Light My Fire

by G. A. Aiken

  Everything around them jerked—the trees, the boulder . . . the ground. The ground jerked hardest of all. Then, from where Rhian’s hand had landed, the earth broke away, and the Riders and horses who had not moved quickly enough—at least half the battalion—fell as the ground disappeared beneath them. They vanished into the crater that had been created, their cries of terror echoing in Celyn’s ears.

  Kachka had to look up to see what was happening. She knew power when she saw it, and this delicate female had power.

  The woman stood, quickly turning away from the devastation she’d caused. And Kachka watched her wipe a tear from her cheek. This had not been something she’d wanted to do, but she’d done it. And, Kachka would guess, she’d do it again.

  The remainder of Kachka’s fellow tribesmen roared in rage at the loss of their comrades and kin. Then they rode around the gaping crevice, no longer interested in Kachka and Elina, but in the woman who’d done this to them.

  Kachka stood, her legs braced on either side of Elina, able to see over the dragon because he was bent low to make sure he protected her sister with everything he had.

  She raised her bow and readied her arrow, but before she could let loose her own fury, she saw monks. Two of them came through the trees, covered completely by their cowls and fur capes. But they weren’t like other monks who’d traveled through her lands. These two were burly, like small oxen. And like oxen, they battered into a few of her tribesmen, knocking horses and riders into the pit. A spear came at the taller of the two, but he expertly dodged it, caught the shaft with his hand, and yanked it away from the Rider. He turned the weapon and impaled the horse. As the poor animal crashed to the ground, he quickly reached down and touched it, his head lowered. He was chanting. First, the horse stopped moving. It was dead. Then . . . it wasn’t. With blood still gushing, it got to its feet and turned on the Rider, stomping and stomping until the Rider was no more than chunky red slime to be slipped in later.

  Fascinated, Kachka lowered her weapon, unsure whether she should be terrified or thankful.

  Then she heard the one cry that sent panic and fear through the strongest Rider’s soul.

  “Kyvich! It’s the Kyvich!”

  There were only three riding their demon beasts through the Riders, but when she was a child, Kachka had seen only two of the warrior witches take down an entire squadron of Quintilian soldiers who were under the delusion they’d found some weak females to amuse themselves with.

  The three Kyvich were young, but strong. The one leading the way around the opposite side of the crevice from the monks didn’t even unsheathe her sword. She simply gestured to the trees, causing vines and limbs to shoot out, grabbing hold of Kachka’s fellow Riders and dragging them from their horses. Some were strangled by the vines, some impaled by the limbs. And some dragged off into who knew what horrors.

  “Who are these people?” she finally asked the dragon.

  He stood tall now, towering over her like a massive building, and blocking the rest of the destruction of her fellow tribesmen from her sight.

  The dragon shrugged and replied, “They’re family.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Are you crying?” Talwyn fairly snarled at her younger cousin.

  And, as Celyn expected, Rhian was direct and angry when she replied, “Do you think I wanted to do that? Do you think I get enjoyment from killing others?”

  “I see some things have tragically not changed with you, cousin.”

  Rhian stepped toward her cousin, her hand raised, more dark energy swirling around her. And Talwyn? With a disturbing half grin that reminded Celyn of Annwyl more than he cared to think about, she pointed her hand at the ground and green vines began to burst from the dirt.

  Yet before Celyn could tell either of them to stop it, Talan stepped between the pair, his arms wrapping around Rhian.

  “How I missed you, Rhi,” he said, easing the situation without raising his voice or the dead.

  A pat against his thigh had Celyn turning.

  “She is still alive,” Elina’s sister told him. “But blood continues to flow from the wounds.”

  “Let me see,” one of the Kyvich said, barely sparing a glance for Celyn as she moved in.

  “I do not want Kyvich near my sister.”

  “Would you rather she bleed out?” the Kyvich snapped back.

  “Please,” Celyn said. “Let her try . . . uh . . .”

  “Kachka Shestakova of the—”

  “Yesssss,” Celyn hissed. “Can we just agree on Kachka for now?”

  “I’m Gisa,” the Kyvich said while she examined Elina’s neck. “It looks like her artery was nicked. I can fix this, I think. I just need a few things.”

  Rhian stepped up next to Celyn, standing on one of the smaller boulders surrounding the one Elina lay upon. She pressed her hand against his side. “I have someplace we can take her. We’ll take good care of her, Celyn.”

  “We should go,” Kachka said solemnly. “Those were just the men of the tribes. The women will be coming next, and then it will be bad for all of us.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that.” Rhian glanced over at her cousin. “Right, Talwyn?”

  “I take orders from you now?”

  Rhian spun around, but Talan again quickly stepped between them. Something told Celyn his cousin would be doing that a lot from now on.

  “Just do it,” Talan told his sister.

  “Fine.”

  Talwyn walked within a few inches of the gaping hole that had once been a nice piece of land and spread her arms toward the trees on either side. She began chanting, and the cold Steppes winds died abruptly, then rose again to swirl around her.

  Celyn watched in fascination as the trees first grew tall and strong, then the limbs began to lengthen and spread out until they met in front of Talwyn. Branches twisted and turned together until they’d created a rather frightening-looking shield.

  “Done,” Talwyn said as she walked toward them, appearing completely unfazed by the magicks she’d just wielded. “Let’s go.”

  Celyn lowered himself to the ground and motioned to Talan. “Put Elina on my back.”

  “I’ve got her,” the Kyvich said, carefully picking Elina up in her arms, and then climbing onto the top of the boulder. She stepped onto Celyn’s back, placed Elina down, and crouched beside her.

  “I need a cloth,” she ordered her Kyvich sister.

  Once a cloth was handed over, the Kyvich said to Celyn, “All right. Go.”

  He assumed she was trying to staunch the flow of blood, and he would be eternally grateful for that.

  Rhian led the way, heading toward a crop of nearby caves. As they walked, they were silent until Rhian abruptly stopped right outside a cave entrance and snapped at Talwyn, “Must you be so bloody negative?”

  “It was just a damn question. Stop barking at me!”

  “No. That was not a question. You’re just being negative! And I don’t appreciate it.”

  “So I can’t say anything? Is that it? I shouldn’t question anything? I should just let this unfold? Is that what you’re saying? Because I’m pretty sure I don’t like that! At all!”

  “That is enough!” Celyn bellowed, beyond fed up with these two. “I can feel Elina’s lifeblood against my scales while you two petty bitches bicker like you’re still twelve years old. You’re not!”

  Talwyn threw up her hands, seemingly done with it all while Rhian had the grace to at least appear contrite.

  “I’m sorry, Celyn. Really. Let’s get her inside.”

  Yet as the group went into the cave and moved through the caverns, their way lit by torches embedded in the walls, Celyn’s young cousins didn’t seem that sorry about anything, what with Talwyn putting her brother in a headlock and Rhian vowing never to speak to either of them again. Because she was sick of them. Sick, sick, sick of them!

  But Celyn could hardly enjoy his cousins’ bickering, as he liked to do, with Elina possibly dying. He want
ed to ask the Kyvich tending her a thousand questions, but he’d rather she focus on keeping Elina alive instead of trying to calm him down.

  Still, as worried as Celyn was, he slowed to a stop when he heard a strange sound coming from deep in the cavern. A tap-scrape sound moving closer and closer down the passage.

  They all stopped. Kachka immediately raised her bow. Talan and Magnus pulled axes out from under their robes. Talwyn and the other Kyvich pulled their swords. Celyn stepped back and readied his flame while lifting his wings to protect Elina and the third Kyvich on his back.

  Only Rhian seemed unconcerned. She did stop, but she didn’t prepare herself for battle. She simply waited . . . with a smile.

  After several long minutes, while Elina lay motionless against his back, a shadow moved through the passageway toward them. As it came near, Celyn could make out a dark grey cape, the hood pulled over the head, the rough wool material wrapped around the body. He could also see the snout peeking out. Could see the front left claw wrapped tight around the walking staff and the back right claw dragging slowly behind.

  But just as the caped being moved in front of them all, a voice from behind Celyn barked, “Took your time bringing them here, didn’t ya?”

  Celyn looked behind him to see a painfully old She-dragon standing there. This one also had a worn, rough wool cape draped around her body and held onto a walking staff with her left claw. Yet when Celyn looked back to where he’d seen the other dragon . . . well, that dragon was gone.

  He also quickly noticed that Talan and Talwyn’s friends had instantly moved into combat formation without prompting or confusion. Good. Celyn liked that.

  Yet while everyone was tense and ready to fight, Rhian walked past them and up to the old She-dragon.

  “There was a bit of a battle, but we’re all here now.”

  The old She-dragon looked right past Celyn—although he was three or four times bigger than her—and focused on Talan and Talwyn.

  “You two . . . come here.”

  The twins looked at each other but didn’t move.

  “Now,” Rhian pushed.

  With their weapons still drawn, the twins walked around Celyn until they stood in front of the She-dragon.

  With the tip of her right talon, she first lifted Talan’s face by the chin. “You’re a pretty one, ain’t’ cha?”

  “Yes,” Talan said. “I am.”

  “Can you fight?”

  “Well enough.”

  “And raising the dead. That ain’t easy.”

  “It’s easy enough for me.”

  “That’s what worries me, boy. It worries me a lot.”

  She moved to Talwyn, but when she tried to touch her with her talon, Celyn’s cousin batted it out of the way with her sword and snarled, “Keep your fucking claws off me.”

  Rhian quickly stepped in front of her cousin. “Talwyn doesn’t like to be touched.”

  “She’s like her mother.” The She-dragon leaned her neck down a bit so she could look Talwyn in the eyes. “But unlike her, knives thrown at my head will be returned in kind.”

  “I look forward to the challenge,” Talwyn shot back, which got her a punch to the chest from Rhian.

  While Talwyn pushed her cousin, the She-dragon finally focused on Celyn.

  “You weren’t supposed to be here. Bit of a surprise. But I recognize who you come from. You have your mother’s eyes, but your father’s temperament. Must be more his people than ours.”

  Celyn studied the old She-dragon, but it wasn’t easy. She was a bit hard to look at. There were a lot of scars from gouges that had cut deep, right through the scales on her face, neck, and snout. Plus one eye was crystal blue, while the other was a milky white and grey. Her hair was bright white, reaching down her body and pooling in a ridiculous pile at her clawed feet. There was nothing remotely familiar about her, yet she seemed to know who he was. Or, at the very least, who his parents were.

  Rhian, after pushing her cousin again, stepped over and said, “Celyn, this is our aunt.”

  Celyn thought of all his mother’s kin; the Cadwaladrs were a preposterously large clan of dragons. And although Celyn had met all of them at least once in his lifetime, there were so many, he wouldn’t be surprised to have forgotten one or two . . . or a thousand. Still . . . he did know his immediate family. All his mother’s siblings he knew as well as he knew his parents. So he was sure this female was no aunt of his.

  “I know all my mother’s sisters.”

  “No, no.” Rhian smiled. “She’s more our great-great, possibly great-aunt.”

  “What?”

  “She’s Brigida the Foul. I’m sure you’ve heard of her. Grandmum loves telling stories about her.”

  Celyn glared down at Talan. “Did you do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Bring Brigida the Foul back from the dead?”

  “It wasn’t me. I haven’t worked up to humans yet, much less dragons.”

  “The Cadwaladrs may want to believe I was dead,” the old witch said, her voice like metal over the roughest stone, “but that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “But that’s not possible,” Celyn argued, even as he knew the truth of what she was saying. “You should be dead.”

  “I should be lots of things, boy. But I ain’t.” The She-dragon eyed Elina and the Kyvich on his back. “What do we have here?”

  “It’s my friend. She’s dying.”

  The old witch snorted at that. “She ain’t dyin’.” She leaned over to get a better look. “Her face got cut up pretty bad. But, as you can see,” she noted, gesturing to her own, “nothing a body can’t survive.”

  She moved around Celyn. “Come on then, lad. Let’s see what we can do for your human. And best part . . . if she don’t make it, we’ll have something to snack on.”

  Then she cackled at her own joke while Talan quickly caught hold of Kachka before she could unleash several arrows to the back of Brigida’s head.

  “Leave it,” Talan gently warned. “I think she’s just joking. Plus, she can kill you simply by looking in your direction.”

  Sadly and from the stories Celyn had heard over the years from his kin . . . all that was very true.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kachka watched as the strange-looking She-dragon shifted to a horrifying-looking human. She was called Brigida the Foul, and although Kachka could tell that Celyn did not know her personally, she sensed that he’d heard of her. And what he’d heard had not been good.

  They both wanted to follow the old witch and the Kyvich Gisa into the alcove where they took Elina, but the She-dragon wouldn’t hear of it. And when Celyn tried to insist, the old She-dragon simply chanted a few words and drew a rune in the air with her old, crippled hand, and a rock wall appeared where there had been none.

  A solid, immovable rock wall. Kachka was sure that even using this dragon’s hard head—something she was sorely tempted to do—would not get them through to the other side.

  Keeping tight control of her anger and her fear for her sister’s safety, Kachka said, “May I speak to you, dragon? In private.”

  Kachka walked away, glancing back when one of the humans called out Celyn’s name and tossed him some clothes. When she found an alcove with a long bench, she walked in. Books lined the walls, carefully placed on wood shelves, and scrolls were piled in the corners.

  She walked to the books and stared at them, giving herself a moment to calm down. But she knew after a minute or two, nothing would calm her down. She was torn between being angry at Glebovicha for what she’d done to Elina and being angry at the world for what it had done to Elina.

  Unfortunately, all that was available for Kachka to take her anger out on was the dragon. So she faced him, ready to unleash that rage . . . but she couldn’t.

  Not once she saw that he’d already shifted to human, put on his chain-mail shirt, leggings, and leather boots, and sat down on the bench. His elbows rested on his knees, his head buried in both hands.<
br />
  Kachka understood in that moment that the dragon was as worried about Elina as she was. Perhaps even a little more.

  Did her sister have any idea how much this dragon cared for her? Probably not. Elina had listened to Glebovicha far too much, believed herself not worthy . . . of anything. Kachka already knew her sister would blame herself for what had happened today. That was her way. To take the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  Foolish female!

  Kachka placed her bow and quiver on the ground and sat down beside the dragon on the bench. It was strange to know that his true form was a large thing covered in scales. Especially when his human form was so damn pretty.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “How could I not have known?” he demanded of himself, making her think he’d been having this conversation in his head the entire time. “How could I not have seen this was too dangerous for her?”

  “How would you know that? Elina would tell you nothing about Glebovicha. Not without you asking.”

  “That’s just it.” He dropped his hands and lifted his head. “I asked her questions. Constantly. Until I thought her bloody head would explode. But my father would say I didn’t ask her the right questions. I never should have let her see Glebovicha alone. I should have stopped her.”

  “Stopped her? How? How would any male stop a woman, any woman, from seeing her mother?”

  The dragon’s human body froze, his gaze locked across the alcove, staring blankly at nothing. And that’s when she understood fully what had happened here.

  “She never told you that Glebovicha is her mother. Our mother. Did she?”

  Celyn shook his head. “That’s not possible. A mother . . . a mother would never do that to her child. Never.”

  “Life on the Steppes is hard. It is not for everyone.”

  “She wanted her dead,” he reasoned. “That’s why she sent Elina to Queen Rhiannon. Because she wanted her dead.”

  “A mother cannot just kill her child. Not anymore. There was a time when weak babies or children were left to die while the tribes moved on, but that was stopped. Now, if you have weak child, you must deal with it. Most do. Glebovicha did not want to.”