by Shae Ford
She stopped.
The sun was rising. Its blush spread through clouds between the peaks, staining their every bump and rift in shy swathes of crimson. A few paces ahead, the world simply ended. It plunged into the roiling clouds beneath the summit — the ironclad couriers of winter’s rage. Had she not known where she was, she might’ve thought she stood upon an island between worlds.
But as beautiful as the sky was that morning, it was another sight entirely that stopped her short: the sight of Kael standing at the edge of the earth, smiling like she’d never seen him smile before.
Her next few steps were halting, startled. The smile she’d always known was there, the one he’d kept tucked so carefully behind his eyes was suddenly out for the world to see. It was a fierce thing, a sight carved into the mountains that made her feel as if she’d fallen through the clouds.
Then she saw the bright red book clamped between his hands, and her heart dropped to her middle. Every ounce of warmth fled her skin as she whispered: “Where did you get that?”
“I stole it out of your bag, you insufferable dragoness. Why didn’t you tell me?” He held the book high, his voice suddenly accusing. “Why didn’t you tell me you bloody well loved me?”
Her heart shuddered; her stomach twisted in a knot. “I’m not supposed to love you. It’s Abomination.”
He laughed.
“I’m serious, Kael.” Had she not been so angry with him for laughing, she might’ve lost the struggle against her tears. This was the moment she’d been dreading from the hour she first knew she loved him. This would be moment it all came to an end. “I can’t love you. It’s one of the tenets of my people: to bond with any but your own is Abomination. And upon all Abomination, Fate will loose her brother — Death.”
Kael didn’t look at all troubled. In fact, he rolled his eyes. “Well, I think Death will have a difficult time hunting me down, given that Fate can’t see me.”
Kyleigh scowled at him. “Do you honestly believe that Fate’s forsaken you just because of the day you were born?”
“Do you honestly believe you can’t love me just because some great crone in the sky says it’s Abomination?” he countered with a smirk.
Her heart began to thud indignantly from where it’d fallen. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t listening. Why wasn’t he listening? Why could he think everything twice over, and twice again — but couldn’t be bothered to take Death seriously? “If I love you —”
“According to this you already do,” he said, waving the book. “That’s why your blood doesn’t burn me, why you can heal me. You take my pain as your own because you love me — that is how a dragon loves, isn’t it? And that’s why you’ve been so desperate to hide these books. Well, it’s all over, Kyleigh,” he said with a grin. “Now I know your secret.”
In three strides and one furious swing, she’d knocked the book from his hands.
His mouth fell open as he watched it flutter into oblivion. “Baird’s not going to be happy about that.”
“I couldn’t care less. I can’t love you, and that’s the end of it. Because if I do …” She glared to keep her eyes from stinging. “If what I feel is truly Abomination, you’ll die.”
“If? How could it possibly …?” The exasperated words he’d been about to speak faded quickly. He looked at her if he’d only just noticed the tears welling up in her eyes, the anguish on her face. And he sighed heavily. “Sometimes it’s a question that keeps us grounded — not the height.”
He spoke so quietly that she knew she probably wasn’t supposed to have heard him. But before she could wonder what he’d meant, Kael went on:
“I know that you’re worried about us not … fitting. The fish know each other by their scales, the birds by their wings. Every creature in the Kingdom has got somebody it’s meant to be with.” He dragged a hand through his curls. The lights flickered madly behind his eyes. “By that measure, you and I aren’t meant to be. There’s nothing written in the stars that say we belong together, there’s no predestination or prophecy. In a lot of ways, we simply don’t fit.
“But in spite of all we’ve got against us,” his smile returned as he took a step towards her, “to the shame of Fate and Death and every force in between, against all the laws of beast and man … we love each other. And it isn’t much, but I believe love can be a prophecy in its own right.”
Sometime while he spoke, she’d lost track of her heart. It wasn’t until his hands twined in hers that she was able to feel it beating again. “I won’t let you die.”
He shrugged. “What does it matter, Kyleigh? The wildmen are going to win. Titus is going to fall. Amos and Roland will be free men once more. Whether I live or die isn’t going to make the Kingdom one bit of difference. We can spend the rest of our lives staring at each other, always a few paces apart … or we can be brave.”
There was a warmth beyond reckoning between them — an eternity wound through their fingers and made the lights in his eyes brighten for every year. He offered her all of that light, the whole of that eternity.
Kael was giving her a choice.
“If we die today, I want it to be because we fell. I won’t let a question keep us from climbing. Be brave with me, Kyleigh,” he whispered.
His lips formed so firmly around those words; his eyes held her with such certainty. They stood not only at the edge of this world, but at the edge of the next. And she realized with a fire she saw reflected inside his eyes that in whatever world they woke, she would love him all the same. She would never stop loving him.
And so she was brave.
Time halted. The mountains fell still. Kyleigh held him by the sides of his face, held his lips to hers. She felt Kael’s arms wrap around her: he pressed her at her back, at her middle. He crushed her tightly against him, prepared for the fall …
But it never came.
Slowly, time began to turn once more. Something roared through Kael’s veins — she felt its fury rising as his lips moved against hers. Her body tumbled from the sky. Wind ripped through her flesh and the thrill of the plunge filled her heart with a scream.
All the fire in Kael’s blood rushed to meet her. Its power consumed her — roaring, raging. The flames lifted her out of the plunge. They held her suspended over the world’s edge; they stormed against her soul. She lost track of the earth, of the sky, of the heart thudding against her chest and the arms wrapped so tightly around her waist.
There were only those lips, that storm — the gales that sang the song her voice could not. Then all too soon, Kael pulled away.
She blinked against the harsh light of the rising sun and flinched at a murmur of the wind. For a moment, she feared he was gone. Then Kael’s lips were at her ear. His voice was there, too. Her grip tightened about his curls as he growled:
“Who would’ve thought? I suppose Fate has better things to do than smite us.”
He was teasing her again. Oh, he was going to pay for that.
“What is happening, here?” a voice called from behind her.
Sometime while they’d been tangled, Elena had sauntered out from behind the rock. Now she stood with her arms crossed and her mask pulled down to her chin, watching with a smile that made Kyleigh want to throttle her. She likely would have, had Jake not been standing at her side.
Kael pulled away. “I might ask you the same question,” he said with a glare that didn’t quite stifle the amusement in his voice.
Jake seemed to be in such a rush to shove his spectacles up his nose that he nearly jabbed himself in the eye. “Ah … we, ah … came to see the sunrise.”
“Is that so?”
“If that’s what the mage said we were doing,” Elena cut in, “then that’s exactly what we were doing.”
A round of giggles drew their eyes to the rocks, where Eveningwing the boy perched among the crags. He clutched his knees to his chest and his grin was so impossibly wide that they couldn’t help but smile back.
*******
> “Are you ready, mutt?” Gwen said as she passed.
Kael was ready. The icy air slipped between his lungs and froze against the iron shell. It stirred the molten beast that lurked within him — the rage he’d had to keep pinned back for so long. Soon that beast would burst from its cage …
Soon, Titus would meet the fury of the mountains.
They stood less than a mile from Thanehold — a squat castle perched upon a hill of angry blue stone, one lone mark of man in a sea of ice and snow. The castle looked as if it’d risen along with the mountains. Its walls had been chewed by the howling winds, its thick towers so lambasted by the ice until it took on the essence of the crags.
To its right stood the summit. The way the peaks curved at their points made them look like two colossal waves: Thanehold was perched atop the crest of one, barely clinging it to its edge while the summit towered overhead — prepared to slap all of its crushing weight down upon the fortress.
Here, the mountain’s skin was too thick for trees, its flesh too cold for beasts. It was a marker, a warning — the very embodiment of the mountain’s unforgiving spirit. White capped its every inch, but not even winter’s jaws could do much to crack it. The summit seemed to rise with its crags crossed like arms over a chest. Though the winds scolded and shrilled, the mountains stood firm.
Kael knew Titus could see them. There was nothing for miles except the wildmen and their army. The giants, with their heavy armor and glinting scythes stood nearly as tall as the boulders. Lysander and his pirates swung their cutlasses about in practiced arcs, their eyes upon the fortress.
Jonathan had been so impressed by the craftsmen’s pounding that he’d taught them how to make drums. Now a large handful of them stood in the force’s middle, drums hanging from straps around their necks.
They were rough-looking things, crafted from scrap wood and the skins of beasts. But they thundered to life at the urging of the craftsmen’s hands. The music was a monster all its own — one that swore death to Titus. Its intentions rumbled in the echo of every stroke.
Jonathan paced before the drummers. His fiddle shrilled a warning above their roar. His smile cut hard across his lips and had there been any words to his song, Kael imagined most of them would’ve been unrepeatable.
One of the warriors passed him a shallow clay bowl. It was filled to its top with the thick, black paint of the wildmen. All of his companions had their faces painted. Even Nadine marched among the giants, her brows bent over the thin designs Elena had scrawled across her cheeks.
Kael supposed there was no harm in joining them. “Here,” he said, turning to Kyleigh. She stood patiently as he drew patterns around her eyes, stoking the green to brilliance. He was drawing a line down her chin with his thumb when she broke into a grin. “Quit flinching.”
“I can’t.”
“Well, you’re going to spoil it.”
She grabbed him by the front of the jerkin and kissed him straight on the lips — directly in the middle of absolutely everything. When she finally released him, he could barely hear the pirates’ cheers through the roar of flame.
“Scold me again, and I’ll do something that’ll keep you red,” she warned.
He believed her. And so he stood perfectly still as her hands brushed down his face, painting lines and swirls. No sooner had she finished than Silas was pawing at her hem.
“Paint me next! I want to look menacing.”
She obliged — though for some reason, Kyleigh seemed to be fighting back a grin the whole time she worked. When she was finished, Silas spun around excitedly: “Well, how is it? Does it look menacing?”
It looked suspiciously like a button nose and a set of long, curling whiskers to Kael. But he thought better of admitting it. “You look like a beast to be reckoned with, Silas.”
He bared his teeth in a grin.
Soldiers gathered across the fortress’s ramparts, the glint of their armor dulled by the fall of snow. The flakes fell sparsely enough that Kael could see them pacing worriedly from a distance. When the craftsmen’s song ended, the mountains fell eerily still.
Kael’s friends gathered around him. Lysander and Declan, Kyleigh and Gwen. They would be the four heads of his army, the snarling jaws of their attack — while Kael and the craftsmen knocked Titus’s feet out from under him.
“Keep to your tasks,” he said as they gathered. “He’ll try to split you, but don’t …”
His words trailed away as a strange noise filled the air. It was the clacking of chain, the groan of wood. Kael turned and saw something he never expected to see — not in all the hours he’d planned: Titus was opening the fortress door.
It was Thanehold’s only entrance. A monstrous gate creaked open over the thin strip of stone-ice that flowed up to the castle like a ramp. The gate widened just a crack, just large enough for a handful of men to march through. And standing at their head was none other than Earl Titus, himself.
There was an iron helmet clamped over his mane of hair, but Kael could still see the tangles of his beard. He dragged another man along at his side and held a dagger against the ridges of his familiar, frail back.
Kael’s stomach fell from such a height that he thought it might’ve actually flopped out at his feet. He heard Kyleigh inhale sharply at his side, felt her hands clamp around his arm.
“You can’t —”
“I have to,” he said firmly. He knew he had to. One look at how Titus menaced the dagger, and Kael knew he had no choice. “At least it’ll get me in a little quicker.”
“He’ll kill you,” Kyleigh insisted, her eyes blazing.
Kael wasn’t afraid. “He can try.”
“At least let me come with you.”
“No.” He pulled her hands from his arm and brought them to his lips. He held her like that, trying to push everything he felt out into his stare so that she could see the things he saw — so that she could understand that Titus had just slit his own throat. “Keep to your task. Do exactly what we have planned and I swear I’ll come back to you. Titus is desperate. This is all he has left … and I’m going to turn it against him.”
At last, she relented. He kissed her once, swiftly. Then before the fires could burn out, he marched alone towards the fortress.
“Where are you going, mutt?” Gwen hollered after him.
“To rescue my grandfather,” he said with a sigh.
Chapter 46
The Wright’s Army
Earl Titus watched impatiently as the Wright climbed the ramp that would lead him to the castle gates. He took note of the halting steps, the way his toes seemed to drag against the ground. He reveled in the white rings around his eyes as he stared at his grandfather.
Amos, that old crow, was wise as ever. Titus had promised that if he didn’t hold his tongue, he would gladly carve it out. He could see the warning stabbing from the darks of Amos’s eyes. He glared, practically screaming for the Wright to turn back to his army.
Perhaps Titus would pluck his eyes out in punishment … after he’d gotten a good look at his grandson’s mangled corpse, that is.
A narrow bridge of blue stone led from the frosted wastes and to the front doors of his castle. The Wright climbed it slowly, as if he expected an attack. He was right to be worried. Behind him, the many painted faces of his army watched without a sound. Giants, a few gangly seas men and those savages from the summit were all the Wright had with him. Titus could see the blankness in their stares from a distance. They would be powerless without their leader.
Even the Dragongirl would fall to his sword. He grinned at her scowl and thought: I’ve got something planned for you. Oh, yes. Take to your wings, barbarian — I dare you to fly.
At last, the heavy steps before him ground to a stop. Titus drew his eyes from the Dragongirl’s blazing stare and into the depths of the Wright’s.
He held his hands out to the side, his palms facing Titus. “There’s no need to hurt him. Let your prisoners from the mountains go, and I’ll
order my army to retreat,” he said loudly.
Titus laughed.
White blew from the Wright’s nostrils in a frustrated breath. “I’m being more than reasonable.”
Reasonable? Oh, it was far too late for that. Titus had to concentrate on the furrows between the Wright’s brows to keep his dagger from twisting — because when he looked into his eyes, it was reminded of how he’d failed.
For years he’d languished in Banagher’s army, tossed in among his last-born castoffs. He’d been one of Midlan’s common foot soldiers — a human overshadowed by the whisperers’ might. Nothing he said was heard; nothing he offered was ever quite enough. He was to salute and raise his sword, to charge at Midlan’s head. He was to be willing to give his life for the sake of those who led him … to fight for the whisperers’ glory.
Crevan had worked for years to turn Banagher against the whisperers, and Titus had ridden the surge of unrest straight through the ranks. With the whisperers banished and the rebel forces gathering, the Kingdom was finally willing to listen. Midlan became a place where humans could toast their own victories rather than have to survive off the dregs of the more talented — a place where a common foot soldier might rise above his lot.
And so Titus had risen.
Crevan kept the title warlord, but it was only a name: Titus was the true commander of Midlan’s army. Under his guidance, they beat the rebels back. The Falsewright himself had quaked rather than return to the fortress. It was by Titus’s skill alone that Midlan was saved. But just when he was about to seal the Kingdom’s fate, Setheran had returned.
In the final battle, Titus had the Falsewright trapped. The glory was his for the taking — the most powerful of all whisperers was going to die by his sword. Then Setheran and his pet had swooped in and stolen it out from under him. He’d snatched Titus’s honor away and in a single act, undone all his years of fighting.
No one would ever remember what humans had sacrificed for the Kingdom. They would sing only of Setheran the Wright.