by Melissa Grey
It was a library. A modest one, much smaller than Caius’s study in Wyvern’s Keep, though the architectural details were similar. Above the lintel, a dragon’s head stared down at her, curling horns rising from the top of its head. A fireplace in the corner was burning merrily, logs crackling and popping as the bark peeled and turned to ash. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, on which books were stacked two rows deep. The wooden shelves buckled under their weight. A desk stood before a bank of windows, its surface buried beneath sheaves of parchments and scrolls held down with pots of ink and rounded stones. Frost climbed the windowpanes. Echo took a step toward the desk and felt the swirl of heavy skirts against her legs. Skirts? The last time she’d worn a skirt was the Easter before she’d run away from home, when her mother had wrestled her into a pink velvet monstrosity and dragged her to church. Echo looked down and saw that she was wearing a crimson wool gown thick enough to ward off a winter chill. A golden silk cloak was fastened around her shoulders and spilled over her gown.
She raised a hand to her face, afraid of what she would find. Her fingers traced her features, but they were not hers. The cheekbones were higher, the jawline more defined. Her hair was piled on her head in elaborate braids far more intricate than anything Echo had ever worn. And, she noticed as she pulled loose a few strands, it was blond.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Echo was in Tanith’s memory. Echo was Tanith in this memory. Her legs were long, her arms well defined, her muscles honed from decades of training. Her body moved of its own accord, as though Echo were merely a passenger along for the ride. The door to the library opened, and a man entered, closing the door behind him only after he scanned the hall outside as if to make sure no one had followed him. His golden hair was slicked back and his pale skin shone like alabaster in contrast. Iridescent scales dusted his temples, and his eyes were the gray of storm clouds. They softened when he met Echo’s—Tanith’s—gaze. With two long strides, he closed the distance between them and took her in his arms. His kiss was fierce and bruising, his hands clutching fistfuls of her cloak.
She pulled away, her breath a deep sigh. “Is it done?” she asked. The words felt strange on her tongue, and it took Echo a moment to realize she was speaking Drakhar. This was a memory. Like the one she had endured as Samira during the Ala’s hypnotic trance.
The man nodded, his eyes lingering on her lips. “Yes, my love.”
She turned away, her cloak brushing against the man’s leather boots. “Do not speak of love to me, Oeric. It is an indulgence I cannot afford. Not now, when the crown is just within my reach.”
The man—Oeric—stiffened at the rebuke. “The votes are yours,” he said. “And as far as those who could not be bought…I’m sure you’ll be able to think of some way to win their compliance.”
She nodded, turning to a large tome left open on the desk. It was a list of names, written alongside insignia that looked like coats of arms. Tanith’s fingers—callused from years of handling a sword—dragged along the names, crossing invisible lines through some, tapping on others. “Everyone has a weakness,” she said, a finger landing on the name at the top. Caius, Prince of Dragons. “Power is a game. To win, one must find those weaknesses and exploit them. It is simply a matter of exerting the right amount of pressure at the optimal time.”
“And your brother?” Oeric asked. “How much pressure will you be exerting on him?”
Tanith’s hand lingered over Caius’s name. Slowly, she dragged her finger across the letters, slashing an invisible line through them. “He is not to be harmed,” she said. “Detained, perhaps, after the vote. But not harmed.”
“My love, surely you see the folly in allowing him to—”
She spun, striking out as quick as a snake. Her hand closed around Oeric’s throat, her thumb pressing against his windpipe. “I said”—her voice was low and deadly, laced with the promise of pain—“that my brother is not to be harmed.” She squeezed. Oeric’s fingers scrabbled at her hand, but he might as well have been trying to pry off bands of solid iron. “Do you see now, what I mean about exerting pressure?” Her grip tightened again, and Oeric’s eyes began to water. “You need only exert the right amount to get what you want.”
She released him. He doubled over, hands on his knees, and drew in several shuddering breaths. With a gentle hand, she touched his shoulder and he peered up at her, expression wary, as if he expected to be hurt. She helped him stand and caressed the bruises already beginning to blossom on his neck. “I do not intend to hurt the people I care about unless absolutely necessary, Oeric. This isn’t about punishing Caius. This is about doing what’s right. And you want to do what’s right, don’t you, Oeric?”
He nodded, trembling under her touch. “Of course I do.”
Sparks appeared at the corners of Echo’s vision. The world shifted and re-formed around her. The room in Wyvern’s Keep changed: the rug transformed into knee-high yellow grass; the stone floor softened into brown earth. The ceiling opened up to gray skies, the light of the fire burning in the hearth blazed with the sun’s pale brightness. The memory was pulled from Echo gradually, peeled off in layers until she was left kneeling in the dirt, her hands inches from Tanith’s arm. Echo gazed into crimson eyes blackened around the edges of the irises. She saw her own alarmed expression mirrored by Tanith’s face, but the Drakharin recovered far quicker than Echo did. Bloodstained hands pushed against the ground as Tanith sprang to her feet, her movements quick and jerky, as if she wasn’t quite in full command of her body. Maybe it was the kuçedra, pulling Tanith’s strings like a puppeteer, forcing her to reach for Caius once more, her arms locking around him like a vise. Fire erupted from the earth, creating a barrier around Tanith and Caius.
Echo didn’t make it past a kneeling position before a wave of vertigo overtook her. The island appeared to be spinning and Echo buried her hands in the long grass to steady herself. Magic electrified the air. It was too much for her. Firebird or not, her body was still human and she could only take so much magic. Rowan called to her, his voice drowned out by the crackling flames. The orange of Tanith’s fire was consumed by black wisps of smoke. It took a handful of moments for Echo’s brain to make sense of what she was seeing. The fire was giving way to the in-between. Somehow, Tanith had summoned a gateway to it. In the middle of the field. Far from any natural threshold to anchor it. Such a thing should have been impossible. Calling forth a door to the in-between without a proper threshold wasn’t one of Tanith’s strengths. It was Caius’s. But this didn’t appear to be his doing.
Echo had half a second to meet Caius’s eyes, to see the genuine fear in them, before both he and Tanith were swallowed by a plume of black smoke. Tanith’s fire merged fully with the darkness of the in-between and surged upward for several terrifying seconds. Then, the circle of black fire disappeared, unable to sustain itself without its mistress.
The smoke cleared. Tanith and Caius were gone.
“Caius?” The distant, rational part of Echo knew there was no point in calling his name, but she couldn’t help it. She reached back, groping wildly for Rowan. His hand, strong and warm and rough from sword practice, found hers, and he pulled her close. It was just them and the bodies of the Firedrakes. A vulture circled overhead, waiting for them to leave so that it could fall upon its meal.
“Caius is gone,” Rowan said. He began tugging Echo toward the shore, where they would be able to access the in-between and flee. “Echo, come on, we have to go.”
She dug her heels in, refusing to follow. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the spot where Caius had stood. Gone. He was gone. Just like that. Gone, gone, gone. “No.”
“Echo!” That one word was packed with every bit of exasperation and fear she imagined Rowan must be feeling. He moved to stand directly in front of her and seized her hands, hazel eyes pleading. “We can’t stay here. We have to go back. We have to tell Altair what happened. He has to know.”
Echo tore her eyes from t
he empty patch of grass she could still see over Rowan’s shoulder.
“We have to save him.” Even as she said it, she knew that she was asking the impossible.
But because Rowan was Rowan, he didn’t tell her so. He didn’t bring logic into it. He merely nodded and said, “We will. But first, we need to go back to Avalon. I don’t understand what just happened here, but I know it’s not good. The others need to know. We need to prepare for”—he shot a look behind him, taking in the cooling corpses and the burnt grass and the blood seeping into the ground—“whatever the hell is coming our way.”
Echo couldn’t bring herself to answer. She simply let herself be led away, knowing she had lost.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The relative tranquility of Avalon made Echo want to scream, to rip out her hair, to throw a tantrum of unholy proportions. But all she could do was meet Altair’s furious gaze from across a mahogany table in the dining hall and repeat, for what felt like the millionth time, “I told you: I left. I followed Caius’s lead to Edinburgh. Got info that took me to London. Found the map. Found them”—she tilted her head toward Rowan, whose thigh bounced as he fidgeted in his seat, the other member of their little group conspicuously absent—“then the three of us went to the Tian Shan mountains, where we found the temple with those red weeds. The bloodweed.”
Said weeds had been confiscated as soon as Rowan and Echo had returned to Avalon. As they were marched to the dining hall on Altair’s furious orders, Echo had overheard a passing group of healers discussing Ivy’s return. The knowledge that Ivy had made it back safely, Dorian and Jasper towing an unconscious Quinn behind them, burned in Echo’s chest, her relief as bright as the rising sun.
Her backpack had been searched and the weeds had been handed off to the healers in charge of the infirmary, where the survivors were worsening with alarming speed. A dozen had died in the night, including the only surviving council member besides Altair and the Ala. If the radio reports were to be believed, though, the Avicen were holding up much better than those in Manhattan. Every human victim of the attack on Grand Central who had been similarly infected had succumbed to the kuçedra’s poison and died. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was at a loss for an explanation. They were running out of time. For the Avicen still living. For the Ala. Time was a luxury no one had. Every beat of Echo’s heart felt like a ticking time bomb. Avalon wasn’t safe as long as she was here. Her presence painted a target on the island. She would leave again, and soon. She’d acquired the bloodweed, and now the Avicen had it. They could figure out what to do with it. But before she ran away again, there were a few matters to be taken care of. Namely, Altair’s displeasure.
The general steepled his fingers, his orange eyes drifting shut. Echo suspected he might be counting to ten in his head to rein in his anger, but she couldn’t change the truth. She’d run off, against his orders and in violation of her promise to him. The general was a man of his word and therefore not a man who took broken promises lightly. “And then, according to the two of you”—Altair’s pointed gaze made the fidgeting Rowan abruptly freeze, like a rabbit spotting a fox lurking in the grass—“you made camp, after which the Drakharin—”
“Caius,” Echo interrupted.
Altair’s gaze cut to her, but she refused to flinch. It took more willpower than she’d care to admit. Greater women than she had quailed under that gaze. “Then Caius,” he continued, “felt a summons from his sister, the reigning Dragon Prince.”
Echo nodded. “That’s right. The story hasn’t changed from the last eight times I told it.”
A booted heel came down hard on her toes. In lieu of wincing, she dug her teeth into her lower lip, her eyes darting to Rowan, who was staring straight ahead, his own gaze locked on a point slightly to the left of Altair’s head, as if he weren’t busy trying to grind her toes into dust. Message received, Echo thought. No talking back to the general. And while he was at it, Rowan might as well ask water not to be wet.
Altair tapped his pen on the desk, looking down at the notes he’d been taking during their interrogation. His brow crinkled, and for the first time, Echo noticed a few lines near the corners of his mouth. They looked like frown lines, though Altair was, like the Ala, practically immortal. The operative word being “practically”—he could, like other powerful Avicen, live a long, uninterrupted life spanning centuries, barring a violent death. Echo hadn’t thought he could get wrinkles, but then, she supposed, war had a way of taking its toll on everyone, even hardened soldiers like Altair.
“And then the Drakharin—Caius—transported you all to an island in the North Sea where you encountered the Dragon Prince.”
“Yes,” Echo replied. “The island where Rose lived a hundred years ago.” Before you sent her on a suicide mission. Before Tanith burned her to death within her own home. “You remember Rose, don’t you? The girl you sent off to die because you wanted to find the firebird before anyone else?”
Rowan’s heel slammed into Echo’s shin this time, but she kept her eyes on Altair’s, her back straight and her shoulders square.
“Rowan?” Altair said, his gaze never leaving Echo’s. He placed the pen on his notebook very, very slowly and laid his palms flat on the table very, very deliberately.
“Yes, sir?”
“Will you give us a moment? I’d like to have a word alone with Echo.”
Rowan hesitated, torn between his loyalty to his commander and his…whatever with Echo. She still wasn’t sure what they were to each other, if they were anything at all. But an order was an order, and Rowan was far more adept than she at following those. He left the room, casting a loaded glance over his shoulder as if to warn her to be on her best behavior in his absence. She returned his stare with a raised eyebrow and no promises.
“Follow me,” Altair said, standing. “There’s something I want to show you.”
They left the room through a set of double doors opposite the one Rowan had used. Altair maintained his stony silence as they walked through the halls of the castle and up an interminable flight of stairs. Finally, they emerged onto the rampart overlooking the wing that had become the Warhawk barracks. There was little wind to interfere with the sounds rising from the courtyard in which the soldiers sparred. The ring of steel was punctuated by the occasional bark of a command or the grunt of someone doubling over in pain after failing to block an impending blow. A wrought iron fence divided the courtyard in two, and on the other side, a small circle of Avicelings sat watching the Warhawks practice. There were fewer children than Echo remembered. Fewer Warhawks as well. Two Avicelings stood out, a girl with hair-feathers the color of the summer sky and a boy with coloring as red as a cardinal. Daisy and Flint. Bored with the display, Daisy lolled her head back. She must have spotted Echo on the rampart, because she elbowed Flint in the side and they waved up at her. Echo waved back.
“It was never you I hated.” The deep rumble of Altair’s voice made Echo jump.
Such a statement was not quite what she had expected. It was almost…nice.
“It was the idea of you,” he said.
Now, that was more like it. “Oh good, I was worried for a minute you were about to get all warm and fuzzy on me. Can’t have that.”
Altair turned to her with a glare that was just short of piercing. “Must you always be so”—he paused, groping for the right word—“insouciant?”
Echo shrugged and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Insouciant is my middle name.” Altair heaved a frustrated sigh. “But please,” she said, “do go on.”
Altair inclined his head toward the courtyard, where Daisy was chasing Flint with a slug, the red-feathered little boy not the least bit slowed down by the sling that cradled his right arm. A few other Avicelings shrieked as someone started a mud fight. Mud, Echo knew, was a bitch to pick out of feathers. She’d had to do it for both Rowan and Ivy countless times during their childhood, and she didn’t envy whoever was on child-wrangling duty later that aftern
oon.
“Everything I do,” said Altair, “I do for them.”
“That is disturbingly warm and fuzzy coming from you.”
“You were a child when the Ala found you, and a lost one at that. She could never leave you to fend for yourself. It’s not the kind of creature she is. A child alone isn’t safe in the human world. The things they do to their own…” Altair’s voice trailed off, as if he was haunted by memories to which Echo was not privy.
“Trust me, you don’t need to tell me about human cruelty,” she said. “I know it better than I’d care to.”
Altair looked at Echo, as if taking stock of her. “Yes,” he said. “I heard.”
“The Ala told you about me?” she asked, stunned. She assumed the Ala had made a convincing case for keeping a human child among the Avicen, but Echo had never truly stopped to consider what that would have entailed. A sob story was bound to win hearts, and hers, chock-full of abusive parenting and too many days spent curled under a desk in the library, her stomach cramping with hunger pains, was a story worth a few sobs.
“Of course she did,” Altair said. Something in his voice softened as he spoke of the Ala. “Bringing a human into our home was no small matter. It required a unanimous vote among the council, and I was the last to be swayed.”
“Color me shocked,” Echo mumbled.
“I am not without compassion, Echo.” Altair rested his hands on the parapet. His knuckles were covered in a constellation of scars, his fingers calloused from handling weaponry. “But I was afraid.”
Echo’s shock was so severe that if a strong gust had barreled into her at the moment, she would have toppled right off the rampart. “Afraid?” she asked, incredulous. “Of what?”
“You.”
“But…I was just a kid.”
Again Altair peered down at the Avicelings, who were now making mud angels. “Ours is a dying world. Our magic is diminished, our numbers are shrinking, and our territories grow smaller with each passing day. Humanity’s realm continues to expand, and I wonder if we’ll soon lose even the small corner of the world we occupy. Every moment of every day, I ask myself how I’ll protect them. How I can keep each and every one of my people safe.”