Dragoon (War of the Princes Book 2)

by A. R. Ivanovich

  I led the way to the records room. I'd never been there before, but that didn't matter. Rune was waiting just outside of the appropriately labeled wooden doors. The liver chestnut slabs of wood looked out of place in a construct so fond of stone and metal. Rune's black leather armor was immaculately cleaned, showcasing the blood red decorative details stained into the material. A pair of swords hung from his hip.

  Rune looked the group over, his intense blue eyes narrowing at the sight of unfamiliar faces. He focused back on me like he was waiting for a signal that all was as it should be.

  “Rune, these are my friends, Kyle and Sterling,” I said, gesturing to them with a flimsy smile. The introduction was bizarre. Kyle had been my friend since we were six. Like opposing magnets, the meeting was like a collision of two things that couldn't possibly come together. My two lives were connecting, and it didn't feel natural.

  I'd had daydreams of the moment I'd introduce Rune to my best friends. It was a happy fantasy. Now that it was really happening, I couldn't shake the visions of my nightmare. Connecting any part of Haven and the Outside World never went well in my subconscious.

  Luckily, nothing exploded.

  Instead of, “Hello,” and, “Nice to meet you,” the guys responded to each other in a series of grunts and head bobs. It was all very serious and manly.

  “Hey,” Kyle added in a slightly lower voice than was natural. I thought he was trying too hard to seem appropriately macho.

  “I tampered with the duty roster last night. We should have a little more time,” Rune said to me. “Lead the way.”

  I understood why he'd suggested meeting at that location. It was a sort of central meeting of halls, doors and side-passages.

  Paperglass To Be.

  A force, entirely invisible to me, guided me down a corridor with a grey brick entryway. Rune fell in step beside me, and just seeing the bulk of him in my peripheral vision added the sharp tang of a thrill through my adrenaline-filled body.

  I glanced up at him while we walked. He didn't so much as look at me.

  Rune was as strange to me as the tides. Some moments he would come rushing toward me, not with words or gestures, but with something intangible that I could sense. The next moment, he'd be drawn away, unreachable. I couldn't predict him. He was right beside me in the corridors, yet as distant as Haven.

  You're not a sword. You're a person. What happened to you?

  The Pull took us immediately below ground. Three identical stairwells had greeted us with black open mouths, like a trio of twisting snakes, ready to swallow us whole. The middle one lured me onward, brass gas lamps lighting our way. The lack of electricity bothered me.

  The moment I could no longer turn around and see the entry to the stairs, a thick kind of fear pressed down on me. It was primal, inarguable, unavoidable. My heart beat like the wings of a small bird, faster than one could count. I concentrated on taking one step at a time, with my right hand on the gritty, pocked stone banister. After such extended repetition, I was afraid I'd skip a step, trip, and take a nosedive to my doom.

  Though they were progressing carefully and quietly, Sterling, and Kyle passed me on the stairs. I knew they'd wait at the bottom, but hurrying to catch up with them was making me feel infinitely worse.

  One step. One step. One step.

  “Are you alright?” Rune asked quietly, slowing down to wait for me.

  “Do these stairs go on forever?” I whispered, feeling hot and cold. Kyle and Sterling were nearby, but I couldn't see them anymore. Would the closeness of the place crush them the way it was crushing me?

  “It's only one flight,” he said, clearly concerned. Why shouldn't he be? I looked completely crazy. “We're nearly to the bottom.”

  The stairs leveled out for two strides, and curving, plunged deeper. “It' so narrow,” I complained, feeling a bout of vertigo.

  “Take a moment,” he said, holding out a hand to my shoulder to stop me. “Have a breath.”

  Leaning my back on the banister and the wall, I did as he asked.

  Rune placed a single hand to the wall and the lapping fires of the torches sputtered to their lowest flame. There was less chance of us being noticed in the near dark. The ground floor passage remained quiet. So far, Rune had been right about the patrols. They were missing altogether.

  “Try to think of a place where you cannot be reached by anything destructive,” he suggested. “Put the discomfort out of your mind.”

  Closing my eyes, I breathed in and imagined I was out in the open air of Haven Valley, sitting beside the Wendy River with Ruby and Kyle. Thinking of a safe place helped clear my phobia, but only long enough for the stresses of my responsibilities to settle in and choke me. I blinked my eyes open.

  “Can I imagine you there with me?” I asked, more serious than wistful.

  “Not me,” he told me. “But maybe Rocco Thatcher.”

  A grin curved my lips and giddiness bubbled up in me. I felt myself washed in warmth. The pressure of everything was really getting to me.

  When he was sure I was steady, Rune led me the rest of the way down the stairs. I felt stupid for having such an annoying problem and I wondered if he'd lost any respect for me.

  We found Kyle and Sterling flattened on either side of the stairwell, both frantically motioning to us to be quiet and hide.

  Trouble had found us. Or was it the other way around?

  C hapter 36: An Army of Friends

  Outside was a wide room, broken up by short square pillars and a low ceiling. We didn't need to suppress the lights here; the place was already dim and dank. There was a drain in the center of the room, with dark streaks trailing into it. From where I stood, it was impossible to tell whether it was grime or blood. The smell of the place was putrid.

  Worse than the room was the company. A group of four Dragoons stood in the entrance directly across from us. We'd be discovered in moments. I slipped behind Kyle, leaning against the wall as closely as I could.

  Rune gestured for us to wait. He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin and strode directly inside. The eyes of the other soldiers were on him at once. I wanted to stop him. Could he really fight so many? The Pull and the Spark competed within me. I couldn't concentrate on both of them at once. I felt the line pulling me toward my mother, into the room, but my control of electricity had become an instinctive defense mechanism. The tug of war between Abilities was distracting. If Rune needed my help, I had to focus.

  To our surprise, the other soldiers stood at attention upon seeing him. At twenty, he was younger than a few of them, but that didn't alter their level of respect for him. “You're late in your rotation,” he said to them. There was a cutting edge to his voice.

  “We haven't been relieved yet,” one of them said to him.

  “You're relieved now,” Rune said.

  “By who?” another asked. “The next shift isn't here yet.”

  “By me,” Rune said, giving him a threatening look. “It's my responsibility today to make sure this rotation happens on time. I'll deal with the tardiness of the other group when they get here, now move, before I report you to your Commander.”

  “Yes, Cormorant,” the soldiers echoed, and I could hear their marching footsteps growing rhythmically faint. We would have been in a lot of trouble if they'd left by the stairs we were hiding on. Every moment was a gamble. I exhaled, letting the tightness out of my chest.

  Rune stood across the room, waiting until they were gone. It wasn't over. One pair of footsteps returned.

  “Permission to speak freely sir?” There was a hard edge to the man's voice.

  “Granted,” Rune said tentatively.

  The tightness returned to strangle the life out of my chest. I wanted to throw up.

  “I don't like this, sir. You shouldn't be relieving us. If they want to rotate, that's fine, but I'd prefer not to be relieved until our replacements have arrived. I'd rather stay at post. Sir.”

  How would he handle this one? I couldn
't see any graceful way to do it.

  Sterling rose to his feet and strode out of the stairwell into full view of the other Dragoon.

  Rune was shaken. “No!”

  “What the hell is this?” the other Dragoon barked.

  I peered out from behind the wall to see Sterling walking toward the soldier with his arms held out in surrender. “You've got me,” he said. “I was trying to escape, but I didn't make it. Fair's fair.”

  Rune was tense. I could see the indecision on his face.

  “You wouldn't happen to know this man, would you, Cormorant?” the Dragoon asked, not bothering to disguise his suspicion. The soldier clapped his hand on Sterling's arm, and wrenched it behind him. Then he abruptly let go. The Dragoon let his arms drop to his sides and blinked, over and over. Dumbfounded, he looked over his shoulder, and then spun in a circle like he suddenly had no idea where he was.

  The man turned to Rune and pointed vaguely. He opened his mouth to say something, and stopped himself two or three times before getting any actual words out. “Do you...? Should I be...? Is this...?”

  Sterling had the Ability to make people forget. He'd done it!

  Rune's expression was hilarious. His head was tilted slightly to the side, his eyebrows were pulled up in the middle and he had the most profound frown of perturbation. I cupped a hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing out loud. He had no idea what Sterling's Abilities were. He probably thought the man had very suddenly gone insane.

  Sterling shook the arm that had been twisted and rolled his shoulder back, the way athletes tend to do. He grinned comfortably at the Dragoon, who was a deadly adversary only a moment ago, and brought a hand down on his shoulder in a companionable sort of way.

  “That way,” Sterling told him, pointing to the exit where the other Dragoons had gone.

  The man blinked at him with all the expression of a block of wood.

  Sterling patted his shoulder. “It'll all come back, well, not all of it. Most of it will come back. Go. That way.”

  The Dragoon grinned. “She made the best steak,” he said, dreamily, and wandered out the way the other Dragoons had gone.

  Rune looked at Sterling in disbelief. “Was that you?”

  “Yeah,” Sterling nodded, while the rest of us filtered out of hiding. “I can make people forget. Or remember. It's easier if I know something about them, but I just made him think about his favorite memory. Helps to distract them and get them moving again.”

  “I've never seen that one before,” Rune said approvingly. “Nicely done.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That worked,” I said, impressed. There was no time to marvel. Delving within, I pushed the Spark aside to focus on the Pull.

  Paperglass To Be.

  I took a step out into the dingy room, feeling as though I'd crossed some invisible and malignant border. The lightness of the moment dissolved.

  “That was intense,” Kyle said. I'd never seen him so nervous. He was walking gingerly, like he expected the floor to eat him. “Good accidental collaboration. I think I just figured out why I thought I was blacking out after math class in eighth grade. If you really wanted to copy my homework you could have asked.”

  Sterling shrugged at Kyle. “I did.”

  “Wow,” was all Kyle would say to that. On a regular day, he probably would have bantered on for a while, but he was far too busy looking paranoid.

  “What's a cormorant?” Sterling asked Rune.

  “It's my rank. I lead a squadron. A team of Dragoons.”

  “Oh.”

  I was probably more interested in the answer than Sterling was.

  Cautiously I led the group within. I had no doubt that this room was a prison. Great doors surrounded us. Some were solid wood, others black iron, and some even stone. Each held a massive clockwork lock, recessed into one side. This was where they'd hold people with Abilities. A regular door could not keep in a person who mastered the control of wood or metal.

  “It's also a water bird. Fishermen use them, the cormorants. A band is fastened around their throat so that they can catch fish and not swallow them. Some believe that's why the Prince created the title. We are effective at catching or destroying our enemies, but are not yet allowed to swallow them.”

  “Drain them, you mean,” I clarified.

  Rune was one footstep behind me. “Yes.”

  I sighed, looking between the doors of the dismal room. Before Rune had been taken, he used to go fishing with his father. He'd been terrible at it, or so his little sister, Lina, had told me. I wondered if he identified with the fisher bird now. “Let me guess, the next rank above yours is Commander?”

  “It is.”

  Of course. “Great.”

  “Would you look at these doors? They're all different,” Kyle marveled, bringing up the rear of our group. He had gone ashen. His owl eyes were unblinking as he haphazardly spun in a circle and walked backwards to get a full view of the place. His voice came low, and more serious than I thought I'd ever heard. “People die in here.”

  His words gave the horrible odor of the room new definition. I gagged.

  Uncertain whether I'd pass straight through the chamber and on to some other network of tunnels, I came to a dead halt. An invisible rope dragged at me. One of the Flying Fish's heavy mooring lines may as well have been tied around my middle, pulled taut.

  Could this really be it? Holding my breath, I slowly turned to my right and found myself facing a sinister iron door, bleeding rust from its thick bolts.

  Paperglass.

  I took a step toward it.

  Paperglass.

  Another step.

  Paperglass!

  I was face to face with the weeping door. A rectangle of a thousand evenly spaced pinholes was the closest thing to a window that the door was equipped with. I couldn't see in, but the Pull nudged me forward until my boots had no more room and my body was pressed up against the gritty iron. There was no doubt in my mind. My mother was in there.

  C hapter 37: My Mother

  “She's here!” I was clawing uselessly at the door, my nails dragging through the rust and grime that caked its surface. “Rune, she's here!” Tiptoeing, I tried to peer into the tiny uniform holes. No light seeped through them. They were too small anyway. My eyes couldn't focus tightly enough to see inside. “Mama, I'm here. I'm getting you out.”

  A daze settled over me as I heard my own words, desperate for reassurance. I was a girl of six again, reaching up to fold my arms around her neck and fish through her raven curls for the dangly earrings that she would wear. She'd never hold me like that for long, but when she did, I was content. How had that slipped away from me?

  There was no way in. No doorknob, no handle, just an inlaid lock mechanism the size of a dinner plate. The circles of gears and joints, all connected for a single function, were of no use to me. I had no key. The Pull did me no more good. I couldn't walk through walls. The Spark was of no use either. Electricity could be carried through metal, but couldn’t destroy it.

  What was the point in getting all the way here if I couldn't reach her?

  Rune was my only option. “Can you melt it?”

  He frowned. “This door could be up to three inches of solid iron. I could make a small hole but it'd take hours to cool and I might be too fatigued to move.”

  “Can't we do anything to open it?” I asked, frantic.

  “Of course we can,” Kyle said, pushing past Sterling and Rune. Reaching into his coat, he fished something out of one of the inner pockets. It was a thin, sealed case, battered by scratches and wear. I'd seen it a thousand times before. It was his portable tool kit.

  Snapping it open, Kyle plucked out a pair of long, thin, steel spikes with pinhead points and flat handles. He gently pushed me away from the lock with one arm, and crouched down to get a good look at it.

  Kyle's lean, nimble fingers went to work on the mechanism, each hand deftly wielding a pointy tool. He lowered his ear to the thi
ng, poking and prodding at the holes in the lock while watching his work with one eye.

  A long, slow breath escaped between his lips. I was nearly shaking. More Dragoons could arrive at any moment. If we were caught trespassing now, there'd be no arguing our way out of it. We'd all be killed. Each and every one of us.

  So close.

  I wondered if he could manage it at all, and what else I could do to get it open, when a resounding click reverberated through the iron door. It was a heavy sound, deep and satisfying.

  “I guess it was a good thing I came along after all.” Kyle got up off of his knees and made room for me.

  Sterling gave him a long look and Kyle shoved his hands in his pockets, unable to maintain eye contact.

  “Thank you,” I thought I said, but I wasn't quite sure if I'd made a sound.

  My breath came fast and shallow, almost the way it had when I felt like the walls were closing in on me. This was different. There was no time to waste on reflection.

  I pressed the heel of my boot firmly onto the flagstone and shouldered the door, forcing its heavy bulk open. The hinges made three cracking noises. Above me, Rune, Kyle and Sterling each had a hand on the door, helping me press it open.

  The only light in the cell came from the poorly lit room behind us. It reeked of the round and sour stench of sweat and human waste. There were rusty buckets filled to the brim with thick liquids I didn't want to identify, and in the middle of them were rags, piled in the shape of a human body.

  I flew into the room without regard for my cleanliness, and dropped to my knees beside the shape. The Pull led me straight to her. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I'd been angry with her for so many years, but all this time I'd been just like her; always running away, always preoccupied with something outside of my home. I was ready to allow her to explain herself, to give me a reason to forgive her.