Truth of Embers

by Caitlyn McFarland

  It passed as quickly as it came. The girl who could pretend that she was part of this war—the girl who hadn’t wanted to be part of it—had died in Cadarnle. For the good of dragons and humans alike, Owain could not be allowed to be king.

  In part, it was her responsibility to see that he never could.

  Tentatively, she rubbed Rhys’s back. “As long as we’re still standing when it’s over, I don’t care how we beat him.”

  He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “We’d better tell Ashem. If Juli hadn’t been discovered, I’d ask her to try to steal the necklace back. I suppose the best we can do now is hope Owain doesn’t find out what he has.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Dragons Lack Common Sense

  “Poor scalebrained fools.” Deryn followed the Unsworn through the sky with her eyes, shading them from the sun with one hand. Down the white beach, waves crashed. Seabirds screeched and wheeled overhead, as if mocking the dragons above.

  Rhys shot her a look. “You aren’t even the least bit tempted to become Unsworn for Evan?”

  Deryn snorted. “Ancients, no. And it’s not just because you had to go and get sundered and now I have to heartswear.” She heaved a sigh. Thank you for that, brother dear. Of course, it wasn’t like she could’ve become Unsworn for Evan before. All other dragons had that right, but not a dragon with royal blood. Mantle blood.

  Besides, she liked Evan—loved him, even—but deep as her affection went, she’d always known what she was destined to do. That made it easier. Sometimes.

  Rhys dropped his gaze from the Unsworn drilling overhead. The four mismatched vees of dragons were never quite as in sync as the others. They didn’t have a lifetime of training together. Yet, because they’d chosen not to heartswear, they were thrown into the most dangerous situations. Considered expendable.

  Deryn squinted at them again. No matter how Rhys tried to spread out the deadliest assignments, the Council always managed to send the Unsworn in first. Chances were, only one in ten of those dragons would survive the coming battle.

  If Owain ever decided to show up.

  “Anyway.” Deryn decided not to look at the Unsworn again. “The halls in Eryri aren’t overcrowded, but they’re getting close, and dragons are getting snappish. They don’t understand why we’ve made them move to the mountain. You’ve done a decent job of keeping everything more or less secret so far, but the people aren’t used to you issuing arbitrary commands, and they don’t like it.”

  “They’d like it less if they ran into the traps,” Rhys muttered, sounding sullen.

  Deryn elbowed him. “Well, it’s not like the traps will kill them.” They wouldn’t, either. She was particularly proud of her idea to use Naga venom—a poison that caused sleep rather than death—to booby-trap the islands around Eryri. “The lie about renovating the living quarters on the northern islands is working for the moment, but it won’t for long.”

  She glanced at the sky and caught sight of the Unsworn again. Depressing. If Rhys wanted to sit out here on the beach and watch them prepare for death, that was fine. She’d had enough of it. “I’m going to find Evan.”

  They said goodbye, and Deryn clapped him on the back and walked down the beach. The Unsworn practiced at the farthest end of the island, while normal vees filled the skies closer to the mountain. She spoke briefly with the few dragons she passed on the ground, gleefully telling them to see Rhys if they had a problem. Now that he was home, she planned to thoroughly unburden herself.

  Except when he needed her, of course.

  Deryn could have changed and flown directly to her rooms. Instead, she decided to check on the state of the dragons in the lower levels of Eryri. Usually, the mountain was close to empty. Now, however, they’d forced most of the dragons to temporarily move into the mountain. The cover story was that Rhys was having Earth Elementals renovate most of the caves on the outer islands. The truth was that the Invisible, a precious few trusted members of the Council and Rhys’s vee had been preparing them for invasion.

  It irritated Deryn to no end that the preparation had to be a secret, but they still hadn’t found the mole Jiang left in Eryri. Owain could not know they were luring him here on purpose. He needed to think that attacking was his idea—he’d never fly into something he knew was a trap.

  Finding everything more or less peaceful among the displaced dragons, Deryn climbed the road that spiraled up the hollow inside of the mountain, dodging crowds in a way she’d only ever done during festivals. There were so many voices, she couldn’t hear the waterfalls that trickled down around the edges of the shaft. Even the sunlight, bounced by mirrors every which way to provide natural lighting, seemed dimmer.

  Ancients grant Owain took the bait soon so everyone could go home.

  She took a shortcut, crossing one of the thin bridges that spanned the open center of the cavern instead of going all the way around, where the road wound past shops and various entertainments. She passed the guards at the topmost level of the shaft, offering the Wonambi on guard her hand so that he could verify she wasn’t someone else casting an illusion to look like herself. Then she climbed a wide set of stairs into the top of the mountain.

  She skipped the level that held the offices of councilmembers and Ashem’s nest of information-gatherers, heading to another staircase that would take her to the summit where the royal family and its vee had their quarters.

  When she saw what waited for her there, she almost turned around.

  Gethin was arguing with the guards. “My father is Draig Councilman Powell. He has charged me with delivering this to the king as a sign of his friendship in these troubled times.”

  Deryn sighed. Most of the dragons had been dumping gifts on Rhys and Kai since their return two days ago. Not because they supported Rhys, necessarily, but because even the dragons who hated Rhys were horrified by what had happened to him.

  Rhys and Kai were sporting some grisly scars, figuratively speaking. Knowing they were sundered and trying to talk to them was like speaking to a dragon who’d had all four legs cut off. Some people—some idiots—found it grotesque. They couldn’t see past the fact that it made them uncomfortable. Which was stupid, since they weren’t the ones dealing with being sundered.

  Inconveniently for the Council, Rhys and Kai refused to retire quietly to a place where no one had to look at them.

  A scuffle broke out at the bottom of the stairs. Gethin had tried to sprint past the guards, and they’d caught him. The gift in his hands clattered to the floor and rolled to a stop by Deryn’s feet. She bent to pick it up.

  Mead.

  “Princess Aderyn!” Gethin called in his smarmy voice. “Please, tell these guards who I am.”

  Sunder it.

  “They know who you are, you flying salamander.” Deryn tilted the dark bottle and looked down. She licked her lips. The mead had been made by her favorite brewer. “This is for Rhys?”

  “And his mate.” Gethin jerked away from the guards and came toward her. “My father wanted them to know—”

  “That he stands with them. I heard.” Deryn huffed out a breath. She was tempted to keep the mead for herself—Rhys had never truly appreciated good mead—but Powell was such a pain in the ass. Rhys probably did need to receive the gesture, even if there was nothing behind it. “I’ll give it to him.”

  Gethin’s dark eyes widened. “You’ll deliver it yourself?”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you!”

  He started to shout more things after her, but Deryn breezed past the guards, barely pausing long enough for the illusion check, and climbed the stairs quickly so that she didn’t have to listen. She passed through the vee’s rotunda and went to Rhys’s door. He wasn’t there, but Kai should be. She’d stayed behind from checking on the traps and the Unsworn because t
onight she had a meeting with the Wingless.

  As Deryn had expected, Kai answered her knock.

  Deryn handed her the bottle. “You look nice.”

  Kai took the bottle and glanced down at her dress. The color, like red wine, looked good against her pale skin and dark hair. “Thanks. What’s this?”

  “A gift from Powell. I almost kept it, but make sure you tell Rhys it’s from him. That’s an excellent bottle of mead.”

  “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  “Thanks.” Deryn smiled at Kai. She wasn’t normally a smiler, but she felt bad for the Wingless. Kai had been through almost as much in four months as any of them had been through in a thousand years, and she hadn’t broken. She was a good match for Rhys. “He should be back in a bit.”

  Kai’s face softened. “Okay. Do you want to come in?”

  Deryn was not a romantic, but warmth enveloped her chest at the look on Kai’s face. Things had been rocky, but despite being sundered, she was still head over heels for Rhys, and him for her. As long as Rhys was happy, Deryn was, as well.

  Suddenly, she wanted to find Evan. He should be guarding the ledge outside her room. “No, I have to go. Enjoy the mead.”

  They said goodbye, and Deryn descended the staircase. She hoped, when she heartswore, she could find what Rhys and Kai had.

  * * *

  Kai put the mead Deryn had delivered on the shelf in the kitchen, glad for something to do. Of course, it didn’t take more than a second. Then she was back to waiting for whoever Athena was going to send to get her, moving restlessly through Rhys’s empty rooms.

  Finally, a knock sounded on the door. Henry Harrow stood outside. He pushed his floppy hair out of his face and grinned at her. “Evening, Majesty. You look magnificent.”

  One corner of Kai’s mouth ticked up. She’d put on the simplest of the dresses the dragons had made for her—something pleated and column-like in fabric the color of red wine, held up with a jeweled halter around her neck. She’d braided her hair and pulled it over one shoulder, forgoing the collection of jewelry she was acquiring as gifts poured in from dragons all over Eryri. Gifts that were apparently supposed to say something like, “Congrats! You’re alive!”

  “I’d rather have my dire wolf shirt,” Kai muttered, smoothing the dress with one hand. “Should we go?”

  Harrow shook his head, smiling crookedly. “I’m a little early.”

  “Oh. Come and have a drink or something, then.” Kai led the way to the kitchen. Her hand hovered over the mead for a moment, then she changed her mind. She grabbed some glass goblets from a cabinet and some fresh juice from the cooling shelves instead. She wasn’t used to the taste of mead. And besides, it was a gift from Powell to Rhys, so he should probably be the one to drink it.

  The juice was sweet, rich and thick. Definitely not like what she was used to back home. Still, it was obviously the real thing, and she liked it.

  She poured the bright yellow-orange liquid into the goblets then turned, startled to find Harrow standing close behind her. She smiled and handed him a drink, then stepped around him to the broad, granite slab that served as a kitchen island. “So. What can I expect at this meeting?”

  He set his glass next to hers, once again standing closer than strictly necessary. He grinned down at her, leaning his elbows on the counter and bending his head down like they were coconspirators. “Oh, you know. Complaining about spouses, reminiscing about home. Campaigning to be allowed to go to war. The usual things.”

  Kai sighed. Home. For her, “home” was mostly a complication that had followed her here. She’d spent most of the afternoon with her family. It was nice having them to visit, but she was pretty sure everyone involved was eager for them to return to Colorado.

  “Harrow!”

  Kai jumped. Beside her, so did Henry. She leaned back so she could see around him. “Rhys?”

  Henry stepped away, but slowly, a smile curving one side of his mouth. “Evening, Majesty.”

  Rhys looked a lot more suspicious than Kai thought the situation called for. “What are you doing here, Harrow?”

  Henry gestured to Kai. “I’m here to take Queen Kai down to a meeting with the Wingless.”

  Rhys frowned. “I thought Athena was going to take her.”

  “I volunteered.”

  Sighing, Kai led the way to the door, making sure to stop and press a kiss to Rhys’s cheek on the way out. “It’s just a meeting,” she murmured.

  He grabbed her and planted a possessive kiss on her mouth. Kai returned it, but pushed away after a few seconds. Keeping her voice light, she said, “You’re going to mess up my hair.”

  Rhys cast a mistrustful look at Harrow. “Would you like me to come with you?”

  Kai shook her head. “No dragons allowed. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  Rhys hesitated, then nodded, and Kai followed Harrow out the door.

  They walked down through the abnormally crowded mountain, stopping frequently so people could greet Kai. It threw her off, but she was learning—slowly—just to greet them back. Rarely, someone would come up to her with a problem, but she referred them to Rhys or the Council. She wasn’t sure what kind of authority she had over the dragons, if any.

  They descended until they came to the great, wide lake at the very bottom. As far as Kai knew, this was the largest cavern in Eryri. After she and Rhys had their pledging, every dragon on the islands had gathered here to celebrate.

  There were tunnel entrances all around the lake. Henry chose the southernmost tunnel, which led into a spacious cavern with lights on the ceiling and a gorgeous blue-and-white mosaic floor. An open space in the ceiling allowed dying sunlight to stream into the room. Right below the opening, a pool teemed with aquatic plants and the iridescent shapes of darting fish.

  Tables lined the sides of the room, filled with food. More circular tables had been set up around the little pool. There were about a hundred people present, Kai thought. A hundred Wingless.

  And they had all gone silent, watching her.

  “May I present her majesty, Kai Kiera Monahan, Queen of Dragons and Lady of the Haven Lagoon.” Henry swept Kai a grand bow, and everyone in the room followed suit to varying degrees. If she was going to estimate, Kai would have said the room held about three-quarters women, the rest men. Kai spotted Athena in one corner. The dark woman didn’t bow, but she did raise one eyebrow and give a nod.

  Henry took her arm, placing one hand over hers. “Don’t be overwhelmed. They’re just as afraid of you as you are of them.”

  “Afraid?”

  Henry tugged on her arm. “Let’s meet your people.”

  First, he introduced her to an old woman with skin the color and wrinkled texture of a walnut, her long, white-streaked hair caught back in braids and studded with jewels. The woman nodded graciously, but didn’t speak, leaving Henry to make the introductions.

  “Kai, this is Sarangerel. She is the eldest Wingless in residence at Eryri.”

  Kai inclined her head as she’d seen Rhys do. “Councilwoman Sarangerel. It’s good to see you again.”

  The woman looked to be sixty or seventy, but adjusting for dragon years, that meant she could be six or seven thousand years old. She regarded Kai with disconcertingly clear eyes.

  “Thank you for coming. It’s good to see you taking an interest in your people.”

  Kai tried to smile. “I hear I’ve been neglectful. I’m trying to fix it.”

  Sarangerel gave a low chuckle.

  Henry left to find food. Unsure of what to do, Kai sat in the chair next to Sarangerel.

  “So,” the Wingless asked, “I’m curious. Has being sundered changed your relationship with the king?”

  Kai blinked. “Uh. Yeah, a little. I mean, everything’s been so crazy these past few months.
Rhys and I were sort of just thrown together. When we were heartsworn, that worked. But now...”

  “You aren’t sure if you love him?” Sarangerel finished.

  Kai frowned. “Actually, no.” She had wondered that at first, but her fears had eased since she’d been in Eryri. She did love Rhys...but at the same time, she wondered if love was enough to make a relationship work. “But it’s still not the same.”

  Sarangerel made a noise of agreement, as if that made perfect sense. “It wouldn’t be, would it? You had a taste of the dragon way of doing things—which, in my opinion, is the easy way. Now you’ve got to go back to the mundane human way of making relationships last. Working at it. That doesn’t make your relationship less valid.”

  Kai gave her a humorless smile. She’d said pretty much the same thing to Ffion, once. Family and love don’t need magic to make them real. Or permanent. Or binding. “The dragons don’t see it that way.”

  Sarangerel’s eyes flashed. “Dragons lack common sense. Being mythical goes to their heads.”

  Kai laughed and looked around the room at the jewel-bright, fantasy-movie-worthy clothing of the Wingless and realized she was comfortable there.

  So much had changed.

  When Kai had first learned about the war, about Rhys, she’d kicked and screamed and resisted everything. But it wasn’t as if she’d known what she wanted to do with her life before dragons. She had never been like Juli, who had everything planned out thirty years in advance. She’d been drifting. Like she was waiting, unsure what she wanted.

  Now she knew: to stop Owain from going to war with humans.

  And she wanted Rhys. If that meant work, she was willing to do it.

  Henry came back with food. They talked to Sarangerel a little longer, then he took her arm and introduced her around. Sarangerel was the only Wingless of such immense age in Eryri, apparently, though Henry told her there were a handful more among the rogues. The next oldest Wingless were about the equivalent of forty-year-old humans—still pretty dang old. Some came from Egypt, or ancient Mesopotamia, but many were from nomadic tribes that had wandered the world.