by Shae Ford
Kael watched through the gap in the canopy above them as the moss-colored dragon fell from the high reaches of the clouds, his body tangled with his mate’s. They formed a spiral of green and white, one that twisted with a terrible speed until it became nothing more than a blur.
Even from where he stood, Kael could hear the wind shrieking off their wings. They were falling too quickly; they screamed for the earth with a force that not even a dragon’s scales could withstand. And for half a moment, he was certain they would be crushed.
Their wings opened and they blasted apart with mere feet to spare them from the forest’s top. Their bodies tore in opposite directions, bending the trees back in their wake. When his mate took off towards the east, the moss-colored dragon followed with a loop and an earth-trembling roar.
Even after they’d gone, Kael’s lungs were still frozen in shock. “What in Kingdom’s name were they doing?”
“Playing,” Kyleigh said.
He didn’t understand her smile. “Well, there are safer ways to play. They could’ve been killed!”
She inclined her head. “Perhaps. But I’ve always thought that love is well worth a bit of danger.” Her grin only widened at his bewildered look. “In fact, I think you may have … inspired them.”
She nodded at the hole in the canopy — and with a horror that nearly made his skin burst into flame, Kael understood.
“Oh, no.” He stared up, a part of him hoping she was wrong. But when he saw just how much of the sky was visible, he knew there was no way she could be. “Oh, for mercy’s sake! Have they got nothing better to do than stare at us? And you,” he snapped over Kyleigh’s laughter, “you knew they were watching — and you didn’t say a blasted thing! You didn’t stop me! You just let me keep on —”
“I wouldn’t have stopped you for the Kingdom, Kael the Wright,” she growled, eyes blazing above her smile. “I don’t care how many dragons were watching.”
“Well, how many were…? Wait,” He froze as her words sunk in. “Really?”
“Yes.” In one fluid motion, she’d sprung from the ground and began striding towards him. Kyleigh slid the tunic across her shoulders — doing a button up for every step. When she stood before him, she brought her lips to his ear and whispered: “I didn’t care if the skies fell or the earth split beneath us. If Fate herself had drifted down from the clouds, I would’ve told her to clear off. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re about to force me to ruin my own tunic,” he managed to gasp.
When she kissed him, he felt her smile upon his lips.
Hello, humans.
Kael jumped back and swore when he saw they weren’t alone: Rua and His-Rua watched from the edge of the clearing. Their great heads were stuck side-by-side, crammed beneath the branches of a tree.
Rua’s eyes went straight to his — and Kael hoped to mercy he hadn’t seen … anything. But the yellow flames danced so mischievously within his stare that he knew he’d seen a great deal more than that.
He pulled away from Kyleigh before the red dragon’s hum could reach his ears. “Have you told that them we plan to leave?” he said, looking pointedly at the trees beside him.
His-Rua must’ve protested, because Kyleigh shook her head. “I’m afraid we can’t. The Kingdom needs our help.”
Rua’s voice crackled next — his eyes all but burning a hole through the side of Kael’s head.
“Someday, perhaps,” Kyleigh answered him. “I think we’d like to come back.”
“Provided they all agree to quit gawking at us every hour of the day and night,” Kael muttered — earning himself one of Rua’s tree-shaking chortles. An idea came to him suddenly. He moved his gaze to the branches above Rua’s head. “Now that we’re friends, I don’t supposed they’d follow us into the Kingdom, would they? A swarm of dragons would make short work of Midlan.”
They exchanged a long look before they hummed.
“It’s too dangerous — the dragons have no defense against the power of the mages. They won’t risk the lives they’ve only just gotten back,” Kyleigh said, squinting as she tried to pull their voices apart. “But they’ve all agreed that you can keep the knight’s sword.”
“Well, I was going to keep it anyways.”
“And Rua wants you to know that it’s a smolder of dragons, not a swarm.”
That couldn’t possibly be right. Kael glanced down to say as much and quickly found himself trapped in the dancing fires of Rua’s gaze.
The scales around his lips were bent into a smirk — and as Kael watched, one of his eyes closed in what could’ve only been a knowing wink.
*******
They were near the shores of the Kingdom.
Kael couldn’t see a thing through fog, so he had no choice but to trust Kyleigh when she said they were close. The thrill he’d felt as they left the Motherlands was far behind him. It was lost somewhere among the ice of the northern seas — no more present a thing than the white mist beneath him.
Spring had begun to win the fight against the cold. Now the seas and the land sweated against the growing heat, their labor rising in a dense fog. As Kael watched, a thin, grayish line appeared across the horizon. He stared at the sky above that line, but the mountains never appeared.
We’re going back a different way, Kyleigh explained when he asked. I’ve been giving it some thought, and I think it’s best if we cross over somewhere we haven’t crossed before. And besides … there’s something I wish you to see.
“What sort of something?” Kael said, not even bothering to hold his curiosity back.
A place that’s always been very dear to me.
He was excited — until she dipped a little lower and he caught the unmistakable reek of a bog. When the tops of wide, drooping trees began to sprout above the mist, he knew exactly where they were headed.
“No, we’ve talked about this, Kyleigh. You aren’t dumping me off at the swamps.”
You’re right. I’m not.
“Then why are we coming this way?”
I’ve already said it: because there’s a place here I wish you to see. You’re always wanting to know more about me, and this might be as good a time as —
Her words stopped abruptly. Every inch of her body tightened and her wings froze mid-beat. It happened before Kael even had a chance to breathe, a chance to blink: a furious red bolt shot out from among the drooping trees and struck Kyleigh hard.
Her head snapped back. She flung her neck and her body twisted as she roared — her voice sharp with pain.
Kael only caught a glimpse between her flailing wings: a red spell was wrapped around her throat, cooling into an iron collar. He flung himself over her shoulder with a howl, his eyes set upon the collar.
He’d managed to grab it when she ripped violently onto her back. In a half second he was hanging over the earth by the collar …
Watching as the black dragon fell upon them.
His body struck Kyleigh’s upraised claws with a noise like the sky splitting into two. Though Kael steeled himself the best he could, nothing could’ve prepared him for the force of the black dragon’s strength. He jarred Kyleigh from his grasp and in a half-second more, Kael was falling.
There was nothing to save him, this time. Kyleigh grappled desperately against the black dragon’s grip, against his jaws. He wrapped around her as if he meant to drive her back-first into the ground — and it woke Kael’s strength with a roar.
The earth was rising; the wind screamed past his ears. But Kael shoved everything he saw aside and scrambled through his memories. His eyes fell upon something at last: the Scepter Stone of the giants. His hands remembered its unbreakable flesh. His mind swelled along the words of Declan’s story, about how not even the mage’s spells could break it.
And as he plummeted towards the earth, he convinced himself that it was the one thing in the Kingdom that might be able to withstand this fall.
His flesh hardened and the weight shot him to blu
rring speed. The wind’s scream grew to a whistle; the armor snapped from his chest. Kael shut his eyes tightly as he neared the trees. He knew that if he looked, he might lose his grip — and he couldn’t afford to doubt even for a breath.
Limbs snapped as he tore between them. He passed through the forest in an instant. An instant later, he struck the ground.
Black mud spewed up around him. It seeped into his mouth and nose. He sunk so deeply beneath its stinking folds that the swamp began to swallow him. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe. In his panic, the craftsman lost its hold and the Stone broke from his flesh.
The warrior crawled blindly through the mud, casting it aside — scraping its way calmly to the surface even as his lungs screamed for air. Just when he thought he might be swallowed whole, his hands burst out into the open. With a final surge, he pulled himself free.
The air was so thick that it took him several moments to catch his breath. Kael pulled himself to his feet and sprinted through the stringy woods. His eyes were fixed upon the path ahead. He was certain Kyleigh and the black dragon had fallen that way.
He didn’t have to go far.
A figure rose from the mist before him. He recognized its skull-like grin the moment the fog parted around its head. “Let her go, Ulric!” Kael roared, his fury carrying him to a greater speed. “If you want to die quickly, you’ll bloody well let her go!”
Ulric only laughed.
Kael ripped Daybreak from its sheath and raised it overhead. Its heat roared dangerously through the air above him. He could feel it burning his scalp. But he never broke his stride. One blast of the sword’s white-hot fire, and the archmage would be —
Gone.
Ulric was gone — lost in a blur that smeared the swamp aside. Kael’s chest tightened as something tore the breath from his lungs. His neck might’ve snapped from his shoulders, had he not caught himself against the base of a tree.
In the second it took his body to strike the ground, he wished his head had snapped off. It would’ve been a mercy — it would’ve been better to die straight away than have his ribs shatter down one side. It would’ve been better to drown in the muck than to feel the warmth spilling down his chest, his leg, his middle.
Three gashes split him. They tore through his clothes and churned thick layers of his flesh aside. Blood wept from their maws in miserable, stinging lines. Through the haze that filmed his eyes and the pools inside his ears, Kael heard the rumble of a creature leaning towards him — and saw the merciless fires of its yellow glare.
Daybreak lay out of his reach, having been flung from his hand by the force of the black dragon’s tail. He wasn’t sure how he’d survived it, now that he could see the size of the claw falling towards him.
He bit his lip hard when the pressure of the dragon’s claw woke his wounds with a scream. All the little bits of his ribs dug into his flesh. Blood rushed from the gashes in an alarming swell.
The muck was creeping in. His scales would do no good: the black dragon had already torn through them once. If Kael turned his flesh to stone, he knew he would drown — and judging by how the dragon watched him, that was precisely what he wanted.
For some reason, the fury in the dragon’s eyes woke him. He forgot his pain and shoved back on the claw, meeting his roar with one of his own. There was nothing he could do to keep his body from sinking. But he would fight for as long as he had the breath.
With the mud rising and the darkness rushing in, Kael had one final thought — one crazed feeling that rose above the rest and made him grin against the dragon’s rage:
He knew why Dorcha was angry.
“She isn’t yours anymore.” He gasped as he drew another breath, and his ribs stabbed his lungs. “In fact, she was never … yours. She … will always … be mine.”
It worked.
The dragon’s eyes tightened. His claw curled as his limbs shook with fury — and the pressure rose from Kael’s chest.
But just before he could snap it back down, the collar roared to life against his throat.
“Get away from that thing, beast. Go with the others — make sure the Dragongirl remains bound. I’ll be close behind.”
Dorcha fixed Kael with one final, seething look. As his collar raged, his eyes tightened again. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a taunt.
Kael didn’t have to hear the meaning of his booming song to know what he must be thinking: You can’t have her if you’re dead.
Kael shut his eyes against the blast from Dorcha’s wings, hoping to mercy that the tree above him would hold. It did … but a moment after the dragon had gone, Ulric was upon him.
He crouched beside Kael and squinted at the mud coating his face. His dark stare roved across him, but he kept an arm’s reach between them. The archmage seemed unwilling to get too close.
“Who are you?” he whispered, as if he spoke to himself. “A man who can survive a fall from the clouds, the bite of a dragon’s tail, and who carries such a strange weapon,” he added, gaze sliding over to where Daybreak hissed in the mud, “must surely be a man worth noting.”
Kael said nothing. Even if his ribs hadn’t been gouging him with every breath, even if he the world wasn’t spinning from the loss of blood, he still wouldn’t have replied.
Ulric deserved no answer.
At last, he sighed. “Very well. Then I suppose you’ll die a nameless outlaw.”
When he reached his arm out beside him, Kael saw that the mass of silver chains was gone. There were only three links left. Two sat calmly against his wrist.
The other glowed with a raging light.
Kyleigh …
A stone rose from the earth at Ulric’s bidding. It squelched as its roots were torn from the mud — revealing it to be thrice the size of a man’s head.
Kael didn’t know what Ulric meant to do with the stone. Whether he meant to press him slowly into the mud or simply crush his skull, it didn’t matter. He knew he had only a precious few moments to think, to live. With his body broken the way it was, he couldn’t move. He doubted he could even sit up, let alone run.
Still, he had to try.
Hot tears streamed down his face as he tried to roll aside. Fire burst from his shattered ribs and nearly strangled him with its fury. He tried to reach a vine that hung beside him, hoping he might be able to pull himself onto his feet. But the effort cost him too much. His strength collapsed before he could reach it. His hand fell to his side …
And touched something that crinkled.
“Yes, I think this one’s large enough,” Ulric murmured, spinning the stone around in the air. “Which side do you want to strike you first, hmm? The smooth, or the jagged?”
Kael didn’t answer. He fought against the darkness, against the shrieking of his gashes and the fire along his ribs. He plunged his hand into his pocket and tore the letter free. He kept his eyes fixed upon the twisting black dragon stamped into its back and turned its front to Ulric.
The archmage squinted at it. “What is …?”
His voice died as his eyes scrolled across the words. He couldn’t help but read them — he had to read them. Kael remembered the way they were drawn: with cuts and flourishes designed to entrance the eyes and pound its message into the back of the reader’s skull.
Kael knew, as the stone fell and struck the ground beside him, that Ulric’s ears must be ringing with a strange little voice:
Open this letter immediately.
He nearly tore the parchment in his rush to snatch it from Kael’s grasp. His chest rose and fell with labored breaths and his hands shook as he broke the letter’s seal. No sooner had his eyes scraped down the page than Ulric yelped.
“No! No! I’m already late!” He spun on his heel and vanished mid-sprint, disappearing into the woods with a pop.
Kael lay back in the silence that followed, trying to force his body to calm. He managed to slow his heart and learned to take shallow breaths. Every bit of his mind was focused on the next beat, t
he next breath. If he could ever conquer the pain, then he would have the strength to heal it.
But for now, he had to find some way to live.
Kael was so lost in his trance that the next time he opened his eyes, evening had begun to fall. The mist was gone and the swamp had come alive with the songs of creatures that loved the night. He tried to match his breathing with the pattern of their chirps and croaks — anything to take his mind from the pain.
He’d only just closed his eyes again when a pressure opened them.
It was a soft pressure: the weight of a shadow upon his head. Something dragged through his curls and he heard a hissing string of sharp breaths. Some creature had found him — no doubt drawn in by the scent of his blood.
No, Kael wasn’t going to die like this. He’d managed to store up enough strength for one wild swing behind him.
His hand flung through the empty air, and the motion cost him dearly. A new rush of pain blurred his vision. His arm fell onto the ground above his head as he put everything he had left into staying conscious.
He wasn’t ready for the feeling of a hand wrapping around his wrist, or the rumble of a familiar voice behind him:
“I warned you, Marked One,” Graymange said, his words a growling whisper. “Did I not tell you that one day you would pay for your meddling? Well, it seems I was right.” His grip tightened as he added: “That day has come.”
CHAPTER 46
Meddling
Black patches covered his opened eyes — the thick gloss of his pain. Still, Kael knew there were voices all around him: he could hear them muttering in the darkness. He didn’t understand what they said, and he didn’t have the strength to ask them.
Graymange’s hand was still wrapped around his wrist. More hands slipped beneath him. His wounds burned against the pressure as they lifted his body from the mud. His chest felt as if it collapsed, dragging him spine-first into a darkened pit. Though it tried to swallow him, Kael held onto its edge.
He wouldn’t be dragged down. He wouldn’t lose his grip.
