Immortal

by Nicole Conway

  “I’m not sure. I don’t know him that well personally. People say we look alike, though.”

  I could hear a smile in her voice. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

  The king still hadn’t mobilized his grand attack on Luntharda. Word in the court was that he was having a hard time gathering enough of his forces to accomplish it. So I wasn’t concerned about finding Prax. As far as I knew, he had no life outside of being a dragonrider. Actually getting up the nerve to talk to him? That was going to be a lot harder.

  I must have looked just as nervous as I felt, because while I checked over my saddle, Julianna hovered right over me. When I kissed her goodbye, she squeezed me extra hard.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” she asked, as she fretfully straightened the buckle of my cloak.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “It’s just for a day. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

  She put on an unconvincing smile and stood on her toes to kiss my cheek. “All right, then. Just please be safe.”

  I had plenty of time in the air to think about what I was going to say. And yet when I touched down in Northwatch and set my eyes upon the citadel, everything got scrambled around in my brain. I didn’t know how Prax would receive me or if he’d even want to talk to me at all. Our last meeting hadn’t gone well—and that was putting it mildly. His last words to me still burned in my mind.

  “You have disappointed me.”

  That hurt. It hurt a lot more now that I knew he was my dad. I’d never made anyone proud in my life—although it was sort of an intentional effort on my part. The duke, who’d raised me like his own because he didn’t know better, had been unhappy with my behavior as a child, and the way I fought him tooth and nail over every little thing. I hadn’t done much to deserve his good opinion. And my mother …

  I put Nova up in the stable of one of the higher-end inns on the outskirts of the city, and then started for the citadel. On my way, I bumped into another member of Emerald Flight, standing on the corner just outside the Laughing Fox Tavern. He waved at me, and I strolled over to shake his hand.

  “You look good,” he said with a laugh. “Not at all how Prax described you. He made it sound like you were determined to drink yourself to death.”

  I tried not to let that faze me. “What can I say? I gave it my best shot. Speaking of Prax, do you know where he is?”

  My former comrade pointed a thumb back in the direction of the Laughing Fox. “We all took the week off while we’re waiting for rally orders. Most of the men went home for a few days. But you know Prax—he’s got no one to go home to.”

  Well, that was about to change.

  I thanked him and left, heading straight for the tavern. I hadn’t been there in months. It felt strange to walk through those doors again. I spotted a few familiar faces around the dimly lit room.

  And there, sitting by himself at the end of a long table, I saw my dad.

  Prax was hunched over with his elbows resting on the tabletop. The light from the hearth put heavy shadows over his face, outlining every wrinkle and crease. It made him seem older and much more somber, as though he were lost in miserable memories.

  I walked across the dining room, weaving around the tables until I was standing right beside him. “Hey, Dad.”

  He looked up in surprise. I saw him search me, examining every detail of my clothes and demeanor as though he were looking for evidence that I was still a wreck. Then he gave a small, almost bemused smile.

  “I take it this means I was right,” he said. “Maria finally admitted it?”

  I spread my hands out wide and shrugged. “Yep. It’s a boy. Sorry I didn’t bring you any flowers.”

  Prax chuckled and nodded to the chair across from him, gesturing for me to take a seat. Things got awkward the second I settled in, though.

  Neither of us seemed to be able to find a good place to start. We weren’t even making eye contact, though whenever he wasn’t looking at me, I took the opportunity to study his face. The face of my father— a face I supposedly shared.

  By the time I came up with something semi-intelligent to say, Prax spoke up first. “I want you to know that I’m sorry, Felix.”

  I tensed. “Yeah. Me too. For a lot of stuff.”

  “You’re not a disappointment to me,” he continued like he hadn’t even heard me. “And I should have been there for you when you were a child. As soon as I heard Maria had given birth, I was suspicious that you might be mine. The timing was too convenient to ignore. But you had a family and a father figure who I reasoned was much more stable than I would ever be. I had no evidence that you really were mine, and no desire to upset your life … or Maria’s. Now I see I was wrong. I should have gone to Maria right away and insisted she tell me the truth. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I’ve missed a lot. Now you’re a grown adult and we might as well be perfect strangers.”

  He reached across the table and grabbed my hand. He gripped it hard as he stared directly into my eyes. “But I want you to know I am proud of you and the man you’ve become. You are my son. And I love you.”

  Suddenly, it was painful to swallow. I couldn’t shrug this off or act like it wasn’t a big deal to hear him say that. It meant absolutely everything to me.

  “It’s not all your fault.” My voice was hoarse and broken. “I need to apologize, too, for everything I said before. For acting like a moron. And for leaving the ranks like that.”

  He let go of my hand and waved off my apology like he was dismissing the whole issue. “Don’t worry about it. You have an estate to look after. And a young bride, too, I hear. I would never fault you for putting those priorities first.”

  If only my motives in leaving had been that pure. “We both want you to come to the wedding. Do you think you can manage it?”

  He laughed that loud, booming laugh that filled the entire room. “You really think I’d miss my only son getting married?”

  “Well, I told her I wasn’t sure since we won’t be serving any alcohol.” I smirked. “I’m trying to keep this new leaf turned over.”

  Prax nodded like he understood. “Change is never easy, boy. If it were, most people wouldn’t be so terrified of it. But the beautiful thing about it is that once the uncomfortable part is over, we get a chance to start again—fresh and unbound by the mistakes we made before.”

  “I’ve made a lot of them lately,” I admitted. “And it almost cost me everything I’ve ever loved.”

  “Well, you seem to be better off now. At least you’ve bathed. That’s an improvement over the last time I saw you.” He winked, and we both had another good laugh.

  Things got easier and much less awkward then. We talked for hours about absolutely nothing, but I needed that nothing more than anything. He wanted to hear about my life, and I wanted to know about his, as well. After telling him about my childhood, I asked how he’d wound up in a dragonrider’s saddle. I saw his demeanor begin to change.

  “I did it for Maria,” he said quietly.

  That was the exact opposite story I’d gotten from my mom, who insisted he’d abandoned her for the dragonriders’ ranks. “What do you mean?”

  “I asked her father for her hand, but he turned me away. He said I didn’t make a good enough living to deserve her. We could have eloped, I suppose. She probably would have jumped at the idea. But your mother was a respectable girl from a good family. I didn’t want to disgrace her like that, and I didn’t want our life together to start out by driving a wedge between her and her family. So I had to find some other means of employment—some way to make myself worthy of her.” He rested his chin in his palm and stared down at the table. “I was too proud to tell her that her father wouldn’t give me his blessing. I was embarrassed. And I suppose that’s how she got the impression I didn’t want to marry her at all.”

  I sat back in my chair. I was completely blown away by how the whole situation had gotten misconstrued. M
om had taken it entirely the wrong way. She was bitter and filled with hatred over nothing.

  “She said she hates me.” I blurted without thinking. I guess I just needed him to know that.

  Prax’s expression was pained, but sympathetic. “It’s not you she hates, son. It’s me. Don’t let her deceive you. I’m not there to face her anger, so she’s directing it all at you instead.”

  “Regardless, I can’t have her in my life when she’s like this. It upsets Julianna. And frankly, it pisses me off.”

  “She’s going to have to come to terms with what happened,” he agreed. “But maybe I can lend a hand with that. It’s long past time for her and I to have a talk.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “You really think she’ll sit and talk to you?”

  “No, not willingly. But I don’t intend on giving her a choice. Maria’s always tended to be overly dramatic when she doesn’t get her way. She was like that even when we were young. Now she’s spent all these years taking out her hatred for me on her only child. It’s time for both of us to move on with our lives. She can’t go on blaming you for my mistakes, and I can’t go on hiding here rather than returning to Solhelm and facing her.”

  I didn’t think it would matter to Mom if he tried to reason with her or not. She was basically insane, as far as I could tell. Sitting around and stewing in hate tended to do that to people. But if he wanted to try, that was his business. I wasn’t going to try to stop him.

  “The wedding is next month. I suppose I can mark you down as attending?” I tried to change the subject. “We set the date for the engagement ball in a few days. I know it’s short notice, but do you think you could make it to that, too?”

  He smiled. “I’ll be there with bells on. Awful quick though, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it’s not like we’re strangers. I’ve known Julianna since we were kids. She used to chase me with strawberries when we were little.”

  Prax cocked an eyebrow. He clearly didn’t get it.

  “I’m allergic to them,” I clarified. “Anyway, we’ve technically been engaged for a long time already. I love her and I don’t intend on changing my mind. And she’s had a good, long while to reconsider it herself.”

  I decided not to tell him that I had almost lost her. I’d been downright awful to her. Luckily, Jules had a strength and resilience to her that any soldier would admire, even if she happened to be soft and delicate on the outside. It was one of the things I’d always found most beautiful about her.

  “It’ll be time to have a few tots of your own then, eh?” Prax teased.

  I blushed. “L-let’s not rush that.”

  He went on making playful jabs, questioning when he would be made a grandfather, passing the time while the tavern emptied of patrons and the barmaids began wiping down the tables and chairs. They’d be closing soon, but I didn’t want this to end.

  Prax had gone silent, and appeared lost in the same painful thoughts he’d been stewing in when I found him. His eyes were fixed on the mug of cider in front of him. He’d elected not to drink alcohol either, out of courtesy for me.

  “They found the blue dragon,” he said suddenly.

  All the wind rushed out of me, like someone had punched me in the gut. He didn’t have to explain which blue dragon he was talking about—I knew. He meant Jaevid’s dragon, Mavrik.

  “He never goes far from the edge of that forest. A few men tried to chase him down, but he’s too quick. Only Jace’s dragon could ever match pace with him. And as far as they could tell, he’s still wearing all his saddle and gear. One even told me they saw him on the ground, roaring into the trees like he was calling for someone. Odd behavior for a dragon. Never heard of one acting like that before, even with a bonded rider.”

  I began to feel nauseous, and yet I hung on his every word. “So what does that mean?”

  Prax met my eyes from across the table. I saw the intensity smoldering there. He had a theory, all right. “They never found his body on the battlefield. I, for one, don’t believe they ever will because I don’t think it’s there at all. You told us before you’d seen him do things—strange works of power the likes of which this world had never seen. If that’s true, then who’s to say he isn’t in Luntharda?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Are you calling him a traitor?”

  “I never said that,” he replied quickly. “But if something happened to Jace, if he was shot down, then you of all people should be able to tell me whether or not you think Jaevid would have gone down after him.”

  I had to stop and think about that. Yes, I’d been Jae’s closest friend. I knew him well enough to make a guess about what he might do … and Prax was right. If Jae had seen Jace go down into the forest, he probably would have headed in after him. He’d done something similar for Sile when he was only a fledgling rider.

  Not only that, Jae had mentioned to me once, not long before the battle, that Sile wanted him to go into Luntharda. It had something to do with a ritual—I couldn’t quite remember the details. But maybe it was possible …

  “So then you’re suggesting he’s still alive?” I demanded. I was beginning to get my hopes up.

  Prax sat back from the table and gave a heavy sigh. “No, of course not. I’m not suggesting anything. Personally, I don’t think he’s still alive because if there was any way for him to come back to us, with or without Jace, I believe he would have done so by now. I’m saying that if he is as powerful as you believe, as you claim to have seen, then we have to accept that we may never know what really happened to him. There’s been a lot of strangeness in the air lately—apart from the animals going madder than ever. Seraph has vanished, which many are taking to be either a sign that the war is finally over … or that something terrible is going to happen.”

  We were silent again for several minutes. I listened to the sound of the barmaids scratching at the stone floor with their brooms as they swept away the day’s dirt and crumbs. My heart was aching. It was as though a heavy weight was settling over my shoulders.

  “I miss him,” I admitted.

  Prax patted my shoulder from across the table. “I wish I could tell you that feeling goes away, son. But it doesn’t. The important thing is to try to turn your focus to the living, to the ones who need your love and attention right now. That bride of yours, for instance. She needs you—all of you—and that is what should matter most. Take it from an old, lonely man who’s spent a lifetime in the saddle and has nothing to show for it; family should always come first.”

  I was dreaming.

  I had to be; I’d never been in a place like this before in my life. It was cold and dark. The air smelled of a heavy musk, like damp soil. I walked forward slowly with my arms outstretched, feeling around for something. My fingertips brushed against what felt like the cold, moist walls of a cave.

  Groping forward through the dark, I couldn’t tell which way led up or down. I couldn’t see anything and couldn’t hear anything, except for my own frantic breathing. Then suddenly, there was a light in the distance. It was only a pale flicker, but it gave me hope and a direction to move in.

  The nearer I got to the light, the more I could see of my surroundings. I was standing inside some sort of cavern with a ceiling so high you could have flown a dragon around inside it. It was bizarre. Soft, sterling light seemed to hang in the air without coming from any place in particular. It gave me the creeps.

  I didn’t feel any better when I noticed what stood in the very center of the chamber. It looked like some sort of altar made of a single slab of white stone. There were bones arranged on top of it, like someone had left an animal there to rot away, alone in the chilly silence.

  When I reached the altar, I stretched out a hand to touch the antlers of the skull. They were long, sloping, and beautifully pointed, like they belonged to some species of elk. But the tips must have been sharp as razors, because as soon as I let my hand slide across them, I pricked my finger. It stung. Droplets of m
y blood peppered the altar and pooled in a place where the stone had a bowl-shaped indentation.

  In the blink of an eye, everything went dark. It was as though something had sucked all the light out of the air in one breath. Noises began echoing all around me—the sound of footsteps, snorts of breath, chirps, screeches, and whispers.

  I spun around. I could see spots of light winking in the darkness, a thousand eyes, all blinking and watching me. They were everywhere, slithering down from the ceiling and prowling just out of my reach.

  A hot blast of breath rustled my hair.

  I whirled around again and reached for my sword, but it wasn’t there. Too late, I remembered that I’d stopped carrying it. I wasn’t a dragonrider anymore.

  “Something is coming.” A soft voice spoke over the noise of the creatures lurking in the dark. Over my shoulder, I saw a pair of eyes that stood out from the rest. They were shining as brightly as stars.

  “W-who’s there?” I demanded.

  He stepped forward, seeming to part the darkness around him like a curtain. Jaevid stood right in front of me, draped in a long, black cloak that covered everything except his face. His stare was piercing. It cut through me like he was inside my head, searching through my thoughts.

  “Jaevid?” I rasped his name, hoping to see some semblance of my friend in that harrowing gaze.

  But his expression never changed. “I have to return it,” he said. “Everything depends on it.”

  “Return what? You’re not making any sense.”

  “The stone. The balance must be restored. Otherwise Paligno’s curse will ravage this world. All of nature will turn on itself. Everything we know and love will be destroyed.”

  My view of him was suddenly eclipsed, as something monstrous and scaly crawled by between us. When he reappeared, he was standing much closer. It startled me and I cringed away.