by T R Kerby
Lyov raised his goblet in salute. "Then we will retrieve them. I will have my vengeance. You will have your offspring. When your people arrive from the river, we board our ships and sail south. You guide us to her hiding place and we will take control."
Lyov was not Tegedir's King and he refused to act as if he was. Relinquishing command to him would not happen. Not ever. "To regain my children alive, we must follow through with the deception. She must not see you until I have my twins. When they are safe, you can do what you will with Murdoc."
"The dragon egg does not exist. How do you plan to convince her you have it?"
"That is my concern. Put your men in position at either end of the pass. There are no other exits. When the exchange is made, she will attempt to leave and you can collect her at your leisure."
"He speaks the truth," Caeth said. "Her choice of location was a tactical error in judgment. She cannot escape except through either the east or west end of the pass. Both are narrow and easily held."
The king steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips. "Very well. We will do as you suggest."
Leading a military force this close to Aernan caused the salmon he'd eaten to attempt to swim upstream, but he saw no other option. The rugged country gave them a three day buffer between the pass and home, but it was still three days too close.
"Caeth, see to it the Dragonlord talks to his men."
"And my woman," Tegedir said.
Lyov laughed. "And the woman, of course. I have plans to make." He flicked his fingers and dismissed them.
Tegedir walked beside Caeth along the corridors. Acrid torch smoke hovered against the stained black ceilings. Several guards flanked them, their boots clicking on the smooth floors. "How did your people come to occupy this fortress?" Tegedir asked.
"Discovered it abandoned fifty generations past in exactly the condition it is now. We kept most of their artifacts in place. The library is extensive. I read everything that was translated into our language, although most of it was not. I suppose you can read it though. Maybe someday I'll let you."
Tegedir noted the subtle exertion of Caeth's power. The princeling was in a position to enjoy that privilege. For now.
The one thing Tegedir wanted, aside from his children, was to understand where he came from. The library Caeth spoke of could be the key to opening a long locked door. The desire had always been there, sleeping, waiting. He'd pushed it aside and accepted the simpler explanation - that his adoptive parents were his real ones - because it was the easy course. It didn't require him to leave his home and the life he'd built. The moment he read Dragonlord on Murdoc's note, the desire sprang awake. He must pursue his heritage. Not only for himself, but for the twin's who now shared it.
He spoke with Randir, Trinn, and Aric. They were in good health, fed, and clean. He explained the plan and encouraged patience. Patience he struggled to instill in himself.
When his own door opened for him, he went inside without argument. Three books lay on the bed.
"A gesture of good will," Caeth said. The guards closed the door and barred him in.
Tegedir lifted the top book and opened it to the middle. A translation in the common tongue. Caeth would have read it and known it contained nothing that might give Tegedir an advantage.
The book contained a basic history of the Drakur from the time before the First War until their self-imposed exile after the first banishment of Lord Cardew. Things he already learned from the texts at Aernan. Nothing about what it really meant to be Drakuri. He laid the book aside and opened another.
This one contained smithing techniques for iron tools. Great. If he had access to a forge, he could fashion a weapon besides his wit.
The third caused him to sit heavily on the bed. Genealogies. Blood lines extending thousands of years into the past. Far more complete than the ones in the book Murdoc had given them. His gaze swept the fragile pages, searching for anything familiar. Seeking his own name.
Why would it be there? It wouldn't. They'd given him away to adoptive parents as an infant. Probably no one knew he existed, and if they did, they wouldn't have recorded it. But he couldn't stop scanning the trees of names.
Three pages remained when he saw it.
Inscribed in a crisp script: Tegedir. Then drawn through with a line and the word stillborn.
The room closed in and the air thinned. Blood thrummed through his veins and pounded in his ears. Stillborn. Since he sat here and breathed, or tried to, he was obviously not dead. He was hidden. But why?
His finger traced the lines leading to his parents. He reread the names five times. Retraced the line to be sure. That could not be right. His father was Firellon? Lord of House Drakur? The Firellon? The one who banished Lord Cardew and freed the world from the viral evil he'd created?
Like father, like son. Tegedir raised the remains of his arm. What did Firellon lose when he banished Cardew the first time? What had he sacrificed?
Tegedir let the book sink onto his legs. Maybe there was another Firellon. A merchant or warrior, a smith maybe. He reopened the book and read his mother's name: Ilmadia.
Sweet Alimarae. It was true. Firellon's mate. The Koravelli warrior, Ilmadia. His mother.
His gaze flew down the page to his name, followed it across. Next to it was written another. Kaeda.
His twin sister.
Chapter 27
Lalaith pulled her cloak closer and huddled next to the fire. The flames did nothing to ward off the chill. It wasn't the cold air sending shivers through her body. Her mate crossed an unknown land to delve under a live volcano. She knew nothing of the inhabitants but trusted Cirrus when he called them dangerous. And what if there was a dragon?
The Vine will surely die.
She hugged herself and rubbed at the pimpled flesh of her upper arms.
"They'll come back," Erien said. She hobbled to the fire and offered a mug. "Here. This will help."
Lalaith cradled the cup of hot tea. Warmth seeped into her fingers and she inhaled the steaming tendrils rising from its surface. "It's been over a week."
"It's a long way. And the conditions are not easy." Erien lowered herself onto a log. "There's fish on the spit at the other fire."
"I'm not hungry."
"When were you last outside Aernan?"
Lalaith stared into the flames and tried to remember, really remember, when she'd last left her home. The memory was too remote and too insignificant to be recalled. "Sometime after the First War. Soon after. I hid from the pain of losing everyone I loved."
"Is it difficult, being in the world after so much has changed?"
Lalaith turned her gaze to the river. Sunlight and mist played across its surface. "It is still beautiful. That hasn't changed. Tegedir routed me around Rysha Cove intentionally. He meant to protect me from the shock, and I let him."
Erien stretched her leg with a grimace. "Wise decision. Rysha Cove is a nasty place. Many settlements are. Overcrowded. Filthy. Filled with desperate souls and those with no love for life. There must be cities that are vibrant and healthy, I just haven't seen one yet."
"I fear for the future of my children."
"They will build their own future. They were sent to change it, remember?" Erien smiled.
"What will it cost them? Everything around them will die. Everything they love will end. They have only each other."
"That's enough. I know the Prophecy. We all do. You taught us yourself it is filled with hope, and I chose to believe that."
The first stanza of the prophecy crashed through Lalaith's mind.
Darkness shall swallow the Light,
From the depths shall come creeping Night.
In the trail of its greed and lust,
Shall be left smoke, ash, and dust.
Darkness shall seize the Light
And bend it to its will.
But break, it will not,
For strength lies in it still.
Lalaith grappled with her own interpreta
tion of the words. What if the hope she saw was an illusion? The desperate faith of a frightened mother. "What if I'm wrong?"
Erien drew a stick from the fire and studied the ember glowing at its tip. "Then the world is in trouble." She blew on the brand until it flared into flame.
Lalaith followed the riverbank until it became more sea than river. Waves rolled one after another into the river's mouth, building and swelling, relentless in their power. Like the events in her life. One after another in an unstoppable cycle. Enormous and cataclysmic. Now the tsunami of her stolen children burst over her. Hot tears cascaded down her cheeks and she let them flow unchecked.
The Vine will surely die.
The insistent line added to the flow of tears. At some point, on one of those waves of life, she would lose her mate. If only she'd never read that line. Not knowing of his inevitable death would have made living easier. Worry was always part of the life they led, but this was different. This was a reassurance that her fear was valid. Tegedir would die. Someday.
But he's not dead today. She wiped the tears away and believed it was true. He was out there. Searching for a ransom to regain their children. Their two perfect, beautiful babies.
Brannon was much like his father. The same black hair and intense mind. The same sense of humor and wit. Neva took after her mother. Quiet. Studious. Brown eyes that reflected the rich earth.
Why was their son foretold while their daughter was not? She'd mulled that many times. Would their clever girl perish because of this woman? She thrust away the thought before it ruined her.
An unexpected and adored extra gift. That's what Tegedir called her.
Perhaps her daughter's life would be safer, more normal than the brother who carried the fate of the world on his shoulders. She couldn't envision either twin beyond their current age. In her mind, they'd be six for eternity. Forever her precious ones.
She whispered the second half of the prophecy to the ocean like a prayer. The ancient Zinotti language, with its quirks and twists, rolled off her tongue like music.
From the Laughter of a Leader
Will come an endless son.
A Warrior forged of
Healer's magic and iron will,
Dragon's fire and tempered steel,
Immortal blood, the Creator's skill.
The Fruit will ripen early
And the Vine will surely die.
Laughter will fade
Beneath a darkened sky.
The Gift will guide them
Through sun and gale.
The strength lies in his hands.
Light will prevail.
She repeated the last stanza twice. It tugged at her mind and demanded she pay it more attention. It referred to Brannon as the Gift, said the strength lies in his hands.
The strength lies in his hands.
Camin garo i bellas.
The line nagged her. Camin. His hands. His? Her chest tightened and she sank to her knees in the wet sand of the river bank. Why didn't she notice it before? It was clear now. She'd focused so thoroughly on the lines regarding their endless son that she'd failed to open her mind enough to recognize the appended pronoun. A simple change of context altered everything. The pronoun could be either his or her. Alimarae forgive my short sightedness.
Camin. Her hands.
The Gift will guide them
Through sun and gale.
The strength lies in her hands.
Light will prevail.
Both her children. Together. A united force against the Dark to come.
Chapter 28
Thera stopped short in the main cavern. The full bucket bumped against her leg and water sloshed cold over her calf.
Murdoc knelt behind her man and treated the whip wounds on his back. She applied cream to the lash marks with a tenderness that held Thera spellbound. The same gentleness appeared when treating Zila. A healer lived at Murdoc's core. A healer stifled and beaten until she hid behind a mask of callousness.
Thera put the bucket down and walked by as if she hadn't noticed. She sank to the floor next to Neva and crossed her legs under her. "Draw with me," she said to the girl.
Neva picked up a sharpened stick and smoothed a spot in the dirt. "What do you want me to draw?"
"Anything you want. Surprise me."
The guard left and Murdoc wiped her hands on a rag. She didn't say anything as Thera and Neva scratched images into the dirt.
Neva drew a flower with wide petals and a thin stalk. "It's a sunflower."
"And how do you write sunflower?"
Neva bit her lower lip and scratched the first few letters. "S-U-N..."
Thera sounded the next bit. "Flooow..."
"F-L. O?"
"Yes."
"W-E-R." Neva wrote the last half and swiped her palm across her forehead. "Whew! That was a long one."
"It was." Thera finished her sketch of a horse by adding a flowing mane and tail. "What's this?"
Neva grinned. "A moose!"
Thera laughed. "He does have a big nose, doesn't he?"
The girl spelled horse in stick letters.
"Good!" Thera wiped away both pictures, the dirt rough under her fingers.
"Who taught you that?" Murdoc asked.
"Taught me what?" Thera rubbed the dust off on her knee.
"To make the letters."
"Oh. My mother when I was very small. Everyone has something to teach the children and so everyone does."
"Where I come from, women are forbidden to read."
Thera couldn't imagine being forbidden access to the knowledge and excitement held in the pages of a book. "That's ridiculous."
"There was a library larger than any I've ever seen. All that information, and I couldn't have any of it." She moved closer to the new drawings Thera and Neva were making.
"Why didn't they let you read?" Thera asked.
"Fear, I suppose. I understand now. Books contain magic, incredible power that could be used against them. They have to control it to control us."
"How did you know what was in the book you shared with Lalaith? And how did you write the note you left in the barn?"
"Caeth read me the book, and wrote the note."
"I can teach you. If you want." Thera offered the stick.
Murdoc shrank away as if it might singe her fingers. "At what price? I won't teach you to fight."
"No price. I'll do it because I want to."
Murdoc appraised her as if the concept was so foreign it was beyond her ability to understand.
"It's not a ploy," Thera said. "You can learn with the children. No one has to know."
Murdoc took the stick and held it like a sacred relic. When she lifted her eyes, Thera detected the hint of shine on her lashes.
Thera smiled. "We start today."
In no time, she wrote and read simple words, played word games with Neva, and spelled various objects as she went through the day. They shared a platter of sliced cheese and dried meat. She spelled them all and grinned, her eyes glimmering with excitement. "I want to read a real book."
"On what topic?" Thera asked.
"Any topic. I want to know everything."
"Do you have any more books hidden away in your trunk?" Thera took a bite of cheese.
Suspicion dropped across Murdoc's features.
"Oh for goodness sake." Thera rolled her eyes. "Not everyone has a hidden agenda. It would get you reading faster than if I ask our scouts to bring one in the next supply drop. That could take weeks."
"I have one." She ripped a strip of meat in half.
"Good. Go get it and let's read it."
Murdoc returned a moment later and passed the book to Thera. Worn red leather bound the parchment pages and the ink of the title had faded away.
Thera opened to the first page. Dragon Awakened. The flowing Zinotti script was an ancient form that was difficult to understand.
"What's wrong?" Murdoc asked.
"This is in ancient Zinotti. Y
ou should finish learning Common before you start a second language."
Murdoc's face fell. "Oh. Maybe you could read it to me?"
Thera scanned the pages. The words maturity, changes, power leapt at her. An entire section appeared to discuss training twins in some archaic magic. To be certain, this was no fairy tale about a dragon. Sharing this information would be both dangerous and treasonous. She couldn't give Murdoc additional leverage over Tegedir.
Hiding what the book contained involved lying, and feeding the monster who lurked in the deepest part of Murdoc's mind. No doubt Murdoc would spot her deceit instantly, and hate her for it. She'd wall Thera out in a heartbeat and never let her in again.
Guilt closed Thera's throat and she struggled to swallow. Telling the truth might unleash a fit of rage with unknown consequences. Yet she couldn't bring herself to lie. Truth, no matter how difficult, was better than a lie.
She closed the book.
Murdoc studied her.
"I can't read you this," Thera said.
"Why not? You understand the letters."
"I do." Thera took a deep breath. "But until this situation with the children is resolved, I can't share the contents of this book with you."
Murdoc's eyebrows drew together. "You baited me? Got me excited to learn. Said you'd do it because you wanted to." She jumped to her feet. "You lied. There's always a price. I should have known."
She grabbed for the book and Thera snatched it beyond her reach. "Listen to me. Hear me out."
Murdoc's jaw clenched and a tear escaped before she could stop it. She swept it away as if it had no right to be there.
"It's a matter of honor," Thera said. "Revealing what is in this book would be treason. The worst kind of betrayal of Tegedir and his family. It's information not even I should know. I tell you this because I want to be honest with you. Because I trust you to not use it against me."
The fight left Murdoc and her shoulders sagged.
"You can trust me." Thera offered the book to her. "Can I trust you?"