by Mary Auclair
As soon as his feet touched the ground, Aldric pulled his long sword out of its scabbard, the blade shining with a deceptive softness, its sharp edges capable of slicing through bone as easily as through ripe fruit. At his side, Dalgo did the same, his own Draekon blade held high in an easy, well-trained stance—the stance of a man who spent more hours training than most men did walking during an entire lifetime.
As soon as they landed, a group of three Delradon man came forward, walking out of the cover of the trees. They shot long, fearful glances at Rhyl, and a few at Myral, but the dragons ignored them, entranced with each other as usual.
The beasts loved nothing more than to bask in each other’s company after a long flight, and their happiness was increased after Myral’s long injury. The female dragon had injured her wing on a dangerous border, chasing human rebels. She had been unable to fly for almost a month, and her naturally explosive temper set Rhyl on edge all that time. Now that they had the opportunity to fly together, the dragons obviously relished the renewed bond.
Aldric stared at the easy trust, the full commitment to each other that linked the two beasts. They shared a complete devotion to one other, a deep enjoyment of each other’s presence that made his guts twist every time—every time since the day he first laid eyes on Endora Papineau. Now, at last, he knew why.
Rhyl rubbed his muzzle against Myral’s coal black scales, and the female dragon purred in low pleasure.
Will Endora purr like that when I touch her? Arch her back and beg for more?
With a supreme effort, Aldric shook the thoughts of Endora away. His people needed their Lord, and they deserved his full attention.
“My Lord.” The first settler, a man in his late forties with large shoulders and a worn face, stepped in front of his companions and dropped to his knees. The others followed suit immediately. “My name is Enril. I’m the mayor of Yrno.”
“Rise, all of you,” Aldric told the men, sliding his Draekon blade back into the dark sheath of its scabbard. Slowly, they rose to their feet, but their eyes remained stubbornly cast down. Only Enril lifted his gaze to him, and his dark, burnt orange eyes were full of fear. “Lead us to your village and tell us what happened.”
Enril nodded, then politely waited for Aldric and Dalgo to walk past them before he followed. On the way, Enril told a familiar tale. Men came under the cover of the night, woke up the sleeping villagers, and gathered them in the village square. Then they hauled away the villagers’ most prized possessions, the few items of jewelry inherited from a grandmother, the silver or gold-rimmed plates gifted for a Mating ceremony. As cowardly and hateful as the thieving was, it wasn’t what had motivated Dalgo to drag Aldric all the way to this village. After the most precious possessions were collected and loaded into a standard, long-distance transport, the village’s entire grain harvest, stocked in the massive stone barn, had been burned. Then, the raiders had slaughtered every cattle, pig and chicken, and destroyed the village’s communication tower.
By leaving them without food and communication, they had all but guaranteed the death of every man, woman and child in the village.
The only thing that had saved that remote village was the quick reaction of a child who had run to the communication tower and launched an emergency signal before it was destroyed.
It was the first time human rebels had raided the food reserves of any village they attacked. Whatever the scraggly group of humans was, they were not killers. Not even once had they harmed a citizen. This was the reason why the rebels were still alive, why Aldric hadn’t hunted them down to the very last one. This changed everything.
Finally, they arrived at the village. The settlers were all gathered in the small, battered dirt patch that made up the village square, anxious to see their Lord. Anxious to hear him say he wouldn’t let them all starve to death.
“Villagers.” Dalgo’s voice reached the far corners of the square, over the wind and the noise from the forest. “I am Captain Dalgo of the Darragon special guards. Pay attention to your Lord.”
All eyes settled on Aldric. All those deep, worried eyes, full of fear and brimming with blind trust in their Lord. In him. He wouldn’t disappoint them today.
“Do not fear. I am here to hear you, and to assure you we will not allow harm to befall any of you. Your flocks and harvest will be replaced from my own treasury, as well as the communication tower.”
A great wind of relieved whispers traveled down the assembled people. Hesitant smiles spread on women’s faces and children slipped out of their mothers’ grasp and started to run back to their games. They could begin their lives anew, continue their work without fear. He had done what he came to do.
Aldric watched as Dalgo stepped into the crowd, giving reassuring words to the people, as much at ease with them as he was with a sword. Aldric remained behind, noting absently that no villager stepped close to him. Some shot a nervous glance his way, but no one came, no one smiled. He didn’t mind. He was used to their fear. It didn’t matter. His fate was to protect his people, not to be loved by them.
A few more moments passed, then Aldric gave a sharp nod. It was time to go.
“My Lord.” The mayor, Enril, walked up to him. His strong face was twisted with fear but he kept talking. “There is one more thing I thought you should know.”
“Speak.” Aldric stared at him. “Do not fear.”
“Not here, my Lord.” Enril held his stare, but his mouth moved with an involuntary tick. “This is a matter best spoken about in private.”
Aldric was too startled to answer, and when the man turned and walked away, he followed. Before long, Enril was walking on a small dirt road toward a tiny house flanked by an empty, snow-covered field. There was a strange air of grief about the place, about the absence of smoke from the chimney in the January cold, and the darkened windows.
It was a place entombed in silence.
Enril stopped before the door and took off his hat. The simple gesture filled Aldric with a sense of dread, and he knew that death waited inside. The mayor of Yrno opened the door to the interior, the still air filled with a deep kind of void. Aldric scanned the room, noting a kitchen and living space filled with the simple possessions of a settler family. They he saw them.
On the wooden planks of the floor in the kitchen area, near the table, were a mother and a child. The woman was young, maybe in her late twenties, and she lay on her side, one arm stretched out toward the child’s small form. As he carefully stepped closer, Aldric saw that the mother was human, and very pretty, with a skin of dark copper and long, wild curls. Her throat had been cut, and she lay in a cold pool of her own blood.
The child, a little girl of about four, lay on her back, looking at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. She was of mixed race, her silky brown skin contrasting with her pale pink eyes and her almost white blonde hair. A child of a Delradon man and human woman, then.
The child’s throat had been slit as well, and even with all his training, Aldric had to resist the urge to look away. Death should never be painted on such an innocent face.
“Who are they?” Aldric hated to disturb the blanketing silence of the house. It felt wrong to disrupt it. “Where is the father?”
“They’re my brother’s wife and my niece. Sally and Gwenda.” Enril’s voice broke, and the man coughed to regain his composure. “My brother is at my house. He hasn’t slept a minute since it happened, so we sedated him. He’s lost everything. There’s no coming back from this for him.”
Aldric nodded. He didn’t want to think about the man and his grief. There was no helping the unbearable loss, the only relief he could give him was to catch and punish the perpetrators.
“Any witnesses?” Aldric asked, even if his hopes weren’t high. He looked at the man and was surprised to see hesitation in his face. Hesitation and a wild kind of fear. “Well? This was your family, don’t leave out any details. Was there any witness?”
“Yes, my Lord. My son, Anrik, was visiting.” E
nril lifted his head. “He’s six years old. He hid in the pantry during the attack. I told him he did good.” He lifted his head in a sudden gesture of defiance and his jaw tightened, making the vein in his neck stick out. It was clear the man wanted to protect his son.
Aldric nodded, allowing his features to soften. “Of course. Whoever did that would have killed him as well if they’d had the chance.”
“My lord, what my son saw… it’s bad.” Enril stepped closer to Aldric. In his hand, he clutched a piece of paper. Enril glanced at the paper one last time before handing it to Aldric. “This was on the door when we arrived. It was attached with the knife used to murder them.”
Aldric didn’t answer but took the paper. He looked down, knowing that what he would find would be a horror he would never forget. The picture was of good quality, showing three smiling people, pride and happiness upon their faces. A single sign was painted on the forehead of both victims in bright white. A full circle with a cross in the middle, in a white, reflective paint.
A deep, evil knowledge filled Aldric’s mind and the unfamiliar bite of fear stung him. “The Knat-Kanassis.” His own voice was strangely hollow, and he didn’t recognize it at first. “They’re extinct. They were hunted down a long time ago.”
“Then, my Lord, why have they killed my niece and her mother?” Enril’s voice broke, and he shook his head against the pain even as sobs lifted his broad shoulders. “They’re here, on Earth, like they were on Dagmar.”
Aldric’s blood became a slow pulse of ice-filled rage. The Knat-Kanassis meant death and violence, devastation and despair. They were a religious order, one that had almost taken power on the Delradons’ home planet of Dagmar. Hundreds of thousands had died, killed in a frenzy for racial purity that had pushed their civilization to the brink of destruction. It was only after a long civil war that peace was restored, and the Knat-Kanassis hunted down and forbidden.
That was three hundred years ago, in a time when Aldric’s ancestors had been the strongest of the Draekon Lords, the leaders of the resistance.
Now the hateful order was here, in this new world.
“Not a word of this to anyone.” Aldric turned to Enril, whose eyes grew wider. “Bury your brother’s wife and child with dignity and tell your son he was mistaken. There are no Knat-Kanassis on Earth, like there are none on Dagmar. I will not have panic spread on my land.”
“Understood, my Lord.” Enril bent his head, but his mouth was shut tight and his chest heaved with anger.
“Panic will only result in more deaths.” Aldric spoke with an icy calm, but his authority reached all the way to the man, and he saw obedience in his eyes. “I vow to you that the deaths of those innocents will be avenged. Whoever killed them, Knat-Kanassis or not, they will be brought to justice.”
Enril sustained Aldric’s stare, then nodded once.
Chapter 4
The purple crystals cast a cold glow around the room, creating unwavering shadows that seemed to wait for her to look away to move. The bed loomed over her, just a few feet to her right, untouched apart from the top blanket and a pillow.
Endora had hesitated a long time, but in the end, she couldn’t sleep in it. It was too foreign, too overwhelmingly different from what she was accustomed to. Instead, she chose to wrap herself in the plush fabric of the blanket and lie down on the stone floor near a pile of heating crystals.
That was hours ago and she now lay, weary-eyed with an aching body, well into the heart of the night. She knew there was nothing to do, sleep wouldn’t come. It wasn’t surprising, but she was still exhausted.
She sighed, then sat up.
“Maybe a walk will help.” She spoke aloud, thinking it would make the solitude less threatening, but realized it didn’t. Her lonely voice echoed against the stone walls, making her skin prickle with goosebumps. She sounded like one of the ghostly whispers hiding in the deserted hallways.
Endora looked around, then grabbed one of the strange orbs placed on a small, round table. It was supposed to give light, but she couldn’t remember how Junco had used it. After a few more tries, she put it down forcefully, exasperated.
If she couldn’t even get a light going, there was no good in staying in her room.
Grabbing a smaller, lighter blanket from a lounge chair and wrapping it around her shoulders, Endora stepped out of her bedroom. She wore only her under-dress, a long, shapeless cotton shift that hung to her calves, but she didn’t know where Junco had put her old dress and woolen coat. She had nothing else to wear, but didn’t think she’d meet anybody at this hour of the night.
She began to wander in the stone hallways illuminated by small stacks of glowing heating crystals. The ever-present wind created spectral voices behind every corner, setting her nerves on edge. Soon, she found herself searching for the cold feeling of fresh air. She wanted to find her way outside, if only to escape the sensation of being entombed under the mountain. The atmosphere inside Whispering Castle was warm and comfortable, but she wasn’t used to the confines of such a large construction. The idea of living in the depths of the mountain made her feel claustrophobic at the thought of the mass of stone surrounding her on all sides.
Finally, taking a blind turn in a mostly darkened hallway, Endora felt the hand of cold air across her body. Relieved, she followed the flow of the wind and soon stood at the entrance to a vast cave. At the end of the tunnel, the night shone with the sparkling fury of the moon after a storm. The temperature in the cave was cold, enough to make her teeth chatter. Her bare feet slid on the stone as she stepped on a patch of ice. She hesitated, squinting to see farther in the darkness, but the absence of heating crystals also meant the absence of light, aside from the dark blue promise of a shining moon at the end of the cave. Hugging the blanket around her body more closely, she stepped into the darkness, determined to feel the free air on her face. The wind was stronger as she moved toward the opening, and as she reached it, she was shivering so hard she could barely walk.
A few moments later, the moonlight illuminated a huge white form, nestled against the stone wall. As she stood there, the form moved and she recognized the creature of wonder and terror. It was Rhyl, the one villagers called the White Dread, Lord Aldric’s dragon.
Endora paused, staring at the unmoving form of the beast. She should be scared, should turn away and run, but she didn’t. No matter how much her brain told her she should be terrified, she simply wasn’t afraid. Rhyl lifted his head and stared at her, his pale eyes reflecting the moonlight.
“What are you doing here?” she managed to say through chattering teeth. “Are you enjoying the full moon?”
Endora extended her hand in invitation, and Rhyl blew a warm, comforting breath out of his nostrils in her direction before getting to his feet with an otherworldly grace. In a few smooth steps, the dragon was close enough to touch her. His strange pale eyes were fixed on her, so full of an unveiled power, her body vibrated in tandem with it.
Then he bent his head, rubbing his nose on her palm. A flutter of fear and excitement rose in her stomach when a large paw with talons the length of her entire hand closed around her upper body and pulled her in. She allowed the beast to cradle her into his warmth, and was surprised to find his skin warmed up even more under her touch.
Endora turned and looked into the dragon’s eyes. His irises were a blue so pale they were almost white, and his vertical pupils moved like a cat’s to capture every ray of the moonlight. He was fascinating, and she was overtaken by a strong and sudden affection for the beast.
“Are you doing this on purpose?” she asked.
Rhyl blinked, but he could as well have nodded. She didn’t know how, but she understood him.
“Thanks. It’s really cold up here.”
With a smile, she molded her back against the dragon’s blazing warmth and stared outside. The castle was carved into the rock at the top of the mountain, and the cave opened out onto a breathtaking view of the wilderness. Dense forest stretched as f
ar as the eye could see, and white, skeletal trees and dark rocks shone under the silver moonlight, giving the world the appearance of a metal sculpture. It was beautiful, but it made her feel dreadfully alone.
“I have no idea where we are.” Endora leaned into the dragon’s warmth. A lump settled in her throat, and all the emotions she had accumulated since unearthing her old genetic compatibility letter swarmed up. “I have no one here. My family doesn’t even know where I am. Can you believe that?” She paused, then shook her head. “Your Lord Aldric can say whatever he wants. I’m not going to just obey like a little dog. I’m going to show him that even a human woman can stand up to him.”
Rhyl purred and tilted his head, inviting Endora to slide her hands along the sides of his cheek. She chuckled and obliged him. She loved the feel of the scales, warm and smooth. It was like nothing else she’d ever felt. It was like running her hands inside the flames of a brazier without getting burnt. It was surreal, and incredibly comforting. She almost felt guilty about basking in the dragon’s touch while Tallie and Henriette were probably sick with worry, but didn’t quite manage it. After all she had sacrificed, she could allow herself a few moments of bliss.
“You love him, don’t you?” Her fingers traced the bones of the animal’s jaw. “He’s strong and powerful, I’ll give you that. He’s handsome, too, like a statue. But he’s also cold and unyielding.” Her tone lowered, like she was confiding in the beast. “I don’t know if I can be with a man like that. Does he even know how to touch a woman? How can he kiss me, hold me, when he doesn’t know how to smile?”
Rhyl blinked, then steam rose from his nostrils in a slow, steady column. He lifted his head and bristled, then a low, dangerous growl started at the base of his throat. His piercing eyes scanned the darkness, and fear grabbed hold of Endora. Her hands gripped Rhyl and she nestled closer against the dragon’s safety.
“You’re only trying to impress the lady.” A familiar, pleasantly deep voice rang out in the darkness, and Endora was suddenly grateful for the lack of light. She hugged the blanket around her body and tried to make herself as small as she could. With a bit of luck, he wouldn’t notice she was barely clothed. “We both know you smelled me before I entered the room.”
