Dragon Kin

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  His blue eyes lifted to her face. He made an impatient sound, then reached for her.

  She reared away from him, flinging her other arm out of his reach. Her other wrist had not been his aim, though. His hand shoved beneath her cloak and cupped her breast, feeling the weight and shape of it and stealing her breath in shock.

  “Uther, for the love of the gods…!” Arawn said. His horse pressed up on the other side of the guard’s.

  Uther smiled. His smile grew. He tugged on Ilsa’s arm, turning her so she was facing Arawn. Her cap was snatched away. With a satisfied sound, Uther yanked her bound hair from inside her tunic and tossed it over her shoulder so the braid laid against her chest. “It seems, Arawn, we have had a most successful day’s hunt, after all.”

  Arawn stared at her, his gaze flickering over her, from her boots to the top of her head. “A woman?” he breathed. “How did you know, Uther? The mud and the clothes make it impossible to tell.”

  The guard tried to turn in his saddle to look at her, too.

  “A boy so young would not have her confidence, nor the hunting skills and knowledge of the forest,” Uther said. “I watched her climb onto the horse. No lad is so graceful. Look at her hands. These are a woman’s fingers.” He tossed her hand back into her lap.

  Ilsa pulled her cloak about her once more. She put her hand beneath it and loosed her knife, curled her fingers around the hilt and waited. There was only one way out of this. She would have to fight.

  Arawn nudged his horse up close with a click of his tongue and a nudge of his knee, his gaze on her face. “How old are you?” he demanded.

  “I’m twelve,” she lied. Most men would find such an age off-putting.

  “Tall for twelve,” the king said doubtfully.

  “She is not twelve,” Uther said, his tone flat with certainty. “Not from what I felt beneath her cloak. Unmarried, too, or she would have spoken of brats and a husband looking to her. She mentioned a mother and father and that is all.”

  Arawn’s glance moved toward Uther, on the other side of the horse Ilsa sat upon. “I cannot take the first woman to cross my path—”

  “That was the agreement,” Uther said. “You said you would do anything, yes?”

  Ilsa’s heart gave another flutter at the mention of taking. With a heave against the back of the horse, she threw herself off the rear of it and slid to the ground. If she moved quickly—She took a single pace before Uther snatched at the back of her cloak, his big hand gripping her tunic and undershirt, too. She could not wriggle out of all her clothes to get away.

  “No, you don’t,” he said, with a grunt of effort. He threw his leg over the horse and slithered to the ground beside her, his grip not shifting. His other hand curled around her arm, minimizing her struggles.

  She snatched at her knife, instead.

  With a curse, Uther let go of her cloak, spun her around and grabbed her knife arm, halting her. He twisted her wrist until the knife dropped from her numb fingers.

  Then he shook her. “Contain yourself. You are not being threatened.”

  “If I was not, then I would be free to leave.” She pulled against his grip, fear giving her extra strength. It was not enough to loosen his hold.

  The king dismounted with a light drop and threw his reins to the guard. He came around his horse and stood in front of her. He was a tall man, although Uther was taller. Arawn held up his hands, showing he carried no weapon. “Prince Uther speaks truly. You are not in danger. Will you remain still for a moment and let me explain?”

  “You can keep your purse. The stag, too,” she told him. “Just let me go.”

  The king tilted his head, his eyes narrowing, as if he was trying to peer through the mud on her face, which had dried now to a flaking, itching layer. “You do not speak like a poor woman. Who are you?”

  “That, King, is none of your affair.”

  Arawn shook his head and said the most extraordinary thing she had heard in her life. “It is my concern, if I am to marry you.”

  Chapter Three

  You cannot marry me,” Ilsa gasped.

  “Why not?” Arawn lifted his brow enquiringly.

  “Because…because I am not your subject,” she said, grasping.

  “You are in my forest,” he pointed out.

  “I am from Brandérion. Brandérion belongs to King Budic. I answer to him, not you.”

  “Ah.” He looked at Uther. “Do you know the place?”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Uther admitted. “It is at the far north of Budic’s borders. That way.” He pointed in the correct direction.

  Arawn crossed his arms, considering her once more. “You are Budic’s subject, yet you hunt on my lands?”

  “Deer don’t know about borders.” She shrugged.

  Arawn shook his head. “Budic will be amenable to the match. Again, I ask. Who are you? Tell me your name and your sire’s.”

  Ilsa shuddered. “I will not marry you. You kill your wives.”

  Uther uttered a short, low laugh.

  Arawn nodded. “That is why I must find another. You know about the curse that dogs my land?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to die.” She glanced at Uther. He had let her arm loose, although he stood too close for her to try bolting. His reactions were quick and he was strong.

  “If you are the one to break the curse, you will not die,” Arawn replied. “This drought that inflicts all the kingdoms of Brittany—Budic’s and mine, Guannes and Morlaix…you would see the drought broken, would you not?”

  “It would end if I married you?” she said, amazed.

  “If you bear my child, then yes,” he said. “Tell me who your father is and I will speak to him.”

  She shook her head, as her middle cramped. This was all happening too quickly for her to absorb. The talk of marriage and children was moving far beyond the point she was still snagged upon. “You are not listening. I will not marry you.”

  “Not even to save your kingdom?” Arawn asked. “For that is why I would contemplate such a madness…and it is madness, I admit. The curse will not break until my child is born. I must take a wife to do that, and quickly. You are here before me. I will marry you.”

  The trembling spread. “My father would not allow it,” she said, a desperate bid to outmaneuver the man’s reasonableness.

  “What man would not want his daughter married to a king?” Uther said. “Although, if you insist upon refusing a king, I will escort you back to your home.”

  She shuddered. She needed no imagination to be certain how that journey would end.

  Arawn shook his head. “No, Uther. I will not force the woman into this. She must agree willingly.”

  “I do not agree,” she said. She gritted her teeth together. “Not at all.”

  Arawn considered her, his hand stroking his rough chin. “Will you at least tell me your name?”

  She swallowed. “Will you let me go, if I do?”

  “Will you agree to listen first? Properly listen, I mean—not simply stand and nod?”

  “If I really listen, will you let me go, afterwards? Free—with no escort,” she added quickly, glancing at Uther. Uther smiled.

  “If you will promise to listen,” Arawn said, “I will let you go afterwards, free to return alone to your home.”

  Ilsa gathered the cloak back around her again. She felt cold. “My name is Ilsa.”

  “Ilsa.” Arawn frowned. “An odd name. A pretty one. Uther, would you and the men withdraw? I would speak to Ilsa alone.”

  “Only if she gives me her weapons, first,” Uther growled.

  Arawn raised his brow at her.

  Ilsa hesitated. To allow herself to be stripped of every defense was intolerable. Yet, if she agreed, she would be one step closer to safety, perhaps even with the stag and the purse.

  She slid the bow off her shoulder, then the strap of the arrow pouch and gave them to Uther. He held out his other hand. “Knife.”

  She pulled th
e knife out and held the hilt out to him.

  “Now…” Arawn began.

  “The other knife, too,” Uther said heavily.

  Ilsa glared at him. He stared back.

  She sighed and bent and pulled the small knife from her boot and slapped it onto his hand.

  “Do you have more knives?” Arawn asked, sounding both amused and startled.

  “I don’t mind searching her to find out,” Uther said.

  She shuddered. “Nothing more,” she said quickly.

  Uther’s smile told her he had threatened to search her to force her to speak the truth.

  Arawn stepped aside and waved toward the trees on the other side of the faint trail they were standing upon. “There is a fallen tree there we can sit upon to speak. After you.”

  Ilsa forced herself to turn and put her back to Uther. She moved through the trees toward the big trunk the king had pointed to. As she went, she scrubbed at her face with the corner of her cloak. There was no need for the disguising mud. It had not served her well, anyway.

  Her skin was dry and dusty when she was done. Her hair had dried into solid curlicues around her face, too. She rubbed at them, breaking away the crusty mud. It was in her brows, too.

  The log was as high as her waist. Ilsa contemplated how she was to sit upon it, or perhaps she could lean against it.

  Arawn held out his hand. “Let me help you.”

  She stepped around his hand, thrust the toe of her boot into a crevasse in the log, and stepped up onto the broad log. She walked along it to where the king stood, then sat and drew her knees up against her chest and looked at him.

  Arawn’s eyes narrowed as his gaze settled on her face. “You are older than I guessed,” he said. “How is it you have not married yet?”

  “My father is a choosy man.” She shrugged.

  “How has your father fared, these three years of no rain?”

  Ilsa dropped her gaze, her heart stirring. “As well as anyone, I suppose.” Her voice quivered, though, giving her away.

  “Tell me why you are hunting and not he?”

  She swallowed. “He only has one eye and it is weak. Although he was once a master bowman.”

  “I see. He can no longer shoot a bow. Yet he could gather and snare and forage. Does he do those things?”

  Ilsa traced the ties on her boots with the tip of her finger. “He’s…he is sick,” she admitted.

  “A strange sickness,” Arawn said. “His legs cramp…or he has headaches which blind him and leave him helpless. He cannot move from his bed, most days.”

  She looked at him, her heart thudding. “Yes,” she whispered. “All of that. How did you know?”

  “Because the same sickness troubles people everywhere I go,” Arawn said. “I have seen people collapse in the heat of summer, yet they do not sweat. Their faces turn gray and their skin chalky.”

  Ilsa thought of her mother’s face, as she had seen it this morning. “Yes…” she breathed.

  Arawn sighed. “It has been a very long three years of watching people suffer. The lack of water causes this sickness, Ilsa. Your parents have given you more water than they have taken themselves.” He was not asking. “I have seen that happen, too. There is no sweating because it is not a plague or any normal illness. Yet before the drought, there was plague in my kingdom. Budic’s was spared, yet you live so close to Brocéliande…were your people touched by plague, Ilsa?”

  “People in the village were sick. For the longest time, my father wouldn’t let me go into the village.”

  “He was protecting you. Before the plague, my people lost two years’ worth of harvest. We bought grain from Budic and from Guannes and Morlaix, as much as they could spare, yet the years were still lean. They drained the strength my people might have had to combat the plague. You were likely too young to remember talk of the harvest loss. Your kingdom did not suffer as mine did.”

  She crossed her arms over her knees as a shiver slid up her spine. “I am no one, your highness. How could marrying me halt such troubles?”

  “The Lady of the Lake prophesied that the woman who bore my first child would save my kingdom.” Arawn spread his hands. “You are a woman, who can bear children. Why could it not be you of which the prophecy speaks?”

  “If you are wrong, you will kill me.”

  “Why would I kill you? You would be the hope of my kingdom.”

  “You have killed them all. Dozens of them.”

  “You believe my wives died by my hand…” He reached out and rested his hand on the trunk, as if he was weak. “You think I am a monster.”

  “Are you saying you are not?”

  He hung his head for a moment. “How the story fractures as it passes from mouth to mouth…” he breathed. He straightened. “I have had four wives, Ilsa. Each of them came to their ends through the worst of ill-fortune, barely before I got to know them. I did not harm a single one of them myself. My curse was their doom, though. Know that, before you decide. You would risk the same fate. I will not deny it.”

  Ilsa shuddered. “Why would I agree?”

  He hesitated. “I could offer you an inducement you would find difficult to refuse. I could promise your parents would never again be in need of anything. They would be cared for to the end of their days. That will happen anyway, Ilsa. Your father will not suffer for your absence. I will see to it. Although I would rather you agree to this because your heart moves you to do so, not because of any inducement I might offer.”

  She waited, sensing he had more to say.

  “If you take the risk,” he continued, “and agree to help me in this and you are the one of whom the Lady of the Lake spoke, you will save my people from the misfortunes that have struck us for more than ten years.” His gaze met hers. “Your own people, too, Ilsa. For this drought affects us all and you have the power to end it.”

  “If I marry you.”

  “Yes.”

  She closed her eyes and rested her head against her knees. She was shuddering, her heart hurting with each beat.

  All her life, she had lived in the far corner of the world, unnoticed by everyone. She was a wood cutter’s daughter, with no special talents. She had listened to all the tales about kings and queens and lords and ladies whose grand deeds had changed hundreds of lives for the better. She had always thought such tales to be marvelous stories, to be enjoyed once the day’s lot was done.

  Ilsa admired the lords and ladies in those stories for their power to make great changes but had always known she could never be one of them. Now, Arawn was giving her the chance to make such a great change. He offered that power.

  If she was the one spoken of in the prophecy. If she wasn’t, she would die.

  Only, the heroes of the stories took risks, too. Huge risks. Macsen Wledig lost his life before his work was done, yet he had still changed Britain for the better.

  Ilsa thought of her mother’s gray face. Her father on the low bed in the corner of the cot and the soft groans he smothered each time he was forced to move.

  Ilsa could ease their pain as she had wished she might. It would not be in the way she had imagined, yet it would have the same affect. She would be able to help everyone in her village, too. And many more…

  She lifted her head to look at the king, who waited patiently for her to come to her own decision.

  “I will marry you,” she said.

  Chapter Four

  The troop of twenty armed king’s men, hunters and grooms escorted the two lords and Ilsa through Brandérion itself. Every villager emerged from their huts and houses to watch the procession pass by, their eyes wide and their mouths open. Such a visitation had not arrived in Brandérion for generations, for they were the poorest of northern villages, ignored by the rest of the kingdom.

  Ilsa sat on Arawn’s horse, gingerly clinging to his belt as he had instructed when they had returned from the log to where the men waited.

  Arawn had announced that Ilsa had agreed to the bargain. Uther�
�s expression was one of amazement. “You merely talked to the girl. I thought nothing would move her but force.”

  Arawn patted the prince’s arm. “There are more ways to coax a reluctant woman beyond holding her down and having your way.”

  Uther scowled. “I know dozens of them. Plain talk has never worked.”

  “For you, perhaps not.” Arawn mounted his horse, furled his cloak, then held his arm out to Ilsa.

  “I cannot sit behind you,” she protested, bringing her fingers to the dried mess of mud upon her tunic.

  “The stench departed when the mud dried. A little dirt will not offend me,” Arawn told her. “Or would you rather ride with Uther?”

  She reached for his arm and hoisted herself up behind him.

  “Hold on,” Arawn told her. “I would not have you falling backward into another puddle.”

  Conscious that the foul aroma of the mud had not altogether left, she slid her fingertips into the back of his belt. She gripped convulsively as the horse leapt forward and she jerked back.

  She directed them to the village, while the armed guards thundered behind them. Now they walked through the village, while everyone stared at her.

  “Over the bridge,” she told Arawn. “A mile beyond the village is a clearing.”

  He wheeled his horse to take the road that led over the bridge and everyone followed. The horses’ hooves clattered on the stony surface of the bridge. From this height, she could see straight down into the river. There was only a narrow stream of water in the gray, sandy channel. The water was dank, filled with bitter foulness that made it impossible to drink. The village had stopped using the river water two years ago. Now, they relied on their wells and their knowledge of lakes and springs in the area, for which they must compete with every other nearby village.

  The horses kicked up a fine dust that lingered in the still air and tickled the back of her throat. They clattered down the road at a brisk canter, for there were not as many people walking the road on this side of the river. The beeches and old oaks leaned over the road, forming a tunnel of shade that during the heat of summer was lovely. Now, though, it was a chilled passage that made Ilsa shiver.