Age of Valor: Blood Purge

by D. E. Morris

“You have ruined my child,” Killian muttered, standing beside Jaryn and Ashlynn. Rowan let go of Lochlainn and stepped away from him, beginning her own transformation into her dragon form while her father spoke in quiet tones. “There was a time when most of what she spoke was Ibayish Gaelic and now she speaks to Lochlainn in perfect Sinessian.”

  “You're just bitter because she's more fluent than you are,” Jaryn retorted under his breath.

  “And I would deny it if you tried to tell anyone,” said Killian, smiling broadly.

  Jaryn snorted, drawing Ashlynn's attention and making both men hurry to wipe the humor from their faces, leaving her to raise a brow. To spare them questioning, Rowan completed her transformation, her long, snake-like body scampering away from Lochlainn on short, stubby legs that was rather reminiscent of Elas when he was in his shifted form, though he was not even half her size in width or in length.

  “Your turn, my love.”

  Lochlainn turned to look at his mother over his shoulder. “You can go next.”

  She smiled sweetly at him. “I'm going last so I can encourage you from here.” In truth, it was a moment she had been putting off for as long as possible. Over the course of the past five years, almost everyone had seen her in her non-Elemental dragon form in one way or another, in glimpses here and there, but none of them, Killian and Jaryn aside, had ever seen her shift or been up close and in person with her new body, not even her own sister. It would be like living her heartbreak anew, and though she knew avoidance was not going to get her out of her pain all together, she couldn't stop herself from pushing the moment back as much as she could.

  “You can do it,” she encouraged her son.

  “Remember everything I told you,” Kenayde added, shifting Allorah on her hip.

  His brows came together in a thin, worried line, and he nodded, taking a slow, deep breath. With his back toward everyone watching him, no one saw anything but the steady rise and fall of his shoulders for a few torturous seconds, and then everything began to change. Clothes melted into his body turning into gold and green scales with the occasional fleck of pearl white. Wings shot forth from his shoulder blades, fanning out as a tail grew from his backside and swung left and right. He trumpeted as the change completed itself, his shifted form bigger than it had been before, but certainly smaller than Ashlynn had been.

  “I think he's almost the size of a horse,” said Lilia.

  “Almost,” marveled Ashlynn. “Lochlainn, you're beautiful.” His long, shimmering neck swung to get a look at himself and he spun, making people jump out of the way of his tail. “Careful,” Ashlynn laughed. “Your coloring is quite similar to mine but just different enough to be uniquely yours. I love it.”

  High above, Badru gave a much deeper, more mature trumpeting call.

  Ashlynn looked up as if remembering why they were all there. “Yes, we have a schedule to keep. Up you go. Rowan, off to the ocean with you. Keep an eye on the sky. As soon as I'm up there, we can head out.” Neither Lochlainn nor Rowan needed further instructions before they took action. With wingbeats that were slightly clumsy and not quite in sync with each other, Lochlainn took to the sky at the same time Rowan disappeared in fyre. “Well,” said Ashlynn with a labored sigh, “I guess that leaves me.”

  “Wait!”

  Connor came running into the clearing from the passage into the knight's training barracks, face nearly as red as his hair. “I have to talk to you.”

  Assuming it was about the stranger spotted outside her window, she cast a quick glance to Killian and her husband, and all three of them made to follow Connor back inside. The young man, however, immediately looked at the two men with bland irritation and shook his head. “Not you,” he grunted, as though offended, “just Ashlynn.”

  Confused but obliging, Ashlynn followed him into the coolness of the basement entrance, stopping when he did just inside and out of earshot from the rest of the group. “What is it? My goodness, Connor, breathe.” She used her hands to fan him.

  “I had to catch you before you left,” he puffed. “I have to ask you something.” Leaning back against the cool stone wall, he closed his eyes and said nothing more.

  Ashlynn stopped fanning him and put her hands on her hips. “Did you plan on asking me sometime today?”

  “Breathe or speak, I can't do both.”

  “Oh, for heaven's sake. I don't have time for this foolishness.” She turned to leave in exasperation but he straightened immediately.

  “All right! Okay! I want to ask for your blessing before I ask Lilia to marry me.”

  Ashlynn stopped instantly and faced him with elevated brows. “Do you?” She looked him over as though assessing his character for the very first time. “You're awfully young to be thinking about marriage.”

  He lifted his chin. “I'm almost a year older than you were when you and Jaryn got married.”

  “Fair point, though women mature far faster than men, making your mental age closer to-”

  “What matters,” he insisted, cutting her off and bringing a sly smirk to her lips, “is that I love her, and I'm pretty sure she loves me, too. I can provide for her; I can protect her. If she marries me, not only will she gain a title but her family will gain status and money, and I will provide land for them.”

  “Connor, her family is wealthier than you and all your sisters combined. She doesn't need your money, though I daresay she is fickle enough to want the title.” Ashlynn paused to consider, casting her gaze out toward the group that waited with curious impatience. She and Lilia had gone through a great deal together, losing loved ones, almost losing each other on more than one occasion. The young woman who had arrived at the castle more than six years ago was spoiled and self-centered, all but demanding her needs be put before those of anyone else. How she had grown and how important she'd become to Ashlynn. This would be yet another change, hopefully a positive one.

  “You have my blessing,” she said quietly.

  “Really?” The shock on Connor's face suggested he had been doubtful that he would receive it.

  “On one condition.” Returning her attention to the young man, her expression was serious. “Don't take her away from me. Not entirely.”

  His nod was slow and full of understanding. “You have my word.”

  With nothing left to say, she left him to rejoin the others, pasting on a smile of reassurance for both Jaryn and Killian who watched her with acute curiosity. “Well then, let's not put this off any longer, shall we?” Stepping into the clearing that was left specifically for those that were shifting, she swallowed down the self-pity that was creeping up within her. There was simply no time for it and, quite frankly, no purpose. She still had the ability to shift, after all. It wasn't as though her gift had been taken away completely and there was nothing to be ashamed of.

  As easy as letting rain fall over her, she felt the energy charging up within that preceded the change, rising from her feet and the tips of her fingers in a rush that was familiar but also, she realized all at once, very different from anything she'd ever felt before. The pain that Rowan and Lochlainn spoke of, the pain that she still experienced even after so many years of shifting, wasn't there even as she felt her muscles contracting and growing, stretching over bones that lengthened and grew from hidden places in her body. Instead of a fire spreading through each joint and fiber, there was an icy cool that was foreign and new.

  Every outside sound was muted until all she could hear was the beat of her own blood pumping in her ears. All other senses abandoned her as even her breath halted, and then, as it all came flooding back, she heard a gasp, quickly followed by murmurs of confusion and excitement. Ashlynn opened her eyes to find all who had been there staring at her as though she was some strange creature none of them had even seen before. Even Killian and Jaryn were frozen where they stood, jaws slack and eyes transfixed on her form.

  “Ashlynn!” Lilia exclaimed, breaking the awed silence. “You're gorgeous!”

  She wanted
to ask what the young woman was talking about. Having seen herself before, Ashlynn knew her color pattern was nothing spectacular and certainly not so pretty in comparison to any of the Elementals, but instead, with a bit of a chuckle, she looked down at herself. What she saw made her jump back in fear, as though she could get away from her own body. No longer was she green and brown, plain, as she often thought, but everything was different. Each scale was chiseled and shone like glass, rich in the color of fine gemstones. Where her colors had clearly reflected her element before, they had changed to a dramatic sapphire blue and teal, speckling in gold, green, purple, and pink like a peacock. The sunlight refracted off her scales, splintering and scattering light all across the secluded area, showering everyone in color. When she moved, frenzied, to examine the curved spinal ridges that ran from the crown of her head down the length of her tail, she flexed wings that had lilac membranes with thin, silvery veins that could only be seen when the sun shone through them.

  High above, Badru gave a long, joyous cry, one that Lochlainn copied as he circled around the fire dragon.

  Without waiting for permission or anyone else to make the first move, Lilia ran up to Ashlynn and put her hand against the dragon's side, palm flat against the cold, faceted surface of one of the scales. “I'm dying,” she whispered. “What happened to you? Are you made of glass?”

  “Jewels,” said Elas, before anyone else could. He looked to Jaryn and Killian for confirmation. “Her wings, the pattern of the veins look like the agate.”

  “Badru put the dragon vein shards on her body and her body absorbed them,” Jaryn murmured, eyes still transfixed by the vision of his wife's new form. “They not only saved her life, but transformed her into something new. That's why her recovery was so incredibly easy. That's what Badru meant when he said Brigid wanted to give her a new purpose.”

  Kenayde was close to tears as she approached her sister. “Lynnie. Oh, Lynnie...how do you feel?”

  I...don't know. Terrified and excited and confused all at once.

  “I'm so jealous,” Lilia pouted. “Now you're prettier than I am.”

  Turning back to the men, Kenayde asked, “What does this mean? Is she ageless again like the Elementals? Is she a jewel dragon herself?”

  Killian shook his head, adjusting the pack of supplies on his back. “She is not a jewel dragon herself. All tales that have been told of the creatures are that they were small, no bigger than house cats.”

  With a knowing lift of his brows, Jaryn turned to the older man. “But if you had to venture a guess?”

  “I would say because the agate was absorbed into her body and it changed her so greatly that a power has been given unto her, that she has been accepted into their pack.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Lilia.

  “She's their alpha,” Elas provided, crossing his arms.

  Kenayde turned back to her sister with a dismissive laugh. “Well, she would be if they even existed.”

  “I don't believe anything is as it seems anymore,” Elas contended.

  Whatever I am, we have to go. Lochlainn can't stay shifted for too long before he needs to take a break. He hasn't had enough practice to resist the feral pull. Ashlynn swung her glittering head toward Killian. I hope your trousers are thick.

  With a wary once-over of her scales and where he'd have to sit on her back, stuck between two spinal ridges, he muttered, “So do I,” before carefully climbing up her foreleg to find his position. The others moved back to give Ashlynn enough room to spread her wings once more, allowing her to take to the air without knocking anyone over. It was a sight to behold, one that would most assuredly be spoken of within the castle and throughout the country as the great jeweled dragon flew overhead. There would be no hiding this secret for long, that was a fact.

  As the three dragons disappeared from view and everyone turned to go back inside, Lilia realized that only four of them were left. Vala was missing.

  Jaryn was on his way to his library when Cailin and Niam met him in the hall. With Killian leaving for the day, she was in charge of heading up the search for the masked stranger and Jaryn was eager to know whether any progress had been made in locating him. Before the question could even be formed, however, she shook her head, meeting him halfway in his journey. “Nothing yet.”

  “Is it possible she was dreaming?” asked Niam.

  “You're new,” Jaryn said kindly. “I learned some time ago not to mistrust things my wife believes she has seen. She is almost never wrong.”

  Cailin glanced at the young man beside her with a small amount of amused pity. “We'll keep looking. There was a strange dragon spotted flying after Badru and Lochlainn, apparently. Do you think it had anything to do with this intruder?”

  Casting his gaze about to make sure no one could overhear that was not supposed to, Jaryn lowered his voice a great deal and stepped closer to Cailin and Niam. “It was Ashlynn. The dragon vein agates changed her somehow. I can't really explain it and Badru was already shifted so we couldn't ask him about it.”

  “Well, that's exciting,” Cailin enthused as quietly as she could. “Isn't it?”

  “I think that remains to be seen.” Jaryn slowly rubbed his hands together. “What about the elf that escaped, the one Lilia believes to be called Emerion?”

  Once more, Cailin and Niam shared a look, though this one left them both downcast and prompted him to be the one to speak first. “We've been following what feels like a deliberate trail that he's leaving for us. He could leave Siness at any time. At this point, it doesn't make sense for him to just stay here in Siness, especially with what is happening in Braemar. Yes, there has been a decrease in deaths around the capital here, but that hasn't stemmed the flow in the outer provinces. Despite King Wessely's efforts, the death toll for Gaels rises every day.”

  “And dragons?” Jaryn asked.

  “Gia and I have relocated more families this week than she has in the last five months combined,” Niam continued. “We've saved more, but that also means there are more in danger than there were.”

  Jaryn ran a hand over his mouth and chin, anger darkening his hazel eyes. “If Emerion stays in Siness it is because he has been told to do so, either by Merrik or Rhiamon, I would wager. My question is, what makes you think that it's him you're chasing?”

  In answer, Cailin opened a pouch fastened to her belt and pulled out the tip of an arrow and the snapped off fletching with familiar feathers that were broken and ruffled. “He leaves one of these arrows at each place he murders a Gael.”

  Jaryn took the end with the fletching and ran his fingers over the plumage that had once been stiff but now felt downy. “This is the arrow he shot at Ashlynn with. Surely, he's had to have run out by now. Who is making him more?”

  “No one we've been able to locate,” Niam revealed. “But we're still looking.”

  The answer drew a sigh from Jaryn so heavy that it was nearly a growl. “I want answers.”

  “And we'll get them,” Cailin promised. She shifted on her feet, taking the pressure off of her injured leg. “I didn't want to tell you this, but we found a dumping ground full of hatchling bodies four hours north of here. All of them had been beheaded and skinned.”

  “For masks,” Jaryn rasped.

  “Killian told us what's happening in Braemar. If the number of hunters is growing, more masks will be needed.”

  “Which means the person Ashlynn saw this morning really could have been anyone.” he muttered to himself. The comment appeared to confuse the other two and he realized that it was time to fill them in on information they were missing as well. “I entertained the idea that whoever was outside our window might have gotten in so easily because they had already been inside the castle.”

  Cailin's brows lowered. “How would they already be inside the castle?”

  This was not a conversation he felt comfortable having so out in the open. Checking that the closest sitting room was empty and available, Jaryn ushered them inside a
nd closed the door behind them. He peeked outside, then shut the shutters despite knowing it would cut off the flow of fresh air. “Not for the first time, we have been infiltrated by someone who was not who they appeared to be.”

  Cailin sagged like a water skin with all water let out of it, but Niam looked from one to the other in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  Trusting his gut about Niam and the new tattoo he could see on the young man's left wrist, Jaryn withheld nothing as he recounted the night he thought of as the betrayal of his wife. Both of them listened in utter silence, horror and rage on their faces, though none of the condemnation Jaryn had been expecting, especially from Cailin. “I didn't know,” Jaryn finished at length. “I truly didn't know.”

  “She gave you tea,” Cailin said, her words biting. “Remember what I told you and Ashlynn about what I was drinking...what she and Kenayde were also drinking? Why was she so insistent upon you drinking whatever it was she gave you that night? Of course you didn't know, Jaryn. She didn't want you to. She made sure you didn't.” Her fingers curled into fists and she crossed the small room, looking for a moment as though she was going to throw a punch as Jaryn. Ultimately, however, she gave no care to her station and treated him as the friend and brother he'd become when they'd been stranded together on Ironedge so many years ago, and put her arms around him in a tight embrace. “I am so sorry that happened to you.”

  Her hug was so fierce and unexpected that it knocked him back a step, but it brought a smile to his lips and much needed warmth to his soul. “Thank you, Cai.” He squeezed her in return. “I appreciate that.”

  Releasing him, she asked, “Another Bakeneko? Have you talked to Misuzu?”

  “She's aware, but we need to be vigilant.” He nodded toward her hand. “Thus the reason for the plain rings. It helps us know it's you without having to ask inane questions each time we see you.”

  “Is there anything else we can do in the meantime?” Niam asked, “anything to keep you and the queen safe from something like this happening again?”