Age of Valor: Dragon Song

by D. E. Morris

  Keeping her finger between the pages so as not to lose her spot, Ashlynn quietly observed her two new companions. Both girls were younger than Zarra and rather timid, but they were eager to serve Ashlynn in any way she might need. Even now as she met the eyes of her third girl across the cabin as she worked on needlepoint, the girl smiled at her but was clearly prepared to jump up at Ashlynn's bidding. She appreciated the willingness of the girls, but lamented the loss of Lilia and Mairead in her company. Along with Zarra, the four of them had become a family in their own right. When alone together they would joke and tease, and they would call Ashlynn by her name. Things had changed, however. Lilia was no longer speaking to Ashlynn but in reserved and detached tones because of how close Ashlynn had allowed her to get to Jessiah. Ashlynn suspected his evil all along and had allowed him to get close to Lilia in hopes of weakening him, and Lilia felt used. She still hadn't forgiven Ashlynn for that. Mairead was another story entirely; after an attack on her carriage had left her face scarred, she'd locked herself in her quarters and refused to see anyone but those who cleaned for her and brought her food. Ashlynn simply had no choice but to replace them or send them home, though she longed for their company now.

  As if sensing Ashlynn's thoughts, Zarra looked at her and the two shared a sad smile. She knew Zarra missed the others as well. They had become sisters to her, something she greatly valued as an only child. Their departure from Ashlynn's tutelage, however, had forced Zarra to step up and become Ashlynn's number one lady. The whining, soft little girl she had been just months ago had given way to a more mature, stronger young lady.

  “I've never seen a half elf,” she said, trying to spark a conversation. “Do you think he'll have normal ears or will they be like Tasarin's?” The other two girls cast wide-eyed glances at one another, clearly alarmed by the way Zarra used contractions and spoke of the high king of Caedia in such an informal and familiar way. Ashlynn simply shrugged.

  “I have never seen one myself, since they are so rare. The elves have always frowned upon relationships with those outside their race.”

  The girl on the floor frowned. “Why would they host his wedding to a Gael, then?”

  With a wry smile, Ashlynn set her book aside. “Because for all the elves love the purity of their race, they love power more. They knew by his marrying Luella he was entering into a relationship with an Elemental, and that could be of great use to them in the future. They also knew he would be the consort to the ruler of one of the most powerful of the Celtique nations.”

  Zarra rolled her eyes but kept her attention on Lochlainn as he played with a wheeled wooden horse. “They all seem so prim and proper. It just goes to show that you can never know the character of a person just by looking at them. Tasarin's not like that, is he?”

  “Of course not. He has always been one of the most selfless people I have known. I like to think my grandfather had a hand in that.” Joining the other two on the floor, Ashlynn sat close to her son and ran a hand over his head. He held the horse up to her which she took and wheeled around, making pony noises. For awhile most of the attention was on the toddler. He was enjoying having three people fawn all over him and the uninterrupted time with his mother. It was so infrequent now that she had more than a few minutes to play with him to spare, rarer still that she could make herself remain calm long enough to enjoy watching him.

  “He is growing so quickly,” she lamented quietly, watching him play with the toggles of his shirt, his bottom lip stuck out in concentration. “It feels like only yesterday he was this tiny thing that I could hold, and now he is growing in independence and hard to contain.”

  “Soon enough you will have another babe to hold,” reminded the girl with the needlework.

  “True enough, though I have heard every child is different, and I will still miss the times Lochlainn let me hold him for more than a few fleeting moments.” Frowning, she glanced at the door. “As will my husband if he decides to stay with the crew over us. I think I shall go see what has kept him away for so many hours.” Donning her heavy winter cloak, she left the comfort and warmth of the cabin only to be immediately greeted by a cold and harsh sea gust. Only those who needed to be on deck were about, chiseling away any ice that formed and making sure the sails and jib were tightly secured. No one bowed to her as she passed as they did at Altaine, all too busy with their work and less inclined to worry about the rules of propriety in the middle of a hard journey.

  Stopping one of the sailors as he hauled a heavy coil of rope across the deck, she asked if he had possibly seen her husband. The man gave a sharp jerk of his head, looking toward the stern. Pulling her cloak tighter against a strong gust of wind, Ashlynn turned around to look up to the poop deck where the wheel was. Sure enough, Jaryn stood behind it with his hands on two of the spokes, a pipe between his teeth, his cloak and hair blowing in the chilling midday sea wind, and a grin on his face. The captain stood beside him, talking animatedly as he moved his hands in the manner of a seasoned storyteller. Jaryn said something around his pipe that made the captain laugh and clap him on the back.

  Despite her surroundings, Ashlynn couldn't help but simply watch her husband. A warmth flooded her as she noticed the easy way with which he joked around with the weather-worn older man. The feeling was quickly chased by a pain in her heart. She knew how much Jaryn missed being one of the commoners and often wondered in moments like this if he regretted his decision to marry her. She knew he loved her, sometimes beyond reason it seemed, and would never choose a path for himself that didn't include them together, but it was hard to think of the life he'd given up just to be with her. It made her feel more than a little guilty.

  Jaryn blew a puff of smoke out of the corner of his mouth, his hazel eyes sweeping the deck below him as though he were the captain surveying his crew. When he spotted Ashlynn he beamed. Reaching a gloved hand up to remove the pipe from his mouth, he smiled widely. “My beautiful bride!”

  “What are you doing, silly man?” The guilt ebbed away, affection replacing the heaviness she felt. “You will catch your death up here!” The phrase caught her off guard for a quick moment, reminding her of the recent night in the garden when Killian caught her. “You'll catch your death,” he had told her.

  “Come keep me warm, then!” Jaryn's playful command made her chuckle, her thoughts returning to the present. She gathered her skirts in her freezing fingers and ascended the tall staircase that led up to the elevated deck. Jaryn held out his arm and cloak to her, and Ashlynn wrapped her arms around his waist. He draped his cloak over her while looking down at her. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I should ask you the same.”

  Keeping her close, Jaryn stepped aside to let the captain take the wheel. “We were sharing stories of days long ago, that's all.”

  “How are you finding your quarters, Your Majesty?”

  Ashlynn smirked at the older man. “You mean your quarters? Just fine, thank you, though you certainly could have found us room below deck.”

  “What kind of a man would I be if I made a high queen sleep below deck with the regular folk? Not a gentlemanly one, that's what. Besides, you've got a young'un to keep hold of. Best keep you where it's safer and quieter.”

  “You have gone through a lot of trouble to accommodate us. I assure you, it is much appreciated.” Ashlynn snuggled in closer to Jaryn's side and smiled up at him. “How long have you been out here? You feel like an icicle.”

  “Long enough so that I no longer feel the cold.” His nose and ears were red, and even the skin of his cheeks beneath his sparse beard was colored. “The captain was kind enough to show me how to steer this thing. He also shared a pipe with me and we got talking.”

  “You? Talking? How uncharacteristic.” She glanced at the pipe he sucked on, loving the sweet smell of the tobacco on the wind. She had so few memories of her father before he died, but the scent of pipe tobacco always reminded her of him for some reason. It was rather odd to see Jaryn with t
he pipe, though. “Since when do you smoke?”

  “Since I became an honorary first mate!” Both Jaryn and the captain cheered, making Ashlynn shake her head and laugh. “Find all the humor in it you want, love, but that's another title I can add to my growing list.” As if to prove a point, he took a long pull from the pipe and blew smoke through his lips, puffing out around the stem between his teeth. “The captain was telling me about an island surrounded by mist in the western Ibayish seas.”

  “A tale birthed from experience?” guessed Ashlynn, but the weathered older man shook his head.

  “Oh, aye. You should see it. It reaches high into the air. On clear days the clouds will shift and you can get a glance at the tall mountains atop it, dragons of every shape and color circling around it like vultures protecting their nests. There's tale that it's the souls of the dragons what were killed in the massacre of Dragonspire Mountains led by Tadhg all those years ago. Sometimes, if the sea and the wind are quiet, you can even hear them calling to each other, slow and real sad. The sound is enough to drive a grown man to tears.”

  Ashlynn glanced up at Jaryn and caught the glint in his eyes; storytelling was in his blood, and this story sounded like it had been well thought out. “Ghost dragons?” she challenged.

  “Oh, aye.” The captain nodded vigorously. “I hear the doubt in your voice, but I know what I saw and I know what I heard. Ask any of my men and they'll tell you the same thing.”

  Jaryn shifted the pipe in his mouth. “Have you tried sailing up to it? It sounds like a grand exploration to me.”

  “That's the thing! No ship can get close enough, not even a dinghy. There's a reef there - shreds any what would try to sail over it. If you do make it, they say there are creatures in the depths what come up and pull you under, splintering your ship and tearing you limb from limb.” The captain shook his head. “I knew a sailor who lost half of his crew as they attempted to reach the island. He was never the same after that.”

  With a grin of mischief, Jaryn looked down at Ashlynn. “I wonder what would happen if a dragon tried to fly over it.”

  “I doubt we will find out anytime soon.” She shivered and wiggled her toes in her boots to try to get some feeling back into them. With a pleading look up at her husband, she asked, “Come inside with me?”

  He looked down at her, his smile turning soft. “How can I ever deny you? Captain?”

  “You are relieved of your duties, Your Majesty.” With a hearty laugh, the older man took his pipe back from Jaryn. “She's yours to steer any time you like.”

  Jaryn gave a thankful nod and kept his arm tight around Ashlynn's shoulders as they headed inside. He kissed the top of her head, looking at her as though he'd just married her and couldn't possibly love her more than he did at that moment. It gave her butterflies that she hadn't felt since the day of their wedding.

  “Do you know how much I love you?” They'd stopped just below deck, out of the wind but not away from the eyes of the crewmen or any of the passengers below who might be moving about. Ashlynn hid herself in the folds of Jaryn's cloak and looked up at him with a sorrowful expression.

  “Jaryn, do you ever regret falling in love with me?”

  Thinking she was teasing, he nodded. “At least once a day, especially when I can tell you're plotting something against me.” Seeing her serious expression, his smile dimmed. “Of course not. Why would you ask me such a thing?”

  “I saw you at the wheel and didn't see a high king, just a man who was comfortable doing a task as simple as steering a ship. Something tells me if it wasn't so cold, you would be out with the deckhands doing whatever menial tasks they had to do.” Ashlynn looked down, absently straightening the clasp of his cloak. “I know I have taken you away from things like that and set you above those you are most comfortable with.”

  “I am most comfortable with you,” he replied emphatically, but she grimaced.

  “You know what I mean. Before we were married you were free to come and go, to sit in a pub and drink, sing songs, gamble...be with the people. Now you sit on a throne above those with whom you once shared meals and jokes.”

  “Oh, I still gamble.”

  Ignoring his comment, she lifted her eyes to his face once more, sorrowful. “You shine in your natural element, with no crown on your head and no country to lead. I cannot help but feel as though I have taken you away from something you love.”

  “You have.” Jaryn let go of Ashlynn, only to take her face in his hands. “You also led me to a place I love just as much, to be beside a woman I love more than I ever thought possible. Ashlynn, I never wanted to be a king because I never thought I'd be any good at it. Some days I still don't think I am, but I'm learning every single day. Your father being at Altaine has been such a blessing to me, Nir's old journals, his notes on scripture...every day I wake up I am thankful to be where I am. I know how blessed I am, not only for my position but for the fact that the Giver gave me you, and our son, and the baby you carry. I miss my old life, some days more than others, but never would I want to trade the life I have with you. Not ever.”

  “I would never want you to feel trapped. I know what it is like to want to be free to be who you really are and-”

  “This is who I am, right here with you now. I could never feel trapped or want to run away from this, from you. You can't get rid of me that easily, love. No matter how hard you might try when we're both old and too cranky for our own good, I'm not going anywhere. I'm never going anywhere.” He released her face but rubbed her shoulders. “Let's get inside, hmm? We'll both be frozen over any minute now if we don't.” Hand in hand, they entered the cabin. Zarra immediately rose, as did the other two girls, and gave a deep curtsy.

  Jaryn scooped up Lochlainn and tickled him. “Thank you, ladies. If you'll excuse us, I think we'd like some family time.” As the girls filed out, Jaryn pretended to nibble the toddler's neck, sending him into fits of giggles. “Now, my boy, let me tell you the tale of the ghost island...”

  Chapter Three

  As cold as the winds may have felt on the open sea, they were even more biting far north of Siness. A long time ago, before the continents had split, there was legend of a great city that had thrived in the middle of a seemingly never-ending winter. Sage had been all over the Celtique Nations and beyond where their boundaries reached. Something told her that one of the places of significance that Killian searched for, the ones he'd hired her to help him find, would be within the snowy country she dreaded traversing through. On the outer borders of the land, close to the ocean, some villages still stood strong and proud. Past them, however, was only snow, ice, and probably death if one was lost among the mountains or taken surprise by an avalanche.

  Sage stayed the night in one of the villages, making sure she had all the supplies she would need and gathering as much information about the city of legend as she could before heading out on her solo expedition. Everyone she spoke with told her not to go, save one, and he was drunk off his rocker. As she set out in the morning, wrapped in thick furs, her bright yellow scarf blowing in the icy wind, she wondered if Killian's extra payment was really enough for what she was getting herself into. Her footprints were quickly lost as she made her way farther and farther north, the safety of the village disappearing in the squalls that surrounded her.

  With much of the landscape so uniform around her, she couldn't tell after a while just how long she'd been traveling or how far she'd gone. The only surety was that she was surrounded on all sides by white. Even the sky above seemed to be a wall of snow that kept the blue sky from her. Still, she pressed on, occasionally feeling her feet taking her upward, sometimes down and around a curve. At one point she thought she saw some sort of creature dart across her path before it, too, blended in with the surroundings. She blamed in on a madness that was certainly setting in until she saw another creature in the distance. It was dark and hunched over, zipping over the snow on four legs and running like a feral dog. It could have been wolves, she
thought, but what food source would they have here? The mystery was enough to strengthen her resolve to press on.

  The wind felt as though it were cutting right through her many layers as she reached a crest. All at once, after taking a single step downward, the wind died away and the snow slowed in its descent. Sage paused and looked around in confusion. A glance back in the direction she knew she'd come from showed her the same dangerous conditions she'd been enduring for the past several hours, but here the sun shone through breaks in the clouds above and the snow fell in fat, lazy flakes.

  A sparkle in the distance caught her eye.

  Pulling the scarf and furs from her face, the winged woman exhaled in wonder, her breath misting. Glancing below, she saw what once must have been a valley was now a city covered in ice. From where she stood, she could see entire houses that had been frozen over, tall spires of a church and small mansions meant to look like the castle that sat at the very back of the city. There was even a wall surrounding the whole area with a portcullis half raised.

  All thoughts of the mysterious creatures were gone. Sage let her wings flutter, testing them to see if they'd obey her despite the cold. She lifted herself up off the snow and hovered in the air a moment, taking in the pristine beauty that lay before her. With curious excitement, she headed for the frozen city. She flew over the tall walls, examining them closely and gasping in surprise when she realized she could see the stone through the thick, clear ice. A giddy laughter built in her throat, wondering just how long it had been since anyone had seen this place. She couldn't wait to return to Killian and share what she'd seen. Even if it wasn't one of the places he was looking for, this would be something he'd want to see.