She reached into her boot and pulled out one of her daggers. His eyes widened as the firelight danced off the silver edge.
Unable to help herself, she smiled. “Not to worry, dear cousin, you’ll get exactly what you deserve.”
11
Kadelynn
When Kadelynn stepped out of the cabin, she ignored the glances that followed her. Instead, she went to their horses, and loaded them back up, then untied their reigns. Her movements were sure as she led the horses to the fire, and grabbed the unlit end of a branch, then pulled it from the flames. In the darkness, the blazing wood was like a torch, leading her into the darkness.
Weaving through the buildings, she approached the trees filled with innocent people, with their Life Essences. And as she came closer, their pleading grew louder and louder until she had to blink back tears against the volume and the intensity of their misery. Tears trailed down her cheeks as she stopped at the edge of the woods.
Everything grew calm. So calm and quiet that she swore the earth had stopped turning. That some powerful force beyond her understanding was holding its breath.
And then, she tossed the burning branch into the tree.
Nothing had ever caught fire so quickly. Within seconds, the flames spread over all the grey leaves and then leaped to the oily black trunk. Like something living, the fire crackled, spreading embers to the trees around it. She watched, both in horror and fascination as the fire spread not only to the other trees down the row, continuing further and further into the distance, but onto the other rows.
By the time she heard shouting behind her, it was like the world was on fire. But she ignored the shouting as the first tree collapsed in front of her. A blue haze rose above the tree, and, she swore, she could feel the Life Forces escaping. For a second they seemed to surround her, to dance in the air around her in a swirl of light, and then they shot into the sky. Over and over the trees fell, and the blue haze came.
Her skin crackled with an energy she didn’t understand as the blue hazes circled her and then shot into the sky. She cried, big tears that rained down her cheeks. She cried in a way she hadn’t since she was a little girl. It was like watching a suffering loved one take their last breath. It hurt, but it was also a relief to know they weren’t hurting anymore.
The Cahula came running with pails of water. Kids, women, men, it didn’t matter. They were all frantically trying to put the fire out. But even from where she stood, Kadelynn knew they would fail. It wasn’t just the fire that was spreading. The Life Forces were helping, she knew that.
In fact, she swore she could feel millions of little blue glowing lights through all the realms, celebrating. And the strange feeling made her feel tied to the world in a way she never had before. It was beautiful.
“What the hell did you do?” Acker hissed into her ear.
Kadelynn turned slowly and looked at the Seer’s angry face. “What I had to.”
He swore. “We need to go. Now. While they’re distracted.”
Grabbing Gremly’s reigns, he led them all to the edge of the village. Then, they mounted and rode off toward the open Prairie Lands. When they got to the top of a hill, they both turned and looked back. Acers of the trees burned, and the blue haze danced above it all, happy to finally be free.
She knew they were in danger and in trouble, but she didn’t regret it. As long as she lived, she was sure this would be one of the best things she’d done. No matter what it cost her.
And then she heard a cry rise up. A cry that could only be a war cry.
“Let’s go. Now!” Acker yelled, and they raced off into the night.
12
Drazen
The disturbance in the magic was unlike anything Drazen had felt before. The only thing he could compare it to was the feeling of a new dragon being born, like some great magic being returned to the stream of magic that flows through all the realms. At last, he collapsed to his knees in the dirt, staring out at the Prairie Lands. Off in the distance, he swore he saw a glow. Like the world was on fire.
It might have been his imagination, but that glow had to be related to this feeling. He knew it!
“I can feel it too.”
His gaze went to Talin. His best friend stood looking toward the glow. His curly hair covered in dirt from their digging, and his face streaked from sweat and dirt. Yet as tired as they both were, Talin seemed equally disturbed by whatever was happening.
“We need to get back to camp, load up on supplies, and figure out what the hell that is.”
Talin nodded.
They loaded up their supplies. This was another unexplored location on their map. Drazen had thought he’d felt something, so they’d started digging, but it’d only been an artifact with magic pressed into it. Now, they needed to get back to their main camp in a hurry and figure out what was going on with the magic.
Once they were ready, they both climbed onto their mounts, and Drazen took a deep breath. It’d been a long day, but he had enough energy left to speed their trip. So, exhaling slowly, he used his magic. As they moved forward, the world blurred around them, and his stomach shifted uneasily. Exhaustion tugged at his mind, until he thought he might have to stop, but then felt he was near the camp.
Closing down his magic, the world around them returned to normal. Drazen drew in rushed breaths until he was able to calm the trembling that ran through his body.
“Uh, Drazen?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying not to sound as tired as he felt.
“Look at the camp.”
Drazen’s gaze rose, and he froze. The camp was nothing more than his yurt. Debris had been left behind. The fire that always burned in the center of the camp was out. And it was dark and silent.
“Wh-what? How is this… they abandoned us?”
Talin sighed. “We knew it’d happen soon. I just thought we had a little more time.”
Yes, they’d known it was going to happen, but it felt like some far-off worry. Drazen had been so concerned with speeding up their search for the dragon eggs that he wasn’t as in tune to his men as he had been in the past. Still, he felt oddly betrayed. He thought when the Elders called everyone back, that a few loyal souls would remain. Apparently, he was wrong.
“You sure you don’t want to go back to Olarata?” Drazen asked, telling himself he’d be okay with whatever his best friend decided. “It’ll just be us now, roughing it, with no support from our people.”
Talin laughed. “They’ll have to separate me from your cold, dead corpse.”
Drazen grinned at his friend, and they started back to camp. It was odd as they walked through all the many places there had been yurts and people. Now, it was like a ghost town.
They dismounted at the watering area for the horses.
“I’ll take care of them,” Talin said. “You head in and see if they left us the bath.”
Drazen nodded, grateful his friend didn’t make him explain that he was too exhausted to care for his horse after using his magic. Handing Talin the reigns, he stumbled along to his home. At the yurt, he pushed on the door with the golden dragon carved into it and entered the darkness. Going to the fire, he reached down to use his magic to light it, and something cold and sharp struck his throat. He was yanked back against someone’s body in the dark, and his air was cut off.
He struggled against his attacker. Wanting more than anything to take a deep breath. He tried to tell them to stop, but no words would come out. And then he did the only thing left to him, he lashed out with his magic.
The person behind him screamed in pain.
Drazen collapsed to the ground, pulling the thin, metal rope from around his throat. Where his fingers touched, there was blood, and then he reached for the fire. The flames leaped to life just as Talin came barreling inside.
“What the--?”
Talin moved with all the strength of a snake. He was on the attacker, his blade to his throat, and Drazen slowly turned around, still gasping in breaths. Drazen
crawled around his friend and stared in shock at one of his own people. A boy he’d grown up with. Someone he would call a friend. Yes, technically, the man had been a servant to his mother, but they’d played together, just like two sons of Dragon Tenders.
“Fidel? How could you do this?”
The man stared at him with cold eyes. “The People finally have the power as you damned Dragon Tenders lose yours. None of you know how to care for yourselves. You have no useful skills. Within a few years, all the magic will be gone, and we’ll be the ones in charge.”
“Unless I find the dragon eggs,” Drazen finished, softly.
He glared.
“We need to kill him, or he’ll just try again.” Talin’s voice was fierce, but Drazen was shocked by his words.
“We can’t just… take a life.”
“He was going to take yours!”
Drazen shook his head. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Talin’s pale blue eyes met Drazen’s and held his gaze. “You know the smart thing is to kill him. You don’t even have to be the one to do it. I will.”
Drazen touched his friend’s arm. “There is magic in every person. We can’t just decide who lives and dies. That’s not our job.”
Fidel looked shocked. “You’re just going to let me go?”
Drazen nodded. “You might be willing to live with the knowledge you took my life, but I could never do the same.”
The man frowned. “Your brother thoughtlessly destroyed our world, our people, and even the dragons. Sometimes I forget how different you are.”
Drazen glanced at Talin.
Talin, slowly, reluctantly, climbed off of the other man.
Fidel looked uncertain as he climbed to his feet. “So, I can just… go?”
Drazen tried to smile. “The magic connects all of us. Hurting you would only hurt us.”
Fidel shook his head. “You’ve been out here too long, my friend. Olarata has changed. Now, brother kills brother, and friend kills friend.”
He hoped not. “The further we get from magic, the more our humanity will die, until that’s all we have left.”
“Maybe,” Fidel said, sounding uncertain.
“Are you going to try to kill Drazen again?” Talin asked, an edge to his words.
Fidel shook his head. “There are many things I don’t believe in anymore, but a life debt is not one of them. I won’t try to kill Drazen anymore, but the prize for his head will bring more attempts.”
A price for the head of a Dragon Shadow? Drazen felt sick. Truly, his people were withering away and dying without dragons. He’d been so worried about finding the dragon eggs, he hadn’t realized that maybe if he found them, it’d still be too late.
“Thanks for the warning.”
Fidel disappeared out of the building, and Drazen fell to the rugs, exhaustion overcoming him. Talin was at his side in an instant, and his disapproval was hard to miss.
“We can’t just start killing people. Not unless we have to.”
“I know,” Talin said, helping him stand, and then setting him down on the pillows by the fire. “So what do we do now?”
“We go figure out what that magic was that we felt. And, I drink more of the water and see if I can figure out who this woman is.”
It wasn’t a great plan, but it was a start.
13
Acker
They had ridden through most of the night, only stopping when the horses had to rest. Still, he and Kadelynn were struggling as they kept on. Several times he saw her eyes close for too long, and her head bob forward, before she jerked and awakened. He was worried that continuing at this pace would lead to one of them being injured. But at the same time, no injury would be worse than what the Cahula would do to them.
So when the first streaks of light came along the horizon, he steered them to a small collection of trees near a tiny stream. He knew Kadelynn had to be exhausted because she even let him help her down from the horse. She stumbled about as she cared for her horse and set up a place to rest, and he almost hurt himself watching her instead of where he was stepping and what he was doing.
When both of the horses had been cared for, he laid his blanket beside Kadelynn, and she didn’t protest. They didn’t bother with a fire, but instead curled beneath the shadows of one of the trees, covered in dust and dirt, too exhausted to do much else.
His eyes closed, and sleep tugged at him, but he remained awake. Over and over again he thought about what Kadelynn had done. He should be furious. She had put yet another target on their backs. Her actions had destroyed his relationship with Cahula, and he would no longer be able to trade with a tribe that tolerated him.
And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to be upset. Instead, he felt the strangest… jealousy. He had ridden past those trees so many times over the years that he’d almost grown numb to the whispers of misery that came from them. But somehow, a Stonebuilder, someone who shouldn’t even be able to sense the magic in the trees, had. Not only that, but she’d freed the many souls within the trees and given them peace.
A peace they deserved.
It was reckless, there was no doubt about it, but it was also brave in a way he could never be. Somehow, all his life, he’d just wanted to be good like his brother. He’d just wanted to know the right thing to do. But it seemed every time he thought he was making the right choice, it was the wrong one. And when he felt the souls, the magic, within the trees gain their freedom… his only regret was that he hadn’t been the one brave enough to do it.
Usually, a moment like this would make him feel weak, stupid, and like a fool. But he didn’t feel that way. He felt… inspired. If a Stonebuilder woman could do the right thing without even realizing that’s what she was doing, maybe he could do the same. Maybe Kadelynn had come into his life to show him there was more to life than regret and shame.
A smile curled his lips. If he could, he would find a way to keep her in his life. He’d find a way to keep her safe, even from herself and her goal to kill the Dragulous. And, he’d be better. Someone she would want to be around.
Sleep claimed him. And for the first time in years, Acker didn’t dream of his failure, or the screams of his dying father, or the angry gazes of his people. Or even the tears that had run down his mother’s face. No, he dreamed about a small house with flowers outside, and Kadelynn smiling in the doorway.
And then pain shot through his throat.
His eyes flashed open. Before him, the chief of the Cahula tribe stared down at him with cruel eyes. He wore a heavy cloak of rough, tan fabric that covered all but his face. A curved blade pressed against Acker’s throat, and there was death in the man’s gaze.
“Jovian,” the chief’s name came out a whisper of greeting.
“You… we welcomed you into our home… we traded with you… and you betrayed us. We should have known your kind couldn’t be trusted. Not even your own people trust you.”
His words hurt, but not as much as the dagger slowly slicing deeper. “Do what you have to… but don’t hurt the woman.”
The chief’s eyes held death. “You are traitor to the Seers. Traitor to the Cahula. And soon, dead.”
Acker gritted his teeth to keep from begging for his life.
Jovian’s mouth opened, and then his eyes went wide. Suddenly, blood poured from his mouth, and Acker jerked away from the dagger. The Cahula man fell to his knees, then onto his side, and kneeling behind him was Kadelynn with her sword. She looked like a warrioress, her expression so damn fierce that it took his breath away.
Pushing Jovian away from their blankets, Acker grabbed his own sword and searched the area. But the Cahula must have split up because he only found the chief’s horse tied up. So, Acker untied the beast, smacked his ass, and sent him racing back toward his village.
When he was done, he returned to Kadelynn.
To his surprise, she’d wrapped the man in a blanket and dragged him beneath another tree. She was sweaty, out of breath, but had t
hat same determined look on her face.
“What are you doing?”
Her head jerked up. “I, well, I couldn’t just leave him like that.”
Acker nodded. Even though the chief had just tried to kill him, it didn’t feel right to just leave his body where it’d fallen.
“We should go though,” he began, wincing when he saw the exhaustion that crossed her face.
“You’re probably right,” she said, her words coming out soft.
He wanted to tell her they could just rest. But there was no way they could simply slip back to sleep, not with a dead body near them, and certainly not in a place more Cahula might find them.
“If we travel for another couple hours, it’ll be too bright out for the Cahula, even under their robes. I know a good resting place.”
Kadelynn nodded in agreement, and they both resaddled their mounts and started riding once more, although slower than they had the night before. For almost two hours they road in near silence until Acker knew they were drawing near a perfect resting spot.
“Just past this hill,” he told her, forcing a smile.
She studied him for a moment too long before looking away.
He frowned, wondering what she was thinking.
They crested the hill and both froze. Down below, in his perfect resting place, it looked like half an army was camping. There were more than a dozen small tents, and one massive one in the middle. Men in armor on horses circled the camp, and there was the buzz of conversation.
Acker tugged on Gremly’s reigns and headed back down the hill, his heart racing.
Kadelynn followed, but she didn’t speak.
They got back to the bottom of the hill, and Acker turned. “Those are Stonebuilders.”
“The King’s men,” she said, her expression grim.
“What does that mean?”
She hesitated. “My… my betrothed is the cousin to the king. He’s likely here for my wedding. If he sees me, I’ll have no choice but to return with them.”
Dragon Memories: A High Fantasy Reverse Harem Romance (Legacy of Blood and Magic Book 2) Page 11