by Shae Ford
“No — I swore a captain’s oath, and I mean to go down with my ship!”
“Eh, you can go down with the next one,” Shamus said as he hauled Lysander up. “Ready, Captain?”
“You can’t —!”
But Shamus tipped backwards over the rails before he could protest further, plunging them both into the icy waves below.
Cold shocked him. Lysander held on with numbed hands as Shamus dragged him up for air. He tried to kick against the shove of the tide, but his legs were too stiff and the waves were too fierce. His head still spun from his fall.
Shamus fought hard. He barreled them through the first couple of swells and had crashed into a third when the sky erupted.
Light plunged down upon them — so thickly that Lysander could feel it pressing against his skin. Next came a wind that flattened the waves. It howled from the light’s middle in a heat that burned his flesh like the sun. The waters around him began to warm.
All at once, the ice melted from his legs and Lysander’s breath returned. He kicked wildly beside Shamus, trying to beat a path for shore. But they were too far out. The clouds roared and the heat drew steam from the waters’ top.
“We’re not going to make it,” Lysander gasped as he fought. “We’re going to be boiled alive!”
“Ha! Let them try!” Shamus bellowed, his gaze settled fearlessly upon the roiling fires above. “Even if they boil us, what a tale that’ll be — oof!”
His words were cut short by a coil of rope slapping across his face.
“Grab on!” Jonathan called. He held onto the other end of the rope — a whole band of pirates lined up behind him. The second Lysander and Shamus grabbed on, they pulled.
The pirates tore them across the water and onto the shore a blink before the fires fell. They ran for the shadow of the trees, heads craning behind them to watch the flames devour the ship. She moaned piteously as the fire raced down her beams, chewed her sails to ashes. Lysander turned back in time to see her mast tilt and fall.
He went straight to his knees. “My ship … ” He groaned as Jonathan dragged him up again. “You should’ve let me die.”
Shamus snorted. “She was a beauty, Captain. But ships can be replaced. You’ve got far too much to live for.”
CHAPTER 5
A Whisper
Kael stayed up until late into the night, waiting for Kyleigh.
The storm that’d been threatening the village all afternoon finally broke. Now rain lashed the windows and the thunder grew along the breath of the wind.
Kyleigh loved flying through the storms. Nothing seemed to make her happier than cutting along the bursting clouds. But though Kael’s heart muttered that all was well, his mind still worried.
When he tried to read, his eyes wouldn’t focus on the page. They kept flicking to the window, turning back to the door. No amount of drawing or thinking could distract him. He quickly ran out of things to fix. Even when he paced, his hand kept trailing back into his pocket.
It was a stupid thing — he knew it was stupid. But for some reason, Kyleigh’s ring sat heavily at its bottom. He swore he could feel the metal growing cold. It burned his skin through his trousers and after a while, his own ring started to cool.
The white-gold dragon coiled dully about his finger; its burst of onyx flame seemed darker now than ever. He knew it was only his mind playing tricks on him. If he allowed himself to sit and worry, there was no end to the ridiculous things he might dream up. Still, he couldn’t stop it.
When his hand began to ache from the cold, he slid his ring off and stuffed it down next to Kyleigh’s. Once she returned, all would be set right.
But he’d have to find some way to distract himself until then.
Kael was actually relieved when somebody knocked on the library door. “Come in. It’s only me, Mandy,” he called, when he saw how slowly the door crept open.
While the other maids burst in on them every chance they got, Mandy was always careful. She was a round-faced woman with a warm smile and a very firm grip.
“Good evening, Master Kael,” she said as she entered. “Crumfeld just sent me along to make sure you’ve had your dinner. He didn’t remember seeing you in the dining room or the kitchens.”
Kael hadn’t seen Crumfeld, either. It was strange because so much of Roost seemed completely reliant on its butler. They’d never once crossed paths. Soldiers and maids would pop up every once in a while to give him one of Crumfeld’s messages — and occasionally, he would wander into a room that had clearly just been tidied.
But though he’d scoured every inch of the castle, Kael had yet to find him.
It seemed today would be no exception. “I got hungry earlier, so I ate in the village,” Kael lied. The fact was that he’d completely forgotten about dinner. But he knew if he said as much, he’d just get dragged off to the kitchens.
“Very well. Just so long as you’ve eaten,” Mandy said. Her eyes cut quickly across the room before coming back to his. A frown marred her cheery features. “Has Miss Kyleigh not returned?”
“No,” Kael said with a sigh. “She’s out playing in the blasted rain again.”
He’d tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, he really had. But Mandy must’ve heard. She flashed him a smile that made his face burn horribly before returning to her frown. “Well, when she gets in, would you kindly let her know that I’m perfectly capable of handling my own affairs?”
“All right.” Kael was almost afraid to ask it. But as he had nothing better to do, he thought he might as well. “What do you mean?”
“Gerald turns white as a ghost any time he sees me. He jogs off, sputtering about having to do one thing or another. And I know she’s had a hand in it.”
Though he’d been with them for a few weeks, Kael hadn’t quite gotten used to the castle — and the various goings-on of its residents still made him a bit cross-eyed. But if he remembered correctly, Gerald was one of Roost’s guards. He often manned the keep doors or patrolled the upper levels.
And sometime while Kyleigh had been away, he’d apparently taken a liking to Mandy.
“How can you be so sure it was Kyleigh’s doing? Perhaps he’s only nervous.”
“Oh, I’m sure he is. I’d be nervous too if I’d been promised a head-first plummet from the clouds.”
Well … that certainly sounded like Kyleigh. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that — but I’ll speak to her,” he added quickly, when Mandy raised her brows.
“Thank you,” she said with a dip of her skirts. “It’s been a fresh turn of the tide, having you here. She can get a bit fiery about this sort of thing.”
She certainly could. Kael wasn’t at all looking forward to have to try to reason with her, but he promised he would do his best.
Once Mandy had wandered off for the night, Kael went back to trying to find some way to stay busy. He rescued the fire from dying and then brought out the small chessboard he’d found tucked inside one the desk’s drawers.
While much of Roost went bare, the library was packed full of things. Kael liked the narrow desk, and how it’d been arranged in a corner of the room that allowed him to watch the door and the window at once. He liked the cushioned chairs that’d been settled before the hearth, and the little table that sat between them.
Though the chairs were a bit more lavish than he would’ve liked, he found that draping bear pelts across their backs helped soften them up a bit. He’d also replaced the gold-threaded rug with one made up of the stitched-together hides of animals. And slowly, the library had begun to feel more like home.
Kael settled himself in one of the cushioned chairs and opened the board upon the table. Uncle Martin had insisted that chess was a game he could play on his own, but Kael had never quite gotten used to it. If he set up a convincing attack, he always knew exactly how to counter. Back and forth he’d battle until the game finally went stale.
No, he’d prefer to play with an opponent who kept him on his fe
et. He wished she would hurry up and fly home.
He was in the middle of trying to rescue his pawns from the queen’s advance when he heard the creak of the library door. “It’s about blasted time,” he growled, trying to look severe. But it was no use.
Kyleigh’s eyes were far too warm, her smile far too bright. Her raven hair was damp and dripping down the back of the shirt and trousers she’d nicked from one of his drawers. She’d obviously thrown them on in a hurry: one of the legs was rolled higher than the other, and the tail of the shirt hung out the back.
She clutched her blackened dragonscale armor to her chest as she entered. “It was brilliant out there tonight. You’re lucky I came home at all.”
His throat tightened as he watched her drop the armor onto the desk; his heart began to race. “What?” he croaked, even though when he saw how fiercely her gaze burned, he knew full well what.
“I warned you that I planned to finish what I started,” she murmured as she sauntered towards him.
He sprang to his feet and caught her hands in his, bracing himself for the coiling strength that surged across her limbs. “One game,” he pleaded, holding her back.
“No.”
“You can’t just keep beating me!”
“Apparently, I can,” she said, thrusting forward. But just when it looked as if he would lose, she finally relented. “Fine. One game.”
Something about the way she held him reminded him of the night before. The memories flared up behind the backs of his eyes and he pulled away quickly. “White or black?” he said, hoping Kyleigh hadn’t noticed his look.
Though judging by the growl in her voice, she had: “White, of course.”
It was difficult to concentrate with Kyleigh sitting across from him. He loved to watch how her eyes moved across the pieces. She kept her finger propped against her lips as she studied the board. But every once in a while, the edges of her mouth would slip into a smirk — usually just before she wreaked havoc on his pieces.
It took Kael ages to decide which way to turn, but Kyleigh moved in a blink. Soon, the numbers of his blackened army had dwindled considerably — and he honestly couldn’t remember how half of them had been taken.
“How do you do it?” he grumbled, sliding his knight to a position he was certain wouldn’t get him mauled.
Kyleigh didn’t answer. When he looked up, she snared him in her gaze. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
She raised a brow at the hesitation in his voice. Then she leaned forward, propped her elbows upon the table, and whispered: “You’ll need to watch me, then … very, very closely. Are you watching?”
He was — or at least he had been. Something about the way her lips moved around her words made him forget what he was supposed to be doing. He stared until they bent, ever so slightly, into a triumphant smirk.
“You weren’t watching closely.”
“I was,” he insisted, forcing his eyes away from her lips.
Her brows arced high. “Oh? Then what became of your poor knight?”
Kael looked down, and was shocked to see that his knight had vanished from the board — the knight he’d been certain was safe. No, he had been safe. There was no possible way any of Kyleigh’s pieces could’ve gotten near him.
He glared at her.
She propped one fist pensively beneath her chin. “Well, whisperer? What have you got to say for yourself?”
He glanced across the table for his missing knight, while Kyleigh looked on with a mocking grin. But it wasn’t until he thought to check the floor that he finally discovered it: his knight lay slain beneath Kyleigh’s chair — along with a host of other blackened pieces.
He couldn’t believe it. “You’ve been cheating this whole time, haven’t you?”
“How dare you accuse me of cheating!” Kyleigh roared. She flung out her arm and hurled the table from between them.
And while Kael was still gaping at the scattered pieces, she tackled him.
*******
With their game ruined, Kyleigh made good on her word. “It’s not fair,” she moaned, half-laughing. She buried her head against his neck before she punched him weakly in the chest. “It isn’t fair at all.”
Kael thought she’d been pretty unfair, herself.
While she trailed a slow line of kisses down his neck, he craned his head back to survey the damage — and groaned at what he saw.
One of the cushioned chairs had been completely torn apart. The other was missing a leg. Once the world stopped spinning, he could probably seal them back together. But there would be no salvaging the table: it’d toppled over and fallen into the hearth. Now it lay half-out of the fire, with the flames already eating their way down its legs.
Kyleigh reached up and shoved it the rest of the way in before the fire could leap onto the hide rug. “I’m afraid there’ll be no returning from that.”
Kael agreed. “I’ll make a new one tomorrow.” Sometime during the scuffle, one of the bear pelts had gotten trapped beneath him. It was missing a paw, but he still thought it ought do nicely.
“I’m not cold —”
“I don’t care,” Kael said firmly as he draped the hide over them. “Your people are always bursting into places without knocking. I’m not going to leave you stark naked on the floor for everybody to see.”
“You’re assuming they haven’t already seen it?”
“Come off it, Kyleigh. You wouldn’t wander around the castle naked … would you?”
“I suppose you’ll never know.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Speaking of maids — Mandy was looking for you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. And she wasn’t very happy.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Goodnight.”
She tried to roll away, but Kael grabbed her by the shoulder. “You can’t keep threatening Gerald with a gruesome death every time he comes near her. It isn’t fair.”
“I didn’t tell him not to come near her. I simply warned him not to hurt her.”
Kael frowned. “He thinks you’re going to drop him from the clouds.”
“Well, I felt I ought to at least give him fair warning.”
“Well, Mandy wants you to stop.”
Kyleigh shrugged. “All right. Noted.” Then she pulled out of his grasp and rolled aside, turning her back to him.
It took Kael a moment to realize that she hadn’t exactly agreed. “Does that mean you’ll stop?”
“I said it was noted,” was her growling reply.
Though he should’ve been cross with her, Kael couldn’t help but smile. This was one of the few times when her dragon half showed through.
Granted, there hadn’t been much in the dragon books he’d found in the library. Most were simply legends. But there had been a passage about lady dragons, and how fiercely they guarded their nests. As protective as they were of their skies, the book had warned that it was nothing compared to the fury with which they would defend their brood.
With Roost very firmly under the shadow of her wings, Kyleigh must’ve felt the need to protect Mandy. And he couldn’t fault her for it.
But he’d seen enough pictures of armies being roasted alive to know that Kyleigh would drop Gerald from the clouds if he ever hurt Mandy. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Kael wrapped himself around her carefully; he pulled her close. His arms dipped into the curves of her waist. He pressed his chest into her back until he could feel the steady beating of her heart. She fit against him perfectly. She made him whole.
Her breathing slowed to a murmur and her heart slowed to match. The hand she’d had clutched against his arm loosed its grip and trailed softly to the floor. Only when he was certain she’d fallen asleep did Kael dare to whisper:
“I love you, Kyleigh.”
CHAPTER 6
The Red Wall
Something startled Kael awake. The storm still growled outside the window, but the hearth fire ha
d gone dark. Cool air glanced across his chest and his arms were empty. He heard the patter of feet and rushed to blink the sleep from his eyes.
Kyleigh was standing before the desk, tugging on her boots. She already wore her leggings and her jerkin hung open at her chest. Her hands moved in a blur as they sealed every buckle and clasp in a swift, practiced motion. Her eyes stayed fixed upon the window.
Even by the fire’s embers, he could see that she was glaring.
“What is it?” Kael said hoarsely.
She didn’t reply. She glanced at the desk for half a blink to snatch Harbinger up before her eyes flicked back to the window.
It took Kael several moments of digging through the shambles of the room before he finally came up with his trousers. They were ripped straight down the middle — torn beyond repair. He didn’t remember what had happened, exactly … but he could guess.
Fortunately, the pair Kyleigh had been wearing was still intact. He found the trousers beneath a pile of broken chair and slipped them on as quickly as he could. “What’s out there?” he hissed as he worked the laces.
When she replied, her voice was hardly a whisper: “Something’s happened … something’s wrong.”
Her voice sounded strange — as if she spoke from sleep, though her eyes were opened. “Are you certain it wasn’t a dream?”
She’d woken him before with worries that something was after them. She would spring from bed and go tearing off down the hall if he didn’t stop her. While she was awake, she assured him that they were safe. But her heart must’ve felt differently in sleep.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” Kyleigh said, backing away from the window.
Kael jogged over to take her place. He tried to peer through the warped lines of the glass and the steady, trickling path of the rain, but it was no use. Not even the guards’ braziers had survived the wet. All he could see was darkness.
