The Triumphant Return

by N M Zoltack

  Rase stood over the earl’s son and thought about how hard his pa had tried to provide for them all, how he would have provided for the baby too if the babe had survived. He reflected on his ma and the hardships she had faced and the cruel nature of her death. His heart ached as he considered Maxene and how she had thought Radcliff loved or only to realize he had used her before casting her aside. His stomach twisted as he realized just how long he had left Leanne alone.

  But this was for her.

  Rase slipped the tip of his dagger into Radcliff’s ear and then shoved the blade all the way in. The earl’s son jerked, but he did not open his eyes.

  Rase removed the blade and waited. Blood trickled from the wound, but Radcliff's breathing slowed and slowed and slowed.

  And stilled.

  The nobleman—the killer—was dead.

  Rase smiled to himself as he wiped the blood from his blade on Radcliff’s shirt. Yes, it seemed he could smile. After all, he had only done what had proven necessary, and Rase had no regrets whatsoever.

  57

  Princess Vivian Rivera

  The trousers did not fit Vivian perfectly, and she wondered if her maid would faint if asked to tailor them to the princess’ size. Most likely. Vivian wished she go about in just a long tunic as she had when masquerading as a Vincanan, but she could hardly do that now, and her long gowns simply did not afford her the luxury of walking fast.

  For a few hours now, she had been wandering about. Considering how many guards were near the market, she avoided the place entirely, not wishing to be recognized in this attire, and she pulled her hat down over her head even lower.

  It took her some time for her to see tracks that clearly belonged to persons other than Vincanans, and she raced ahead. Sure enough, through a small cluster of trees, were a group of peasants dressed in some armor. Her gaze swept over them, and she spied Ulric. Swiftly, she stepped heel first, rolling forward onto her toes, to move silently. Once behind him, she reached forward and tapped his shoulder.

  He whirled around, his sword half-drawn.

  “If I were a Vincanan, you would be dead,” she teased.

  “I don’t… Vivian?” he asked as if he couldn’t quite trust his eyes.

  “Yes, it’s me.” She giggled.

  He nearly plowed her over as he hugged her tightly. Then he pulled back. “If you were a man, I would punch you in the jaw,” he muttered. “You gave me the slip!”

  “Yes, but it seems as if you’re doing well for yourself.” She hugged him again. “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you stealing me away.”

  “I did not steal you!”

  “I didn’t exactly want to go with you,” she pointed out.

  “That would be abduction then, not stealing.”

  Because abducting a princess is so much better.” She giggled again, and it amazed her how freeing she felt to see Ulric again. His hair was much longer than she had last seen it, the lower half of his face full of stubble. “You look well.”

  “As do you. You… Where have you been? I was so afraid…”

  “Afraid you didn’t teach me enough for me to survive on my own for so long? Clearly, you’re a better teacher than you though.” She poked his shoulder. “Or I’m a better pupil than you anticipated.”

  “I…” He shook his hung head. “Vivian—Princess—”

  “You were right the first time.” She glanced over his shoulder and between the trees. “Training your motley crew how to fight?”

  “How do you know they’re mine?” he asked.

  “Well, they stopped training vigorously the moment you turned your back. And you weren’t exactly quiet when you scolded some. Truly, Vincanans could find the lot of you easily.”

  “Yes, well, none are around here, and—”

  “And I am teasing, but I am so very glad you aren’t…” She swallowed hard. “Ulric, I can’t believe you were imprisoned and for Noll! How could anyone think that!”

  “Rosalynne didn’t,” he said firmly.

  Ah, there it was. The spark he had in his eyes for her sister and no one else.

  “I was trying to see if I could learn anything from Queen Sabine,” he explained. I did not mind being imprisoned too much.”

  “I’m sure it was terrible.”

  “It wasn’t… At times, it was terrible, yes, but… I’m free now.”

  “No one will arrest you. You’ve fought the Vincanans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Ulric, I cannot be more pleased.” She clasped her hands together, holding them to her chest. “If I could knight you, I would.”

  To her surprise, he merely shrugged.

  She furrowed her brow. “I thought you wanted to be one of Rosalynne’s guards.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t dreaming big enough.”

  “No, indeed not. You deserve whatever you wish, all of you. It’s wonderful that you all have banded together.”

  “It’s not easy,” he muttered, “and it honestly happened by accident.”

  “Sometimes, accidents are meant to happen,” she said.

  “I suspect your right, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I’m no leader,” he protested. “All it was in the beginning was my borrowing weapons and passing them out to peasants to arm themselves against the coming threat. They needed to defend themselves, and it somehow became me leading a bunch of them. It’s… It’s overwhelming, and even worse is when I lose someone.”

  “I’m sure,” she murmured. “Someone close to you?”

  “Just someone I met in the band, but…”

  “You feel responsible.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ulric, you’re doing the best you can.”

  “And it’s not always good enough,” he muttered. He ran a hand through his hair.

  “Who can say they’re good enough? Who makes that distinction? Good enough compared to what standard? Because you felled Vincanans, yes? So their leader failed. And the knights when they fought, I’m sure some of them also lost men among their numbers.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “It’s not any different for you. If anything, losing only a few means you are doing rather well, all things considering.”

  “Considering I have no training whatsoever myself. No training on weapons, nothing on being a leader, nothing at all.”

  “And yet, you’re making a difference.”

  He eyed her and shook his head. “Whatever happened to you?”

  “Why? Because you can’t believe how wise I’ve become?”

  Ulric threw back his head and roared with laughter. Through the trees, she spied some of his men glancing their way.

  “Could you pass a message on to Rosalynne?”

  “That depends,” Vivian said dryly. “If you mean to have me confess your undying love to her, well, I’m not sure if I can do that for you.”

  Ulric blinked a few times. “T-That’s not even… That’s not—”

  “What message?” she asked, smiling, enjoying how easily she had made him all flustered.

  “I’ve been training them as much as I possibly can and trying to make them as organized as possible. They’re a… a militia of sorts.”

  Vivian’s grin merely grew.

  His cheeks turned pink. “I’m trying. More importantly, they’re trying. We’ve fought in skirmish. We’ve captured a few of them.”

  “You did?” She was suitably impressed.

  Ulric grinned. “I think… I think we’ve earned the right…”

  “If you don’t ask, the answer cannot be an affirmative,” she pointed out.

  “I want us to be used in the next battle,” he said in a rush.

  “I will pass along your message,” Vivian said, already wondering if she could make her way onto the battlefield as well. Who better to fight for the kingdom than her princess?

  58

  Garsea

  The Keeper lay in bed, his body feeling far weaker than it had in ages or perhap
s ever. All he wanted to do was sleep, to rest, but he could not. They needed the dragons and now. He must unlock the secret that would allow one and then the others to return.

  But how? What was he missing? A gift he had thought but one of life or death?

  A death made the most sense. After all, the dragons had been stripped of their ability to resurrect themselves because of their own violent deaths. A death of a human, the party responsible for their demise, might well be exactly what was needed.

  A sacrifice. That would be much better. If one were willing to give up their life for the sake of the dragons, how could the dragons not be convinced to return?

  If only Ximeno or Velasco lived yet and not merely so that one of them could be the sacrifice but so that they could have sacrificed him! But, perhaps he was not intended for a sacrifice, and clearly Velasco had not been worthy of being a Keeper given his current status as a wraith. As for Ximeno…

  Garsea closed his eyes. He had been almost two decades older than the other two, and he remembered vividly the day that he first spoke to them about the dragons. It hadn’t been at the same time, but when they had turned three, he had mentioned the dragons to them. There had been a few other Keepers at the time, all older than Garsea, but Garsea had been the one tasked with locating new apprentices.

  How the three-year-olds’ eyes lit up when he mentioned the dragons! They nearly fell over themselves, their responses almost identical to one another even if they had been two years apart. In their short, tiny words, they asked all sorts of questions, if the dragons could fly, if they could breathe fire…

  And if they ever ate a person.

  Now, how many three-year-olds would even think to ask such a thing? But these boys both had, and it was this particular question above all, even more than their intrigue that convinced Garsea that they should be cultivated and trained.

  Had he misread them, misjudged them? But he had asked others, and not a one of them even seemed to know what a dragon was. Compared to the rest, Ximeno and Velasco had both shone as gemstones sparking among the rough. Who else could he have gone with? No others had shown promise then or ever since.

  And Garsea had looked. He had compensated the duo’s families generously, and they had seemed pleased enough to know that their sons would be tutored and entering a scared order, although Garsea never did tell them any specifics, nor did they ask.

  Both had come from poor families, as had Garsea himself. If his memory served him well, that had been the case with the other Keepers he had shared the bond of brotherhood with. The rich tended toward vices more than the poor, but that did not mean the poor were blameless. In fact, some poor persons had no choice but to resort to crimes, especially thievery, just to survive, but then, what else were they to do? Starve simply because of the nature of their birth. Yet, hadn’t the dragons sentenced some of the poor to death?

  Garsea’s head ached. His bones felt weary. The ritual, even though unsuccessful, had taken far more out of him that he thought perhaps it should have. If he had been successful, the ritual might well have killed him.

  He rolled onto his back. When was it he had stopped seeking out other potential Keepers? Garsea did recall asking Velasco to take over that task, but the Keeper had never been one to leave the monastery often. Neither of the others had found themselves a wife. Garsea had loved Yan Zhou, but the dragons had never blessed them with children. The one time Yan had become pregnant, she had fallen ill, and her body expelled the baby prematurely. There had been blood, far too much, and she had died.

  Perhaps he never should have married her. She might still be alive if not for him, but what was a life without love? Mayhap Velasco would not have been so bitter if he had found himself love.

  In a way, perhaps, it was only fitting that the order had numbered three, one for each dragon—faith, hope, and love. Garsea supposed he was love, given his wife, but Velasco could not have been either faith or hope, whereas Ximeno could have been either.

  All this meant was that Garsea needed to have enough faith, hope, and love for them all.

  With this thought, with this hope, Garsea fell into the most restful sleep he had had in an age. When he stirred, it was nearly midday already. His ankle did not plague him as he moved about the kitchen to prepare himself some bread, but by the time he walked to the front door, he realized he would need his staff after all.

  Once the wooden instrument was securely in hand, Garsea went out and traversed the city. Each and every time he came across a person walking by themselves, Garsea would approach them.

  Five of them he had spoken with so far. All five had said no.

  It would take only one yes.

  The next target was a girl of perhaps three-and-ten years. She was ignored even by the other street rats, and she stared down those who hurried by as if she wished to say something to them, but she never spoke.

  Garsea approached her. “What is it you seek?”

  Her blue eyes stared at him, but her pale lips remained a tight line.

  “What is it you need?” he asked.

  “Nothing from you,” she said, her voice raspy as if hardly used.

  “How do you know I cannot provide what you need?”

  “How can you know what I need?” she challenged, but her raspy voice held no power, no authority behind the words, so they came out a whimper.

  “We all need hope.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Hope for a better tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow will see me as it did today—cold, tired, hungry, and alone. Begone, old man.”

  “What if I can give your life meaning?” he asked.

  “My life or my death?”

  He gaped at her. “W-Why do you say such a thing?”

  “I overheard you talking to others. You want to make a sacrifice. You want to raise the dragons from the dead. You honestly think the dragons will return, that they ever lived?”

  “They not only lived, they ruled—”

  “Not over me, they didn’t,” she said, her words finally gaining some strength. “I’m surviving because of the gen-gener… because of the kindness of the Fates.”

  “The dragons three lorded above the Fates—”

  “So you believe. I don’t. I’m not about to die because of your hope.”

  “Even if you can change the entire world?”

  “No. Why should I die for others? No one’s given me anything. I don’t ask, but anyone with eyes can see I’m… I’m…” She sighed. “Leave me be.”

  Wordlessly, she stomped away.

  A wave of weariness washed over Garsea, and he staggered along the path back to the monastery. No one was willing to sacrifice themselves at the altar of the dragons, so what could possibly be his next move?

  59

  Princess Vivian Rivera

  Impossibly, the two queens were close enough that when Vivian received a summons to join her sister for tea, both Rosalynne and Sabine were there.

  Vivian gaped at the blond-haired queen. They had passed in the halls a few times, but neither had said a word to the other. Sabine had nodded, but Vivian hadn’t even given the queen that simple courtesy.

  “Hello, sister,” Rosalynne said, sounding almost cheerful.

  “Vivian, how good it is to have you at home.” Sabine smiled.

  “What do you both want from me?” Vivian asked, suddenly weary.

  The two queens exchanged a glance.

  “It’s not that we want anything from you,” Sabine said slowly.

  "We need to bolster morale," Rosalynne said, just as slowly.

  “So we were thinking…”

  “…and decided it would be best to throw a wonderful celebration for your return,” Rosalynne finished.

  Vivian didn’t care that it wasn’t befitting a princess or ladylike at all. She dropped her jaw. The notion was positively preposterous. She had once loved dances, yes, but now? When they were at war?

  “It isn’t a good idea,” Vivian said.


  “Why not?” Sabine asked. “Rosalynne told me how much you love balls. I thought you would be pleased.”

  “You don’t know me,” Vivian said, scowling. “We are at war. How would it look to have a ball now?”

  But she had no choice in the matter, the queens not allowing her to veto their idea. Worse, they had clearly been planning this at least partially behind her back as the ball was held in merely two days’ time. Almost before she knew what was happening, Vivian was standing still so her maid could help her into her gown, drape jewelry on her, and apply some lip stain and powder.

  All in all, Vivian did not feel beautiful. If anything, she felt entirely out of place.

  The herald announced Vivian as if she were the ruling queen, and Vivian swept by him, trying to smile back at all those who seemed pleased to see her, but she did not talk to any of them, knowing each and every one of them would try to learn about where she had been, and Vivian had not answered that question once, not even to her sister.

  Instead of heading to the area where a few were already dancing, Vivian walked over to where there were tables covered in food. She was not hungry and did not plan on eating, but perhaps here, she could have some silence.

  Oh, but she should have gone straight over to the queens. Bother.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Vivian noticed a tall, muscular man with dark curly hair. Something about him seemed familiar, and she glanced at him time and again until she recognized him.

  Marcellus Gallus. The Vincanan Prince.

  Gone was his tunic, replaced with attire befitting a nobleman from Tenoch. He was here in disguise, but why would he be here?

  From that point on, Vivian’s plans for the evening changed. She immediately marched over to the queens and paid them respect before eyeing their guards, intend on exposing Marcellus and having him captured, but then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She turned, annoyed that she was being interrupted, and her eyes widened.

  Marcellus.