Shadow of Flame

by Caitlyn McFarland

  Deryn took the stone, a fat, egg-sized quartz, and fit the two halves together. “It’s a record stone. We use half to record a message, and it appears on the other half, as well.”

  Mair laughed. “It took years of experimenting to figure out the exact way to shape, then break, the stone, but anything that works is worth it in the end.” She clapped her hands, clacking the stones together, and Seren jumped. “Now, let’s eat. We’ll leave after breakfast.”

  Seren exchanged a look with Cadoc. Like her, he seemed uneasy. Watching her mother and Deryn together was...strange. Deryn was like a little girl, not at all herself.

  “But...how can Rhys be on his way?” Seren asked. “When we left, he had just gone to the Sacred Isle. He was supposed to stay for a week. He won’t even be home yet.”

  Mair handed Deryn half of the stone. “Of course, but then you two disappeared. I have word that your brother cut short his...what was it, exactly? A honeymoon? And he’s on his way north now with quite a large delegation. It will be an historic event. But first, I’d like to spend some time with my daughters. Congratulations, awenydd. Enjoy your freedom. Seren, come along.”

  “Of course.” Seren rose and followed Deryn out of the office, glancing back once. Cadoc stood, his face happy but uncertain, watching them go.

  As she looked at him, premonition pressed once again on her mind.

  Something from her vision was about to come true.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A Good Lie

  A week after leaving Eryri, Kai leaned into the frigid, wet wind as it whistled over the edges of her mask. An island appeared in the stormy distance, barely more than a pile of dark stone. “Is that it?”

  Rhys rumbled beneath her, his massive wings flapping once before he settled back into a glide. “Yes. Ashem should already be there.”

  “Good.” Days on dragon-back and nights on a thin pad on the ground had left Kai stiff and aching. And they still had so much distance to cover. To get to Cadarnle, Owain’s stronghold, they would literally have to fly halfway around the world from Eryri. And then, if they survived the battle, there would be the flight home.

  Kai wondered if Rhys could be talked into an airplane.

  He sensed the thought and snorted. “I have my own wings.”

  They descended. Jiang and Evan—who had rejoined them on the first night—flew just behind them. If Rhys was worried sick, Evan was barely functional. He kept apologizing over and over again for not guarding Deryn like he should have. But it wasn’t his fault. Deryn had laced his dinner with some sort of sedative.

  Through the mist, the small island appeared to have several random, brightly colored spots, as if growing an especially festive mold. They drew nearer, and the spots resolved themselves into dragons.

  Ashem met them on the tiny, stony beach as the rest of the hundred or so dragons circled overhead. He was pale and drawn.

  Kai eyed him in concern. “Hey, Ashem. How are you?”

  He glanced around. “Juliet is not here.”

  Kai shook her head. “Someone had to stay with Ffion. But she seemed to be doing a little better when we left.”

  He turned, his golden eyes looking far off to the south, and didn’t speak.

  “Did you discover anything?” Rhys came to stand beside Kai. He was human again. Probably to save space. Jiang had become human, as well, and stood a little behind Rhys. She smiled encouragingly at Kai. Evan stayed in the air, circling low.

  Ashem scowled. “No. There wasn’t enough time. This entire thing could be one enormous trap, gwaladr. You shouldn’t be here. If you die, our cause is lost.”

  Rhys ran a hand through his hair. “You think I haven’t thought of that? Ancients, what choice do I have? He took them both. I still don’t understand why he did it. What would it benefit him to draw me into some large-scale battle? Owain has always tried to prevent casualties. He had to know that I would retaliate for this.”

  “Majesties! Commander!” A middle-aged Mo’o woman whom Kai recognized as one of the vee commanders came up to them, panting. “One of the scouts has spotted dragons. Perhaps one hundred of them, coming this way. They’ll be here in moments. We must get into the air.”

  For a moment, there was nothing but silent shock. Then Ashem spat, “Owain.”

  Kai’s blood froze. Rhys swore. In his mind, Kai felt him berating himself for not being more prepared. For not sending out more scouts. For being so sundering predictable that Owain already knew they were here.

  Of course, it was hard to register any of that, since she seemed to be unable to breathe. This is it. Holy crap, this is it. I’m going to fight. I could die. I could kill someone.

  Knowing she’d killed before didn’t help, nor did knowing she’d lived through multiple life-or-death fights in the past three months. It was one thing to be thrown into a battle and survive. It was another thing entirely to look Death in the face, spit in his eye, then moon him.

  “Fly!” Rhys roared to the dragons closest to the beach. “Owain is upon us. Get in the air!” He turned to Ashem. “We need somewhere to ambush him. Somewhere we might be able to land if we grow too tired. Preferably somewhere without humans. Will his path intersect any of the islands? With cliffs or terrain that will allow us to hide and launch attacks from the shore.”

  Ashem consulted with the Mo’o commander, too low for Kai to hear, then turned back to Rhys. “They’re going to fly right over an island to the northeast. It’s got a waystation on it, so it’s been barricaded for centuries, which means no humans. Coastline is mostly cliffs. It will be more than adequate.” Ashem was already backing away from Rhys, darkness gathering around him. In seconds, he became the black dragon.

  “Get the vees organized and go that way,” Rhys commanded. “If we’re lucky, they won’t see us in the fog. We can surprise them. Pray to the Stars that he still has Deryn and Seren with him, and that they’re unharmed. Our objective is to find them and free them, do you understand? We’ve got a shot at Owain, but I don’t want to take it until my sisters are safe.”

  Ashem dipped his huge head at Rhys, then took to the air, the Mo’o commander close behind him.

  Kai looked from Ashem’s shrinking form to Rhys, confused. Something was off. “Isn’t Cadarnle around Greenland?”

  According to Ashem, they were somewhere in the Aleutian Islands, in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia. If Owain were coming at them, he was flying in the opposite direction of his stronghold.

  “I don’t know, but I’m not going to waste this chance.” Rhys squeezed Kai’s shoulders and gathered her to him, kissing her forehead. “I can still send you home, cariad. You could go with Jiang. Or the two of you could hide here until the battle is over.”

  Nauseous, her entire body shaking, Kai looked to Jiang. Everything about this situation felt wrong. But Kai shook the feeling loose. She was just nervous about the fight. This was a good thing. If Owain had Deryn and Seren with him, they could save Rhys’s sisters and take out the enemy. Maybe they could end the whole war.

  That would be pretty dang convenient. Christmas was next week, and Kai still had zero idea how to explain to her parents that she wasn’t coming home for the holidays. She might have to go with elopement, after all.

  But if the war ended, maybe she could find some way to hold on to the few best pieces of her old life.

  The Lung woman inclined her head. “Whatever you decide.”

  Kai buried her face in Rhys’s chest, trying to slow her breathing and calm her racing heart. His mind was eerily calm. His only fear was for her, Deryn and Seren. The rest was a still sort of rage.

  Kai caught onto his anger and held it, spinning it within her like it was fire. Stoking it, building it, reminding herself of the assassin, the Quarry burning, her family, Griffith, Cadoc. She piled Owain’s crimes like d
ry wood and lit them with the spark of Rhys’s fury.

  She stepped back. “I’m going with you.”

  Rhys ran a knuckle over her cheek. “I’ll be glad to have you there.”

  He and Jiang moved toward the ocean and changed. As soon as he was ready, Kai put on the harness. Hurried but thorough, she double-checked the buckles and scrambled onto his back, clipping herself in.

  She slid the raven mask over her face. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Owain soared through a dense patch of cloud and out again, vapor trailing over his wings. The island where his cousin was looking for the Sunrise Dragon was just ahead. He had to get to it before Rhys. That artifact could mean the immediate end of this eternal skirmish and the beginning of the real war.

  “Hello, my love,” Jiang purred into his mind.

  Owain’s lip curled, but he didn’t let his disgust leach into the bond. “He’s headed for the island?”

  A mental affirmation from Jiang. Owain hadn’t seen Rhys himself, but Jiang had contacted him shortly after he’d left Cadarnle, heading for the island Mair had talked about in her message. According to Jiang, Rhys was claiming that his sisters had run away, and that Owain had intercepted them. Now his cousin was on his way to save them.

  Amusing. If Owain had Deryn, he’d have no choice but to kill her—unfortunate as that would be. The Seeress, though—if he got his claws in her, he would keep her forever.

  But Owain didn’t have Rhys’s sisters, and he wasn’t sure why Rhys thought he did. Jiang wasn’t sure, either. They must have gone to Mair. Perhaps Rhys had even sent them on purpose, allowing them to visit their mother on the mainland while he looked for the Sunrise Dragon on the relatively nearby island.

  The thought of Rhys getting to the artifact first—using it to steal Owain’s half of the mantle—filled Owain with dread. “Whatever you do once you get to the island, don’t let him get the Sunrise Dragon.”

  He sensed Jiang’s scorn. “If you’d listened to me and besieged Eryri, Rhys getting hold of the Sunrise Dragon wouldn’t be a problem.” Her scorn turned to disappointed musing. “It’s too bad the assassins failed and I never got the chance to kill him.”

  It was too bad. That was one of the drawbacks of sending his heartsworn into enemy territory as a spy. She could have killed Rhys or his mate more than once. But if she’d been discovered, Owain knew Ashem would have had her summarily executed. And then Owain would’ve had to deal with the crippling fallout of her death.

  He wasn’t afraid of violence, but if Jiang died, he would be non-functional. That was unacceptable. He had too much to do.

  “I don’t understand this charade,” Jiang complained. She’d complained quite a bit since they’d left Eryri. “Why lie to the dragons of Eryri and tell them you have his sisters? Did he really think he needed this many to take the Sunrise Dragon? Are you sure that Mair didn’t tip him off, too?”

  “No. She knows that I would kill her.”

  Jiang sounded uncertain. “The woman is a snake. You can’t trust her. He is her son.”

  “She’s Wingless.” Owain lashed his tail. “She hates Rhys because he reminds her of Ayen. My aunt has only loved one person in her life, and it isn’t Rhys.”

  Jiang was not mollified. “It makes no sense that Rhys would bring so many people to retrieve an artifact. If he’d thought he’d found the Sunrise Dragon, he’d send Ashem or Tane alone.”

  Owain ignored the tiny voice inside him that said Jiang had a point—that something here wasn’t right, and Mair was at the bottom of it. But the Wingless woman wouldn’t dare cross him. Not when they had so much history.

  No, his cousin was up to something else, bringing a force of dragons this far north. The Sunrise Dragon would allow Rhys to steal the rest of the mantle from Owain, but the magic wouldn’t work unless both of them were touching the artifact. Perhaps Rhys was going to retrieve the Sunrise Dragon then fly on to Cadarnle in an attempt to capture him. Jiang had told Owain how many dragons were abandoning Eryri. Rhys must be desperate.

  That was it, Owain decided as he skimmed hundreds of feet above the storm-shrouded sea. Rhys had concocted the story of Owain capturing the princess and the Seeress to work his people into a froth, so they’d come against Owain without thinking.

  It was a good lie. He would have done the same.

  Owain reached out with his mind and gave Jiang a mental stroke that made her purr like a cat. “Today could be your chance. Stay close to him. Any opportunity you see to kill him and survive, take it. By the end of the day, you could be queen of every dragon in the world.”

  Queen. She wanted it so desperately Owain could taste it. It made him want to gag. Jiang didn’t care that they were going to bring dragonkind back from the brink of obscurity and extinction. All she cared about was power. Distasteful as it was, that single-minded need made her one of the most reliable operatives he had. That, and the fact that he could see into her mind. “Did you bring the blood?”

  “I did.”

  Owain hadn’t been able to believe his luck when Jiang had told him that Rhys was making her Kai’s personal bodyguard. Especially once he learned the ceremony had involved blessing Jiang with Rhys’s blood. His heartsworn might be distasteful, but she was cunning. She’d been very careful with the blood-smeared headdress.

  Owain could do a number of interesting things with the little bits and pieces of themselves that people carelessly gave out.

  “You’ve done well, my queen.”

  “Anything to bring about our kingdom, my king.”

  * * *

  Rhys’s wings burned as he soared over the choppy gray sea. Moments after they’d left the island, the call came forward from the scouts.

  Owain had spotted them and was giving chase.

  Rhys had to reach the island first. It might be too late for an ambush, but if they could claim the land, his people would have a place to rest. Owain’s soldiers would have been flying for days, as well. If Rhys could force them to stay in the air, exhausted as they were, he might gain the advantage.

  Ashem swooped close when the island came into view. Farther north and more secluded than any of the other islands in the chain, it was long, curved and irregular. Sheer rock faces loomed forbiddingly along its southern side, and foamy waves beat themselves to death against the base of black cliffs. Beyond the cliffs, however, the island gentled into hills of faded yellow-green.

  Ashem’s mental voice was terse. “They’re too fast. Supernaturally fast. Rhys, take Kai and fly for the island. I’ll set up a line between Owain and you. If Deryn has been captured or killed, we can’t risk something happening to you. We outnumber them. We should be able to make a stand.”

  Rhys’s immediate reaction was to snap at Ashem and tell him he was going to fight if he sundering pleased. Then reason took over, and with it, dread. If Deryn truly was gone, he was the only thing standing between Owain and a full-scale war against the humans.

  “Fine,” Rhys snarled. “We’ll go to the island. But don’t ask me to go any farther. He has my sisters, Ashem. Even if—if Deryn—sunder it!” Rhys took hold of his emotions, strangling them. There was no room for emotion in battle. “He wouldn’t have hurt the Seeress. Seren lives, no matter what Owain has done to Deryn. Unless you tell me yourself that you’ve seen their bodies, I won’t leave this place without either of them.”

  Ashem growled, but nodded.

  Kai patted Rhys’s neck, sending comfort through their bond. “We’re going to save them.”

  Rhys tried to believe her. He might have, if this war hadn’t taken his father, Griffith, Iain and countless others.

  If Kai stayed with him—with the dragons—she would come to know death soon enough.

  When Ashem gave the order to turn about Rhys signaled for Evan and Jiang to keep flying, and togeth
er they made for the island. They skirted the cliffs until they found a beach that still had a view of the battle. Most of the rocky shore was taken up by a tumble of huge boulders. Rhys landed among the stones just as Ashem roared a distant battle cry.

  “Oh, hell. It’s happening. This is actually happening,” Kai whispered into his head.

  Rhys turned and saw the first wave of his dragons crash into Owain’s front lines. He searched the sky for Owain or any sign of his sisters, but low clouds obscured his vision.

  “Yes, cariad. It is.” The battle had begun. If Owain had his sisters, Rhys expected he’d see them soon.

  There was no better way to manipulate an enemy than by taking hostage what they loved.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Against the Dark

  Cadoc stood with Mair just outside the waystation, high on the southern cliffs. It had taken them two days to get to the island where they were supposed to meet Rhys, and they’d been waiting almost an entire day more. “You’re sure they’re coming?”

  “Yes, awenydd. I made quite sure.” Mair turned a keeping box over and over in her hands, its contents rattling. Cadoc frowned at it, wondering sort of magic it held. Was it a weapon? Something she planned to unleash on Rhys?

  He almost laughed. What a paranoid, scalebrained thing to think.

  Still, he was uneasy.

  “Where are Deryn and Seren?” Cadoc asked.

  “Sleeping. The trip wore them out.” She didn’t take her eyes from the sky.

  “Right.” Cadoc watched the sea and tried not to wonder when Seren would wake. If he wanted company, there were a few dozen rogues on the island—though he hadn’t seen anyone but Mair for an hour or more.

  “Aha!” Mair called, her voice was triumphant. “Look!”

  Half-hidden by the clouds, an entire flight of dragons wove toward the island. Their leader’s bloodred scales gleamed in the dull light, bright against the gray sky. A tiny figure sat on his back, just in front of his wings, wearing a white mask.