“Is it truly so strange?” Sol inquired. “The silence?”
“Dragons live on this island, Sol. Dragons that are whipped and beaten and tortured into submission. Do you hear them?”
Sol frowned. “No.”
Amael dropped his voice to a whisper. “Dryu is allied with Dyn,” he told her. Sol’s footsteps became staggering. “During the war against Sonamire, Nero gifted a battalion of our fiercest dragons to King Caidem. In exchange, Caidem opened trade between our people. We’d nearly been wiped from existence after a terrible monsoon and we’d needed the food and supplies.”
“My father once told me about the dragons, and Silas still sees them in Dyn when he visits for trade negotiations.”
“I’m not surprised,” Amael said. “Caidem kept the dragons long after the war was over. He was fond of them, and he uses them as glorified guard dogs.”
Acid burned in Sol’s throat, her stomach threatening to empty its contents there on the forest floor. She gripped Amael’s arm as he helped her step over an uplifted tree root. “You don’t think that—”
“If the dragons were here, Sol, we’d hear them roaring.”
Her nails dug into the corded muscle of his forearm. “Nero sent them all to Dyn.”
Amael dipped his chin. “Our warriors with them, it seems, if they’re not in the trees tracking us. There’s no other place they’d be, and if Caidem truly is willing to go to war over something so trivial as a marriage…”
She was faint, Amael’s words piercing through her chest with brutal efficiency. “Maybe they moved the dragons to a different part of the island.”
“That’s wishful thinking, but no. I’ll show you the pits, if you want. There’s nowhere else here to contain them.”
Contain them, like they were beasts in need of being caged.
Sol drew a deep, shuddering breath of muggy air into her lungs. Her Magic raged, but with a forest between her and the sea, there was little she could do to calm it. “If they were at war,” she said. “Wouldn’t we have heard about it in Arrowbrook?”
“Probably,” Amael conveyed. “But you’ve only been gone a few weeks. They’re likely still rallying their armies. It won’t be long before they march.”
“I don’t understand,” Sol said. “You said it yourself—I’m just a girl. Why would Caidem and Thane go to war over me?”
Amael glanced at her from the corners of his eyes. “You want the truth?”
“I certainly don’t want you to lie.”
“They don’t give a damn about the betrothal,” Amael told her. “Dyn and Sonamaire have been at odds for as long as anyone can remember. The Treaty of Kinds was only signed because both sides had taken heavy losses during the war, and they couldn’t afford to keep fighting. But that doesn’t make the bad blood disappear, and it’s likely that Caidem has been waiting for an opportunity to strike. When you didn’t appear in Dyn when you were called upon, that was his excuse to go to war.”
“Because I refused to marry his son?”
“Because your father went back on his word.”
Sol swayed on her feet. Amael gripped her elbow to hold her steady.
She turned to look over her shoulder. Fynn and Riel were several yards behind, likely to give Sol the opportunity to speak with Amael in private. “I have to tell him,” Sol whispered, dread coiling like a serpent in her stomach. “He has to take me back to Sonamire.”
Amael wrenched her around to face him. “No,” he said tersely. “You can’t do that.”
She tried and failed to tug her arm free. “I can’t let them go to war because of me, Amael. I can’t. If my brother dies over something so trivial as a marriage—”
“Keep your voice down,” Amael scolded. Sol felt as if she were a child again, Silas snapping at her to be quiet during their morning prayers in the temple. “If you want to tell Fynn who you are and why you ran away, fine. I won’t stop you. The Captain deserves to know, anyway. But what I’m not going to let you do is hand yourself over to Thane Grayclaw. Fynn would and will agree with me.”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, you don’t understand.” Amael’s eyes flashed. “I’ve met Thane, Sol. I was with Nero and my father when they delivered the dragons to Dyn all those years ago. How do you think I know so much about the war?”
The Princess stilled. Her Magic stilled. The sounds of the forest fell away. “You’ve met him?”
“Yes,” Amael said through his teeth. “And I saw him gut a servant for taking too long to fetch him a cup of tea.”
“He’s truly that bad?”
“He’s worse. Gutting that servant was doing him a kindness. The alternative would have been tying him to a whipping post on the battlefield and letting Sonamire’s army have their way with him.” Amael swung at a vine. “Which is why you can’t just give yourself up to him. I won’t let you.”
“But if I can stop a war—”
“You can’t,” Amael told her. “It’s too late for that. If you show up on Thane’s doorstep now, he’ll only have you killed for slighting him.”
Tears gathered at the ends of her lashes. “There has to be something I can do, Amael. This is my fault.”
Amael placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “There is,” he said softly. “You build a life for yourself in Nedros like your brother wanted. Even if he doesn’t realize that all of this is about more than just your marriage to Thane, Silas thought you were worth going to war over. You have to remember that.”
She rubbed at her eyes, wiping away the tears threatening to roll down her cheeks. Guilt and shame clawed at her, splintering her ribcage from the inside out like a dragon trapped inside her chest.
Her fault—if Silas died in this war, it was her fault.
“Did you fight in the war?” Sol asked, swallowing the quiver from her voice. “Did you see my brother on the battlefield?”
The boatswain’s eyes hardened to steel. “No,” he said. “I didn’t fight.”
“Then why were you there?” Sol stepped over a gnarled branch, using Amael’s offered hand as leverage. “Silas was young, but my father still made him fight.”
“It was training, of a sort. I was meant to observe the way my father and Nero negotiated with Caidem.” Amael hesitated, eyeing the trees as if the leaves were listening. “Before I was exiled, I was meant to someday be the island’s Elder. Nero had no children, no heir, and my father was his closest confidant. They always included me during political meetings, and this was no different.”
Her stomach hollowed out at that. “Oh.”
Someday, he was meant to be her enemy.
“We weren’t there for long,” Amael continued. “Dyn’s camp was in chaos. The King’s youngest son had just been killed by your brother, and Caidem was nearly inconsolable. Thane didn’t give a damn about his brother, but their father… I’ve never seen anyone in such a rage.”
Taken aback, Sol blinked against the canopy of trees, absently thankful for their shade. “That’s not true,” she said, scouring her mind for every fragmented detail that Silas had ever given her about the war. “Silas fought the King’s son, but he didn’t kill him. He was too injured, and just before the Prince dealt him his killing blow, he dropped his sword and ran.”
Amael frowned at her. “He told you that?”
Sol nodded. “Until Silas met him on the battlefield, he didn’t even know that the King had a second son. Neither did our father. They were both surprised that it wasn’t Thane he was fighting, and Silas was nothing if not disappointed.”
He cut through a dark green vine embedded with purposefully sharpened thorns. “Perhaps I was mistaken, and the Prince was felled by someone else.”
Or perhaps he’d eventually succumbed to the wounds that Silas had dealt him. Sol knew they had damn near butchered each other.
“Hey, explorers.” Riel’s voice shattered the budding confusion between them, washing away the fear that lapped at Sol’s insides and smothered ev
ery trace of her Magic. She hated being so far from the shore. “How much further? I haven’t walked this far in ages.”
Amael severed through an overgrown archway of twisting branches. “The village is just through here,” he said, gritting his teeth as the last branch refused to give way. “Would you mind?”
The Quartermaster waved her hand, and the branch snapped in two.
Ducking beneath the remaining limbs, Amael grunted his thanks. Sol noticed the grip on his sword, his fingers white-knuckled and trembling. Whatever threats this island contained—Nero, the dragons, his people—lay just beyond this jagged outcropping of trees.
Amael paused as he emerged from the shade, his gasp of air cleaving apart the sudden stillness of the forest. Even the leaves did not sway on the wind. Sunlight illuminated the stark lines of his face as he breathed, “This isn’t possible.”
Sol did not realize she’d reached for Fynn until the Captain was squeezing her fingers. “Amael,” she said, retreating into the safety of Fynn’s chest. “I thought you said that this was your village…”
He dropped his sword, and even Riel was silent as the blade clattered to the ground. “It is,” Amael said, his hands slack at his sides. “Was.”
The wide, unkempt valley that lay at the island’s center was empty, abandoned houses and charred firewood left to be reclaimed by nature.
“Maybe we took a wrong turn at the fallen tree?”
Amael’s shoulders shook with restraint as he turned to look at his friends, as he turned to meet Sol’s gaze. “They’re gone,” he said darkly, a tone that only Sol understood. “The Dryuans and the dragons are all gone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FYNN
He did not know what was worse: his own disappointment that they’d come all this way for nothing, or the soul-crushing grief still guttering in Amael’s eyes. Both, Fynn decided, were a punch to the gut. But at least that was better than a spear to the chest.
Amael circled the valley that was centered beneath the mountainous, smoking peaks of the island’s active volcanoes. He had done this seven times now—not that Fynn was counting—peering into the abandoned homes of slate-grey stone. He toed at the charred wood of old fire pits. Sol had tried to follow him at first, had tried to offer him whatever condolences she thought might bring him comfort. But Amael had asked her to leave him alone, and to Fynn’s surprise, she’d listened.
Sullen, Sol had resigned herself to sitting on an old tree stump just outside the village, the rotted wood tucked beneath the shade of a pine tree.
It was not like her to bounce her leg, to bite at her nails and spit little pieces into the grass. But without her braid to wrap and twist around her fingers, she’d needed some way to expel her anxiety in silence, to keep herself from pacing this valley and spout about the fears that she had not shared with Fynn.
He knelt into the grass in front of her, taking Sol’s hands and prying her nails from between her teeth. “Stop that,” the Captain said gently. He smoothed his thumb across her knuckles. “You’ll bite off your fingers if you keep going.”
Sol continued to bounce her leg. “I can’t help it,” she replied. “I need—I need something. My Magic is restless and there’s no water here.” She tugged her left hand free and began to fiddle with her necklace. “The entire island has been abandoned, Fynn. You don’t find that off-putting?”
A frown tugged at his mouth. She did not worry for just Amael, then. There was something about the Dryans having abandoned their home that unnerved the Princess, too. That shook her resolve so deeply she was gnawing on the ends of her nails.
“If there are any clues as to why they might have left, Amael will find them.”
And Riel, who was foraging through the trees for any indication of where they might have gone. If they’d been forced to flee.
Shaking her head in dismissal, Sol hunched over her lap and buried her face into Fynn’s shoulder. He steadied himself, positioned lower on the ground than Sol was perched on the tree stump, and wrapped his arms around her middle.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and Sol’s confusion was muffled against his shirt. He was ready to shuck it off from the heat. “We came all this way for nothing. If it weren’t for this, you’d be closer to settling in Nedros.”
He hated himself for this, for having dragged his crew all the way here on a foolish, unconfirmed whim. Even if they had found Nero waiting for them back on the beach, the island’s Elder would never have given Fynn the Dragon’s Heart. And if he had not had it in his possession, he would never have given Fynn even a hint as to where it might be.
Fynn had known this, and he’d brought them here anyway. Had brought Amael to an empty island where his family and the Dryuans once thrived.
Fynn rested his chin on Sol’s shoulder, biting down the remorse threatening to sink him like a battered ship at sea. “This was such a selfish thing to do,” he admitted quietly. “Bringing you all here over a promise I made to my dead mother.”
“Don’t say that,” Sol scolded. She wriggled in Fynn’s embrace until he let her go. “You are the least selfish person I have ever met, and if the promise you made to your mother still matters to you after all this time, it only shows how much you still love her.”
The Captain scoffed at their sudden reversal, the way it was now Sol consoling him. He preferred it the other way around.
Fynn took Sol’s hand and squeezed. “I think you might be biased, love.” He idly toyed with the bracelet around her wrist, spinning a puka shell with his thumb. “I’ve wasted years looking for the Dragon’s Heart. I’ve dragged my crew to the corners of this world trying to find it.”
“You haven’t dragged them anywhere. They’ve gone willingly. And that doesn’t make you selfish.” Sol swatted at a fly that buzzed by her ear. “It makes you determined.”
“Yes. Determined to find something that probably doesn’t even exist.”
Stupid—so utterly stupid to have come all this way. The Dragon’s Heart was not real, was not something of this world, and he and the Grayclaws were in a race to find the desires of a ghost. Fynn’s mother had given him this task, had made this final request before she’d died. It was all that had fueled him ever since.
A story that was not true.
Sol took his chin between her fingers, lifting his head and forcing the Captain to meet her gaze. He did not realize he’d been avoiding it. “I don’t like this.”
He frowned at her. “What?”
“This look like you’ve been defeated.”
A weak laugh rumbled out of him. “I have been defeated,” Fynn lamented. He took Sol’s hand, pulling it from his face only to squeeze her fingers. “Let me sulk about it for just a moment. I’ll be fine.”
“If the Dragon’s Heart isn’t real, then where does our Magic come from?”
The Captain shrugged. “The Gods?”
“You don’t really believe that.”
Fynn pretended not to notice the way Sol traced her finger over the scar across his palm, the way her thumb was smooth compared to his own callouses. “It doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said. “Everything I was ever taught about our Magic has been proven wrong at every turn.”
Her nostrils flared. “Stories are born from truth,” she told him. “From legends and history and faith. Perhaps the details have eroded over the centuries, but someone somewhere believed so fiercely in the Dragon’s Heart that the stories they told withstood the weathering of time.”
His Magic stirred—then extinguished. “You’re only trying to make me feel better.”
“Yes,” Sol agreed. “I am trying to make you feel better. But I will also drown you in the Emerald if you give up on something you’re so passionate about.”
He smiled at that. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
A heavy sigh escaped her. “Fynn—”
A branch snapped. Leaves rustled from just beyond the tree line.
Sol leapt to her feet, stumbling into Fynn�
��s chest and gripping his shoulders for purchase. “What was that?”
The Captain nudged her behind him. “I don’t know.”
Fynn angled himself towards the dense foliage that eddied around the base of a tree, a vine of sharpened thorns twined through the leaves. He slid his sword from the scabbard tied to his belt and gripped the pommel with both hands. “Who’s there?” he demanded, shifting his feet and dropping into a stance he wished he were not so familiar with. “Riel, if that’s you, I swear to the Gods…”
A chirped, agonizing cry sounded from beneath the shrubs, a bushel of red berries scattering through the grass at their feet. Fynn reeled back a step, his heart jumping into the back of his throat as a thin, pale blue tail wriggled between the branches. A silky wing fell sprawling from inside the greenery, shining white claws at the apex of two arched, iridescent peaks.
The color drained from Fynn’s cheeks. He wildly swung his sword, hacking through the shrubbery until Sol grabbed his arm and screamed. “Fynn, stop! You’ll kill him!”
A sparkling blur of blue and white scales flew from beneath the bush, screeching as it darted between Fynn’s feet. The Captain of the Refuge yelped, leaping onto the abandoned tree stump as Sol dropped to both knees, her arms outstretched for the wailing creature in the grass.
“Sol, don’t touch it!”
She ignored him, smoothing her hands over the dragon’s back, his wings, the top of his head and horns. Sol studied her wet skin, the metallic silver that shone there, and frowned. “Fynn, you idiot. He’s hurt. Those thorns cut him to pieces.”
“Good!” Fynn gripped his sword, pointing the lethal tip at the dragon she was gathering in her arms. “What are you doing? Sol, put that thing back where it came from!”
He would never admit that he trembled, would take it to his grave that the dragon in Sol’s arms had conjured up a fear so deeply rooted that it burned like acid in his stomach. To Hell with the godsdamned Dragon’s Heart. Dragons were awful, wretched creatures that deserved to rot in Dryu’s training pits.
Sins of the Sea Page 20