish my half of the dragon pendant. It would spell certain destruction for this kingdom.”
Lochlen’s head rose. “It would also mean war with the dragons.”
Prince Arien’s face went red, his thin, frail looking hands clutching his wife’s shoulders. “My son, Father. It’s my son.”
“Don’t you think I know that!” the king bellowed.
He marched to his throne, his body lowering wearily. “My grandson and the future heir,” Freemont murmured. His eyes swept the room. “The measure of a good ruler isn’t how much blood is on his hands. The measure of a good ruler is how much of his own pain he is able to endure for the greater good.” His gaze stopped on Cadeyrn. “Even when the pain is unintended.”
I was beginning to learn that sometimes being a hero also meant giving up family. It was the loneliest feeling in the world. While I’d found companionship in battle, Prince Cadeyrn and King Freemont were pushing away their families. There was hatred in the eyes of the royalty. Whether it was directed at me or at the king was beyond me, but either way, it didn’t bode well.
Chapter 12
That night, the dream began. This dream was different from the grief-stricken, blood-filled nightmares I’d been having since coming to Sadeemia. It was different from the visions I had about Kye, the ones where he lay dying in a tent in the Ardus, his leg full of poison. Those dreams woke me up in the middle of the night, my shift soaked in sweat. No, this new dream never filled me with terror or pain. The new dream was a quiet dream that filled me with peace.
The first night it came to me, I dreamt simply of mist, a curling mist that stole over my prostrate body until it cloaked me like a shroud. It hugged me, the pressure more comforting than startling. When I woke, I was covered in moisture, but it wasn’t sweat and it wasn’t tears.
“A dream?” Oran asked.
Staring down at my body, I nodded, words escaping me. I was trapped in the fog’s arms.
The next night, the dream came again. Mist curled up from the floor, climbing the side of my bed until it covered me. It had more substance than it had the night before, a pair of wispy fingers reaching for me in the dark. I woke to rivulets of condensation rolling down my cheeks, the faint feel of phantom fingers on my skin.
By the third night, the mist had become a lithe figure that paced my dark room before leaning over me. Its void face peered down into my eyes, a transfixing wall of wispy white that knelt closer and closer and closer, its hand rising. I woke gasping for breath. I’d felt no malice in the spirit, but it disconcerted me.
Weariness weighed me down. I walked the castle halls with circles smudging my eyes. In training, I was clipped by a sword because I wasn’t quick enough to block it. My arrows missed their targets. I found myself asking people to repeat their conversations. Nothing mattered except the mist in my dreams. The constant talk of war and the sound of arguing nobles as they entered and exited the war rooms meant nothing.
“Maybe it’s the lingering effect of wyver poison?” Maeve asked, her worried gaze following me.
The king’s guards shadowed me, their lips thin, their gazes burning with a ferocity that should have frightened me. But the mist distracted me. I noticed nothing and no one. There were rumors that the prince hadn’t visited Gabriella or Catriona’s chambers since the consummation. The news should have been oddly pleasing, but I couldn’t make myself care.
“She should be locked away,” Gabriella continued to argue.
I didn’t protest. Her threats were becoming more vocal, her rants heard throughout the castle. There was a fight with Cadeyrn. Horrible yelling that ended with broken trinkets and a knife plunged through the prince’s bed. Some said jealousy was triggering insanity in the princess. It wasn’t jealousy, it was a need for power. And yet, nothing touched me. Nothing.
It was on the fourth night that I woke to find a woman sitting on the side of my bed. Parts of her were nothing but mist. Other parts were more corporeal, her long body cloaked in a green-hued dress. The garment was too transparent for me to know where it began and where it ended. She had a pretty face, her eyes wide and full of understanding. Although she appeared young, she had untamed, silver hair with a garland of wild flowers resting on the crown of her head.
“Hello, Drastona,” she breathed.
Her voice was so beautiful, I found myself weeping tears of joy. It was a drug, her voice. It sounded like a meadow full of waving flowers should smell, it sounded like the way Lochlen’s scales looked when they gleamed in the sun, and it sounded like the way honey should taste on the tongue, heavy and saccharine. Her voice filled the senses. It was a sweet sort of freedom.
Sitting up, I glanced at Oran, but he slept soundly next to me, his fur relaxed. The woman’s elegant, long fingers hovered over the wolf, her mist-like grip suddenly digging into his fur. He still didn’t stir.
“They are beautiful, my creatures,” the woman said.
I gawked. “Your creatures?”
Her full red lips curved, the smile transforming her face,
making it so strikingly beautiful I had to fight not to look away. Tears flooded from my eyes, soaking my cheeks, my neck, and my shift.
“You know who I am,” the woman insisted.
A vice-like grip settled around my heart. “Silveet,” I whispered. It couldn’t be.
The woman shrugged. “I am many names, my child. Did you think I would not come to you? Did you think I wouldn’t visit the one mortal who can speak to what I command?”
The gods and goddesses of my nation were said to be beautiful, but they were also said to be dangerous. Once touched by the gods, there was no escape from servitude.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
Silveet stood, her green dress transforming, becoming white gossamer lace that did nothing to hide her nudity. Even as translucent as she was, I felt my cheeks heat.
The goddess laughed. “You are too modest, child. Look at me. I come here not to shame you or to embarrass you. I come here to warn you.”
I stiffened, dread causing me to shiver. “I’m in danger then?”
“You are my daughter in many ways. Your blood carries ancient powers, powers great enough to bring great destruction or wonderful peace. But you belong to more than one god, Drastona. You belong to three. Remember, it is often powers we overlook that grant us the means for greatness.”
Three gods?
I stared. “Will I save my people?” I asked her.
Again, she laughed. “You assume too much. And so you have read the prophecy. Mortals are such literal beings.” Her chuckles grew, and with them my weeping increased. Silveet paused, her gaze suddenly meeting mine. She had piercing eyes the color of gold. They were frightening. For a moment, I didn’t see her as a protector, but as a destroyer. “Your destiny has yet to be written. You overtax yourself.”
The woman was fading, her misty figure sweeping toward my bed, the only visible thing left in the fog was her eyes. They glowed.
“I warn you, child, there are many things yet to come. In war, much is misunderstood. Power is often misrepresented. Look to the dragons. Rule as a queen would rule.”
