by Aaron Pogue
"To where?"
"The Tower," he said, smiling. "Did I not promise? I believe Daven's best hope of recovery lies within his stronghold, with...you or Isabelle nearby."
I threw a nervous glance toward the garden's heart. I swallowed hard. "What will I say to him?"
My uncle smiled and clapped his hand on my arm. "Speak your heart and speak your mind. You are both good men. Good will come of this."
Then he nodded past me, encouraging, and I turned to follow the lady into her bower. Laelia waited in the darker shade beneath the trees. Her frame seemed smaller now, the night colder. She watched me carefully as I approached, but she would not meet my eyes. She panted, short and sharp, and her teeth gleamed in tiny pinpoints.
She was afraid to take me to him. Despite what she had done, I felt a pang of pity. "Has my father become so terrible as that?"
"No. He is good and kind, but he cannot control the fires in his heart."
"He did for Mother."
The elf looked at me, then quickly looked away. "There was a time when he could find control for Isabelle. Now...he doesn't have the strength within."
I sighed. "You know I cannot trust your word. You've already told me I should leave."
"And many hearts will wish you had, your own among them. But I can see enough to know that I will not sway you. This destiny was written when you took up your father's sword."
"Then why are you afraid?"
She met my eyes. "Your mother's is not the only heart that hurts for him."
I clamped my teeth against a flash of anger. "My mother never made him her prisoner."
She hung her head, but she did not yet turn away. "I cannot compel your heart, but I would offer you one warning. Whatever comes, you must not let him see his bride in peril from the king."
"Oh? Then you will let my father leave?"
"Who am I? I'm just a flower by the way." Head bowed, she turned and led me deeper into darkness. "But do not let him see her suffer. He will not come back from that madness. It would be kinder far to kill him by your hand."
The words seemed to hang in the air; they clung to me like spiderwebs as I followed down the path. Time within that place was strange. I might have covered ten paces, but it felt like long, dark miles. A strange uncertainty and sapping fear rattled in my breast. My steps went slower and slower while the lady's dark portents echoed in my head. Was she manipulating my mind again, planting doubts? Or was my own heart so weak?
No matter the answer, my solution was the same. I gripped the sword my father had made me, taking comfort from its weight, and broke into a run. Laelia turned my way, eyes opened wide in shock, but I only had a moment to see them. I sprinted past her, pounding down the path, and no more than ten paces brought me from the trees into a wide, well-tended park. The grass was lush and low and green, running right up to a gentle beach along the curving lake.
And he was there, alone.
The Dragonprince stood at the water's edge, where little waves lapped at his bare feet. His back was to me, his loose hair playing on the wind. His clothes were simple cotton, lightly worn, and he was smaller than I'd expected. He looked fragile and forgotten, trapped and tired.
All those impressions registered in the instant I first saw him. One heartbeat later my momentum carried me off the path and onto the soft grass, and the figure on the sand reacted. He could not have heard me, could not have seen my motion, but from a perfect stillness, he spun.
The night congealed around him as he moved, solid shadows swirling like a cloak. An uneven ember glow flashed and danced within the darkness and reflected in his eyes. He wore no weapons on his belt, but as he turned the sand beneath his feet swirled up into a cloud and then collapsed into a blade in his right hand.
Fire blossomed in his left, licking hungrily at the air. It writhed like a living serpent and uncoiled into a javelin of flame. He snarled like a rabid dog and flung the spear. It burned the air with a forgefire roar as it arched toward my heart. I hadn't time to think, but Caleb's training saved my life. I turned my body, set my feet, and raised my sword to block the thrust.
Elemental fire hot enough to sear a stone struck the strange, blond blade, and to my surprise the fire split against the flawless edge. Two tongues of fire curled away to either side, dissolving in the cool air. The spear of flame had stretched out paces long as it flew, but when it fell against my sword the fire died.
My eyes sought out my adversary's—more of Caleb's training—to track what he intended. I found a face so like my own, only carved with harder planes and sharper edges. But in his eyes I saw a raging conflagration. I saw the death of worlds. He raised the empty hand again, and in his eyes I saw my obliteration.
Then the lady stood between us. She was thin and sickly to my eyes, frail and wavering, but she threw herself into his line of sight, and he recoiled. His feet kicked up lake water. He threw the sword away, and it melted as it left his hand. It was just a spray of sand as it pelted the rippling waters.
My father stretched his hand toward the elf, his dark eyes pleading, and his cloaking shadows broke apart to drift off with the breeze.
Eyes bright with tears, he stared at Laelia. "Forgive me, Isabelle. I didn't see you there."
I gaped.
She stepped closer, shoulders heaving, and her voice almost broke. "I forgive you, Daven. I forgive you."
Relief twitched across his face, replaced again by dark suspicion. He nodded past the lady's shoulder. "Who is this?"
The lady answered quickly, "He is a guest who hoped to speak with you."
I stepped closer, fighting down my fear to speak with all the kindness I could muster. "I am your son."
The lady frowned at me. My father only narrowed his eyes for a moment, otherwise impassive, then shook his head. "I can't guess what you're playing at, but I have no son."
I gasped. The lady whispered fiercely, "Taryn!" but I was in no mood to hear her.
"You are my father, and Isabelle Eliade my mother."
He threw his head back and laughed. It was not a wholesome sound. As he came up out of the water, he moved with an animal's predatory prowl, eyes fixed on mine.
"Is this some joke of Lareth's? If so, it's poorly done. Wind and rain, you're grown. You couldn't be my child."
"Lareth's dead." The words came automatically, and they sounded just as numb as I felt inside. "He's ten years dead. You buried him before you left the Tower."
He frowned at me. Then he looked to Laelia for some explanation.
But that was all the answer I needed. Laelia. I turned to her. "This is how you keep him here? How much of his life have you stolen?"
He growled something behind me, but my attention was all on her. She met my gaze with defiance. "I had to isolate an anchor of stability."
My father came closer. "Who is this, Isabelle? What have I missed?"
She caught my shoulder and turned me to face him. "This is an honored guest. I hoped you could explain to him—"
I slapped her hand away. "I would not take part in your lies!"
But the words were barely spoken before I felt the cold, sharp tip of a blade just beneath my chin. I only moved my eyes, glancing down the glassy black length of a newly summoned sword in Father's hand.
Perhaps the sword he'd given me could cut through this as easily as it had his fire. I couldn't guess, and I would not have time to learn. He would have me spitted if my shoulder even twitched. I saw it in his eyes.
His nostrils flared. "Stranger, consider how harshly you would treat my bride."
I stood on tiptoe, and still the sword's point pressed painfully beneath my jawbone. I could barely speak, but I hissed desperately, "She is not your bride."
"Taryn," the lady began, a note of warning in her voice.
I shook my head as much as I dared, still holding my father's gaze. "She is an elf with power over your mind."
He laughed, dark and bitter. "I know my mind. Like no one you have ever met. And I know everyone who trespasses in i
t."
Behind me, the lady shuddered. That only made me angrier. "She hides you from what you've become. She says you asked it of her. She is not Isabelle."
He didn't answer me. For a long moment he just stared at me. He took a calming breath and then another, and then he seemed to stare through me. He turned that penetrating gaze to Laelia, and once more she shuddered. The blade beneath my throat withdrew enough that I could breathe again, and I gulped gratefully at the cool night air.
Father stared at the elf. "Who are you?"
"You know me, my prince," she protested weakly, but I silenced her with a vicious glare.
"Show him who you are."
"She doesn't have to," Father said, embers crackling in his voice. "I can see her."
She frowned at me, closed her eyes, and spoke as in a dream. "Daven Dragonprince, remember who you were when you were still strong enough to stand alone. When you came to this place in peace. Remember Isabelle beside you and forget this child."
My father's eyes fixed on something far away, and he fell into a trance much as Themmichus had done. The sword fell from his hand, whispering to dust long before it touched the ground.
His hand began to fall to his side again, and I almost caught it. I almost broke the spell she'd draped across his mind, but I remembered my uncle's warning. We didn't want to reveal that power until we were ready, and I had questions still for Laelia.
"You brought me here," I said. "Why would you not let me speak to my father?"
"Openly reveal the truth? No. The world would burn."
"So you...you keep him like this? All the time?"
"Not always like this," she said. "I like to leave him free to touch the sand and sky, but you were indiscreet."
"I wanted to see him! To speak with him! What did you expect?"
"Have you never learned to hide your face? To speak as what you're not? Oh, you are indeed your father's son."
"You don't know my father!" I shouted.
She smiled. "I do. Seven years we've shared a life. Seven years I've helped him live within a dream that keeps him sane."
"It isn't him! You've done more than trap him here. You've stolen years out of his mind!"
"Daven remembers almost everythin—"
"He does not remember me!" I hadn't meant to scream, but the words echoed off the wall of trees and skittered out across the inky waves.
"Would it please you if he did?"
"If my father knew my name?"
The lady showed her teeth. "If he remembered you and yet remained here with me?"
I swallowed hard. "Isn't...isn't that what has happened? For seven years?"
"Oh. Poor child. You believed he'd chosen me over you?"
"No. I've seen your power. You tricked him. But still...."
"In all my power I could not fashion a memory of you that he would leave behind. He always chose to go back home. I tried a thousand times."
"You had to stop him?"
She nodded.
"So when...when does he believe this is?"
"He remembers his fight with the Elder Legend. He remembers swearing fealty to the king. Your father remembers one bright year of glorious battle, as he built his stronghold and trained his first dragonriders. And loved his wife. He brought her here, one year after they were wed, because she'd never seen the gardens."
I said, "Oh. That's why...."
She nodded. "For seven years we've shared that afternoon."
"But he has not seen through your lies? He did just now—"
"Only by your provocation, and it was easily enough restored. I've seen a thousand summers die, and I have never met a man who could see outside my dreams."
"None but me." The words tasted bitter on my tongue. "Now let him go."
"I cannot. Not just like that. You do not comprehend how vast his power, how deep his madness runs."
"My uncle thinks he will restrain it for my sake."
"The Elsewhere Wizard will not let himself conceive how deep the darkness runs."
I idly tapped the eldritch blade against the heel of my boot while I considered this. "Is it so bad as that?"
"If the Dragonprince saw the truth of everything at once, he would go mad. He might sink half this continent beneath the seas before he paused for breath."
"Haven's name! But what has become of his bonded dragons? Are they not a threat? Or do you touch their minds as well?"
She frowned. "They are gone. The Wildfire dead across the Northlands, and the Night Wind long since settled to his slumber."
"The Wildfire? That must be the red. Old Pazyarev. Vechernyvetr can't be dead."
She frowned at me. "You have almost as much concern as Daven. It's strange how much he misses them, even as I block them from his memory. He misses the Wildfire like a swordsman might miss his fighting hand. He misses the Night Wind like a decent man might miss a boon companion."
"This isn't just a daydream you have made. You are hiding more than years from him. It can't be safe—"
"Safer than him knowing. Perhaps with care, in time, with Isabelle herself to hold his hand, he could be brought back to reason. But if the Dragonprince were known to be alive, your king would force the issue. The king would move in strength against the Dragonprince. No matter who survived, your father would be shattered by that clash."
Before I'd met the elf, I might not have credited that claim. But now I knew enough to consider what would come after the war. Who would take up the crown? Who would fight for it? How many men would have to die before we found new peace?
And was it worth that price to have my father back?
The question blazed in my heart, bright and brief, and then it faded. The answer didn't matter. It couldn't happen. My father had sworn fealty to the king rather than break the nation. If he killed the king now, even in his madness, I would not get my father back.
I would not have hated my father for taking a clean cut at the man who had so persecuted us, but Father would have hated himself. Without ever knowing him, I could guess that much from the stories. Even if he found his sanity once the king was dead, he would not forgive himself that violence. He would never more be the man my mother missed so much.
Kinder far to kill him by your hand, Laelia had said, and now I understood what she had meant. Kinder to spare him the long years of torture he'd endure. Kinder to spare Mother the painfully familiar face hiding a shattered spirit.
I could never make that strike. I knew it to my core. But I recognized the truth in what she'd said, the risk in my uncle's brazen plan. If I stole my father from her care and let his madness take control, the sin would be my own. I couldn't follow through on Themmichus's plan, not with the whole world in the balance.
But I couldn't leave him like this, either. I turned to Laelia again, and my voice rasped in my throat. "I would almost forgive you what you've done if you had not pretended to be my mother."
She held my gaze, but her lip trembled.
"You said there is a chance of saving him, with Mother at his side. Without the king's peril hanging over them. If I can find some way to bring her back—"
"I will not defy you. If you can answer for the king and bring your mother to this place, I...." Her voice caught and she looked away, but after a heavy heartbeat she said solemnly, "I will yield the Dragonprince to Isabelle and bid them both farewell."
"Only because you must? Only because you cannot touch my mind. Only because I bring a sword."
She did not try to deny it.
I nodded. "I despise what you have done. I condemn how you have done it. But I see reason in your fears as well." I waited until she met my eyes. Hers showed hope.
I said, "You and I are in accord. I will find a way to satisfy the king, and I will send Mother to retrieve my father."
She sighed and shook her head. "I cannot see a destiny that shape."
"It matters not. I'll bend the world, just like he did. I'll make it happen. I will send her to you. And you?"
"You have my word, son of dragon's blood. And my mother's word. And all my people's."
"And one thing more?"
Laelia raised one eyebrow but did not object.
I nodded to him. "I want a moment with him. You said you'd tried before. I want to stand before him as I am. Who I am. And I want him to know."
She frowned. "But this is no small favor."
"And no small sin I'm overlooking," I shot back. "You said that even if he slips your spell, you can catch him up again."
"Easily enough. You've seen it."
"Good. Then be prepared for that, but give me this one moment."
The elf ducked her head and turned to him. She smiled soft and sad, apologetic, and Father turned his head to face her, animate again. She spoke his name like a caress. "Daven. You are waking from a dream. The Chaos has a mighty grip upon your soul, but for your love of me, restrain it."
Muscles in his jaw stood out like sailors' knots, and sweat stood on his brows. Noisy as a straining plowhorse, he sucked down calming breaths and forced them out. She watched him, holding his gaze, and after some short time, she nodded over to me.
His eyes went wide. I was no stranger now. I had no need to explain. She had given back enough of memory that he could make the leap. Perhaps he even recognized the boy he'd left ten years ago. Recognition flared behind his eyes, and with it pain and regret and fear. He took a step away, eyes brimming with tears, and then he gave a ragged sigh and raised a hand.
"Taryn."
He made it an apology, an explanation, and a statement. The word came wrapped in love, regret, and pride. It spread out over me like a shroud spun out of sunlight. It settled in my breast like a warming stone. In one moment, I had everything I'd asked of her from him.
I smiled through my tears. "I'm here, Father. And I will help you."
He glanced down at the bare blade in my hand and grimaced. "I threw fire at you."
I gestured to the sword with my empty hand. "And you saved me from it."
He raised his eyes to Laelia then, and perhaps she still wore a mask of Mother's face. But in his full power, in his right mind, my father saw the elf as she was. I knew by the flash of flame and shadow in his eyes. But it lasted just an instant before he turned back to me.