by Sarah Ash
Gavril sat staring helplessly at her. Tyrant. Savage. Monster. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out any more about this man who was said to be his father.
“They called me Drakhaon. What does that mean? You said my father’s name was Volkh.”
He saw his mother shiver as he said the name. Drakhaon. She leaned across and took his hands in hers, looking closely down at them, almost as if she were examining them.
“Mother?” he said, puzzled.
“You don’t have to go to Azhkendir if you don’t want to, Gavril,” she said, closing her slender, paint-stained fingers firmly around his. “You can renounce your inheritance. Let them find another Drakhaon.”
“There is no other heir!” Kostya stood in the open doorway, his scarred, seamed face twisted with anger. “Not while my lord’s son lives. He is Drakhaon. By right of birth, by right of blood—”
“How long have you been lurking out there, eavesdropping?” Elysia turned on him, her brown eyes narrowed. “This is none of your business, this is between me and my son.”
“Lord Gavril,” Kostya said, ignoring her, “I made a blood vow to your father. I vowed I would bring his son home to his inheritance.”
“Oh,” cried Elysia, “and what is more important? The keeping of your vow or my son’s future?”
“Has it not occurred to you, Drakhys,” Kostya said, unwavering, “that the two are inextricably connected? How can young Lord Gavril—”
“What did you call me?” Elysia said, her voice suddenly hard and tense.
“Drakhys. It is your title. As Lord Volkh’s consort—”
“His consort?” Gavril heard his mother begin to laugh. Her laughter had always reminded him of the throaty cooing of the white doves in the tall sea-pines. But this laughter was harsh; mocking and mirthless. It disturbed him. “And what of the others? Even here, in Smarna, I’ve heard the stories, Kostya.”
“There have been other women, yes,” Kostya said stiffly, “but no other heir. And you were the only one he cared for, lady. After you left he was inconsolable. . . .”
“I wish I could believe you, Kostya.” Elysia turned away from him, going back out onto the balcony. Gavril saw how the dazzling sunlight turned her breeze-tousled hair to strands of antique gold. He felt a sudden stab of anguish for her. “I wish I could believe you.”
Gavril could not sleep. Moonlight lit his room, silvering his tumbled sheets. If he slept, last night’s nightmare might return to haunt him; he might find himself back in that bloodstained, smoke-choked hall.
He had not mentioned the vision to anyone. There had been fever dreams, childhood nightmares that had woken him screaming for Elysia, but never anything as chillingly vivid as this. The voice, the presence in his room, had all been so real. . . .
Murdered, Kostya had said. His father had been murdered.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
And yet, hadn’t a scientist at the Mirom University recently asserted that at the moment of death, some trace of energy might be etched on the atmosphere, an energy so intense that it could be measured? He and his fellow students had spent an evening hotly debating the point over several bottles of red wine in their favorite tavern down by the harbor.
He pushed aside the sweaty sheets and went out onto the balcony. The setting moon hung low over the bay, lighting the black waters with an opalescent glimmer. From the villa’s steeply terraced gardens below, the drowsy summer scents of frangipani and night jasmine perfumed the warm, dark air. This was his home.
And now he had to leave, to go north to the winter country of Azhkendir. To leave his work incomplete. To leave Astasia’s portrait only half-finished . . .
Until now, he had been nothing but a servant in Astasia’s eyes. Now he found himself a lord, albeit lord of an impoverished land of snow and shadows. Now he was her equal. But to claim his inheritance, he must go away from her, far away from the summer pleasures of Vermeille . . . and by the time he returned, she would be betrothed to Eugene of Tielen.
A melody began to whisper through his mind: the sweet, wistful strains of “White Nights,” to which they had danced last night.
He must go claim her as his. He would stalk past the guards who had manhandled him so brutally and demand an audience with the Grand Duchess Sofia. And if any of the disdainful Mirom aristocrats tried to stop him, he would shrug them aside, saying, “Do you have any idea who I really am?”
He vaulted over the balcony and went running through the dark garden toward the shore.
The moonlit beach was deserted. As Gavril hurried along the glistening sands, the only sound he could hear was the lapping of the gray tide and the slap of his feet over the wet strand.
Lord Gavril, Drakhaon of Azhkendir. How he would relish the looks of confusion on their haughty faces when he revealed his true identity!
He glanced suddenly over his shoulder. Was there someone stalking him?
The beach was empty.
He followed the long curve of the bay round toward the headland. High above him, the Villa Orlova glimmered in the moonlight among the dark sea-pines.
“Astasia.” He whispered her name to the night.
A sliver of moving shadow caught his eye. Instinct made him whirl around, fists clenched, ready to defend himself.
“You walk fast, Lord Gavril.” Kostya Torzianin stood behind him, arms folded.
“Kostya!” Gavril’s heart was thudding, fury and fear mingled. “How long have you been following me?”
“Quick reactions, too.” Was it his imagination, or was the old man grinning at him? “We’ll make a bogatyr of you yet.”
“A what?”
“Bogatyr. Warrior. Like your father.”
“I’ve told you, I’m a painter, not a fighting man.” How could he make Kostya understand? “And I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. I don’t need a bodyguard.”
Kostya shrugged. “As Gavril Andar, maybe. But now you are Gavril Nagarian. Lord Drakhaon. And the Drakhaon has enemies.”
Enemies. Gavril felt another shiver of unease. His father had been murdered. Had he made enemies so ruthless they would pursue their vendetta far beyond the borders of Azhkendir? What bloody legacy of violence had he inherited with this bizarre title?
“We have a long journey ahead of us, Lord Gavril. Wind and tide are set fair for Azhkendir.”
“We?” Gavril turned in exasperation on the old man. “I’m not coming with you.”
“But you are Drakhaon.”
“And there are things I must attend to here in Smarna. I will come to Azhkendir in my own good time.”
The old warrior drew in his breath as if Gavril had stabbed him.
“Don’t you understand, lad?” His eyes burned in the moonlight. “You must come now. You have no idea, have you, of what you’ve inherited? She has told you nothing!”
Gavril turned and began to walk on along the shore, flinging back over his shoulder, “I give you good night, Kostya.”
There was a silence then, broken only by the soft lapping of the waves on the moon-silvered shore and the sound of his own fierce breathing as he strode along at the water’s edge. His fists were clenched at his sides, ready to punch anyone who dared to stop him.
Which was when he felt the blinding crack on the back of his skull and darkness came surging in, faster than a floodtide. His mind was still dazedly asking Why? as he pitched forward.
Then it seemed as if someone reached up and squeezed the last light from the moon, leaving him crashing down, down into starless night.
CHAPTER 3
A single lantern swung to and fro over Gavril’s head. Just watching it made him feel dizzy and sent dull stabs of light through his head, like blunted knifeblades. He closed his eyes, wishing the pain would go away.
“There, lad. That’s better now . . .”
Someone was speaking to him; the sound ebbed and flowed in his consciousness with the swaying of the lanternlight. Each word dinned in his mind like an anvi
l stroke. He wanted nothing but to sink back into the soft, dark oblivion from which he had wakened.
Instead he became aware of the noises around him: the rhythmic creak of timbers, the swash and splash of deep waters slapping close to where he lay. The lantern still swung dizzyingly to and fro, swinging in time with the creak of the timbers.
“Where . . . ?” It took all his strength to whisper the single word.
The twisted shadow of a man materialized beside him, looming over him like some creature of darkness.
“Are you thirsty? Here. Drink.” Someone raised his head, tipping a cup of water to his lips. The water was tainted with bitter spirit. He choked, peering with unfocused eyes, trying to identify the man who had emerged from the creaking, moving shadows.
“No more.” He tried to turn his head away. If only he could clear the fog from his mind, if only he could begin to think clearly, he would be able to figure out what he was doing here . . . on a boat . . . at sea?
“Kidnapped. I’ve been kidnapped!” He reared up, shaking his fist at the shadowy figure. “You—you damned pirate!” The cabin spun giddily about him. He dropped weakly back onto the mattress.
“Lie still, my lord,” said his captor tersely.
At last Gavril thought he recognized the man, from his voice and his swinging braids, gray as iron.
“Kostya? Wh—where am I?” Shreds of memory began to return. He had been walking along the seashore, the moon was bright on the waters, and then . . .
“We left Vermeille Bay last night. In two days we should reach the White Sea and make landfall at Arkhelskoye.”
At first Gavril could find no words. Fury robbed him of speech. He had been kidnapped not by corsairs but by his father’s own men.
“I told you,” he said at last, “that I would not come with you. And you abducted me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“You hit me over the head.” The sick headache from the blow still lowered, with the rolling menace of distant thunder. “You almost split my skull!”
Kostya shrugged. He seemed not the least contrite.
“Why?” Gavril managed to spit out the question at last. “What gave you the right? To bring me against my will?”
“Because you are our Drakhaon, whether you will or no,” the old warrior said.
“And my mother?” He pictured Elysia alone, frantically searching the villa, the gardens, the empty shore, calling his name in vain. “I don’t suppose you thought to tell her of your plan? Did it ever cross your mind that she might be distressed at finding that her only son has disappeared?”
Kostya shrugged again. “You can send word to her from Arkhelskoye.”
The swinging lantern flame was making Gavril feel seasick again. He closed his eyes but still it etched a trail of fire on his lids.
“And how long am I to remain your prisoner?” he heard himself asking as if from a great distance away. The tumult of the heaving waves seemed to be growing louder. Kostya’s answer sounded as if from far away, a lone sea-mew’s cry across fogbound waters.
“You are Drakhaon, lord; you are not our prisoner.”
“It seems to me . . .” An overwhelming heaviness had begun to seep through Gavril’s body. “That the two . . . are one and the same . . .” The odd taste of the water was still bitter in his dry mouth. Drugged. They had drugged him. He tried one last time to rise up, hand outstretched in impotent anger. The roaring of the foggy waters dinned in his ears and he was falling back down, down through the lightless depths of a nameless sea.
The delirious strains of a waltz whirl through Gavril’s dreams. “White Nights” . . .
He is in the ballroom of the Villa Orlova.
Dark shadow-figures flit past, their faces concealed by grotesque masks: feathered, hook-beaked like birds of prey, or grinning like gargoyles. The once rich hangings are moldering, powdered with dust; the chandeliers with their guttering candles are draped with grimy cobwebs. But still the dancers spin dizzyingly around the mirrored ballroom to the frenetic waltz.
“Astasia!” he cries, scanning the dance floor for her. He pushes in among the frenzied dancers, going from couple to couple, searching.
“Gavril?”
He hears her answering cry and catches sight of her across the floor, pale in her white gown, arms outstretched.
He runs toward her—and the dancers turn on him, the leering, grinning masks looming out of the darkness as they catch hold of him, spinning him around, white-gloved fingers pawing, clawing.
“Help me, Gavril!”
Astasia, dragged away into the darkness . . .
The dance music fractures into discordant fragments, shattering like the shards of a broken mirror. . . .
Gavril opened his eyes. The stench of tar, the creak of timbers, the splash of the swell of an ice-cold sea, the incessant rocking all told him he was still a prisoner on the Azhkendi vessel, sailing ever farther away from Astasia by the hour.
White light seared Gavril’s eyes: thin, cold winter sunlight. He staggered as he came up on deck and felt Kostya catch hold of him, supporting him.
“One step at a time, Lord Gavril. Easy does it.”
“Where . . . is . . . this place?” Gavril covered his dazzled eyes with his hand. He felt as weak as the time he was ill with the quinsy, wandering for days in a raging fever that left him thin and unsteady as a newborn foal. But then he had been dosed with physic, not the powerful sedative drugs he guessed Kostya had used to subdue him.
The barque moved slowly forward through the ice floes, rocking gently on a sea as pale as milk. Gavril took hold of the rail, trying to steady himself.
“The White Sea,” he murmured.
There was a crackling glitter to the expanse of water that stretched into a misty horizon. The sea glimmered with a sheen of ice. Even the air sparkled with frost.
“We passed the last merchant ships out of Arkhelskoye,” Kostya said, his breath smoking on the frosty air. “The sea is freezing fast around us.” He leaned on the rail, frowning out at the ice-hazed horizon. “Too fast. There’s some kind of spirit-mischief at work here. Ice at sea when the berries are still red on the moors?”
“Spirit-mischief?” echoed Gavril in disbelief. This must be some old Azhkendi folk-superstition, he supposed.
Kostya gave him a long, hard look. “Has she taught you nothing of your heritage?”
“So we’re cut off?”
“Unless my lord wishes to fly back to Smarna,” Kostya said with a wry shrug.
Gavril drew in a breath to reply. The air seared his tongue, dry and stingingly cold. The shock silenced him.
He was trapped. Trapped in a barbaric little country, far from any hope of rescue. And if the last ships had left, what means was there of getting a message to Smarna—or to Astasia?
He began to shiver uncontrollably.
“You must be cold, my lord.”
Kostya wrapped a heavy cloak about his shoulders, a fur cloak pungent with a rank civet smell.
“There is to be a small ceremony, lord, when we make landfall. To welcome you. To prove to your people that you are Lord Volkh’s son. It is the custom in Azhkendir.”
“Proof?” Either the sedatives had not quite worn off yet, or the cold had numbed his brain. He had no idea what Kostya was talking about.
“So it’s true. Your mother told you nothing. Nothing at all.”
“What should she have said?” Gavril rounded on him. How dare the old man insult his mother? “That my father never once tried to find us after she left Azhkendir? Left her to raise his son without a sou to her name?”
“You never received any of his letters?” Kostya said. There was a bleak bitterness in his voice.
“Letters!” Gavril’s mind was in a whirl. “He wrote me letters?”
“She must have destroyed them, then. Ah.” Kostya passed his hand back and forth across his forehead as though trying to order his thoughts. “So you know nothing of your heritage.”
“
Nothing!” Gavril flung back at him. He was shaken now, wondering what terrible truth the old warrior was so reluctant to tell him. Savage, Elysia had said, weeping. Cruel.
“I knew it was wrong to let you go. I tried to reason with your father, but he was blinded by his love for your mother; he would not keep her against her will. It was always his intention to visit you on your twenty-first birthday to instruct you about your powers. But that was not to be. . . .”
“Powers? What powers?”
“It should not have fallen to me to tell you.” Tears glittered once more in the old man’s eyes. “It should have been between father and son. It’s not fit.”
“My father is dead. There is no one else!”
Kostya swallowed hard. “You are Drakhaon. The blood that burns in your veins is not the blood of ordinary men.”
“So you have told me a hundred times and more. But what is Drakhaon?”
“Look.” Kostya raised his arm, pointing to the barque’s mainsail. On the white canvas, an emblem was painted in black and silver, an emblem that caught the light of the morning sun and glittered, cold and cruel as winter. Now Gavril could see it was a great hook-winged creature that seemed to soar as the wind caught it, swelling the sail.
“Dragon?” Gavril whispered, transfixed. “But surely . . . it must be a figure of speech, a title, a . . .”
“You are Drakhaon, lord,” repeated Kostya doggedly.
“But how could my father be a man . . . and a . . . a . . .” Gavril could not bring himself to say the word; the concept was just too ridiculous. Dragons were legends in storybooks for children.
“Drakhaon is not merely dragon, lord. Drakhaon is dragon-warrior. A man who can wither his enemies with his breath, who fires the warriors of his clan with the power of his burning blood.”
“No,” Gavril said, laughing aloud at the ludicrous implications. “No!”
“I was there when your father soared high above the Arkhel stronghold and seared the Arkhel clan with his breath. The night sky glittered—and our enemies died where they stood.”