CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kayla reached the edge of the wood, and panting, turned in time to see a wing of dragons glide to a landing in the field. She held her breath, aware of the relatively short distance between the beasts and herself, terrifed that at any moment they would turn and see her. Crouched in the thick brush, she watched the dragons and their masters as they gathered together to talk.
Kayla watched as an old man slid from dragonback and approached a beautiful blonde woman. He spoke to her, pointing toward where Kayla and her companions had just pressed into the forest.
Whatever he said angered her. The woman gestured for the man to come closer, and despite her small size, her fury dominated the man. Kayla held her breath as she watched the exchange. She was immovable in her position, too terrified to move. Had they seen her run into the woods?
Kayla strained to hear anything the group might be saying. She turned her head and stilled herself even further, wishing her heart would stop pounding so she could hear better. She was so focused on the woman with the dragons, she barely noticed when her ears began to ring and spots swam before her eyes.
She focused even harder when she saw the blonde woman’s dragon begin to shrink. Kayla’s body demanded attention when her chest began to burn with an urgent need.
T’Kato hit her back hard. Kayla gasped and only then realized she’d been holding her breath, almost in a trance. The ringing and spots stopped immediately, but her back stung with the sharp slap the man had landed.
Kayla glared. “Don’t do that.” Granted, he had kept her conscious, but there had to be a better way to do it than by hitting her.
“Would you rather I let you pass out?” he asked, calm and rational. Kayla was beginning to hate that about him.
She decided not to answer and turned to watch the dragons, gasping when she saw they were gone. In the short minute she had faced T’Kato, the black dragons had disappeared and been replaced by an equal number of midnight horses. The leader pulled herself astride her mount. T’Kato gasped and shoved Kayla down to the ground.
“What—” she started, unable to finish with T’Kato’s hand over her mouth.
“Don’t talk. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe if you can help it.”
Kayla’s heart hammered in her chest. First he hit her to make her breathe, and now he was telling her not to? She felt T’Kato gesture with his chin toward the group as they entered the gates of Dragonmeer astride great stallions.
“If you value your life and the safety of that flute of yours, you must do exactly as I say.” T’Kato kept his hand over her mouth until she nodded, then slowly pulled it away. Kayla tried to breathe shallowly, repulsed by the salty taste of his sweat on her lips. She licked them anyway, grimacing. “Who was that?”
T’Kato didn’t answer for a long time, and Kayla thought he had not heard her. She was about to repeat herself when he answered. “C’Tan.” His voice was expressionless.
The name sent chills down her spine.
Kayla immediately jumped to her feet, running faster than she ever remembered, pressing as deeply into the thick woods as she could. She had no idea where she was going, and it didn’t matter, so long as it took her as far from the dragonriders as possible. Fear became a tangible thing inside her, a voice screaming in the hollows of her soul. She knew only to run, beyond thought, beyond reason. She had to get as far from C’Tan as her feet would allow.
Sarali caught up with her as they entered an almost circular clearing. The maid took hold of her arm, pulling her to a stop.
“Wait,” Sarali whispered, holding up an open hand as she apparently listened intently for signs of pursuit. Kayla leaned over to better hear, her heart hammering in her chest. Sarali really was tiny, Kayla realized in that moment. Small and lithe—like a cat.“T’Kato wants us to rest here while he scouts about. "Relax, lass, the mage won’t find us here anytime soon.“ She sank to the ground, her back propped against a tree for support.
Kayla followed her example, though not nearly as gracefully. It felt more like she thumped and creaked in her weary bones. It had been too long a day—two days, even—and she felt every bit of the strain. She leaned back and closed her eyes, taking a small amount of pleasure in the whispering of the wind through the quaking leaves. The trees spoke to her in ways she could never understand—they spoke in feelings, not thoughts, part of the evahn heritage she’d never had a chance to explore, though perhaps she would still have that opportunity. T’Kato said he knew her father—maybe she’d get to meet him at last. She only hoped Darthmoor would be safe while she was away. Her family was there.
C’Tan was there.
Kayla tried to calm her heart and rest, but her stomach was sick. There was only one thing that could have brought C’Tan to Dragonmeer—she’d traced the flute. Dragonmeer was in danger, and it was all Kayla’s fault. She felt like a coward. If only she had listened to King Rojan. If only she’d had more thought in her head when she picked up the flute. She’d been so beguiled by the flute’s beauty and the yearning to play, she had given no thought to the consequences. The people of Dragonmeer would pay for her mistake, not Kayla, and it wasn’t right. She should be with them, standing with the flute in defense of Brant’s home. If anything happened to any of them, she would never forgive herself.
The guilt and panic continued to build, then burst when screams sounded through the forest.
“No! No, miss, I don’t know nothin’. Put me down! No!” an adolescent male voice cracked and yelled. It was a voice she knew.
“Joyson!”
Her heart was full of dread. What would they want with the boy? He’d done nothing wrong and was too young to know anything. Unless . . .
“He was with me. Oh no, Joyson. What have I done?” she whispered. She was up and running for the line of trees before she even realized it, startled shouts coming from behind her. She crashed through the underbrush, muttered curses coming from T’Kato and Sarali as they tried to catch up, but she felt as if her feet had wings. She had to know if it was the boy.
Her mind raced, though no definite thought formed there. It was too overwhelmed with a mishmash of emotion that swarmed over her like ants, devouring all thought and will. She could do nothing but run.
Somewhere in the dash back toward the dragons, Kayla pulled the Sapphire Flute from her bag, and it miraculously appeared in her hands, minus the case. She didn’t remember doing it, just found it there, glowing a deep midnight blue, almost black—maybe even an angry blue, if there was such a color. It buzzed and hummed and throbbed in her hands like a living thing, as if it breathed in her anger and need and pushed it out before her like a shield.
Kayla skidded to a stop when she reached the bushes that marked the boundary of Dragonmeer. The sun was just rising from behind the eastern mountains, the fog and clouds strangely absent, and she was able to see the horror of the situation before her.
Dragons surrounded the city.
A single dragon hovered about thirty feet off the ground in the direct center of the field, the blonde woman on his back, her face hard and cold—beautiful like marble, but immovable as granite. The dragon’s body was snakelike, with thick shoulders and leathery wings that sprouted from his shoulders and snapped as piñons in the wind.
That was what she had heard while crossing the field. The realization of how close they had come to finding her was terrifying. If she had waited any longer this morning, it would have been too late. They would have been captured . . . just as Joyson was.
Kayla’s eyes widened with horror when she realized that the twisting thing hanging beneath the dragon was actually the boy, clutched within its claws. He scrabbled at the dragon, looking for a handhold of any kind, but just as he would find purchase, the great midnight beast would scrape his hands away with a talon. The boy whimpered and sobbed in terror.
Kayla raised the flute to her lips, inhaled, and held it as she felt the prick of a knife at her throat, held in place by a tattooed hand. Her eyes widened in desper
ate fear. She didn’t move, frozen in terror as she watched the dragon play with Joyson. She couldn’t let him die—but with a blade at her throat, what could she do? Frustrated, conflicted, she did nothing.
“Don’t do it, girl,” T’Kato growled.
Kayla hesitated a long moment. Joyson had to be saved, but she had no trouble believing the tattooed man would slit her throat if it kept the flute safe. What choice did she have? She released her breath slowly, careful not to make any noise on the glowing instrument.
Kayla’s resolve hardened, knife or not. “I can’t let her hurt him.”
“Yes, you can,” T’Kato answered with surprising tenderness.
“No!” she cried.
“Kayla, you must. Sometimes we have to sacrifice one in order to save many. C’Tan must not hold that flute!” he hissed in her ear. “It is your duty to guard it, Kayla Kalandra, and right now you are on the edge of handing it to C’Tan in a golden bowl. You might as well walk out there and say, ‘Here you go, C’Tan, I’ve decided I don’t care if you destroy the world, you take the flute.’ Do you care about Rasann, or not?”
Kayla was angrily silent.
“Well?” he asked again.
“I care,” she snarled.
“Then put that thing away and come into the woods.”
Kayla hesitated a moment longer, then lowered the flute, but she did not move. She had to watch. “Kayla!” Sarali snapped. “Come, girl, we must go if ye wish to survive the day.”
Kayla still did not move. She watched as C’Tan’s great dragon suddenly beat his leathery wings and pulled himself higher, clawing into the sky until he was but a speck above her. Suddenly one speck became two, one hovering high overhead while the other plummeted toward the earth, screaming and thrashing about in terror. Kayla choked down a cry as she watched Joyson appear to grow larger and larger. She closed her eyes when he was about twenty feet above the ground, unable to watch the horror of his body slamming into the meadow floor. She waited for the thud she knew would come . . .
But it never did.
She opened one eye and saw the dragon hovering about fifteen feet above ground, holding the terrified boy in a claw once more. They were close enough that she could hear C’Tan’s voice this time. “Where is she, boy? Where’s the one they call Kayla?” she asked in the sweetest tones, so out of place with the position in which she held him.
“I don’t know!” he sobbed. “I really don’t, miss. Please let me go.”
The great claw opened, and Joyson started to fall. He screamed, and the dragon’s back claw reached out and plucked him out of the air again.
“Are you sure you want me to do that?” C’Tan asked. Joyson shook his head emphatically, still sobbing. “Oh, quit your blubbering, boy. Just tell me where the girl is, and I’ll let you go. Simple as that.” C’Tan leaned over the side of her dragon and snapped her fingers.
“Please, miss. I don’t know where she went. I carried her bag to the chef ’s quarters just like Master Brant asked—”
“Brant!” She stopped him. “Duke Domanta’s Brant?”
Joyson bobbed his head so hard, Kayla was afraid it was going to pop off his shoulders. “Yes, miss. Brant. He and Miss Kayla were great friends. Maybe he knows where she wennnnnaaaaaahhhhh!” Joyson screamed as C’Tan’s dragon released the boy to fall the last twenty feet to the ground.
This time there was a thump and a groan, but Kayla dared not go to the boy. He might have broken his leg or ribs, but he should survive a drop like that. The ground was still soft from the morning dew.
Her fear now was for Brant.
“Kayla!” T’Kato took her shoulder and pulled. “We have to leave!”
“No!” She shook him off. “I can’t go until I know Brant and my family are safe!”
T’Kato balled his fists, then moved away to converse with his wife. They murmured back and forth for a long time, Sarali shaking her head with her arms folded.
Kayla ignored them, her heart in her throat with fear for Brant. If the woman would torture a serving boy like Joyson, what would she do to the duke’s son—to Kayla’s husband-to-be? She’d never felt so helpless. It made her feel much differently about those who spoke so often of depending on a higher power. There was nothing for her to do but watch and offer up a sincere prayer to the Guardians.
Please don‘t let them find Brant! Please keep him safe. Don’t let them find him! Don’t let them find him! Don’t let them find him don’t let them find him don’t . . .
But they found him.
One of the other dragons dipped into the city and came up with a struggling figure—one Kayla knew even from that great distance. The one person outside of her family she truly loved was now in the clutches of C’Tan.
The dragon carried Brant to the middle of the field. Kayla nearly screamed when he threw Brant in a great arc toward C’Tan, whose dragon lunged and caught him by the shoulders, one of the talons piercing through.
Brant howled with pain. Kayla shrieked along with him. Somehow she found herself on her knees and could do nothing but watch in silence as the questioning began once more. Over and over again, C’Tan asked Brant where Kayla was, and each time, he answered her with silence. Kayla was so proud of him, her heart was about to break. And then the torture began.
Up, up, up C’Tan’s great dragon flew, until the beast was so high it seemed the size of an ant in the heavens. Then Brant would fall, tumbling toward the earth without any scream or thrashing about as Joyson had done. Brant would assume different positions each time he fell, sometimes on his back, other times spread-eagled. He would go head first, feet first, and even repeatedly somersaulted end over end. He looked as though he was enjoying himself, but Kayla knew it was all for show.
Finally C’Tan retrieved him one last time just before he hit the ground. The woman clenched her jaw, and Kayla knew Brant’s time had run out. The overwhelming anxiety and fear, the mind-numbing terror that had held her captive, was suddenly washed away to be replaced by a calm understanding she had never felt before.
It was as though the spirits of her ancestors or the life of the woods had reached out to her and spoken to her heart of hearts, the very center of her being. Never before had she understood these trees, these birds, this life all around her—but now they chanted the same thing over and over again, and Kayla knew what she had to do.
“This is your last chance, Brant. Where is Kayla?” C’Tan demanded. “This time I will not stop your fall, and you will die here in this field with your people watching.”
Brant responded, his voice laced with the pain he would not express. “Then so be it, C’Tan. I will never tell you where she has gone. I hope she plays that flute and destroys you with it. It doesn’t matter whether I live or not. You’ve lost.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Kayla at first didn’t believe his words, couldn’t register that she heard him speak aloud the words the trees chanted.
“Play the flute . . .”
C’Tan screeched her fury at Brant, and the great dragon tensed his grip, sending talons through the joints of both shoulders now. Brant screamed in agony, but did not beg for mercy. The dragon climbed in the sky again, pulling itself higher than it had been before.
Kayla stood, barely aware of the rocks that clung to her pants or the slice in her arm from her hurried flight. All she was aware of was the sight of her love being carried high in the sky to be dropped to his death, and the chanting of life around her—chanting that filled her up and silenced her fears.
“Play the flute . . .”
But the flute was not hers to play! Hadn’t she been told? She was its guardian, not the player. What good could she do? She was only a half-evahn runt, not wanted by the people from either side of her heritage.
“Play the flute, and you will see . . . Play the flute, and you will see . . .”
The chant changed. Kayla’s eyes were still glued to C’Tan and her great beast as she became a speck, a flea in the sky.
And
then Brant began to fall.
“Kayla,” T’Kato said in concern, trying to take her arm—but he could not touch her. The tingling energy of the flute surged through Kayla’s blood and muscles, making her hair stand on end. She radiated blue light that sent waves of air swirling around her, picking up the leaves and twigs and stirring her hair into a charged blonde mass that seemed to have a life of its own. T’Kato tried to touch her again, and an arc of blue light shot between them. He flew backward and lay still, stunned and pinned against a tree.
But T’Kato didn’t matter right then. Her eyes were all for Brant as he tumbled and grew larger in the sky, and still he did not cry out.
Kayla raised the flute to her lips, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and released it on the purest, most vibrant color of sound she had ever heard or felt. It was one long note that pulsed and twined with the wind in the leaves and the rustling grass. It sang chorus with the cicadas and the eagle and the sun. It was the song of life. Kayla played that one long note, then segued intuitively into the song she had played the day before.
Darthmoor’s Honor felt different now. It was as if the strength in the stone and the dream of an eagle’s flight brought power to the music it hadn’t held before. Kayla felt her will, her soul, reaching out to her falling love and embracing him in her woven sound until she could see the rate of his descent slow.
His face split with a grin as tears streamed down his cheeks.
One great discordant shriek came from high above. Kayla was aware of it, but dared not stop playing until Brant was safe. She had to keep him safe, as she couldn’t Joyson. The black speck that had been high above grew rapidly, too rapidly. Kayla had to speed Brant’s descent, but she was not sure how.
There was no understanding in her action. It was all intuitive as she continued to play and send her prayers heavenward. Fast, but safe, fast, but safe . . .
“Kayla!” T’Kato screamed at her. “Let him go! Let him go now, or all is lost! She is nearly upon us!”
Kayla watched in increased fear as C’Tan grew from flea, to ant, to dog, to horse, to dragon-size—all within a matter of seconds. Brant was still too far from the ground, much too far, but Kayla had no choice.
She let him go.
“I’m okay, Kayla! Run while you can!” Brant screamed as he fell those last twenty feet. C’Tan headed straight for Kayla, a grin of triumph slashing her face. The black beast reached his back talons forward like a hawk coming in for the kill.
Kayla lowered the flute, waited until the last possible second, then dropped to the earth and rolled. The great dragon swooshed past her, taking the tops of several trees along with it.
C’Tan cursed.
“Kayla, come on!” T’Kato yelled. He sprinted away, Sarali loping catlike at his side. This time Kayla did not hesitate.
She ran.
The Sapphire Flute: Book 1 of The Wolfchild Saga Page 28