by Carol Berg
I crouched behind Aidan and wrapped my arms around his chest to haul him up again, when I heard a weak cough and soft slurred words, almost indecipherable. “Am I dead?”
“No,” I said, blinking back unbidden tears, pleased it was dark so he couldn’t see. “You tried, but you weren’t very good at it.”
“Lara ...”
Changing my approach, I folded him forward, and he promptly vomited again. When he was done with it, I moved around beside him, draping one limp arm over my shoulders.
“... we’ve got ...”
“Be quiet. Your dragon isn’t captive yet, but we’ve got to get you away from the lake or he will be. Then your life won’t be worth dirt.”
“Lara, we’ve ... got ... to talk.”
“You’ve scarcely got wit enough to know your feet from your head, Aidan MacAllister, so keep your foolishness to yourself. I’d appreciate a little help here.” There was no time for this. He came near drifting off to sleep between words, and I could already hear the creak of Narim’s oarlocks over the chop of the water. I heaved him upward, and we came near pitching head-forward into the boat. But by some improbable feat of will, Aidan managed to pull his feet under him, and we stood on the shore, swaying like a soggy willow tree.
“Now, step,” I said. “And I don’t care what blasted rhythm you use. Just move your feet in the same direction I do.”
“Rather ... dance ...”
“You’re a fool.”
Slowly, far too slowly, we lurched up and over the rockfalls in the direction of the huge boulder that marked the hidden mouth of my caves. Aidan’s head drooped on his chest, and at every other step he stumbled on the uneven surface. The only way I could keep us upright was to plant my feet wide apart whenever he moved. Maddeningly slow. The torches were getting closer, and Narim’s boat was bumping the rocks. Like a dark, angular moon rising, a massive shape glided up from the clifftops, blocking out half the dome of the sky. No bird this time.
We staggered up a last shallow ridge of fist-sized rocks. In front of us, just across a flat strip of sand, loomed the giant boulder with rounded sides and a flat top. Behind the boulder and the water’s edge was a narrow path that would take us up to the caves. “Just a little farther. Help is on the—”
Golden fire arced across the heavens, its reflection a lighted path leading down into the dark water. Then came the cry—piercing the night like a sword through flesh.
“Roelan,” Aidan whispered, and stumbled. I braced him again, but soon had no choice but to let him go. Sparks snapped everywhere I touched him, his flesh searing my hands beyond bearing. He sagged to his knees on the sand and clamped his hands to his head. “Roelan, hear me ... please ... Teng zha ... wyvyr ...” The dragon circled the lake screaming ... hunting ... closer with every pass. We were still twenty paces from the boulder, maybe forty more around it to the mouth of the cave.
“Warn him away!” I said. I could see flashes of red in the torchlight that had already advanced a quarter of the way around the lake. “Tell him to fly far from the lake.”
“Can’t. Can’t think. Help me.” Aidan’s hands were shaking with his urgency, but his words were slurred, and he swayed like a drunkard.
I knelt in front of him and pulled his hands from his face. His bloodshot eyes were clouded with jenica, his eyelids heavy with drugged sleep. So with one hand I drew my knife and with the other I caught his chin, ignoring the blistering heat on my fingers. I held the knife between our faces. The sparks from his skin made the steel flicker as if the weapon contained his dragon’s fire as well. “Do you see this, Aidan MacAllister? If you don’t warn Roelan away, I’m going to cut your throat with it. It’s the only way to save him. If you’re dead, he can’t find you here, and if I throw your body in the lake and foul the water with your blood, the dragons will stay away forever. Is that what you want? Live or die. Choose.”
I waited. His eyes were drawn to the blade, grasping it, holding it with his gaze, as if he could use its unyielding edge to anchor his confusion. But it was taking far too much time.
“Choose, damn you. Live or die?”
I was going to have to do what I said. His eyes slid past the knife to my face. “Live,” he said softly. Then his eyes sagged shut again, and, in despair, I positioned the dagger. But his skin began to glow pale in the night, and from his lips came soft words I did not know. Soon his face was shining silver like the moon. I let go of him and backed away from the blazing heat that poured from his body.
“No!” The shout came from behind Aidan, and I jumped up to face Narim, who stood at the top of the last rockfall. Even in the dark I could read his plan. In one hand he carried a dagger and in the other the coil of a dragon whip. Around his neck was the leather strap holding a bloodstone, its red glow scarring his ageless face with years and horror. “Stop him!”
I drew my sword and stepped between the Senai and the Elhim. “You’ll not touch him. Not now. Not ever.”
“Lara, it is our survival.” Narim’s voice shook as he stepped gingerly down the rockfall and walked across the strip of sand, every kindness he had done me in eighteen years of love and friendship hanging in the air between us.
“That’s what you thought five hundred years ago. The world has paid the price for your mistake and will continue paying it for years to come. But sin will not heal sin. I won’t let you do it.”
“I thought you understood.”
“You thought whatever you wanted. Never considered that you could be wrong.”
“You swore to me.”
“An oath means nothing without belief. I never believed in your tales or your plans or your sin or your redemption. I did what you told me because I had nothing better to do. That’s where you’ve gone wrong, Narim. You have no faith in anyone but yourself. And so you’ve plotted and schemed and done terrible things, all to end up making the same mistake again. But I’ve learned. Don’t you see? You’ve given me this as you’ve given me everything. Accept your own gift. Leave him be.”
Narim’s eyes kept flicking from my sword to my face and behind me to the Senai. “Even if he warns Roelan away, I can’t allow MacAllister to live. Eventually the dragons will come back here. The pull will be too strong. We’ll wait—another five hundred years if we must, in hiding if we must—but we will keep the bloodstones; we will keep the lake tainted with jenica; and we will control the dragons. I can allow no one to live who is capable of undoing it.” As he spoke, his glance flicked again, but this time to his left. The torches from the distant shoreline had vanished. I dared not take my eyes from Narim, but I took a step backward to get a wider view. Not ten paces to my right were two hard-eyed Elhim sneaking over the end of the rockfall nearest the water, each of them wearing a bloodstone around his neck.
“I’m sorry, Lara,” said Narim, motioning his allies forward. The two took positions on either side of him, trapping Aidan and me between themselves and the boulder and the cliff, our only retreat the too-long path to my caves. “I’m too old for faith. Lay down your weapons.”
I couldn’t afford to look behind me to see if Aidan was capable of running. The screaming dragon swooped low across the lake, and the brimstone-tainted wind of his passing made the ground shudder. I settled my grip on the sword and drew my dagger. “I won’t.”
One of the newcomers, wearing a light-colored tunic, moved first. I beat back his attack, leaving him slightly off balance, and spun around just in time to catch his fellow’s curved blade that was on a line for my legs. One and then the other and then the first one again, I split my attention between the two Elhim, straining to see in the weak moonlight. My arms were longer, but the Elhim were light and quick, and I had to dance and spin and dodge, all the while keeping an eye on Narim, who stood on the strip of rocks watching us. When was he going to join in? How in Jodar’s name was I going to handle a third?
A rapier point glanced off my vest, and it took all my attention to discourage its owner, while preventing his friend from ri
pping my back open. Only when I had pushed them both back toward the lake, the rapier fellow with a bleeding thigh wound, could I spare a glance to my left. Narim no longer stood on the rocky berm. I whirled about, frantic. Almost invisible in the shadow of the cliffs, he had crept around behind me, dagger ready, heading for Aidan, who knelt glowing with more than moonlight and oblivious to the danger.
“You will not!” I screamed, and sprang toward Narim. But the other two leaped on me from behind, dragging me to the sand. “Aidan! Watch out!” Neither Elhim nor Senai paid me any mind.
But in that same moment, yellow light flared from beside the boulder at the water’s edge, and a voice boomed, “Hold, Elhim! Not one more step. Not one move, or my lieutenant’s arrow is in your throat. In the name of King Devlin, I command you stand down.”
Men rushed out of the darkness and disarmed Narim, while others yanked the weight off my back. I pressed my head to the sand for a moment, both ragged and relieved, the burden of life, death, and the world’s future lifted from my shoulders along with my attackers.
As a soldier bound his hands behind his back, Narim squinted, puzzled, into the torchlight. “Who’s there? Who are you?”
“My lord.” I scrambled off the sand and, without the least resentment, nodded to the dark-haired young Senai who stepped into the light, the same man who with his single strong arm had rescued me from the bowels of Cor Neuill in the very hour of my punishment. “Narim, meet His Royal Highness Donal, the crown prince of Elyria,” I said. Twenty more well-equipped soldiers, frayed and bloody, followed the prince into the sandy clearing. “I thought you’d never get here.”
King Devlin’s offer of protection for the Twelve Families in exchange for my release had rankled the high commander, but Prince Donal had been very persuasive. After all, the future of the clan was at stake, and MacEachern was directly pledged in fealty to the king of Elyria. The high commander, still reeling from the reports of escaping dragons, grudgingly agreed that King Devlin was the strongest of the clan’s possible allies. But when the prince escorted me out of the lair and into the Ridemark camp, the agreement fell apart. My brother claimed that King Devlin had forfeited the clan’s loyalty by freeing the dragons, and he roused the warriors to rebel against the high commander and reclaim their ruined honor, along with a certain traitorous daughter of the Ridemark. And so Prince Donal and his fighters had held off two hundred Ridemark swordsmen long enough for Davyn and me to get away, the prince risking his life and freedom because a man he had never met had asked him to do whatever was needed to save my life.
“Are you well, Mistress Lara?” asked the prince, examining me carefully. Once I showed him that the blood on me was not my own, he smiled and tipped his head to something over my shoulder. “And he ... we’re not too late, then?” His eyes shone with wonder ... and I understood when I turned to look on the one who knelt on the sand behind me.
Despite his filthy clothes and dirt-streaked skin, in that moment Aidan MacAllister had no kinship with any human creature. Tiny white flames danced about his body. His eyes were closed, his arms and hands spread wide apart as if to embrace the night. Only now that the blood rush of battle had faded in my ears did I hear that he had begun to sing—softly, as if soothing a child plagued with restless dreams. As we watched and listened, his powerful voice swelled into a torrent of passionate music.
Gathering what sense remained to me, I turned away.
Narim had no eye for Aidan or for the prince or even for the soldier who was binding his arms securely behind his back, but only for the Elhim who had followed Prince Donal into the torchlight. “Davyn!” said Narim, only to clamp his mouth shut again when he saw his dearest friend’s face grow stone hard at the sight of him.
“I must be the greatest fool who ever walked the earth,” said Davyn, striding briskly toward Narim, “and it would not be half so hard did I not love you still.” With a powerful yank, Davyn snapped the leather strap that held the bloodstone to Narim’s neck.
Narim did not drop his eyes.
Davyn turned on his heel, tossing the red gem on the ground by the prince’s feet. “We’ll find the rest of them, my lord.” The prince nodded, still mesmerized by the wonder behind me. Davyn led fifteen of the Elyrian soldiers off toward the Elhim caverns. I retreated into the shadows of the great boulder, where it hung over the lake.
Almost an hour passed until the last clear note of Aidan’s song fell silent. His fire died away with the music, and the silver-white glow of his skin faded into more ordinary coloring. He pressed his hands to his eyes and spoke softly in words that sounded very much like the ancient tongue we of the Ridemark used, but I did not know their meanings. He tried again with the same result. After a visible struggle, his third attempt produced, “It’s all right. It’s all right.” Sighing tiredly, he sat back on his heels, lowered his hands, and blinked in astonishment at the awestruck crowd surrounding him. He looked from one face to the next, taking in the captive Narim, who refused to meet his eye, the other two Elhim, hands bound, the remaining Elyrian soldiers ... until his eye stopped on my rescuer. Though Prince Donal wore no badge of rank, no garb different from any of his soldiers save for the empty left sleeve tucked into his tunic, Aidan pushed himself to his feet and bowed deeply, wearing a smile so brilliant it rivaled the moon. “My Lord Prince ...”
The prince returned his grin. “You know me!”
“Were we in the grand marketplace of Vallior on the day of first harvest, I would know you, Donal.”
“And I you. Though finding you immersed in such mystery gives me the easier part.”
“Is Davyn ...?”
“He’s well. Gone on an errand at the moment. And you? And your ... friend?”
“Free. Both of us.” Aidan flicked his eyes upward. “He treated you well?”
A trace of remembered despair wiped away the young prince’s smile. “My debt is everlasting.”
Aidan opened his arms and the two embraced, the bond between them more clearly visible than the torchlight.
“Don’t let me singe you too badly,” Aidan said, laughing and pulling away as sparks flew. “I’ve not learned how to manage this little problem yet.”
The smiling prince shook his head, raw emotion adding a rasp to his voice. “I was afraid we’d get here too late, but Davyn swore that Lara would save you if anyone could. A number of Ridemark warriors were most displeased when we released Lara, and she insisted on coming here alone while we convinced them we were right. She even left Davyn behind, so he could guide us through the mountains.”
Aidan looked around the shoreline. “Is she all right? There was fighting ... gods, where is she?”
“She’s well, I think. But I don’t know where she’s gotten off to.”
I shrank deeper into the shadows and sank to the damp stone, wishing they would all go somewhere else. I had no place with these people.
Before the two of them could discover my hiding place, Davyn returned carrying a large leather bag. He and Aidan greeted each other as brothers.
“Davyn, have you seen Lara?” said Aidan.
The Elhim looked about sharply, then shook his head. “No. Not since I left for the cavern. She seemed unharmed.”
The prince joined them, and Davyn dumped out the bag—bloodstones. “I think this is all of them, unless he’s squirreled more away. I’ll bring in other Elhim to search more thoroughly. Your men have rounded up a few more conspirators in the cavern; most of the villains haven’t arrived as yet.”
The prince jerked his head toward Narim, who stood watching all this bleakly. “What am I to do with him? Hanging seems appropriate for one who attempts the life of King Devlin’s cousin.”
Sorrow shadowed Aidan when he looked on Narim. “Let him go. Let them all go. There’s nothing you can do that will compare to what’s going to happen. Soon, I think.” He glanced up at the quiet night, and the hair on my arms and neck prickled. For even as he said it, a growing darkness obscured the stars in every d
irection. Wind rose beyond the heights and lightning licked the clifftops. “I would suggest you all take shelter,” said Aidan. “No harm is intended, but accidents could happen.”
Though looking puzzled, the prince ordered his men to take the Elhim prisoners back to the caves. When the soldiers grabbed Narim’s arm, the Elhim resisted, growling furiously. At a nod of Prince Donal’s head, the soldiers left Narim by the edge of the water, his hands bound and his feet tied loosely so he could not run. He said nothing more and paid no attention to anyone. I remained in my hiding place at the bottom of the great boulder. Aidan would not follow his own advice and climbed up on the boulder above my head. Neither Prince Donal nor Davyn would leave him. They stood uncertainly only a few steps away from me. And so we waited, though I didn’t know for what.
Black clouds drove in from all sides. The wind whipped the lake into froth. Thunder rolled continuously, booming and crashing from the cliffs. Before very long, Narim rose slowly and awkwardly to his feet, craning his neck, scanning the sky. “MacAllister,” he said, his voice choked with horror, “what have you done?”
Dragons! Fifty or a hundred of them gathered over us, blotting out the stars, and as if at a herald’s trumpet blast, they released a firestorm upon the lake. The water churned and boiled, filling the air with smoke and steam. In a deafening explosion of wind and water, stone and fire, the rocky dam that held the water in the valley was blasted into dust. First a hissing stream and then a flood poured through the gaps in the rock wall and swept the remaining barrier away. As each screaming dragon released its cache of flame, it circled the valley and disappeared westward.
By the time dawn light colored the drifting fog, the air was still. The only sound was the distant rush of falling water, as the last of the lake drained into the lowlands. One dragon remained, a blot of gleaming copper, perched on the clifftops far across the gaping emptiness.
