Legends

by Kit Bladegrave

  Guards and soldiers sprinted past me, headed for the great hall, and no one stopped to ask where I was going.

  I made down to the dungeon it in record time, having snatched the cell keys off the hook near the steps.

  Craig was hunched over, holding his middle and staring at me confused. “What… what’s going on?”

  “Get up, I’m getting you out of here.” I shoved the key in the lock and twisted. “Come on!”

  “You felt that, too, right?”

  “The drain on my strength? Yes, yes, I did. I believe it has something to do with the dragon currently on a rampage in the great hall.”

  “Kate!”

  “I didn’t see her, but I know her roar pretty well by now. We have to get to her, stop her from killing anyone.”

  “What’s the point?” he snapped and shoved me away. “You said it yourself, we can’t get out of here.” He sagged against the wall.

  I realized only adrenaline had gotten me down here so easily. I leaned against the opposite wall, struggling to focus on him as my mind turned fuzzy. I felt weak, but not physically weak, mentally weak, as if she was pulling on my mind and Craig’s body to fuel her dragon’s powers.

  I’d never heard of such a thing happening, but that wasn’t new. Everything about my current situation was new, and there was no time to sit here debating what was really happening.

  “I found something in the archives last night,” I told him earnestly. “I know where we have to go.”

  “And we’re just going to waltz out of here?”

  “Kate is going to kill them all. I think she’s a big enough deterrence to keep my father or yours from sending anyone after us at the moment. Are you with me or not?” I held out my hand for his.

  He growled, took my hand, and yanked me closer. “You better have a way out.”

  “I’ll get us out, Craig. Have a little faith, as you used to all those years ago.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but his face went blank before it broke into a smirk and he clapped me on the shoulder, knowing exactly how many years ago I was speaking of.

  We took off out of the dungeons, following the screams of alarm and roaring still coming from the great hall. A crowd of guards were in the doorway, but we shouldered past them to find Kate, in dragon form, rearing her head back, ready to unleash a torrent of blue fire at everyone before her.

  I heard a loud curse and shifted my gaze to her hands, claws wrapped around two familiar bodies: Kadin and Raghnall.

  They were alive—for the moment. They squirmed in her grip, but they weren’t getting out. Beneath them on the floor were two swords, my father’s and the Executioner.

  “Katherine!” Craig bellowed.

  I stood shoulder to shoulder beside him, staring at the Darrah before us.

  “Forrest! Get out of here!” Kadin screamed.

  I ignored him.

  The dragon’s lips lifted in annoyance, but she didn’t try to kill us. Yet. She squeezed the two men in her grip harder, and a single word growled from her mouth, “Murderer.”

  “I… didn’t kill Maddock!” Kadin croaked as she squeezed him harder. “I swear!”

  “We know dragons are responsible for his death,” Craig shot back. “You invited him here!”

  “I did nothing of the sort! I… had no idea he was alive… gah!”

  Kate’s claws tightened even more, threatening to crush him unless we stopped her.

  “Katherine! Please, let him go,” I pleaded, stepping forward.

  Her eyes narrowed at me, and she lowered her head, snorting loudly.

  Hot air brushed across me, but I wasn’t scared of her. I stared right back and sensed Craig move up beside me.

  “He’s my father and though he is wrong to pass judgment on you,” I added hastily when I felt the heat of her inner fire building again, “he is still my father. My flesh and blood. Please, do not kill him. He’s going to let us walk out of here, I swear it.”

  “You can kill my father,” Craig muttered darkly.

  I nudged him hard.

  He looked sideways at me. “What?”

  “Do you really want her to be a murderer? She’ll have every demon alive after her.”

  He ground his teeth as he glowered at Raghnall, his face red in Kate’s grip. “Fine, don’t kill him either. You’re not a murderer, Kate. You’re the Vindicar. You’re supposed to save them, remember? No matter how worthless they are.”

  She didn’t let them go, but loosened her grip on them, slightly.

  “Kate, please, we need you to calm down before you hurt someone… or eat someone.” I cringed at the last, but said it to try and remind her of how bad she felt after eating a fractorn.

  She’d never forgive herself if she tore someone apart with her bare claws and teeth.

  She stared intently from Raghnall to Kadin then to the guards behind us.

  “Will they attack her?” Craig whispered.

  I turned and addressed the guards and other advisors. “She is under my protection as your prince,” I announced. “You are not to harm her, understood?”

  They grappled with their spears as if unsure if they should listen.

  “Not sure they see you with any authority,” Craig muttered.

  “Listen to him,” Kadin stated loudly. “She is not to be harmed, I swear it, she will be safe.”

  I stared at my father in surprise, but then Kate was setting him and Raghnall down on the floor.

  They scurried away out of Kate’s reach, and a massive shudder rocked her body as if she was fighting to shift back, but wasn’t able to.

  The rage of her dragon being bound was too strong. She swung her massive head from one side to the other, struggling to regain control.

  A few of the guards stepped closer to Kadin, but it set Kate off again, and she snarled, stomping. She stood over her two prisoners.

  “Katherine,” Craig said firmly, “it’s over, you can come back to us now.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” I promised. “The three of us are safe. Just please, come back to us now.”

  The runes that covered her human body were visible against her blue scales. They glowed furiously, and Craig forced me back a step as the light brightened so much it was blinding.

  I grimaced, covering my eyes with my hand as her bitter roar quieted down, and it was just Kate yelling in rage.

  The light disappeared with a sharp crack, so unlike the other times she’d shifted back, as she stood there between Raghnall and Kadin. Her eyes met mine, then Craig’s, and then rolled back into her head. Her body sagged, but Kadin caught her before her head smacked into the hard, marble floor.

  Craig and I were at her side in a second, but her eyes remained firmly closed. At least this time, there was no blood, and she seemed to be at peace, so we didn’t try to wake her.

  “Thank you,” I told my father as I hauled him to his feet.

  He barely nodded his head, eyes frozen on Kate. “I have never seen a Darrah with such power,” he whispered in awe. “Son, I don’t understand what’s happening here. What you told me, it can’t be true.”

  “It is, all of it.” I moved to see Craig and Kate, and I felt a weird sense of being complete. “Events are in motion now that there’s no hope of stopping. I have to continue on this journey with them. We have to find the shield, re-forge it somehow, and stop this darkness before it kills everything we love.”

  “You’re just going to run off again? I cannot allow this!”

  “You don’t have a choice, father,” I said with a sad smile. “I’m part of something greater than just our family. If I don’t help them, what happened back then will happen all over again.”

  His brow furrowed, and he shook his head. “I don’t understand. What happened? You speak of events that never occurred! There was never any darkness plaguing this land, the Darrahs were just mad. They went mad.”

  “In the end, yes, but before that, they fought with everything they ha
d to save us all.”

  “Don’t listen to them,” Raghnall spat furiously, about to get to his feet, but Craig was quicker.

  He tackled his father to the floor, Executioner blade in his hand.

  “What do you know?” Craig demanded, aiming the blade at his throat.

  Reginald and the other demons in the room moved in closer, but Kadin snapped his fingers, and the dragons held them back. My father might not know exactly what was going on, but at least he trusted me again.

  Raghnall growled.

  Craig only smirked. “I mentioned the name Broden, and you flinched. You know who he really was, don’t you? You know why this blade was forged.”

  “He remembers?” I asked, surprised.

  “I don’t know what madness you’re spewing! Get off me this instance or—”

  “Or what? I’m holding the blade to your throat now, Father, tell me what you know, or I’ll cut you open and watch you bleed to death. Right here and now.” He pressed the blade harder into his father’s neck until a thin red line of blood appeared. “Tell me what you know.”

  Raghnall sagged against the floor, his gaze darting to me and to Kate. “I don’t know everything, but that blade was forged over two thousand years ago by Broden.”

  “Why?”

  I held my breath, waiting anxiously to hear the answer. When Raghnall hesitated, Craig pressed a bit harder, and he winced. “A prophecy! There was a prophecy of a darkness that would rise to take over the world, and a hero would come who needed a weapon which would be able to fight this plague upon our land,” he rambled. “A blade strong enough to channel the hero’s power and destroy the darkness before it consumed us all.”

  “How do you remember this when no one else does?” I demanded.

  “I don’t truly remember. I came across a stone tablet in our archives many years ago,” he replied. “Long before Craig was born.”

  “And removed it, which is why I never found it,” Craig said quietly. “What else did you hide?”

  He glanced around wildly as if hoping for a way out, but there was none. “A letter from a demon long ago who witnessed the splitting of the realms. All he could recall was that it happened, but he did not know the reason why, or know why no one else remembered.”

  “Split?” Kadin muttered. “The realms have always been separated.”

  “No, I tried to tell you it was our past lives who did that,” I told him. “They did it to keep the realms safe because the shield was broken and there was no sure way to seal the plague in the Burnt World forever.”

  “A world that was created by the last Vindicar to save everyone,” Craig growled. “She died to save all the races, and then she was betrayed after death. We all were. Someone wanted us to forget.”

  My father glanced around the room, and I joined him. Every face showed confusion, and a few even stared at me like I was crazy. We needed to show them proof of what was coming if they were to believe us, but I had no way to drag them into the past as Kate had done to us.

  “Father, I need you to trust me,” I insisted, resting my hand on his arm. “You need to prepare for a war that’s coming, not one between races, but one between us and the darkness.”

  Kadin frowned. “You speak of war, but I have yet to see the proof.”

  “She’s your proof,” Craig said as he straightened, letting Raghnall to his feet, but keeping a firm hold on the blade. “She’s a Darrah and the Vindicar. It’s her charge to find the shield and use it to stop this plague. And if you need more proof, I’m sure my father would be more than happy to take you on a tour of the outer villages, the ones where the plague hit and killed hundreds of our people. Turned them into mindless beasts who are hunted down one by one now.”

  His father’s hands curled into fists, but Craig stepped away from him and took up his position by Kate, her guardian in the past life and this one. I wanted to know more about our connection, understand exactly how we fit together, but now was not the time.

  Kadin’s eyes narrowed on Raghnall, whose face showed he realized just how vastly outnumbered he was. “I believe you and I need to sit down and have a chat, Raghnall.”

  “He lies,” Raghnall hissed, but my father already snapped his fingers, and the guards moved in around him. “You cannot hold me! I am a king!”

  “Yes, however, you have not only shown aggression toward me and my kin, and you have attacked one of my prisoners while in my keeping.”

  “He’s my son!”

  “Yes, but he was my prisoner at the time. I will hold you until we can sort out fact from fiction.”

  “Father, there’s more,” I said, and pulled him aside to speak quietly. “In the library, there is a hidden room behind the shelves in the back. There’s not much information left, but it may be enough to give you some more clarity on the situation. And you need to send guards to patrol the Darrah lands, more than before.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “When the darkness comes, it will come from there. The original breach was on their land. Send as many as you can spare. I’ll have Craig speak with Magnus and inform him of what to use to burn them if they come before we return.”

  “Burn them? We are dragons, Forrest, we use our own fire.”

  But I was already shaking my head. “Our fire does not kill them, trust me.”

  I saw the doubt on his face, but he nodded and asked me to explain further.

  I made sure Craig was still watching over Kate and guided my father out of the hall to share with him everything I knew so far, and prayed it would be enough to convince him to act.

  9

  Craig

  It took everything I had not to cackle with glee to watch Raghnall’s hands—along with Reginald’s—being bound in chains, by the dragon guards. Finally, he would be held accountable for his crimes against his own kin.

  “Keep smiling, boy,” he growled. “The moment I’m free of this place, I’ll be coming for you.”

  “And do what? Kill me? I’m one of the few who can stop our impending doom.”

  “You always thought you were meant for some higher purpose. All you are is a bastard searching for an excuse as to why you’re still alive!”

  His words cut deep, but I kept on smirking until he was dragged from the room. Only then did I let my shoulders sag. I sat down beside Kate, unconscious, but at least this time she appeared to not be in any pain. They dragged her out of the cell while she was in the midst of another vision and the way she’d yelled at me in desperation, that she found out something. I wanted to wake her, but decided against it, just in case she went off again.

  The other dragons watched us warily, but kept their distance. I wanted to lay down beside her and just sleep like the dead for a few days, but Forrest said he found something, too. He better be right, or he’d be the next one with a sword at his throat.

  I saw him return with his father and that damned healer in tow. Instantly, I was on my feet, blocking the healer from getting to Kate.

  “What the bloody hell is he doing here?” I snapped, aiming the sword at his face the best I could, the weight even heavier in my arms from days of being locked away.

  “He has come to apologize and to learn about the fire used against the plague,” Forrest explained. “Please, Craig, my father is sending men to the Darrah lands and if the plague comes, if Allis returns… they need to be able to defend themselves and the innocents here.”

  I ground my teeth, but he was right. Our purpose was to save everyone. I planted the tip of the sword on the marble floor and nodded. “Fine, but if he touches Kate, I’m chopping his hand off.”

  Forrest smiled, actually smiled in amusement, and bowed his head. “I think that’s fair.”

  Magnus’ panicked look said he didn’t agree and that was enough to keep me satisfied for now.

  I told Kadin all I knew about the fire and how to make it. “There’s a witch named Lucy,” I added at the end of our brief conversation. “She’s in the process of making
it now. If you can contact her, she may be able to help, but I wouldn’t recommend you mentioning anything about harming Kate.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because she’s the woman who raised her and she does not take kindly to those hurting her,” Forrest muttered. “Trust me.”

  “Are you sure you have to leave?” Kadin asked as Magnus trotted off to get started on the potion needed. “I don’t enjoy the notion of my only living child out there fighting against this plague, just the three of you.”

  “It has to be the three of us,” I said. “It’s the way it was back then and has to be again.”

  When Raghnall mentioned a prophecy and a hero rising, he must’ve meant the Vindicar, and I wondered if they hadn’t known who it was when the sword was forged. We had no way of knowing how Broden, Malcolm, and Celandine originally came together.

  “If that’s how it must be then fine, but I’m not letting you leave without proper supplies.”

  He brought over several of his guards and told them to fetch three of their fastest horses as well as food, water, and more weapons. Forrest pulled the sheath out of the knapsack and handed it to me.

  “You might as well wear it until she wakes again,” he said, and I slipped it over my body, sheathing the blade at my back, the dagger still tucked snuggly in the front. “We’ll get safely away from here, and once Kate’s awake again, I’ll show you what I found.”

  “Why not just tell me now?”

  “It’s not the easiest thing to tell,” he replied.

  I fought the urge to throttle him. “Fine. I have a feeling Kate’s going to have some information to share with us as well.”

  I told him all she’d told me during our time in the cell. Mostly about the battles she saw, and all the dying, nothing to give us hope that this time around would be any different.

  But that last time when she went under, something changed. She hadn’t been fighting against whatever force held sway over her, not like the last few times.

  “What do you think she saw?” Forrest bent down and squeezed her hand, but she didn’t respond. “That last time?”