A Prince Among Killers
Page 39
“Perhaps I can offer another solution,” Platt said.
Before Aron could argue, a burst of Stregan graal rendered him senseless.
The last thing he perceived was Stormbreaker’s jagged blade clattering harmlessly to the stone floor between them.
• • •
“Look at it this way,” Snakekiller said to Aron as they rode slowly on talon-back through the mists, as they had been doing for over a cycle now, through Dyn Ross, through Cayn’s arch, past the Watchline, and into the depths of the Deadfall. “Stone has much to do beyond reading our charges and searching for us. It may be many years before Dunstan gets around to sending assassins after his sister and a runaway Stone Brother—who by the way, is also a dynast heir.”
She smiled, turning the spiral benedets on her tanned cheeks into nothing but tiny circles. She looked so very human in her black tunic and breeches, but Aron couldn’t help sensing her viper essence, which seemed ever closer to the surface of her skin the farther south they went.
“You’ll be as much legend as Canus the Bandit,” she said, winking at him to lessen the tease. “Before he gave up his veils and turned legitimate again, I mean.”
Platt, who kept pace beside them on foot, let out a soft laugh.
Aron felt outnumbered. He had since Kate had departed with the aid of some Stregans and a few Sabor, shepherding the children they would be sheltering to the Stregan stronghold. It had been just the three of them for so long after that, shrouded in the fog, that Aron wondered how he would begin to adjust to life around people again.
“You’ll learn much in the City of Dragons, Aron.” Platt sounded confident. “By the time Stone tracks your path—if they ever do—no assassin will be able to touch you.”
Aron appreciated this promise, but he knew if Stone ever did come for him, he would meet his fate with as much honor as he could muster.
The mists around them grew a bit thinner, and Tek gave a happy whistle.
Aron didn’t share his talon’s optimism, because he had seen the fog dissipate before, only to re-form at double strength over the next mountain rise. He guided Tek forward beside Snakekiller and her bull, but as Platt crested the rise, he stopped and waited for them, his body tense with anticipation.
Aron almost choked up, remembering his ride to Triune, and how he had felt when Stormbreaker brought him to the lip of the valley, to view his new home below.
How could this hidden city in the mists possibly compare?
His pulse picked up, but he tried to brace himself for disappointment and acceptance. It’s what he would need to face this new change, to tolerate starting his life over again once more, in a home he might not even be able to keep.
Tek carried him to Platt’s side, Snakekiller right beside him, and together they stepped out of the mists on the mountainside.
“Oh,” Snakekiller said. Then again, “Oh.”
“It’s not what I thought,” Aron murmured, staring in disbelief at the sight below him.
Not a valley. Not a castle.
A wide and vast kingdom, stretching as far as he could see, north and south, east and west. A wonder of mountains and ivory lattice and heartwood towers studded with crystals. It was Adamantine wed to grasslands, and rivers and lakes, and everything in between. This was a countryside and structures made for creatures who flew and ran and rode. A dynast unto itself, hidden so far south, beyond the land of the dead.
Aron tried to breathe, and had to push his chest with his hand to succeed.
Snakekiller slipped off her talon and shifted into the great viper Aron had seen her become on the battlefield at Triune. With a hiss of rapture, she leaped from the edge of the mountain, her coils striking the ground as she made for the brilliant lands below. Her bull talon took off after her, his big clawfeet stamping rocks and grass as he ran.
“Now that,” Platt said, watching Snakekiller go, “is one fine woman.” He gestured to a white dragon winging toward them across the sun-drenched sky, letting off jets of flame. “Go, Aron. Fly with Kate. I’ll take care of Tek, and I’ll see you later at my tower, for dinner.”
Aron’s heart hammered as Kate drew closer, closer, reaching toward him with her mind, even as he reached back to touch the simple beauty of her thoughts. Since Aron had used his graal to help Kate master her thoughts and emotions, she gave off none of the carnivorous threat she or the other Stregans had in Eyrie. Even as a dragon, she seemed to retain the awareness that she was also Kate, and he was Aron, and she was happy to see him.
Thinking of Nic and how Nic’s wings had opened to carry Eyrie into a new and brighter future, Aron abandoned caution and leaped off the mountain.
Kate swept under Aron and caught him, and Aron knew Nic’s joy as his own.
Welcome, Kate said in his mind, and the sound seemed to stretch out for miles. Welcome, Aron.
As he sailed through the sky with Kate, Aron let the energy that rose from this city—no, this land—of dragons wrap him in its bright rainbow of hues and colors. Infused by such guileless, honest power, Aron understood that he had a destiny, a fate beyond Harvest and his lost family. Beyond Stone. Beyond his many mistakes and transgressions—even beyond the father so recently restored to him.
Aron’s graal glowed within his mind and essence, bathing him in those truths.
“Take me up,” he shouted to Kate. Then in his mind, Take me all the way to the clouds.
Kate’s wings gave a mighty push, and as they rose ever higher above the haven below, Aron felt nothing but joy and freedom, nothing but his own power and Kate’s, and the endless, perfect rushing of the winds.
S R VAUGHT is the author of Stormwitch, Trigger, My Big Fat Manifesto, and Exposed. She is a neuropsychologist working with adolescents. She lives with her family and many animals in Kentucky.
J B REDMOND is a lifelong fantasy fan who, because of cerebral palsy, used a tape recorder to tell this story. It was transcribed and added to by his coauthor (and mother), S R Vaught. He lives in Kentucky.
ALSO BY S R VAUGHT AND J B REDMOND
Oathbreaker: Assassin’s Apprentice
Text copyright © 2009 by S R Vaught and J B Redmond
Maps copyright © 2009 by Laura Hartman Maestro
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in the United States of America in December 2009
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in April 2011
www.bloomsburykids.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
The Library of Congress has cataloged the paperback edition as follows:
Vaught, Susan.
A prince among killers / by S.R. Vaught and J.B. Redmond.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm. — (Oathbreaker; pt. 2)
Summary: Assassin’s guild apprentice Aron, his master, Stormbreaker, his teacher, Dari, and his mysterious acquaintance, Nic, join their formidable talents of mind and body as they battle the leaders who want to destroy their land.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59990-376-7 • ISBN-10: 1-59990-376-8 (paperback)
[1. Fantasy.] I. Redmond, J. B. II. Title.
PZ7.V4673Pri 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2009007625
ISBN 978-1-59990-800-7 (e-book)
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