“Ancients?” Kai’s brow furrowed.
“Ancient dragons. True dragons, who didn’t have the power to become human. But you wanted to know about the war.”
Kai nodded.
Rhys continued. “Owain used to be a fire Elemental. In his search to rediscover the vastly powerful magic the Ancients used, Owain murdered a handful of dragons for their blood and scales. But the magic backfired. His powers inverted. Instead of creating heat, he could only take it away.”
He looked up. Kai was silent, her eyes fixed on his face.
Rhys focused on his hands and continued, “Rigani was horrified when she heard what Owain had done. There have been so few dragons for so long that murder, especially in pursuit of something selfish, was unforgivable. Without telling Owain, Rigani gathered our greatest magicians and transferred the inheritance of the mantle from Owain to my father, Ayen. In doing so, my father should have received the mantle upon my aunt’s death.
“It didn’t go as planned, though no one knew it until later. Like the artifacts, the mantle is magic of the Ancients. We’re a fading race, and the secrets our people held during our peak are lost to time. According to my father, Aunt Rigani meant to tell Owain that she’d transferred the inheritance of the mantle. But she never had the chance.”
“Why? What happened?” Kai had turned fully toward him, brow furrowed, expression rapt.
“She died.”
Her eyes widened. “How?”
Rhys faltered. “Slaughtered by humans for sport.”
Kai withdrew her hand from his. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged with more nonchalance than he felt. “Dragons have killed greater numbers of humans for less purpose. Dragon-human history isn’t peaceful.”
“Oh.” Kai’s troubled expression deepened. She didn’t withdraw further, but neither did she move closer.
Rhys siphoned off the smallest bit of power inside him, spinning it into a ball of fire no larger than a robin’s egg. He rolled it across his palm and back again. “It’s been better in the past millennium. Since dragons have been warring amongst ourselves, we’ve left humans alone. You’ve left us alone in turn. So much alone, in fact, that your people decided we never existed.”
Kai pressed her lips together at that, but didn’t speak, watching the fire in his hand.
Rhys levitated the fire above his palm and called four more tiny flames into existence, setting them to orbit each other. “Owain accused my father of setting Rigani up—of bespelling her, killing her and framing humans so that my father could take her power. Owain refused to believe that his own mother had disinherited him, no matter what he’d done.
“Owain left Eryri—the original Eryri, in Wales—and many dragons followed. Believing, as Owain did, that my father had stolen Owain’s birthright and then murdered Rigani. Another group broke off, declaring that they would follow neither. Today, they call themselves free dragons. My people—the people of Eryri, call them rogues. They scattered across the globe, some living in groups, most living in isolated families in the wilderness, or hiding among humans.
“And so it was that a third of the dragons stayed with my father, a third went with Owain, and another third swore they would follow no king and take no part in war.
Owain stayed in exile for a few hundred years. We didn’t hear much from him, except that as he grew older, his followers grew in number. Still, Father didn’t worry. Not like he should have.”
Kai was leaning in again, scooting closer. Their hands touched. It felt so natural, so right, that Rhys had slipped his hand over hers without even thinking, and Kai intertwined their fingers.
The fires over his other hand zoomed faster and faster, until they seemed to stretch and become lines of light. “Father seemed to forget about Owain. He had his own problems, the foremost of which was my mother. She was unhappy, and he didn’t treat her well. One day, my mother went missing. That night...”
Rhys’s fingers curled into a fist, suffocating the fragile flames. “My father woke up in agony. Pain that makes even this pain look like nothing.” Rhys traced fingers over his heart, lost in the past. “As the story goes, my mother hated my father so much that she went to Owain with a plan to kill him. Owain used his small piece of the mantle—a piece that had torn away, somehow—to sunder my parents.”
“Sunder?”
Rhys blinked. He’d nearly forgotten she was there. “It means he broke their heartswearing.”
Kai frowned. “Ffion said there was technically a way to break it.”
Rhys grimaced. “It can only be done by someone who holds the mantle. I don’t know how, but I think Owain needed something of my mother to do it. A strand of hair, maybe. Or blood. Or tears.”
Kai squeezed their still-intertwined fingers. It was comforting, having her there, a warm presence at his side.
“Before my father could recover fully, Owain attacked. My father was the only one who could fight Owain without being killed outright, because both controlled a part of the mantle. My father, his power being so much greater, should have beaten Owain easily. But he was too weak from the sundering, and Owain slaughtered him.”
Rhys swallowed. The memories were still so vivid—the heavy air of the summer night, the roaring, the sounds of dying, and then power unlike anything he’d ever imagined. “The instant my father died, I knew. In killing him, Owain gained a full half of the power of the mantle. I inherited the other half. We’re perfectly matched.”
Kai watched him in stunned silence. He wasn’t sure when she’d leaned into him again, but her closeness abruptly overwhelmed him. If he turned his head... A few more hours. I can wait a few hours. He stared hard at the old, gray wood of the table beneath his hands. It was far less tempting than looking at her mouth.
“What happened to your mother? Did she die when your father died? Because she was Wingless?” she asked.
Rhys jerked one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “I don’t know. The Council claims she died, but everything was chaos. I don’t know who killed her or what happened to her body. In all honesty, she was never much of a mother to me. Though I know Deryn misses her. I don’t think Wingless die just because their mates do. As far as I know, even sundered, the Wingless retain their powers.” He paused. “It changes you, Kai. Once you’re Wingless, you’re no longer human. You’re a dragon with no dragon form.”
“But wait,” Kai said, squinting at the table, apparently not hearing his words. “If a little of the mantle made Owain too dangerous for anyone but your father to fight him, and you have the mantle, why did Kavar attack you and the others in the meadow? Why didn’t you just, I don’t know, command them all to stop fighting?”
Rhys frowned at the change of subject. He’d been afraid she’d ask this. The answer made him look like an idiot. There was no use trying to make it sound better than it was. “Demba had attacked Deryn earlier that day. Like a scalebrain, I was too focused on hurting him back to do what I should have.”
“So why not command him to drown himself or fly straight into the ground or something?” Kai asked.
Rhys went rigid. “If you had a gun, would you shoot someone unarmed?”
Kai looked at him as if he were insane. “Um...yeah. If that person was trying to kill me.”
“No.” Rhys spat the word through clenched teeth. “It wouldn’t be right. Ancients, I don’t even want to kill Owain. He’s family. When I was a boy, he was like an older brother to me.”
“Yeah...but, I mean...” Kai’s voice was quiet, as if she feared his reaction. “He sounds sort of gung-ho about killing you.”
Rhys tried to find words. “There are other reasons not to use the mantle. My father used it too freely. Dragons who might have supported him went rogue or followed Owain, who promised them less control.” He took a breath. “That much power is heady. Tempting.” He d
idn’t tell Kai that he didn’t use the mantle because he was afraid. Afraid of becoming his father, who had been obsessed with power. Or Owain, obsessed with using the mantle for vengeance.
Rhys shook his head to clear his thoughts and went back to the story.
“Ashem got us out: my vee, Deryn and I. Deryn didn’t have a vee yet, she was too young. So she came with us. Ashem, though he wasn’t much older than us, kept us alive and helped me make alliances. The Mo’o of the south Pacific took us in, and we moved Eryri to an archipelago in the middle of the ocean—as far from Owain’s stronghold in the north as we could get.”
Kai’s leg pressed against his, now. It felt good, as if energy and comfort flowed from her skin into his. Rhys rubbed the side of her hand again. It was intoxicating, the combination of the silky, delicate skin on the back of her hand—scars and all—and the rough calluses on her palm, won in battle after battle against gravity and stone.
Silence settled between them, and Rhys broke it before it could become awkward. “So, that’s why we’re at war.”
Kai was frowning, distractedly running her fingers over the old wooden table. “I know I asked, but that’s—I mean, Rhys, it’s a lot. War and death and revenge. It’s for stories. Heroes. It’s not something for people like me. It’s not making me less afraid to heartswear. Kind of the opposite. I’m supposed to make this stuff my life? I’d rather live at home and teach gymnastics forever. I’m just...normal.”
Rhys squeezed her hand. “It’s normal people—people who want nothing but peace, family and happiness—who die because some idiot wanted some grand thing.” Rhys thought of his people, who would pay the price for Owain if Rhys failed.
She drew a troubled breath and let it out slowly. “But you can’t stop, can you? Because Owain...he’s after a grand thing, right? The subjugation of humans. And the only thing stopping him is that you hold half the mantle. And he doesn’t dare start a war with the humans without every single dragon he can get, but they won’t all fight for him unless he can force them to.”
Rhys nodded. “Though if I die, my half of the mantle passes to Deryn. He’d have to kill both of us to get all of it.”
Kai frowned. “What about your other sister? The one who can see the future?”
“No. Being the Seeress prevents Seren from holding the mantle.”
Kai laid her head on his shoulder. “What I said is still true, though. You and Deryn are the only things stopping Owain from killing everyone. What you’re fighting for isn’t a grand thing, it’s just the right to be normal. I think that’s a pretty good cause, if you think about it. Much better than ‘grand things.’”
Feet scuffed on the stone floor. Rhys looked up. Ashem watched them inscrutably as he trudged through the main cavern on his way to relieve Griffith from his watch. Rhys sighed. He didn’t want to move. “It’s late, Kai. You should sleep.”
Kai smiled. “We should sleep. You’re looking kind of sickly.”
“I am not sickly.”
Kai snorted. “Okay. You’re big and strong and impressive.” She yawned.
Reluctantly, Rhys stood and pulled her to her feet. He didn’t want to let go of her hand, nor did he look forward to another night of pain and sleeplessness—he couldn’t bring himself to take Ashem’s drug again, no matter how much his eyes felt like sand.
She tugged his hand. “Come on.”
They entered the sleeping room. Deryn’s gentle snores greeted them from one corner and Juli sighed heavily and rolled around in the blankets she was supposed to share with Kai. Ashem had flatly refused to let them sleep in the library after swearing to Juli. Apparently he didn’t trust her not to try and escape again.
Ffion sat up sleepily in her blankets. “Griffith?”
Rhys was about to answer a negative when Griffith ambled in. If Griff noticed Rhys and Kai’s linked hands, he didn’t comment. Rhys realized abruptly that Ffion and Griffith hadn’t been alone together in a week.
“Griff,” he whispered.
“Mm?” Griffith rumbled.
“Take the room. You and Ffion.”
Griffith’s smile was white in the dark, but his words, as always, were quiet. “If you’re sure...?”
“I am.”
Griffith went and knelt by the blankets he shared with Ffion, whispering to her.
“Thank you, Rhys,” Ffion said, standing. They gathered a few of the extra blankets from their pile and went through the archway.
“That was nice of you,” Kai murmured.
“They should have time to be alone.”
“So...you’re sleeping out here?”
Rhys nodded. He had wanted to give Ffion and Griffith privacy, but it wouldn’t hurt that sleeping here was closer to Kai. It might be enough.
Kai picked up the folded clothes next to her pillow. “Well, I guess I’m going to shower and change, since we worked out. I’ll be quick so you can, too.”
“All right.”
She lingered, as if she didn’t want this—their first non-awkward conversation—to end. Finally, she laughed a little. “Okay. Well. Night.”
Rhys watched her go. He needed to get back to his old room and retrieve a change of clothes before Ffion and Griffith started doing anything compromising. “Goodnight, George.”
Tomorrow, everything would change.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Strange Coldness
Cadoc wished for death, but it didn’t come. He gritted his teeth against a moan as feeling came back into his shattered right hand. Even after days of torture, he’d felt nothing like it; the wrongness of bones splintered into flesh, healing where they shouldn’t. His fingers and the top half of his palm were a swollen, twisted mass, though his thumb was still intact. Where skin was visible through the dried blood, it was purple and black. In some places, bones were visible. He pressed his face into the dusty stone floor and screamed.
He could hear movement and voices above, but no one came for him. Finally, the agony from his hand, torture and days without food or sleep got the better of him. He blacked out.
He flickered in and out of consciousness, awakening once to realize that the normal scuff and rumble that signified the occupation of the cave above had stopped. It was silent for a long time, then the voices were back. The horrible, cold slap of the ladder hitting the stone floor of his prison jerked him awake. His tongue was parched and swollen, his vision blurred.
“Just kill me,” he rasped, more a plea than a command. Unbidden, tears leaked from his eyes. I won’t tell. I won’t tell. I won’t tell. He’d chanted the words so often in the past days they’d almost become meaningless.
“Cadoc?”
A feminine voice, but soft, nothing like Izel’s sultry growl. It plucked at the back of his brain. He opened his eyes. A ball of golden fire hovered at her shoulder, throwing her features into shadow. Cadoc turned away from the bright light.
“Bachgen gwael,” she murmured, placing a cool, dry hand on his forehead. Poor boy. “What have they done to you?”
Cadoc shuddered at the kind touch, blinking until the shadows on her face formed themselves into features.
“Deryn?” Ancients, please, no more illusions.
Her hand froze. He coughed, and she smoothed back his hair. “No, not Deryn.”
The coughing stopped, and he blinked away the tears. She was older than Deryn, more dignified. Her features were soft instead of sharp and her long, auburn hair was streaked with gray. The clothes she wore—a simple, belted tunic and high boots—were of expensive fabric, but cut in a way humans hadn’t worn for over a thousand years. Besides, Deryn couldn’t make fire. Not like...
He jerked away from her, horrified. “Mair!” But it couldn’t be. She was dead. It was nothing but an illusion, after all. He croaked a laugh.
Sh
e withdrew a little, her eyes full of pain. “Why do you laugh?”
“Once, shame on you. Twice, shame on me. Thrice, I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot anyway, but I’m not falling for this again. I don’t understand the choice of illusion. Lady Warbringer—”
She bared her teeth and hissed, “Don’t you dare speak that name in my hearing, Cadoc ap Brychan. Not when I’m here to set you free.”
Cadoc laughed again. He felt dangerously close to insane.
“Enough!”
The tone was so familiar, Cadoc’s mouth snapped shut automatically.
She flipped long hair back behind one shoulder and gave him a stern glare. “Do you remember the last time I saw you?”
“I remember the last time I saw Mair.”
“Don’t be impertinent. The last time I saw you, I smacked you good with a wooden spoon for eating all my blueberries.”
Cadoc blinked. “I...you were going to bake a tart.” And no one else had known. He and Rhys had snuck into the kitchen while the others were all out training.
She nodded. “And my son was supposed to be your lookout, was he not? It seems he takes no better care of you now than he did when you were younger.”
It was why they’d never told anyone. Rhys had been ashamed that he’d left Cadoc behind to take the punishment alone, and Cadoc hadn’t been particularly keen on everyone knowing he’d been walloped by his best friend’s mother.
All humor left him. If this really was Mair, there was nothing funny about it. “Owain makes war and hunts your children because of you, and you don’t even have the decency to be dead like the Council said. Ancients, first Uwan, now this. Maybe I’m the one who’s dead.”
Mair’s face tightened. “The Council lies. They banished me when Ayen died. They wouldn’t let me come home. They sent assassins to kill me, so I hid. I’ve been hiding. Watching. Waiting.” For a moment, her face paled. “The night the heartswearing broke, I was in so much pain I hardly knew what was happening. I couldn’t help Ayen when Owain attacked.” Her gaze went distant.
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