Truth of Embers

by Caitlyn McFarland

  Kai listened to Rhys’s heartbeat. Neither of them slept, but they held each other until the sun rose. Deep in a dark corner of her mind, the door she’d locked and tried to forget creaked and groaned beneath the weight of everything piled behind it. More than once, she had consciously relaxed. To stop herself from hyperventilating.

  But even Rhys’s arms weren’t safe enough to stop her from imagining what Owain would do to her if he killed Rhys and kept her alive.

  If he took her back to the dark and cold of Cadarnle.

  * * *

  Juli watched the sky lighten above the eastern sea. Ashem had made sure the sentries kept watch all night. Now he propped himself against a boulder, legs sprawled. Juli sat between them, leaning against him, his arms around her waist.

  She’d overheard Rhys and Kai talking last night, and she couldn’t get the conversation out of her head. “Those two are going to do something stupid.”

  Ashem looked in the direction she indicated. “Of course they are.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  Juli made a sound of disgust. “Well, what are we going to do to stop them?”

  Ashem turned to look at Eryri, its distant peak barely visible as a shadow against the night sky. “Kill Owain ourselves.”

  She tilted her head. It was an interesting proposition, and she was not at all opposed. “Could we?”

  Ashem shrugged. “I am Azhdahā.”

  “Valid point. What about the rogues? Are any of them coming?” Juli ran a hand through the sand, pretending a casualness she didn’t feel.

  Ashem shook his head. “I lost my communicator during the retreat. I have no idea.”

  “I suppose we should go while it’s still dark then. So many of the Cadarnle dragons have those onyx charms now that there’s no telling who will see us and who won’t.”

  Ashem transformed. It took Juli a long time to get the harness on by herself. By the time she managed, a sliver of the sun peeked above the horizon.

  They took off, flying low, speaking into each other’s minds about unimportant things. When death was certain, there was no point in wallowing.

  For the first time since he’d forced his way into her mind, Juli opened her connection to Kavar. She figured he at least deserved some warning.

  To her shock, he was close. Far closer than she’d thought he would be. “I thought you were going home.”

  “I was. And then I realized what you two were going to do. Before you did.” Kavar’s voice was a familiar silky growl.

  Juli sat up. Visions of Kavar warning Owain, of all of the soldiers of Cadarnle waiting for them, flashed through her head. “What did you do?”

  “I found your friends. They were lost, so I showed them where to go.” His voice was harsh, and Juli sensed his agony in making the decision. Them or Owain.

  He had chosen them.

  “Where are you now?” Juli asked. “Are you coming back?”

  “Stars, no. I told you both, I am not taking part in this. You are more trouble than you’re worth, Juliet King. When this is over, I want whoever wins to sunder us.”

  Juli swallowed. She hadn’t seen what Kai and Rhys went through with her own eyes, but she had through Ashem’s. “Are you sure?”

  “Perhaps it won’t hurt as much if whoever does it has the power of the entire mantle.”

  Juli doubted it. All of the records she’d seen indicated that sundering had always been painful. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  The sky lightened in the east, and Juli saw a black mass headed their way. Hundreds of dragons spread across the horizon.

  The rogues had come. Considering the number of dragons Owain held captive, it wouldn’t be enough to get him to surrender outright. But it would be enough to keep them fighting another day.

  She sighed. “Fine, Kavar. But only because you might have just saved the world.”

  He said nothing, but the feeling in their bond was smug. Juli shook her head and told Ashem to turn around.

  They had to get to Rhys and Kai.

  * * *

  Owain watched the death of his plans approach from the east: a cloud of rogues large enough to give him pause, even with the dragons who’d betrayed Rhys added to his number. It was a momentous feeling, like destiny sliding through his claws.

  He had the numbers to fight them, but hundreds would die. Too many for their population to recover in his lifetime. Too many to even think about taking on humans and surviving.

  There had to be a way to win the war without costing him any more soldiers.

  Owain watched the reinforcements approach and realized it was time to solve things the way he should have years ago, as soon as Rhys had become an adult.

  He waited for the rogues to arrive on the southernmost island of the archipelago. Gave them time to settle. He ordered his own people to clear the central island and fly for the northern island. Then Owain flew out and landed on the peak of the mountain, roaring a challenge the way dragons had since time before time. Jiang and Demba sat just below him, waiting.

  It didn’t take long for Rhys to answer.

  He flew from the southern island, Ashem on one side, a rogue Naga chieftain on the other. As always, the Wingless was on his back. Owain didn’t understand it. He’d sundered Rhys—given him a chance to be free—and still, he burdened himself.

  Well, if he wanted the Wingless with him, so be it. That probably meant he could insist on bringing Jiang into the battle, but there was no need.

  Let the girl bring about Rhys’s death.

  “Rhys, son of the traitor Ayen, son of the true king Thân, I challenge you to combat to the death. No champions, seconds, no aid from our people. Let’s not end hundreds of lives when one life will suffice.” Owain paused, as if considering. “I’ll even let you bring your pet Wingless.”

  His cousin didn’t even stop to think about it. Didn’t argue. “Agreed. Ashem Azhdahā and Naakesh of the Free Naga witness it.”

  He’d made it so easy. By himself, Rhys was a fearsome fighter, but with the girl, he would be burdened. Distracted. All Owain would have to do was land one good hit, and her death would seal the red dragon’s.

  Owain bared his teeth. “Lung Jiang, Queen of Dragons, and Demba of the Bida witness it.”

  Rhys flew forward, and Owain leaped from the mountain peak. Soon, it would be his.

  All of it would be his.

  Finally, he was going to have the power he’d been born to wield.

  He would return his people to the glory they deserved.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Whatever Comes

  Kai pulled down her white raven mask as Owain leaped for Rhys.

  Rhys stretched, beating his wings for altitude. Sticking close to the side of the mountain, he wheeled and dodged Owain’s first blast of flesh-freezing breath.

  Kai crouched at the base of Rhys’s neck, just above his wings. There had been plenty of spare harnesses on the island, thankfully. Even Rhys wouldn’t have agreed to let her come if they couldn’t find one.

  Her carabiner was clipped into the harness in the way that allowed her to maneuver, trying to breathe normally. She had no way of connecting with him like she normally did when they flew, but she thought that she had ridden on dragonback enough times that she could fight.

  Rhys angled into a steep climb, leaving Owain behind. Kai stood and turned so she hung facing the receding ground. She raised her palms and called on her storm of flames, sending fireball after fireball at Owain.

  The white dragon’s eyes widened in shock and he barrel-rolled out of the way.

  Rhys peaked and dove, aiming a stream of fire at Owain’s side. Again, Owain dodged. Kai raised her hands to shoot another fireball
as he went by, but Rhys’s wings were in the way.

  After that, it was hard to keep track of all the hits and near misses. The white dragon seemed to be everywhere at once, breathing ice, raking his claws in a glancing blow down Rhys’s side. He was faster than Rhys, Kai realized. Whether from natural abilities or cordial, she had no idea. She suspected the latter.

  Finally, Rhys scored a hit. Three long, shallow clawmarks on Owain’s white flank welled with crimson blood.

  Kai shot more fire, but she missed time after time. Without her connection, she was afraid of accidentally hitting Rhys’s wings.

  Owain pursued them around the mountain, breathing ice at Rhys’s tail. Rhys roared in pain, and Kai looked back to see that Owain had frozen the tip. He smashed his claw against it. The last foot and a half of Rhys’s tail had shattered, spinning out of sight.

  Bile rose in her throat. He was toying with them. Taking Rhys apart piece by piece.

  Kai aimed another volley of fireballs at Owain. She was so focused on fighting that she wasn’t paying attention to Rhys’s movements. He lurched to one side as Owain breathed another cloud of ice, sending Kai tumbling through space for a few short feet before her harness caught her.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it! Her worst fears were coming true. She was a liability here, not an asset. Now Rhys was flying crooked, trying to block her with his body while Owain gained on them, eating up the precious altitude Rhys had worked so hard to gain.

  Kai gripped the rope and pulled herself up onto Rhys’s back through adrenaline and sheer force of will.

  But it was too late.

  Owain zoomed past Rhys, two-foot claws caught him full across the face.

  Rhys roared and struggled to right himself. Kai couldn’t see the damage, but blood sprayed in the air and sheeted down the side of his face.

  “Oh, hell.” He’d taken Rhys’s eye. Just as Rhys had taken his months ago in the Rockies.

  It’s okay, she told herself. We’ll survive this and Seren can heal it. He’ll be okay.

  But Rhys was not okay. Owain raked past them again on Rhys’s blind side. Kai tried to shout to him, to tell him where Owain was, but the wind snatched her words. If they’d been heartsworn, they could have done this. She could have been his eyes.

  As it was, Rhys didn’t dodge in time. Owain shredded one of his wings.

  They went down.

  Rhys did his best to steady them as they fell, but there wasn’t much he could do. Thinking quickly, Kai used her magic to burn through the strap that held her to the harness. As Rhys crashed to the earth, she leaped free.

  Kai landed in the sand, the wind knocked out of her. Rhys looked around for her wildly, not seeing that Owain was almost on him.

  “I’m here!” Kai shouted. Dimly, she noticed that dragons had taken to the sky again. Despite Rhys’s and Owain’s orders, they were fighting. She thought she saw Ashem. Cadoc. Even Seren and Ffion. They and the rogues circled Eryri, keeping Owain’s dragons back.

  Then Owain smashed into Rhys.

  Kai scrambled away as the red and white dragons raged above her, battling and clawing and roaring so that she thought she would go deaf—if she wasn’t killed outright.

  Fear crescendoed inside her. Rhys was torn and bloody, unable to use one of his foreclaws because of the crash, unable to see from one eye. Kai called fire to her hands, but before she could shoot it at Owain, the white dragon turned and shot super chilled air in her direction. Kai leaped out of the way and the cold blasted past her. Thankfully, the worst missed her.

  The white sand of the beach gave beneath her feet as she ran, trying to get a better angle on Owain. The sea breeze chilled her face, and she realized it was wet with tears.

  It wouldn’t be enough to help Rhys.

  With a roar, Owain’s claws smashed across Rhys’s face. Rhys’s huge, crimson head jerked to one side so hard Kai thought his neck had broken. For a moment, her world froze. He staggered to one side and fell, spraying sand and blood.

  “Rhys!” Kai screamed, racing toward him, reaching for him with her mind as she had done time after time. But there was nothing. Like shouting into empty darkness.

  Flames rippled across the beach, and Rhys became human. The dragons watching roared.

  Icy wind whipped past her. Owain had changed as well, becoming the blond, cold-eyed man who haunted her nightmares. He stalked forward, pulling a necklace from his neck. Rhys’s father’s necklace. The Sunrise Dragon. “Move away, Wingless. He is not yours anymore. Go home and live the life you wanted.”

  Kai cringed. The door she’d spent all night fighting to keep closed flew open. Memories shrieked in her ears. Beatings. Electrocution. Cutting. Pain. Pain.

  This man had hurt her—directly or not. He would hurt her again. She needed to run. To escape. He would break her, this time. He would kill her.

  Her eyes fell on the Sunrise Dragon, the shine of sun on the gold pendant slicing through the darkness.

  If Owain touched Rhys’s skin, he could suck the mantle away in a matter of moments, whether Rhys was willing or not. Unlike simply killing Rhys, using the necklace would also multiply Owain’s natural magic the same way being double-heartsworn had multiplied Juli’s.

  He would be unstoppable.

  Willing or not, dragons would be set loose on the world. All while she watched, paralyzed by her own memories. Terrified Owain would take her back to the pitch-black cell and let his people hurt her.

  No. I’m not afraid of dragons in the dark.

  She couldn’t undo the awful things that had happened, but she could stop more from happening now.

  Kai picked herself up and scrambled around Rhys, behind Owain. He spun and shot icy blast after icy blast toward her. She shot back, pinching off balls of fire and hurling them at Owain as quickly as she could manage, spinning the fire inside her faster and hotter and tighter.

  Snarling, Owain gave up chasing her and turned instead for Rhys, who lay only a dozen feet away.

  Rhys had been hurt enough. With a roar, Kai sprinted after Owain and leaped onto his back. She wrapped her hand in the chain and tore the Sunrise Dragon from Owain’s grasp just as he stumbled and fell across Rhys’s prone body. Kai landed on top of them both, with a yelp of pain. The weight of her body plus Owain’s smashed her fist, driving the corners of the pendant deep into her palm.

  The world froze. Time itself sucked in a breath. The men beneath her might have been carved from stone. In her hand, trapped between Owain’s hand and Rhys’s bare arm, the pendant hummed. The vibration turned into a heat. Not the friendly heat of fire, but the heat of a star. So intense that she cried out again and swore the skin of her palm was melting. The vibration spread from the pendant to the chain, from the chain to the skin of the two men. And then...

  And then...

  Power.

  It thundered and howled, flooding her like a river overflowing its banks. Like she stood at the bottom of a waterfall, trying to drink and drowning instead. Pure and hot and everything. Her body shook. She opened her mouth, a scream forcing itself up her throat. Her arms and legs seized, muscles cramping.

  So much energy. So much power.

  So much, so much, so much, and it had nowhere to go. Like when she’d lost control and set her hometown’s climbing gym on fire.

  Except this power couldn’t escape.

  Abruptly, it settled. The sensation was something like seeing a bonfire snuffed like a candle. The flood was gone. It had become a pool—an ocean—within her, burning her from the inside. But not like fire, like light. Like possibility.

  Like nothing and no one in creation could stand against her.

  Queen of dragons.

  Kai groaned and rolled off the men, the Sunrise Dragon still gripped in her fist. She was dazed. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
>
  Couldn’t do anything but lie in the sand as Owain pulled himself off Rhys and stood, looming over her. He drew a dagger from his belt, sharp and black and covered with white runes. Instead of coming after her, Owain knelt on Rhys’s chest, pinning his unbroken arm. Owain grasped a handful of dark red hair in one fist.

  Rhys was just blinking his remaining eye, just coming back to consciousness, when Owain jerked his head back, exposing his throat. “Give me the artifact, Wingless.”

  Roars and shrieks from the sky. The dragons were still fighting, but many of them had stopped. They only circled, watching the spectacle below.

  “No!” Kai pulled herself up to her knee. Her head felt strange. Too large, somehow. Full of half-heard, whispering voices.

  Owain pressed the dagger into Rhys’s throat, and blood welled around the tip of the blade. Something was building in her, something that buzzed and scorched her tongue.

  It couldn’t be what she thought it was. She was Wingless, not a real dragon. She was Kai Monahan from Rifle, Colorado. Surely she’d only brushed the power of it as it flowed through both of them.

  “Give it to me,” Owain repeated. “If I have the Sunrise Dragon, I have the mantle, and no reason to kill him. Give me the artifact, and Rhys lives.”

  Kai didn’t move.

  Owain twisted Rhys’s broken arm, and Rhys cried out.

  “Give it to me, or I will do to him every single thing I did to you.” A rime of frost feathered down the blade.

  As the frost touched Rhys’s skin, he gasped. “Run, Kai.”

  He spoke again, rapid, liquid whispers in Welsh, directed at Owain. Pleading whispers. Kai strained to hear him over the crashing waves.

  Owain grinned up at Kai, a horribly cold version of Rhys’s smile. He pressed the dagger down a little harder, and Rhys’s fingers dug into the sand, his eyes fixed on her.

  “You know what he wants, Wingless? He’s asking me to leave you alive. He knows that he’s dead. There’s nothing he can do. He is lost.”

  Kai shook herself, her focus fuzzing and blurring around the edges. Everything was too bright. “No,” she whispered again. Something pulsed inside her, like a sun just barely out of reach. If she tried, she might brush it with her fingertips. If she tried...