by Meg Cowley
“We do not have to go if you do not wish it.” Aedon’s tone was sympathetic, though his sharp eyes watched Ragnar for any trace of his will. “It just means we’ll have a rougher exile this time than what I dare say any of us fancy!” His roguish grin returned. “Not that we’re not used to the splendour of nature’s bed, of course.”
“Mmm... Rocks and roots in my back. I love it so,” said Erika with an eye roll.
Harper chuckled at the nomad woman’s rare humour.
“No. We shall go. If I...we are to visit Valtivar at all, I must present myself in Keldheim,” Ragnar said, though the grim set of his mouth said he did not want to at all.
“Then it’s done!” Aedon grinned and clapped him on the back. Ragnar glowered at him. “Oho. I have missed dwarven feasts. And the ale! Oh, especially the ale. Come, come. There’s not a moment to waste!” He scurried off.
Harper raised an eyebrow and looked at Brand. “Are we close to Valtivar?” she whispered to him. He bent to hear her, ruffling his feathers. The way Aedon had scampered off, it seemed as though they would be there in no time.
“Depends how you define ‘close’.” The Aerian pursed his lips. “If you have a dragon, then yes. If you’re a mere commoner like us, some weeks.”
“Weeks?” Harper gawked at him.
“Yes.”
She groaned. I’m already fed up of walking now, she thought. Her body had still not recovered from her ordeal in Tournai. With a sigh, she hefted her pack, a gift from the grateful villagers, onto her back and followed her companions down the winding trails of the forested foothills.
NOW THEY HAD LEFT THE village and the Well of Life behind, there was little to gossip about around the fire. Harper swallowed. She had not dared broach the subject yet. But her curiosity had only grown with her mountain of unanswered questions.
“Aedon?” she said in a small voice.
“Yes?” Aedon blinked at her, as if surprised she had spoken at all, for they sat in a comfortable silence about the fire, all staring into the abyss of the flames, surrounded by a circle of thick trees. Their attention flicked to her.
She cleared her throat. “I just wondered... Um, the fire at...in the vaults. What was that?” Her face bloomed red, certain he would tell her to mind her own business, but Aedon’s eyes narrowed in thoughtfulness, not hostility.
He stared at her, obviously not expecting that question. She looked at him eagerly, and he stirred, meeting her scrutiny with an imperturbable expression.
After a long pause, he sighed. “I suppose I ought to tell you the truth. That was a special gift of mine.”
The others looked at him, then hurriedly looked away, as though they invaded on a private moment. Harper did not speak, waiting.
“It was a gift from my dragon,” he added in a soft, pained voice.
Harper’s eyes widened. A dragon? Surely she had misheard.
“Valyria,” he said, even more softly. He had not spoken her name in such a long time, but it still cut him. “She was the most beautiful soul I have ever known. I have never loved anyone so fiercely as I loved her.” His hands balled into fists. “She was my partner in heart and mind. Together, we were one. Together, we ruled the skies.”
He shook his head. “I was the youngest general of the Winged Kingsguard of Tournai who had ever ascended. I was the strongest, the best, the smartest.” His voice soured. “I was young, arrogant, and foolish. Thought I could take on the world.
“Together, we were so strong, who could overcome us? Certainly not goblin scum.” He spat upon the fireside at the word. “I was wrong. I should have returned to Tournai, sought backup. But I did not.
“We flew into battle alone. Valyria was strong, but she was not invincible. She died, yet I lived. I think this is the greater torture, a punishment I deserve, for leading her to her demise. Every day without her is agony. I have a few of our bonded gifts, including affinity with fire, to thank her for, but I would rather have her instead.”
Harper’s mouth hung open. “I had no idea,” she breathed, barely audible. “I’m sorry.”
Aedon shrugged, a tight, sharp jerk of his shoulders. “You were not to know.”
“Is that... Is that why you were exiled?” she dared to ask.
Aedon shook his head. “That was the beginning, but no. For that, I was not exiled, merely disgraced. My elder brother now holds the position of general. He’s welcome to it. If nothing else, I’m glad to have no part in Toroth’s business.”
Harper fell quiet, her mind alight. Aedon was a dragon rider! One of the Winged Kingsguard. Their leader! He had never even given the barest hint of a clue, and the revelation shocked her. I wonder what else they have hidden.
She dared not rove her attention around her new companions. For as much as they had saved her life on several occasions, she had to remind herself that she still did not really know them enough to trust them intimately.
Life was very different in Pelenor. With each passing day, it only seemed more so. I was sheltered in Caledan. She looked to the dell of trees sheltering them, keeping the dark night at bay. There’s so much more out there. For all Aedon’s sorrow, she could not help but feel a thrill of anticipation and anxiety at the thought.
As they stirred to make their resting places for the night, Harper stepped close to Aedon and placed a gentle hand upon his.
“Thank you for sharing that.” Her heart hammered so hard, she could barely hear her own whisper. He was just as handsome with grief, though in a different way. To her own annoyance, her attraction to him had only grown after their adventures, though she berated herself for it every time she thought of him with infatuation.
His fingers squeezed hers in silent thanks, and he smiled sadly as his green eyes, golden in the fire’s light, met hers. “Good night, Harper,” he said softly.
BRAND WATCHED HARPER bed down for the night, then his stern gaze flicked to Aedon, who stood brooding into the fire.
“A word.” It was not a request.
Face blank, Aedon followed him away from the others.
“Stay away from her,” Brand growled.
He furrowed his brows. “I beg your pardon?”
“Harper. Stay away from her. The girl has an infatuation with you that you ought not fan.”
Aedon drew back, then puffed out his chest with indignation. “Who says it’s any of your business?”
“The fact we all live together, for one.” Brand scowled at him.
“I can do, or not do, whatever I please.”
“Stay away from her,” he growled again. “I’ve seen it time and again with you. You let these casual romances throw themselves at you, then leave them broken-hearted because you’re too scared to open your heart again. Not Harper. She’s one of us now, and she needs us. I won’t have you breaking her, too, for she’ll be truly lost and alone then.”
“Well, I–”
“Promise me.”
“I don’t reall–”
Brand stooped to his level and shoved his face, bared teeth and all, toward Aedon’s. “Promise me.”
“I promise, if it’ll make you feel better.” Aedon recovered some of his customary swagger and rolled his eyes. “I didn’t know you were the sentimental type.” He dared to pat the giant Aerian atop his head of tangled hair.
Brand snapped his head back, away from Aedon’s reach, and glared at him. “It’s not a joke. I’m serious.”
Aedon glowered back at him. “If you’re so serious, sort out your own love life before preaching to me.”
The feathers on Brand’s wings flared. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. You two must think we’re all blind.”
“That’s none of your business. Don’t change the subject, elf. Keep your word.” Brand ruffled his wings, turned away, and strode back to camp.
Aedon watched him go, but lingered in the shadows at the edge of camp. His attention fell upon Harper’s form, still wriggling in her cloak to
try and find a comfy nook in which to sleep.
Her piercing grey eyes – that insolent, curious stare – swam before him. The determined set of her delicate jaw. He sighed. It had been a while, and she seemed willing. Surely it was harmless.
Brand doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Bloody Aerian.
He pushed all doubts from his mind.
Five
Dimitri’s eyes snapped open. His bedroom was cool, dark, and silent – as always. But a tingle wormed its way down his spine. He lay immobile, holding his breath, opening all his senses to the world around him. What had awoken him?
Nothing seemed amiss, but tension coiled within him. He slid from the smooth, silken sheets and stood, curling his bare toes in the thick fur of the pelt beneath his feet. The cool air chilled his bare skin, for he had only worn bed trousers that night. He padded toward the door, his feet pacing silently across the ornate wood parquet, and pressed his ear to the wood.
Silence. Yet it still niggled at him.
On silent hinges, he opened the door, preparing a barrage of magic, just in case, even as he berated himself for such silly fears in his own quarters.
“I can hear you, Lord Ellarian.” The deep, cool voice was unmistakable.
Dimitri sighed with relief, and some of the tension drained from him. Snagging a shirt, which he hurriedly threw over his head, Dimitri rushed down the corridor to where the dying embers of the hearth threw tall shadows around the room. Saradon stood before the fire.
“Lord Saradon? I did not expect you.” To Dimitri’s distaste, he swore he could smell the stench of the goblins upon Saradon, but he made no comment on it.
“Dimitri, is that you?” Emyria’s voice quailed up the corridor. Dimitri froze.
“I have company. Stay away,” he ordered, more haughty than he would normally speak to her. But she knew the role he had to play in public and never rebuked him for it. It kept them both safe.
No reply came, and he suppressed a sigh of relief. “Do not worry. We shall not be disturbed, Lord Saradon.” He threw extra wards around them, just in case.
“Do not call me that here. There are too many wanton ears for my liking. Call me...Lord Aradin of your House.”
“Lord Aradin of House Ellarian?”
Saradon nodded.
“What of your other titles? You will be known for an imposter at once.”
Saradon snorted. “You are a spymaster. You can find anything. Surely you can hide anything, as well.”
Dimitri thought back over the snatches of his family tree that he knew on his father’s side...for his mother’s identity was something his father had never deigned to share with him. “Aradin... Quenari... Athrian of House Ellarian shall do. That branch of the family was known for its explorers. You can be a lost son from far afield come to Tournai to pay homage to the king and bring trade from afar.”
“If you can call an army of goblins ‘trade’.” Saradon’s smirk was hidden in the dark, but Dimitri could hear the smile in his voice.
“Are you certain it is not too dangerous for you to be here? It is too soon to act.” Dimitri quickly sketched his progress since their last encounter.
“You have done well, but yes, we are not in a position to act yet. I come to unleash my most powerful weapon.”
Dimitri stilled and waited, filled with anticipation.
“You shall see.” Saradon smirked once more. “Come.”
They were soon in the bowels of the castle, striding down the quiet corridors with purpose, though Dimitri did not understand their destination. Every footfall seemed too loud, a jarring clatter that would attract unwanted attention, but Saradon shrouded them so they could pass unheard and unseen by all. It seemed he wanted to wander the halls of his former home, but Dimitri did not think it was borne of any nostalgia.
Past the red cloaks at every checkpoint they went, and true to Saradon’s word, none stopped them or even seemed to perceive their existence.
What is he doing? wondered Dimitri.
Down into the depths of the mountain they went, heading straight for the catacombs that held the bodies of past rulers and their families...including Saradon’s own mother, Karietta. Dimitri had not wanted to return there, but he steeled himself for it, for he knew Saradon would not turn his path now.
Dark recesses passed them by. Doorways through the crypts leading to chambers, all filled with tombs. It was pitch black but for the amber faelight Saradon guided them with. Now, Dimitri could smell no goblins, but instead, the cool air filled his lungs with slow decay, of must and dead things long passed.
It felt like a repeat of his previous trip. Indeed, he could still see the faint outline of scuffed tracks in the dust from his last visit, for no one else visited those who rested there. Saradon led the way straight to Karietta’s tomb, raised from the floor with her likeness in stone atop it. She stared, unblinking, into the unending night around her.
As Saradon’s faelight bloomed, filling the chamber with warm light, Dimitri leaned closer. The last time he had ventured there, he had not dared such light. He had missed the finest of details upon the tomb – the embellishing of metal, the subtle details of the stone.
“Stay back.”
Saradon’s low voice startled him, and Dimitri dropped back to hover at the edges of the small antechamber, where the walls, hewn from the mountain itself, seeped freezing cold into his back.
Saradon shook his hand free of his obsidian cloak. The ruby signet ring gleamed upon his finger. He slipped it from his hand and approached Karietta’s tomb. Dimitri waited with bated breath.
When Saradon pressed the ring to the stone lips of his mother’s likeness, Dimitri could feel it building – a hum of magical energy from Saradon himself. In a low, dark voice, he crooned in a language Dimitri had only heard within the dark Order he had deserted...and it set the hairs all over his body on end.
Somehow, the language made the magic grow, as though it controlled the power, but Dimitri was of elf blood, just like Saradon. Magic is instinctive. He ought not need words to control it. Not like this... It was abhorrently wrong to form magic by force. Saradon knew that as well as anyone.
The tales had always said Saradon had no magic until his uprising. Once more, Dimitri wondered if there were truth to the stories Saradon denied. That he had schooled in dark arts to come by his powers, or perhaps done far worse to acquire them. Once more, he thought of the Order. He instinctively knew Saradon was somehow connected to it, though not how.
What did he want with them, and they him? A sharing of power?
For a moment, it was as though Dimitri were in the chamber under the mountains raising Saradon again, for the warmth flaring within the room and the metallic tang of strange magic searing his tongue were of the same ilk.
Most of the energy swirling around them seemed to flow from the ring, not Saradon. What is it? Dimitri wondered. It had seemed so innocuous, though it was now clear the ring was something far greater. How could I have missed a powerful artefact like that?
It unnerved him, but there was no time to think, for a wave of energy, heat, and light flashed through them. At the height of the inferno of noise, a crack echoed through the air as the tomb split asunder before them, the stone fractured and smoking. The magic was gone again in an instant. A sweet, cloying smell overlaid the dark, musty decay of the tomb.
“What was that?” Dimitri asked in a hushed tone.
Saradon turned to him, his face still grim with concentration. “That was the sum of our machinations, Dimitrius. My curse is once more released. This time, I shall not fail.”
His curse!
The bottom dropped from Dimitri’s stomach as an icy fear shot through him. He knew the lore. Knew how Saradon’s Curse had decimated the magic of the court until even the dragons could not stand before him.
“Come now. You had no such qualms when we made our pact,” Saradon said, his eyes narrowing.
Dimitri ruffled himself. “Indeed. You are quite right.
There is a price to pay for peace. But this... It will not affect innocents?” Like last time.
“I shall make sure of it. Only those poisoned by the greed and sin of the court shall be afflicted,” Saradon said quickly. “You are safe, of course.”
Dimitri nodded, though he was not convinced by such easy words. “What will come to pass?”
Saradon’s smile was slow and wide, savouring the thought. “Magic will leech from the court until I possess it all.” He bared his teeth in a wild grin.
Dimitri suppressed a tingle of dark premonition at Saradon’s words. He spoke of darker magic than even Dimitri knew, for he had turned away from that path before learning such ways.
“The court will crumble. Toroth, and his ilk, will be as easy to shatter as glass, and Pelenor shall be ours. No one can stand before us. We have only to wait a short while before we can reach out and take what ought to be ours.
“Now,” Saradon added, without waiting for Dimitri’s reply. “I must go. Our savage allies will not manage themselves.”
The goblins accepted his proposal, Dimitri realised with a shock.
“I shall return when it is time. I expect you to continue our good work, and report to me in person.”
Saradon vanished into the ether, leaving Dimitri in the dark as Saradon’s faelight vanished with him. He looked toward the exit. He did not fancy walking all the way back, so he conjured his own faelight and strode to the edge of the crypts, where the protective enchantments ended – though Saradon had somehow circumvented them – before he faded from the living plane.
A few heartbeats later, Dimitri stood in his own chambers once more, gratefully taking deep breaths of the sweet air.
Troubled, he sank onto the couch. “The court will crumble,” Saradon had promised with grim glee. Dimitri would be watching to see how it manifested. He frowned.
What had Saradon unleashed? He could not help but feel as though he had involved himself in machinations he did not understand, which only added to the coil of tension and fear in his belly.