The Last Unicirim’s Bride

by Hollie Hutchins

  “If your husband is a dragon,” Maya said carefully, “he was being chased by another dragon. I caught up to him just as the other dragon mortally wounded him. He was green, with brown flecks on his skin, and small.”

  “T-that… no...” the woman whispered, shrinking into herself in horror. “No, he can’t be...”

  “I killed the one who wounded him,” Maya pressed on, ruthlessly, like a predator tearing into prey. “He told me to protect his wife and child, that ‘they’ were coming in four days. That was three days ago. We thought he meant the dragons.”

  Silence greeted her statement. The woman had collapsed now, sobbing to herself, and the man instead bent next to the woman. His mother.

  “We want to know why he warned us about the dragons when he himself is a dragon.”

  For a moment, Renne thought neither of them would choose to speak. Maybe they’d somehow keep denying they knew the dragon, or tell Maya and him to stop poking about their business. Certainly the son appeared close to attacking them.

  “My dad’s an exile,” the man said finally, his jaw set tight as his mother wept against his chest. “He was meeting with other exiles.”

  “Exiles?” Renne frowned, unsure where the information would lead. Unsure if he wanted to know. The thought of… humanizing the dragons left a rotten taste in his mouth.

  “It might surprise someone like you,” the man spat, glaring hate at Renne, “but dragons aren’t the same. Some of us just want peace, to be left alone, to have nothing to do with anything. My dad just wanted to live with my mother.”

  “Is she a dragon?”

  “No.” The woman wiped her eyes and sniffed, facing them with a haggard face and red-rimmed eyes. “I’m not.”

  Bile rose in Renne’s throat. A dragon, being with a human, producing an abomination…

  I advise you not to speak, Maya snapped at him in their shared thoughts. I can feel your disgust, and it might ruin the information we’ll get out of them.

  I’ll try and stay silent, he agreed, taking a few careful steps back, focusing on the mother, rather than the son.

  “I admit I don’t know anything about… dragon stuff,” Maya pressed on. “I know they invaded River’s End and took over Albalon. I know about the army in Bastion trying to secure Albalon and placing the royals back in the seat of power. I know about unicirim. I know I’m Bonded and that this whole Bonding is a big deal, but I know absolutely nothing about dragons, the creatures that the royals are fighting against. And it bothers me.”

  She and the woman held each other’s gazes, until the woman nodded. “What’s your name, child?”

  “Maya.”

  “I’m Kia. This is my son, Ferran. The dragon you spoke to –” Her throat contracted “– was called Garek. His family were people who moved out of Cinder almost half a century ago when his people lost the civil war there.”

  “Civil war?” Maya accepted the woman’s shaking hand – the woman seemed to want to be pulled up by Maya. Perhaps as a sign of trust. Renne didn’t know, but he bit hard on his tongue, trying to control the anger inside him, the disgust he couldn’t quite shake off.

  “I don’t know much about it myself,” Kia admitted. “But from what my husband… said...” Her voice trembled, her eyes watered. “There were two types of dragons. Those who had the magic to shift into humans, and those who had the magic to breathe fire. The fire ones don’t shift. They… hold a great hatred for their smaller kin, who wear the skins of humans, who trade with them, and love them. In the war, most of the human shifters were annihilated. Those who survived fled across the sea to settle in the human kingdoms instead and refer to themselves as exiles.”

  Maya, who had been listening to the story with a growing look of anger on her face, said, “So when these… pure dragons invaded… was it because they wanted to finish off the exiles?”

  “In part,” Kia said, sniffling again. Her son had a lump in his throat and now stared at the ground. “It was a good excuse for them to claim they wanted to root out the impure dragons. My husband said that when River’s End was sacked where many of the exiles had gone... they called together a meeting, recognizing that they would never be safe, no matter where they were in the world. There are ones choosing to resist, but… I don’t know anything. My husband didn’t want me knowing.”

  “So dragons were responsible for River’s End,” Renne hissed between clenched teeth. “They never would have attacked if these exiles didn’t flee.”

  “No, Renne,” Maya said sadly. “Just don’t. Don’t talk.”

  Are you hearing this? His thought lashed her. They attacked each other, then the cowards among them fled to Albalon. They were followed!

  You really think these dragons of yours wouldn’t have found an excuse to attack at some point anyway?

  He fell silent at that.

  “Thank you for your time,” Maya said. “I wonder if we can speak to these exiles ourselves?”

  “Unlikely,” Kia replied. “If they want help, they’ll come to you. But until then… it has to be a secret.”

  They left the building a little more knowledgeable than before. Although happy they had their marriage arranged, Renne wasn’t entirely sure if they’d be able to survive long enough to have it. Which meant as soon as they got back to the castle and his suite, they figured celebrating the marriage two days earlier than intended wouldn’t do any harm.

  After all, it was best to get some practice in, right?

  Maya

  Maya was in Renne’s arms when someone frantically pounded at their suite door. Groaning, Renne opened his eyes, wincing from the cramp in his arm since Maya had been sleeping on it, and yelled, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Callum! The dragons have been spotted! We got signal fires. They could be on us in moments!”

  “Fuck,” Maya said, and Renne did a similar curse of his own.

  “Is… Maya with you?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Uh, nothing. Congratulations, brother. Bye.”

  A mad scramble ensued to try and get them ready for battle. When they left the castle, dawn was only just breaking, and soldiers organized themselves on the battlements and the streets. Saddlers hastily secured Maya’s seating place on Renne and helped to strap her in before handing her the bow. A fireproof charm was then knotted into Renne’s mane as they couldn’t be sure if it would work if he attempted to merge it with him when he shifted. Maya wore another around her neck. Yvonne handed her goggles. The first time she’d ever tried to wear some.

  “It’ll help your eyes if he flies too fast.”

  Maya bit her lip, taking them and securing them onto her face. They were uncomfortable, huge, and looked nothing like the modern-day goggles she had seen at swimming pools. They were more like the buggy, scientist kind, with extra screws to hold them in place and made out of metal. Her body trembled in anticipation, and she tasted iron on her tongue. She pictured dragons falling to her weapon, pictured them flying through the skies in a desperate battle.

  The one thing they hadn’t tested her on, however, was just how many of those arrows she could fire before she ran out, how much recovery time she needed between using her magic. It felt like a natural extension of herself, like a muscle – but muscles could get tired. Same with Renne when it came to flying. She shivered as the last strap was secured, welding her firmly to Renne’s body, and he cantered away from the gathering troops, his siblings, and the worried gaze of Witslaw, the confident one of Yvonne, to launch himself into the air.

  He headed straight for the dragons descending from the skies towards them. Most had their wings tucked in, going for rapid descent, others stayed further back. Maya tried to count the number attempting to burn Bastion to the ground. Hundreds. But not as many as Maya thought.

  They probably didn’t expect there to be much resistance. They likely didn’t know or understand the nature of the Bond, of what a unicirim and a witch were capable of when they rode together.

  W
e’re going to show them, Maya thought fiercely, privately thinking the goggles were super clunky and uncomfortable for her. She usually tried to hide behind Renne’s neck to subvert the worst of the air currents and keep a side profile to them – but this would probably help.

  I’m just saying, these charms better work, Renne replied. Nervousness shot through their bond. They were, after all, flying straight at the dragons alone. Most would likely pass them to attack the city, but the more they distracted, the better.

  I wonder how arcane affects these little shits, Maya thought with a grin.

  Lightning would work as well, Renne thought back. If you paralyze them mid-air, that’s a long fall to the ground.

  Now they could see the snouts and open mouths of the dragons, how some of them directly swerved to intercept the unicirim’s flight. Maya drew her bow, using her most powerful arrow, which pulsated a ghostly blue color. Energy thrummed through her, and she waited for Renne to fly close enough for her to hit. Ideally they needed to be above the dragons, but that wasn’t really an option right now.

  Flames spouted from a few of the dragons, and Renne angled sharply to the left to avoid the jets. Hoping for the best, Maya loosed her arrow from a shimmering blue string, teeth bared – and the arrow buried itself in a small mob of dragons packed together. Magic exploded in a blue, pulsating blastwave.

  Four dragons dropped out of the sky, killed instantly. Maya roared in triumph and exhilaration, and Renne swooped upwards, with a dragon’s flamethrower following him. She conjured and fired again, hitting another green beast, the explosion taking out another two of its companions.

  In response, all the dragons spread out.

  They’re being smart, Renne warned her, though she saw for herself. Worry ran through their connection. We’re not diverting enough of them.

  He spoke truly; many of the dragons continued their furious dive onto Bastion, where the soldiers would try to fire at them and probably die in the process. Adrenaline pounded in her blood as the beasts sought to burn, to kill.

  We still have some distracted.

  Flames licked across Renne’s right wing, causing a momentary spike of panic in both of them but nothing caught fire. Maya spat off an ice arrow in return which cut into the neck of one beast. Still left at least twenty to deal with, and they covered underneath like a thorny, vicious blanket, attempting to box the unicirim and his rider in. Squinting through the goggles, she fired arrow after arrow, not always hitting, and feeling agitation, anger, and determination each time an arrow swept uselessly past. The dragons had been caught by surprise, but now they knew to spread out, to expect her arrows so they could change their trajectory when one went off. One flew in close, teeth snapping at Renne’s wings, and she dispatched it with an arrow in the mouth. Cold laced through her from the icy arrows, the magic chilling her insides.

  Renne’s white horn began to glow an icy blue as well, the cold enveloping them both. A crackling sound interceded with the roaring slipstream rushing past Maya’s ears, and ice formed on her fingers, her hands. Renne dived rapidly, plunging straight through a dragon, his horn slicing and destroying one great wing. The hapless beast let out a furious scream, even as it spun and dropped, unable to fly with just one wing. Frost coated Renne’s wing-tips, and the cold dug deep, so deep that Maya thought she’d never be warm again.

  She wanted to keep killing. Keep watching the bodies drop.

  Getting… cold… Renne’s thoughts came back in a drowsy manner. His wings buffeted against another close flying dragon, and the ice upon them slashed a gaping, frozen wound in the dragon’s sides. Maya let out a scream, her hands making a horrible cracking noise each time she drew back and formed a new arrow. Her thoughts blurred, and blue coated her vision, shrouding from the sides.

  Below, flames coated Bastion, and dragon bodies were seen outside and inside it. Maya fired off one more arrow, dispatching the last of the group of dragons that swarmed them, and dug her hands into Renne’s mane, noting how the ice on Renne’s wings glinted in the dawn sun.

  The ice magic empowered them. But how long before it overpowered them? What if I kill us? Her teeth chattered, along with the impulsive, warm up shivering of her body. Renne’s hide seemed to ripple in the same way.

  I don’t think you have complete mastery of your magic yet, Renne warned her. Even his thoughts chattered from cold. So be careful.

  I’ll try. Maya grit her teeth in frustration at the battle below them. No matter how many she took out, how tight and strong the connection was between her and Renne, so that they trusted one another completely – one unicirim and rider wasn’t enough.

  Bitterness and disappointment sank into her, and she felt powerless, somehow, in spite of the magic within her. What was the point if they just ignored her completely? What was the point in taking out twenty, thirty dragons – if the city and the people in it burned anyway?

  She growled, now dropping arcane arrows indiscriminately, aiming in the general direction of the ones packed together, taking out key targets, such as ballistae or buildings. Twenty or so arrows later, Renne’s horn glowed a bright blue. A horrible, constricted sensation formed in her throat, her body, and Renne groaned quietly in her mind, wobbling in his descent, so for a few frightening seconds, they dropped like stones. Where the ice magic froze, the arcane magic gave the feel of being trapped in something tight – like her blood was threatening to explode within her body.

  Gaining control of his flight again, Renne headed in a swooping arc towards a gathered pack of dragons. Playing it safe, Maya launched a lightning arrow, which hit a dragon’s wing, bouncing off the group of seven, so that they froze and plummeted. The moment she fired the bolt, however, something painful jumped in her right arm – an electric shock – and she dropped the bow.

  Shrieking in sudden panic, she managed to seize it when it landed on Renne’s wing. His wing had flapped upwards at just the right moment. “Fuck!” she swore, holding the weapon. “Renne, my magic’s failing!”

  Flames over the city danced in her eyes, slightly obscured by the goggles. Huge spears fired from the battlements, some of them finding their marks. People burned in the streets, buildings licked with flame, and several water witches could be seen dousing people, dousing buildings. The acrid stench of burning flesh returned, and it brought a flashback of her first fight, when she sent molten arrows into the werewolves. How similar it’d been to pork, to something people grilled outside in the summer.

  Chaos reigned, but it wasn’t a complete rout, like she’d feared. People resisted. People fought back. Maya drew back her bow, ice forming in the string, along her hands, causing Renne to toss his head in pain from the ice freezing along his horn. Pain and lethargy lancing through Maya, she fired off arrow after arrow, burying them in the dragons, as many as possible, as many as her magic allowed.

  Maya, stop it, please, Renne begged her through the connection, even as his icy body plunged through a wriggling, flapping mass of dragons, injuring and killing them as he went. His horn sank into the eyehole of one unfortunate reptile that turned to meet him. The icy attacks left no blood, as it frosted everything it touched.

  Fire streamed over them as they flew into an inferno, which licked around them, close to touching, but never quite latching on. Renne smashed into a dragon that seemed to appear suddenly out of the fire, and they fell together, crunching into the battlement, where soldiers yelled and danced to the sides, pointing crossbows at them. Maya slammed into Renne’s neck, wincing when he fell on his side, and his full weight pushed on her leg. He scrabbled upright on the fallen dragon, and soldiers cheered. He launched himself into the air again, and Maya, ignoring his warning, kept firing.

  Have to kill them. Kill them all. Stop them… burning.

  Forty – fifty dragons. So many. They had to die. But not enough fell. Nothing she did seemed good enough, powerful enough.

  Blue obscured her vision completely. The bow slid out of her hands once more, dropping out of sight. R
enne’s wings beat feebly, and they lurched drunkenly to the side.

  It was the last thing she remembered. That, and the sight of flames spitting into the sky.

  Renne

  He hit the ground outside Bastion hard, but kept on his feet, just about. Ice weighed him down, and no matter how loud he screeched in Maya’s mind, she didn’t respond. They’d taken out countless enemies together. Enough, he hoped, to make a significant difference, because now he no longer could participate. Not with Maya unconscious or worse. Forcing his icy limbs to move, he edged away from Bastion, hoping maybe to take cover in the forest. If one of the dragons swooped on them now… puffing through his nose, he brought his gait to a trot, though each stretch of his limb agonized him.

  Now under the cover of trees, he continued moving until he felt far enough from the battle to lie down on the floor and shift. The saddle remained around his midriff, but he could crawl out of it. He worked on the straps binding Maya still, heart almost sobbing with fear at the sight of her limp body with blue tinted lips and fingers. He cradled her in his arms, setting her down by a tree and testing for a pulse. The Bond between them was icy and still. Panic increased when he didn’t find one at first, before feeling one on her wrist.

  Alive. But unconscious, damaged. He rubbed her hands and limbs, trying to warm her up. He didn’t know how long it took before the blue tint faded, but he kept at it, afraid that if he stopped, somehow her life would slip away from him.

  I’m sorry. We pushed you too soon. His hands were red and raw from rubbing heat back into her. Every limb in his body ached, and his head throbbed, as if stuffed with wool.

  They’d done everything they could. Whatever happened in the fight now, whether Witslaw’s command succeeded in the defense of the city, Renne and Maya had killed as many dragons as they could. Maybe demoralized them. Maybe done nothing significant at all. He tore at the fire charm clattering against his temple and bundled it into a pocket in his coat instead.