Dragon's Fire

by Gwynn White

  Lynx looked expectantly at Axel. “Explain.”

  “Even though Lukan is short of ice crystal, he and Felix fit each of their rifles with a chip. It’s linked to a program my father calls One Weapon, One Bullet. In theory, no one armed with a Chenayan rifle can fire off a round without approval from Lukan. In practice, the ice crystal in the rifle sends a signal to Felix’s program. It will either authorize the shot or shut the weapon down. We find it very useful for keeping track of Chenayan troop movement.”

  She couldn’t resist a coy smile. “Surely that means they are not as powerful as you think they are?”

  Axel didn’t return her smile. He whispered so only she would hear. “I might have my doubts about Dmitri, Lynx, but after years of this circus, I know that, without Nicholas’s face on the flag, we will never tip the scale. Lukan is too paranoid, Felix too evil, and the empire too rich in expendable men.”

  Axel stalked across the room to a gangly young man—a Trevenite, given his blood-red colored hair and freckled skin. “Red, bring up the Cian grid. I am looking for a specific signal.”

  A crisp salute, which Axel acknowledged. “You have a serial number for me, Warlord?”

  “No.”

  Red’s eyes flickered, but he spoke Axel’s command into his informa.

  Within seconds, a galaxy of slowly pulsing lights burst onto the air before Lynx.

  “Welcome to Cian—as seen from the world of ice crystals,” Red drawled. “Over seven hundred thousand of the bastards, last time I ran a census program.”

  That many people? And that was just in the capital. What about the rest of the Heartland?

  Lynx’s stomach knotted so tight she thought she might actually vomit.

  She clutched her abdomen and staggered back, realizing for the first time the enormity—the impossibility—of ever finding her son. The temptation to surrender to despair was overwhelming.

  She fought it.

  “How do we even begin to look for him?” She struggled to keep her voice even.

  “We look for anomalies.” Red peered at her with earnest eyes. “A crystal that isn’t behaving like the herd. Maybe it doesn’t move beyond certain parameters. Maybe it regularly visits locations red-dotted by the Chenayans as trouble spots. From there, it’s a process of elimination.” He rubbed a red haze of stubble on his jaw. “On the scale you’re talking about—a whole city—it becomes a bit hit or miss unless you have intelligence operatives on the ground to verify the findings.” He glanced at Magridal, and Lynx remembered that Heron’s other half headed up Axel’s espionage department.

  Magridal shrugged. “Not enough to cover every population center in the Heartland, which is where we will have to spread our search to be effective.”

  Red nodded. “A serial number linked to a name helps.”

  Lynx turned to Axel in despair. “You were right. This could take a lifetime.” She massaged her suddenly aching temples.

  “A dozen lifetimes wouldn’t be enough.” The finality in Axel’s voice was crushing. “Felix will never let us find Nicholas’s signal.”

  “So what do we do?” Lynx pointed at the throbbing lights. “I had such hope.”

  “I know. Even though we tried to explain it to you, you asked to see this, and I won’t withhold anything from you ever again, especially not about Nicholas.” Axel saluted Red and took Lynx’s arm, leading her back into the passage. When they were out of earshot of the programmers, he whispered, “This is where Stefan comes in.”

  Lynx waited for him to explain.

  When he spoke, she had to lean in to hear him. “Someone always knows something. And people eventually talk. They always do. I may be a Chenayan pariah, but Stefan isn’t. He has spies in the palace who listen to all the gossip. They report it to him, and he tells me. We meet every month at a hot spring under his bedchamber for a family picnic. That is honestly our only chance of finding our boy.”

  Lynx closed her eyes to keep out the crushing dark. In her heart, she knew Axel was right—and it gave her no hope.

  Talon was one subject Lukan would not tolerate anyone ever mentioning.

  Like Axel with his monarchs, she had no idea what to say, to do, or to think. Never in all her existence had she experienced such despair.

  “Come on,” Axel said, canting his head toward a nimble, two-seater carrier parked near the programmers. This one didn’t have a smoke stack, so she assumed it was one of his fancy new ones. “I want to show you something.”

  Still disillusioned, Lynx swallowed and nodded. They drove back down the passage, and she closed her eyes, trying to shut out melancholy thoughts. They had not gone much farther when Axel stopped.

  Lynx opened her eyes. The tunnel appeared no different than any other they had traveled through. Axel offered Lynx his hand, and she let him help her down. He walked with her into the darkness down another opening she had not noticed. The blackness cloyed at her as visions of the roof and walls crashing around her closed in. She forced herself to breathe.

  She was about to remind Axel he had promised to protect her from her biggest monster—the dark—when he pulled a flashlight out of his pocket.

  She hissed a sigh of relief when a shaft of light drove back the walls—and all her terrors.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They walked in silence for a couple of minutes. In the pale light, she sensed rather than saw the rock widening around her.

  Axel lifted his flashlight, fanning the light against the ceiling.

  Lynx gasped.

  In every direction, colored flares danced. Green, blue, red, milky-white, amber—she had never seen anything so beautiful. She broke away from him and walked to a green stalactite almost as long as she was tall. Reverently, she trailed a finger up the gleaming stone.

  “Ice crystal?”

  “I once promised that I would free you, and when I did, I’d bring you to an ice crystal cavern so beautiful it would take your breath away.” His wistful smile faded. “I am just sorry it took so long . . . and isn’t under better circumstances.”

  Lynx turned slowly to face him. “It’s more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.” She paused, twirling her hair, then decided to speak her mind. “I never really believed you would rescue me from the forest. Not with a chunk of this rock in my neck.” She looked back at the gleaming stone. “It seems . . . diabolical to use something so exquisite for such evil.”

  Axel was silent for a moment. “Do you know what you are to me, Lynx?”

  She considered for a second and then again said exactly what she felt. “I am your queen and your paramour.”

  Axel chuckled. “Close, but not entirely accurate.” He stepped into her personal space and fixed her with his gold-flecked brown eyes. “You are the reason I head this alliance. It is for you that I send out men to die in these mines.”

  A chill swept through Lynx. She locked her arms around her chest to contain it.

  “I have fought for nigh on seventeen years to free you from Lukan. Done unimaginable things in that time to bring you back to me. Winds have mercy on my soul.” A heavy pause. “But it was worth it to have you at my side.”

  “And in all that time I have wanted nothing more than to be with you. To be your queen and your paramour.” Lynx ran her fingers across Axel’s lips, and he kissed her hand. “While fighting at your side.”

  “But that’s the problem. You aren’t at my side. You don’t trust me. Not to rescue you. Not to do what’s best for Nicholas. You’re fighting me every step of the way. Why can’t you accept that I have been doing this warlord stuff for a long time? I understand this world better than you do.”

  Lynx flinched. “I am well aware that I have much to learn, but I also have strengths I can bring to our partnership. I’m Talon’s mother. I know him well. I’ve spent years dealing with Dmitri. We talked often. I understand better than anyone on this planet how the curse works.”

  “I get that. But right
now, the alliance doesn’t need a mother.”

  Lynx’s hackles rose. Did he disregard her other assets?

  “We need a leader who can go with me to negotiate with the monarchs. We have to break the news to them that we don’t have a Light-Bearer to—”

  “Yet,” Lynx interrupted. “I’m not giving up hope.”

  Axel sighed. “This is what I’m talking about. I’m doing everything in my power to find him. But we have to be realistic. It will take time. And the monarchs need answers now. Starting with Chad and Jerawin.”

  Lynx folded her arms. “Chad and Jerawin are our closest allies. They don’t need persuading.”

  “Even they are craving a meeting with Nicholas.” Axel ran his hands over his face. “Have you any idea of what they and their people have suffered? The surviving Trevenites live like moles in the ground, and have done for almost two decades, while the Chenayans roam their country like it’s their own. And after the invasion of Lapis, Lukan sent in his priestesses to”—Axel made air quotes—“’convert’ the people to the Dragon. Countless Lapisians died fighting them off. Jerawin and his surviving court now maintain a tiny foothold in their own country. It’s only thanks to our troops that they aren’t overrun there, too. These people have paid a huge price, Lynx. Nicholas was their reward.”

  Lynx shifted, feeling guilty that she only ever saw her own suffering. “No one is sorrier than I that we don’t have him with us.”

  “I know.” Axel grazed her face with his knuckles, making her shiver with want for him. “Chad and Jerawin will understand. But will you please leave the negotiations with the other monarchs to me when we go and see them? Which we must.”

  Lynx became wary. “What do you intend to tell them?”

  “Right now, I admit I have no idea. But I know whatever I end up saying will be well reasoned, unemotional, and effective. I’ve lived through uncertainty with them before, and I’ve always managed to bring them back on board. I will do it again this time. But I need to know you are on my side.”

  Lynx twirled her hair and braids. “Do you want to know what I think—what my understanding of the Dmitri Curse tells me?”

  “Of course.” He gestured to a slab of ice crystal. “Let’s sit.”

  It was a tight squeeze, but Lynx decided that was probably good. Being in contact with each other’s skin would hopefully keep them both calm while she broke the bad news to him about the leadership of the alliance. “I know we will find Talon. That is the first thing we must tell them. Then we lay out our intended training plan for him, so they can see he will be a capable warrior that men will want to follow into battle. When we find him, we start that training.”

  Axel’s eyebrows twitched again, a sure sign that he didn’t agree with her.

  She pushed on regardless. “When he’s ready, you and I, and the other alliance leaders, need to stand down and let him steer the Pathfinder Alliance to victory.”

  Axel stared at her for a long moment. “Have you listened to anything I’ve been saying?”

  Lynx’s temper flared at his patronizing tone. “What do you think?”

  “No. Because if you had, you would have heard that they want solutions now. Not in a few years, when we’ve found and then trained a boy with no education, military or otherwise, on how to strategize and lead a campaign to bring down the strongest, biggest, deadliest empire this world has ever seen.”

  Lynx jumped up. “Dmitri believes he can do it.”

  “Then Dmitri is a fool.” Axel’s nostrils flared with anger. He shot up to face her. “I’ve been on both sides. I was a Chenayan general, with access to all their hardware, their battle plans, their ice crystal. And now I’ve fought against them for almost two decades. I know what we are dealing with. And I’m sorry, but blind faith just isn’t going to cut it. Not with me. Not with the monarchs. Not with the men we lead in battle.”

  “Blind faith? Is that what you call it?” Lynx grabbed the front of his uniform and yanked him toward her. “How do you think Norin survived Chenayan domination for four hundred years? You once sent men into my camp to kill my people. Did that stop us? No! We fought on. We survived against impossible odds. Talon will do the same.”

  It was only when she’d stopped yelling at him that she saw how pale Axel had become. She bit her lip, aware that by mentioning those killings, so many years ago, she’d crossed a line. She stammered, “I—I’m sorry.”

  Axel stepped away from her, taking the light with him. “Lynx, while we are at such cross-purposes, I cannot even begin to conceive of taking you with me to see the monarchs.”

  She shifted from one foot to another. Why had she been so stupid to throw that old history at him?

  “I get that.” She clutched at her braid. “I know how important a united front is.”

  “Yes. Without that, our enemies will be on us like wolves. They will tear us apart.”

  She grabbed his arm. “I really am sorry.”

  “I know.” But his expression didn’t soften.

  Regret raging through her bloodstream, Lynx whispered, “What do you want me to do in the meantime?”

  He shrugged. “Train with Clay.” He paused, looking immeasurably sad. “And then I suppose Heron can fit you into a platoon.”

  Guarding doorways and vents.

  She wanted to argue but knew she had brought this on herself. Axel had been gentle when he pointed out how much her marriage to Lukan had hurt him. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how she would have felt if he had shouted that admission at her. So, how could she have tossed his past crime so cruelly at him, especially when he had spent so many years fighting in these mines to atone for those deaths? When would she stop letting her anguish over Talon cloud her judgment?

  “I will tell Heron to announce that you are using the opportunity to acquaint yourself with the mine and how our systems work.” Even now, he tried to cover for her.

  She nodded. “I will think on everything you’ve said about Talon.”

  “That’s all I ask. I will delay the visit to the monarchs for as long as I can. Hopefully, we will soon find agreement.” He held out his hand to her.

  Lynx took it but stopped at the archway. “We will make this work, won’t we?”

  Axel gave her a wan smile. “No marriage I know of is without its problems. And we have the added challenge of leadership.”

  Lynx whispered, “You do know that I am still married to Lukan?”

  Axel snorted. “The hell you are. You now live in my world, where I—we—make the laws. I once asked you to marry me over my hand axe, and you said yes. Is your answer still yes?”

  “Of course.”

  His lips claimed hers, demanding, hungry, and uncompromising.

  She kissed him back, knowing her need was just as intense.

  He broke away from her. “Then I am now your husband, Lynx. Designed by the Winds to drive you crazy—in every sense of the word.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he took her hand and led her back to the carrier. “Come, we need to meet with Chad and Jerawin.”

  Lynx hopped in, trying to gather her uneasy thoughts on how she’d tell them that, instead of the Son of Prophecy to inspire the Pathfinder Alliance, they would now have to make do with his mother.

  Chapter 19

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  The same drip.

  Endless. Grinding. Killing.

  If only dripping water could kill.

  Talon stomped his foot to drive out those negative thoughts. So, it was dark and wet? The dark had never worried him. Why would it, when he had always seen the world in black, white, and gray?

  And a bit of a drip? Well, it focused his thoughts. And the only thing he’d been thinking about since his last, failed escape attempt was getting out.

  The trouble had been his body. After running from Morass, he had been too sick and too dizzy to do much else but lie in a heap. Who knew how long he had drifted in and out of consciousness? H
e clutched his head. It still throbbed. But it always did, even though the cut had started to heal.

  He was tired of languishing. Frail and sick as he was, it was time to get moving again if he was ever to escape to find his mother. So, before the gray light from the hole in the wall vanished today, he had to have searched every inch of his cell for weakness, cracks in the stone, or other possible ways of escape.

  To block out his headache, he imagined a tune full of triumph and strength. He stumbled to the wall opposite the gray light. Walking any faster made his head want to fall off his shoulders. He resisted the urge to groan at his pain. After his fight with Morass, he had resolved never to speak again. Not until he was free, because expressing his thoughts and feelings would give Morass power.

  Happily, he was tall, and if he reached up with his arms, he could cover a fair bit of the stonework. He sensed rather than knew that the ceiling in here was high. That meant some areas he couldn’t reach. He tried not to feel despondent about that.

  Methodically, as if he were cleaning the windows in the cottage—Mom had made him clean windows every month, a job he had hated, but now would give anything to be doing—he rubbed every inch of the wall. His fingers dipped into crevices and chinks in the moldy cement, but none promised escape without tools. Tools he didn’t have. All he had were his fingernails, and he would have no trouble wearing his nails down to the quick, scraping away the cement, if it meant he could escape.

  As he worked, he noted possible places where the mortar was weakest. As it happened, all those spots were on the back wall, opposite the steel door, closest to the drip. That had to mean something. Tomorrow, he would start gouging the cement out . . .

  Just like I took out Morass’s eye.

  He shuddered at the memory.

  Since the attack, Morass hadn’t entered the room again.

  Talon grinned. I won.

  It felt better to think that rather than to admit to his panic that the steel door may never open again.

  He frowned the debilitating thought away. He didn’t need the door to open; he would find his own way out of here.

  The gray light had almost faded when footsteps thudded outside the door.