Shadow of Flame

by Caitlyn McFarland

  “Then what?”

  “I told you. Nothing. Just...nothing.” Like the comforting pain of poking a bruise, Kai pressed her mind against the mental wall she’d constructed between her and Rhys, separating them. A wall of nothing where her soul screamed that there should be something. She wondered what he would do if she just knocked it down like, Surprise!

  Rhys moved his fingers across her forehead, brushing away the rain. “I want this to work...I want us to be happy together.”

  Kai inhaled at the memory of his touch.

  Happy.

  She’d love to try to be happy with Rhys. If she could trust him. If she weren’t so afraid he’d take once glance at what was in her mind and realize she wasn’t enough for him.

  “We’ve told you.” Juli’s frosty tone jolted Kai from her thoughts. “Kai, our roommate, Charlotte, and I were hiking up in White River National Forest. We came across an injured girl at the base of a cliff. Kai volunteered to stay while Charlotte and I went for help. While we were gone, the girl woke up and begged Kai to help her to her campsite. Her leg was broken. Kai agreed to help. On the way back, Kai got lost.”

  It was amazing how much truth could fit into a lie.

  Though in reality, Kai hadn’t left the girl’s camp at all. Instead, she’d been present when they were attacked by dragons. Freaking dragons. In the Rockies. Lucky for Kai that the girl—Deryn—and everyone in her camp could shed their human bodies and turn into dragons themselves. Including her brother, Rhys.

  “And what about you, Juliet?” Smith asked, eyes beady. “Do you have anything to add?”

  Juli said something, but Kai was caught in her memories. Despite the staggering revelation that dragons existed and the reptilian aerial battle taking place overhead, Kai had still had the presence of mind to stab one of the dragons with a sword and save Rhys’s life. The dragon, Kavar, who shared Ashem’s power to manipulate minds, had taken exception and tried to squash her mind like a grape. So when Rhys and his dragons cut and run, they’d taken Kai with them. After that, there had been a cave and a nasty headache.

  Oh, and Rhys had touched Kai’s skin and become bound to her. Heartsworn. Forever.

  That’s when Kai found out he was the king. And he that was stuck in the middle of a civil war with his cousin, Owain. And if she didn’t magically bind herself back to him, Rhys would go insane, lose the war, and Owain would gain complete control over every dragon on the planet and use them to murder the human race.

  Fun times.

  Of course, no one had told her about the whole king or insanity thing when crap went down, so she’d said a big, fat “hell no” to completing the bond and then—and this was the part that made her insides shrivel up to remember—she’d kissed Rhys’s smooth-talking music-obsessed best friend, Cadoc. Half-crazy from the incomplete heartswearing, Rhys had tried to murder him. Cadoc had fled and ended up captured and tortured by Rhys’s enemies.

  It still made Kai nauseous to think about that. A guilty, creeping nausea. Owain had shattered the bones of Cadoc’s hand, maiming him. He was a bard who could no longer play music, and it was her fault.

  A couple of days later, Ashem had turned up with Juli, who had wandered into their Top Secret Dragon Location because she was stubborn and so determined to find Kai. Kai and Juli had stolen gear from the dragons and escaped.

  All was well.

  Ha. Nope.

  Juli knocked over the salt shaker she’d been toying with, startling Kai from her thoughts. Juli was partway through her own version of their story. “I stumbled on a well-hidden ravine and went through it without thinking. By the time I came out the other side and walked a little ways, I was lost. Luckily, Kai had wandered through the same ravine. That’s when we found each other.”

  Kai bobbed her head, pretending to agree. Ashem said nothing. He didn’t move at all, only glared at Smith in a way that made it abundantly clear he’d come up with a dozen ways to dispose of the reporter’s body.

  Smith edged away from Ashem and toyed with something in his jacket pocket. “And then what happened?”

  Kai took over, exasperated. “We told you. That’s when Ashem found us and brought us home.”

  Home. Not even close. Home had come after Rhys had hauled Kai, half-frozen, from a river, Ashem and Juli had become heartsworn, and Owain had shown up with a bunch of dragons and tried to murdered them.

  By that point, Kai had finally come to her senses and completed her bond with Rhys.

  “Oh, Ashem did, did he? How lucky,” Smith drawled. He shot Ashem an ugly look.

  Kai stood. Smith could have accused her of any number of things, but to look at someone—someone she’d come to love like a brother, even if he was an ass—like that? No. “We’re done.”

  She jerked her head at Juli and Ashem. They rose, and Kai marched for the door, fuming. Jacobsen Starnes Smith was a despicable example of a human being. Accosting them, looking at Ashem like that. The way the word “lucky” had oozed from his sneering mouth.

  Yeah. Super lucky.

  Lucky that Rhys had been inches from death, and the only way he could save himself was to jump into Kai’s head, scorching her from the inside out and laying waste to the nascent trust that had bloomed between them.

  Lucky that Cadoc had been maimed and then cursed, and that he’d had to go into self-imposed exile or risk attacking Rhys every time they were close.

  Lucky that Griffith, a good man, and a friend Rhys had known since childhood, had died and left his pregnant mate alone and in dire risk of losing their baby.

  Lucky that Rhys had sent Kai home, because the fact that he’d bonded to a human meant he could lose enough support to lose the entire war.

  “Stop!” Smith rose and followed them. “I know there’s something going on in those mountains. You owe us! People deserve to know what’s going on! You can’t just give me nothing.”

  Something in Kai snapped. She spun and stalked back to the reporter, resisting the urge to poke him in the chest with her burning finger. “Nothing? I gave everything. I gave up—”

  The coffee shop had gone silent.

  “What have you given up?” Smith pressed.

  “Kai...” Juli’s voice whispered a warning inside her head.

  What have I given up? Kai’s gaze darted around the coffee shop. She’d grown up in Rifle. It was a small town, so she knew half the patrons at Caff-Elation by sight. Had known them since she was a child.

  Beyond the windows, snow blanketed Third Street and Railway Avenue, roads she’d driven a thousand times. Outside the city, she could picture the silvery bends of the Colorado River and the towering Bookcliffs as clearly as she could picture her own face.

  She’d told herself that she’d given up everything for Rhys. She’d moped for weeks. But she’d been an idiot. She was still here. Smith was right. She’d given up nothing. Except for this semester of college, which she’d decided to defer, her life was normal.

  But being home wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and suddenly she realized how much she wanted to give it up. How much she wanted...

  “Yes?” The reporter’s eyes gleamed.

  Kai barked a laugh to cover her lapse. “Hey, I didn’t invite you here, Jacobsen Starnes Smith. You came on your own. Safe drive back to Denver. The snow isn’t supposed to let up. You should probably get going before Vail Pass gets nasty.”

  She turned away from the spluttering reporter, jerking her head to Juli and Ashem. They left the warm coffee-scented air of the shop and stepped out into the dreary November afternoon. In the half an hour they’d been inside, Juli’s boxy green 1992 Honda Civic had collected a solid inch of snow.

  If Kai knew how to use her fire magic, she would’ve been able to melt it off. Instead, she took the ice scraper Juli offered and brushed the snow away.

 
“You are not going to be happy when that man writes his story,” Juli said as she climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Kai—too tired to argue with Ashem over who rode shotgun—shook her head and climbed into the backseat, throwing the ice scraper on the floor. “He’s not looking for dragons, Jules. He’s looking for sex-trafficking rings or drug cartels or some kind of hoax. He’s got no story. At least not one that involves me.”

  “We’ll see.” Juli said, her voice ominous. She pulled out of their parking spot and started down Third Street.

  Kai settled back and watched her little town roll by, rapidly disappearing beneath a blanket of snow. She pressed her hand to her breastbone. Beneath her shirt, the rhombus-shaped gold pendant of Rhys’s necklace dug into her skin.

  She’d given up nothing. Except her ability to feel complete.

  In the short time they’d been connected before Kai had put up walls to keep Rhys out, there had been an intimate comfort to his presence.

  She wished she trusted him enough to take down her shields now.

  She pulled the necklace from her shirt and twisted the citrine and gold pendant between her fingers. If she could just see Rhys again, get to know him, maybe it would be easier.

  Maybe they would have chosen each other.

  Maybe Kai was ready to give up normal, after all.

  Chapter Two

  In Times of War

  Rhys imagined setting the massive, ring-shaped table on fire. Across the room, Powell, councilman for Clan Draig, was wrapping up another long-winded speech.

  “...less strict about human casualties. We need more leeway.”

  Tingling heat gathered in Rhys’s hands. Wind-for-brains idiot. How many times do I have to put this idea down?

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Morwenna whispered from her position behind his chair, leaning in close enough that her citrusy scent washed over him.

  Gritting his teeth, Rhys let the heat he’d gathered dissipate into the air. Seated on his left, his sister, Deryn, gave him a warning look, her sharp features emphasized by the way her braided auburn hair had been pulled into a knot at the crown of her head.

  A salt breeze blew through the rows of wide, arched windows that ran the perimeter of the wall, carrying away the air warmed by his runaway magic. Framed by the openings, distant dragons swooped and soared over the sapphire sea in groups of ten to fifteen. Scales in every color, from chrome to vivid yellow to blue so deep it was nearly black, glittered in swaths of sunlight where it cut through cottony clouds. Two vees had begun a mock battle above one of the nearer islands of the archipelago, the faint sound of their roars echoing over the water. Rhys’s gaze slipped beyond them to the northeast.

  Toward Kai.

  Morwenna brushed the back of his neck with one surreptitious finger. Rhys tensed, wishing Cadoc wasn’t cursed and off looking for Seren, or that it had been Evan’s turn to act as guard today. In the Council chamber on the central island of Eryri—an isolated archipelago in the South Pacific that dragons had hidden from humans centuries ago—the position of bodyguard was more honorary than necessary. Morwenna kept finding reasons to touch him or whisper in his ear. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have minded as much. Now her touch was an uncomfortable reminder that he hadn’t told her, or allowed anyone else in the vee to tell her, that he was heartsworn.

  He would, though. As soon as he found the right way to do it.

  Deryn kicked him. Rhys shot her a glare, then focused on the Council meeting, a sharp pain in his shin where his sister’s foot had made contact.

  Athena, one of the Wingless representatives, folded her dark, long-fingered hands on the table. Her voice echoed faintly from the high ceiling, where a rich mosaic depicted dragons from each of the ten clans. “More leeway? Humans aren’t pests that you can exterminate when they’re inconvenient.”

  Athena was American, and her accent brought Kai’s voice, unbidden, into his mind.

  You want me, then you want me to leave. You need me, but I’ll make you lose the war. You terrify me. Rain on her cheeks. Rain on her lips...

  Aching emptiness bloomed anew. He’d thought sending her home was the right thing. He’d thought he would be all right, even after she’d put up her walls. After all, he’d lived twenty-two centuries without her.

  Ancients, he’d been so wrong.

  Deryn kicked him again. Rhys flinched.

  Across the table, Powell’s pale cheeks flushed. “I mean no offense to the Wingless.”

  “And yet, you offend.” Unlike her fellow Wingless representative, Sarangerel’s eyes snapped with black fire. The tiny woman’s left arm was completely bare, her colorless, opalescent indicium plainly on display against her golden skin. Sarangerel was old enough to have wrinkles and streaks of steel gray in her black hair. The oldest Wingless in Eryri, she’d always been proud of what she was.

  “With respect, there are billions of humans,” said the Draig councilwoman next to Powell. “How many dragons are left? A few thousand? Which is a greater loss?”

  A quarter of the way around the circular table from Rhys, Council Leader Kansoleh—one of the three dragons who led the Council—frowned, the bright gold of her scaled headdress glittering in stark contrast to her smooth, deep umber skin. “That doesn’t give us more right to life.”

  “We’ve existed millions of years longer. We have gathered more knowledge and harnessed more power than they could ever dream,” Nerys, the Draig councilwoman, retorted.

  Rhys pushed back his chair and stood, forcing Morwenna to scramble backward. The twenty Council members at the massive mahogany table—two dragons from each clan, two Wingless, and Deryn—turned to face him. Seated around the curved edge in bright clan colors, they looked like a slightly bored rainbow.

  It had been a long meeting.

  Rhys gripped the edge of the table. “We’ve been over this a dozen times. I will say this once more, and once more only. Leave the humans alone.”

  Powell’s frown compressed into a thin line, but he bowed. “In all things, I am your servant.” He pressed fingertips to forehead and sat down.

  “Thank you.” Rhys released the table and sat, as well, leveling his voice. “I’ve had a message from Feng Sung-ki about the financial state of some of our corporations. Owain is moving against us through the human companies he owns. The companies in question are in North America, so I’m sending Kinswoman Morwenna and, if the Council members approve, a team of other specialists on North American finance and law gathered from amongst the Clans.”

  A murmur of assent. Thank the Stars.

  His relief was short-lived. Powell stood again. “Before we adjourn, I have one more item of business to bring before the Council. I’ve heard a rumor that Lung Jiang, our spy who recently returned from Owain’s court, has a plan to capture Owain’s friend and most trusted advisor, the Azhdahā Kavar. I propose that we give her the resources to move forward with that plan—a plan I believe our king is familiar with. If we can’t capture or kill Owain, taking Kavar is the next best option.”

  Rhys’s brow furrowed. He’d been planning on springing the plan to capture Kavar on the Council at the end of the meeting—just a few moments away. Now it was going to look as if Rhys had been hiding the idea or too afraid to act on it. If he spoke in his defense, however, it would only look as if he were trying to cover for himself.

  Sunder politics.

  Powell continued, “Once we have Kavar, we must be able to get answers from him.” The bulldog-faced old man shot a smirk at Rhys. “I move that Commander Ashem Azhdahā return to Eryri perform the interrogation. I know he’s figuring things out with his Wingless”—he said the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth—”but ending the war must take priority. I think we should send for him at once.”

  Panic and desire seized Rhys’s chest in a
strange tug-of-war. If Ashem came to Eryri, so would Kai. Her face passed before his mind’s eye in sweet, agonizing detail. The memory of her small, strong body, of her lips...

  Sunder me. If he’d known that functioning without Kai nearby would be like trying to fly after someone hacked off one of his wings, he never would have let her go. He didn’t think she’d shut him out this long. But in the month and a half she’d been home, she hadn’t once opened her mind to him. He could only assume she was content.

  Without him.

  Wood creaked beneath his hand, and Rhys released the back of his chair before it broke. As much as he wanted to bring her home, the Council wasn’t ready for a Wingless queen. His people weren’t ready.

  He wasn’t ready.

  And what kind of monster would he be if he allowed the Council to ask Ashem to torture his twin brother, and the only other living member of his clan?

  Rhys straightened. “I would ask the Council to remember that Commander Ashem is Kavar’s brother. Estranged they may be, but I cannot in good conscience ask him to interrogate his own flesh and blood.”

  The Lung councilman, a slight East Asian man in embroidered red silk robes, spoke. “Majesty, in times of war, we must ask ourselves if good conscience is as important as gaining the objective.”

  Next to the councilman, the equally red-clad Lung councilwoman nodded, the charms dangling from her headdress catching the light. “Questioning his brother will make the commander uncomfortable, but not knowing the plans of Y Ddraig Wen may result in thousands upon thousands of deaths. We aren’t here to make the commander’s life easy, we are here to preserve our species.”

  The rest of the Council murmured in agreement.

  Rhys bowed his head. Though he hated it for Ashem’s sake, they were right. “Councilman Powell was correct. I’ve listened to Lung Jiang’s plan, and I think it will work. With your approval, I can leave tomorrow and return with Kavar as my prisoner in ten days. As for Ashem, he’s with his heartsworn tying up her affairs, and I don’t want to call him back unless we find it’s absolutely necessary.”