Embrace the Fire

by Tamara Shoemaker

  “Go meet them,” Ayden instructed. “Reconnect with the other half of the group and take word back to Commander Lanier that all is clear. I must recover my horse, but will follow soon.”

  “We can organize a search for your animal.”

  “No. The Commander is waiting for word from us. I will follow when I find the horse. When you reach Sebastian's regiment, take your next orders from Officer Quinn.”

  The Dimn appeared ready to speak, but Ayden motioned for him to go. With a shake of his head, the soldier turned and galloped along the cliff ledges to meet the rest of the scouts.

  Ayden watched his departure before returning to the top of the canyon. He made himself comfortable on a rock overhang and stared at the cave's entrance where he'd last seen Luasa. Flashes of silver told him the Dragon hadn't moved from her spot, so Ayden made himself comfortable.

  The sun arced high overhead. It wasn't until it had sunk behind the western horizon and stars dotted the black folds of the night sky that he noticed a change.

  The scrabbling scrapes of talons on rocks echoed across the low-cut canyon, and Ayden narrowed his eyes as he spotted a dark shape edging nearer to the cave. Sliding off the rock where he'd sat all afternoon, shaking out his stiff limbs, he moved down into the canyon for a closer look.

  The Dragon was a Nine-Tail. The black planes of his scales looked like a void in the night, pulling all light into itself and smothering it. All nine tails waved like so many snakes, the harpoon end of each tail sharpened to a needle-fine point.

  A burst of fire from Luasa's cave was her greeting for the beast, who crouched as the flame passed harmlessly over him. He stepped closer, careful to offer her his shoulder, not to advance in full-frontal position. The dance of Dragons in heat was a fine one; if a male Dragon showed too much aggression, he risked death at the sharp claws of the she-Dragon. If he showed too much weakness, the she-Dragon lost interest immediately, and no amount of foreplay would allow the male back into her good graces.

  Ayden crouched beside a stone, waiting for the male to attempt his entrance to the cave. He'd waited hours for this. If the male Dragon succeeded in his goal, Luasa, sated for a time after mating, would be easy to approach, perhaps even to touch. He could begin to earn her trust.

  Out of the skies, a shriek ripped Ayden's ears, and a silver, reflective blur barreled into the Nine-Tail.

  Roars shook the ground, and Ayden stood, dazed. Even in the darkness, even amidst the blur of gnashing, snarling, lashing creatures in front of him, he recognized that particular Dragon.

  No other Dragon could have burned itself so indelibly on his mental parchment. Not only because of the magnificent creature he was, but because of whose he was.

  Pain jolted through him—pain, and a sudden, overwhelming urge to find her. Find Kinna.

  “Chennuh,” he whispered.

  Chapter Seven

  Cedric

  Cedric twisted a stick in his fingers as his chained wrists rested on his knees. Across the fire, Lianna stared into the flames. The morning sun lit her white-gold hair and the deep blue of her eyes, but the allure that had captured Cedric for so long was gone. He felt empty, betrayed, angry.

  Behind him, Ashleen stepped carefully through the woods, gathering kindling for their campfire. “Dry wood smokes less,” she'd explained when she'd noticed him watching her. “Can't build a fire at night; it would attract every creature in West Ashwynd. So we build during the day and use dry wood.”

  “That's right,” Cedric agreed, remembering his years with Shaya in the Rockmonster Dwellings where he'd subsisted on what the land could provide. He wondered fleetingly what Ashleen's reaction would be to eating roast scorpions as he'd done on many occasions. He suspected she would have crunched the creatures without wincing and picked her teeth with their brittle legs. He carved a line in the dirt with his stick. “Scorpions taste better over fire, but they're not bad raw, either.”

  Ashleen smirked. “I know.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “You'd have a hard time thinking of something I haven't tried, Cedric.”

  Cedric nearly grinned. She'd caught him in his game. Lianna shifted her position, and Cedric's thoughts plummeted into darkness again.

  Tossing the stick aside in frustration, Cedric stood. Lianna stood with him. Cedric turned with a round curse. “Can't I even gain the privacy of the woods without you following me?” His bladder pressed urgently.

  Lianna hesitated before nodding at a small grove of hemlocks nearby. “In there.”

  The chains on Cedric's ankles—additional shackles Lianna had added after she'd chained his wrists—clanked as he shuffled toward the trees, and his cheeks burned as he noted both women watching his progress into the green-covered boughs. Let them hear, he thought in disgust. Lianna can't possibly hold any more loathing for me than I do for her at the moment.

  When he returned to the fire, he refused to sit. “Where are you taking me?” he rasped.

  “I've already told you. My uncle has need of you.”

  “Why under the Great Star would Nicholas Erlane need me?” Cedric asked, his voice rising. “Why, out of all the military heads and strategy experts and Council members serving him would your uncle choose me? There are so many more knowledgeable!”

  Lianna's gaze wavered beneath Cedric's fierce glare, and she studied the coals again. “Cedric, you have no concept of how sorry I am about all of this.”

  “No?” Cedric lashed out. “I may have a concept of how sorry I'm going to make you when all this is said and done.”

  Lianna's lips tightened, but her voice wavered. “I love my uncle, Cedric. I would do anything for him, do you understand? Anything.” A flash of her cobalt blue eyes betrayed a greed-hazed lust that Cedric had seen all too often in the eyes of his uncle, Sebastian.

  “Anything.”

  “Aye.”

  Cedric formed the words with stiff lips. “Even betray me.” His jaw cramped.

  “Yes.” Lianna's whisper was hardly audible.

  Silence pulsed. Ashleen brought an armload of wood to the fire, knelt, and began to feed kindling to the flames.

  “Perhaps it's the other way around. Perhaps it is your uncle who would do anything for you.”

  “What are you saying, Cedric?”

  Cedric glared at her. “Only that I've seen the results of greed too many times not to recognize it when it sits in front of me. So how long have you controlled your uncle's throne? Since before your betrothal to Sebastian? Since before our first meeting?”

  Her chin lifted, full of hauteur. “Cedric, you would do well to understand—”

  “You know what the worst of it is, Lianna?” Cedric interrupted. “I would have gone with you, willingly, if you had only waited for my sister.”

  She sighed, turning away, and Cedric felt her dismissal like a knife. “We don't have the luxury of time, Cedric. I'd hoped you'd understand that.”

  Cedric refused to let pity break through. He held up his wrists defiantly. “You thought I'd understand shackles? Steel bonds?”

  “Nay,” Lianna shook her head. “I hoped you'd understand my uncle's deep hatred for Sebastian because of all that your king has done to you.”

  “Aye, I hate Sebastian,” Cedric crouched by the fire, spearing her in his angry gaze, “but now I loathe you even more.”

  Lianna's blue eyes turned to flint. She stood and strode into the woods.

  * * *

  That night, Ashleen's cool hand shook Cedric awake. He pulled himself into a sitting position. Lianna was nowhere to be seen.

  “Come, Cedric. She's gone ahead to clear the path for us. We're passing through the Elven Ward tonight, and their keen eyes are hardly affected by darkness.” Ashleen pulled on Cedric's arm.

  Cedric leaped to his feet, nearly tripping over the chains in his haste. “Then I can escape.”

  Ashleen steadied him and stepped back. “I've told you, Cedric, my dagger would do no good against those Lismarian locks.”

  “Can you n
ot try?” Desperation bled through his voice.

  Ashleen cast a quick glance over her shoulder, her hand already closing on her dagger. Her lips tightened as she inserted the point of the blade into the lock.

  Hope flamed and then smothered as the lock held fast. Cedric sank back in frustration. “Is there no other way to help me?” Cedric asked desperately. “I must find my sister; I can't leave West Ashwynd until I'm sure she is safe. Sebastian still hunts her, and she didn't return to the gaol; she may even now be in Sebastian's hands.”

  Ashleen's dark eyes studied him. They were clear, honest eyes that held a wealth of understanding in them. In spite of her light sparring, Cedric sensed a kind nature buried deep inside.

  “I can't, Cedric. I'm bound to House Erlane, and until Nicholas Erlane releases me from the taibe that chains me to his service, I am tracked wherever I go. Lianna knows my every movement.”

  Cedric's shoulders slumped. He sent a petition to the Stars for help before working his way down the steep Rue Ridges in the dark, Ashleen guiding him with a quiet word here and a touch there.

  “How long have you been a slave bound to Nicholas Erlane, Ashleen?” Cedric asked as dark anger spiraled through his mind. How long had Erlane used slaves, binding them in magical restraints so they couldn't even put a foot out of line without their master knowing? Slavery was common in West Ashwynd, but he had never before heard of taibe tracking a slave. He had a sudden and violent urge to hit something hard.

  He stepped onto a rocky ledge behind Lianna and paused to rest. Far below them, a winding river edged the foothills. Lianna would be down there somewhere, closing ears, blinding eyes, creating distractions so that they could pass through unseen.

  The moon shone across Ashleen's profile as she studied her hands. “Since I was a young girl.” Pain ripped through her tone.

  Cedric fought an impulse to touch her shoulder, to offer comfort. But the chains weighed heavy on his wrists, and something about her manner did not invite it.

  “What Clan are you from?” he asked to ease the tension.

  “We do not live in Clans in Lismaria,” she murmured, “though I would dwell in Dragon Hollow should I live in West Ashwynd. I am Dragondimn,” she murmured. “It's one reason why Nicholas Erlane had me accompany Lady Lianna. He thought I could ... connect ... with you, perhaps convince you if Lianna failed.”

  Cedric's insides squirmed as he considered the Pixie girl he'd thought he loved. He stepped back as Ashleen sent him a sideways glance. “Don't.”

  “Don't what?”

  “Don't try to convince me of anything. Not anything having to do with Lianna or her family or the Lismarian throne. I'm sick of the power play, the games Nicholas and Sebastian and Lianna and all of them play with me as a pawn. I hate to see them grind people and creatures into the dust for their own purposes.”

  Cedric thought of Shaya, his Centaur foster-mother, and her forced years of exile from her own kind solely because Sebastian would have killed him if she hadn't hid him.

  Ashleen opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Cedric waited patiently. Finally, she spoke. “If you were King, Cedric, you would treat the creatures differently from either Sebastian or Nicholas, wouldn't you?”

  An eyebrow arced on Cedric's forehead. “What do you mean?”

  “Don't you think the system we have—forcing the creatures to submit to the Dimn—is a faulty one?”

  “You don't like psuche?”

  “I didn't say that. Psuche is fine. That's the connection between a creature and a Dimn that is highly desired by both sides. That's how the relationships between creatures and humans should work. But look at what it's become—Dimn training creatures to submit to their will whether they wish it or not. Most creatures and their Dimn do not have psuche; it isn't consensual. Do you not see the injustice?”

  Cedric did see the injustice. “Of course, the situation isn't ideal. But what can you do? The system is far too ingrained to change it.”

  Anger swept across Ashleen's face. “Do you always just accept what life brings you, Cedric?”

  Cedric narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you've admitted that this is wrong and that the odds of correcting it are low. Does that mean you sit back and allow evil to happen? Didn't you ever know a creature that you loved so much, you'd do anything for them?”

  Shaya's face swam in Cedric's vision, followed immediately by Ember's smoky irises and glowing scales. “Aye.”

  Ashleen stepped closer to Cedric, twisting her fingers together. “Then do something.”

  Cedric raised his chains in frustration, holding his wrists directly in front of Ashleen's eyes. “What can I do? In Nicholas Erlane's palace, in enemy territory?”

  Ashleen laid her cool hand on Cedric's and lowered them. She moved close, so close he could feel her breath on his neck. “Even in the darkest situations, Cedric, look for the light.” The whisper brushed across his ear. “Even in Nicholas Erlane's palace, there are creatures who await the true king. Even in Nicholas Erlane's palace, there are those hoping for your return to the throne.”

  Cedric's eyes widened. Ashleen stepped back again, sending a significant glance in his direction and then jumped off the rock onto the pine needle-strewn forest floor. She called over her shoulder, “Come. Lady Lianna will be waiting for us on the other side of the Elven Ward.”

  Cedric watched her go before jumping off the rock himself, stumbling on the landing. The sooner he rid himself of these cursed chains, the better for everyone.

  * * *

  The villages of the Elven Ward were dark, and Cedric had little trouble weaving through the foothills of the Rues as he followed Ashleen north. “How far to the Channel of Lise?” he asked once.

  Ashleen pointed. “A night's hike north before we turn east.”

  “So far?” He glanced at the position of the stars. “We've left the Plains behind us.”

  “Aye, but Sebastian's forces have spread in the weeks of tension between our countries. They do not trust that all of Nicholas Erlane's navy floats off the harbors of the Forgotten Plains.”

  “It doesn't, does it?” Cedric asked. “Nicholas Erlane took a contingent of his navy to meet with Sebastian at The Crossings, did he not?”

  “Aye, but Nicholas Erlane was safely escorted to Lismarian shores again, where he returned to ClarenVale. As Lianna wishes.”

  “So it's true?” Cedric stared at her. “Lianna rules under the guise of Erlane's hand?”

  Ashleen shrugged. “You're more right than wrong. Erlane has power among the courts of Lismarian cities, but Lianna is often the mind behind his decrees.”

  Cedric lengthened his steps as far as the chains would allow to keep pace with Ashleen's steady stride. “If ... If I am to go to ClarenVale, and I were to wish to ... contact someone about ... you know...”

  “Hush.” Ashleen stopped with a jerk, her gaze flying over the deep shadows behind trees.

  Cedric immediately tensed. An owl hooted in the stillness and then was silent. Branches whispered in the treetops. He felt the unnatural presence of something that didn't belong.

  “Stay here,” Ashleen whispered. As silently as breath, she disappeared into the trees. Cedric's gaze slid over the shadows, struggling to decipher tree from bush from rock ... from creature. A dark silhouette slid into the blacker shadows just as Ashleen reappeared. It was tall and lean, the shape of an Elf. The creature stepped behind a tree, gliding into the woods as quietly as he had come.

  Ashleen expertly spun her dagger before tucking it into her boot. She nodded to Cedric. “Lianna is just ahead. Let's go.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Who was what?” She didn't look at him. She'd twisted her hair over her shoulder and was working the leather strap around her braid again.

  “The Elf you were speaking with. I saw ... something.”

  She faced him. “You saw nothing. Not a word.” She turned her back on him, now nearly running
on the trail. Cedric's chains clanked as he quickened his pace behind her. He felt the fatigue of months in Sebastian's dungeons and very little nourishment since.

  Far ahead, the white-gold of Lianna's hair shone at a dip in the trail. He shuddered. He was immune to her Pixie charm by right of his Andrachen blood, and so she could not charm him to accompany her. Had he free movement of his hands, he could have wrapped her in her own chains.

  Never again would he sit in silent adoration at her side.

  Ashleen glanced over her shoulder at him. “Courage,” she whispered. “You have a quest to fulfill.”

  Cedric pulled his lips into a lopsided smile. “Aye. Here comes the hero in shackles and chains. It doesn't paint a gallant picture.”

  Ashleen laughed softly. “Nay, you're seeing the picture from the wrong angle. Here comes the hero in the guise of a prisoner, to set the oppressed free.”

  * * *

  The next morning's campfire was nearer to the Channel of Lise than they'd been yet. They'd made good time the previous night through the southern portion of the Griffon Pass without meeting anyone. At dawn's first light, they rested on the forest's edge at the top of the heather-strewn hillsides sweeping down to the Channel. The surging, gray waters spread before them, and in the rain-misted morning, Cedric could hardly see the dark outline of the Lismarian shore.

  Lianna gazed over the Channel. “Right,” she nodded decisively. “We'll be in Lismaria by this time tomorrow morning. My uncle's ship should be here by nightfall.”

  Cedric tossed the remains of the rabbit bones into the fire and plucked a splinter from a log to pick his teeth. Ashleen was nowhere to be seen, having taken off before the misty dawn to hunt. She'd brought them a brace of conies and then disappeared again.

  “How does your uncle think to have any Lismarian vessel this close to shore without considering it an act of war?”