The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1)

by G. L. Breedon

“I told ya not to tuss with me,” the thief yelled. “Kill ’em both.”

  Abananthus yelled out, leaping up and running forward, his voice and the commotion he made lost among the screams of Rankarus and Kellatra and Jadaloo and Lantili and Luntadus. As he ran from the woods, the man holding the children erupted in a blinding flame. Abananthus staggered and raised his hand before his face, hearing the thief call out to his men.

  “Kill ’em all.”

  Events transpired in multiple places, yet Abananthus’s mind collected them all and presented them in sequence as he dashed from the woods, the log in his hands held high. The two men with crossbows loosed their bolts as Rankarus struggled with the leader of the thieves. Kellatra’s father fell back, a steel shaft sticking from his chest as the guard holding Kellatra collapsed from a similar bolt to the neck. The guard holding the old woman seemed frozen as he watched his companions dying before him. Abananthus neared the man holding Jadaloo as the man who had been restraining the children wailed in pain and rolled across the grass, setting it aflame from his burning body. The horse reared and brayed at the sight the flaming man, pulling at the tether holding it fast to a tree.

  Abananthus brought the log crashing into the back of the skull of the man clutching at Jadaloo. The man crumpled to his knees. Blood stained Jadaloo’s hands where she had kept the thief’s blade from slicing her neck. Rankarus struggled with the leader of the thieves, knocking the dagger from the man’s hand.

  As Abananthus pulled his arm back to strike again, all the thieves screamed, crying out in unspeakable pain, clutching at their chests as they began to glow from within — harvest pumpkins carved and lit with candles blazing inside them. The fire in the men’s chests burned bright white, shining out, casting tight beams of light into the darkness. Then the flames in the men’s hearts died, their screams ceased, and their bodies fell to the grass. Abananthus looked to the porch to see Kellatra, arms outstretched, staring at the dead men, a look of passionate anger coloring her face. She had taught the thieves what happened to those who threatened her family — a lesson they could now only recount from beyond the veil of death.

  Silence sat thick in the clearing around the cabin — no voices spoke, no insects called their songs to the night, no night jays sang to their mates — only the heavy breaths of the survivors competed with the sound of the breeze rustling the grass and the branches of the trees.

  Rankarus knelt and wrapped the crying children in his embrace. Abananthus went to Jadaloo, taking her in his arms as she sobbed. He handed her a kerchief from his pocket to wrap her wounded hand as he looked to the porch. Kellatra sat speaking unheard words beside her father. Tamateraa stood beside her. The guard that had held the old woman sat slumped against the side of the cabin, felled by some unseen force. The other guard lay on the porch, motionless.

  “Thank you.”

  Abananthus looked down to see Jadaloo wiping tears from her eyes.

  “See to the children.” Abananthus gently pushed her toward Lantili and Luntadus, still holding to their father. He looked at Rankarus, the man’s chest heaving with the tearful expression of his fears failing to fall upon those he loved. Abananthus understood the sentiment. He wiped at his eyes as he realized what needed to be done to secure their further safety.

  He left Jadaloo and the others and returned to the woods, finding the book where he had propped it against a tree. He took it from the forest, walking past Rankarus, ignoring the look of surprise on his face. He did not know if his friend had finished his project, and he did not care. He carried the book to the edge of the porch, hearing Kellatra’s firm tone as she spoke with her father. The man’s eyes blinked with the strain to remain conscious. The bloodied crossbow bolt lay on the wooden planks beside them.

  “I have healed you some, and Tamateraa will heal you further once we are gone,” Kellatra said.

  “Here.” Abananthus handed Kellatra the book. She looked at him, curiosity twisting her face. He said no more as she took the codex into her hands. He could not say the words that needed to be said. Only she could do that. It needed to be her choice, even if no other choice remained.

  “Take it.” Kellatra dropped the book on the porch near her father. He looked up at her, unable yet to speak, wincing at the pain in his chest as he clasped a hand over his ribs. “You have what you want. Do not follow us. We will go far away. And if I see you again, I will forget that you are my father.”

  Kellatra turned to Abananthus as her father slipped into wounded slumber. She cupped his chin with her hand but said nothing. Then she ran across the yard to her husband and children.

  Abananthus looked up at the old woman on the porch.

  “True character is shown in hospitality, in the open giving of one’s home and cupboard.” Abananthus did not remember where that saying came from but knew it applied to the old woman scholar. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for giving her a choice,” the old woman said. “I wasn’t sure she’d make it, but it’s good that it’s hers.”

  Abananthus turned from the porch and went back down the slope of the yard to begin packing the family’s things into the wagon. Several hours later, after hastily digging graves for the thieves and soldiers, and making tearful goodbyes to the old woman at the edge of the yard, they started on their way down the mountain, thankful for the light of the quarter-moons to illuminate the path.

  Abananthus led the horse by the bridle as Jadaloo and the children dozed in the wagon. Rankarus and Kellatra walked beside him. The three continued down the mountainside in silence for a long time. Finally, Abananthus decided he could not allow the two to follow the same paths they had taken individually for so long. They needed to learn to speak aloud the things they wished none to hear.

  “Are you going to tell her or is it to be my duty?” Abananthus directed his question to Rankarus.

  “Tell me what?” Kellatra wearily glanced between the two men, seeming too tired to muster curiosity.

  “Yes, tell her what?” Rankarus looked up at Abananthus.

  “About the midnight hours spent in the tent with the candle,” Abananthus said.

  “I…” Rankarus appeared too exhausted or too surprised to easily create a lie.

  “About the forgery.” Abananthus sighed and reached around the satchel slung over his shoulder. He had taken the time to surreptitiously retrieve Rankarus’s project from the woods near the cabin before they had departed. He opened the satchel, pulled out the loose papers, and handed them to Kellatra.

  “What is this? Wait. How…?” Kellatra nearly stumbled as she stared at the sheaves of paper in the dim moonlight.

  “A copy of the book.” Rankarus reached out a hand to steady Kellatra.

  “A copy? How?” Kellatra looked from the papers to Rankarus and back again.

  “It would not be the first time I forged a document.” Rankarus looked at Abananthus with annoyance. Abananthus smiled back. “I took the book each night after you fell asleep and put it back before you awoke.”

  “You even have the drawings?” Kellatra flipped through the pages of the forged codex.

  “Not all of them.” Rankarus frowned. “I managed to get all the text, but the paintings took too much time. The best I could do was sketch them. It will never fool anyone who has seen it, but it’s good enough to work from.”

  “And might have been good enough to sell if you’d had time to finish.” Kellatra gave Rankarus a knowing look.

  “Why would I want to do that?” Rankarus sighed and turned to Abananthus. “How did you know?”

  “A man does not see merely by opening his eyes.” Abananthus chuckled as he accepted the papers of the copied book from Kellatra and slipped them back into the satchel. “Now when are you going to tell him?”

  “Tell him what?” Kellatra looked puzzled, but not genuinely so.

  “Yes, tell me what?” Rankarus turned from Abananthus to Kellatra and back.

  “That you did not set the man holding the children aflam
e.” Abananthus lowered his voice and glanced over his shoulder to the wagon.

  “What does he mean?” Rankarus reached out and took Kellatra’s hand.

  Kellatra frowned at Abananthus and then turned to the wagon as well.

  “He means we need to keep an eye on Luntadus.”

  Abananthus sighed in satisfaction. The truth had been spoken. Now it could be dealt with. Wherever they went and whatever came next, they would face it knowing all that they needed to know. This comforted him until he remembered a saying from his youth, one his grandfather had often spoken.

  The truth changes those who hear it — some for better, some for worse, but all are remade from it.

  How would these truths alter Kellatra and Rankarus? How would they change him or Jadaloo or the children? And more importantly, what truth still lay ahead to be uncovered and how would it refashion their lives?

  To continue reading the Seer story arena follow this link.

  THE PHILOSOPHER

  KADMALLIN

  THE SMOKE of wood and the scent of stale sweat and fear blended in the increasingly warm air. The smoke belonged to the fire in the forge, the sweat to the human blacksmith pumping the bellows, and the fear to Kadmallin himself. He had not asked Sketkee for her calculated odds of their success. He preferred not to dwell on conditions he could not alter. He preferred to focus on events and situations he could directly control and ignore estimates of achievement or failure. Held on his toes by a rope from the rafters tied to his wrists, he wondered exactly what circumstances, if any, he still might influence.

  “So,” Kadmallin whispered to Sketkee in Punderrese, “you never mentioned that rakthors use hot metal to torture prisoners.”

  “Rakthors have a high tolerance for pain, so it is not common in our land.” Sketkee’s voice sounded annoyingly even-toned to Kadmallin’s ears. “We generally use chemical concoctions to unhinge the mind when we need to interrogate a reluctant prisoner.”

  “So that fire is intended for me.” Kadmallin eyed the blacksmith as he worked the bellows. The man had not glanced in their direction once while heating the forge coals to an orange-white glow.

  “It seems Viktik is improvising, hoping harming you will induce me to greater honesty.” Sketkee looked over from where she hung by her wrists beside him.

  “I’m hoping he’ll believe us before that point.”

  “I don’t know that my honesty will be more convincing than my deception.”

  “The problem with being a good liar.”

  “Quite.” Sketkee held his eyes with hers. “Again, should we die as a result of this encounter, you have my apologies for not anticipating the complexity of this mission when I engaged you to accompany me.”

  “I’m sorry as well,” Kadmallin said.

  “For what?” Sketkee asked.

  “For not talking you out of it,” Kadmallin replied.

  “There is no need for you to be remorseful for that,” Sketkee said.

  “I’m sorry anyway.”

  THIRTY YEARS AGO

  “I’M SORRY.”

  “You say that every time you leave.”

  “I mean it every time I leave.”

  Kadmallin lay atop a small hillside, grass tickling his neck, staring up at bone-white clouds drifting across a pale-blue sky. He rolled over on his side, propping his head up on his forearm while reaching out to clasp Nennea’s hand in his own. She lay beside him, smiling as she stared upward, her long, black hair washing over the grass. She turned to gaze at him with eyes the color of the sky and smiled, her mouth wide and full of joy. Kadmallin’s heart swelled within his chest as his throat tightened. It happened to him sometimes when looking at her, his love momentarily overwhelming him.

  “It is good that you leave.” Nennea rolled on her side as well. “How else would I obtain new books to read?”

  “If we spend all my earnings on books, we will have no coin for a house.” Kadmallin frowned at the paradox imposed by Nennea’s love for reading, and his love of her for her knowledge, and the cost of the books he brought back from his travels guarding her father’s merchant caravans.

  “My father will help us build a place to live.” Nennea looked up at the branches of the tree above them, rolling on her back again.

  “I cannot rely on your father to provide everything for me.” He had worked for her father for two years guarding cargo wagons, an employment he had fallen into by chance after a brief stint as a soldier in the Punderrese army. A soldier required the ability to follow orders without questioning his commanders. Kadmallin lacked this essential ability, even as he excelled at the more practical martial skills.

  “For us,” Nennea corrected. “Besides, my father adores you.”

  “Will he adore me when we tell him?” Kadmallin wondered about that question and how it would affect his interactions with her father over the coming weeks of the caravan run.

  “He will be pleased.” Nennea sounded absolutely certain. Kadmallin wished he possessed such confidence about the matter.

  “When your father and I return, we will tell him and go to the priest.” Kadmallin tried to make his voice sound firm and decisive, but his tone projected more anxiety than authoritativeness.

  “My father will want a celebration.” Nennea plucked a blade of grass and slipped it between her lips.

  “Celebrations cost coin.” Kadmallin worried how he could support a merchant’s daughter on the wages of a mere guard. He might expect a raise if he were captain of the guards, but the current captain did not appear ready to retire.

  “You are the only man I know who would seek to marry into a family of wealth and refuse to spend any of it.” Nennea turned her head and smiled at him.

  “I suspect this is one of the reasons you wish to marry me.” Kadmallin tried not to sound defensive about being unable to offer her all that she wished for and that he knew she deserved.

  “It is very far down on a very long list.”

  “You and your lists.” Kadmallin sighed. Nennea helped her father manage the coin of his merchant trade. She tended to write out lists of all that needed doing, a habit she extended to the rest of her life as well. “What is at the top of the list?”

  “The way you look at me when you return from the road.” Nennea rolled once more on her side and untangled her fingers from his to place her palm on his cheek. “And the things we do afterward.”

  “Ah.” Kadmallin leaned in and kissed her. After a time, their lips parted. “Do you wish to know what is at the top of my list?”

  “You don’t make lists.” Nennea laughed and teased. “You can barely write.”

  “I write often.” Kadmallin adopted the tone of indigence, then confession. “Just not legibly.”

  “What is at the top of your list?” Nennea squinted at him in curiosity.

  “This.” Kadmallin gestured with his hand to include her and the hillside and the sky.

  “Lying on a hillside after a roll in the grass?” Nennea raised an eyebrow.

  “No.” Kadmallin looked in her eyes. “Being with you. It’s all I ever want to do. It’s the only thing on the list.”

  “You’re a charmer when you want to be.” Nennea kissed him again.

  “I practice saying charming things when you’re not around,” Kadmallin said before Nennea pulled him into another kiss.

  “When you come back from Kanhalla, we’ll tell my father, and we’ll see the priest.” Nennea snuggled close to Kadmallin.

  “And then we’ll choose a name.” Kadmallin placed a hand on Nennea’s belly.

  “We don’t know what it will be yet.” Nennea shook her head playfully.

  “It’s a boy.” Kadmallin said, certain of it.

  “And if it’s not?” Nennea asked.

  “Then we’ll choose two. In case I’m wrong.” He could be wrong. It would not be bad to be mistaken in such matters.

  “When are you ever wrong?” Nennea’s smile matched her mocking tone as she wrapped her arms arou
nd Kadmallin’s neck and kissed him again.

  THE PRESENT

  “I WAS WRONG.” Kadmallin ignored the bite of the ropes against his wrists and the blood trickling down his arms. “I’m supposed to protect you, not allow us to be captured and trussed up like deer from a hunt.”

  “We did what we could with the circumstances before us.” Sketkee looked at Kadmallin.

  “It still feels like failure.” Kadmallin heard footsteps approaching from the courtyard and turned to see Viktik and two rakthor guards. Viktik gestured dismissively toward the human operating the bellows, and the man skittered off into the night, looking grateful to be gone.

  “Your actions are irrational and disappointing.” Viktik stepped forward to address Sketkee. He ignored Kadmallin, staring at his former colleague with curiosity and anger.

  “My actions were necessary.” Sketkee’s tone implied a calmness Kadmallin did not share.

  He watched the two rakthors, one his friend, one his adversary, following their conversation while attempting to appear that he could not. When he and Sketkee outlined their plan, he had not anticipated the possibility of being strung up and tortured with hot metal implements. The helplessness of the situation brought Nennea to his mind again as it had repeatedly the last day. It had been years since he had thought of her so often. He hated feeling helpless, knowing he had failed. At least if Sketkee died, there would be no chance of his own survival and the life of guilt that would come with it.

  “Why would you attempt to steal the device when I would have allowed you to help investigate it?” Viktik leaned near to Sketkee, as though closer examination of her might unveil her truthfulness.

  “The panel to research the device voted correctly,” Sketkee replied. “We do not possess the mechanical or philosophical mastery to understand what the device does and how it operates. I had already lost the opportunity to study the first device. I did not wish to lose a second.”

  “And you planned to carry the device to the Forbidden Realm in hopes of finding an urris willing to explain it to you?” Viktik turned away. “Ridiculous.”