Shadow of Flame

by Caitlyn McFarland

  Ashem reached for her, and Juli let herself be captured. He lifted her hand to kiss her palm and led her, at last, into his bedroom. He eased her onto the bed, a vast, profound peace filling them both.

  He wrapped his hands around her wrists and lifted them over her head, kissing her. “You are mine, life of my heart.”

  Juli arched against him, needing the heat of his skin against hers. Needing the contentment that closeness brought. “Forever.”

  Ashem paused, pulled back.

  Juli tried to follow him up, but he still had her hands pinned. Irritated, she asked, “What are you doing?”

  Ashem cleared his throat. “There’s a tradition. A pledging ceremony. It’s...you might compare it to a human wedding.”

  Her irritation fled. She beamed. “Ashem Azhdahā, are you asking me to marry you?”

  He scowled. “We’re already ‘married.’ Pledging signifies commitment...monogamy. I thought, perhaps, a small one that we could arrange quickly—tonight, even. Would you...?”

  Juli smiled so wide that her cheeks ached. “Yes.”

  Ashem didn’t seem to have heard her. “It’s sudden. But I thought, just the vee, so Kai could come. For you.”

  She freed one of her hands and put it against his cheek. Ashem—direct, fearless Ashem—seemed to be having trouble looking at her. “Ashem. Yes.”

  And then he was kissing her again. Fervent, passionate, tender. “I love you, Juliet.”

  She sighed, blissful. “I love you, too.”

  * * *

  Rhys didn’t see Kai before he left his rooms the next morning to take care of the duties he’d neglected for nearly two weeks. Nor did he see Ashem and Juli—but the door to their room was open, so he suspected Ashem had stood his watch and then taken her to his own rooms.

  Ffion was out on the ledge again. It troubled Rhys, knowing that he was asking so much of Ffion when she was pregnant and grieving for Griff. When he told her so, however, she pertly informed him there was no one else, so she would have to do. Then, in a more serious voice, she’d told him that Griffith used to tell her that purpose had always done more for her than rest.

  He’d stayed with her, talking about Griffith. Remembering. They’d talked of Cadoc, too. Rhys had told Ashem to figure out where he was and send anyone they could spare to help, but Cadoc, apparently, had told Ashem that he had things under control.

  After twenty minutes, Ffion had not-so-gently shoved him back into the cave—which had been easy since, at that moment, she was a dragon and he was human—and told him to get on with his day.

  Now Rhys descended through the mountain, Evan following silently behind him. They walked down the spiral path that led past residential caves, the sparsely populated public spaces, the warren of tunnels where juvenile dragons got their schooling, places where other dragons worked, made art, performed and kept track of the goings-on in the human world. Down to the subterranean lake and the huge cavern for festivals and holy days, then below the level of the sea to the cells at the roots of the mountain. The walk was long, but he was in no rush, and Evan didn’t complain.

  Now that they knew Ashem was back, Powell and his people were restless. Kavar had been in a cell below the mountain for two weeks, doing nothing. The Council wanted answers and Ashem could get them, but Rhys wanted to spare his friend as long as he could. The two remaining Azhdahā might be on opposite sides of the war, and they might have tried to kill each other on multiple occasions. But before Owain had murdered Rhys’s father, Ashem and Kavar had been close. No matter what the commander claimed, Ashem still loved his brother.

  The cells were tiny, damp boxes hollowed from the earth, few of which were occupied. Aside from Kavar, there weren’t many prisoners of war. Absently, Rhys traced the heat of the fires that lit the long, stone hall. Once he crossed the threshold of the cell, he wouldn’t be able to feel them. Nor would he be able to reach out from inside the cell to control them. Like an enormous keeping box, he could perform magic inside, but none could escape the walls, lined with the metal that contained magic.

  “Are you going in?” Evan asked in Welsh.

  Rhys looked around, surprised to find himself standing outside of Kavar’s cell. He waved the two guards away. “Come back in half an hour.”

  They exchanged glances, but bowed to him and retreated down the hall.

  Squaring his shoulders, Rhys set a hand to the door. It unlocked, and he pushed it open.

  Kavar sat against the far wall, knees drawn up, forearms resting on them. “Aha. The puppet dances on his strings. What service can I offer the son of the usurper?”

  “Information.” Rhys kept his voice even. He wouldn’t think about Kavar nearly killing Ashem two months before. Or about him killing Iain. Or about him forcing his way into Kai’s mind. “Owain isn’t coming for you.”

  Kavar said nothing, silver eyes unblinking in his dark face, smile hovering around his lips.

  The silence stretched. Evan broke it. “This can be easy. Cooperate, and no one will touch you. We’ll offer protection against retaliation. Just answer the questions.”

  “No questions have been asked.”

  Ancients, there were so many things Rhys needed to know. Where were Owain’s troops? Why was Harrow babbling about the Taklamakan Desert? Which artifacts had Owain found recently and what could they do? Was he any closer to locating the potentially war-ending Sunrise Dragon? All that knowledge locked in Kavar’s head, like a smug oyster hiding a pearl.

  Rhys strained to keep his voice neutral. “What progress has Owain made in the search for the Sunrise Dragon?”

  Kavar only smiled.

  Rhys changed tack, using the information Ashem had gotten from Henry Harrow the day before. “Why is he kidnapping humans?”

  Kavar’s eyes flickered. A small triumph, because it meant Rhys had surprised him.

  “They’re connected, somehow. The humans and the artifact.” Rhys studied Kavar for a twitch, a wince. Anything that might give away emotion.

  But Kavar remained as still as stone.

  For another twenty minutes, Rhys fought his own urge to twitch. No pacing. No making fists. No running a hand through his hair. Nothing to betray how Kavar’s silence was worming its way under his skin. The Council would meet soon, and he had to have something to give them. Something to counterbalance the announcement that they had another Wingless queen.

  He must have failed at hiding his agitation, because Kavar let out a low chuckle. “You’re clawing the wind. Ask me questions until the sun explodes. I won’t tell you anything.”

  Rhys’s patience snapped. He gathered heat in the air around Kavar. Not enough to scorch; merely the shadow of flame. In seconds, sweat beaded the Azhdahā’s brow.

  Distaste twisted down the corner of Rhys’s mouth. Torture was unreliable and desperate.

  “Who is the spy?”

  Kavar’s bronze skin flushed with heat. His gaze flitted over Rhys’s shoulder to where Evan stood by the door. “If you knew, you would be surprised.”

  Behind Rhys, Evan snorted. “Now who’s clawing the wind? You think you can make him suspect me, or any member of the vee? We’re family.”

  Kavar laughed, loud and hearty, but his smile had become a sneer. “Like brothers, are you? Family means nothing, except the knife feels sharper when it sinks into your back.”

  Rhys resisted the urge to turn. Evan was right. The vee was closer than family. They would no more betray him than he would any of them.

  But you’ve betrayed Morwenna already, a voice murmured deep inside his mind. You haven’t told her about Kai because you don’t trust how she’ll react. Morwenna. He’d only meant to comfort her after Iain died. But he’d allowed them to cross a line, and she’d clung to him ever since.

  And if Kai found out about Morwenna, how would she
react? If she found out he hadn’t told her, would she think he felt more for his vee-mate than he did?

  “Enough!” Rhys snapped, half to Kavar, half to himself. “Tell me what I need to know. Where is he looking for the artifact? Why does he need humans? Who is the spy?”

  Rhys raised the heat and pelted Kavar with questions, but the Azhdahā was done answering. The silver eyes gave nothing away. Rhys intensified the heat until Kavar panted. Until blisters appeared on his skin.

  Behind him, Evan stirred. “Gwaladr, the guards are returning.”

  Releasing the heat, Rhys was surprised to find himself panting, as well. Ancients, what he wouldn’t give to hand the crown, the mantle, all of it to someone else. Let him be a soldier, and let the problem of spies and Wingless queens and species-saving belong to someone else.

  For all his bravado, Kavar had slumped against the wall, his nostrils flaring with each unsteady breath. “Look to the people you trust, puppet king. The one who betrays you is closer than you imagine, and they will act soon.”

  Rhys turned to one of the guards as he and Evan emerged from the cell. “Expect me again tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Coming Home

  Kai woke in dimness, hardly any light coming through the mostly open cave wall that overlooked the sea. At first, she thought she was up early. Then she realized the sky was shrouded with angry clouds. The sea was steel-gray and frothing.

  She was in Eryri.

  Starving, she left her room still wearing purple pajama pants and a direwolf T-shirt, pausing only long enough to pull a beanie over the birds’ nest that was her hair. If she was going to live with Rhys, he might as well get used to seeing her in pajamas.

  But Rhys was nowhere to be found, and neither were Juli and Ashem. Ffion was on watch. Instead of sitting outside in the rain, she’d curled up in the entrance to the cave. She told Kai that Ashem and Juli had gone down to Ashem’s apartment hours ago and that Rhys had left shortly after to take care of business that had piled up while he was away from home.

  She also told Kai to eat, so Kai rummaged in Rhys’s kitchen until she found some fruit and something that smelled like ham in his dragon refrigerator. She took the food back to where Ffion sat. At the silver dragon’s offer, Kai settled into the curve of her tail and ate while they watched the storm. At first, they talked about how Kai had slept and how the trip had been. After a while, conversation trailed off into silence. It was peaceful, for the most part. Except the few times she thought she heard Rhys coming in the door. He’d surprised her last night. She wanted more of that. More of him.

  Kai breathed in the scent of rain and salt sea and earth as she ran her hands over Ffion’s mirror-like scales, falling into a half trance.

  “I have a phone charger for you.”

  Kai leapt up and tripped over Ffion’s tail, nearly falling on her face. Rhys stood just where the wide tunnel opened into the atrium, just as stupefyingly regal as he had been the night before. The waterfalls behind them and the storm outside had masked the sound of his approach.

  She eyed his expensive, gorgeously detailed clothing and wished she hadn’t been so flippant about not getting dressed. Not that she owned anything that could stand up to that.

  Kai’s stumble had brought her next to the wall, and she put a hand on it, curling her fingers around a reassuring little lip of stone. It had been a week since she’d climbed, and suddenly her muscles ached with disuse. She fought the urge to scurry up the wall. Instead, she tugged down her beanie and gave him cool nod. “Thanks. That was fast.”

  He handed her some sort of palm-sized dragon gadgetry. It looked like a wireless charger, but it had gemstones embedded in its sides.

  “How does it work?” she asked.

  “Just lay your phone on top of it,” he said. “It’s human tech. The stones do the same thing as plugging it into a wall.”

  So it was a wireless charger. “Awesome.” She twisted the string of her pajama pants in lieu of her absent carabiners. “I guess I’ll go charge my phone, then.”

  It had been two days since the thing died. Her mom had to have left at least ten messages.

  Kai took the charger upstairs to her room and set it on her bedside table. She retrieved her phone from her jacket, which she’d draped over a chair, and set it on top of the charger. The dark screen turned a different shade of black. Then the empty battery logo came up, the white bar inside it advancing and receding.

  She waited a minute, then pressed the power button. The phone chimed a three-note startup tone. Kai turned to leave.

  Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzz-bzz-bzz...

  She spun back to her phone. Text messages, voice mails, emails, Facebook messages...

  Kai read the first text. It was from her brother, Brendan. He must have sent it less than a few hours after her phone had died. They both went to school in Boulder, but they had different friends. Usually she could get away with not seeing him for a couple of weeks at a time.

  Kai the Fly, haven’t heard from you in a few days. Lunch?

  Then again, two hours later.

  Hey! Lunch or what?

  Then another one from lunchtime the same day.

  Come out, I’m here.

  You’ve got to get over this hermit thing. No one cares about that dumbass article.

  Where are you?

  And then, Just talked to Char & Pan. They said you and Juli never came back. Where the hell are you?

  Oh, hell. Her stomach flipped like she’d been lead roping and her belay had failed. This was not good.

  More texts, from everyone she knew, it seemed. Then missed calls. Over a hundred, just from her mother. Her heart in her throat, Kai closed her texts and flipped through screens until she got to her voice mail. She skipped the ones from Brendan and her mom. When she saw the one from her dad, she almost started to cry.

  Dammit. I was supposed to have more time.

  The drawstring wrapped so tightly around her fingers she couldn’t feel them anymore. She tapped the voice mail message from her dad. It was from this morning.

  “Kai, sweetheart, if you get this, please call us right away. Your mother and I don’t know what’s going on. She’s called the university and all the hospitals between here and Boulder and we can’t find you. Please...not again.” His voice broke, and Kai stifled a sob.

  Hugging herself, she took several shaky breaths. She wasn’t going to be able to get through a call with her parents like this. She didn’t even know what to tell them. She needed Juli.

  No. Juli is with Ashem. This is your mess, Kai. You deal with it. You knew this was coming.

  She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then lifted her phone from the charger. It worked incredibly fast; she already had 20 percent battery after just a few minutes.

  She closed her eyes, her finger poised over her mother’s number.

  She so didn’t want to be alone for this.

  Rhys. He was a diplomat, right? Maybe he would know what to say.

  Not that she wanted him to fix it for her—if she wanted that, she would have gone to Juli. Juli needed that, to feel like she was competent and necessary, and for the fifteen years they’d been friends, Kai had been content to give that to her. To float along and let Juli take care of...well, everything.

  But they were reaching a point where Juli’s need to handle all the problems had to come second to Kai’s need to grow up. She was married, for goodness’ sake. If she and Rhys were going to be...together...it might not be a bad idea to start relying on each other. Not for fixes, but for help.

  After all, he did have centuries of experience dealing with people. No way to break the relationship ice like dealing with your psycho in-laws.

  Kai sighed. She and Rhys were due for a talk, anyway. She might be his dirty little secret, but
it would be stupid for her to come all the way here and not even try to get to know him.

  She stuffed her phone in her pocket and made her way down the stairs, the quiet roar of the waterfalls muffling her footsteps. Ffion was alone in the tunnel mouth, so Kai peered into the kitchen.

  He was cooking, the sound of sizzling meat adding a high counterpoint to the low, constant rumble of falling water. Kai stopped in the doorway. He’d ditched the fancy outer layer of his clothing, leaving him in an untucked white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black pants and bare feet. If possible, he was hotter half-undone than he was in all his kingly garb.

  He had his back to her, alternately humming and singing in a muttery, doesn’t-know-the-lyrics kind of way. He wasn’t Cadoc, but he could definitely carry a tune. His dark red hair was a little mussed, probably from the way he’d taken off his circlet, which lay on the counter next to him. Crimson scales glimmered in a flame-like pattern over the defined muscles of his right arm.

  It felt like someone had wrapped a hand around her heart and squeezed. Her mental shields, which she didn’t usually notice anymore, felt big and bulky.

  Maybe it would be better if they just went away.

  He turned to grab a handful of chopped herbs sitting on the counter, but froze when he saw Kai. “What’s wrong?”

  Someone snorted. “Rhys. Did your brain grow wings and fly away? The food is burning.”

  Kai jumped. Deryn and Evan were seated at the kitchen table. Evan, Kai had discovered on the trip from Colorado to Eryri, was nice to look at and easy to talk to. Tall, built and blond with storm-gray eyes and a ready smile, he almost reminded her of Cadoc, but with a quiet, dry sense of humor.

  Deryn gave Kai a little wave. Her eyes fell on the stylized wolf on Kai’s T-shirt and she lifted an eyebrow. “Personally, I prefer the Targaryans.”

  Kai glanced from Deryn to Rhys. “I don’t think you two make a very cute couple.”

  Deryn threw her head back and laughed, then pulled out the chair beside her and indicated that Kai should sit with a jerk of her head. “Welcome to Eryri.”