Games of Fate (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Mira’s thumb rubbed against the underside of her ring. Her other hand wrapped around her knuckles as if protecting the silver band. “I miss your father.”

  “Oh, Mom.” Rysa hugged her mother, offering what comfort she could. “Ladon has a friend looking for him.”

  Her mom’s seer blipped. Rysa sensed that she would have chuckled if she weren’t so exhausted. “Your father’s a good man.” Her brow furrowed and her seer blipped again.

  Mira stroked Dragon’s crest. “I remember the toy dragon you had, honey. You loved that little beast.” She rolled slightly, moving away from Rysa and toward Dragon. “I should have learned sign language so that I could talk with you, Great Sir, but I always knew it was more important for Rysa than me.”

  Dragon didn’t raise his head, though a puff curled from his mouth. Little flashes popped along his hide but moved slowly from his crest to his tail.

  “You need to know I never faulted you or your sister for what happened. The Primes were all bound to a war waged by our Progenitor. We all suffered horribly because of the arrogance of my father.

  “I am truly sorry, Ladon-Dragon. It’s paltry, I know, but I offer it to you. I should have offered it then. To you and your family.” She pulled a blanket to her chin. Her eyes closed and she rolled onto her side, drained by all her words.

  “Mom?” Rysa touched her cheek.

  Sleep took her again. She’d offered what Rysa couldn’t give—forgiveness. Dragon puffed again and draped his hand over her mother’s hip.

  They rode in silence, Rysa stroking her mother’s arm, Dragon watching, until Ladon pulled into a large, barn-like building and the van stopped.

  He opened the back. He stood in the door watching her mom for a long moment, then inhaled deeply before squaring his shoulders. “We need to transfer.” He pointed at one of three flatbed trucks facing a large door at the rear of the garage. “I can’t take the van on the mountain roads.”

  Rysa took his hand. “She means it.” At least her mom could give them some solace. Her presence only offered a future of pain.

  He kissed her temple as she stepped off the bumper. “I know.”

  Another van almost identical to Ladon’s, as well as several ATVs, waited along the sides of the building. A disorganized kitchenette full of boxes and folded-up cots occupied another bay.

  Rysa helped her mother into the back of the new vehicle. Ladon coaxed Dragon over and the beast climbed onto the back of the truck, coiling around Rysa and Mira. A door in the rear of the garage opened and they drove into the Wyoming night.

  The sky gleamed bright, the stars overhead brilliant. Rysa touched Dragon, his hide dull, glimmering only a fraction of his normal luminescence. He should be beautiful beyond anything she could imagine, like the sky above. Beautiful and happy and unaffected by the terrors of the world.

  But instead he lay almost comatose next to two Fates. She pulled back her hand.

  They turned onto a switchback. Ladon crept along, his body forward in his seat, as he watched every bump and rock. The road switchbacked again and he pulled the truck under an overhang. Maneuvering around a corner, he backed into a cave and stopped behind a wall of rock blocking all sightlines from outside.

  Rysa crawled out. The sheer granite walls all extended into blackness above. Solid and certain under her fingers, the stone sat still, not budging or closing in or do anything at all. “Is this it?”

  “This is our front door. You’ll both be safe inside.”

  “Safe” had been gutted when she activated and ripped down to a word defined only by other words, with no real core of experience. It had become a Trojan horse with an exterior of calm but filled to the brim with memories of everything but safety.

  Dragon climbed into the overhead gloom. His head and forelimbs swung down and he lifted Rysa by the waist. She teetered, disoriented by the sudden pull, but he set her on a ledge and nuzzled her hair. Wait here, he signed.

  He set Mira next to Rysa and she leaned against the wall, her eyes half closed.

  A tunnel extended into the rock, ending in a warm glow. Ladon handed up their supplies and Rysa helped Dragon pack them into a pull cart sitting on the ledge next to the tunnel.

  Ladon jumped up to the ledge. Mira moaned when he lifted her into his arms. He stood silent for a moment, looking down at her. “This way,” he said, then carried her into the tunnel.

  Dragon followed, hooking his tail around the handle of the cart as he passed by. A squeak echoed off the rocks each time one of the cart’s wheels hit a divot or pebble. The sound blended into the gloom like some weird ghost-cry of a long-dead mouse.

  Rysa walked between them, shuffling in the dark. After a moment they came to a big brass door, round and studded with rivets, set into the rock. Coated with a brown and green patina, it looked like an old bank vault. Her seers blinked, still drowned in flames but hinting at treasures inside.

  Ladon set down her mother and jumped to another ledge. He rounded a corner and the door popped open with a hiss. Dragon ushered her through, followed by Ladon with Mira.

  They entered into a huge kitchen area. To the right, a dining area opened onto a library. Details were difficult to pick out in the gloom, but Rysa made out bookcases and shelf after shelf of equipment filling the alcove, some of it odd and covered with gears and handles, much like the vault-door.

  On the far side of the kitchen the walls extended upward at least four stories and curved into a dome. Doorways dotting the wall’s surface, like a Pueblo cliff town. A large spiral path snaked up the side, curling around and around, a dragon path disappearing above.

  Cabinets in the kitchen area blocked her view of the other side of the cave. But a few more steps inside and she stopped, her jaw dropping open.

  Hanging above it all, opposite the wall dotted with doors, hung a colossal rosette window like the ones in the churches of Europe. Patterns very much like those that flowed along Dragon’s hide swirled outward from the center of the glass. They looped and danced until they washed along the edges and against the intricate metalwork of the piece’s solid frame.

  The whole window shimmered in greens and golds and blues like waves lapping a shore.

  It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, outside of Dragon’s lights.

  Ladon walked by, carrying her mother into the cave. “This way.”

  Fabrics draped furnishings and mirrors reflected the soft starlight glow filtering in through the giant window. Rysa picked up a sense of color, of jewel tones and shimmering metallics. Pillows, blankets, candles, the whole place exuded comfort and serenity.

  Deeper in the cave, garden plots spread from the kitchen area into the gloom. The scents of growing fruits and vegetables wafted to her, warm and inviting. Farther along, past a curve that hid the other end, she heard a waterfall and what could only be the spinning of a waterwheel.

  The dragons built this. They carved the rock and planted the gardens and fashioned the marvelous, hypnotic window.

  She felt the stars move behind it. All the stars that had greeted her as they drove under the Wyoming sky came together to speak as a choir through this mesmerizing work of the dragons. It sang of secrets her fate may yet destroy.

  Ladon stopped in front of a wooden door that towered over his head. “My rooms. The entrance to Dragon’s nest is inside.”

  Rysa pushed open the door but stopped inside the frame, gawking. “That’s…” She pointed over her shoulder. “That’s a tree.”

  He chuckled. “I thought you might be distracted.”

  Her mother’s mouth gaped. “By the gods, Ladon-Human. I’d heard stories. Is it…?”

  Ladon walked under the tree, Rysa and Dragon following. The room stretched deep into the rock to a large arch at the back. The tree dominated the center, its crown brushing the dome above.

  A massive bed sized for a dragon and a pair of humans filled an alcove carved into the side of the room. Fabrics draped over supports surrounding the bed and swayed in th
e light breeze drifting through the room.

  Dragon ambled by and crawled onto the bed, backing into the corner. Ladon set Mira down next to where the beast waited and touched his snout.

  “The tree is a descendant.”

  Mira rolled onto her side. “The olive tree. It’s an offspring of the one the Progenitors awoke under, all those centuries ago.”

  “Progenitors?” Rysa looked over Ladon’s shoulder at the tree.

  “Five—seven, including the dragons—awoke under the tree. As we are now, we were then.” Ladon pinched his eyes closed for a beat. “Sister and Sister-Dragon, myself and Dragon, your grandfather, the first Fate—” He paused, glancing at her mother. “—the mother of all Shifters, and the man who infected the first Burners.”

  Ladon and Dragon—they were gods. And Rysa was the weapon meant to bring them to their knees.

  Mira touched Ladon’s arm. “The mountain took it. The first tree.” She laid her head down. “I remember. Mons Vesuvius, non perdet animam Dracae.” Her eyes remained wide, her mouth slack, as she stared at the tree. She looked reverent and honestly humbled.

  All her life, Rysa had never seen her mother quieted by anything. “What did she say?”

  “Vesuvius could not destroy our soul.” He pointed over his shoulder. “I need to get him settled.”

  Mira moaned, her eyes closing. If Rysa could heal her mother, she would. She’d fix what Billy did, no matter the damage it caused her own body.

  Ladon pointed at the arch. “The baths are through there. There’s a private one inside the corner.”

  Mira’s breathing calmed.

  “She’s asleep.” Rysa touched his arm. “Vesuvius.” Two thousand years suddenly took on a crushing sense of proportion, as if time, too, was a mountain.

  Ladon pulled a blanket over her mother. “It happened a long time ago. In another life, for both her and for us.” He nodded toward Dragon before stroking her cheek. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  A quick squeeze to her fingers and Ladon moved away, across the bed to another arch at the back of the alcove. He paused for a moment, silhouetted in the soft, reddish glow from what must be Dragon’s nest. Then he and the beast vanished, Dragon first, up the side of the rock.

  ***

  The central nesting shaft angled into the rock and reached to within a dragon length of the mountain’s surface. Ladon swung onto a ledge and followed Dragon up the craggy wall. Littered with alcoves and boulders, the dragons moved debris and rocks throughout the shaft, sometimes carving new holes and at times filling in others. They came in here when their humans slept and dug the entire night.

  The shaft’s ventilation structures funneled air into his and Sister’s rooms and cooled the apartments. The dragons had engineered the mirrors to give their nest the dim glow of ancient light and it oscillated little between day and night. The moon’s brightness filtered through anyway, throwing deep shadows throughout the recesses.

  Dragon’s hide glimmered in the shadows of a mid-level alcove above the arch leading to Ladon’s rooms. The beast turned in a circle and pushed a boulder out of the way.

  Ladon rubbed his crest. “You sleep. She’s safe here.” No matter what that spike did to her mind, he’d keep her safe while Dragon slept.

  Dragon nestled Ladon’s side. Yes. He backed away and circled again, searching for a comfortable spot to rest. He coiled into a corner, his hide turning dark and his coat stony as he fell into sleep. His body blended into the cave wall, his respiration slowing. If Ladon hadn’t known where he was, he’d be impossible to find.

  Ladon stretched, his perception contracting as their flow dropped to a trickle. When Dragon slept, Ladon had the freedom to move as he pleased, though he needed to be within range when the beast woke. Dragon might sleep a full thirty-six hours this time, as exhausted as he was, so Ladon would have time.

  He dropped off the ledge and caught a handhold. Dropping again, he landed in front of his door. He looked up at Dragon’s sleeping spot. He’d have the situation straightened out with Rysa by the time color returned to Dragon’s hide. He’d have a plan.

  Through his door, Mira slept ten feet away, on the bed. Rysa, though, was nowhere in sight.

  40

  Above her, the tree’s upper branches brushed against the dome. Leaves stroked the stone and touched paintings. In the boughs, birds danced.

  A tree rustled in the home of gods.

  This place calmed her seers. It pulled all her attention to the physical world. The dome that touched the sky, the walls that sheltered the world, the waterfalls that sang like chimes in the breeze. Inside this mountain, life darted above her head and the earth caressed her feet.

  The fire might spill back and she’d be on the ground rocking back and forth but for now, the fabrics draping his bed and the soft rustle of his tree soothed the spike.

  Ladon said that there were baths through the arches. She should clean up and rub her muscles, then return and lie down next to her mother. Sleep for a while, before it all came screaming back.

  She pulled off her river-soaked shoes and walked toward the back of the room. Her toes curled into the clover under the branches and she paused for a second, feeling the ground touch her skin. She had wanted this before everything fell apart. She’d wanted a future with real air in her lungs. Real dirt under her feet. A life free of trouble for a mind that flitted between animals and trees and all the different lands and rocks and rivers.

  But she was locked to the Burners now, and her reality was the talisman around her wrist.

  A tunnel opened into another large cavern. About half the width of the main cave, the ceiling as high as Ladon’s room, it still dwarfed her senses. Humidity touched her skin like a kiss and the scent of fresh rain, her nose. A soft shimmer of moonglow danced across the surfaces and white marble statues shone in the silver light. Hanging plants trailed over walls and onto tables. Couches and chairs dotted terraces and lined walls. Giant, unlit candles filled alcoves in the rock and waited for attention on several tables.

  Behind it all, water cascaded over a cliff three stories tall. It rushed, not roaring but singing, and filled the entire cavern with a gentle, flowing sound. The water poured into a long pool flowing into several channels, some moving deeper into the cavern, some to private areas.

  The gardens out front, his tree, the painted dome and the wall of cascading water all made her eyes widen and her lips round. Ladon had given her paradise. For a moment, she gaped, buoyed by the splendor.

  But she’d set it ablaze.

  “Love.” Ladon wrapped his arms around her before she could respond. Surprise jolted her back to the here and now. He’d snuck in as silent as a cat and now gently kissed her cheek. “I took off my boots.”

  “Promise me you’ll care for my mom until she’s healed.” The jolt loosened everything and fire ripped at her head again. It’d ruin this beautiful place.

  “Of course.” He didn’t let go when she tried to break away. “How are you feeling? Does your chest hurt or—”

  She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be this close to him.

  He watched her face as if a monster was about to crawl out of her nose. “No one gets in unless we open the door. No one will hurt you or Mira while you’re here.”

  “But—” She was a Fate. A Parcae. That monster had gotten in with her, a specter which now haunted every place she walked.

  The inevitable broke to the surface. Her lips parted just enough for each shallow breath to keep her body alive. How could she fight her future?

  His calm vanished. The questioning ceased. Everything she’d seen when he pulled her out of the river rushed into his eyes.

  “Don’t do that.” He cupped her cheeks and stroked her hair. “Don’t drop into a hole so deep you can’t get out. I thought when you saw this—” He waved at the cavern. “—you’d understand. That you’d trust me. Show some confidence.”

  Confidence? In her or in him? “There’s nothing you can do.” If
anything, this place reinforced the concept she’d become a weapon in a war between gods.

  “I’ve seen women lose their will before. Sister did the same thing when Shifters came for Derek.” He swallowed. “That face, I’ve seen it right before women died. Right before I lost them forever.”

  If he didn’t lose her, he’d die.

  “You can’t think the way you are right now.” A growl rolled out of his chest. His eyes pierced, his senses sharpened for battle. He must see the baths in high relief and hear every noise within the cavern. A bat flitted around the ceiling. Water gurgled as a breeze tickled their backs and rustled the plants.

  For an instant, wrath played across his features.

  “You should have left me in the river. Cities burn. Whole cities, Ladon. If you rampage, or if my super-Burners riot, it’s still my fault. I’m the cause, either way. I’m the Ambusti Prime. I’m chaos’s tribute.”

  “Rysa!” he yelled. “Killing yourself will not stop this! Don’t think that. Don’t ever think that!”

  Her eyes darted to the tunnel to his room.

  “Don’t run away from me!”

  Ladon and Dragon were everything. They were better than she deserved. But she wasn’t strong enough to force her way beyond the damage in her head.

  She backed away. “Fate will have its due. Fate always has its due. I’m sorry.” He tried to pull her close but she dodged his arms.

  “Why are Fates like this? ‘Fate has its due’ is bullshit!”

  “It’s true.”

  “What about Metus? He didn’t see Sister-Dragon coming. Your seers are not infallible.”

  She didn’t respond. It didn’t matter what he believed.

  “Beloved, listen to me.” He caught her and held her close. “Please.”

  She stiffened. “Don’t call me that.” Every time he spoke that word, he tightened his bond to her. Every time he touched her, he dropped deeper into her hell.

  His body tensed the same way it had when she’d told him before not to tell her how he felt. “Why?”