by Melissa Grey
The Ala ticked off items on the list she’d written, mumbling to herself before looking back up. “Rowan,” she said, “you’ve had quite the journey today.”
Rowan nodded. “That’s one way of putting it,” he replied. “The reports of instability in the in-between we’ve received—people exiting from gateways they never intended to travel to and others getting lost—weren’t just rumors like we’d hoped. I found that out firsthand, and really wish I hadn’t.”
The Ala rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This is the last thing we need right now.”
“But that happens, doesn’t it?” asked Helios, the newest Drakharin stray. “People don’t focus strongly enough on their destination, or they get distracted and get lost.”
Rowan frowned as his gaze moved from the Ala to the Drakharin seated on the ground. He’d grown used to Dorian, to a degree, but Helios seemed to be having little luck thawing Rowan’s icy demeanor. Echo was willing to bet it had to do with Ivy. Although Rowan would never admit it aloud, she knew he felt protective of Ivy, and she had no doubt that the amount of time their white-feathered friend had been spending with a new Drakharin was failing to sit well with Rowan. Nevertheless, Rowan answered Helios’s query. “Rarely. Not as frequently as it’s happening now, and almost never with people experienced with traveling through the in-between, especially if they’re going from one familiar place to another using gateways they know well. And I didn’t mess up.”
A deeply unsettling thought occurred to Echo. “Do you think the in-between acting all wonky is my fault?”
“How in the world could that possibly be your fault?” Rowan asked. “I know you’re the firebird and all”—he said it so casually, as if it were a perfectly normal thing for a human girl to be—“but don’t you think that’s giving yourself a little too much credit?” He said the last bit with a small grin to soften it.
“Echo might be right,” said the Ala.
Echo grimaced. Usually she adored being right. Now was not one of those times. “I was sort of hoping you’d tell me I was insane to even consider it.”
“Everything in this world requires balance,” said the Ala in her most professorial tone. “You disrupted it when you welcomed the firebird into the world. Into yourself.”
“Yeah, but the kuçedra was supposed to be the counterbalance,” Echo said. “I mean, that was the whole point of it, right? The light and the dark, the action and the reaction. It’s physics. Fancy physics. With magic.”
The Ala huffed a soft, joyless laugh. “You and the new Dragon Prince tore holes in the world—”
“Sorry about that.”
“—and it would stand to reason that there would be consequences,” the Ala finished, ignoring Echo’s interruption. “But it’s all theoretical at this point until we’ve had our mages study the phenomena further. I’ll look into it myself when I have a chance.” An unlikely scenario, considering the Ala was the only one holding the huddled masses of Avicen together. Her attention wandered briefly, but she snapped out of it before anyone besides Echo noticed. The Ala glanced down at her notebook and then redirected her gaze to Dorian. “Any word from your contacts within Wyvern’s Keep about the Dragon Prince’s whereabouts?”
“Which one?” Jasper muttered, earning a glare from Dorian.
“Either will do,” the Ala said, as if it had been a serious question. Jasper had the grace to look properly chastened. “Find one, you find the other.”
Wherever Tanith was, Caius was likely to be. Echo leaned forward in her seat, hoping that Dorian had gotten further in his search than the last time he had checked in. Her heart sank when he shook his head. “No. Tanith hasn’t been to the keep in at least a fortnight. She’s sent messengers there, but so far I haven’t been able to track them and learn where she is or what she’s up to.”
“And Caius?” Echo asked. A presence at the back of her mind pressed against her thoughts, like a ghost leaning in to better hear the answer. Not now, Rose.
Dorian clenched his jaw so tightly, Echo could see the tendons working beneath his skin. “No sign of him either.”
“I would not give up hope just yet,” said the Ala. “I find it highly unlikely that Tanith would go through the trouble of kidnapping her brother just to kill him once she had him alone.”
“You’re assuming she’s being governed by reason,” said Dorian. “The Tanith I knew would never stage an assault on an island in the middle of the Hudson River. She isn’t herself. Not anymore. Not with that…thing inside her.”
“Be that as it may,” the Ala said, “finding the Dragon Prince—both of them,” she added in a mollifying tone when Dorian bristled, “is our first priority.”
“I may have something to help with that,” Echo said. She was hoping they wouldn’t need it, but if there had been no sign of Caius, then it was their best—and only—plan.
She retrieved the silver bowl from her backpack and held it on her lap. “It’s Perrin’s scrying bowl. He used to it to track the bracelet he gave me. He’d woven one of his own feathers into the braided strap. The tracking spell he worked into it must require something to latch onto, like a feather or hair or a personal belonging. I don’t really know the details, but I was hoping you might.”
She handed the bowl to the Ala, who gave the intricate carvings on the side only a cursory glance. Her eyes drooped closed and she went very still. Everyone waited, silent. After a few moments, the Ala opened her eyes and smiled. There was sadness in that smile.
“It’s a clever bit of spell work,” said the Ala. “Your instincts were right, Echo. This bowl can be used to track down certain items, but it needs to be linked to some physical part of the person you seek. As you said, a feather or a lock of hair would suffice. However, unless Caius had the forethought to gift you with a few strands of his hair, then I do not think—”
“What about blood?” Dorian asked, none too politely.
The Ala blinked at him, no doubt silently delivering the litany Echo had heard a thousand times before about the impudence of younger generations, which, considering the Ala’s advanced age—she was a thousand years old, give or take a few decades—consisted of pretty much everyone. Aloud, she said, “Blood would do. It would be even better than hair or feathers, as it is commonly more potent when deployed in magic such as this. Even a few drops would be inordinately useful, but unless you’re carrying a bottle of it around—”
“Which would be intensely weird,” Echo said.
“—then I’m afraid we’re back at—what’s that saying?—square one.”
“Rest assured, I do not make it a habit of carting blood around with me, but I do know where we can acquire a sample of Caius’s,” said Dorian.
“Where?” asked the Ala.
“Wyvern’s Keep.”
“Oh, hell no,” Ivy said.
Echo patted Ivy’s knee. Of everyone in the room who wasn’t Drakharin, Ivy had accumulated the most visits—two—to the keep. Neither one had been overly pleasant. “We’re not sending you back there. No matter what.”
Not to mention the fact that a ruse similar to the one that had tricked Tanith the first time wouldn’t work a second time.
“We don’t need to send anyone in,” Dorian said. “Helios passed along the pendant Ivy smuggled into the fortress. It’s connected to the blade of my sword. We can use them to communicate with my agents inside the keep. There are some still loyal to Caius, and they’ve been laying the groundwork for an uprising from within. They can acquire the blood, and if the gods smile upon us—”
“When do they ever?” Jasper muttered.
“—they will be able to smuggle the blood out of the keep and into my waiting hands.”
“Question,” Echo said. “Why is Caius’s blood lying around the keep? That seems unsanitary.”
Dorian rolled his eye. “It’s not ‘lying around the keep.’ It’s in a vault, along with the blood of every other Dragon Prince elected since the title came into being. Part of the c
oronation rituals requires a ceremonial bloodletting. It’s meant to symbolize that the elected prince will willingly shed his or her blood for the good of the Drakharin people. The office of Dragon Prince is about more than just having power over our people. The prince belongs to them, body and soul. The blood is collected in a vial and stored in a secure location for posterity. And to remind both prince and pauper of the nature of the Dragon Prince’s sacrifice.”
“How difficult will it be for your agents to access the vault?” the Ala asked.
Dorian shrugged. “It’s hard to say. At least one guard is stationed at the vault at all times, but it’s more of a formality than anything else. If Tanith suspects we might attempt to steal the blood, for whatever reason, then she may have assigned more guards to it. As far as I know, there have not been any changes in the guard rotations for that section of the fortress. According to the last report my agents sent me, only the exits and entrances have had additional forces assigned to them. Tanith has also doubled up the scouting parties in the surrounding area. Getting the blood out of the keep might be harder than getting into the vault itself.”
The Ala nodded. “See what you can do. As challenging as it seems, it might be our only way to find Caius and, through him, Tanith. Our scouts have spotted her or her operatives all over the globe, but there doesn’t appear to be a pattern to her travels. There must be one, but we have not yet seen it.”
Echo fidgeted in her seat. She knew she should be more concerned with whatever plan Tanith was concocting, but all she could think of was that they were closer to figuring out where Caius was—and whether he was even still alive—than they had been in weeks. Ivy bumped her shoulder against Echo, as if sensing her agitation. The Ala began to hammer out details for how to proceed, with Dorian and Helios chipping in with knowledge of the Drakharin when needed, but Echo was only half listening. She said a silent prayer to the gods she wasn’t sure she believed in, that Caius would hang on just a little bit longer.
We’re coming for you, Echo thought. All you have to do is stay alive.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Caius didn’t know where he was.
The uncertainty assaulted him on two fronts: geographically and existentially. He had no idea where in the world his body was. Not that it particularly mattered, he had to admit. Each and every day was the same: an endless parade of misery through the hellish landscape he now called home. He had thought that time would help him grow accustomed to the pain of having his life force, his vitality, the very thing that made him more than simply a sack of bones and meat, drained to top up his deranged sister’s power stores, but the days turned into weeks, and his naive notion was proven indubitably wrong.
Yet more than the question of his location—he was vaguely aware of having left Scotland, but beyond that, the specifics remained a mystery—the certainty of his being was fuzzier than he preferred. It was hard to tell sometimes whether he was even in his own body. He felt, on occasion, like he was floating through the void of the in-between, lost to the darkness that lived between all the heres and theres of the world, stuck in a limbo that defied the senses. The pain followed him into that void even when he wasn’t aware of his own body; it had invaded his consciousness, depriving him of a single moment’s rest, refusing him the sweet embrace of oblivion.
Death would have been a kindness.
“Wake up, Brother.”
A damp cloth was pressed to his chapped lips, and the sensation dragged him out of the void. His throat was parched. He would have killed for a drink of water, but he wasn’t sure he had the control of his muscles to swallow anything successfully. He wasn’t sure any Dragon Princes had ever met their end by drowning in bed, and he wasn’t keen to be the first, even if he was currently dethroned.
The cloth was removed. With his eyes still closed, Caius worked his jaw, testing its range of motion. He hadn’t eaten anything for days, he’d been so ill, and even the small motion was enough to send bolts of pain shooting through his skull. The dehydration certainly wasn’t helping. Whatever Tanith was doing to him was killing him, slowly but ever so surely.
A gentle hand traced the planes of his face as his sister’s voice murmured soothing nonsense in Drakhar. When Caius failed to open his eyes, the touch went from soft to sharp. Fingers clutched his jaw as Tanith jerked his head to one side.
“I said, ‘Wake up, Brother.’ ” Tanith’s voice was unrecognizable. She’d never spoken in the high-pitched lilt favored by some of the ladies at court, but then, she’d never been much of a lady either. Tanith’s speech had always been sharp and deadly; now Caius could hear something insidious laced through it that wasn’t Tanith. The kuçedra—housed in Tanith’s body after she’d bound herself to it—had poisoned her so thoroughly that its stain could be heard in her clipped vowels and her harsh, grating consonants.
Caius’s eyes blinked open. The room was illuminated by a single candle on the small table beside his bed, but even that meager light sliced through his head with the ferocity of a blow from an ax.
“Go away,” he mumbled, his voice as rough as gravel.
“Now, now. No need to be impolite.” Tanith dabbed at his face with the cool washcloth.
He hated how soothing it felt. He wanted to smack the cloth from her hand, but his arm managed only to twitch about on the sheets. Rebellion of the physical sort was beyond him. He would have to make do with words. “Leave me to my nightmares. They’re far better company.”
The washcloth retreated. Tanith peered at him with her horrible, blackened eyes. There was hardly any red left to the irises. The kuçedra was colonizing her body, inch by condemned inch. “Must you be so disagreeable?”
“You kidnapped me. You stole my magic. You had me beaten.”
“Yes, but the pain was only to make you more pliant. You fought me when I tried to borrow your power. It would have been much easier for you to bear if you had not resisted.”
This was not his sister. Caius pushed himself to sitting, despite the intense wave of nausea that passed through him with every pained movement. His body was a litany of complaints.
“And why did you need my magic?” Caius had little hope of receiving an honest answer from the thing that was not his sister, but he had to ask. “What was that seal? And why did you break it?”
Tanith tsked and dabbed at the fresh beads of sweat on his forehead with a tenderness at odds with her steely gaze. “One would think that with as many books as that ostentatious library of yours has, you would hardly need me to explain such things to you.”
“Indulge me.”
“It is as I said,” Tanith began. “In order for a new world to begin, the old must first make way.”
“What new world?” Caius pressed.
“Ours.” There was a gleam in Tanith’s eyes that spoke of chaos. “Do you wish to live in a world where we are beholden to the whims of an inferior species? Where humanity dictates the terms and conditions of our existence? Where we live in fear of discovery, of extermination?”
There was logic in her words, and that was precisely what made them so insidious. “No,” Caius said, “but I have a sneaking suspicion your noble intentions will come to a bitter, bloody end.”
“Nothing worth doing is ever easy.” His sister placed the washcloth on the bedside table and plucked at a loose thread on the sleeve of her gown. The old Tanith—the real Tanith—would never have tolerated such slovenliness. But this new being, this entity wearing her skin, appeared to have greater and more terrible concerns. “The seals are a stopgap. A dam. They are the lock that holds back that which lies beyond.”
“The in-between,” Caius said. The sickly feeling that had washed over him when the seal had ruptured returned, with friends in tow: Fear. The first inkling of panic.
Tanith nodded. “Yes, the in-between. For so long, we’ve viewed it as a passive force, a river to be crossed. But it can be so much more than that. It is so much more than that.”
Caius shook his head, aligh
t with the bright and vicious spark of disbelief. “You intend to weaponize the in-between?” To attempt that was insanity. It was insanity to even consider such an attempt, as breaking the barrier between worlds would result in nothing but destruction. “Do you hear yourself when you talk? Or does that beast you bound yourself to control your mouth with a hand up your ass like a puppet?”
A fist cracked across Caius’s face. He fell back against the headboard. The pain was nothing compared to how satisfying it had felt saying that. He smiled, wincing at the pull on the fresh cut on his lip. “Touched a nerve, did I?”
Flames crackled around Tanith’s fist. Something dark slid behind her eyes, blotting out the remaining sliver of crimson. The fire in her hand turned black, and then it was gone.
“You provoke me. Why?”
He shrugged one shoulder. Shrugging both would have been too painful. “Boredom.”
A blond eyebrow arched. For a moment, his sister looked like herself again. “Would you be better behaved if I sent up a book?”
“Do you think my compliance is that easy to buy?” Caius asked.
