“Then you know we must bring her to one. Where is the closest healing arch?”
I opened the letter and began to read as they finished pulling the dead out of the barn. I didn’t know how they were going to bury them in this rain, and I didn’t want to think about it.
Dragons flame. Flame equals pyre. There will be no burial.
He sounded like he didn’t care.
They tried to kill you. The living ones are lucky Hubric doesn’t bring them out here for the same fate.
I shivered and opened the note.
“Gather all who are sworn to the Dusk in your region and follow Hubric Duneshifter, Purple Dragon Rider. He is flying between Vanika and Dominion City. Kill the Dragon Rider and the dark-haired girl with him but spare the girl with light hair. She is to be brought – alive – to Shadowboon Grove among the Spires before the Upheaval.
Send any fast riders you have to Abrechda. Our plans for Leng Shardson did not go as planned, but he remains a thorn to the Covenant and has been placed on the roll of the Hammer. A reward is offered for his head.”
I shivered.
On the back of the note was a sketch in charcoal of a large man, buried in the ground up to his waist. Around him swirled the spiral of the Dusk Covenant.
Chapter Fifteen
“What did you find?” Hubric asked, snatching the note from my hand. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t quite breathe. They’d come looking for us on purpose. They wanted us dead and Leng, too. It was ... I knew they were my enemies ... it was just ... I knew that when you fought evil people they fought back ... I
Calm. Calm. Breathe. They are no match for us, spider. Do you think Ahlskibi will let them hurt Leng? His flame is more powerful than my own. He’ll snap their bones in his teeth.
But they’d come for us tonight and they’d almost succeeded. If Rakturan hadn’t arrived when he did, the woman would have sunk her sword into my throat.
Calm. Easy. It did not happen and it will not happen again. We won’t let it.
You couldn’t guess these things would happen, so you couldn’t prevent them.
We were relaxed and lazy. They took us unawares. That won’t happen again, I promise you. We will set watches. We will stay focused. No one will take you from my care, spider. No one!
I drew a huge breath and let it out, leaning into the feeling of relaxation that came with the exhale. I focused on that and on the presence of Raolcan in my mind, always there, always loving me, so different – so dragon – and yet so mine.
Yours, spider. Always yours.
“So, they are hunting us now,” Hubric said, in the same tone he might use to state the price of eggs. He fished into a pocket and produced a small leather pouch, opening it and taking out a needle and thread. He carefully threaded the needle.
“They almost killed us. Leng-”
“Is able to look after himself.” Hubric’s frown quelled any objection I might have. He unfastened his leather shirt and shrugged out of it. His grizzled body was still bound with wiry muscles and the wound in his arm spread red blood over his skin. “And we will look after ourselves, too.”
“What have they drawn on that letter?” Rakturan asked, pointing to the backside of the note where the dark figure was drawn. “It looks like an Ifrit.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Hubric said, gritting his teeth and pausing as he put a neat stitch into his own arm. I grimaced in sympathy. “It’s just a poor job of drawing. These people weren’t exactly prime specimens, if you know what I mean.”
I glanced to the people tied on the ground. No one was conscious to take offense.
“Can I read the letter?” Rakturan held out a hand.
Hubric grunted and nodded to where the letter sat beside his sewing kit. He put another stitch in place with a grunt. “I suppose we’re stuck with you now until we reach Dominion City, aren’t we?”
“Look!” Rakturan pointed at the note. “It says ‘Upheaval’ with a capital ‘U.’”
“Fascinating. Let’s study the exact wording and really parse it out.” He punctuated the word ‘out’ with another stitch.
“No, it means the magical act of Upheaval, where they pull ancient creatures out of the ground – Ifrits.”
“I don’t believe in Baojang legends,” Hubric said, tying off the final stitch before putting the needle and thread away.
“But do they believe in you?” Rakturan looked up, his golden eyes glowing in the light of the fire and I couldn’t help but wrap my arm around myself protectively. In the dark, minutes after an attack, anything felt possible and I felt incredibly vulnerable. “Where is this Shadowboon Grove?”
“Close by.” Hubric shrugged back into the leather shirt without bothering to clean the blood off his arm or wrap a bandage over the wound. “If we left now we could make it there by late afternoon. But we are not going there. It’s not on the way to Dominion City.”
“We’re going to the Healing Arches,” Rakturan said. “What do you call them here?”
“Spires,” Hubric said quietly.
“Then we know where we need to go,” Rakturan said.
“I know that I need to go to Dominion City to deliver the message entrusted to me.” It seemed very silent when I was finished.
“A message. You’d risk your friend for a message.” Rakturan’s eyes turned in judgment on me.
“There are healers in Dominion City and they will take good care of her,” I said, swallowing.
It felt too much like last time. Last time I’d had a message entrusted to me – an important one. Last time, Savette had pled with me to break that trust for the sake of our friendship and I’d refused. What should I do now? I’d sworn to deliver the message with haste. I’d also promised Savette that I would take care of her. How in the world could I choose between them?
Chapter Sixteen
I looked to Hubric. After all, he was my master. What did he think? He opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment, Savette groaned. Rakturan rushed to her side, leaving us where we stood, watching him. He gathered her into his arms.
“You’re safe now, I’m here.”
“Rakturan?”
“Yes. I’ll protect you. I swear by my blade and my crown that I will not abandon you.”
She clung to him. “It’s alive. Alive and wild within me. I have no control. I can’t hold it in much longer.”
“What you wrestle is like a great anaconda. If you stop fighting it will turn and squeeze the life out of you. You can’t give in. Keep fighting.”
“I’m so tired.” She sounded like a small child. “I need rest.”
“I’m going to get you rest.” He turned and glared at me with burning golden eyes.
It was too much. I looked away and hobbled to the door, let it slam open – again – and limped out into the night. I didn’t care that it was raining, didn’t care that it was dark. I needed Raolcan.
He stood like a massive stone carving, guarding our door and I found his face in the dark and wrapped my arms around him. What should I do?
Loyalties are always hard. Where does your strongest loyalty lie?
“To you.”
I sensed his satisfaction through our connection.
But what after that?
“I don’t know. I promised I would take care fo Savette, but I also promised I would deliver the message. To do one might delay the other. I swore to the Dominar, and I can’t just go back on that, but Savette is my friend. Personal isn’t the same thing as important.”
True. Personal always trumps important. You have no power over the great things of this world. Even delivering that message is a small thing. Your responsibility to a friend is something else entirely. She only has you.
“And Rakturan.”
Yes. But without your agreement she has nothing.
“So, you’re saying I should make her struggle a higher priority than the Dominar’s message.”
The Shadowboon Grove is out of our way. It will make us turn from our p
ath to Dominion City and then, when we do go back to delivering the message, we will approach the city from a different direction.
Fascinating, but hardly important at a time like this when I felt torn in two!
You miss my point. We are being hunted. If we change directions, it will throw our enemies off our trail.
That was a good point. But what about Leng? I ran a hand over my wet face. I was worried about him. They wanted him dead, too.
Leng can take care of himself, and so can Ahlskibi. Don’t worry about them.
I heard a cough behind me and turned to see Hubric holding a lantern.
“It’s never easy when you are carrying a message. The message always has to come first,” he said. When he stopped it looked like he was chewing his cheek.
“But?”
“But what?”
“You look like you’re about to say ‘but.’”
He laughed. “But this new information about an Ifrit – that’s important enough for a Dragon Rider to investigate. It has the potential to threaten the Dominion. We are allowed to deviate from our course if we think the Dominion is in potential danger and that we can prevent it or report on it. It’s one of two exceptions to the rule of delivering messages first.”
“What’s the other exception?”
“Defense of the innocent. In this case, I’d say you could argue both.”
“I thought you didn’t believe that was a picture of an Ifrit.”
“I don’t like the Dark Prince and I don’t like giving him the benefit of my trust.”
I laughed. We were on the same page there. I didn’t much care for Rakturan either – even if I owed him my life now.
“I think you want to go there because of the prophecies,” I said, mildly.
“Good guess. I don’t like stupid trainees. I’m glad that you aren’t stupid.”
“So, which is it? Imminent danger to the Dominion or curiosity about the prophesies?” It took all my courage to say something so bold to an authority figure, but this was my first message. I had to make the right choice.
“Or even protection of an innocent being consumed by magic?” Hubric asked, his eyes twinkling in the lantern light. “Who says it can’t be all those things? Life is complicated. It doesn’t fit in tidy rows or measure perfectly by rule. The easier you are with that, the more good you’ll do.”
“So, you think we should go to Shadowboon Grove. Raolcan thinks we should go. Rakturan thinks we should go. Why am I the only one who is worried about getting this message delivered on time?”
“Because you’re the only one here who is a trainee. Wisdom is acquired, not granted – or at least, rarely granted. The story of Mamoda the Wise being an exception, of course.”
“Who?” I was beginning to think that I was very uneducated.
He shook his head and sighed. “We’ll work on reading the classics after we deliver the message.”
“And we’ll deliver the message after we go to Shadowboon Grove,” I said, my voice trembling and my palms sweating as I spoke. Was I making the right decision? If I was, then why was my belly so knotted up?
“Good choice,” Hubric said with a smile. “Now, let’s get to work. We have lots to do before we leave and no time to rest.”
Chapter Seventeen
Re-packing the dry things and re-saddling the dragons was easy enough. Dealing with the captives less so.
“If we tie them to the central beam, the farmer will find them in the morning,” Hubric said.
“How do you know?” I asked. “I don’t want them to freeze or starve.”
They were conscious now and one of the girls gave me a terrified look.
“Are you kidding me? He’ll want to be sure we are gone and that if we aren’t we pay for another night. Trust me. He sees us as a potential for money and he won’t want to lose a coin of it.”
“Even after the magical battle here last night?”
“Common people usually pretend not to see those things. They don’t want to look ignorant, so they pretend that kind of thing is normal unless you tell them it isn’t. Works in our favor.”
“So, he’ll release them when he finds them?”
“Most likely. Maybe for a fee.”
“That’s a problem,” Rakturan said from where he was guiding Savette up on her feet. She clung to him and he caressed her back or shoulders with his free hand, like calming a wild animal. “If they are freed they will continue to hunt us.”
“What alternative is there?” Hubric shrugged.
“The same option we had with the dead.”
“We aren’t barbarians,” Hubric said, crossing his arms over his chest. Rakturan looked like he was going to challenge the decision, but then Savette tripped and he scrambled to steady her, cooing gently to her. I hoped I never looked so foolish if I ever fell in love.
Trust me. You and Leng are already almost that bad.
Raolcan was just jealous.
Jealous of a bald-headed boy who keeps on flying away from you when he should be flying to you? I don’t think so.
“I think that for someone getting his own way, you sure complain a lot,” Hubric grumbled. “Just be glad we’re heading to the Spires. That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“I’m worried about Enkenay,” Rakturan said, not for the first time since we explained our decision to him. “How do we know that he’ll be okay.”
“He’ll go home to die. It’s the right thing,” Hubric said, but his grumble had turned to sincerity. “It’s good that you’re worried about him, but you should never have taken him.”
“He agreed to take me. I think he’s connected to me somehow.”
We emerged into the yard where Raolcan and Kyrowat were already saddled and ready to leave. It was still cool, but the rain had stopped, leaving everything smelling fresh and new. Enkenay stood in the same place he’d been since he arrived, but he lifted his nose when he saw Rakturan, as if he were happy to see him.
He is happy. He wouldn’t have gone with Rakturan if he didn’t want to. His rider is dead, and he is dying, but he’s formed some kind of connection to Rakturan.
“Help Savette onto Raolcan with Amel and you will ride with me, Dark Prince,” Hubric said.
“I think it should be the other way around,” Rakturan objected. “Savette deserves the best rider to carry her.”
I ignored him and so did Hubric. Rakturan helped Savette onto Raolcan and I helped him strap her in place. She was drifting in her own world again, but as I cinched the last strap, Rakturan leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. Her eyes flared so brightly that the light shone through the scarf and he startled, pulling back.
“Was it magical?” I asked, dryly.
“What?” his voice sounded hoarse.
“Nothing.” I mounted Raolcan and settled my crutch at his side, trying not to grin.
Nice burn. There’s hope for you yet.
Rakturan strode over to Kyrowat looking dazed and took Hubric’s hand to be pulled up into the seat. The moment their hands met, Enkenay snapped at Kyrowat. Kyrowat snapped back, scrambling forward, but Enkenay reared up on his hind legs, neck extended and mouth open, roaring in Kyrowat’s face.
Kyrowat shifted his weight, dodging to the side of the roar, and Rakturan was thrown clear. He rolled to the side, scrambling back up on his feet. Were they really fighting? What was going on?
Interesting. Enkenay is not finished with Rakturan. I thought it might be so.
Kyrowat spun and despite a shout from Hubric, he clamped his jaw around Enkenay’s neck, forcing him into the dirt and pinning him there.
“Well, I see you have a loyal ally here,” Hubric called over the scuffling sounds of one dragon trying to twist out of the grasp of the other. “It seems Enkenay is not finished with you, Dark Prince.”
“Does that mean Savette and I can ride him together?” Rakturan was balanced on his heels, squatting slightly and holding his hands out to either side like he was prepared to
leap aside or attack at a moment’s notice.
“It means you can ride him – because he says you can and I won’t argue with his free will over it. If he attacks Kyrowat again, he’ll see what a mistake that is, though.”
“And Savette?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Rakturan nodded and Kyrowat let Enkenay up, dodging aside when he did, as if to prevent a further attack. Rakturan took Enkenay’s saddle from where he’d stashed it and started to saddle the decomposing dragon. Oddly enough, the White stood still as he worked, as if he and Rakturan had worked together for weeks.
Don’t forget. We are people, too. Enkenay makes his own choice in this.
I hadn’t forgotten. I respected dragons rights as individuals.
Just one of many things I love about you.
“It’s strange,” Savette said from behind me, her voice otherworldly and distant. “He looks like he is dying, but within him, I sense so much life. If I could just draw it back...”
I shifted nervously. “I think you should worry about yourself right now, Savette. We need to get you well before you go messing with life and death.”
She started to hum a faraway tune and her tune carried on as we lifted off into the sky, following Kyrowat toward Shadowboon Grove and whatever healing or terror might lie there.
Chapter Eighteen
The area around Shadowboon Grove looked like the earth had knotted and tangled in on itself. There were rolls and ripples that led to hills and valleys so sudden that there was more vertical land than horizontal. Good thing I was riding Raolcan and not a horse! A horse would take weeks to get through the space we flew over in a few minutes – maybe even longer.
You wouldn’t like horses. They smell funny. They have bad attitudes. They’re lazy.
They don’t bite their riders’ arms off or flame people they don’t like.
Like I said, they’re lazy. Anyone with ambition tries to flame their enemies from time to time. Besides, they eat grass. Grass! It’s incredibly gross.
At first, the land had been bare and tangled but now it was tree-covered and tangled. It made for an interesting sight, visually, but there was nowhere to set down for a break and my leg was sore and lower back aching. I needed a bathroom stop and a chance to get a fresh drink.
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