Storm Dragon: The Draconic Prophecies - Book One

by James Wyatt

  Since Darraun had first mentioned airships to him in White-cliff, Gaven had been waiting for this moment. Since he had first laid eyes on one in Korranberg, he had dreamed of standing at an airship’s helm. His smile broadened into a boyish grin, as a single thought ran over and over through his mind:

  I was born for this!

  * * * * *

  Bordan fell to his knees on the sandy beach. The dwarves hadn’t been able to match his speed, though he wouldn’t be surprised if they ran all the way to Storm Point before they flagged. He glared up at the airship receding into the rain, the sign of his defeat. Gaven had escaped him again.

  The storm lashed him, though it had diminished as Gaven got farther and farther away. Gaven had been the cause and the center of the storm. Bordan was sure of it. A harder rain had begun almost at the moment that he’d knocked on Arnoth’s door. The thunder that accompanied Gaven’s kick—he rubbed his sore head thinking of it—and the wind that had literally carried him out of the city made it clear. The storm obeyed Gaven’s command—or at least echoed his emotions, overriding the will of Esravash d’Lyrandar, the house matriarch, and all the Lyrandar heirs who worked together to maintain the paradisal climate of Stormhome.

  Despite his boasts to Gaven’s face, Bordan found himself grappling with serious doubt for the first time in his career. Perhaps he could continue finding Gaven—but he’d found Gaven twice already and been unable to apprehend him. What if he never caught him? And even if he caught Gaven, could he hold him? Or would he meet the same fate as Evlan d’Deneith?

  Could even Dreadhold contain a man with the power of the storm at his command?

  The beach grew darker, as though a new storm cloud covered the sun. Bordan felt rather than heard a presence behind him, and he leaped to his feet.

  A pool of shadow had formed on the white sand, roiling like smoke at the feet of Phaine d’Thuranni. An elf woman garbed in black stood just behind Phaine. Both elves had weapons drawn.

  “Damn it, Thuranni, I didn’t hear you approach.”

  “Few ever do,” the elf replied, taking a step forward. The darkness moved with him, clinging to him as he walked.

  “What’s this about? Did you follow Gaven here?”

  “Yes. He escaped.” Another step closer. “Again.”

  “Now, wait a moment, Thuranni. If you had any inkling of his power—”

  “I believe I do.”

  “Did you see that storm?” Bordan said. “Do you know what he’s done?”

  “Far better than you do.”

  “Do you know what he’s been ranting about all these years? What he’s been dreaming?”

  Phaine wrinkled his nose in disgust. “My blood is from an undiluted line of Aerenal, human.” He drew out the last word with a vicious sneer. “I know.”

  Bordan’s gaze flicked between the two elves. “What are you doing?” he said. “Gaven is the enemy here.”

  “Of course,” Phaine said.

  The elf woman spoke for the first time. “We can’t let you fail again. He grows stronger each time.”

  “Why don’t you get him, then?”

  “We will,” Phaine answered.

  “And this is what we’ll do to him,” Leina added.

  Both elves’ swords spun in a burst of motion, and Bordan fell to the blood-spattered sand.

  CHAPTER

  43

  The sun was dipping below the horizon, setting the last shreds of storm clouds ablaze with yellow and red, when Rienne returned to the main deck. Gaven watched as she looked up at the sky, and he smiled at the way the sunset glowed in her hair and eyes. She leaned against a railing near the wheel and smiled at him.

  “How’s Darraun?” he said.

  “Exhausted, but he’ll be fine.” She glanced at the hatch leading below. “I suppose we owe him our lives, or at least our freedom.”

  “Again,” Gaven said. He remembered his first glimpse of freedom from his cell in Dreadhold: the Ring of Siberys framed within a ragged hole in the stone ceiling, the warforged jumping down and trying to coax him out, and then Darraun, finally, standing at his side and bringing him back to his senses. It seemed so long ago, and Dreadhold just a memory of a dream.

  “Did you know he was a changeling?” Rienne asked.

  “No idea. I remember that almost from the beginning I knew he was hiding something. He didn’t quite fit in with the others—he was the only one who would even think of challenging Haldren, for one thing. And Senya thought he had some connection to the Royal Eyes. But a changeling?” Gaven shook his head, remembering the dwarf who had released his manacles—the same one who had barged through Thordren’s back door and landed in a pile of cooking pots—and struggling to find any similarity to the familiar human artificer. “No, I can still hardly believe it.”

  “It sort of makes you think, doesn’t it? Anyone you talk to could be a changeling, really—even someone you think you know. How can you ever be sure?”

  Gaven had no answer for that.

  Rienne watched him for a while, her eyes following the slight movements of his arms as he steered the airship over the sea. “So you’re flying an airship,” she said at last, a smile spreading across her face, gleaming white in her dark skin.

  Gaven returned the smile. “I am,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “Not in the least. She’s really not very different from a ship on the water. And the elemental does most of the work.”

  “It seemed to be plenty of work for Darraun.”

  “Oh, it was. These wheels are made to channel the power of a dragonmark—they’re the same ones they use on the seagoing galleons. They won’t work for just anyone.”

  “It’s fortunate he was able to do it at all.”

  “Yes, but not altogether surprising. Artificers are good at making magic work the way they want.”

  Rienne ambled a few steps toward the prow. Gaven watched her as she stared ahead for a moment, then to the right, then to the left. She searched the horizon for a long moment, then turned back to him and asked the obvious question. “So where are we going?”

  He gave her a sad smile. “If you don’t know what you want, you’re sure to do what someone else wants.”

  “That’s my line,” she said with a grin, but then her face grew serious, and she stepped closer. “So what do you mean by that? Are we still talking about you and your destiny, or are you making some kind of comment about me?”

  “I mean it’s time for me to decide. I’ve spent my whole life squirming under the pressure of other people’s expectations, without ever deciding who I want to be and what I want to do. It’s time for me to grow up, to stop defining my life by whining, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’ ”

  Rienne laughed at his exaggerated voice.

  “Do you know,” Gaven continued, “before my Test of Siberys I must have prayed to each of the Nine Sovereigns a hundred times, asking that I wouldn’t show a dragonmark?”

  Rienne frowned. “You never told me that.”

  “It’s true. And I always felt like my father knew it, or at least blamed me for failing the test. I think he always figured that once my mark manifested, I’d come around—I’d be the dutiful son he wanted me to be, and follow in his footsteps. I guess I must have figured that if I did get a mark, I would pretty much have to. And that’s why I wanted so badly not to get one.”

  “I don’t want to do that.” Rienne mimicked Gaven’s whining voice.

  “Exactly. I never wanted to do what I was supposed to do.”

  “And yet you served your house well, all those years with me.”

  “By working around House Tharashk to get better deals on dragonshards. By working outside the system.”

  Rienne stepped closer. “Very well, you rebel. So now you’re fighting against expectations again. Some ancient dragon inside your head wants to become a god, but you’re not going to do that. Haldren wanted you working for him, but you weren’t about t
o do that. You’re supposed to go back to Dreadhold and rot like a dutiful prisoner, but I note we’re not sailing east to Dreadhold. We’re sailing west. So what are you going to do?”

  Gaven’s brow furrowed, and he looked away. “I think I’m going to be a hero.”

  “Really?” Rienne almost laughed, but she reined it in when she saw the seriousness of his eyes.

  Gaven blinked back tears. “The elder son of Arnoth d’Lyrandar could be nothing less.”

  She closed the distance between them and placed a hand on his chest. “He was proud of you, you know.”

  Gaven nodded, but he stared down at the wheel. “The memories of him that come most readily to my mind are the stern father, judging and distant and gruff. I don’t know why those are so much easier to remember than the kinder moments, the times he made it clear how much I meant to him. The way his eyes would shine when he talked about me, positively beaming with pride.” He looked up and found Rienne’s eyes. “That’s an expectation I suddenly find that I want to live up to.”

  She held his gaze, then reached an arm behind his neck to pull his mouth down to hers.

  * * * * *

  The changeling was dreaming—he knew that much, but the knowledge did nothing to help him navigate the chaos. A jumble of identities, names and faces and personas, stumbling through one unlikely crisis after another. At last he stood in his true form in the awesome presence of a goddess.

  “The Traveler,” he said. “Bless your ten thousand names.”

  But the Traveler wore the face of his paladin acquaintance of recent months—a tall half-elf with short red hair and blue-gray eyes—and she glowed with an argent radiance like the Silver Flame of the Thranes.

  “Who are you?” she asked him.

  “Auftane Khunnam,” he said, and he was a dwarf, all black and brown and sturdy, strong.

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “Haunderk Lannath.” Human, sandy hair, scheming.

  “Who are you?”

  “Darraun Mennar.” Prying, planning, blond.

  “Who are you?”

  “Caura Fannam.” Poor Jenns. Compassion, care.

  “Who are you?”

  “Baunder Fronn.” Simple, stout, stupid.

  “Who are you?”

  “Vauren Hennalan.” Brave, honorable, prig.

  “Who are you?”

  “Natan Durbannek.” Another dwarf. A killer.

  “Who are you?”

  “Aurra Hennalan.” Mischievous elf.

  “Who are you?”

  There were so many, and the Traveler seemed unwilling to accept any answer he gave.

  “Who are you?”

  He awoke, sweating and shaking, panic racing through his veins. He was in a swaying bunk in a pitch-dark cabin, and he couldn’t remember where he was or—most importantly—who he was supposed to be. He put his hands to his face and felt his features: male, human, thirties. Aboard an airship. Who was with him? Kelas? No. Janik and Dania? No. Haldren? Closer, but no. Gaven, of course.

  Real memories started taking shape in his mind, crowding out the confused memory of his dream. His most recent dwarf persona, Natan Durbannek. Helping to capture Gaven in Stormhome, and then helping him escape. Piloting the airship from one end of the island to the other, which made him tired just to remember it.

  What in the world had he done? He had revealed himself to Gaven and Rienne, tripling the number of people in the world who knew that he was a changeling. And why? Had it been essential for his mission?

  He tried to roll out of his bunk and ended up in a heap on the floor. He curled inward, clutching his head. What was his mission? What in the Traveler’s ten thousand names was he doing here?

  “Make it solid,” he whispered. This was not like him at all—he had never in his thirty years questioned a mission or lost his grip on an identity. He struck his head against the floor and reverted to the training disciplines of his youth. “Who are you?” he said. “I am Au—Au … What the blazes is my name?”

  “Darraun,” a woman’s voice said. He scrambled on the floor, turning himself to see the woman standing in the open hatch of the cabin, silhouetted in front of a night sky dimly lit by the Ring of Siberys. “Or that’s what Gaven calls you, anyway.”

  “Rienne,” he said. He felt like a child just learning the names for everything in the world.

  “That’s right. I’m Rienne.” Her voice sounded bemused, but her face was still in darkness. “Are you all right?”

  “Am I …? No.” He started to get to his feet. “That is, I think so.” He reached out and grabbed another swaying bunk, trying in vain to steady himself.

  “Do you need more sleep?” Rienne took a step farther into the room, and her features began to resolve in the darkness. “Do you want me to help you back into bed?”

  “No! Not more sleep. No, thank you.” He managed to stand, and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Good, because Gaven wants to talk to you before we get much closer to Haldren’s camp.”

  “Haldren’s camp? What in the Ten Seas does he think he’s doing?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  “All right,” the changeling said. Darraun, he thought. Darraun Mennar. “You go ahead. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure.” Darraun Mennar. Darraun was polite, friendly. “Thank you.”

  Rienne turned, halfway out of the cabin, and smiled back at him. “You’re welcome.” Then she was gone.

  He buried his fingers in his hair, ran them down his face, wrapped himself in his arms, ran his hands down his legs. He knew this body—he’d worn it for months. He knew Darraun. He was ready. He started out the cabin door.

  But Gaven and Rienne knew he was a changeling. He stopped dead. What would that mean? How would they treat him now? Did it matter if he acted like Darraun or not?

  Best to appear familiar, reassure them that he was the same Darraun that Gaven knew. He took a deep breath, and wished that Darraun were a little braver. Vauren Hennalan could face dangerous and uncertain situations like this with ease. Darraun had been worried about finding himself lost in the Aerenal woods.

  Shuddering at the memory of a city filled with the undying, Darraun climbed the stairs to the main deck.

  * * * * *

  “Have you seen Haldren’s camp?” Gaven demanded as soon as Darraun’s head came above the level of the deck.

  To his credit, Darraun answered without hesitation. “Not the camp where he is now. His forces marched after I left.” As he spoke, he climbed the rest of the stairs and came to stand near the helm.

  “Why did you leave?”

  “Haldren discovered me spying on him.”

  Gaven arched an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you got out.”

  “That’s because you know more about Haldren’s capabilities than about mine. Haldren makes a show of his power. I do not.”

  “Fair enough. I’ve always known there was more to you than you let on.”

  Gaven remembered Cart interrupting their conversation in Whitecliff, insisting that he, too, was “quite complex.” He chuckled, and noticed Darraun doing the same. Their eyes met, and at the same time, they said, “Many-layered.” Then both men burst into laughter.

  “Clearly, I missed something,” Rienne said, folding her arms and smiling.

  “I’ll explain later,” Gaven said. “What can you tell me about Haldren’s movements since he left Paluur Draal?”

  “He was quite distressed at your disappearance—or at Senya’s, really. He was convinced you had pulled her out of the circle to use as a hostage. From that point on, your knowledge of the Prophecy meant nothing to him. He would have tracked you down and killed you, or tried to, to get Senya back.”

  “How touching,” Gaven said. “If only Senya shared his devotion.”

  Darraun raised both eyebrows. “If only. So we met with Vaskar on the shore of Lake Brey, and Haldren gave him the Eye of Sib
erys.”

  “Vaskar has it?”

  “As far as I know he still does, yes.” Darraun paused. “From there we went to Lathleer, in Aundair, and laid low for a few days. When we were in Whitecliff, Haldren sent word of his escape to a few of his closest friends in the army, and that blossomed into a meeting with seven of them in Bluevine. He swayed them to his cause, promised them a flight of dragons to assure their victory and sent them off to gather troops.”

  “A flight of dragons?”

  A clash of dragons …

  A sense of doom gripped Gaven’s heart.

  “That was Vaskar’s end of the bargain, in exchange for Haldren’s help in getting the Eye of Siberys and extracting whatever other information he could get out of you. Vaskar persuaded a fairly large number of dragons to come and form the vanguard of Haldren’s army.”

  “And by the rumors of war I heard today, I assume that Haldren has amassed his army, gathered his dragons, and begun his march toward Thrane.”

  “That’s right.”

  Gaven thought over what the changeling had told him. Darraun’s manner had seemed perfectly straightforward—he could read no trace of deception. The story all made sense, and fit with what little he already knew about Haldren’s movements. He couldn’t help himself—he liked Darraun, he always had, and knowing that he was a changeling and a spy did nothing to diminish that.

  I’ve got no choice but to trust him, he thought.

  He glanced at Darraun and broke his silence. “Do you know where they’re camped?”

  “No. The original plan was to strike down the coast into Thaliost, but Haldren changed the plan after he discovered me.”

  “How do you know?” Gaven asked.

  “Before I escaped the camp, he gave orders to march, a week ahead of schedule. After I got away, I spent some time in Flame-keep, where I learned that Thrane is concentrating its defense on an old battlefield called the Starcrag Plain.”

  “The plain that lies in the sunset shadow of the mountains of stars,” Gaven said. Again the dread gripped him, and he took a deep breath.