Twin Soul Series Omnibus 2: Books 6-10

by McCaffrey-Winner

  Twin Soul Series Omnibus 2

  Winner Twins

  and

  Todd McCaffrey

  Books 6-10

  ophidian’s oath Copyright © 2019 by Brianna Winner, Brittany Winner, and Todd J. McCaffrey. Second Edition.

  snow serpent Copyright © 2019 by Brianna Winner, Brittany Winner, and Todd J. McCaffrey. First Edition.

  IRON AIR Copyright © 2019 by Brianna Winner, Brittany Winner, and Todd J. McCaffrey. First Edition.

  Ophidian’s honor Copyright © 2019 by Brianna Winner, Brittany Winner, and Todd J. McCaffrey. First Edition.

  Healing fire Copyright © 2019 by Brianna Winner, Brittany Winner, and Todd J. McCaffrey. First Edition.

  Twin Soul Series Omnibus 2: Books 6-10 Copyright © 2020 by Brianna Winner, Brittany Winner, and Todd J. McCaffrey. First Edition.

  All Rights Reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cover art by Jeff Winner

  Books by The Winner Twins and Todd McCaffrey

  Nonfiction:

  The Write Path: World Building

  Books by McCaffrey-Winner

  Twin Soul Series:

  TS1 - Winter Wyvern

  TS2 - Cloud Conqueror

  TS3 - Frozen Sky

  TS4 - Wyvern’s Fate

  TS5 - Wyvern’s Wrath

  TS6 - Ophidian’s Oath

  TS7 - Snow Serpent

  TS8 - Iron Air

  TS9 - Ophidian’s Honor

  TS10 - Healing Fire

  TS11 - Ophidian’s Tears

  TS12 - Cloud War

  TS13 - Steel Waters

  TS14 - Cursed Mage

  TS15 - Wyvern’s Creed

  TS16 - King’s Challenge

  TS17 - King’s Conquest

  TS18 - King’s Treasure

  TS19 - Wyvern Rider

  Books by The Winner Twins

  Nonfiction:

  The Write Path: Navigating Storytelling

  Science Fiction:

  The Strand Prophecy

  Extinction’s Embrace

  PCT: Perfect Compatibility Test

  Poetry Books by Brianna Winner

  Millennial Madness

  Books by Todd McCaffrey

  Science fiction

  Ellay

  The Jupiter Game

  The Steam Walker

  Collections

  The One Tree of Luna (And Other Stories)

  Dragonriders of Pern® Series

  Dragon’s Kin

  Dragon’s Fire

  Dragon Harper

  Dragonsblood

  Dragonheart

  Dragongirl

  Dragon’s Time

  Sky Dragons

  Non-fiction

  Dragonholder: The Life And Times of Anne McCaffrey

  Dragonwriter: A tribute to Anne McCaffrey and Pern

  Map

  Contents

  Twin Soul Series Omnibus 21

  Map6

  Ophidian’s Oath9

  Chapter One: Majestic Meetings10

  Chapter Two: Rabel Revealed13

  Chapter Three: Freedom’s Fire20

  Chapter Four: Interlude at Ibb’s24

  Chapter Five: Gold Warrior29

  Chapter Six: Ships of the Sky33

  Chapter Seven: Rabel’s Oath38

  Snow Serpent43

  Prolog44

  Chapter One46

  Chapter Two50

  Chapter Three53

  Chapter Four58

  Chapter Five65

  Chapter Six70

  Chapter Seven77

  Chapter Eight88

  Chapter Nine92

  Chapter Ten94

  Epilog95

  Iron Air96

  Chapter One97

  Chapter Two101

  Chapter Three109

  Chapter Four114

  Chapter Five120

  Chapter Six129

  Chapter Seven136

  Ophidian’s Honor149

  Chapter One150

  Chapter Two153

  Chapter Four166

  Chapter Five176

  Chapter Six184

  Chapter Seven190

  Healing Fire195

  Chapter One196

  Chapter Two200

  Chapter Three205

  Chapter Four211

  Chapter Five215

  Chapter Six221

  Chapter Seven227

  About The Twin Soul Series231

  Acknowledgements232

  About the Authors233

  Ophidian’s Oath

  Book 6

  Twin Soul series

  Chapter One: Majestic Meetings

  “I have learned long ago that it is unwise to question his majesty’s commands,” first minister Mannevy said to Captain Nevins as they exited the throne room, the captain shaking with a white-hot anger that was just barely restrained.

  “He takes my ship, my ship, and tells me to have her gutted to become his flying bauble and then he demands that I remove all my guns!” Nevins said, the veins bulging in his throat as rage poured through him. “I merely asked what use is a ship without guns and he exploded on me!” He turned to Mannevy. “What use is a ship, first minister, without its guns?”

  “It is quite useless,” Mannevy agreed affably.

  “Then why have me remove them?” Nevins demanded.

  “It’s a question of weight,” mage Tirpin, coming up the hallway, answered.

  “Weight?”

  “There’s a limit to how much we can put into the air on your ship, captain,” Tirpin told him with a firm nod, pulling up beside them. “Your twelve-pounders —”

  “Best guns there ever was!” Nevins interjected.

  “They weigh four times the amount of six-pounders,” Tirpin said.

  “Six-pounders!” Nevins roared. “And what do you expect six-pounders to do?”

  “Exactly what Captain Ford and Spite did to your ship,” first minister Mannevy replied smoothly. “And, as I recall, he only fired one broadside. Imagine if he’d fired more.”

  Nevins took only a second to absorb that, then shot back, “And what happens when two airships fight each other? Or an airship and a wyvern or gods help us all, a pair of dragons in full flame?”

  Mannevy raised a hand soothingly. “All that has been considered, I assure you.” His raised hand gestured toward Tirpin as the source of this brilliance.

  “It has?” Nevins said, turning to the mage. “And, mage, how often have you commanded a ship at sea? In battle?”

  “Captain Nevins,” Tirpin returned easily, “how often have you commanded a ship in the air?”

  “Never, as you damned well know,” Nevins snarled. “But I know enough about war — and those popguns won’t save us against a real ship.”

  “Even when you are firing down and they can’t fire back?” Mannevy asked silkily.

  That question brought captain Nevins up short.

 
; “You can always add heavier guns later,” Tirpin said. “The first thing, captain, is to get your ship airborne.”

  Nevins pursed his lips and then raised a hand in protest, looking at Mannevy. “Only if my guns are stored at the king’s expense.”

  “Of course,” Mannevy said. He smiled. “Captain, if that was your only concern, you merely had to ask.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Are there any other issues I can help you with?” Mannevy asked, glancing first to the captain and then to the mage.

  “There are going to be two airships,” Nevins said. He pointed to Tirpin. “There’s only one mage.”

  “Each airship will have one large balloon,” Tirpin replied easily. “I need first fill the balloon but after that it will stay full.” He shrugged. “So it is no problem to fill two balloons before we depart.”

  “So why did Spite have ten balloons?”

  “I am told that was more because of the balloon makers,” first minister Mannevy said. The others looked at him so he expanded, “They didn’t know how to make such large balloons and so mage Reedis suggested the smaller sizes for safety.”

  “Safety?”

  “Now we know that they can build larger balloons far more efficiently,” Mannevy concluded. “In fact, I’m told that the first one will be ready by the end of the week and the second not long afterwards.”

  “And our engines?” Nevins asked.

  “Ready at the same time or within a few days,” Mannevy said. “Which is why it’s important that we get your ship converted quickly.”

  “Spite was a lot smaller than Warrior,” Nevins said. “Where do I dock my ship, then?”

  Mannevy turned to Tirpin. “Is there any reason Warrior needs to be pulled from her slip?”

  “Slip?” Tirpin asked.

  “Her moorings, where she’s docked,” Nevins explained to the confused mage.

  “Oh!” Tirpin exclaimed. He rubbed his small goatee thoughtfully. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I don’t see any reason why she can’t stay where she is.” He nodded toward Nevins, “Provided we get those guns replaced.”

  “You’ll get that as soon as the first minister here arranges the cartage,” Nevins replied.

  “Good!” Mannevy said, moving forward to clap each man on the shoulder. “Then we should return to our various duties!”

  #

  “Where’s my daughter?” Rabel Zebala demanded as soon as the dark hood was pulled from over his head. “Where’s my apprentice? Why have you taken me?”

  “I believe that it is I who should be asking the questions,” first minister Mannevy said to the manacled man standing before him. The cells of the king’s jail were cold with the worst of the winter but air still carried scents and Mannevy found himself raising his perfumed handkerchief to his nose to protect his senses.

  “Believe what you want,” Rabel snarled. “I demand the king’s justice!”

  “If you want, I could put you back in your cell,” Mannevy said. “That is the king’s justice.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” Rabel said. “I’m an old man, I work my trade honestly and all I ask is to be left alone.”

  “You traded with the mechanical, Ibb,” Mannevy said. “Your daughter turned into a wyvern.” He paused, catching the other’s eyes with his own. “The king has ordered her death.”

  “What?” Rabel cried. “She’s done nothing wrong! She was an outcast, she didn’t know better!”

  “She grew up within walking distance of a field of wyvern’s flowers,” Mannevy replied slowly. He smiled when he noticed how Rabel’s stance changed. “And why is that? How did that come to happen?” He waited a moment, giving the smith a chance to speak, before continuing, “And how is it that you had such commerce with Ibb, the mechanical?”

  “He bought my wares, no more,” Rabel said defensively.

  “Your apprentice.”

  “What of him?” Rabel demanded.

  “He brought you your apprentice, didn’t he?” Mannevy said. “And you supplied Newman the engineer with his boiler and the parts of his engine.” Mannevy paused. “How was it that you, with only a bellows-fired furnace could produce what Mr. Newman called, ‘The best steel in the kingdom.’”

  Rabel had no answer.

  Mannevy stood and moved closer to him. In a very low voice, he said, “I don’t care, you know.”

  Rabel twisted his head away from the first minister.

  “What I care about is that you make more,” the first minister said. “That you make it now and that you teach the skill to Newman and his apprentice.”

  “I can’t,” Rabel confessed. “I don’t know how.”

  “Oh?” Mannevy said. He took a step back. “Well then, you’re no use to me.” He turned around, calling loudly, “Guards! Have this man moved to the executioner’s cell.” He turned back to the old man and said in a dispassionate voice, “And if you’re no use to me, you’re no use to the king. So I’ll relieve him of the need to pay for your keep.”

  “You do that,” Rabel said defiantly. “You just do that.”

  “Actually, the executioner will do it,” Mannevy said. He threw the scented handkerchief to the ground and turned away. “I’ve no need to do such dirty work.”

  Chapter Two: Rabel Revealed

  They left Rabel free of his shackles and manacles, figuring that he was too old and too feeble to cause trouble. They were right. His white hair was thin and bald on the top. His shoulders were pointy and his arms were like sticks, shorn of their muscle by age.

  Rabel sat in the far left back corner of the cell, farthest from the bucket they’d left for his toilet and farthest from sight, lost in the dark shadows of the dark jail.

  Krea, he thought despairingly. What a child! Wilful and innocent both at the same time. She had been happy, he thought. At least when the townsfolk left her alone.

  He remembered how hurt and sad she looked when they’d taunted her on her birthday for her albinism. White hair, white skin, dark eyes. Her features were good, her body lithe and well-coordinated. If people would look beyond her skin they’d see her true beauty. For a long while only Rabel could see it.

  When he took on the new apprentice, when he saw that Angus could see Krea’s true beauty, his heart soared and, impulsively, he suggested that the young lad consider becoming her husband. He’d been so happy that he hadn’t even considered that Krea might feel otherwise. He was sure that he’d found the solution to all his problems: that he could grow old and feeble in the warmth of his daughter’s brilliance and the comfort that he had passed on both his trade and his problems to some stronger back.

  Krea had rebelled. Here, in the darkness of the cell, Rabel could see clearly what he couldn’t imagine back then. His girl, his little white angel, had her own plans for her future. He should have respected that and, because he hadn’t, she’d made her own choices, her own mistakes.

  Now she was gone. And soon, unable to care for her, he would face the hangman.

  In anguish, Rabel dropped his head into his hands and wept silently, tearlessly. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He hadn’t broken his promise; the gods had.

  Ametza, he knew, cared for him not one jot. She would be glad to see him gone, forgetting that, however much she hated fire, she loved steel — and there was only one way to make it. She might force rivers off their courses, cause them to rip away earth and expose bare ore but she could not refine it into the steel that she wanted for her plans of conquest.

  For that she needed Ophidian’s son.

  Fire. Dragon fire.

  To wield the fire, to smelt the ore into the strong iron, she needed men who could work it. Men like Rabel. Men who’d spent their lives learning all they could of the secrets of iron, the bellows, the flames of the forge, and the care needed to make steel out of iron sludge.

 
; But, because the sea god hated many things, Rabel knew she would discard him whenever she could. That she was inconstant and flighty, that she would smile as the hangman rapped the noose around his neck, cackle as the floor dropped and Rabel’s neck snapped with the fall, laugh as he dangled and his soul went to the Ferryman. It was only later, much later, that’d she cry bitter tears as she realized her mistake.

  Ophidian, for his part, had forgotten Rabel long ago. He’d lost interest in him when he’d married, had a child, and settled down. Even planting the field of wyvern flowers had only brought Rabel a little favor from the fire god — his child had survived her hard birth. But not the mother — oh, she had lived — but only as a frail shadow of herself who had only survived long enough to see her baby grow into childhood. Perhaps it had amused the god to see Rabel’s mix of anguish and joy. Perhaps the fire god hadn’t even noticed.

  It was hard to tell with the gods.

  Death did not disturb Rabel. He would accept his end when it came. All he wanted was to know that he’d done his best with his life and that he had cared the best for all those he loved.

  And he couldn’t say that. Krea was gone, twinned to a wyvern and flown far from the grasp of King Markel and his goddess Ametza. But Rabel could not say she was safe. He couldn’t even say if she was alive.

  And Angus, whom he’d taken in, was gone, too. He had killed Krea at her wish, seen her reborn into the wyvern — and what a beautiful wyvern she was! Angus had told him when they were taken to the jail together, had spoken in hurried whispers, had described — at Rabel’s urging — the sort of wyvern Krea had become: snow white with gold filigree on her scales.

  In wyvern form, Krea’s eyes and white skin were beautiful beyond compare. And she could fly wherever she wanted, fearing nothing.

  Except airships and cannon.

  And that fool Mannevy had come to him, had come here in the jail to visit Rabel at his darkest moment. The first minister of King Markel had had the gall to think that he could force Rabel to build the steel that would be used to hunt down his own daughter! Rabel raised his head from his hands and chuckled bitterly.

  No! He would die before he did anything that might cause his beautiful wyvern child harm.