by Ava Sinclair
Who would have thought the problem we encountered in the form of a fractious healer would become the basis for a bonded mating? We have all claimed her now, and the only regret that Yrko and I have is that we must leave to take over patrol for our brothers.
It is easy now to be wistful for different times, when we’d awaken in our castle with our mate, a tangle of sweaty limbs. Yet if this were the time before, we’d not have Thera. We’d be lying with some maiden. We are glad it is this way. She is perfect for us.
“We must go.” I push a lock of hair away from her face and see she is opening her eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Sore.” She smiles as she turns onto her back and folds an arm under her head as she stares up at us. “But I am glad for it. I am glad to feel your seed seeping from me, of knowing when I walk tomorrow I will be tender between my legs. I’ll think of you.”
“Careful, woman. Such words will have us spreading those legs again.” I can feel my cock hardening already at her frankness. Oh, yes. She is so much better than a maiden.
“The snows have stopped,” she says, looking towards the window.
“Yes.” Tyri nods. “The oracle sees fairer weather. Even in winter it cannot snow every day.”
“No, it cannot. If it does we should make love in it, my lords. We’d melt it with our heat.”
“Minx,” I growl, and lean down to kiss her lips as Tyri awaits his turn. As I rise, I listen to my brother whisper words of love to our mate. I feel stronger now, more powerful, and remember years ago when I was at my father’s knee, and he told me how the first mating changes a Drakoryan. He discovers a purpose as wonderful as flight, he’d said. It deepens the protective drive.
I see now he is right. I emerge from the cottage with my brother with an added resolve to defeat the enemy. Thera is a healer. Her bond to the villagers is different and deeper than that of the younger virgins our kind usually claims. True, they grieved their families, but to Thera, the village is her family. She cares for each mother as a sister, each child as her own, each elder as her grandparent. She needs them as they need her.
“The day will dawn fair.” Yrko is looking towards the mountains where the first tinge of pink is crowning the peaks of the eastern range.
“And another night has passed without the ShadowFell.” The words carry no confidence. “The villagers are still eager for combat. They’ve tasted war but have not been given a bitter portion.”
A blast of cold air comes from the north, wailing through the cottages. A raven sits on the snow-covered pile of wood that remains of the deconstructed gallows where Ceril was put to death. It eyes us, croaking in earnest. I feel my brother’s unease.
Overhead, our brothers are flying. We call to them with our minds and they glide down, shifting into flame that condenses into their human form. They are grinning, and for a moment my twin and I forget our worries. Erdorin, Jareo, and Gyrvig have come to congratulate us. We embrace, knowing this is a special moment for all of us.
“I’ve already sent word to Ersior,” I say. “He will come to preside over the Deepening before candle time. We will carry our bond on patrol tonight.
Tyri and I take to the air with hope and a watchful eye. Below us, Jareo and Gyrvig put the restless soldiers through their maneuvers as nearby Erdorin oversees work at the armory where villagers hammer metal into links for another net.
I look to the mountains, my dragon sight seeking the hollows and vales, and feel a surge of frustration. After each victory, we have sought the ShadowFell lair, hoping to corner and kill them where they sleep. We have never been successful in this quest.
In the distance is the Mystic Mountain. Our largest dragon lords circle the peak, more watchful now that the witches continue to work healing magic. Lord Zyvis of Za’vol is among them. I think of him and his brothers, of how they must wish they could be with Lady Isla, who will not rest easy until she knows the fate of her sister.
It speaks to the ShadowFell cruelty that they would banish her to the forest, to consign her to wander in a trance-like state until she succumbed to starvation. I have to think the same strength that gave her the courage to defy her captors is the same strength that kept her alive.
I turn and fly over the storehouse, remembering the burned harvest, the sense of helplessness. A dragon’s appetite is never ending. Sometimes I awake to pangs of hunger and look to see my brother lying awake with the same pain. We eat enough to sustain ourselves, but long for the days when we feast once more.
All day my twin and I patrol, stopping only long enough to break bread with soldiers of the village and serving class. A group of them has cut the head from the burned body of the ShadowFell dragon. The ravens have picked it nearly clean of charred flesh. I find myself looking at the cavern of its eye, three times as big as a shield. A raven swoops down and perches in the hollow. It shakes its feathers and pulls them close. The eye now has an iris. The raven croaks and I feel the same chill I felt staring at the gallows. I turn to see Tyri is looking, too, his expression grave.
“An omen,” he says.
The hours drag by, and when the sun finally sinks in the sky, Yrko and I hear the voice of Erdorin calling to tell us the oracle has arrived. We dive towards the ground, shifting as we land. Our older brothers are already in the cottage.
Ersior, the oracle of Castle Kri’byl, would have preferred we achieve the Deepening in what will be our home, yet understands that we do not want to leave on our watch. Thera also factored into our decision. She’s had to travel to Castle Fra’hir twice now, but it is in the village that she feels most at home. One day, we will convince her to make our home hers, but for now, we would achieve the Deepening where she is most comfortable.
Our oracle is far more spry and jovial than most others. “A good match.” He pats Thera’s hand as he guides her to the chair he’s pulled in front of the fire. “A wise woman to keep these fiery young lords in line.”
“Careful now, old man,” Jareo jests. “If you sully the good name of Kri’byl, she may not want to be with us.”
Ersior chuckles. “Well, she can come live with me in the tower. Nothing up there but mice. I could use some company.”
Thera looks back at us and smiles nervously as she takes her seat. “What will happen now?”
The oracle puts a hand on her shoulder. “Your men will share their lives, their thoughts, their memories, so that you may know what it is to be Drakoryan—one who walks between the world of man and beast. You will feel what they feel; it will make you a better mate.”
She glances at us and then back at him. “And what of me?”
He looks puzzled. “What are you asking?”
“Should they not share mine as well?”
“Most mates are content to receive, my dear.”
“I am not most mates.” Thera’s eyes are determined. “I am a healer, a woman of the village. I will only do this if I can share with you.”
“We would be honored,” Erdorin says, and we lay hands on Thera and close our eyes. Ersior begins to chant from the book he’s holding, weaving an ancient spell in the forgotten language of dragons. We empty our minds, ready to receive Thera’s thoughts and memories.
We see her come into the world, hear her first cries. We see a field of flowers and the hands of her mother and hear her voice as she teaches Thera the names of different plants. We feel the wood beneath her feet as she climbs a tree, wild as a mountain cat, and feel the pain when she falls. She is taken to the healer, and old woman we see through her eyes.
“There’s something special about you,” the older woman says as she wraps Thera’s injured arm.
We feel her happiness when a man whittles her a set of wooden forest creatures. They are rubbed smooth. We hear the names she gives them as she plays with them on the floor of her family’s cottage.
We feel her wince beneath our hands. Her next memory is of Ceril. She’s older, and he is bringing her a gift, a pretty hair ribbon he got in trade. She will not tak
e it. She is thinking of another, a stonemason who has just given her the flowers she is rushing home to put in water.
A wedding. The village square is decorated with garland. It is spring. She is dancing. We feel love for the man who swings her around. He is nearly as large as we are, with a happy, bearded face that glows with pride.
She shares the joys of her life before, and through her eyes we sense what it is like to live in a village, to feel the warm soil beneath our feet, to hear the harvest songs. We learn what it is to heal. We watch newborns slip bloody into her hands and close the eyes of the newly-dead as women wail around her. We feel her elation and her hurt. We have seen her concern. Now we experience it.
All goes dark. We hear the sound of rushing wind. Dragon wings. She nestles against the strong chest of her mate, coughing as the smoke from the burning fields billows through the cracks in the cottage walls.
“Why? Why?” She is crying into Bran’s shirt.
“They are punishing us.”
We feel her anger and her hate.
All goes black again. We feel hunger, feel her worry. Her husband chides her for taking her food to a neighbor. He worries that she does not eat enough. He can see her ribs.
He will hunt for her. We feel her fear. The woods are dark. What if there are predators? He tells her he will take her father, that Ceril knows where some acorns have fallen by the river. There will be boar.
Our throats grow tight. This feeling is not known to us. We choke with sadness. Our cheeks are wet. Tears. We have never felt them. We feel them now, her tears on our faces. In our hands, which are her hands, is a portion of a bloody shirt. We rock back and forth, clutching it to our chest. We are not comforted. When blackness comes, it feels like a blessing.
We feel her anger and understand it now. Before she knew who killed her husband and father, she blamed us alone. We feel her desire for vengeance, and for the first time, fully understand.
And then the memory fades, and we feel her love, her forgiveness. It washes through us like a warm wave. Now we are ready to share.
Tyri and I were the last to take her, but the first to share. We allow her to see us as we were at birth, slick with blood and lying on linen. We’d slipped out quickly and clutched hands as the midwife cleaned us up for our mother. We show her our first shift and how it felt when we burned with our first dragon fire that twined and then split into two dragons.
Gyrvig shows her the home of our youth. He allows her to see it from dragon sight, the spiraling peaks of Castle Ei’Dra. He was always the explorer. He shows her the joy of discovering sunken caves, the dangers of flying through a storm as lightning fills the sky with blinding light. He shows her our fathers, the four Lords of Ei’Dra, grown older now, as they recount tales of early battles. She will remember these tales as we do, having heard them.
Jareo shows her battle. We want to prepare her. She does not know how brutal it can be. He lays the truth raw before her, revealing the true savagery of the enemy she has finally accepted. She hears soldiers scream as they are burned alive, and watches our king defeat the ShadowFell in the battle that killed Rymoth the Great. She moans and trembles. We press our hands into her, knowing it is not easy, this truth.
Yet there is hope, and Erdorin shows her what can be. He shows her Castle Kri’byl, where she will someday be lady. He shows her hidden waterfalls in the caverns that seem to have no beginning and strike pools at the bottom in a shimmering spray. He shows her the feast hall, and the feasts of old, the smells, the sounds of laughter. He shows her the taste of wine and candied fruits, until we can feed her these things with our own hands. He shows her these things as a promise of what will be once again.
He shows her our pride, our history, and the knowledge of living under a curse, the vow of our people to turn it to good. He shows us the desire we felt for her, the attraction we felt even before we realized it ourselves. We show her the comfort she brings.
We are of one mind now, and of one resolve. Her revelation is a gift. We emerge from the Deepening with a greater appreciation for the villagers, for what it has been like to live under our rule. We have a renewed respect for Thera’s strength. She has overcome so much.
We embrace her, but our moment of peace is interrupted. At first, I think the sound of wings is a residual memory of the Deepening. But there are many. Too many.
“Stay here,” my twin and I say together, and we rush from the cottage.
Chapter 28
JAREO
The sky is thick with small, twisted dragon soldiers, their numbers so great they nearly blot out the rising moon. Our dragons fly between the ShadowFell soldiers and the villagers, keeping low as women and children run screaming to the shelters.
Even with our protection, it is already clear that these winged monsters will not be so easily defeated. Half a dozen manage to break through our defenses and intercept several soldiers running for hidden levers we use to launch the nets. Their screams rend the cold evening night as they dragons rip them apart. Yrko and Tyri dive, each grabbing two of the soldier dragons and slinging them into pieces. The other two dragons, seeing the danger, take to the air. But Erdorin has already filled his fire glands and comes along side me to direct his flame at the two attackers which plummet back to the earth, shrieking as they burn.
Below, several soldiers have made it to the net, yet I cannot allow them to launch it. They have been ordered to only deploy it for a large ShadowFell, but they are panicking. I fly down, roaring as I swoop over, and they back up. Erdorin and I circle above the soldiers, thinning as many of the small dragons as we can. In the village, they are landing on the halls, ripping at the clay and beam roofs with their teeth and claws, trying to get inside. Our dragons swoop down, picking them off the roof and crushing them in their jaws. Blood rains over the village square. I hear screams of fear, but also battle cries as the men recover and begin to slay the dragons that land. I feel proud as I see the maneuvers I taught them at work. A young villager who started as a clumsy recruit, armed now with dual swords, decapitates one of the small dragons with a two-handed move. Beside him, another soldier rushes through the pack of dragons, driving his sword into one after another; each blow is lethal.
We are starting to thin the dragons, but we are not ready to rest. If anything, our worry increases with each moment.
Thera! I call to her with my mind, grateful that we have had achieved the Deepening.
Here, in your cottage, with the oracle.
Our cottage has a thatched roof.
Watch for fire. If it comes, flee to a shelter. Stay alive, Thera. Stay alive!
I have to fight to keep from flying down to our cottage. I know my brothers wrestle with this, too, this need to protect our mate above all others. But we have been charged by the king himself with safeguarding all the people.
Another wave of winged soldiers flies in from the east. This group is smaller, yet to my dismay I see moonlight glinting from their bodies. These soldiers are armored, a silver skin of plate covering their heads and bodies. They scream as they descend. Soldiers that had easily slain the first wave are now cut down.
No!
I land in the midst of them and bellow a roar of pain as they swarm me, but that is my plan. I struggle to take to the air. The soldiers are mad with fury, their teeth digging into my scales. I wing my way upward, calling to Tyri and Yrko, who flank me as I continue to rise with a dozen smaller dragons clinging to me like horrific parasites. I begin to spin, and my passengers lose their grip. The fall through the dual streams of fire ejected by my brothers. Their armor cannot save them. The air is filled with the smell of blood and burning flesh.
Then comes the roar that shakes the valley, and over the horizon the dreaded shapes that make us nearly forget the small dragons we are steadily defeating. The ShadowFell are coming, two score strong. We can feel the force of their wings, even from here.
We issue a collective war cry. Half of us head towards the foe; we must intercept them bef
ore they reach the village, or at least slow their approach. In my peripheral vision I see another contingent of the enemy heading north, towards the Mystic Mountain. The Drakoryans guarding there cry out as well and move into protective formation.
Every Drakoryan who can fight is fighting. We meet them in a clash of tooth and claw. The force of the foe is stronger than I remember. The ShadowFell grab an ice blue Drakoryan dragon by the neck as another sweeps forward to open his belly with the curved claw on his wing join. It is a fatal blow, and we scream in outrage. Never before have we lost one of our own so early in battle. We round on the attacker before he can wheel away. Lord Tythos and Lord Drorgros of Castle Fra’hir grasp the wing on either side as Zelki uses the heavy end of his tail to snap the bone. As the ShadowFell falls, troops below launch a spear, impaling the black dragon with a fatal shot.
All around is carnage. The losses are equal, but as commanders of men, we have an advantage. We turn, pretending to flee and the ShadowFell, in full battle rage, react instinctively and give chase. We feel air rush past us as they inhale. We have only a matter of moments to implement our plan. We bank before we hit the ground, barely clearing the nets that jettison from the ground to trap the approaching ShadowFell. Other Drakoryans have left the ground to fly above and move to rain fire on the trapped dragons before they can expel their own. Oily smoke billows from the screaming, burning ShadowFell. Soldiers flee, and some, overcome by the billowing heat, collapse and must be rescued by their comrades.
More ShadowFell are coming. I look for my brothers. Erdorin bears a red gash on his neck but seems unaware of it as he burns through the wing of a rival dragon.
Something hits me from above, driving me towards the ground. As I spin out of control, I look up to see two ShadowFell bearing down, one tumbling from view as Gyrvig hits it. Lord Jayx grasps the other, but it is not quick enough for me to recover. Pain cascades through me as I land on two cottages, crushing them. I have no time to consider whether they are occupied. Above me, the sky is thick with dragons, and for the first time I am afraid as I see more Drakoryans fall.