Interlocking her middle two fingers into the sign of blessing, she laid her hands on her own breast. She thought of the Falarica, located somewhere in this very castle, and she thought of herself, walking with these six men.
“You’re taking me to my cell,” she whispered. “You’re taking me and I’m going, because what else would I do? I’m just a girl. A weak, pliant, helpless girl. No need to pay attention to me. I won’t cause problems. I’m not important. I’m beneath your notice. I’m invisible.”
Inhaling deeply, Elenn fixed in her mind the image of herself continuing to walk, meekly following the soldiers to her cell. Then she closed her eyes and stopped. The soldiers strode on without missing a beat. Even the two behind her just passed around her and continued down the corridor.
“I’m with you,” she said quietly, almost singing. “I’m a good girl, doing what I’m told, going where I should. I’m so meek, you don’t even need to look at me.”
While the soldiers proceeded toward the cell, she turned around and slipped away. She continued to whisper her spell as she walked, and no one that she passed gave her the slightest notice. She didn’t know why her conjuring was working so well, but surely it was a sign of divine favor. Elenn thanked the Gods again for hearing her prayer and hiding her from the searching eyes and grasping hands of the wicked.
As she stole quietly down the halls and corridors of Tantillion, she worked her way upward, and inward. She knew she didn’t belong in this place, but something here sang to her. It was drawing her deeper, pulling her to the heart of the castle. Two weeks ago, marching further into the den of her enemies might have frightened her, but today Elenn knew that nothing could keep her here. Her destiny was elsewhere, and nothing could stop her from fulfilling it.
As she ascended the stair in the central keep, she saw two Vitalion soldiers standing outside an elaborately carved cherry wood door. She approached them, humming quietly and imagining herself being too small to see.
One of the two soldiers looked around, as if hearing something. Elenn froze. “I’m nobody,” she said quietly. “I’m little and harmless. I don’t bother anyone. If there’s a problem, it’s not here.”
The first soldier looked up and cocked his head as if listening. Then he shouted something in Vitalae to his compatriot and they both ran down the stair, right past her.
Elenn smiled and opened the door. An ornate bed with a finely embroidered silk canopy dominated the room. Against the wall was a wardrobe, dressing table, and chair. Like the door, all of the furniture was cherry wood, beautifully crafted.
Rich tapestries of hunting scenes hung on the wall. Above the dressing table were two small throwing axes, crossed. There was even a small window, letting in sunlight through a pane of colored glass. This was the bed chamber of someone powerful, someone wealthy, someone important.
Amid all this opulence, the only thing that caught Elenn’s eye was a small wooden case sitting on the dressing table, plain and rough and marked with strange symbols. It called to her.
She opened the case. Inside was half of a unicorn horn, decorated with silver filigree and intricately carved with tiny figures and strange characters. Being careful not to touch the fragment of the Falarica, she picked up the case.
The instant her fingers touched the box, all the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Outside, there was a sound like rolling thunder, and she stepped to the window.
The door opened. Elenn turned to see the imposing figure of Imperator Strabus. His bear-like frame nearly filled the doorway, and he looked irritated. Perhaps she could conjure her way out of this.
“I’m not here,” she said quietly, closing her eyes and imagining an empty room. “I’m where I’m supposed to be.” She could feel the warmth of the sunlight as it streamed in through the colored window glass. If only she were out there in the sun, free as a bird.
“If that’s supposed to persuade me,” said Strabus in his deep voice, “it’s not working.” He closed the door with an ominous click.
Elenn opened her eyes.
“I don’t know how you got up here,” he said with a frown, “but it’s only going to mean more punishment for you. Of course, you will not be executed—not while you’re my ward. You’re far too valuable. But that doesn’t mean you can’t suffer. Now, be a good girl and give me that case.”
She held tightly to it and took a step back. “The Falarica belongs to Deira, not to you.”
Strabus blinked. “Of course it doesn’t belong to me,” he said. “It belongs to the Emperor. And I’m going to take it to him.”
He pulled Ethelind’s polished Renonian oak case out from inside his robe. “Take them, I should say. It bothers me to be presenting the Emperor with a gift that’s broken in half, but I suppose there’s no fixing that.”
Corvus’s dark wooden case felt hot in Elenn’s hand. Her own body began to feel warm. “Stay back,” she warned him. “These are fragments of the Falarica, the lance of fire. It was given by the Gods to protect Deira. This castle is built on holy ground. Do not tempt the Gods.”
“Nonsense!” he laughed. “If there are gods in Deira, then there are gods in the Empire, and our gods must be stronger, or we wouldn’t be here on your holy ground.”
Again, thunder boomed—this time so close that it shook the castle. Her eyes darted to the window. The skies had been clear during the trial by combat, so the storm must have come up quite suddenly.
Strabus smiled. “If I were a superstitious man, I’d say that was a good omen.” He stepped closer. “But my faith is in the tangible.” He patted the sword at his hip, which had a large metal ring set in the hilt.
“Whether you believe in it or not,” she said, “the Falarica is more powerful than you can imagine. And it belongs to Deira.”
“Once, perhaps,” said Strabus, but it belongs to the Empire now. So, give me that case.” He held out his hand and advanced, backing her into a corner.
Elenn retreated again, putting the box behind her back. “I’m warning you,” she said, “something bad is in the air. I feel it. You should leave. We both should.”
He shook his head. “The stupidity of you people. Honestly, you’re as bad as that idiot Corvus, nattering on about nymphs and unicorns and gods. Even that dragon is nothing but an overgrown lizard. But give it time, and the lot of you will be praying to it, too.”
With the next crash of thunder, Elenn dashed away, trying to escape. But the Imperator caught her with one of his long arms. She struggled to free herself from his powerful grip, and he slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand.
She was tossed backward like a rag doll into the stone wall, knocking the colored window pane wide open and dislodging a tapestry, which slid to the floor. The case fell open, and the fragment of the Falarica rolled away across the floor.
“That’s the problem with you Deirans,” Strabus said. “You don’t have the sense to see when you’re beaten.” He bent to pick up the fragment.
“Don’t touch it,” she said, struggling to regain her feet. “It’s not for you.”
Strabus rolled his eyes and picked it up. Opening the other case, he pulled out the second fragment and taunted Elenn by shaking both fragments in her face. He grinned. “Your gods must be busy smiting some other heathen.”
There was a noise like standing under the Cataracts and in an eternal instant Elenn’s vision went white, and then black.
Aedin found Elenn in a room that was on fire. Even the door was burning, which didn’t make it any easier to kick in. Coughing from the smoke, he stepped into the room and saw a body lying against the stone wall, directly across from a small, open window. The body was clearly dead—so badly burned as to be charred black. The bed in the center of the room was collapsed, ruined. Below the window lay Elenn, completely still, but with no visible burns.
He dragged her from the room, staying low to keep the smoke out of his lungs. Praying, he rubbed her wrists and face, trying to bring her life’s bloo
d back, but she did not breathe.
He heard men calling to each other in Vitalae as they ran throughout the castle, but no one disturbed him. Aedin wasn’t surprised. They had more important things to do than fight. So did he.
Elenn needed water. He remembered seeing a dressing table and washbasin in the bedchamber, so he ran back in and brought it out. The porcelain basin was warm to the touch and smudged with soot, but the water was not uncomfortably warm. He shook his head in disbelief and said a prayer of thanks. Tipping her head back, he poured water slowly down her throat.
At first, she did not react. Then she gagged, spluttered, and tried to sit up.
“Thank the Gods,” Aedin said. “Thought I was just drowning you again.”
She coughed. “Once was enough, I think.” She opened her eyes. “What is all this smoke?”
“Dragon,” he said. “Swept in a few minutes after you left. The Scales are trying to chase it off, but not having much luck. Poor devils. Bad way to go.”
“I’m sure,” said Elenn, still coughing. She held out her hands, and he handed her the washbasin. She took a long drink and set it down.
“How did you find me?”
“I just…” Aedin began. “I don’t know. Maybe the Gods love you. Blasted lucky thing I made it all the way up here with no sword, I know that.”
“You keep losing those,” she said, picking up the bowl and taking another long drink.
“I’ll find another one,” he said with a shrug. “Can you walk? Or crawl? We need to get out of here.”
“I think so,” said Elenn. She took his hand, and he pulled her up.
“Wait!” she gasped. “The Falarica! It was—” She turned to face the chamber, looking distraught.
He glanced at the still-smoldering door, hanging askew where he had kicked it in. Smoke was pouring out of the room, filling the upper part of the corridor outside.
“If it was in there,” he said, “I don’t think it survived.”
“I did.”
“The other fellow I saw in there sure didn’t,” he said. “Who was he, anyway?”
“Imperator Strabus,” said Elenn, her face pale beneath the sooty smudges. “I told him not to touch them.”
This utterance made no sense to him, but it hardly mattered. “We need to go,” he repeated.
“No,” she said. “Not without the Falarica.”
Aedin gritted his teeth. There was no time to argue. “Where was it?” he asked, tearing a strip of cloth from the bottom of her garment.
“Strabus had the fragments.”
“All right,” he said, tying the cloth around his mouth. “Stay here.”
He crawled over to the burning bedchamber. Coughing and cursing as the smoke worked its way into his lungs, he wondered if the strip of cloth was doing him any good at all.
Entering the room, he took hold of the charred corpse and pulled it out into the hall. In each of its dead hands, the body held a fragment of the Falarica. Although everything around them was blackened and burned, the two fragments were not just intact but pristine.
Aedin cursed again, with greater feeling. “How is that possible?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“The Falarica has a destiny.” She tore off another strip of cloth from her hem and used it to carefully wrap up both fragments. “And so do we. We need to be at the summit of Iliak by dawn tomorrow for the coronation.”
“Don’t see how we’ll do that with no horses,” he said. “Not to mention no map, no food, no allies, and no weapons.”
Elenn smiled and pointed to the Imperator’s body. Seeing a glint of metal among the char, Aedin turned the corpse over to find a sword still hanging from its belt—a Baiowarian ring-sword, so called because of the sturdy metal ring set in its hilt. Unlike everything on the front of the body, it was barely smudged.
Using a strip of cloth to retrieve the weapon, still hot from the fire, Aedin looked up at Elenn. She slowly raised a single eyebrow.
“We also have no whisky,” said Aedin, casting his eyes heavenward. “Meant to mention that earlier.”
She laughed and coughed. They crawled to the stairs and ran down out of the tower. As they rushed through Tantillion castle, they encountered several Scales running here and there. Elenn kept mumbling to herself, which Aedin was sure didn’t help things. But in the end, they were just two more soot-faced people trying to get out. No one gave them a second glance.
They saw the dragon, no more than a hundred feet away. As they ran down a corridor, they heard a sound like a rushing river behind them, and felt a terrible heat. Both of them fell to the floor.
Somewhere behind them, a Vitalion soldier screamed in agony as he was roasted alive. Aedin looked back and saw a pile of charred flesh, the flames of the dragon’s breath still licking the man’s scale mail and the stone floor and walls. As he watched, one of the beast’s terrible claws reached through a window and pulled the soldier out. Aedin dragged Elenn to her feet and they kept running.
They didn’t stop until they were through the courtyard. From the gatehouse, they surveyed the land surrounding Tantillion Castle. Seeing a distant tether line where several horses were tied up, they ran across the drawbridge and made a beeline for the horses.
Behind them, they heard the dragon screaming in triumph as it rent men asunder with its claws and burned them with its fiery breath. The horses were a little difficult to mount, but once untethered they needed no encouragement to run.
After several minutes of galloping, Aedin realized that they were headed south. He called to Elenn, but she showed no signs of slowing, or even of hearing him, so he pulled alongside her and reined in her horse to a trot.
“Iliak is north,” he said. “Isn’t that where you said we need to be tomorrow morning?”
“Yes,” she said, “but first we have to kill the dragon.”
“Is that all? I think there’s still another crow monster on the loose. Want to knock that off tonight, too?”
Elenn looked troubled. “Please be serious.”
“I’m trying,” said Aedin, “but going after the dragon is a sick joke. Take a look behind you, my Lady of Adair.” He pointed back towards Tantillion Castle, where thick black smoke poured up into the sky. “That was one of the most heavily fortified positions in Deira, and that thing scooped out soldiers for dinner like a bear eating honeycomb.”
“You’re looking at this wrong,” she said. “You’re only seeing the physical reality.”
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”
“Reality is so much richer than what most people perceive,” she said. “Expand your vision, Aedin. Two weeks ago, you thought the Paladin and the Falarica both legends. Now here they are before you. What does that tell you?”
“That we shouldn’t press our luck, since we’ve already had more than our share of miracles.”
Elenn smiled. “Keep poking fun if you want, but I know you want to believe. You’re still the boy who believed in King Elfraed and swore an oath to protect his homeland.”
“Fine,” said Aedin. “Let’s go slay the dragon. But we’re still going the wrong way. Corvus said it has to die where it was born.”
“You think it was born on Mount Iliak?”
“Iliak is its lair,” said Aedin. “Everyone knows that. It’s almost directly in the center of dragon country.”
“That may be where it sleeps,” said Elenn, shaking her head, “but that is not where it was born. My Aunt Ethelind said it emerged from a rent in the sky over the sea at Drumney beach.”
“It can’t have been born in the sky,” said Aedin. “Even birds are born in their nests.”
Elenn opened her mouth to argue with him, but Aedin held up a hand to cut her off. “I was at Drumney, too.”
“How old are you?”
“That's not important.” He took a deep breath. “I saw it come out of the clouds. That was no mewling, fresh-born babe. That was a fully formed, adult monster. Believe me.”
“This dragon is not
like any other ordinary beast,” said Elenn. “Who can say what its birth would be like?”
Aedin shrugged. “It eats,” he said. “And if it eats, it’s ordinary.”
“A neat theory,” Elenn laughed, “but how do you explain it never being seen before Drumney beach? If it is an ordinary creature, and it was born at Iliak, surely it would have been seen numerous times as it grew to adulthood.” She raised her eyebrows.
Aedin thought for a while but could see no flaw in this reasoning. “You sound like your aunt.”
“Thank you,” said Elenn, with quiet pride.
They rode south toward the coast.
***
Chapter Thirty-Six
Although Aedin still feared that they might be going in the wrong direction, he led the way toward Drumney Beach—the very place he had seen his kin, his king, and his country’s hopes for freedom consumed in flame. He shivered, and wondered if he would meet death the same way his Scylfing cousins had.
He glanced over at Elenn, who looked completely calm and serene. He took a deep breath, and told himself to trust her.
Two hours after leaving Tantillion, they reached the sea cliffs that ran from Drumney all the way to Baiohaemum. They turned west, and as the day wore on they rode toward the fiery red sunset.
In the twilight, they dismounted and led their horses, allowing them to rest. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to risk losing a horse in the fading light. Elenn still had to reach Mount Iliak by dawn for the coronation—assuming they survived the night.
Aedin’s horse whinnied anxiously and tossed its head, its ears rigid and pointing. He tried to calm it, but it continued to dance about, frightened. Looking up at the sky, he saw that the clouds were still lit with orange and red, even though the sun had set. The dragon was near. He quickly hopped up on his mount and stood high in the stirrups, scanning the horizon.
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