The four Dragons didn't remove their gazes from Kinna. After a long moment, the Mirage released a river of fire that burned across the ground at Kinna's feet. The other three did the same.
Lord Fellowes smiled, and Chennuh's thoughts behind Kinna immediately eased. Lord Fellowes strode forward and took Kinna's hand, his other hand covering it. He looked deeply into her eyes. “Your mother would have been proud, Kinna,” he murmured. “You handled that well.” He stepped back, but maintained his hold on her hand. He raised his voice and shouted to the Dragons all around, “It is well. The Dragons have agreed. To war, we go, then.”
The roars of the Dragons were deafening, but Kinna's heart was as light as a feather. She'd done it. She had convinced the Dragons to go to war against Sebastian, and she had also promised the destruction of the Amulet and the Bond of Blood and Fire along with it. Peace, should they be victorious, would be the result of the war. Helga would have been proud.
Lord Fellowes accompanied her and Chennuh through the throngs of Dragons toward the spot where they had first arrived. “I will carry a message to King Bennjan of the decision made this night,” he promised. “He has watched with dread the events leading up to this point. He will be reluctant, I think, to embroil his country in a war he'd hoped to avoid; however, he is a just man. He has promised his nobles and their soldiers should the Dragons agree, so you will have the unfettered aid of Ongalia as well.” His eyes lit up as he spoke. “Aye, Olivia would have wanted it this way in the end; peace for her people at last, and a long break from Liam and Sebastian Andrachen.”
He stopped short, glancing all around. “But—where is the Pixie and your swordsman? Did you not leave them here?”
“Aye,” Kinna said, confused as well. She, too, glanced over the craggy edges and crevices of the rocky valley, among the shrubby trees, and up the cliff walls. She shouted their names, suddenly chilled at the idea of an angry Dragon attacking them while Kinna had been pleading for peace.
“Jakkob! Hazel!” she called, but to no avail.
After searching, as well as seeking aid from the Valley's incumbent Dragons, there was no sign of either Pixie or Trolldimn. Neither Hazel nor Jakkob were anywhere to be found.
Chapter Ten
Ayden
Luasa's heat warmed Ayden in the frigid winter sky as she circled the ridges of the Marron Mountains. Ayden could see her shadow cast across the ground below them, though they themselves were invisible in the air above.
Kayeck is down there. He wished he were still with Kinna; he'd felt her fear almost tangibly when she'd spoken of going to the Valley of the Dragons and presenting her case to them. He'd wanted to go, too, if only to support her during one of the biggest tests of diplomacy she'd ever faced.
But she had sent him to Kayeck as soon as he'd explained the rest of his mission. And she'd been right. There was no time to waste in helping Kayeck deal with Sebastian and teach him to control the four Touches of the Amulet. The crotchety Seer Fey would be pleased to hear of Kinna's plan to convince the Dragons to participate in ending the Amulet—and the Bond of Blood and Fire, too. So much hinged on their ability to destroy the Amulet, and if they failed, Sebastian and his power-crazed, maniacal rule would continue and worsen.
Still, he wished he were in Ongalia with Kinna. He hated every moment they passed apart. But creatures and queens required justice. Love would wait.
Let's go down there, he thought as he eyed a craggy split in the rocks along the top crevices of one of the peaks. It was near where the Seer Fey Councils were held, and while he wished to find Kayeck and speak with her privately, he had no wish to jeopardize her status on the Seer Fey Council by giving away the parts she truly played: mole and spy.
Luasa plunged into a nose dive, pulling up when she was only spans above the tallest firs, gliding in circles over the craggy area before she found a gap in which to land. Her wings folded silently onto her back as Ayden straightened, searching the area for anything out of place. He felt her raise her neck and heard her inhale the surrounding scents, at last grunting her acceptance of the situation. A smile tugged at the corners of Ayden's mouth. He smoothed his hand over her scales. “My thanks, Luasa,” he murmured, turning her fin so he could see her. He slid off her neck, studying the rocky ridge along the top of the mountains through the trees.
“Through that gap in the rocks,” he said, pointing, and Luasa huffed her disgruntlement. She wouldn't be able to fit. The gap opened to a narrow path between cliff face and outer rocks, at places opening to the ranges again, or plunging steeply off of slippery sheer cliffs and tumbling waterfalls.
“Spy from the air, then,” Ayden said, pulling her muzzle down so he stared directly into her huge eyes. “I'll follow the path to the Seer Fey caverns. If I signal you, feel free to pull the mountains apart.” He smiled as he rubbed her snout. Flames jolted from her mouth, wafting around him in a fireball, and she nudged him so he lost his balance, landing on his backside in the fir-needle mulch.
“Be that way,” Ayden mumbled affectionately, pushing to his feet again. The Dragon stood over him, a mixture of frustration and exasperated affection glowing in her nearly luminescent eyes. He gave her one more pat on the muzzle before twisting the fin atop her head. She disappeared instantly, and Ayden strode for the gap in the boulders, feeling the warmth of Luasa's breath not far behind before he heard her wings crack open to lift her huge body into the air.
Ayden's soft moccasins made no noise as he trod the pathway, though the worn leather proved slippery on some of the narrow ledges and stones. He leaned his weight on the cliff face and kept his toes wedged in crevices and quarter-orlach juttings over the tops of waterfalls.
His toes were wet and cold, and the Touches under his skin responded to the change in his body temperature. He controlled them with ease, but they pushed on his consciousness as though they knew his weaknesses and would try to take over again when he dropped his guard.
He vividly remembered the years he'd been unable to have any physical contact with a living creature lest he turn that creature to ash. Now, he could manipulate that Ash-Touch with a simple twist of his emotions, but more importantly, he knew he wouldn't. He would never have to watch another person or creature dissolve into gray cracks, melting in an ash rain before his very eyes as a result of a brush of his bare fingers on their skin.
The choice is mine, he thought to himself, once again remembering Kayeck's lessons after he'd emerged from the lake at ClarenVale. It is not up to the Touches, nor even the Amulet, powerful though it is. It is up to Ayden, Dragondimn, because Ayden, who are you, really? Are you the unloved boy who brings death wherever he goes? Do you claim that identity?
“No,” Ayden whispered as he pulled himself up a particularly steep section of path, using his hands to heft his body over a slick rock. “I am Ayden, Dragondimn, who loves the Queen, fights for justice, and does what he can to stop tyranny and those who bring it.”
A familiar memory, one previously filled with pain, returned: Sebastian's hate-filled eyes when he'd hurled the Ash hex at eight-year-old Ayden.
But now the pain was gone, the memory flat, ineffectual, and weak. It no longer ruled him.
Kayeck had explained that Sebastian’s taibe Ash-hex, cast by the man unwitting of the deeper powers driving it, had been a direct result of the degraded Amulet that Sebastian had held back then. That hex had been the initiating force that had bound Ayden and Sebastian in their ongoing dance of duality around the Amulet, tying them into the exchange that had split the Amulet’s powers and bestowed the four Touches on them both. And that dance could not conclude until Sebastian mastered the Touches and they faced each other in a ritual over the Amulet—once and for all.
Ayden grimaced. He hated the thought of Sebastian having more control over the Touches. But the Amulet must be destroyed at all costs, and the ritual required both of them—one to represent life and the other to represent death, encompassing the whole Amulet.
A glimpse of a s
hadow passed Ayden on the rock cliff, and he glanced up. Luasa was somewhere above, but her shadow had disappeared again. He could sense her thoughts; she'd been flying too high, and lowered her altitude, her gaze on his moving form below, seeking him out as he passed through the gaps in the boulders.
“Ayden Dragondimn.” Kayeck's voice arrested his steps, and he nearly plunged to his death as he slipped on a wet rock that edged a thundering waterfall. He pulled back. The Seer Fey's purple gaze stared at him from a tree where she stood below him, leaning against the trunk, bracing herself against the steep mountainside. “You have come a long way, and your Dragon is not so near that she can save you should you stumble into the wrong place.”
“She is not my Dragon,” Ayden reminded her. He braced himself against a boulder that jutted outward from the path. “I am come from Kinna; she has news.”
Kayeck's milky eyes, already gazing at a point somewhere behind Ayden's left shoulder, slid farther out of focus. “Aye. I see a portion of her plan. She will recruit the Dragons to our cause in destroying the Amulet and the Bond.”
“Aye. And she has instructed me to assist you in any way I can to hasten our progress toward the ritual. It is the only way to defeat Sebastian and win Lismaria and West Ashwynd from his rule. Kinna's brother has gone to retrieve the Amulet, and then we can destroy it.”
“Cedric has come and gone, and he does indeed have the Amulet,” Kayeck said. “But Sebastian must still gain mastery of the four Touches,” Kayeck reminded him. She was quiet for a long moment. The strong mountain breezes tugged at the hood of her mantle, but she was unswayed by the wind. “I hate to admit this, Ayden Dragondimn, but I am afraid of the consequences of such an action. I know it must be done, but since you have been away, I have been paralyzed with fear for the future.”
“Aye,” Ayden nodded, glancing up the path, caution lowering his voice. “Aye, the idea of Sebastian Andrachen with the unlimited power of the Touches at his fingertips worries us all. But neither can we see his unfettered hold on the Amulet should it remain intact. It must be destroyed, as you said.”
Kayeck nodded, and a single tear welled in her whitened eye, breaking from the rim and tracing down her cheek. “The Amulet was the gift of the Stars, and guarded by my people for centuries. It is... hard for me to see this day come, when it is no longer a gift, but a scourge to be destroyed. I have known it, but I foresaw, when we parted, that the days of destruction would not come until we met again. And now you are here.”
“I understand.” Ayden's voice sank to a whisper. “I do not like to see the degradation of such a pure gift, either, but it must be done. The Amulet has turned power into chaos, urging dark taibe on innocent victims, bending to the whim of those who hunger for power. It is no longer a gift of the Stars; I believe—I hope—the Stars seek better for us.”
Kayeck said nothing, but at last, she nodded. “It shall be as my Queen commands and as my sister Helga desired. We will destroy it.” Her whitened gaze met Ayden's. “We will need the knife from the Council chamber for the ritual, but I cannot take it, not unless I am done playing my role as spy within the Council. Once it is gone, Paik will know.”
“And you said it was under taibe protection, anyway.”
“Aye.”
“Kinna had an idea that one of our Dragons could take it, since neither Seer Fey nor Man can touch it under its taibe protection.”
Kayeck said nothing, the lines on her face deepening as she considered his words. “Aye, it is a good plan, but it will have to wait, as I said, until I am done playing my role as spy, and also until the Seer Fey Council have all departed the Council chambers, for their combined taibe would surely destroy your Dragons if any remained.”
“When will this happen?” Ayden asked.
Kayeck shook her head. “It had not happened in centuries. Always, a Seer Fey remains within the Chambers to protect our secrets. However...” She trailed off, her opaque gaze shifting beyond Ayden again. “War is coming, and for the first time, the Seer Fey will align themselves with the Andrachen King in battle to gain and protect the Amulet. Paik will wish to use every one of the Ancients. Aye, I see that Paik will indeed strip these mountains of Seer Fey. It will happen as I say. We must wait until after that battle begins before we take it.”
Ayden released a tense breath, running his fingers through his hair. “I dislike playing the time so close. If we ritual in battle, and wait until just before then to gain the Seer Fey knife—”
“Aye,” Kayeck croaked. “It will be close. The Stars do not reveal the ending to me; I cannot see how it will play out. I only know that we must wait.”
Ayden pressed his lips together. “So then, we will gain the knife before the ritual,” he vowed. “Then I will give my blood, and Sebastian his. We are the two who have split the Amulet. We are the two who will destroy it.”
Kayeck's abrupt laugh burst into the air. “He will never agree to such a thing. I have not yet even begun to teach him mastery of the Touches. If he ever learns our aims, we are finished.”
Ayden did not laugh. “I am aware of that. Even so, Sebastian will ritual. He will give his blood under force.”
Kayeck's lips whitened in her lined face. “It is a dangerous game you play, Ayden Dragondimn, when you assume that you can subdue one who wields the Touches of the Amulet. I hope you know what you are about.”
Ayden's jaw hardened. “As the other holder of the four Touches, I may have an inkling. Can you go to him and teach him to master the Touches?”
Kayeck hesitated only a moment. “It is not for the soldier who enters battle to wonder if he will live through the night; he enlists in hopes that at the end, the cause will overcome the injustice, and even should he sink beneath the shadow of the deepest darkness, and even should his life become a drop in the ocean of death, if the tide that arises destroys the wrongs that caused it to rise in the first place, the cost is worth the effort.” She nodded. “I shall do as my Queen,” she winked at Ayden, one slow drop of a wrinkled eyelid, “and her... emissary... command.”
It had not been Kinna's command; Kinna disliked commanding creatures or people beneath her, wary of the power of subjugation and the fear that went along with it. Ayden had no such scruples. Kayeck understood, though. Ayden would see Kinna's wishes done, and he would execute her will in his own way. Ayden breathed a sigh of relief.
“The Seer Fey Council meets within the hour, Ayden Dragondimn,” Kayeck said, pushing away from the tree and climbing the hill toward another gap in the boulders. “You have arrived at a very auspicious time, as I foresaw you would. If you should wish to hear any of this Council, an old waterway, long since dried, begins not a quarter of a fieldspan farther up the path. Do not be late.”
She disappeared through the gap with those words, and when Ayden turned to follow on the path, she was already gone.
True to Kayeck's description, he hadn't gone much farther when the quiet hum of voices interrupted Ayden's thought processes. He froze mid-step, searching for the sound. Above him, a dark hole opened in the cliff face.
Grasping at handholds, Ayden climbed the cliff toward the hole, peering inside when he reached it. It curved, sloping gently downward into darkness. Glancing back down the sunlit path, Ayden spotted not one, not two, but three other entrances farther along the way. He could not enter the caverns any of those ways or he'd risk being spotted. He did note them as possible escape routes, though, if he should need them.
Wriggling through the old waterway entrance, Ayden crawled along the deep shadows, sliding past places where stones jutted outward, and he had to push past with hardly any room between the rock and his body.
The murmur of voices grew louder, and a flaming glow lit a narrow opening in the tunnel. Ayden slid closer, peering through the crack, recognizing the Seer Fey Council's caverns from Kayeck's descriptions.
From outside, Ayden felt Luasa's panic as he'd disappeared from her line of sight. I'm still here, he thought. I'll let you know if I ru
n into trouble.
The Dragon remained unhappy, but he heard no outward protest from down the mountainside. He moved closer to the crack, lining his eye up to the jagged crevice, taking in everything he could see from his vantage point.
The cavernous opening was lit by torches, and inside, bright-haired figures paced and swirled in dizzying groupings throughout the caverns.
It took him several minutes to find Kayeck. She stood near one of the other entrances, her hands tucked inside the sleeves of her robe, her long purple plaits brushing the ground as she nodded while listening to a blue-haired Seer Fey.
A moment later, one voice rose above the others. “Let our Council begin.”
The voice came from a green-haired Seer Fey, ancient and wizened, who leaned heavily on a staff. The gathering gradually evened out into a wide circle, the nearest members only five spans from Ayden's hiding place.
In the center of the circle, an elaborately carved and jeweled knife lay on a pedestal, lit by an unnatural taibe light. It was a lengthy blade, not quite as long as a sword, but wider and longer than the average dagger.
The knife of the Bond of Blood and Fire. A chill chased down Ayden's spine. How would The Rebellion retrieve the blade in time for the ceremony?
Ayden's gaze returned to Kayeck. She sat, her blind eyes that saw so much gazing around the circle. For a moment, only a blink in time, he thought she looked directly at him, but her gaze passed by him, settling on the members of the Council directly beside her, a polite smile on her face.
“Gathered Ancients,” the green-haired Grand-Master began. Ayden pulled his attention to Paik, whom he had never seen but whom Ayden knew from Kayeck's many descriptions. “Respected Seer Fey, we come together today to openly acknowledge the deep division that has run through our people and our descendants for too long. We have rifted. A split divides us, and it weakens us.”
Unleash the Inferno (Heart of a Dragon Book 3) Page 19
