But Xander was patient and observant. He stood, eyes narrowed as he took in the scene, reining his emotions in, refusing to allow doubts and fears to get the best of him. They never had before, and they wouldn’t today. Not when his brother needed him.
The evidence left behind was a puzzle he intended to solve. The swords. The scorch marks. The footprint. Xander’s gaze darted around the open field, to the sky bridge, the edge, and the cliffs beyond. His soldiers waited patiently, hovering above his head, knowing how their prince worked. Slowly but surely, the pieces came together.
“The dragon must have caught him as he flew up and over the edge,” Xander said, half to himself and half to Helen and the guards, eyes traveling along the scorch marks staining the frozen ground.
If he knew his brother, Rafe would have started the battle in the channel, a narrow space that might give him the upper hand. Clearly, something had gone wrong and he’d needed to flee. But the dragon had caught him.
“You see this?” Xander pointed at the black marks and the lines fanning out. “The flames were coming from the direction of the channel, shooting toward the land from above. They must have caught Rafe here, and…”
Xander followed the soot and ash, stepping through them until he spotted a mess of black, bloodied feathers on the ground. “The beast got him here. It’s where the blood starts. Maybe the dragon nicked him with a fang or a claw, and then slammed Rafe’s wings into the ground. Nothing else could have caused this mess. And in the middle of the beating, he dropped his swords, which is why you found them there.”
He pointed again, pursing his lips as he noticed the pattern in the blood trail leading toward the bridge. “The dragon tossed him, which is why there’s a broken blood trail, from where he skidded across the ground. And then his body stopped here, where the concentration of the blood is the highest.”
As far as Xander knew, dragons had never taken their kills as prizes or hostages. In all the stories, dragons came to wreak chaos for their god and either perished or fled. But they didn’t collect bodies.
“This print, it’s not Rafe’s,” he told Helen, glancing up at her as the others leaned forward with perked ears. “Someone must have come and stopped the dragon. I don’t know who, or how, but there’s no other explanation. Someone took him.”
In any other house, the soldiers might have raised their brows, looked at their heir dubiously, questioned him. But the House of Whispers was loyal, perhaps to a fault. They’d kept Xander’s disability a secret from the rest of the world out of love for him and his family. And they’d keep his hope alive until there was evidence to the contrary—they’d do whatever it took to prove him right, even if every one of their instincts insisted that he was wrong.
“Five of us will go left,” Helen announced, taking the lead as she divided the guards into groups. “Five to the right, three to the other side of the bridge, and three under it. We’ll search all day for any sign of your brother, and we’ll report back to you at the House of Peace tonight."
“Good, go,” Xander ordered. “I’ll search for more clues here while I wait for my mother and the rest of our flock.”
Not needing to hear more, the guards dispersed.
Xander hovered over the blood a few more seconds, and then landed on the other side of the pool, unable to look at it any longer. He walked slowly across the bridge, pausing in the center to lean his forearms against the rail, his attention drifting down the channel, beyond the cliffs to the Sea of Mist far, far below.
Where are you, Rafe?
Where’d you go?
I can’t do this alone.
I need you.
A gust of wind struck Xander in the back, pressing against his wings forcefully, almost shifting him off balance. He clutched the stones for support, his head turning as though searching for a cause of the sudden blast, searching for a sign. But there was nothing, just empty air. The wind was just that—wind.
A flurry of feathers lifted into the sky, pulled aloft by the air. Xander watched them drift over the edge of the bridge and flutter this way and that as they fell in black ripples. Raven feathers. His brother’s. Ripped and bloodied.
A bright spot caught his eye.
Xander leapt over the side of the bridge, diving headfirst into the channel, left hand outstretched for that bit of white that didn’t belong. When his fingers closed around the item, he spread his wings to stop his fall and took a moment to look at what he’d snared.
A single ivory feather.
One that couldn’t belong to a raven.
One that must have come from a dove—and he’d find out who. His brother had survived dragon fire once before, and he would again.
Rafe was alive.
Xander knew it for a fact. And he had to find his brother before anyone else uncovered their secret.
7
Lyana
“Where have you been?” Luka seethed under his breath as Lyana came skidding into the royal chambers, off balance in her haste.
He was standing just inside the foyer with arms folded, wings uplifted, and deep wrinkles etched into his forehead. Clearly, he’d been waiting there, pacing, too worried for his own good.
“I was in Cassi’s room,” she whispered. Washing the blood from my wings and changing into one of the dresses I keep stashed there…just in case.
But he didn’t need to know that.
“The first house arrived fifteen minutes ago,” her brother announced.
“The ravens are here?” Lyana squealed.
Luka grabbed her by the arm, gaze darting around the room in search of any eavesdroppers. Or perhaps in search of their parents, who were undoubtedly waiting for her somewhere. But the gilded doors to their private chambers were closed, and the guards were stationed outside. She and her brother were, for the moment, alone.
“You saw them?” he asked.
Lyana met his questioning gaze but remained silent—suspiciously silent.
Luka squinted, trying to read her expression. “What do you know?”
“I don’t know." She shrugged, her features blank. "What do you know?”
“Ana.”
“Luka.”
They stared at each other, frowning.
Lyana relented. The more she revealed, the less he’d assume she was lying. “There was a dragon at the sky bridge, Luka. A dragon!” She tried to rein in the excitement leaking into her tone, but the feat proved impossible. Her voice trilled with awe. “Can you believe it?”
“You were there?” His eyes bulged, a reaction that was the opposite of hers. “I said to stay out of trouble, out of sight. What were you thinking? What—”
“No one saw us,” she interrupted. No one conscious, anyway… Lyana focused on the cover story she and her best friend had put together. “Cassi and I were hiding in a cave we discovered along the cliffs. We saw the dragon. We saw the ravens fight it off. And when they left to report back to their queen, who was traveling a few miles behind, we snuck out of our hiding spot and raced home.”
It was a good lie, a convincing one, and it rolled ever so smoothly from her lips.
Luka brought his palms to his forehead, rubbing his fingers over his short, black curls as he took a long, uneven breath. “Where’s Cassi now?”
Gathering supplies, Lyana thought, a little twinge of guilt in her chest. She smothered it easily. “In her rooms.”
“And she’s all right?” Luka asked.
“She’s fine,” Lyana assured him, then grinned. “Though I’m sure she’ll be overjoyed to hear how concerned you were for her wellbeing.”
Luke rolled his eyes and shoved her playfully. “You two…”
“Us two what?”
Luka shook his head with a heavy sigh. But a moment later, a smile appeared at the edges of his lips—a reminder that the mischievous brother she remembered was still alive in there somewhere. The weight of being the heir hadn’t smothered him entirely, at least not yet.
“So you really saw it?
” he asked, eager curiosity in his tone.
“Luka…” His name came out in a delighted sigh, because she was unable to even find the words.
He stepped closer, widening his ashy wings and bending them like a protective cocoon, the way he used to do when they were children concocting a plot that would only get them into trouble. “What did it look like?”
“Fire and fury,” she said, not sure how else to describe the dragon. “Like a star that had fallen from the sky and gained wings. When it roared, I swear the clouds trembled.”
“How big?”
“Its wings were five times the size of mine, at least. And its mouth, the gods, it must have been as long as I am tall.”
“Red eyes?”
“Just like the stories said.”
“Ana…” He exhaled the word in a tone brimming with disbelief and wonder, then squeezed her shoulders, slightly crushing the silk sleeves of her gown. “I can’t believe—”
“I know,” she said, pitch high, hands balling into fists meant to contain the emotions rolling through her.
“What—”
“Surely these aren’t my children standing in the foyer giggling like two fledglings?” a deep voice boomed, interrupting their private celebration. “Not on the dawn of their courtship trials.”
Luka’s wings snapped away from her, folding tightly against his back. Lyana jumped out of her brother’s embrace, bowing her head as she turned to face the king.
“Surely the prince and princess of the House of Peace wouldn’t be gossiping like common servants,” the king continued, hands clasped behind his back, creamy wings wide and commanding as he scolded them, and not for the first time. “Not about something so incredibly disarming as a dragon invading our lands? As the fire god gaining strength? As Aethios being threatened on the eve of our most sacred ritual?”
“Of course not, Father,” Lyana muttered.
“Oh? ‘Of course not, Father’?” the king mocked, turning to his daughter.
Luka tossed her a sidelong glare. Talking back just made everything worse—for Luka, maybe. But if there was one person Lyana knew how to manipulate, it was her father. And she meant that in the most adoring way possible.
Swallowing a gulp, she took a step forward, then clutched one of the king’s hands in both of hers and looked up at him as she shifted her wings a little higher and made her eyes as large as possible. “A dragon? Here? Father, you can’t be serious. We had no idea. I heard the ravens arrived, and I came to find Luka to see if any other houses had come while I slept. We were talking about the trials. But a dragon? Today of all days?” Lyana paused, releasing a trembling breath as she pressed their clasped hands to her chest and glanced up at the ceiling as though it were the sky. “Bless Aethios.”
Luka snorted.
Lyana stopped herself from wrinkling her nose at him. The delivery was a bit dramatic perhaps, but it worked.
Her father relaxed. “I pray the gods give you a mate with some backbone, daughter. May the skies help him if he doesn’t have the wits to tell you no.”
“Aw, that’s not true.” Lyana smiled at him as she stepped back, laughter bubbling in her throat. “You hope I find a mate just like you, so I can wrap him around my little finger.”
The king tried to frown, but his lips disobeyed him and lifted into a grin as a deep laugh surged through his belly. “Maybe I do. Maybe I do.”
“Maybe you do what, dear?”
The queen swept into the room in a sapphire gown the same color as her bluebird wings, bright as ever in a house with feathers made of neutral tans and grays. She’d been the Princess of the House of Song long before she became Lyana’s mother and a queen. Her father claimed to have picked her from the flock during the first test of the courtship trials, when she’d shot three bull’s-eyes in a row into her target from across the arena and landed the fourth arrow in the heart of his empty center ring. But they were happy, it seemed, political marriage or not. Lyana’s family was close, a solid nest. Theirs was the sort of love she hoped for in her match, the one she’d make in only a few days.
“We were speaking of the trials, Mother,” Luka said, ever the doting son.
The queen threw her daughter an unsurprised look. “Ah, that must be why your sister looks so sullen.”
Lyana bit back a reply. Her mother was the only foe she was too afraid to face, with a sharp tongue and an even sharper ability to see right through her daughter’s schemes.
“Are the advisors waiting?” the queen asked softly.
“They are.” The king addressed his children, “Luka, Lyana, your mother and I want you to attend the meeting. We’d like your opinions on the matter.”
“On the matter of what? The dragon?” Luka questioned. It wasn’t so unusual for the two of them to be called into a meeting. After all, they were both learning how to rule. But something in the king’s tone made this particular meeting seem different, more important somehow.
“On the matter of postponing the courtship trials,” her father said.
Lyana’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“How long?” Luka asked.
“The ravens have asked for time, a few days at most, to regroup after the attack and help tend to their wounded. Your mother and I believe the House of Peace should have a unified opinion before the other houses arrive and try to interject on the matter. We’ve never postponed the ceremony before, and now of all times, with the fire god gaining strength, the idea seems rash. Yet, I sympathize with their situation.”
Luka nodded once, strong and sturdy, duty personified.
But Lyana chewed her cheek, thoughts racing a mile a minute. “The wounded? Did they say how many were wounded?”
“There’s no tally yet.”
“Are there any dead?” she asked, unable to help herself.
“Not that I’m aware of,” the king replied. When she opened her mouth to say more, he stopped her with a look. “That’s enough for now. We need to meet with the advisors before the next house arrives.”
Lyana swallowed her questions, but that didn’t stop them from swirling and churning in the back of her mind as she followed her family through the gilded door of the royal chambers, down to the meeting rooms on the level below.
Because she’d seen the fight.
She and Cassi were the only two people who truly knew what happened.
There were no wounded who needed to be tended to, no soldiers to regroup, no battle from which to recover. There was one fallen soldier—a soldier the ravens must believe was dead. It was sad, yes, but hardly so dire as to require delaying the courtship trials.
So why were they lying? Why were they exaggerating the truth?
And more importantly to Lyana, what in the world were they hiding?
8
Xander
Sphaira, the crystal city, was a magnificent sight to behold, yet Xander felt empty as he stared through the translucent wall of the guest accommodations. Every house had their own domed building, arranged around the center palace in the same way their islands were, which put his near the northeastern edge of the bustling metropolis. His view of the entrance to the palace, which faced east to welcome the sun, was clear. Small figures zipped in and out of those towering doors, and he scrutinized them all. Tan wings. Ash wings. Speckled feathers. Patterned feathers. On and on it went. Nearly every dove in the House of Peace had a few white plumes. It would be impossible to find the owner of the ivory feather crushed within his fist.
Impossible.
“Lysander?” a suave voice called.
He didn’t move. “I’ve told you not to call me that a thousand times, Mother.”
“Why?” Queen Mariam asked, wings carrying her swiftly across the room to land by his side, her ruby gown vivid against the snowy landscape before them. “It’s your name. Lysander Taetanus, Crown Prince of the House of Whispers. And you’ll be hearing it quite a lot over the course of the next few days.”
Xander sighed. His wings drooped
so low that his primaries dragged along the floor, but they sank further still when he turned to look into her brilliant violet eyes. “I’m not giving up on him.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
His laugh was a sad, dark sound. “Please, Mother. You think I didn’t see the way your face lit with the briefest spark when I told you of the dragon’s attack, when you saw the blood for yourself? You wanted Rafe gone the moment he was born, whether he was my brother, my best friend, or not. You’ve only ever seen him as a bastard.”
“That’s what he is,” she said simply, but Xander heard the undercurrent of hatred in her tone—the undercurrent that was always present when she spoke about his brother. He understood why she spoke of his father in that tone, but not of Rafe, who had been nothing but an innocent child at the time and a loyal companion to her lonely son ever since.
“Well, if you’re not here to tell me I’m on a fool’s errand, what are you here for?”
“I’m here to tell you to believe in yourself.”
Xander switched his attention to the world outside the room, which suddenly had become suffocating. “To believe in myself? That’s what I’m doing.”
“No,” she countered, her voice never rising, though it felt as if she were shouting all the same. “You are depending on him, relying on him, and you don’t need to.”
“We've already discussed this,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
“No, you spoke to the advisors behind your queen’s back and turned them all against her to get your way. The two of us have never spoken about this.”
Xander rolled his shoulders, unable to deny that he’d gone around his mother in this one thing. She was queen, yes, but the courtship trials were about him, and for once he wanted to have the final say. The only say. “You’re right, Mother. And I’m sorry for that. But I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
The Raven and the Dove Page 5