“Time is up,” Owain snarled.
His fingers tightened around the blade.
Desperate power boiled over in Kai, rushing from her in a burst as she screamed, “Stop.” So much violence. So much death. No more. None of it. No more pain.
Owain froze. The dragons who were still battling ceased. An eerie silence fell.
Owain’s eyes widened. His muscles bulged and rippled as he tried to force the dagger into Rhys’s throat, but he couldn’t move.
Shocked, Kai pulled herself, swaying, to her feet. Slowly, painfully, she uncurled her hand.
The corners of the pendant had bitten deep, staining her hand and the necklace in blood.
She was an idiot. She was so tired and scared that her brain hadn’t comprehended it at first. Because it shouldn’t be possible. She hadn’t thought—and was pretty dang sure Owain had no idea—that a Wingless could hold the mantle.
But why not? After all, she was a dragon, even if she had no dragon form.
The power was hers.
Kai lifted her eyes to Owain. Directing all her power at him. Focusing on those pale eyes. Her lip curled. “Get off.”
Jerking like a badly made puppet, Owain rose from Rhys’s chest and stepped away. Rhys gasped and rolled to one side. With a groan, he sat up. Blood and sand covered the entire side of his face, and she could hardly bring herself to look at the ruin that had been his eye.
She threw herself on him, trying to be as careful as she could. He caught her with his unbroken arm, wrapping it around her. Kai buried her face in his chest. Alive. He was alive, and it was over. She had the mantle. Owain couldn’t hurt them. They’d won.
They’d won.
Without warning, Rhys threw her to one side. Shocked, Kai rolled once before catching herself.
Owain and Rhys were grappling, fighting over Owain’s dagger. Like an idiot, Kai hadn’t realized the loophole in her command. She’d assumed the stop command would cover her. But she’d intended only for the dragons to stop fighting each other. To end the violence associated with the war.
But she was Wingless, and Owain had a drive to do her and Rhys harm that had nothing to do with the war. So the stop command hadn’t stopped him from attacking her. And it didn’t stop Rhys from defending himself.
Just as Rhys hadn’t worded his commands carefully enough in the past, Kai had not done so now.
Kai drew breath, her first instinct to command Owain to turn the dagger on himself. Then she remembered Rhys’s words about killing an unarmed opponent. For a split second, she hesitated, reframing her command.
In that moment, Rhys tore the dagger from Owain’s grasp and plunged it into the blond man’s chest with a sick, wet thunk.
Owain gave a surprised grunt, looking from Rhys to the dagger in his chest and back to Rhys.
“Cousin...”
And then he fell into the white sand, pale eyes staring as blood puddled beneath him in a spreading pool, crimson against white. One of the dragons overhead let out a keening scream that pierced Kai’s eardrums. Jiang half fell, half dove toward the beach, jade body writhing.
Kai yanked on the power of the mantle. “Jiang, you will not harm us.”
The jade dragon pulled up short, crashing in a spray of sand. In an instant, she was human. She knelt at Owain’s side, brushing hair from his face. Ignoring the blood, she lifted his torso, cradling it and wailing in Chinese. She looked dazed and half-insane.
Rhys moaned and collapsed.
Kai panicked. She crawled to him on her hands and knees. “Rhys?”
He didn’t answer.
She raised her eyes and saw the gold dragon circling with the others. “Seren!”
The gold dragon dove for the beach. Around them, other dragons were landing. Kai clutched the pendant tight and drew on the new, dazzling, puzzling power inside her. She had to protect Rhys.
She had to protect them all.
“The war is over. There will be no more violence against dragon or human or Wingless. Tomorrow morning, gather in the stone circle.”
Seren ran and knelt next to Rhys’s other side. Kai watched, her heart in her throat, as Seren placed her hands on his forehead. “He’s almost gone. I don’t have enough. I’ve been healing so much. I need—”
The Wingless councilwoman, Athena, dropped beside Seren on one side, a woman Kai didn’t know by name on the other. They each put a hand over Seren’s. Without waiting to ask, Seren closed her eyes. From beneath her fingers, a burst of golden light.
Rhys coughed and rolled onto his side. Kai turned his face toward her. He blinked two bright blue eyes.
Relief and exhaustion crashed over her. For the rest of today, she didn’t care what they did. As long as everyone stopped trying to freaking kill her.
Power buzzed inside her, hot and confusing and unwanted. She opened her blood-crusted hand and looked at the pendant. In the center of her palm was the imprint of a sun.
Holy hell. She had the power to control every dragon on Earth. The thought made her sick, realization of what that meant overwhelming her. “Rhys, oh my—what do I do?”
She didn’t expect him to answer, but he said in a sleepy voice, “Keep them from killing each other.”
“I don’t know how to do that!”
Except she was pretty sure she did. At least, she had a few ideas. But still. “I don’t want to do this by myself.”
“Gyda’i gilydd,” he murmured. “Beth bynnag a ddaw.”
Kai laughed, tears falling from her eyes. Something inside her kept chanting alive, alive, alive. “I don’t know what that means,” she said.
Seren smiled at her. “Together. Whatever comes.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Like Chains that had been Broken
It took days for things to begin to even have the semblance of order. Rhys organized everything from where all the extra dragons would sleep to meals to setting up judges he trusted to fairly arbitrate disputes. He also helped Kai. Not that he’d ever held the full power of the mantle, but he’d lived with it for long enough to give her pointers.
Every time she walked in the room, the air grew heavy and electric, as if she carried the energy of a hurricane wherever she went. When he’d commented on it to Ffion, she laughed and said that’s what he used to feel like, except not quite as powerful.
They were so busy with meetings, cleanup, sending most of the humans home and keeping the Cadarnle and Eryri dragons from killing each other that he and Kai rarely had a second alone. He’d thought they’d been sleep-deprived during the battle, but that was nothing compared to now.
Three days after the battle, delegations arrived from the rogues—those who had sent aid and those who had not. There were more dragons to house and mouths to feed and disputes to settle.
Rhys had thought peace would bring...well, peace. Instead, it was as if he and Kai had upended the world, and everyone was scrambling to find their places within it.
Now that there were no longer two kings, the clans had started to come back together. In his father’s time, the united clans had been far more powerful and far more of a headache than the divided clans during the war. Eventually, when things were settled, he’d have to call for a reelection of councilmembers to make sure everyone was equally represented.
Wouldn’t that be fun.
Finally, a week after Kai had taken on the mantle, Rhys found himself, her and his vee gathered in his rooms.
For once, no one was pounding on their door.
It reminded him of the night before the battle, except things were a little more subdued. Instead of talking or playing cards, everyone seemed content to sit in the same room with everyone else.
At least this much of their family had survived.
Kai snuggled into Rhys’s s
ide where they sat on the couch. Across from them, Ffion sat in a rocking chair, staring into the fire. The rest of the vee ranged around on couches, chairs and the floor. Kai’s brother Brendan was there, as well, standing off to one side with Morwenna.
“Ffion?” Kai asked.
“Hmm?”
“Do you know what you’re going to name your baby?”
Ffion smiled, one hand resting on her belly. Dragon pregnancies lasted longer than human pregnancies, but not by much. Rhys still had a hard time believing she was pregnant, sometimes. He’d known her since both of them were little more than babies themselves, and now she was having one. They’d been so busy surviving, he was just now realizing he’d missed out on growing up.
He looked down at Kai, wondering what their children might be like.
Then he remembered. They couldn’t have children.
“Griffin, if he’s a boy. Like his father, but still himself. If she’s a girl, I was thinking, if Rhys and Seren don’t mind, I’d like to call her Aderyn.”
Rhys found he couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat.
Ffion sniffed and wiped at her eyes, but didn’t sink into a quiet despair as she had so often since Griffith’s death. She truly had decided to live.
They’d all decided to live.
“What about you two?” Ffion asked. “Things have quieted down. Are you going to try to fix your heartswearing?”
Kai blinked rather owlishly. The physical pain of the sundering had faded, though he wasn’t sure when, leaving behind the psychological pain he imagined went with a phantom limb. “We haven’t talked about it.”
Kai frowned up at him. “I mean, do we need to talk about it?”
Tension he’d thought they were past sprang up between them and seeped into his voice. “I don’t know, cariad, we’re doing fine like this, but—”
“What? You don’t want to be heartsworn to me?” Kai demanded.
“Kai, you know I—”
She grabbed his face and kissed him. “I’m kidding. Of course we’re going to try to fix it. If you want,” she added hurriedly.
He pulled her into his lap and kissed her thoroughly, only breaking off when Cadoc threw a pillow and Ashem muttered, “Get a room.”
“Does that answer your question?” Rhys asked against her lips.
“Do it again. Just to be really clear.”
He laughed, but a knot of unease grew inside him.
Ancients, he hoped this worked.
* * *
Kai gripped Rhys’s hands. “I’m all for this, but how am I supposed to do it? I’ve never exactly healed a sundering before. If it’s even possible.”
“When I tried, I sensed that there was still something between you,” Seren said. She looked exhausted. Since the battle, she’d been working herself to the bone, healing anyone and everyone who came to her. Thankfully, plenty of Wingless had volunteered to help. “Like chains that had been broken. I think you need to forge them back together.”
Kai nodded, wishing she had some carabiners to click. “So...I guess I’ll just concentrate and see how it goes?”
The power she’d been carrying around for a week still overwhelmed her, but it didn’t frighten her anymore. Not in and of itself.
But what it could do...that was scary. If she wanted, she could command every dragon in the world to jump into the sea. Or do the hokey pokey.
Or kill. Or hurt themselves.
That just wasn’t right.
Putting those thoughts away, she inhaled and closed her eyes. She knew what Seren was talking about. At the moment she and Rhys had been sundered, she thought she’d seen those chains, herself.
She leaned her forehead against Rhys’s, their arms around each other, and dug deep.
Maybe if this didn’t work she could use that Sunrise Dragon pendant to pass the power back to him and he could do it. In a couple of years or whenever it recharged.
At first, Kai didn’t sense anything. Easing herself into the power of the mantle was like settling into a bath that was barely too hot. The power was so strong it burned, and she had to do it slowly. She let the room fade, and then her worries, until there was nothing but herself and Rhys.
And there, between them, the glimmer of something broken.
They were chains, she saw. When she’d been sundered, she’d thought they were made of gold. But now she could see they were made of light, or magic or spirit, each with its own purpose, its own subtle signature. Grasping one of her broken ends and matching it with one of his, she pressed them together.
Nothing happened.
She waited. Still nothing happened.
Letting the last of her fears subside and giving in to her instinct and her love for Rhys, she poured power into the broken bond. More and more, until a fine sheen of sweat covered her face.
The links softened. Then, with a tug Kai could feel in the center of her soul, it came together.
Her breath caught, and so did Rhys’s.
She could do this.
She picked up another chain, and then another, working until the sheen of sweat turned to drips and her body shook with strain. Rhys held on to her, steady as a rock. As she repaired each of their broken bonds, something coalesced as if from fog, a presence that became clearer and clearer with each new connection.
She welded the last chain together and let go of the power, going limp. For the moment, she was utterly drained.
Without warning, the power of the mantle that had raged inside her like a leashed hurricane ran down the repaired bonds. No longer raging, it settled somewhere between them, as calm as a still pond.
Rhys inhaled sharply, but both of them knew what had happened. Somehow, when Kai had poured the power of the mantle into repairing their bond, that’s where it had decided to take up residence. Not torn, but shared.
Love rolled into her mind, and a voice so familiar to her she wanted to cry.
“Together, whatever comes. No one can object to you being queen, now. Not because of me. Because of you.”
And then she did cry, because after so long alone in her own mind, she forgot how good it felt to be this close to him. Yes, they loved each other without the bond, and sometimes being in each other’s heads was a pain—truly, instalove was not all it was cracked up to be—but they both wanted this, and that was what mattered.
She had healed their heartswearing.
“So,” Cadoc said, breaking the profound silence. “When are you two going to start having babies?”
Rhys chucked the pillow he’d thrown right back at him.
Chapter Thirty-six
Edge of the Sky
Seren stood at the doorway of her former audience chamber and waved goodbye to the last of her patients. The room, large and airy as it was, had served as a much more pleasant infirmary than the darkened festival cavern down below. Over the past several days, she’d healed as many dragons as she could, starting with the worst and working her way up to the minor injuries.
She had made an exception when Rhys came in. She wasn’t the Seeress anymore, and though she still served her people, she could put her brother first if she wanted to.
Cadoc came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned into him, sliding her bare hands up his muscled arms. She had never thought she could find such peace in another person, or that another person could find such peace in her.
A member of Clan Draig passed in the hall, happening to catch a glimpse of them. He sneered and spit on the floor when he saw them. Cadoc stiffened, but Seren stilled him, sliding her hands up the back of his neck and into his hair. “We’ve got to give them time.”
Not all dragons were as accepting of the loss of the Seeress as Rhys. She had been, after all, a symbol. An untouchable figure. Th
e fact that Cadoc was so very interested in touching her had brought out the worst in the dragons who had seemed to treasure the Seeress most.
Cadoc turned her in his arms. “As long as I have you, ngariad i, I’m willing to weather whatever they throw at us.”
Seren smiled and kissed him, then broke off. “Aren’t you supposed to be down in the festival hall?”
Cadoc, a couple of willing dragons from Cadarnle and some of the rogues had taken to giving nightly performances, which Rhys and Kai hoped would boost morale and begin the process of healing their very broken people.
He grinned wickedly and winked at her. “Five more minutes and my entrance should be the spectacle it deserves to be.” He hooked his fingers over the strap across his chest that held a guitar on his back. “I have an idea. Sing with me. Kai is going to, I think.”
The thought made Seren slightly queasy. “Isn’t performing with you a little...” She’d been about to say “below the queen’s dignity,” but realized at the last second how insulting that would be.
Which was why the mental connection of heartswearing was sometimes highly inconvenient. He knew exactly what she’d been going to say.
Cadoc scoffed. “I am the epitome of dignity.”
Rather than reply and dig herself in deeper, Seren silenced him with a kiss. She would have kept it light, but he put a hand on the back of her head and pulled her closer.
She pushed him away playfully. “Come. I know how you hate to be kept from your music.”
His amethyst eyes as serious as she’d ever seen them, he swept hair from her face and smiled. “You are my music.”
* * *
Juli was half relieved, half terrified when Kavar came back to Eryri two weeks after Owain’s death. She clutched Ashem’s hand as the silver-eyed man approached them across the white sand, the ocean muttering in their ears.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
Kavar nodded.
Juli swallowed, and Ashem tightened his grip on her hand. “All right, then. They’re waiting for us.”
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