Dragoon (War of the Princes Book 2)

by A. R. Ivanovich

  “Stop them!” Hest screamed.

  Water touched the feet of the Dragoons nearest me. No one saw it or cared. It seeped out farther, reaching the Cormorant flag bearers, and soaking the soles of Margrave Hest's clawed feet. In a few seconds it would reach Rune and the other Dragoon.

  I dropped to the ground, flattening my palm into the puddle. Feeling the storm that surrounded Cape Hill, I turned inward and called up my own maelstrom. It had been waiting there for me, the storm, building up for every tear I hadn't shed, for every bit of anger I hadn't screamed out. Some of the Dragoons out there could have been Rune's other allies. I thought of Calvin Cale, and Stakes, and I tempered the level of my strength, before letting it strike out from my palm. The water carried my electric current and met my targets, leaping into their ankles with a loud crack. Some of them cried out, some were quiet, but nearly forty Dragoons were knocked from their feet, collapsing rigid to the ground.

  Hest remained upright, shouting an alert to the remaining Dragoons. They lowered their weapons at Rune and Dark-eyes. The Margrave followed the track of the water to the wagon I was hiding behind.

  Slinking backwards to remain out of sight, I nearly slid in the slickness of the pooling water. Turning to flee for safer ground, I ran into a tall, oily black form, and stared directly up into the round white eyes of the Voice of the Prince.

  C hapter 45: The Prince of Shadows

  The bright colors of the morning light buckled and folded behind him, until they were so deep, so vivid, they were near blackness. The change was alien, wrong. The Voice's flat white eyes grew wider and wider. His body smoldered with shadowy flames, lashing away from him in sharp bursts, building his mass until he was larger than my range of vision. His eyes were always level with mine, staring. Then he burst, peeling in half, and swirled around me like a vortex.

  I was looking down a long tunnel. It led far away. I could feel the space. I lost my breath like I'd run a thousand miles and I might suffer a heart attack. The wind in this tunnel was roaring, hurting my ears. Shifting, turning, the walls spun like smoke around the shape of a man.

  I could see his shoulders, his face, like he was beside me. The blue light was too strong. He was more of a silhouette. But he was a regular man, wasn't he? His shape seemed normal enough, and that in itself gave me reason to distrust what I saw.

  His eyes pierced me like daggers. They glinted silver. Not like the slightly metallic grey of my irises, no, his eyes were solid. No white, no black, just liquid... like molten metal. He shifted his body, like he was interested in what he was looking at, and the coursing noise of the wind vanished to hollow, startling silence.

  His presence was as vast and consuming as a merciless, raging ocean.

  “You.” His voice was smooth, strong, and horrifyingly attractive. It was not young or old. It was powerful. The word trailed off in a deep and gravely echo that reminded me very clearly what he was. “You,” he said again with more familiarity, looking through me. “A Lodestone. Here. And not one of the others. You're a troublemaker. I can see by the way you're looking at me. That jaw, those eyes... you're sad, and very angry. Why aren't you afraid?”

  “Bite me!” I snapped, and lit my face up with a thousand volts of lightning.

  The silhouette of the Prince looked stunned, squinting. The roaring of the wind returned, violently swirling between us until he disappeared. Everything went black as the Voice stretched and snapped back into his natural form. I squeezed my eyes shut and tore myself away from him before I could fall into his gaze again.

  My ears were ringing, and my face was still hot from the flash of intense light I'd produced. My skin prickled against the cold breeze. There was shouting around me.

  Rune.

  I scrambled to get away from the Voice.

  “Stop!” Hest Commanded, and I was helpless to deny the order. I stood straight up in a full body chokehold. Even my chest had gone tight, and I panted frantically, unable to take full, deep breaths. My eyes and mouth were the only things that remained under my control.

  In my line of sight, I could see that Rune's ally was dead. He was face down, with two swords in his back. The Dragoons weren't in an orderly formation anymore. Some of them were still on the ground, but they were beginning to move, the others clustered around Rune and Hest, weapons lowered.

  “Historian!” Hest roared, stalking toward me in a broken stride. One of her legs was longer than the other. She ripped the partial helm from her eyes and flung it down behind her. “What is this?”

  The Voice crawled out of a shadow in the corner of my vision, black trails sticking to him like rubber bands. “Lodestone!” he shouted in his oily voice. “She's a Lodestone!”

  Hest looked between the Voice and me.

  “Why Kestrel, you cunning deceiver,” Hest said, gritting her teeth and flashing a viciously sweet grin. “For a while I had my doubts, but now I know it. You and I really are alike.”

  To my surprise, she released me. I loosened my shoulders, and looked at her with suspicion.

  Hest opened her arms wide. “Well, go ahead! Run! Attack. Show me how you'd like to spend your last moments.”

  I stared her in the face, and walked right by. She watched after me and began to laugh.

  “You really have some attitude,” Hest mused. “I'll give you that.”

  Not breaking my stride for anything, I walked past the Dragoons on the ground who were stirring. I walked past the others, who held their swords at the ready. I walked directly to Rune, feeling a blushing heat rise to my cheeks. A smile crept to my lips.

  Rune was going to die. He'd been right about that part. But he thought he'd die a Dragoon, cut away from his life, abandoned, forsaken to cold loneliness. That was where he was wrong. He would know that he was loved beyond reason. It was something he never had before. He had me. We would die together.

  He looked sad, afraid for me at first, but when he saw me smiling, he grinned in kind.

  I walked directly up to Rune Thayer, the Cormorant Dragoon, wrapped my arms around him and drove my lips to his for a deep and passionate kiss.

  So soft. I could feel his lips, his tongue, his breath. Rune's arms squeezed me into his strong embrace, a hand winding into my hair.

  The gasps around us were audible. We'd crossed the line of an immense taboo. To love a Dragoon was punishable by death.

  The combination of my adoration for him, the pain we'd both suffered, and the danger we faced, made the moment transcendent. We were standing in the solemn elegance of the secret room again, we were in the dark of a scorched field, we were in a dilapidated greenhouse tower, and I belonged. Part of me was Haven, part of me was what I'd suffered, but all of me belonged with him.

  That kiss was beyond compare.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered into his cheek.

  He pushed me away a little with his nose, so that our eyes could meet. “You've got to be joking,” he said, the threat of tears glossing and reddening his smiling eyes. “This is the greatest moment of my life.”

  A laugh bubbled out of me and I sniffled, forcing myself to pull away.

  My body was afire, battling away the cold of the morning. When I turned back to Hest, I gave her a predatory look of my own, daring her to try and take him from me.

  “Well, well,” she said, not skipping a beat. “That was unexpected, and quite scandalous, I might add. You've added a death sentence to his death sentence, little sister, but you... you're special-”

  I was finished listening to her condescend. Raising my right hand, I produced a bolt of electricity that flashed out like the leafless branch of a tree, extending my reach, and I brought it down on her. The diagonal impact of the bolt struck her down to one knee.

  A barrier of blue flames rose up behind us, blocking the other Dragoons. Already, some with fire Abilities were pushing the blaze away. The Voice vanished back into the shadows. There was no time to wonder. We sprinted for the portcullis gate.

  It'd already begun slidi
ng downwards, but we threw ourselves beneath, seconds before it closed.

  “Stop them!” I heard Hest shrieking. She must not have been able to Command us from such a distance. “Stop them!”

  The gate burst open, curling away to allow the other Dragoons to pursue us.

  We'd barely made it to the middle of the road. I held Rune's hand, squeezing it. Citizens of Cape Hill walking down the street, riding bicycles, and driving carriages, scrambled away to avoid us. Some even abandoned their automobiles to escape our general vicinity. There were shouts of alarm. These people had seen war all their lives. They knew tragedy, but they'd never seen this, an armor-clad Dragoon fleeing hand in hand with a girl.

  Forty Dragoons, mounted atop their shadow horses, surged from the broken portcullis. Leading them was Margrave Hest. A wicked spear of white bone was a bright contrast to her dark visage. Her face was twisted in a murderous scowl. Straight black hair whipped behind her like a cloak. The three unnaturally long heads of her mount pulled and thrashed against its reins. She charged us, riding the Voice's warhorse.

  Just like in my dream.

  C hapter 46: Cold Wind, Red Ground

  Rune brandished his swords and stepped protectively in front of me. In a moment, they would be upon us. How could we fend off forty Dragoons and a Margrave? Using Abilities was the same as physical exertion. When a person became too tired, their Abilities would abandon them as quickly as their strength. Rune was tired. He may have already been embroiled in a fight for his life, leading up to his capture. His chest heaved with each and every breath, but he stood ready.

  Hooves pounded down onto the street, and thunder rumbled in the sky. A heavy cloud rolled in overhead, blocking out the sun. The broad lane surrendered to shadow, and the Voice erupted up from the ground ahead of us, twisted and stooped, lashed down with ribbons of shadow like a giant spider.

  Suddenly the Dragoons, warhorses, and Margrave shot up thirty feet in the air. They hung there, shouting. Some of the horses squealed in fear, while others worked their legs as though they were still attempting to run.

  We stared up at them, harmless as toys, and my breath caught in my throat.

  I knew what this was. “Dylan...”

  The weird, picturesque scene before us ended violently. Their weightlessness vanished, the Dragoons didn't fall to the ground, they were slammed down. The warhorses burst into pools of darkness that seeped into the ground upon impact, even the monstrosity with three heads, but the Dragoons had no secret realm to cushion their fall. They hit the ground hard. The cracking sound was unmistakable.

  Unconscious, broken, dead, in one great motion they were all immobilized.

  He walked up from behind us, my pistol in his hand. His long, blonde hair had broken free from the tie he'd pulled it back in, brushing against the high collar of his navy blue coat. Hazel eyes were narrowed, focused.

  “Dragoon,” the Voice Commanded, swooping around my other side. “Cut her legs so she cannot walk.”

  I looked from Dylan to Rune, horror stretching across my face.

  Rune screamed, “No!” and unable to stop himself, brought one of his blades down across the back of my calf. The slash of agony was white-hot and immediate. Blood sprayed out from my leg and I cried out, crumbling to the ground. It felt as though my leg was gone. I squeezed my eyes shut and cried, pressing my hands against the wound. If I let go, would my leg fall apart?

  Thunder roared directly above us, sending a tremor though the air strong enough to rattle the glass windows of the carriages, automobiles and buildings. A tendril of white lightning snapped through the black cloud above us.

  “I'm sorry,” Rune babbled. “I'm sorry.”

  I pried my eyelids apart, too afraid to look at the damage to my leg, and stared up at him. I sucked in my bottom lip as I gasped for breath, tears of pain streaking my cheeks. I was shaking. The torment I saw on his face numbed some of my pain. He was going to cut me again. He didn't want to.

  “Again,” the Voice Commanded.

  “It's... n-not,” I struggled to say, staring up into his blue eyes, “...not your f-fault.”

  Rune raised his right sword arm, aiming for my good leg. His face trembled, his jaw locked, and he pinched his eyes closed, roaring in useless rebellion.

  Dylan took a single step forward, leveled my pistol, and fired.

  The bullet meant to suppress Abilities struck the Voice of the Prince dead in the chest. His circular white eyes snapped up while his long fingers groped his pitch-dark ribcage. The sound he made was deafening. The Voice screamed, his head flinging backward, mouth tearing open until it severed the top of his oily black head from the bottom. His back arched until it folded backward on itself, and he twisted to the ground, flattening, until he was nothing more than a fraction of the storm cloud's charcoal cast.

  It had destroyed him. If I wasn't in so much pain, I would have laughed and cheered for such a thorough victory.

  Rune was freed of the hold on him as soon as the Voice disappeared. The pair of swords he'd held clattered to the ground. His face went cold, distant.

  “You should have let me die.” His eyes were unfocused, looking past me, through me.

  “Never,” I whispered.

  “Let go,” he told me, crouching at my side. “It's okay, let go.”

  I pulled myself up to sit straighter and reluctantly slipped my red hands off of the back of my left leg. Blood poured between the gaping four-inch gash that parted my flesh and muscle, dripping onto the street. I looked at the wound on my leg, seeing, in some manner, the nameless soldier who had been shot beside me on the battlefield.

  “This is going to hurt,” he told me with the curt efficiency of a soldier and a stranger. “But it will stop the bleeding.”

  I nodded, attempting to prepare myself for the pain.

  I wasn't ready. Rune pressed the open flesh together with his hands. They began to ripple with heat, and I could feel myself burning. I screamed and nearly fainted. The laceration had been sealed, but that did nothing for my disconnected muscles. The pain was incredible. I steeled myself, remembering a time when my life force had nearly been ripped from my body.

  Hands shaking, I unfastened the top few buttons of my shirt and touched the circle of tooth-like scars in the center of my chest, just below my collarbones. I felt the little smooth bumps under my fingers. The memory frightened some of my pain away. Nothing could be worse than that feeling.

  Rune grabbed on to the end of my scarf, and used the clean sword he'd dropped on the ground to cut free a long strip of it.

  “No, not that,” I whimpered, but it was too late.

  Taking the knit orange material in his hands, he wrapped it around my calf and tied it firmly in a knot. Crimson seeped through the scarf, turning it red as a sunset.

  I coiled the remaining length of the scarf closer around my neck, not caring that I'd left streaks of blood in it.

  I heard the metallic snap of a gun being cocked, and before I had the wits about me to look where it was pointing, a shot was fired. There was a sickly thudding sound as the gel bullet met flesh.

  Rune grunted and fell forward, nearly atop me.

  Dylan had shot him in the back.

  He admired the pistol with self-satisfaction and looked down at us. “You’re welcome.”

  C hapter 47: Wild Lightning

  “Dylan!” I raged at him.

  Rune coughed, and pushed himself back onto his feet. “It's alright. I'm alright.”

  “Don't worry,” Dylan said in a mocking tone. “I'm sure all of that leather slowed the bullet. It probably only just barely broke the skin.” I'd told him something similar when I'd shot him in the side.

  Rune opened his hands and closed them, staring. Small blue flames ignited his fingertips, and gradually declined, until the fire vanished altogether. “It's gone.” He looked at me, and almost smiled. “I guess I won that bet.”

  I struggled, trying to get to my feet. “That's n-not funny.” Rune helped m
e up. I couldn't put the least bit of pressure on my bad leg without nearly buckling over in agony. Hissing, I hopped to steady myself on my right leg.

  Dylan grinned, strutting as though he was on top of the world. “Any minute now,” he said, all too pleased with himself.

  A screeching roaring sound was coming up the road. I could hear screams, and the crashing of heavy objects. A riderless horse barreled down the street, eyes wild with terror. It was like a giant beast was charging up through the city and heading straight for us.

  Dylan turned his back to us, flicked open a pocket watch and tapped it impatiently.

  The sky rumbled and flashed dimly against the daylight, the weather systems continuing to build.

  I saw a torrent of wind churn out from the wide lane across the street. It was turning and tossing pieces of debris. A vibration joined the sounds of wreckage and wind. A pair of abandoned automobiles sitting at the intersection teetered, groaned and were pushed with such intense force that they flipped and rolled down the street.

  I pressed against Rune to steady myself as the blast of the wind hit us.

  The windows of the nearby shops and establishments quivered and burst inward, and a bolt of sunlight, lancing free from the cloud front, lit up a familiar frame of patchwork copper.

  The Flying Fish soared over the street, wreaking havoc on the buildings. The wind tore at us so hard, I had to hold up an arm to shield my eyes. Even Dylan's sense of showmanship was blustered away.

  The hover ship slowed and turned. The sound of its engines and whirling turbines became deeper, slower. Steam pouring out of the hind chimneys went from billowing clouds to seeping wisps. The ship settled down on the ground with a creak and a crunch that promised some damage.