The Savage Dawn

by Melissa Grey

  “I need more power,” said Tanith. “And you, Caius, are the perfect conduit. You are my blood, my flesh. We once shared a womb, and now we share magic.” Caius’s vision blurred at the edges as his sister continued to talk. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  It was not.

  Finally, his well of power ran dry and she released him. It took everything he had not to slump to the floor, half dead. He felt as bad as Tanith looked.

  As he watched through slitted eyes, Tanith turned to the seal and projected her stolen power toward it. With the screech of metal snapping, another crack split the surface. Then another. And another. Magic churned the air, wild and uncontrolled, threatening to devour them all. The mages Caius had heard before threw up a barrier around the seal, a flimsy circle of magic that wouldn’t hold all that erratic power for long. The wrongness of it all compounded. He didn’t understand what he was seeing, but he knew it wasn’t right.

  “What are you doing?” Caius asked, looking at the broken seal. His voice echoed inside his head, rattling around his skull painfully. The minor healing had already been undone by Tanith’s leaching of his power. “What is this?”

  The thing that was not his sister turned from the seal and fixed its unsettling black gaze on him.

  “For a new world to be born, the old one must first make way.” Tanith’s lips split into a ghastly smile as she gazed at the cracked seal. “This, my dearest brother, is the end. And the beginning.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You know, I’ve never actually eaten a hot dog from here before,” Rowan said. He zipped his track jacket all the way up to his chin and thrust his hands into his pockets.

  Echo looked up at the board behind the counter at Crif Dogs. They had just emerged from the phone booth at the back of the restaurant after exiting the Agora. No one had looked askance at two people making their way out of the very small booth. The hidden market might have been practically abandoned, but the entrance enchantment that encouraged potentially curious onlookers to avert their gazes held firm. Echo wondered if the magic would need topping up soon. She wondered who would do it.

  “Do you want one?” Echo asked, hefting her backpack higher on her shoulder. The bowl was heavy, but also comforting in its heft. “I think I have enough cash on me.”

  At the prospect of a potential sale, the blue-haired girl behind the counter lowered her magazine to peer at them over its pages.

  Rowan shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to stoop so low as to exchange actual money for food.”

  The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes and went back to reading her magazine.

  “Yeah, I’d hate to make a habit of that,” Echo said, trying to keep her tone light, but unable to fight the note of impatience that seeped into it. “Besides, I kind of just want to get back to Avalon and the Ala.”

  “Right,” Rowan said as he reached for the door. The little bell on top of it jingled as they left the shop. “Princes to save.”

  “Just another Tuesday,” Echo said.

  Rowan’s words were flippant, but they made something tighten in Echo’s chest. She hoped there was a prince left to save after Tanith was done with him. A brisk wind bit into their cheeks as they made their way westward on St. Marks Place toward the Astor Place subway station. Summer had fled and autumn had snuck up on Echo without her noticing the change of seasons. One day it had been muggy and hot; the next, falling leaves and pumpkin-flavored everything. Time was marching on faster than she liked, and every day that went by without Caius felt longer than the last. Echo trudged ahead, hands burrowed in the pockets of her leather jacket, head down against the wind.

  An elbow jostled her in the side when she went three blocks without uttering a single word. Echo shot Rowan a look. It was still hard to be near him, but it was getting easier. Slowly. There was too much baggage between them for reconciliation to be swift and painless.

  “You all right?” Rowan asked, even though Echo was pretty sure he knew that she wasn’t.

  She nodded, and he let her have the lie. “Yeah, I’m just…”

  “Worried about him,” Rowan supplied when her sentence failed to find its ending.

  “I know you don’t like talking about Caius,” Echo said.

  They drew to a stop across the street from the subway station and waited for the light to change. A bus rolled past, spewing acrid fumes.

  “Caius is okay,” Rowan said, tapping one foot as the light switched from green to red and yellow cabs, undeterred by traffic laws, blasted through the intersection. “I’ve decided that if you like him, he can’t be that bad.”

  Echo’s eyebrows crept up. “Never imagined I’d hear you say that.”

  Rowan ducked his chin into the high collar of his jacket, long legs gobbling up the crosswalk as Echo broke into a half jog to keep up with him. “I don’t like seeing you sad. And him being gone is making you sad, so I’m gonna help you get him back.”

  Echo let his words marinate as they clambered down the steps into the train station. It was late morning on a weekday. The platform wouldn’t be too crowded, and the utility closet on the far end of the northbound track was usually secure as a gateway to the in-between.

  There was no attendant in the station booth, so Echo hopped the turnstile. Rowan swiped his MetroCard behind her. He’d always been more lawful than she was.

  They were halfway down the platform when Echo spoke again. “Thank you,” she said.

  “What for?” Rowan asked. He already had the pouch of shadow dust in his hand, ready to smear some on the doorjamb.

  Echo shrugged. Things felt complicated, and if there was one thing she hated having to articulate it was complicated feelings. “For being my friend,” she said succinctly.

  Rowan paused in front of the utility closet. The train must have just left the station because the platform was empty save for a woman surrounded by bags and a shopping cart who was napping on a bench about twenty feet away. After the attack on Grand Central, the 6 train didn’t go north of the next stop, Union Square anyway.

  “I’m your friend no matter what,” Rowan said. “I know things have been rocky between us and we can’t go back to the way things were, but I’ve always got your back.” He chucked her under the chin. “Even when you’re being a butthead.”

  The tightness in Echo’s chest eased a fraction of a millimeter. “Butthead is my middle name.”

  Rowan laughed as he dipped his fingers into the pouch. They came away stained with the rich blackness of shadow dust. “That’s unfortunate.”

  He smeared the dust on the frame of the door before cracking it open. The hinges squealed. “M’lady,” he said as he offered Echo his hand.

  They had traveled through the in-between like this countless times since childhood. She knew the feel of his hands as well as she knew her own. Every knuckle, every muscle. Echo slipped her palm into his, lacing their fingers together. “After you,” she said.

  They stepped over the threshold and everything went black. Echo pictured their destination: the Hudson River shoreline, where they would find the small boat, cloaked with the same enchantment that made the phone booth at Crif Dogs so inconspicuous, that would take them back to Avalon Castle. No one would bother it until they got there. In a few minutes, they would be home and one step closer to finding their lost prince.

  Echo had a moment to orient herself in the impenetrably dark void that was the in-between before she noticed that her hand was holding on to nothing.

  Rowan was gone.

  —

  Echo fell to her knees when she emerged from the darkness, her hands clutching at the dirt as if she could summon Rowan through sheer force of will.

  He was gone. His hand had slipped from hers and he was gone.

  Echo looked around wildly, hoping against hope that her mind was simply playing tricks on her, that she would find him standing somewhere nearby, as nonchalant as ever and wondering why she was acting like a crazy person.

  A
ll she saw was long yellow grass swaying in the wind and errant scraps of garbage that had floated down from the highway. An empty Cheetos bag fluttered in the breeze beside a crushed Budweiser can. The boat bobbed in the water about a hundred feet down shore from where she stood.

  She was alone.

  No. No, no, no, no.

  To be lost in the in-between was to be lost forever. There had been recent reports of it acting strangely, but Echo hadn’t given them much thought. She had been too focused on searching for Caius, on cobbling together a plan to find him. Nothing else had mattered. Until now.

  Rowan was gone.

  Echo slid her backpack off her shoulders, unceremoniously dumping its contents onto the pebbly shore as she rummaged for the pouch of shadow dust. Maybe he hadn’t left the station. Maybe she could find him if she went back. Maybe—

  Her phone rang.

  Echo ignored it, cursing the mess her backpack had vomited up. Crumpled candy wrappers and empty water bottles and a gleaming silver bowl and an army of highlighters. A scented candle. Two issues of Wonder Woman, for some reason. The pouch was small, and easy to miss. Echo unzipped the exterior pockets of her bag and searched each one. It was in there somewhere. It had to be. She never left home without it.

  The phone rang again and again as tears clouded Echo’s vision.

  The ringing stopped, then started again before the particulars of the sound registered in her addled mind.

  The Star Wars theme song.

  Rowan’s ringtone. The one he’d programmed into her phone one afternoon.

  So you’ll always know it’s me, he’d said.

  Echo picked up the phone, nearly dropping it in her haste to swipe the screen to answer the call.

  “Hello,” she said, voice thick with fear and hope and a jumble of a thousand emotions she couldn’t name.

  “Echo.”

  Rowan’s voice sent a wave of dizzying relief through her, one so powerful she had to sit down, heedless of the sharp pebbles digging into the seat of her jeans.

  “Rowan? Are you okay? What happened? Where are you—”

  “Lincoln Center,” he interrupted. His voice was nearly drowned out by an announcement over the subway station’s public address system. “Somehow. I’m fine,” he said, even though he sounded as frazzled as Echo felt.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and thanked the gods for their mercy.

  “Where are you?” Rowan prompted when the only sound Echo felt capable of emitting was a reedy sigh.

  “Near the boat.” She could feel tears cooling on her cheeks. She hadn’t even realized they’d fallen, so great was her relief.

  “Go on ahead,” Rowan said, sounding out of breath as he navigated the station platform. From what Echo could make out over the connection, it was crowded with commuters. “I’ll meet you there. I’m gonna take the long way home.” He let out a shaky laugh that didn’t fool Echo in the slightest. He was scared. “I don’t know what the hell happened back there, but I’m not really feeling in-between travel right now.”

  “Okay,” Echo said, voice barely above a whisper. The ordeal hadn’t lasted more than two minutes, but she felt wrung out. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually. “Be safe.”

  “I will,” Rowan replied. “Go home. I’ll meet you there.”

  He hung up and the line went dead. The phone slipped through Echo’s limp fingers. A full-body tremble seized her. That had been too close. She had already lost one person she loved. The thought of losing another was almost too terrible a weight to bear.

  With unsteady hands, Echo gathered up her belongings and shoved them into her backpack. Equally unsteady legs carried her toward the boat. She clung to the knowledge that Rowan was safe, that she hadn’t lost another person. This was her life now. An endless parade of fear and uncertainty, marked by moments of blinding terror.

  A manic laugh erupted from her throat as she clambered into the boat.

  “Just another Tuesday,” she said. Unable to stave off another peal of unhinged giggling, she was glad that the river was the only witness to her unraveling.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The sun beat down on the back of Dorian’s neck, and though his palms were slick with sweat, his grip on his sword remained steady. Even with only one functioning eye, he could see the crowd forming along the edges of the courtyard. He hadn’t been alone at the start of his training session—he was never alone in Avalon, not truly, as there was always at least one Avicen watching his every move—but the small cluster of Warhawks had grown over the course of the past hour. Their rapt attention was focused on him as he sliced open yet another training dummy, its burlap stomach spilling hay like intestines from a gutted corpse. At its wooden feet lay the remains of two other dummies, both in equal states of disrepair. Someone had attached a soccer ball to the neck of one and drawn a crude smiley face on it; a swing of Dorian’s sword had decapitated the dummy, and its dead eyes seemed to stare at him in judgment.

  Rending the dummies limb by limb had done little to quell the storm in Dorian’s heart, but it made him feel marginally less awful. His default state of being since Caius’s abduction vacillated between abject agony and bone-crushing guilt. Right now, with his muscles aching after the first good workout he’d had in weeks, his mood hovered near simmering despair. An improvement, however slight.

  He lowered his sword as he gazed upon the destruction his frustration had wrought. Sweat glued his shirt to his back, and he was thankful that the afternoon had brought with it a brisk wind, even if there was no reprieve from the heat of the sun.

  Behind him, a familiar voice tutted in disapproval.

  “What on earth did that poor, defenseless dummy do to you?”

  The sound of Jasper’s voice teased an involuntary smile from Dorian’s lips as he turned. It vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, though Dorian had no doubt the change in his expression had not gone unnoticed. Jasper was far too perceptive for his own good, and most certainly too perceptive for Dorian’s good.

  Dorian wiped the sweat from his brow with his free hand as he sheathed his sword. It felt good to have the sword back. It would be folly to say that the Avicen of Avalon trusted him—centuries of war and hate would take longer than a few weeks to unravel—but he had worked tirelessly beside them in the wake of Tanith’s attack on the island, bloodying his hands as he dug through the rubble to reach survivors. Although they would never forget years of Drakharin savagery, they remembered that Dorian had helped them in their darkest moment.

  Dorian was an oddity to them, and they watched him with a mixture of fascination and fear. Few of the Avicen at Avalon had ever seen a Drakharin fight, and the ones who still held him in contempt for being who and what he was could not resist the opportunity to watch one train. The Warhawks had been devastated by the disasters that had befallen them—the kuçedra had attacked their home in the heart of New York City, then Tanith had wreaked havoc on their refuge at Avalon—and the ones who remained standing took a perverse amount of pleasure in critiquing Dorian’s form. He didn’t mind. So long as he had a sword in his hand, they could disparage him all they wanted. He was confident in his skills, and nothing anyone said would convince him that his swordsmanship was anything less than impeccable. And while it felt strange to have an audience as he violently worked out his frustrations, there was the possibility they might learn something by watching him. He had noticed more than a little sloppy sparring when he observed the surviving Warhawks in the training yard.

  One of those Warhawks—Sage, an incongruous name for one so perpetually surly—had pushed the sword into Dorian’s hand a few days after the attack. “You’re no good to us defenseless,” she had said, “and I cannot be bothered to defend you.”

  Not that Dorian needed defending, especially from a soldier less than half his age, but it was the closest to approval he was likely to get from one of the few Avicen of rank left standing.

  As he faced Jasper, he schooled his expression into something he
hoped was neutral.

  “I didn’t like the way it was looking at me,” Dorian said.

  “I can see that.” Jasper laughed, and though the mirth didn’t quite reach his eyes, the sound made something deep in Dorian’s chest twinge with longing. Jasper hopped down from the crumbled wall upon which he had been sitting as he watched Dorian hack away at wooden foes, and made his way to the pile of debris Dorian had spent an hour creating. Jasper kicked the soccer ball head to a cluster of Avicelings who had been watching Dorian practice. They scampered over to the ball, reclaiming it. With a tight smile, Jasper made his way back to his perch and sat down, his sharp amber eyes lingering on Dorian.

  It still startled Dorian, even now, how he found himself reacting to Jasper’s presence. It wasn’t simply that Jasper was distractingly beautiful—and knew it. Dorian liked to think he was strong enough to resist a pretty face. Gods knew he had long experience doing just that; his position as captain of the royal guard had made him one of the most sought-after companions among the Drakharin, yet he had welcomed none of the nobility’s perfume-soaked advances. For so long, Dorian had held only one person in his heart, but Jasper had somehow, against all odds, made room for himself there. It had taken Dorian months to welcome the intrusion, and only minutes for the fragile thing growing between them to collapse. For how could he allow himself to find happiness with Jasper when he had so thoroughly and shamefully failed the person to whom he had pledged his love and loyalty?

  You are my prince and I will follow you anywhere.

  Dorian had spoken those words a thousand times. It was the truth he’d held most dear for more than a century. He had meant the words each and every time he’d uttered them, and there hadn’t been a single doubt in his mind that he would be there, by Caius’s side, to follow through on them when the time came. But when his prince had needed him the most, Dorian had been miles away, ignorant of the danger Caius was in. It was the most solemn oath Dorian had ever taken, and he had failed to live up to it. He had failed Caius. And for that, he would never forgive himself. Not until Caius was found. Not until Dorian knew Caius was safe. And probably not even then.