Unbound Heart

by Jane Atchley

  “So? This secret of yours, the one that’s yours to keep, is it you’re a dragon or should I expect something else?”

  “It cannot be much of a secret, sir. Ky’lara calls me dragon every time she speaks to me. It is what Addiri means, little dragon.” Duncan bounced the jewel pouch in his palm taking comfort in its familiar weight. His captain did not crack a smile. Duncan sighed. “I am not a dragon.”

  Kree tilted his head to the right, made a tsking sound against his teeth. “See, there are witnesses, about seventy-thousand of them. Lathan says you’re not dual-natured. So if you’re not a shape shifter, and you’re not a dragon, what are you?”

  “I am the great-grandson of a pirate who called himself Drake Duncan and who began life as a dragon.” Falling back against his pillow, Duncan squeezed his eyes shut. “It sounds absurd when you say it out loud.” He opened his eyes, met his captain’s curious gaze. “You do not believe me.”

  “Hello. Goddess-born.” Kree fanned the backs of his fingers across his chest in a gesture clearly indicating his own history leant to a willingness to believe anything. “Let’s have the story.”

  Duncan opened his mouth, thought for a moment, and then closed it without speaking. He chewed his lower lip for a second or two then opened his mouth again. Nothing came out.

  His captain leaned forward and tapped him on the knee. “I’ll start for you. Once upon a time…”

  How could he not love a man who always knew how to make a fellow’s burdens lighter? Duncan sucked in a deep breath and owned his family’s history.

  “There lived a dragon who, like all his kind, loved and collected rare treasures. One night he chanced upon a beautiful Ionian maiden named Adela Duncan. Captured by her beauty, the dragon perched on the cliff, night after night, and listened while Adela told the sea all her hopes and dreams. The dragon fell in love.

  Adela was the rarest treasure of all, and Drake longed to possess her. But even a dragon knows a dragon and a maiden have no future together. It was agony for him. One night, after listening to Adela’s sweet musings, the dragon fashioned a song of longing so pure, so filled with his desire to be, Adela’s dream come true, the universe took notice. Drake fell asleep upon his hoard and in the morning when he awoke, he was a man.

  But inside, he was still a dragon. Hoarding gold and jewels was all he knew. He became a pirate sailing a ship with a dragon figurehead he called The Sea Dragon. With the spring, Drake sailed to Adela’s home, and he found her on the beach as before. He stood upon the cliff above her as he had always done. Adela sensed him watching and looked up expecting to see the dragon she had fondly called Drake. Instead, she saw a man, but her heart recognized her Drake. He stole her away aboard The Sea Dragon and settled with her on his old island home. The natives called them Addiri. They and the Sea Dragon’s crew became the first Holders of Maoliou.” Duncan paused to sip water, and Kree jumped into the pause.

  “Was it the song you were chanting when I came in?”

  Duncan nodded. “We learn it as children. It is supposed to keep us grounded.”

  “Well, yours is a damn romantic story. A sight better than making a man fall in love with you and then vanishing into a temple the minute you get with child only to return and dump a son on the poor man five years down the road.”

  “Is that how it was with you, sir?”

  “That’s how it is with all of us. By Temple tradition, it’s how they make goddess-born. I was luckier than some. My father wanted me.”

  Duncan nodded. “We have traditions in my family too, sir. For one, Drake or The Drake is always the head of the family. For another, The Drake must manifest certain physical attributes. For that reason, Holdings do not always pass from father to son. For instance, the current Drake, my father, is the third son of the old Drake’s sister.

  “What sort of attributes?”

  Duncan waved his hand in the general vicinity of his eyes. “The most obvious one matches my jacket, sir.”

  Kree laughed. “So, it really is dragon’s eye blue?”

  Duncan flashed an answering grin. “Yes sir.”

  “What else?”

  “Let me see, prodigious curiosity, a fondness for shiny objects, a love of math, an affinity with fire, and many less useful things. Children manifesting these traits are said to suffer from Dracosis and are given the middle name, Drake, so people know.”

  “Aimery Drake Duncan.”

  “Yes sir, because I can become the head of the family. Do you see?”

  Kree tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “I do now.”

  Duncan raked his hands through his hair. “As it turns out, it is literal, not symbolic. Dragons are unbound elementals. Drake, the original Drake, did not die. His human body died, but he still exists in my spirit, body, and blood. I failed to maintain balance. I failed to meditate or follow other Addir strictures. I did more and more dragonish things, until finally, Drake’s unbound essences spilled over into the form most familiar to him.”

  “Uh huh.” Kree rubbed his chin. “Do you think he’s likely to spill over again?”

  “No, sir. The moment I reverted to human form, I reestablished the pact.” Duncan glanced away from his captain’s penetrating gaze. “It was not an experience I wish to repeat.”

  Ky’lara poked her head in. “Excuse me, Addiri. I make food for you. I serve it now?”

  Duncan pushed himself up a little straighter in the bed. “Thank you, Ky. Captain Fawr is always hungry.”

  The two men sat in companionable silence, the captain munched on sandwiches while Duncan picked at his blanket. “Tell me, sir, have you seen Faelan since I…fell…ill?”

  “Huh. Fell ill. You’re funny.” Kree swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I haven’t seen her since I gave her a job. She’s too busy to pester me.”

  Duncan’s gaze snapped to Kree’s amused face.

  “I thought you’d like for me to give her something important to do.” The captain patted Duncan’s leg and stood. He paused at the tent’s entrance, turned, and shot Duncan a lop-sided grin. “Oh. I forgot to tell you. You’ve earned yourself a name. The fellows are calling you Dragon Heart.”

  “No.” Duncan threw back the blanket and struggled to his feet. “They are not.”

  “Really? I thought you’d prefer it to Sugar-babe.” His captain winked at him. “You look fit to me. Get dressed. Ride the camp with me before tonight’s bonfire.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Duncan was a shape shifter. Two days after witnessing his dramatic shift, Faelan still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the fact. She thought of Duncan every free moment, which was not often enough, since the captain assigned her this job. She was up to her ears in medicines, bandages, foodstuffs, and resentment.

  Today Faelan accompanied an allied physician on his rounds, not a very taxing job. Naturally, her mind wandered to her favorite subject, Aimery Duncan. She had to admit that Duncan’s shift shocked her. He’d suffered horrific pain, and he’d looked surprised, terrified. But what an astonishing sight he was gliding over the battlefield on leathery wings, belching fire before his out-of-control reversion sent him tumbling out of the sky.

  The fall injured him, but Faelan still didn’t know how badly. Shifters were fast healers in her experience, yet after two days, she’d heard no word of his injuries or recovery. Worry gnawed at her gut. Every attempt she made to see him ended at the bridge with a curt, “No crossing from this side, Captain’s orders.”

  This time when she addressed the surgeon, Faelan moistened her lips and tried for casual, interested, but not anxious. “Is the Field Marshal recovered?”

  The surgeon glanced at her, an odd look flitting across his features. Evidently, she missed casual by a mile. “How would I know, Miss? It took more than my poor skill to put Duncan back together again.”

  “But you’ve been around the hospital tent haven’t you?”

  “Last place you’re likely to learn anything. They took him in
to the command tent. The only people going in and out of there are the captain, Lathan Bruin, those elf twins, and the native girl of course. None of those folks are saying anything, at least not in my hearing.

  “I did overhear a couple of cadets, though. They say he broke every bone in his body. They say it took Lathan Bruin and the Nhurstari twins over twelve hours to mend all the breaks. Afterward, the twins spelled him to sleep, so’s he’d stand the pain. They’re watching and waiting, so the cadets say.” The physician shook his head. “After dealing us such a victory, it’ll be a darn shame if he doesn’t make it.”

  A graveyard chill shivered all the way up Faelan’s spine. Her chest compressed as if a belt had tightened around it, squeezing off her air. Duncan’s death was not an option. Shifting sped healing, everyone knew it. His wizard and his enchanters could do the rest. But if Faelan believed the physician, they couldn’t. Her wolf howled and clawed at her insides, wanting out, wanting the taste of her mate’s scent on her tongue, needing it like air.

  “Excuse me.” Pushing the basket of bandages and powders into the physician’s hands, Faelan hiked up her dress and ran to the river. Hang the captain’s orders. She was crossing to Duncan. No one was stopping her this time.

  Faelan paused to catch her breath at the top of the cliff overhanging the riverbank. Below her, Duncan’s pontoon bridges bobbed with the river’s current. The ever-present teams of blue clad cadets rowed up and down the length of the bridges, fishing out tangled debris around the anchor lines and guidelines. On the bridges, infantrymen walked up and down checking the water levels in floats, bailing as needed. Duncan’s bridges were high maintenance but—Faelan swallowed a catch in her throat worried for the man whose mind conceived them—they were wondrous to behold.

  Her sari twisted around her legs slowing her progress as she scrambled down to the bank. It took several minutes to repair the damage to her dress, but looking like a mad woman was the last thing Faelan needed. Brushed and tucked, poised, head up, shoulders back, and walking at a sedate pace, she strolled up the abutment and breezed by the guard as if she had every right.

  Her ploy almost succeeded. She was fifteen feet out on the bridge before the guard hailed her.

  “You there! Halt.”

  Pasting a serene smile on her face, Faelan turned. The man stalking across the rough timbers toward her wore fine burgundy regimentals with liberal gold braiding on his shoulders. He looked vaguely familiar. “Is there a problem officer?”

  “What’s your name ma’am?”

  “Faelan Foley.” She kept smiling. At least she hoped it was a smile, inside her, wolf snarled.

  The officer glanced at the note board in his hand. “I’m sorry ma’am. No one’s allowed across from this side unless they’re on my list, Captain Fawr’s orders.”

  She knew this officer. What was his name? Isem. Yes. Leaning into him, Faelan rested her hand on his arm. “Oh, but I am a special liaison between our two armies. Captain Fawr himself appointed me.” Faelan gazed up at the young man and gave him her best wide-eyed innocent expression. “Surely, those orders don’t apply to his special liaison, Colonel Isem.”

  “No, ma’am.” Isem wrenched his gaze from where Faelan’s hand rested on his sleeve to focus on her face. “I mean, yes ma’am. Look. I don’t know much about Captain Fawr, but the cavalry boys all say he’s not a man you want to cross. Orders are orders. I’m sorry ma’am.”

  Somehow, Faelan kept the hand on Isem’s arm relaxed instead of using it to claw his eyes out. Moving closer, she traced her upper lip with the tip of her tongue and trailed her fingertips along the edge of the note board in his hands. “There must be something we can do, Colonel? What are we really talking about here, a squiggly line on a piece of paper?”

  A blush crept up the officer’s neck staining his cheeks. He stepped back, ran a finger under his high stiff collar. “I’ll send your request up to camp, ma’am.”

  All right, she’d miscalculated his interest. How long would it take to send a message, and who knew what the kin-slayer captain would say? Faelan racked her brain for something urgent, reasonable, and persuasive. Plague! No. He’d never let her cross then.

  “Colonel, I understand Field Marshal Duncan suffered extensive injuries from his change. As a shape shifter, I can tell you this is not normal. It is imperative I go to him. Who among your people knows the first thing about shape shifters? I want to help.”

  Uncertainty flickered across Isem’s face, followed by a scowl. Clearly, here was a man unaccustomed to questioning his resolve.

  “I will note your offer in my message, ma’am.” He flipped over a clean piece of paper on his note board and started writing.

  “Colonel, can’t officers make decisions in the field?”

  He glanced at her. “Yes ma’am, during battle, not during sentry duty.”

  Faelan took a deep breath and tried again. “But Colonel, delay could cost—”

  “Hello, Miss Faelan!”

  Roland, that sweet loyal, helpful boy waved to her from one of the maintenance boats bobbing about ten feet away. “Excuse me a moment, Colonel. I see a friend.” As Faelan hurried over to speak to Roland, she couldn’t help thinking the poor man looked relieved.

  She squatted on the edge of the bridge so she would not have to look down on the cadet, and asked the only question on her mind. “How is Aimery?”

  Roland shrugged. “Sleeps a lot, but Eamon says it’s a natural sleep. I think he means Duncan’s better.”

  The tightness in Faelan’s chest eased a bit.

  “What’cha doing out here with Colonel Isem, Miss Faelan?”

  “Arguing.” Faelan grinned in spite of herself.

  “About what?” Roland paddled the boat in between the anchor lines, untangled a clump of cloth that looked like it used to be a shirt, and tossed it in the boat.

  “I want to cross to your camp to visit Duncan. He doesn’t want to let me.”

  “Why not?” Roland’s sandy eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Doesn’t he know who you are?”

  Faelan gave a short laugh. “I don’t think he’s impressed.” She rolled her eyes, and drawled out, “Captain’s orders.”

  Roland screwed up his face. “Colonel Isem, sir,” he called out. “Did Captain Fawr forbid this lady in particular from crossing?”

  The colonel walked about halfway to where Faelan crouched on the bridge. He held up the note board. “Her name is not on the list. If your name’s not on the list you don’t cross the bridge.”

  A big grin split Roland’s face. Stretching out a helping hand, he winked at Faelan. “Hop aboard, Miss Faelan.”

  “Hold it right there, cadet,” Isem shouted. He lurched forward, made a wild grab at Faelan. “Come back here. You can’t—” Running down the bridge to stay abreast with the dinghy; Isem waved the note board over his head. “She’s not on the list!”

  The little boat rocked alarmingly when Faelan leapt abroad, but Roland deftly compensated, keeping his tiny boat upright and pointed toward the bank. He shouted over his shoulder, “I didn’t hear anything about crossing by boat.”

  The choppy current batted Roland’s dingy around. Faelan’s stomach churned and pitched along with the boat. She stroked her throat with her fingers, trying to forget the heavy breakfast she’d eaten.

  “You look pale, Miss Faelan. Are you gonna sick-up?”

  Faelan tore her gaze from the churning river and gave the boy a wan smile. She swallowed bile. “I’m fine. Really” She shook her head. “It’s the motion.”

  “Oh. Focus on something standing still. It helps.”

  It couldn’t hurt. Faelan glanced around. “Nothing’s standing still.”

  “Try looking at the sky.”

  It helped. With her head tilted back and the sun warming her cheeks, her stomach settled. Faelan let out a soft sigh. “You are a very smart, useful sort of young man. Do you know it? I’m sure you’re a great help to Duncan. Are you thinking of a career in soldiering,
too?”

  “I like soldiering, especially for Duncan, but my goddess—I can’t say for sure what my goddess has planned, Miss Faelan.”

  “Call me Faelan.”

  The boy laughed. “Oh no, ma’am, Field Marshal Duncan would box my ears for sure. He’s a real stickler for manners and stuff like that.”

  It was Faelan’s turn to laugh. “He does have propriety issues, doesn’t he? Still, I’m sure you are a great help to him. Did you know he was a shape shifter?”

  The boy shook his head. “He’s not.”

  Faelan glanced toward the cadet. “I saw him shift.” Had she? Now that she thought about it, it hadn’t look like a shift at all. It had looked like—usurpation.

  “I don’t know what you saw, Miss Faelan, but Mister Bruin and the twins are telling My Captain that Duncan isn’t two-natured. As you should know, Mister Bruin has ways to tell.” The boy’s brow creased. “It made the captain mad as all hell. Excuse my language.

  “Hold on to the rail, Miss Faelan. We’ll be hitting bottom right about—” The boat jerked to a halt. “Now.” Roland leapt into the shallow water and tugged the dinghy ashore.

  Puzzled, Faelan sat in the boat. If Duncan wasn’t a shifter…dear ancestor, she’d bitten him. He probably thought her love nip responsible for what happened to him. If so, he wouldn’t be happy to see her. Faelan took Roland’s offered hand. She was already here, too late to turn tail and run.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Duncan lingered in his bath longer than usual, not because it felt good to be clean, although it did, but because every muscle in his body protested his slightest movement. Even his bones ached. He actually had to rest a few minutes before he felt up to toweling off. Jodhpurs had been a major difficulty, and he was not looking forward to boots. Ky’lara or one of his cadets could help him dress. He need only ask, but still…

  Preparing for the battle at hand, boots, he took a deep fortifying breath and smelled…sea-breezes. His knees went weak, and he sat down on his bathing bench.