Touch of Ice (Dawn of Dragons Book 1)

by Mary Auclair

  Aldric stared at the sky, so foreign, so magnificent. His mind was far away, in that story which explained the way his life was irremediably linked to a creature powerful enough to melt mountains in its wrath.

  “He was as much a part of the dragon as the dragon was a part of him. The dragon gained a soul, but for that, the man had to share the heart of the beast. He became a bit dragon himself.”

  “The first Draekon,” Endora whispered, inching closer to Aldric, unable to resist the magnetic pull of him. “He was a child of a Delradon man and woman.”

  It wasn’t a question, more like a realization. The Draekons were not a different species, like most humans believed, they were created by an alliance with the dragons. An alliance no one had explained in ways that could be understood. It was a fact that just was.

  “What happened next?”

  “The boy grew tall and strong, and saw the world through silver eyes. The dragonet grew, too, smart and sentient like no other animal before him. Other dragons were entranced by the power of the mind, the chance to think and feel like a man, and they followed his instructions. Soon, an army of dragons lay at the boy’s feet. Twenty years later, the boy, now a man, found his way back to his village, to his mother’s family. They all saw him and the dragon—thinking as one, feeling as one—and were mesmerized. Soon hundreds, then thousands followed the silver-eyed man and his army. He took power, made the people prosperous, deposed the cruel Lords, and a prosperity no one in living memory had ever heard of settled on the land. His only remaining desire was to have an heir, and after taking a number of women to his bed, he finally found one who gave him a child. A silver-eyed child, who was born with a dragon. He named his son Draek.”

  Silence fell between them as the tale ended. Endora didn’t need Aldric to tell her this was the root in which the Knat-Kanassis took their hold. The godly link between the man and dragon, and the purity of the blood that had killed so many.

  They wanted her death, and the death of every human who dared associate with the Draekons.

  “Now will you fly with me?”

  Aldric extended his hand to her, and his face lifted in a wide grin, the expression one of pure delight and humor. It was such a striking contrast to the grim lines of the last few days. His smile reached all the way to his eyes, and near him, Rhyl rustled, his desire to fly like a palpable thing in the air.

  To fly.

  Her heart fluttered with fear and excitement. Endora took Aldric’s proffered hand and a current of wild elation filled her veins. Aldric brought her close to Rhyl’s neck, and she took a moment to stare into the strange eyes of the dragon before putting her hands on his scales. He was warm and soft under her palm, infinitely wondrous, and affection and happiness traveled up the bond to her. Then came the unabated elation of the flight.

  Clouds and wind. The scent of snow and the vast openness of the sky. And above all, freedom. A freedom like no other.

  The image burst through her mind as vivid as her most poignant memory. It left her awed. She knew the dragon could communicate with feelings and emotion, but this… This was a glimpse into the beast’s mind, a shard of his soul she had been blessed to share.

  Her anxiety made way for a gripping desire to relive what she felt during that fleeting instant where she shared the dragon’s mind.

  Endora climbed on Rhyl’s neck, cradled against Aldric’s chest. In front of her, the mountain opened into the vast void, the forest so far below that the trees looked like grains of sand on the face of the Earth.

  “Now, my precious Endora, we fly,” Aldric whispered the words in her ear as he held her close.

  And just like that, Rhyl opened his wings and the world as she knew it faded to the background as she became airborne.

  Endora’s head rested on his chest and the sound of her breathing, deep and regular, reached his ears over the wind and the powerful movement of Rhyl’s wings.

  Her safety was ensured on the Council island, a sacred ground no Draekon would dare to defame with violence, but still Aldric worried. It was impossible not to bring her along, as a Draekarra she was obligated to attend.

  As the sun rose over the vast ocean, the island, its black surface a shiny scar on the brilliant expanse of water, became visible. Endora was right, it had once been a site of great beauty, home to many humans, but those days were long gone. During the Great War, when Delradon armies and dragons fought the human resistance, the island was a stronghold, a well-defended fort where weapons of unforgivable power were stockpiled. The humans in charge refused to lay down what they called atomic bombs, missiles capable of poisoning the entire planet.

  Dierno Darragon had been the Draekon in charge of the final assault on the island. Leading a hundred other Draekons, he scorched the land with dragon fire, sealing the weapons and their masters under a thick layer of melted rock until the entire island was a sterile wasteland.

  This marked the end of the human global resistance, the final blow to their struggle to keep control of a world they had all but destroyed. The recovery had been slow at first, but soon Delradon settlers took over the land and humans fell into the fold under Draekon rule. Some still resented the alien rulers, accusing the Draekons of stealing what was not theirs—and of course, to some extent, they were right. Humans were granted the same rights as the Delradon, but most were poor and lived apart from the comforts of the newcomers, and even two hundred years later, the situation hadn’t changed much.

  As the shiny black surface grew over the water, Aldric held Endora closer.

  Her people had suffered so much, and now they faced the wrath of the same evil that had destroyed Dagmar, leaving its population desperate for a new start. He would not suffer her to be endangered, suffer his people to be terrorized by the wrongdoing of a dangerous few extremists who saw the blood of the dragon as a living manifestation of a divine entity.

  Carnis igne.

  Fire made flesh. This was how the Knat-Kanassis viewed the Draekons and the Dragons. Their distorted views did not just exclude the mixing of both Draekons and Delradon, much less humans, though. They elevated Draekons far above their dragons as well, reducing the beasts to mere extensions of their masters, denying the dragons their true souls. They understood nothing, were filled with a burning hatred that ran deep in their veins.

  He would not sit idly by as they ravaged this world.

  Finally, the island was close, and Rhyl began his slow descent as another dragon approached from the opposite direction. The Council, the fifty Draekon Lords ruling over the kingdoms of Earth, was for the most part already landed.

  “Almost there, friend. You must promise to rein in your temper once we get there.”

  Rhyl shook his head and Aldric patted the soft scales behind the dragon’s ear. His bad temper would be contagious amongst the dragons, whose tempers did not allow for close, peaceful cohabitation.

  “Endora,” Aldric called his mate, running his fingers along her neck. “You must wake now.”

  Endora stirred, then finally two dark eyes, almost as black as the scorched land below, opened and latched on to him. She stirred and soon straightened, straddling the dragon’s neck as she stared in wonder at the view.

  “The ocean.” Her voice was muffled, like it was coming from far away. “Henriette told me stories of Alfonso—my grandfather—who was born by the sea, in a country where it’s always summer. I never believed it could be so vast.”

  “It reaches even farther. Few dragons can fly that distance.” Aldric placed a kiss on the soft mass of her hair. “Rhyl is one of the few exceptions.”

  “How many will there be?” Endora flattened her hand on Rhyl’s scales, a gesture that was beginning to become instinctive to communicate with the beast. The Draekarra bond was strong, much more than he’d anticipated.

  “Fifty Draekons currently control Earth’s kingdoms. All will be present, with their Draekarra.”

  Endora didn’t answer, simply nodding as she communicated with Rhyl. Aldri
c watched, surprised to feel no jealousy at all. Rhyl was indeed a part of himself, the beast and the wildness inside him, and as she got closer to the dragon, she was closer to him, to understanding the duality of his existence.

  Rhyl bolted down in a fast spiral, a showy display of his flight mastery, always one to assert his superior strength in the face of the other dragons. Endora gasped and Aldric held her tight as they approached solid land at a blinding speed. At the last moment, Rhyl opened his wings and landed with a smooth swirl.

  The white dragon cast a look around at the rest of the assembly as Aldric helped Endora climb down.

  “Now you’re just showing off,” Aldric whispered to Rhyl, who gruffed with humor. This was as close to a laugh as a dragon could go.

  “The ground!” Endora exclaimed. “It’s warm.”

  “Yes. The rocks beneath are still warm. They will be for at least a thousand years.”

  Endora fell silent at his side. Her face showed her awe at the large circle of dragons. The beasts, foul-tempered after a long, sometimes almost exhausting flight, stared at each other with unease, not used to being confined to such close quarters.

  “Walk by my side and whatever happens, do not talk,” Aldric whispered to Endora as a hundred pairs of eyes settled on them. Draekons and Draekarra sat at a large rough stone table, circular to underline the common status of the Lords, the equality between the kingdoms. It was only a theory, of course. Draekons and dragons were not equal in power, but the peace had lasted two hundred years, since the end of the Great War, and the Treaty that had divided Earth into fifty kingdoms. None had dared to break the alliance, knowing it would incur the wrath of all other Lords, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been power struggles. Small aggressions and bullying by a more powerful Draekon over his weaker neighbor.

  The strength of the dominating dragon was the strength of the kingdom and as of now, Rhyl was the strongest. The kingdom of Katanie was one of the vastest, a direct consequence of Dierno Darragon’s power. He and Elrad, his bronze dragon, had been the strongest of their time. Aldric owed his father his strength and power—owed him for the hate and envy of the other Draekon Lords as well.

  Endora followed him as he walked to the assembly, his and Endora’s seats the last to be filled.

  As Aldric reached the table, all eyes settled on him, a row of silver mixed with the Delradon stares of the Draekarra. No human was present. Endora was the first human to become a Draekarra.

  “Lord Aldric.” A tall, slim male stood at his approach. He had deep set eyes gleaming on each side of a beak nose, and thin, haughty lips pursed in disapproval. “Cousin.”

  “Lord Misrael.” Aldric nodded to the assembly. “Thank you for coming. Sit.”

  “You are most welcome at this table, of course.” Lord Misrael cast a long glance at Endora, whose arm stiffened. “But your mate is human. She should not be seated here.”

  “The Lady Endora is my Draekarra.” Aldric kept his voice in check, but didn’t mask the warning underneath. “She is at home at this table as she is at home in the dragon’s lair.”

  Lord Misrael’s eyes glittered with anger and he straightened. He looked around the assembled Lords, his distaste evident. As Aldric glanced around, not moving an inch, he saw the same look on many others, their stares openly hostile as they watched Endora sit beside him. Many disapproved of the bond, but how many would go so far as to resurrect the old cult?

  “Are you challenging my mating, Lord Misrael?” Aldric faced his cousin, the threat just underneath the surface. “She was chosen by Rhyl. Maybe you would like to take it up with him?”

  Lord Misrael blanched, his eyes straying to Rhyl, the white dragon’s piercing blue stare set on them, the superior hearing of the dragon meaning he understood every word.

  “Of course not.” Lord Misrael paused, then after another circular glance, he sat. “We are here at your summons.”

  “I have grave news, friends.” Aldric met the other Draekons’ eyes. Many knew what he was about to say but others didn’t. How many were monsters in disguise? “The old world’s evil is here. Our fathers didn’t destroy it after all.”

  Silently, he pulled out the dagger which had been used on the dragonet. A wave of gasps and whispers traveled amongst the assembled Lords.

  The word was on everyone’s lips, the evil on everyone’s mind. Knat-Kanassis. The pure-blooded ones, the ones who would cleanse the world with fire.

  “This was found inside a coffin, left on my doorstep,” Aldric continued, not wanting to lose the effect of the shock. “It was left beside this.”

  He used his commu-link to summon a lifelike, tri-dimensional image of the murdered dragonet in the middle of the table. Whispers and gasps turned to screams and shouts. Lords and Draekarra got to their feet, shocked faces met with the tears of women. It had the expected effect.

  Aldric’s eyes locked onto Lord Misrael. His dainty mouth was curved with disgust but his face showed no surprise.

  You should have stayed away, cousin.

  The anger coiled inside him and he shot a mental warning to Rhyl. They had no proof against Misrael, nothing that linked the weak Draekon of the smallest Kingdom in the American continent to the blasphemous killing.

  “What is it that you’re showing us?” an old Draekon, his Draekarra in tears in his arms asked. “Do you know who this is?”

  “No, we still do not.” Aldric straightened. “The body was left at my door yesterday morning, draped in the Donos family crest.”

  The news ran through the assembly. They all knew the Donos family had lost everything when Desmond Donos died, leaving his only child in Aldric Darragon’s care. They all knew Shari Donos was a Draekon of mixed blood.

  “Do you know who this is, and whose family he belongs to?” A female Draekon, one of the rare ones, spoke. She stood alone, as they often did. Not many men could associate with such a strong woman.

  “We hoped to find out today.”

  All eyes ran around the table. No seat was left vacated. This meant the child was not one of a High Lord, but more likely of a lesser Lord, controlling a province in one of the kingdoms.

  “What will you have us do, Lord Darragon?” the old High Lord asked again. Outrage was plain on his face. Outrage and fear. Aldric thought for a moment and then he remembered. Lord Luam, the oldest High Lord, the only one who was born on Dagmar and was still alive on Earth. His son had mated a human woman, four decades ago, and produced three Draekon children. His heirs—many for Draekon standards—were all of mixed blood.

  “I will have you search your lands. Question your people. This cannot happen, not on this world. Let the lessons learned by our forefathers be followed. Already a Knat-Kanassis death squad hit in my capital. Sixteen family members of mixed blood were killed, their throats slit. ‘Sordied sangui, mors abomina’ was written above their naked bodies.”

  The impact of his words showed on every face. Rarely did such powerful beings display fear but it was clear now. Almost every face was drawn, eyes gleaming with resolve, with disgust for the horrors of the old world. Slowly, the High Lords sat down again.

  They were ready to fight, but first, they needed to find their enemy.

  Chapter 14

  Tallie laughed and ran after Shari, closely followed by Rasha. The girls disappeared in the master bedroom in a flurry of giggles, completely absorbed in their game. It had been three days since Tallie and Henriette had arrived at Whispering Castle. In that short time, the two girls had become inseparable.

  “It’s a miracle.” Henriette glanced in the direction of the girls, then back at Endora. “She had only one treatment before you sent for us. After another three, she’s going to be completely cured.”

  Endora looked at her grandmother, sitting in the straight back wooden chair. She still wore her heavy cotton brown dress, having refused the velvet and satin gowns offered by Junco multiple times.

  Henriette had a hard time adjusting but she was making every effort to.
It wasn’t easy, after a lifetime as an independent woman, to have her every need catered to. In the castle, there was no cooking to be done, no cleaning or laundry. No livestock to care for.

  Silence returned between Henriette and Endora.

  It did so often—and had for the last two days. They spent all their time in Endora’s apartments, and Aldric had formally forbade them to go anywhere else until he found the mole among his men, the one who’d allowed the Knat-Kanassis to leave a murdered baby dragon at their doorstep. Endora shivered at the memory.

  Louder, the girls’ giggles turned into shouts of excitement as Rasha joined the chaos.

  She could have been cured months ago.

  “It’s so easy for them. They can cure almost every human disease with just a few treatments.” Endora couldn’t help the bitterness in her voice. “All I had to give for it was my whole life. If I hadn’t been compatible, Tallie would be dying instead of playing.”

  Henriette stared blankly for a few moments, then frowned. “Are you not happy? The High Lord was generous in his offer to allow us to come live here. He was under no obligation to do so.”

  “I know.” Endora chuckled, unsure of why she suddenly felt this way. “He’s not what I thought he would be. He cares about me, about Shari, about all of us. Tallie will even receive her next treatments here. She won’t have to go to the hospital anymore.”

  “It must cost him a fortune.”

  Endora nodded. Yes, she’d cost Aldric a fortune. First, the mating contract, for which he’d given her more than any other woman before, then he’d doubled that sum to make the contract permanent. He’d made her the most powerful woman in the kingdom. Only it hadn’t been a choice, had it? No, he’d forced her hand every step of the way.

  Maybe that explained the strange feeling tingling just under her skin as she watched Tallie run around, excited and red cheeked. Healthy.

  “He had a condition… for the mating contract.” She swallowed, knowing this would hurt Henriette. “He offered double the original price but there was a catch. I had to stay with him permanently. I could never go home, never contact my family.”