“I'd love to meet them,” Kinna shouted back over her shoulder. “Should we go down?”
Darkness shot through Ayden's exuberance, and he withdrew inside himself. “Nay, m'lady. They may not enjoy being turned to ash.”
Kinna's lips narrowed, and she shook her head, not taking the trouble to speak to show her disdain for his answer. “Chennuh, let's turn back now.” She leaned forward, her hand tugging the rope to the side, and like a trained saddle-horse, the Dragon banked to the west.
Ayden watched in amazement. He began to realize that no matter how much time he might spend with the Dragon, no matter how much he earned the beast's trust, he would never have the connection with the creature that Kinna had.
How had it happened? He had never before heard of a Pixiedimn connecting with a Dragon.
Chennuh lowered their altitude. Ahead of them, to the north, Ayden spotted the distant canyon where they had left Lincoln. The Dragon dropped lower, twisting to the side.
An arrow narrowly missed Ayden's left boot.
“Up, Chennuh, up!” Kinna shouted. Another arrow missed her shin, and the shaft clanked against the Dragon's scales, skittering off as it burst into flame, falling into the trees below.
Chennuh spewed a river of fire downward, but the torque in his body was too much for Kinna. With a cry, she slipped sideways, and then she was hanging below Chennuh's neck by both ends of the whip.
Ayden frantically scrambled forward, reaching for her hand. It was too far away. “You'll have to go down, Chennuh!” he shouted.
The Dragon was already headed that way. A clearing opened up just ahead, and Chennuh aimed straight for it.
Trouble erupted in the clearing at the same time as the Dragon's feet hit the ground. Six massive Trolls burst through the trees, three of them nearly as tall as the trees themselves. Their leathery-gray skin creased their bare scalps, and their massive hands were the size of boulders. Their bulging yellow eyes glared at the Dragon, and lengthy growls issued from their baggy throats.
Ayden slid off of Chennuh's back, racing forward and snatching Kinna away as Chennuh released a massive inferno in the Trolls' direction.
The Dragonfire left the Trolls' thick, rubbery skin a smelly, singed mess, but if anything, it only served to make them angrier. They advanced, their ugly green faces twisted in rage. They lifted huge boulders as easily as goose down.
Chennuh roared, swiping at the leader with his talons. The Troll stumbled back and screamed. A moment later, he threw the boulder. It crashed into Chennuh's haunch with a loud crunch. Ayden strained to see, thankful that the boulder had broken to pieces and not Chennuh's leg.
The other Trolls pressed forward, and three more boulders crashed into Chennuh. The Dragon lurched forward, his body still carefully protecting Ayden and Kinna, but the Trolls were huge and numerous.
“He's not going to do it without help,” Ayden growled. He reached for Kinna's whip, pulling it out of her fingers.
“But how—”
“Stay here behind Chennuh. Do not move.” He hurried by her, careful, always careful, not to accidentally touch. He dove into the trees, snaking a path through them around the clearing toward the back of the Trolls.
The Dragon was fighting, tooth and talon. Dragonfire only burned the outside of the Troll's thick flesh. The inner layers seemed to be made of iron. Chennuh had resorted to diving in with his gaping maw where he could. Bits of Troll flesh soon decorated the meadow floor where, between the patches of leftover snow and the blackish blood of the Trolls, it became a palette of colors.
Ayden crouched behind a tree, watching for his chance. It came soon enough.
The largest Troll had run out of rocks, and now reached for a young sapling, yanking it up by its roots.
Ayden shot forward to the giant Troll's right side, where he could keep an eye on all the other Trolls as well. He pulled the whip up and back, sending it snaking around the great hairy leg.
He yanked backward with his whole weight.
It wasn't much force; it certainly didn't pull the Troll's legs out from under him, but it was enough to set him off-balance. He turned his huge head, searching for the source of his hindrance, and Chennuh took advantage.
The Dragon's teeth closed around the Troll's head. The body crumbled to the ground, lacking its topmost organ.
Ayden didn't pause to watch. He hurled himself toward the next Troll who had spied him. The rope wrapped the Troll's ankle, but Ayden didn't have a chance to pull back on it before the Troll swung a huge fist. It connected with a glancing blow as Ayden ducked. The swing had enough force to knock Ayden to the ground, but the Troll's thick skin ripped into a hundred thousand gray cracks, and he disintegrated in a turgid river of ash to settle onto the ground, the blackened leftovers a dark spot amidst the white snow.
Chennuh took advantage of the remaining four Trolls' astonishment. As they stared open-mouthed at their comrades, he hurled himself amidst them, his teeth wreaking havoc, his talons clawing if they came too close.
He was a maelstrom of fiery fury, and they stood no chance.
And then the meadow was silent and still, except for the high cry of a buzzard far above.
Ayden sat down roughly on a patch of bare ground unlittered with blood or Troll hide. His breath came in shallow pants.
Chennuh was the first to break into his circle. The Dragon nosed his snout across Ayden's lap, the nostrils huffing a blast of smoke in Ayden's face. Ayden waved, whirling the smoke away, his other hand stroking the Dragon's snout. This was his connection with the beast. Adversity had brought them together. The Dragon rumbled low in his throat, a sound of pleasure as Ayden smoothed the scales.
Then Kinna was there, collapsing to her knees in front of Ayden, her hands reaching out to touch him, pulling back, uncertainty spread across her expression.
“Ayden, I thought you were going to die. You just waded into the fight, not caring what would happen if one of those Trolls had just a little more luck with you as their target. You're the most infuriating...” She burst into tears, her shoulders racking with sobs.
Ayden blinked at her, surprise coursing through him. “I'm sorry, Kinna. I did what I thought should be done, but—”
“I know,” she choked out. “Just—never mind. Let's get back. The Trolldimn might be nearby.”
There were no joyous shouts for the remainder of their flight back, no freeing feelings of exhilaration. This time, Ayden couldn't take his gaze from the wet, pale cheeks of the girl who clung to the Dragon's back, who had seemingly leaped from one acute misery into another.
If you had to choose a life of being an outcast in your society, Ayden wondered, or a life tied to an outcast in society, which would be the wiser choice?
He feared he knew Kinna's answer.
The sooner he visited the taibas, the better. Presuming, of course, that she could help him at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Cedric
The Ember's flaming scales lit the dark den, flickering off the stone walls. Smoke unfurled from his nostrils in a silent, hot dance, and even in his slumber, the slow, pulsing rhythm of the Dragon's breath rumbled like a roaring wind.
Cedric stared at him, his hand itching to touch the smooth scales, but he had no desire to wake the creature. The beast was the craftiest he had seen yet in all his months in Sebastian's Dragon dens.
Most of the Dragons had an innate sense of how to track and kill their prey, but this one had an intelligence about his stalking that the other Dragons lacked. He anticipated his prey, always downing them more quickly than any other Dragon in the King's dens. Deer were fast, but the Ember was faster.
The Dimn all jockeyed with each other to see who could achieve the strongest connection with this Ember, but the Dragon would have none of it. He was a loner, as savage to the Dimn as he was to his prey. Several of the Dimn had been roasted in his fire, taking weeks for recovery.
Cedric closed the distanc
e between himself and the Dragon, reveling in the heat from his scales. He reached out his hand, stilling the trembling of his fingertips. Just a touch, that's all he wanted.
He shook his head. That wasn't all he wanted.
He wanted this Dragon. He didn't know why; he couldn't understand the pull, the connection that happened whenever he was near it. He wanted to train this Dragon, achieve psuche with this reptile.
He was close enough to touch the snout, and he risked injury and possible death as his hand settled gently onto the smooth flaming scales. To his surprise, though the flames were searing, they didn't burn his flesh. He felt no compulsion to pull back. Instead, he splayed his fingers across the scales, tracing their edges, moving toward the center of the snout where raw skin lay unprotected by scales.
The second his fingers touched the sensitive area, the Ember's eyes snapped open, and with a great heave, the beast pulled back onto his haunches, towering above Cedric. Air rushed past Cedric as the Dragon pulled it into his lungs, and Cedric held up both hands.
“STOP!” he thundered.
To his relief, the Dragon did. The massive breath he had drawn wisped out through his nostrils, and only a few licks of flame curled upward over his snout.
Cedric steeled his shaking legs as he stepped forward. “Lie down,” he said, his voice even and authoritative.
After a long stare, the Dragon lowered his body so it rested against the stone floor.
For a moment, Cedric felt victory, but as he eyed the Dragon, doubt stirred deep within. The beast listened to his commands, but he did not obey out of trust, friendship, or the pulse of psuche. All the Dragon knew was domination. As long as he stayed in the King's dens, that's all he would ever know.
Cedric chewed his lower lip. Until now, he'd followed the mold of any other Dimn in Sebastian's keep. What if he were to take a risk? Turn force into friendship, command into parley? How could he be different from all the other Dimn who had ever beaten his beast into submission, who had taken and not given, who had used and not replaced?
Cedric stared into the gray eye of the Dragon and walked to the wall of the den, sliding to a seat on the floor, his legs crossed in front of him, his hands folded across his lap.
And he began to talk.
About nonsense things at first, random stream-of-consciousness thoughts that didn't connect. He moved the subject to his past, to Shaya, the mother who had raised him. He told some of the stories she’d told him, about the Centaurs and their ways. He talked about the Rockmonsters, about the beauty of a sunrise over the craggy peaks of the Dwellings.
If anyone had been listening, he would have sounded insane, spilling his thoughts to a Dragon, but as he talked, he sensed the Dragon's release of anxiety, the relaxing of his reptilian muscles. Together, they were forming a connection, however tenuous, however momentary, and Cedric was content.
* * *
The Tournament was starting in a mere seven days. Cedric's stomach clenched at the thought. Though he believed the Dragons were ready to shine for the King, Cedric still worried what would happen to his Ember once the Tournament concluded.
A handful of Dragons would be kept from the armies, ones that showed less hostility than others, ones that had grown old and stiff, ones whose scales refused to regenerate when they sloughed off.
But Ember (as he had begun calling the Dragon in his mind) was none of those things. The only possible loophole that could perhaps keep Ember out of Sebastian's armies was his overabundant hostility. Cedric was the only person who had been able to approach the Dragon without getting blasted with fire.
The King didn't have to know that.
Cedric had ordered the Dragon fields full of every Dragon in the palace dens this afternoon, and all of his Dimn had flooded the fields, some still brandishing weapons, others, who had formed connections with their Dragons, empty-handed. The only Dragon not present was Ember. Cedric had left him in his den.
Cedric watched from the observation platform for several moments before he turned and hurried down the stairs and across the path to the double doors of the tunnel. Two of the palace guards stood in front of it. When Cedric drew near, they took hold of the huge brass rings and pulled until the doors creaked open with a deep groan.
Cedric entered the dark interior. He lifted the nearest torch from its bracket and hurried down the stone corridor as the doors shut behind him.
It was a long jog to reach Ember's den. Cedric was out of breath when he finally arrived. He huffed, a spark of irritation flashing in retaliation to the soft life he lived now. When he had lived in the Dwellings, he could have run ten times the distance without breaking a sweat.
The door had been left open per Cedric's orders. He wanted to rid the cell of foul, stale air. It wasn't a cure-all, but it did help the stench.
Ember paced restlessly in his den, chains clanking with every step he took. The heat from his scales had turned the iron links into orange, glowing ovals. If Ember decided to test his strength, those links would pull apart as easily as melted tallow.
Cedric entered the den, cautiously moving toward the Dragon. The smoky eyes watched him carefully. Cedric hadn't won the Dragon's full trust yet, but he liked to think he was making progress. He had been down here every day for the last several weeks, sitting quietly against the wall, talking to the Dragon, occasionally reaching tentative fingers to touch the snout.
Ember still jerked his head away when Cedric did this, a reflex to human touch, but his reaction time was slowing. The Dragon had yet to initiate any sort of gentle contact, but the day before when Cedric visited, Ember had crept forward, his snout on the stone floor until he was a mere orlach from Cedric's leather shoe. Cedric had spent the entire time hoping the Dragon would close the distance, would finally acknowledge the connection he felt was growing between them, but it had yet to happen.
“Come, Ember. Lie down,” he murmured.
The Dragon did so, and Cedric walked to the wall, sliding to a sitting position in his normal spot. Cedric kept eye contact through the haze of smoke that wafted upward from the beast's nostrils. He'd found that the Dragons responded to direct eye contact. It made them less volatile, less likely to spew flame.
“It's a good thing I like you, Ember,” he chuckled. “Your breath would make a donkey cry.”
Ember huffed, and the sulfury stench swirled his way.
“Oy, enough.” Cedric waved in front of his face, clearing the air. “Now you know why I requested the dens be left open. If you filled up a closed space with this air, you'd keel over before we could get help for you.”
Cedric leaned forward, placing his hand on the burning scales again. He still couldn't touch the sensitive portion of Ember's snout without the Dragon jerking away from him, but Ember allowed his hands to play across the fiery scales.
“Ember, my mother used to tell me that she loved me when we would go to sleep at night. We'd count her ancestors among the Stars, as many as we could, and just before my eyes drifted shut, she would sing her lullaby to me and end it with the reassurance of her love.” He sighed. “I miss her. She never had time to tell me about another kind of love. What do you do when—you love someone who is far and away and forever out of your reach?”
He trailed his fingers over the Dragon's scales, losing himself in visions of cobalt blue eyes and soft, pale skin.
“Dragon-Master, it's interesting to find you here rather than in the Tournament fields.”
Cedric jerked upright, and Ember released a roar that shook the walls, as the object of Cedric's own thoughts stood in the open doorway, alone.
“What are you doing here?”
Lianna shrugged and entered the den. Ember clawed his way back, and Cedric leaped to his feet. “Ember, no!”
Flames licked from the Dragon's mouth, but he didn't throw a fireball. Gradually, the tension eased, and Cedric pointed to the floor. “Lie down again, Ember.”
The Dragon did so, but his ey
e burned as it stared at Lianna.
Lianna's gaze traced the whole length of the Ember, and her soft features showed amazement. “He's beautiful,” she breathed.
Cedric's eyebrows arched upward in surprise. “Perhaps you should stay back, my lady. This Dragon is one of the more capricious ones.”
She ignored him, moving closer.
Cedric shifted, careful not to alarm the Dragon with any sudden movements. “You're not frightened?”
“Awe overwhelms any feelings of fear, Dragon-Master.”
Cedric turned his gaze to Ember. “He is a beauty, one of the King's prize Dragons. There had been a Mirage at one point in the Dragon Clan to the north-west, but that Dragon escaped some months ago. I know the King was severely disappointed—”
“Please,” Lianna broke in, “can't I ignore, for just a few moments, what the King likes and does not like?”
Cedric was stunned. He stumbled over his speech. “Of—of course, my lady. What would you care to discuss?”
She shrugged and paced to the wall where Cedric had been sitting. Spreading her gown beneath her, she sank down into a graceful pose and leaned wearily back against the stone.
“Do you find King Sebastian to be a good man, Cedric?”
Cedric slid down the wall beside her, his head turned to look into her eyes. He was silent for several seconds before he answered. “I find that I must never voice my opinion, my lady, as many ears are connected to wagging tongues.”
Her cheeks immediately stained red. “I—I'm sorry; I didn't mean to imply—”
Cedric shook his head. “You've done nothing wrong, my lady. Simply put, I've come to realize that a man who does not walk in the path set before him by the King is easily disposed of.”
Lianna nodded and sighed as she looked down at her clenched hands. “I suppose you've answered my question.”
Kindle the Flame (Heart of a Dragon Book 1) Page 21
