Odriel's Heirs

by Hayley Reese Chow

  As the bitter, gritty liquid grated down her burning throat, Kaia grimaced. She gagged and took another breath before choking it down.

  “Yuck,” she groaned.

  She could feel the rumble of Klaus’ chuckle against her back

  “You’re enjoying this way too much,” she spluttered.

  “Oh, I just like saving your life.” Another snicker shook his chest. “Again.” He stuffed the flask in a saddle bag and reached around her to grab the reins with both hands, spurring Moonstreak into a walk and clicking his tongue to urge Sunflash and Gus to follow. Kaia still trembled, but between the blanket and the warm circle of Klaus’ arms, she let herself relax.

  "Hey, it’s still two to one," Kaia protested.

  When he spoke, she could feel his hot breath tickling her ear. “One to two, but I think we’ll have to keep a running tally.”

  She opened her mouth to deny it but reflected that he was being incredibly kind. For him, anyway. She fell into a fit of coughs and managed a small shrug. When she finally stilled, they rode for a while just listening to the trill of insects in the dark. The rhythmic, rocking steps of the Dalteek made her eyelids droop again.

  Klaus’s deep voice resonated in her ear, “You can sleep now, Firefly, I’ve got you.”

  Despite her chills, the fuzzy warmth of trust bloomed in her stomach with velvet petals. “Thank you,” she whispered, laying her head against his arm.

  As she drifted off, she inhaled his scent of soap and leather, letting the comfort of the smell sink into her bones. She could never have guessed that she would fall asleep in the Shadow Heir’s arms and feel completely safe.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Return

  Raindrops peppered the gray morning as Kaia awoke. The cold drizzle sapped what little heat she had managed to maintain, and she shook violently. Klaus hugged her close to share his body warmth, but soaked as he was, could do little. He offered to stop and find them some shelter, but Kaia shook her head. She wanted to get back to Fiola’s warm fire as soon as possible, so they pressed on through the mud and rain, stopping only to switch Dalteek. With shaking hands, Kaia accepted water but couldn’t manage any food with her swollen throat.

  Klaus’ forehead creased with worry. “I’m sorry, Firefly.”

  She shrugged and tried to reassure him with a weak smile, since talking hurt too much. If Shad had been there, he probably would’ve said something sassy about the longest the two of them had ever been together without arguing. Kaia savored the pleasant change, and by dusk, Kaia recognized a ridge that she knew lay no more than a day’s easy ride from Summerbanks. The sight gave her hope, and she tried to sit up straighter in the saddle.

  Oblivious to this good news, Klaus’ breathing grew heavy and even, and his right arm twitched. Before long, his head sagged onto her shoulder. Kaia smiled. He probably hadn’t slept since he left to find her. She took the reins from his limp hands and tried to muffle her coughs so as not to wake him.

  As they rode, a half-forgotten memory from her first triennial bobbed to the surface of Kaia's thoughts. She remembered herself as a little girl, hopelessly lost in the darkening mountain wood and out of breath from chasing an invisible Klaus through the underbrush.

  She looked around desperately, her breath coming faster as she realized she recognized nothing. Pellie, her ragehound, whined and nosed at her ear. The lights of the house had vanished behind the fat tree trunks as the thick bracken turned to shadows in the creeping dusk. Her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to call fire to her palm, but her hand shook with growing panic. The scratching of the waking night creatures grew monstrous in her five-year imagination, destroying the calm she needed to draw her gift.

  "Be brave," she whispered to herself as she wiped her eyes and started in the direction she had come.

  "That's the wrong way, you know," the eight-year-old Klaus taunted from thin air.

  "Klaus! I don't know the way back!" Her voice trembled as she knotted her fingers into Pellie’s thick fur.

  An exaggerated sigh tickled the back of Kaia's neck, and she turned to find Klaus with his hands on his hips. "I guess I could let you follow me back,” he drawled. "But could you at least make yourself useful and light the way?"

  Kaia's lower lip trembled as she once again closed her eyes and fought for the composure to produce a flame. She opened her eyes and looked to her open palm—nothing. Her arm dropped, and she shook her head. Klaus grimaced before snatching her still quivering hand.

  "C'mon then, we'll just have to find our way in the dark," he grumbled, looking back at her damp face. "And dry your tears—it's not like I’d ever leave you out here on your own.”

  Kaia smiled to herself, it was nice to know that not everything changed.

  She drew her collar closer to her neck as cold rainwater trickled down her shirt. As Sunflash picked her way down a narrow deer trail, Kaia listened to the tapping of the raindrops on the broad tree leaves above her and looked up at the dark sky. There would be no moon or stars tonight, but she wished fervently that the drizzle would stop.

  Klaus murmured something unintelligible in his sleep and twitched again. Kaia smiled tiredly into the dark, but it wasn’t long before the Shadow Heir’s rhythmic breathing, and the hypnotic rocking of Sunflash’s steps had her eyelashes drooping once again. If she went to sleep, perhaps she would wake up in a warm bed, swathed in blankets. Her head nodded, and she jerked it up suddenly, rubbing her eyes with a damp, icy palm. One of us has to keep watch.

  She gazed into the pitch black surrounding them, and she suppressed a shudder, her skin prickling. The Dragon Heir strained her ears for any unusual sounds but heard nothing. Even so, her instincts had escalated from an unsettled murmur to a silent scream.

  Gus smelled it first. He whined insistently. Bad. The badness is here!

  Then, Kaia heard an unwelcome sound that she remembered distinctly, the creaking of rotten bones.

  She shrugged Klaus’ face roughly from her shoulder. “Wake up!”

  “What?” he protested groggily, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

  “I think we're about to have company of the worst kind,” she answered, her teeth chattering—from nerves or fever, she wasn’t sure.

  Klaus’ muscles tensed behind her. “Can you light a fire?”

  His voice had a hard edge to it now. For a heartbeat, Kaia was five years old again, lost in the dark and unsure. She shook the thought away but couldn’t still her knocking teeth. “The rain isn’t a problem, but I don’t have a lot of yanaa. Klaus, if there are a lot—” Her heart turned cold as the smell of decay reached them. “This might be difficult.”

  “Do what you can.” Klaus’ body jerked as he scanned the dark forest. “In any case, we need the light.”

  With a deep breath, Kaia closed her eyes, reaching for the calm at her center. She was no longer five and afraid. She was the Dragon Heir—with power at her fingertips. She let a small fire grow in the palm of her hand, making it burn tall, hot, and bright.

  It revealed a nightmare.

  Countless pairs of coal black eyes stared at them from the trees. These were worse than the ones that she had encountered at the castle or in Carceroc—these were old bodies. A film of green smoke curled around bones barely knit together by strips of flesh. The black pits of their eyes were framed only by skulls. Any semblance of humanity had been stripped away with most of their bodies, leaving skeletal marionettes driven with a thick shroud of dark yanaa.

  The Dragon Heir recognized an ambush when she saw one.

  She could feel Klaus’ heartbeat accelerate behind her. There had to be over a hundred advancing through the trees on both sides. The Heirs didn't have much time to mount a defense.

  “Stay on the doe,” Klaus ordered as he dismounted. “If you lose your dragon fire, ride to Fiola’s for help. I’ll be fine.” He drew his sword for the second time that night. “Take care of those on your right first. I’ll start on the left. Listen for the switch.”<
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  Kaia nodded wordlessly as the Heir blinked out of sight. She looked to the fifty or so that approached from her side and let her flame grow. She could only hope that Sunflash didn’t shy at the fire. In her weakened state, creating the flame was a slow process, and beads of sweat rolled down her forehead, stinging her eyes. At last, she directed a jet of liquid fire at the first wave of dead, a dozen perhaps.

  Sunflash flinched at the blast but somehow managed not to panic. She pawed at the ground nervously, but Kaia ran a quick hand through her mane to steady her. The flames enveloped the approaching Lost, illuminating the wood as it fed on their shroud of yanaa. But instead of crumbling right away, they screamed in protest, railing against the onslaught as they continued their advance. Kaia’s heart flared with fear. The green radiance of their yanaa resisted her flames, proving them tougher than any she had faced before—Ariston had grown stronger.

  More wails spiked the air as she prepared the second inferno. Klaus could only pick them off one at a time, but he made fast work. An invisible executioner, he whirled through the mob, decapitating one after the other, their bodies returning to useless heaps of marrow and rot.

  She flung the second fireball and watched with satisfaction as it exploded against the shambling Lost, blowing them into flaming bits.

  “Kaia! Switch! Now!” Klaus shouted.

  She wheeled Sunflash to the left. There were perhaps thirty Lost before her. She tried to conjure another fireball, but she had no heat in her body to draw upon. The flames built sluggishly, but the relentless Lost drew ever nearer. Their long, claw-like fingers stretched out to her, and she could see maggots writhing in their arms. Finally, she could wait no longer, and with her spare hand she hurled a volley of small fireballs at the closest attackers. They hit the targets, but didn’t have the heat to incinerate them. A nightmarish battle cry arose from the Lost as they flung their flaming bodies at her.

  Sunflash’s quick hooves danced back as the Lost’s raking fingers grabbed for her. Kaia screamed, kicking out as one brushed her boot. Fueled by panic, Kaia held both arms out and yelled in desperation—a river of fire forced of pure adrenaline erupted from her palms, engulfing the front line. Her eyes watched the burning Lost as she sucked in deep breaths, letting her body gradually crumple beneath her until she lay limp on Sunflash’s neck.

  When she felt sure her lungs weren’t going to burst, she managed to gather a small hand-sized flame to tally the remaining Lost on her side. She counted a dozen still stalking the dark. She looked on Klaus’ side and saw a crowd of ten gathered around a patch of air that she hoped didn’t hold the Shadow Heir.

  She sat up and tried to will her small flame into a weapon, but to no avail. Her heart sank. “Klaus,” she called hoarsely into the dark, “I have no more fire.”

  His weary voice echoed back at her from closer than she expected. “Take Sunflash and Gus and leave for Fiola’s.”

  Kaia could hear his ragged breathing, and another head flew from a body. She drew her sword, letting the blade borrow a weak glow from her remaining flame.

  “Gus, stay!” she commanded the steadfast dog as she urged Sunflash towards the dozen on the left.

  The doe leapt forward, and when they reached the first of the Lost, she reared, puncturing its skull with one of her sharp hooves. Kaia clung desperately to Sunflash’s mane and just barely managed to remain in the saddle.

  Another wailing Lost rushed them from the side, and Kaia sliced cleanly through its rotting neck with her sword. A second made the mistake of grabbing Sunflash by the tail and disappeared in a flash of kicking hooves. Sunflash threw her head to crush the ribcage of a third while a fourth scrabbled her bridle from the right. Kaia hacked at it with sloppy blows. On the fifth slash from the heavy sword, the corpse fell apart in a mass of splintered bone.

  Kaia sagged in the saddle. Seven left. The glow of her blade had faded. The logical part of her brain insisted that she was spent and that she should ride for Fiola's, but abandoning Klaus to these monsters was unfathomable. Her sword growing heavier by the second, Kaia grabbed a hunting knife from the saddle and flung it at the nearest Lost in exhausted desperation. The abomination screamed in dismay as the knife skewered its nose cavity. But before Kaia could straighten, skeletal fingers seized her left thigh and tried to drag her from Sunflash. She stared into the creature’s maggoty, eyeless face as it clawed at her, gouging her flesh. Kaia grunted with pain as she raised her sword with both hands.

  Abruptly, her tormentor’s head rolled off its shoulders. Kaia gasped in relief, dropping the sword. Her body wilted as terror drained from her tense muscles.

  “I told you to run.” Klaus' voice smoldered from the dark.

  “The Dragon Heir..." Kaia panted "...does not run.”

  She stuck her tongue out in the direction of his voice before falling, letting herself once again collapse onto Sunflash’s neck. Stifling a cough, she heard Klaus stumble around in the underbrush, taking care of the last scattered Lost before blinking back into sight and returning to her. Kaia held a candle-sized flame out to look at him. Sweat dripped from his face, and his head drooped. The battle had sapped him as well.

  She smiled wearily. “I don’t think you’re in any condition to ride.”

  “Maybe.” He smiled as he leaned against Sunflash and gave Kaia’s boot a tug. “We’ll go a little farther and stop for a few hours while we both get our strength back.” He whistled for Moonstreak and Gus before leading Sunflash back down to the little trail.

  As the adrenaline abandoned her, the wounds in Kaia’s leg began to ache. She swayed dizzily in the saddle. “Conrad didn’t think we could, but we did it—sick, tired, and all.”

  The Shadow Heir rubbed a hand through his sweaty hair. “How could Conrad send the dead after us?”

  Kaia shrugged with heavy shoulders. “Maybe Ariston was with him after all?”

  “But why would Ariston know we were here? We only just arrived, so he would’ve had to already be here….” Klaus straightened, his eyes widening. “Firefly, Conrad is Ariston.”

  Too tired to register shock, Kaia’s head dipped as she struggled to keep up. “But if that’s true—why isn’t he with his army?”

  “He must’ve come ahead of his army to spy on Everard.” He knocked a fist against his head as he thought. “That’s the only explanation.”

  She glanced at the dark path in front of them, bone fragments of the Lost still scattered across it. “So, what do we do now?” She yawned hugely.

  He chuckled and shook her boot again. “Now, we need to get back to Fiola’s and regroup.”

  Kaia opened her mouth to say something else, but the words slipped from her tongue as she slid from her saddle into oblivion.

  ✽✽✽

  When she awoke, she was warm and dry, and the burning in her throat had faded considerably. She opened her eyes to find herself back in Fiola’s farmhouse—a warm afternoon sun streamed in through the open window, and a soft breeze toyed with her hair.

  She wondered for a moment if the whole episode had been a dream, before realizing that something heavy lay across her stomach. She looked down, thinking it was Gus, and found a dozing Klaus draped across the bed sideways, with a colorful quilt draped over both of them. Fiola sat in her armchair in the corner of the room with a voluminous treatise on medicinal herbs in her lap. She noticed Kaia’s curious look and smiled.

  “You made it in this morning,” she whispered. “He managed to carry you up to the bed before he collapsed.” The old woman giggled to herself and shrugged. “You two looked so worn out, I just decided to cover you up and let you be. I think you were still half asleep, but I did manage to clean your leg and get some medicine in you earlier."

  Kaia merely nodded. Fiola rose to tuck the blanket around her like a child, and Kaia let her head sink back into the soft pillow.

  ✽✽✽

  Gus’ happy barking woke her the next morning. She sat up to see Mackie laughing as Felix and Gus chased each
other in the field just outside her window. She looked to the bedside table for her medicine and found a bowl of steaming liquid sitting next to it. She took a swig of the bitter draught before she reached hungrily for the bowl, but after she inhaled the stew, her belly still grumbled for more.

  Kaia coughed to ease her still itching throat as she swung her stocking feet to the floor. Dressed in an oversized nightshirt, she looked around the room for fresh clothes or even the muddied ones from the day before, but found nothing. Kaia padded across the room and opened the door. She spied Fiola bustling by the foot of the stair.

  “Fiola, do you know where my clothes are?” she called.

  Fiola glanced up at her, dismissing her with a wave. “Dear, you should still be in bed! You won’t be properly well until tomorrow.”

  “But I’ve already been in bed for a full day!”

  Before Fiola could answer, Klaus emerged from the room next to hers with an oblong periapple in his hand. “Why is it,” he began as he took a bite out of the periapple and walked toward her, “that when your friends give you good advice—don’t trust the Conrads, go back to Fiola’s, stay in bed—you resist?”

  He leaned so close to her that their noses almost touched. His breath smelled sweetly of the fruit, and his hazel eyes glinted.

  Her stomach fluttered at his closeness. “Can’t I just go down and get something to eat?”

  “No,” he said flatly. “If you are hungry, we will bring you something to eat. Go back to bed.” With a gentle hand, he pushed her back into the room and closed the door in her face.

  ✽✽✽

  The next day, Kaia woke before the sun, bursting with energy. The birds trilled ringing melodies in the predawn air, encouraging the sun to awaken from its slumber. She threw off the nightshirt and dressed in the clothes hanging from a nearby chair. She reached down to ruffle Gus’ fur and bounded out the door and down the stairs, breathing in the heavenly scent of sizzling sausage.