Acronis was too old to have any illusions about Skylan’s reasons. Skylan had not saved his former master out of friendship nor—to give Skylan credit—for revenge. His reasons were practical. Acronis knew how to read a map and chart a course. He had sailed these waters for years and was familiar with the customs and cultures of many of the world’s people, including the ogres.
He and Skylan had started out as enemies, only to find friendship during the time they had spent together on board the dragonship. Acronis had come to admire and even love the courageous young man who strode through life boldly, fighting impossible odds to save his gods and his people, only to have his quest ended by a spear in the back.
When Skylan had died in the arms of his beloved wife, Aylaen, Acronis had mourned him as a son. Now the young man’s body, clad in his armor and chain mail and helm, lay on the deck, only a few feet from Acronis.
He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at the corpse. Acronis had been a soldier for years and he had seen death in many gruesome forms. He had walked the bloody battlefield and watched vultures pluck out the eyes of the dead and rats swarm over the bodies. He had once, on a moonlit night, witnessed the ghouls, horrible fae creatures who feast on corpses, slinking among the dead.
But he had never seen, in all his years, a corpse that didn’t decay.
The body was cold to the touch, the flesh smooth and cool as marble. The beating heart was still. No breath passed through the blue lips. Acronis knew this for a fact, for he had held a bracer to the lips to see if some faint moisture might form on the metal and had found no signs of life.
Yet, day after day, the body lay in the heat of the sun and there was no change. It was a mystery that Acronis, as a man of science, could not explain.
But then, he reflected, watching the stars as the ship sailed slowly beneath them, he had seen many mysteries during his time with Skylan and his people. He supposed one more should not surprise him.
Now thoroughly awake, Acronis sat up on the deck, moving slowly to ease out the kinks and stiffness of age. A tiny sliver of red light in the eastern sky meant that morning was not far away. He rose to his feet and went to perform his ablutions, wondering if this day would be different, if Aylaen would listen to reason.
Returning from his ablutions, Acronis heard singing coming from the direction of the stern and paused to listen. The song did not last long, and ended in a sigh.
As the morning light stole across the waves, Acronis could see young Farinn standing with his back against the bulkhead, his arms folded, gazing out across the ocean. He sang the phrase again, then shook his head in obvious frustration.
The sun glinted off the armor on Skylan’s body, which lay in the center of the dragonship, beneath the mast. The fae boy, Wulfe, was still asleep, curled up beside the corpse like a dog that will not leave its dead master. Aylaen, who made her bed in the hold below, had not yet come on deck.
Acronis walked back to the stern.
“May I speak to you, Farinn?” he asked. “I do not like to interrupt your singing, but I need to talk to you before Aylaen rises.”
“I am grateful for the interruption, sir,” Farinn said, adding with a sigh. “The song does not go well.”
“What song are you composing?” Acronis asked.
He leaned over the rail, watching the waves slide by beneath the keel. Farinn joined him, gazing down morosely at the blue water dappled with sea foam.
“I am trying to compose Skylan’s death song to do him honor,” said Farinn. “The words will not come or, when they do come, they are not the right words.”
“Perhaps you are too filled with grief now to give the song proper thought,” Acronis suggested kindly, recalling that the young bard was only sixteen.
Farinn shook his head. “I have never had this trouble with any of my songs before. The words always flow from me as naturally as breath, yet now my tongue stammers and the words stick in my throat.”
He sighed again, then looked up at Acronis. “But enough of my trouble. What did you want to talk to me about, Legate?”
“I want to talk to you about Aylaen,” said Acronis, lowering his voice. “You know that she is determined to pursue this mad idea of traveling to the land of the Stormlords to find the fourth bone of the dragon, the … what do you call it?”
“Spiritbone. I have heard the two of you discussing the voyage,” said Farinn. “It sounds very perilous.”
“It is,” said Acronis, his voice grim. “That is why I want you to talk to her, try to dissuade her. She refuses to listen to me and, frankly”—Acronis shrugged—“there is no reason she should. I am a relative stranger. But she might listen to you.”
“I know Aylaen respects you, Legate, as a wise and learned man,” said Farinn. “If she would heed the advice of anyone, it would be you. But she is determined to finish the quest given to Skylan by the Dragon Goddess, Vindrash. The quest is even more sacred to Aylaen now that Skylan gave his life for it.”
Acronis gazed out at the horizon. The sky was brilliant with streaks of red and orange and gold. The sun, called Aylis by the Vindrasi, was a fiery ball rising out of the sea. They believed she bore a bright torch and that she was chased by Skoval, God of Night, who hated her for spurning his love.
“There is one other matter, Farinn,” Acronis said. “We must both try to persuade Aylaen to give Skylan a proper burial. She walks away when I bring it up. Admittedly I cannot explain what is happening to the corpse. Why it is not decomposing—”
“I think I might know, sir,” said Farinn.
He looked pointedly over his shoulder and Acronis followed his gaze. Wulfe was awake, yawning and sitting up and scratching himself. He was dressed in the rags of a cast-off shirt, and his hair uncombed and unwashed. He was scrawny and lanky. According to Skylan, the druids who had found the child running wild with a wolf pack had thought he was about eleven.
“You think Wulfe has something to do with it?” Acronis asked, frowning.
“He claims to be the son of a faery princess,” said Farinn, sinking his voice to a whisper. “Whether that is true or not, he knows fae magic. I’ve seen him change himself into a fearsome beast. He talks with the beautiful women he calls ‘oceanids’ who live beneath the waves. The boy adored Skylan. He does not want to let him go. Perhaps he is using his magic to … um … preserve the body.”
Acronis would once have scoffed in disbelief, but in the past few weeks he had watched a powerful dragon level his city, breathed water as if it were air, and witnessed a dragon sailing a ship. He had learned to keep his mind open to all possibilities.
“We must convince Wulfe to let Skylan go,” Acronis said.
“Aylaen would be the only one to do that. He might pay heed to her.”
“But that means one of us needs to convince Aylaen,” said Acronis, sighing.
“You should speak to her, sir,” Farinn urged. “She will listen to you.”
“She has not thus far,” said Acronis.
* * *
Aylaen came up on deck to see Farinn and Acronis leaning over the rail, their heads together, conferring in low voices. When they noticed her watching them, Farinn flushed red in embarrassment and Acronis looked very grave. She knew they had been talking about her.
The Legate crossed the deck, coming to speak to her. Judging by his carefully formed expression of sympathy and understanding, he was going to talk to her again about Skylan, about burying his body at sea.
Aylaen had come to love Acronis as a father, though the transition from hatred to love had not been easy. He had taken her and her people prisoner, made them slaves. He had treated them well, however, and by a series of strange circumstances, Skylan had saved his life and brought him with them when the Torgun warriors escaped Sinaria. Aylaen knew the wise man’s reasoning was sound, but she didn’t want to hear his arguments, perhaps because she had no way to refute them.
Pretending not to see him, she turned her back and hurried off in the opposite
direction, going to stand beside the figurehead, the Dragon Kahg, that graced the prow of the sleek, fast dragonship.
Aylaen put her hand on the dragon’s neck and felt the life quiver beneath the carved wooden scales. The glowing red eyes gazed fiercely ahead into what was, for her, the unknown. She was the first of the Vindrasi people to ever sail these waters, the first to travel so far from their home.
“Acronis and Farinn must think I have gone mad,” said Aylaen softly. “They don’t understand, and I can’t explain.”
She spoke to the Dragon Kahg as if he agreed with her, although in truth she had no way of knowing what the dragon was thinking or feeling. Despite the fact that she was a Bone Priestess, with the power to summon the dragon, Kahg had refused to communicate with her.
She knew only that Kahg was following her orders to take them to the land of the Stormlords, and she knew this only because Acronis, using his mysterious navigational instruments, determined that was the dragon’s destination. Acronis marked their progress daily on the map he kept with his instruments in a wooden chest in the hold.
He had taught Aylaen how to make sense of the squiggles and lines that represented the world on the map. He had shown her the place on the map that represented the land of the Stormlords and every day he showed her the dot on the map that represented the Venejekar. The ship was drawing closer and closer.
She stole a glance at Acronis and saw him standing near the corpse, regarding her with sympathetic understanding. He was so kind. He had a right to an explanation, if nothing else.
“Kahg, please tell me the truth,” Aylaen said to the dragon. “Is Skylan truly dead, as Acronis and Farinn believe, or is he alive, as I feel in my heart?”
She saw the dragon’s eyes swivel in her direction, bathing her for a moment in a fiery red glow. But it was not the dragon who answered.
“Skylan isn’t dead!” Wulfe said angrily. “I keep telling you.”
Aylaen looked around, startled, to see the boy crouched on the deck behind her, keeping a wary eye on the dragon. Wulfe maintained that the Dragon Kahg did not like him. For all Aylaen knew, that might well be true.
“I should give you a bath,” said Aylaen, knowing from past experience this threat would frighten Wulfe off.
He did not run away, though he did back up a step, ready to flee at the first sign she might try to grab him.
“The two Uglies want to dump Skylan in the sea. You won’t let them, will you?” Wulfe asked. “The oceanids say that if you try, they’ll stop you.”
Aylaen turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest, huddling beneath her cloak.
“Are you using your magic to keep Skylan…” Aylaen paused. She could not bear to say “from rotting.” She bit her lip and said, after a moment, “To keep Skylan with us?”
“I don’t know how to work magic!” Wulfe cried. “Leave him alone! He’s not dead! You’ll see!”
The boy dashed away, his bare feet slapping across the deck that was wet from sea spray. He fled to the ship’s stern where, leaning over the rail, he began to talk to the waves, sharing his grievances with his oceanids.
“The Uglies are going to dump him in the sea!” he called to them. “You must go find Skylan and bring him back!”
Aylaen saw Acronis walking toward her and she sighed and went back to staring out at the sea. The sun goddess had returned from her nightly wandering to share her warmth and light with the world. Aylaen watched the light spread across the waves.
“Aylaen,” said Acronis gently, coming to stand beside her, “I know the pain you are suffering. I felt the same when my Chloe died, a pain so terrible and wrenching I tried to kill myself to end it. For your sake and the sake of the rest of us, you must face the truth. Skylan is dead. You need to let him go.”
Aylaen stood with her arms folded across her chest, holding herself together, digging her nails into her flesh to keep from giving way to her grief and fear. If once she lost control and fell apart, she might never be able to pick up the pieces.
“If he were dead, I would know it,” Aylaen said. “I would feel it, here.”
She clenched her fist over her heart. Acronis cast a meaningful glance at Skylan’s body, pale and cold and still. Aylaen knew what he was thinking, for she was thinking the same. He was dead. Dead. Dead. She would live all the rest of her life without him.
“Aylaen, you don’t have to do anything. Farinn and I can—” Acronis began.
Aylaen cut him off. “Are we are on course for the land of the Stormlords?”
Acronis regarded her with such caring and understanding that she wanted to run to his arms as a child to her father, and sob until the burning pain was gone.
Instead she repeated harshly, “Are we are on course?”
“I presume we are,” said Acronis. “We were yesterday. I have not taken my readings today.”
“Then do so and let me know,” Aylaen said.
She turned away, back to the sea.
Acronis stood still a moment, then walked over to a sea chest that he kept on deck. Taking out his instruments, he performed whatever mysteries he performed with them to determine the location of the Venejekar in this vast ocean with no land anywhere in view.
Aylaen closed her eyes and leaned against the dragon’s neck.
“I don’t know what to do, Kahg,” she said. “Acronis is right. Skylan is dead. He died in my arms. I felt him draw his final breath. Yet I know my husband so well, he is so much a part of me, that sometimes I think Wulfe is also right and that Skylan is not dead. But if so, what has happened to him? Where can he be?”
Aylaen put her hand on the bone that hung from the nail on the prow. As Bone Priestess, she used the bone, given to them by the Dragon Kahg, to summon him.
“I have prayed to Vindrash, begged her to answer me,” Aylaen continued. “All is silence. I don’t understand. The goddess has always come to me before in my time of need. Why does she avoid me now?”
“Because Aelon is searching for you,” said Kahg.
Aylaen looked at him, startled by this sudden and unexpected response. “Aelon is looking for me?”
“Vindrash fears if she speaks to you,” Kahg explained, “Aelon will hear her words and know where to find you.”
“Has Aelon grown so powerful?” Aylaen asked, doubtful.
“Aelon has grown powerful,” Kahg replied in grating tones. “Vindrash speaks through me. The Dragon Goddess bids you to remember the time you cast the rune stones in the house of the old woman you know as Owl Mother.”
“That gives me no comfort,” said Aylaen. “When I was with Owl Mother the mad god, Sund, threatened me, ordering me to destroy the Five dragonbones of the Vektia. ‘Know this, then, Daughter,’ he said to me. ‘If you bring the power of creation into the world, you yourself will lack it. Your womb will be barren. No children will be born to you! This I have foreseen.’
“He said my sister, Treia, is carrying Raegar’s child. Sund claimed their son will become Emperor of the Oran nation and he will grind his boot into the necks of our people. He said he had foreseen this future and that it would come to pass if I did not destroy the spiritbones in my possession.”
“Apparently his threat did not work, for you have three of the Five and you have not destroyed them,” said Kahg.
“I didn’t believe him,” Aylaen said. “He claims to see this future, but the wyrds of men are twined with the wyrds of gods to form a tapestry made up of myriad futures. Sund sees but one among the many.”
“And yet, you cast the rune stones to see your future. Why did you do that?”
“I know it was foolish, but I wanted to know if Sund’s prediction would come true, if I would be barren.”
“What did the stones tell you?” Kahg asked.
“Owl Mother read them. ‘Five of the stones are blank,’ she said to me. This means that only one choice brings victory. She pointed to the sixth that was marked with a single rune. Death. A short time after that, Skylan died.”
“But the runes told your future, not his,” Kahg observed.
“Our wyrds are so tightly bound together that if he is dead, then I am dead,” Aylaen replied. “I need Vindrash—”
“Look to the north,” Kahg said urgently, interrupting. “Just above the horizon.”
Aylis, the Sun Goddess, lit the sinuous coils of three winged serpents that had sprung from the sea. The serpents twisted in the air, darting here and there, as though searching for something.
“Aelon’s serpents. They are looking for you,” said Kahg. “Now you know why Vindrash was afraid to speak.”
The serpents dipped down over the waves, whipping back and forth across the ocean, then dove into the water, sending up a great spray. Aylaen waited tensely for them to reappear, but the sea stretched on, empty and endless.
“Ask Vindrash,” Aylaen pleaded. “Ask her what I am supposed to do.”
“Vindrash herself does not know what to do,” the dragon returned caustically. “How can she tell you?”
CHAPTER
5
Raegar stood in front of the window of his grand palace, gazing out at the city of Sinaria far below, basking in the light of Aelon that flooded his bedchamber. He was in an excellent mood. He was Emperor of Oran, the most powerful nation in the world. He lived in a magnificent palace, he dined on sumptuous food, he had all the gold he could spend. His people loved him. His enemies feared him. His wife, Treia, was pregnant with his son.
True, there were some dregs in his cup of sweet honey wine. He had lost his grand dragonship, Aelon’s Triumph, in a battle with the Dragon Kahg, who had set the ship on fire and then sunk it.
Still, Raegar was pleased to reflect, even that disaster had worked to his advantage. He had been the sole survivor, and with none left alive to contradict him, he told the story of a desperate battle against overwhelming odds from which he had emerged the victor. Only two knew the truth: the Dragon Fala, who had rescued him from the ocean, and Aelon.
His god had not spoken to him since, though Raegar had given her temple a valuable, beautiful jeweled chalice in thanksgiving and he been assiduous in his visits to her altar. He was not particularly concerned. Aelon might be angry with him, but she needed him. She would come around.
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