Sonata Form

by Carole Cummings

  He jerked his chin at his hand, because it was starting to shake and he didn’t think he could hold it up much longer. “All you have to do is love them.” It came out slurred as Dilys gently took the stone. Ellis let his arm drop, weighted like an anchor. “Love them like Milo does. And they’ll know.”

  Dilys already did love them. Ellis didn’t think Milo suspected, but Ellis had always known that Dilys secretly idolized Milo, which was the only reason she didn’t perish from envy that he was dragonkin and she wasn’t.

  So when she leaned down, whispered, “Ta, love,” and dropped a soft kiss to his brow, Ellis told himself a dragon had to love what Milo loved—why else would Ellis still be alive?—had to keep safe what Milo wanted safe, Dilys would be fine, and let the heavy blank dark pull him down.

  THE END had already begun by the time Dilys had shown up at Ellis’s bedside.

  It started with Preidyn’s western ally Torope sneaking into the war—literally. Now Ellis knew why Tirryderch hadn’t come when he’d begged Dilys. Their magical folk—every one of them but for Dilys and Terrwyn—had been scattered on daycruisers off the coasts of the western outer islands, conjuring cover over the Blackson, while Torope maneuvered its navy into position beneath it.

  Torope waited until its navy more or less lined the ocean from Werrdig to Vistosa before it proffered a formal decree. And while Taraverde’s ears were still ringing with the proclamation, Torope landed shock troops on the Surgebreaks. It was barely even a fight. Desgaul, already with a foothold in Blackfish Bay, swarmed northeast, chasing seven enemy troopships led by one of the bellwings. Three of the ships made it through the lines and headed straight for Surreywitch.

  The dragon arrowed in over Gefēonde, silver-white light preceding it to mark the Royal Forces lines that had just pushed the Confederation back to the beaches. What happened next was already shifting into legend by the time Ellis heard it.

  Dilys. Because of course it would be Dilys. Walking calmly through a path the soldiers of the 142nd opened for her. Stepping out into the open, nothing but a conjured shield between her and the bellwing swooping in over the carriers in the sound. The dragonstone held aloft in her hand.

  Ellis wasn’t sure he’d ever know what really happened on that beach, or what Dilys had actually done, because Ellis was still flat on his back, staring at the tent’s canvas ceiling, and the story got wilder every time he heard it. And Dilys’s account would top them all when he finally saw her again.

  Some versions said the dragon landed in front of her and bowed like a royal subject. Some said it screamed as though struck, and wheeled off over the sound and out to sea.

  Ellis assumed it had actually happened the same way it had with him—the dragon had acknowledged someone holding a dragonstone as clan and, given a choice between kin who’d betrayed it and clan that offered an alternative, chose the alternative. Because the same thing happened when the other bellwing came in over Silver Run and some soldier Ellis didn’t know wielded one of the stones Aleks had sent.

  No one knew yet where either dragon had gone. It didn’t matter.

  Once the last of the Confederation’s most fearsome weapons had abandoned them, once they realized it was all or nothing, they dug into the narrow ground they’d managed to hold on the southern and eastern shores of Wellech. Except the absence of the dragons opened up the sky again, and Werrdig’s Air Brigade took immediate advantage. The landscape of Wellech would never be the same, but the constant air raids did their part in finally forcing the Confederation to abandon what was left of Hollywell. They scattered for what little high ground they could find to the south of it. It left them pinned between the advancing Royal Forces and the coast.

  The Battle of Torcalon heated up again, the Confederation well aware that winning Wellech meant winning Kymbrygh, and thus winning Preidyn and the war. So they stuck in like ticks and rained every last canister of gas they had across the lines. That’s when the 153rd Kymbrygh showed up, apparently called back from somewhere near Colorat and arrived in through Caeryngryf only days before. As if the reinforcements weren’t enough to gladden every heart in Wellech, the fact they came bearing crates of gasmasks—for soldier, Warden, and civilian alike—as well as a stockpile of heavy artillery, all but provoked parties in the streets.

  And then things got ugly.

  Western Unified troops Ellis hadn’t even known existed had apparently been waiting on Preidyn’s west coast. When Confederation carriers broke through the Southern Fleet’s lines, battalions from Błodwyl, Macran, and Desgaul—along with a full division of Royal Forces marines—poured across the Red Coral Strait like locusts. The ferries, escorted across the strait by the Air Brigade, never stopped.

  The entirety of Kymbrygh’s east coast was a battlefield. Once again, Wellech’s beaches turned red with blood. Enemy soldiers who’d tried and failed to install a network of trenches in the dense forest of Torcalon were abruptly finding themselves fighting on two fronts.

  And then the 2nd Tirryderch swarmed in. The Confederation’s sporadic magical assaults turned to defenses. Dozens of witches and sorcerers—taught in Tirryderch’s best schools; initiated at Ynys Dawel; honed on the Blackson—bombarded the enemy lines with strikes both brutal and precise. Fog billowed out like a vanguard, catching the lethal gasses launched from the thick of the forest and blowing them back. Arrows fletched with hexes soared like flocks of ravens, following trails of magic around trunk and branch to pinpoint enemy targets wherever they hunkered. As though in homage—to the Black Dogs, to the Queen herself—three colossal birds made of mist gamboled overhead, razor-beaked and fire-eyed. Dreadful as dragons, they skimmed the tops of Torcalon’s trees and screeched calls loud and piercing enough to wake the dead and terrify the living into wishing they were.

  The Adar Rhiannon. Pulled from Kymbrygh myth just like the Black Dogs. Except with a bit of an in-joke twist to it. Because who else but those of Tirryderch—though Ellis knew, knew this one was down to Dilys—would fetch a pun into battle? More to the point—who else would make it work?

  It was a matter of hours before the surrender came.

  From there it was like a house of cards. One battalion after another folded, up and down the coast.

  And while all that had been going on, divisions from Desgaul and Eretia took advantage of the near centralization of the Confederation’s troops in Kymbrygh. Because, with a willingness to fight in the open like they’d never done before, the Black Dog Corp had charged their way into the center of continental warfare, and Western Unified was more than willing to let them open the way.

  As though to make a point, the Black Dogs stormed the borders of Taraverde, and plowed corridors through whole battalions, raining the kind of destruction that couldn’t be anything but purposeful and deliberately vicious. Ellis was left in no doubt at all that Ceri Priddy in particular was out for blood and on the hunt for her son. And determined to make anyone in her path pay.

  If Preidyn had been stretched thin across the continent, the Confederation, no doubt thinking they sensed blood in the water, had allowed themselves to be stretched even thinner. Now they were caught in a scramble, companies pulling back from active battles and divisions diverting to try to intercept the Black Dogs.

  It didn’t work. The Black Dogs only got more spiteful.

  They decimated whole swaths of Taraverde that had been untouchable until then, driving the enemy out of their trenches like swarms of rats, and picking them off as they came. No hidden spies this time, no stealth missions that could be written off to assumption and rumor. They fought in open battle, magical avatars as outriders, eyes like red coals and teeth like fangs, and the ones who commanded them no less fierce. They made no secret of where they were heading—their path never wavered from a straight line leading toward Taraverde’s capitol.

  The Premier wanted personal? Ceri Priddy would give him personal.

  The way nearly cleared now, Western Unified redoubled their offensives in the central theater
and advanced on Taraverde itself, driving in on the Black Dogs’ wake. The distraction and sudden scramble of Taraverde’s troops to its Premier’s defense enabled Błodwyl, Nasbrun, and Esplad to swoop in from three fronts and finally break Ostlich-Sztym’s lines.

  Ellis heard it all from his hospital cot. Nurses’ chatter. Staticky squawks from the radio. All of it somehow louder, seemingly more important, than the steady barrages he could hear coming from the east at all hours. A reality he was only hearing from a distance, while he ached and itched and tried not to whine too much when the pain flared. Because there were men and women out there dying with every boom and blast, and he wasn’t there.

  It was strange, he thought while he stared up at sunlight through canvas. Passing strange that even the words “truce” and “peace” and “over” only came to him from miles away, leaving him dull and numb while jubilation erupted around him. Whoops and cheers and hugs and kisses, songs of thanks swirling up to the goddesses like ash from an autumn bonfire.

  He slept. He didn’t Dream, but he dreamed.

  Dead eyes glinting with fire. A song from a young man past singing, his pleasant tenor nonetheless fanning out and up on thermals born of dragonfire:

  War’s took my cariad far from me

  Chapter 24—Recapitulation

  : the third aspect of Classic sonata form; in this section, both themes of the exposition are restated in the home key (the second theme gives up its opposing key center)

  Lilibet. Was Tamping.

  “…last thing I ever do for that man, you see if it isn’t.”

  She was talking about Alton. Snarling about Alton, really.

  Sometime in the past few months—when Ellis had been out in the wilderness; when the danger to everyone in Wellech had ramped up—Alton had ordered Lilibet to take Bamps and retreat to the Kymbrygh MP’s estate in Dinas Ganalog. Your Dreams are too valuable to risk you, he’d said. Your country needs you safe and Dreaming, he’d insisted.

  “That bloody-minded, self-important, thoughtless arse is going to—”

  “Mam.” Ellis couldn’t help the budding grin as he patted at Lilibet’s hand—set atop his sternum. Healing charms were pulsing all through him, potent enough to hurt as they mended, and hot enough to make him sweat. “He told you as soon as he could. And you’re here now.”

  “He could’ve told me a bloody week ago. Then p’raps my son wouldn’t’ve been lying here in pain for all this time, while bloody Mastermind pried just one more Dream and then just one more, I swear from out my bloody skull!”

  It wasn’t funny. She was nearly gnashing her teeth—anger, worry, fright—as she bent over Ellis and push-push-pushed healing magic into him with her jaw set tight and wrathful tears shining in her dark eyes. It wasn’t funny at all. Still, Ellis carefully kept his smile and made himself relax beneath her hands.

  “He did what was necessary.”

  “He did exactly what Nia said he’d do. They all did.”

  “We all did.” Ellis looked steadily at his mam, her hair a frazzled mess, her collar twisted, her fingers curved like rigid claws and yet still so gentle where they touched him. He’d never seen her so… undone. He kept his voice low and even. “Mam. I’m alive. I’m staying that way. All right?” He dipped his chin, trying to get her to look at him, but she wouldn’t. “You Dreamed a long time ago that all this was coming.”

  She reared back as though struck, expression horrified, but she didn’t move her hands and she didn’t stop pushing charms into him. “I didn’t Dream this. If I had, I’d’ve—”

  “What? Sacrificed Wellech? Kymbrygh? Preidyn? Half the world?” He shook his head. “I admit I had more heroic things in mind when I found out about it.” His smirk was a touch rueful. “Thought maybe I’d do something worth a good story, something they’d write songs about, y’know?”

  “You did do—”

  “I did no more than anyone else. Small things. The things I could do. Things that were necessary.” Ellis angled a restrained shrug, probably too blasé for Lilibet’s current mood, but he’d been thinking about this. “I wasn’t meant to be the hero of this story. I don’t know what you Dreamed, but I think for once you Dreamed wrongly. I didn’t have to be here. Wellech was saved, but it wasn’t—”

  “Oh, rot to that! You pulled Wellech together. We couldn’t’ve held them off half as well if you hadn’t done. Wellech Unedig, Kymbrygh Unedig, Preidyn Unedig. You made that happen, Ellis. You did. You got rid of Crilly—d’you think he could’ve led the Home Guard through all this the way Walsh did? And all those bloody-minded raids, as though you were trying to out-do the Black Dog herself. If it weren’t for your foolishness at Tair Afon, we’d’ve been done-for months ago. And that’s not even counting pulling those dragonstones out your arse the way—”

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Mam. I’m not complaining, and I’m not selling myself short, but I’m also not fooling myself. I was only meant to hand others the things that would make them heroes. It was a part that needed playing, and I’m glad to have been able to play it. I just don’t get songs written about me, that’s all. ’S not so bad.”

  Once Upon a Time there was a man who knew lots of important people who did lots of important things.

  He couldn’t help the sudden laugh, surprised and pleased when it didn’t make his chest feel like it was caving in. “Save me, I’m a minor character in my own bloody story.”

  Now that was funny.

  Lilibet didn’t seem to think so. She was glaring. “A story that was nearly a tragedy. I won’t have you be so glib about it.”

  “But it wasn’t, Mam. A tragedy, I mean. At least…” His smile dimmed, and he looked away. “At least not this part of it.”

  Lilibet was silent, ostensibly back to concentrating on what she was doing, but really watching Ellis. She pulled in a breath. Two.

  “Alton thinks they’ve found him.”

  Ellis jolted so hard he nearly knocked his mam off her stool. “What?” He tried to sit up—she held him down. “Milo? Are you talking about Milo? They’ve found him? Is he…?” He couldn’t make himself ask the question.

  “Ellis Morgan, lie down!” Lilibet snapped, pushing at him and peering over her shoulder to see if any of the nurses were giving them the stink-eye. Skirmishes were still happening here and there, and wounded were still coming in. The cots here were nearly all occupied, and Lilibet had only been allowed in on special orders from Alton himself, provided she lend her healing talents to others besides her son. “I said they think they’ve found him. In Taraverde. I didn’t want to say until I heard something more definite, but the raid on the prison camp has got Ceri written all over it, and yes, if it’s him, he’s alive. Only—” She cut herself off.

  Ellis narrowed his eyes. “Only what?”

  She pulled her hands away. Ellis felt the lack of heat immediately. He shivered a bit but didn’t complain.

  “Only,” Lilibet said slowly, “the young man they rescued is…” She pursed her lips, wrung her hands. Ellis was tempted to shake her before she finally shut her eyes, pushed out a long breath, as though bracing herself, and looked him in the eye. “You know that when a witch or sorcerer or mage is… hurt. It makes it difficult to use magic. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of concentration, and pain rather crowds that out.” She tilted her head. “It’s possible that’s why your Dreams were so hard in coming, and then why they’ve stopped.”

  “I wasn’t hurt when the dreams stopped.”

  “Ellis. Love.” Lilibet’s tone was cautious, her expression sympathetic. “I didn’t mean you.”

  It was like a solid punch to the solar plexus. Ellis had to breathe through it for a moment before he could ask, “How bad?”

  Lilibet’s chin wobbled. Her eyes got bright again. It was a reminder that Ellis wasn’t the only one who loved Milo.

  “Bad.” Too soft. Lilibet shook her head, set her jaw. “He’d been shot. Several times. He’s…” She bit her lip. “He’s lost a leg.
” She paused when Ellis sucked in a tight breath, then went on, “And apparently, when that wasn’t enough to keep him down, they started breaking bones.”

  Ellis’s gut roiled.

  Unless, of course, you kept them in pain, but we wouldn’t want to be cruel about—

  Folant’s voice. Telling Ellis over jars of elderflower ale how to keep a mage in a cell.

  They’d known Milo was Dewin.

  “I have to go.” It was probably more forceful than Ellis’s voice had been for weeks.

  “Yes,” Lilibet said, quiet. “I know.”

  IT WAS definitely Milo. Confirmation came a few days later from Alton himself. He didn’t even argue when Lilibet demanded he arrange passage for Ellis—after Lilibet was satisfied Ellis was healed well enough, and Do not test me on this, Ellis Morgan!

  Three weeks Ellis stewed and fretted and haunted the communications tent until they booted him out. Three weeks he wished for that stone back so he could at least try to Dream, to see, to know.

  Ceri was there, Ellis told himself. If nothing else, Milo had his mam. A woman who’d apparently torn through half of Taraverde to find him, Black Dogs carving a swath of unquestionably vengeful destruction behind her, and got him to a sanitorium in newly liberated Colorat. Safe.

  It… wasn’t enough.

  It would have to be.

  When the transport lorry finally arrived to let Ellis hitch a ride with soldiers set to ship out to various points from Caeryngryf, Ellis was not even a little surprised to see Dilys hop down from the bed of it and start toward him. She was trying to smile but it was grim.

  She nodded to Lilibet, held her hand out to Ellis. When Ellis reached out, Dilys set the dragonstone gently on his open palm and said, “Ready?”

  He was still in pain, though not nearly as bad. He probably always would be. He slid the stone into his pocket, where it belonged, and snagged up the cane one of the nurses had pushed on him; Lilibet couldn’t stop frowning at it. With a nod, he adjusted the sling he wasn’t allowed to discard for another fortnight. Didn’t matter. He turned to his mam.