Trysten stopped chewing and met the Prince’s eyes. Where was he going with this?
“That’s a load of crap,” Paege said around a mouthful of cheese and bread.
Prince Aymon took the pack from Trysten’s lap. “Of course it is. But to the average court advisor, it’s truth as hard and cold as stone. My father has encouraged that belief, much to the chagrin of this poor, ragged hordesman who became the butt of many a joke. But his story of how the Hollin Dragoneer was killed caused my father to request my attention on the matter.”
Prince Aymon pulled out a bit of meat and took a bite. As he chewed and stared off into the west, toward the mountains, Trysten’s mind raced. The man was frustratingly intelligent. How much of the truth would he be able to piece together just on what was around him?
“So after I spoke to this hordesman for several days, I found something disturbing. His story remained the same, no deviations. Even more interesting was the way the man seemed to excuse himself from the events as if he wanted me to be sure that under no circumstances was he to blame for what had happened. That is the mark of a man who saw something terrible. If he were merely a madman, as the court had decided, he would be casting a much more fantastical story in which he played a heroic role. But in his own story, he was hardly more than a coward. He admits he ran away, that he turned his dragon on the wind and fled for the nearest weyr.”
The Prince took another bite of meat, chewed it, then continued. “It was obvious that I had to investigate this tale of an early fighting season, of a force that exhibited unusual abilities and coordinated an attack so well they destroyed a horde and an entire village before anyone knew what was going on. I told my father what I had discovered, and he was appropriately concerned. He ordered me to assemble the finest hordesmen in the kingdom and go to Hollin.”
Prince Aymon took the skin from its spot against Trysten’s shins. He raised it to his mouth and swallowed a great deal before wiping the back of his hand across his face. Jewels of water dripped from his beard and disappeared into the dirt and rock at his feet.
“In Hollin, we found just what the hordesman said we’d find—the remains of a village, buildings burnt to the ground. We found unburied dead. We found what we believed to be the alpha dragon, and a fallen rider wearing the blood-smeared uniform that we believe was last worn by the Dragoneer. The uniform had been pierced multiple times with the blows of arrows. Every detail confirmed the story we had been told. After we had as much information as we could gather, and we buried the dead properly, we left for Aerona to find the companions of the hordesman who came to us.” The Prince returned the skin of water to Trysten and rested his hands on his knees, seeming to need a break from his own storytelling.
“Nillard,” Trysten said. “The Hollin hordesman’s name is Nillard.”
Prince Aymon looked directly at Trysten. “Before we encountered you, I expected I would find you. So much of the man’s story had panned out that I believed it was true. I was not surprised to find a woman in the Dragoneer’s saddle. But the presence of seventeen prisoners and their dragons, captured in battle, including their beta and commander shocked me. There is only one thing that could account for that.”
Prince Aymon leaned forward. He placed his elbows on his knees and threaded his fingers together as he stared at Trysten.
Despite herself, she looked away, glanced to the ground between them. She reached for the water skin for something to do, a way to get out from under his expectant gaze.
Prince Aymon sat up straight, then slapped his hands upon his knees. “Paege of Aerona,” he bellowed, loud and forceful. “I see she has confided in you.”
“What do you mean?” Paege asked. Fire blushed his cheeks.
Prince Aymon smiled. “I mean to watch you blush, to hear the stammer in your voice as I come close to the secret that you two share.”
Trysten leaned forward, her face hard and forceful, ready to present it as a weapon of defense. “It’s none of your concern.”
“Except that it is.” With a sigh, the Prince stood to his full height. A breeze from the west stirred the edges of his riding cape. “We don’t have time for this. While we sit here, dancing around your little secret that you have hidden so clumsily in the broad light of day, our mutual quarry gains the time it needs to enact their plans.”
Paege stood. “Quarry?”
“You explain it to him,” Prince Aymon said as he picked up his water skin and pouch and slung each over a shoulder. “The mud on the underside of those stones has barely had time to dry. I’d say our quarry disinterred itself shortly before dawn. I truly have no idea what their plans may be, but we cannot sit around and wait for them to show us their hands.”
Prince Aymon walked away. He called out to his men to take their saddles.
“What is he talking about?” Paege asked. “The Second Hordesmen weren’t dead?”
“They were,” Trysten said with a nod. “But now they are not. They are something else.”
“Something else like what?”
Trysten reached into the pocket of her tunic and wrapped a hand around the pendant. Her eyes traveled to the cairn before them. A momentary pang of regret struck her, as silly as it was. The hordesman inside had slain his dragon with the intent of being buried, of being reborn into something else. But he had lost his talisman, and he and his dragon were each doomed forever as a result.
“They have become Originals,” Trysten said.
Chapter 27
As they flew back to Aerona, Trysten scanned the ground for movement. She wasn’t sure what she might see, men or dragons, or both at the same time like the pendant. Would she see legs and arms pumping while also seeing a dragon’s back slither with movement? She watched for anything. Everything.
Nothing unusual presented itself before they circled down and landed in the weyr yard. Elevera folded her wings behind her and shifted her claws as Trysten undid the restraints at her waist and slid from the saddle. She had not made it three steps away from her dragon before Prince Aymon called her name.
She froze, considering whether to pretend she hadn’t heard him, then realized that pausing to decide such a thing gave her away. She turned around.
“A word, please,” Prince Aymon said, pointing to his tent.
Trysten’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t have time to deal with his self-important shenanigans.
“Now,” Prince Aymon added with a nod.
It would be faster to see what he wanted, get it over with and move on, as opposed to standing there and arguing with him. She followed him.
To her surprise, the interior of his tent was rather plain, holding a single cot, a simple table, and two chairs. The table held only a lantern. Although having his own tent spoke to his privilege of rank, it was not the ostentation she had expected. In his private spaces, Prince Aymon seemed to eschew the decorations and trappings of his royal blood, as if his purple, fur-lined cape and white dragon were props.
“Sit, if you wish,” he said and motioned to the chair closest to the tent’s opening.
Trysten folded her arms over her chest. This wouldn’t take long enough for her to get comfortable.
The Prince waited a moment, obviously schooled in chivalry and aware that he should sit only after his guest did so. When Trysten failed to make a move, he eventually took a seat as if it were his plan all along for her to stand.
“I want you to come back to the mother city with me,” he said, wasting no time making his point.
“What? No! We have a deal.”
“I don’t consider a deal with a dishonest person to be a binding agreement. You have been lying to me since I arrived.” Prince Aymon folded his hands in his lap.
Fire blushed over Trysten’s cheeks.
“I sent a courier back to the mother city last night to inform my father of my progress, and to request he send two more hordes to protect the village. I also gave the courier a specific set of instructions for our own Dragon Master. I reque
sted he research your background and your family history. But after today, I have a fair idea of what he will find.”
Prince Aymon crossed his leg over his knee. The toe of his boot bobbed slightly, then was still.
“Oh?” Trysten asked. Her gut tightened.
“If we trace your family history, I will undoubtedly find that your mother is descended from a dragoneer and that her marriage to your father is in violation of the kingdom’s law against dragoneer lines intermarrying.”
Trysten opened her mouth and found it dry. She tried to swallow. “Why would you say that?”
“Interesting. You are not offended by the insult I just handed your family’s honor, but rather you merely ask how it is that I have pulled the cover off your secret.”
“I can show you indignation, if that is what you’d rather see,” Trysten said, a cold, hard edge in her voice.
A grin flashed across Aymon’s face, then was gone. He turned his attention to the table top before him.
“Look,” he said, then glanced up at Trysten, “Let’s stop this. There is no reason for this adversarial nature—”
“You have done nothing but threaten my family and me since your arrival in this village! What do you mean there is no reason?” Trysten seethed.
“We have common goals. I want to secure the kingdom’s borders. You want to secure the safety of your village, am I correct?”
“Your point?”
“Surely you can see that it is in our best interests to work together. But to achieve that, I must be able to trust you, which means you must stop lying to me.”
“I don’t need your help. Things were fine before your arrival.” Trysten thrust a finger at the Prince.
Prince Aymon lifted an eyebrow. “You have no idea what it is you’re dealing with.”
“And you do?” Trysten challenged.
Prince Aymon leaned back in his chair. “More so than you, I dare say.”
“The Originals.”
“You can name them, but do you understand them?”
“I’ve heard the stories,” she sighed.
“Yes, the same ones everyone has heard.” Prince Aymon said, then continued. “They were the first creations of the gods, but too powerful, molded too closely in the image of the gods themselves. And so the gods destroyed the heavens, split the Originals into humans and dragons, and today, we live in the ashes of their battle.”
“But a few of the Originals escaped the wrath of the gods,” Trysten said. “And they wish to rebuild the heavens and destroy the gods that cast them out. I know this. Make your point. I have work to do.”
Prince Aymon leaned forward and placed an elbow on the table. “Do you really understand what that means? There is a war going on here. Not between the Cadwaller kingdom and the Western kingdom, but between the Originals and the gods. As creations of the gods, we are despised by the Originals. In their eyes, we are lower than the lowest animals. They would think no more of slaughtering us than you think of slaughtering a goat. So then, why are they after you in particular?”
Trysten took a deep breath. “I killed their leader, their Dragoneer.”
The Prince shook his head. “If the Originals see us as animals, they see dragons in an equal light. They would not think twice of killing them, as you saw. But that is not why they want you.”
Trysten shifted her stance. She glanced at the back of the tent, then the side. She should get to Galelin.
Prince Aymon leaned forward. “The Originals are coming for you, Trysten of Aerona. They sent a horde of guards to find you. Once they did, the Originals had themselves reborn from the corpses of the fallen hordesmen and their dragons. Except for the one unfortunate enough to lose his talisman. They have found you, and they are coming for you, and you will not be safe here in Aerona.”
Trysten refrained from asking why they were after her. That much was plain. But why would they need a Dragon Lord?
Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t think of a way to phrase the question into something that didn’t incriminate her, so she asked, “What do they want from me?”
A slow smile spread over the Prince’s face. “Why, they want a Dragon Lord.”
Trysten lifted her chin slightly. Her hands curled into fists.
“Ooh,” Prince Aymon cooed as he furrowed his brow. “The look of a struck nerve.”
“Why would they need a Dragon Lord?”
Prince Aymon leaned back in his chair. “That’s a good question. You are a cousin to them, I suppose. You have apparently heard the story of Adalina.”
Trysten nodded.
The Prince continued anyway. “An Original took the form of a man, seduced a human woman, and from their mating, came a race of Dragon Lords. So, you, in particular, represent a special affront to them. Your ancestors were inferior stock, and yet you are a Dragon Lord, maybe even one with powers never seen until now.”
Trysten narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to rebut the Prince’s insult, but before she could, he went on.
“Oh, don’t be offended. At least the Originals do not think you an animal. Or perhaps, since some of their blood runs through your veins, your blow was needed to induce the dragon tooth talismans to work.”
“Induce the talismans to work? That sounds like magic. You told Galelin that there is no such thing as magic.”
“And I stand by that. You can spark a fire with steel and flint. To people ignorant of fire, it would appear that you possess magical talismans capable of creating flame. Might not the dragon tooth pendant be the same?” Aymon shrugged as if asking an innocent question.
Trysten shifted her weight again as she considered his argument. He was full of conjecture but not a lot of facts.
“Do sit down,” Prince Aymon said as he waved a hand at the empty chair. “Whatever their reasoning may be, I know this was no accident. They came looking for something, and they stopped searching once they found you—the female Dragoneer who possesses some of the most unique abilities of any person within a hundred generations. They are coming for you, Trysten. Your village and all of the people and dragons in it are in danger as long as they stand between you and the Originals.”
The air became difficult to manage. Trysten lifted her head slightly. She resisted the urge to turn and run from the tent as she recalled snatches of her dream of half-man, half-dragon monsters coming for her.
But, if the Originals were coming for her, why weren’t they here already? It had taken the burial teams only one day to walk from the burial grounds back to Aerona, and that was laden with the village’s dead. Surely, if Originals had emerged from that grave, it wouldn’t take them long to find their way to Aerona, no matter how they moved across the ground or through the sky.
“What is it you suggest we do, then?” Trysten asked.
“I want you to come back to the mother city with me. My horde will remain and guarantee the protection of Aerona. I will leave orders that when the reinforcements arrive, both hordes will remain stationed here for the duration of the fighting season while my personal horde returns to its weyr. Aerona will be protected if you leave. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee the safety of this village if the attention of my horde is divided between the Western kingdom and the Originals.”
Trysten placed her hands into the small of her back as she regarded the top of the table. Leave Aerona? She wouldn’t. She had sworn herself to the protection of the village. It was the primary duty of the Dragoneer. Was this merely a way for Prince Aymon to remove her from the weyr?
“I need to think about all of this,” she said. She was buying time. She had no intention of leaving Aerona, and he knew it.
“Will there be anything else?” Trysten asked.
“Have you ever wondered how it was that Adalina was defeated?”
Trysten blinked, slightly startled. She had not expected the question. “She was surrounded by envious kings afraid of her power.”
“But how did they do it? She was the most powerful ruler our lan
d has ever known. She commanded hordes of dragons, and as a Dragon Lord, there were none who could stand in her way. How can someone so powerful and mighty be brought down by mere mortals?”
“I understand she was attacked relentlessly from all sides. She may have been a Dragon Lord, but she was only one.”
Prince Aymon grinned. “Sound strategy. And it is the strategy claimed by the victors. But what if I tell you that she was undermined by an Original?”
“Don’t waste my time with speculation, Aymon. If you know something, then tell me. I’m not interested in your guesswork.” Trysten folded her arms across her chest, her impatience obvious.
“I’ve researched her defeat. I’ve studied old records that have survived, mundane things that accidentally got preserved, such as shipping bills, journals, letters, scrolls. What I can tell you is this: the kingdom of Adalina knew peace and prosperity like no other. According to the records that survive—not the stories, because those were changed or suppressed by the victors—but the records suggest that Adalina presided over a kingdom that was as close to bliss as one could possibly get.”
“And the other kings were envious. Yes, I said I’ve heard this.” Trysten rolled her eyes.
“Be patient, Trysten. Not just the kings, but also the Originals. Remember, their goal is to rebuild the heavens so they can rule. They are not interested in a paradise in which humans and dragons prosper in peace and wealth. They are interested in undoing all that the gods have done to undermine them. They wanted revenge, and the kingdom of Adalina stood in the way. Only with the help of the remaining Originals would the kings of envy have been able to bring down Adalina’s kingdom. Then, the Originals cast the lands into a fractured collection of kingdoms forever destined to war amongst themselves as we do with the West.”
“How do you know that?” Trysten asked.
Prince Aymon lifted his eyebrows. “I just said, I studied—”
The Dragoneer Trilogy Page 44