His hands are shaking when he tries to fit a key into the lock. He can’t be too late. It can’t end like this.
The lock gives reluctantly, sticky with rust, and Drake shoves the door open with a creak. He drops to his knees, reaching out. “Gabriel,” he repeats. His voice cracks.
Gabriel shifts in his arms, limp, half falling against Drake’s side. His breathing stutters, and he twitches weakly. The blood on his face is still there, dried dark.
“Wake up, Gabriel,” Drake says gently, holding him close. “Please, wake up. We need to get out of here.”
“Drake?” Gabriel’s voice sounds thin, small and vulnerable, but thank the Maiden he’s awake.
“It’s going to be all right.” Saying it will make it true. “We’re leaving now.” He pulls Gabriel’s arm over his shoulders and lifts, staggering under the awkwardness of Gabriel’s limp weight. Gabriel’s head falls forward, and he sags. “Stay with me,” Drake pleads. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Trying.” Gabriel sways, still unbalanced. “Cold. Talk to me, Drake.”
Drake winds his other arm around Gabriel’s waist. “If I tell you a story, will you stay awake for that?”
Gabriel’s fingers curl in Drake’s sleeve. “You tell good stories. Yes.”
Drake swallows hard. “Once upon a time,” he says, and guides Gabriel through the cell door. “Once upon a time there was a dragon.” He thinks he hears Gabriel’s breath catch, and prays it’s surprise, not pain. “Once upon a time there was a young dragon who thought he knew all there was to know about the ways of the world. He wasn’t terribly wise, but he was clever, and he thought that was enough, so one day he left the glittering cavern where he’d grown up— Gabriel, can you hear me?”
“Mmm.” Gabriel lifts his head for a moment, and stumbles. “Clever. Go on.”
“That’s right.” It’s slow going with Gabriel mostly deadweight across his shoulders. “So he came to the city of men looking for—for treasure.” There’s muttering from the other cells they pass now, as the prisoners start to wake and realize what’s happening.
“Here,” one of them says. “You’ve got the keys, don’t you? What about the rest of us?”
“Getting there.” Drake stops at the first cell on the row, shifting Gabriel’s weight against his side, and holds out the keys to the man who’d first talked to him when he arrived. “Take them and pass them down when you’re out. And make it quick. There’s a fire upstairs.”
That makes noise break out in all the cells at once, men yelling in alarm and demanding to be next, to be let out. Gabriel’s grip tightens faintly on Drake’s sleeve.
“You all have the time,” Drake says as they reach the door, as the first prisoner unlocks his cell. “Don’t panic, just go.” He pushes open the door, leads Gabriel out of the cell wing. The smell of smoke out here is too strong for just the banked fire in the jailer’s little fireplace. Drake wonders if anyone outside has noticed it yet. He can’t hear any shouts, any alarm bells, but it can’t take much longer, he wouldn’t think.
“Roused the dragon to fire,” Gabriel says softly, and Drake squeezes him close. He’s going to make it. He has to.
“I couldn’t leave you there, could I?” Drake says. Anna left the door open when she fled, and Drake helps Gabriel out into the dark now. “I don’t suppose you know how to ride.”
Gabriel laughs for a moment, though the sound dies in a hiss of pain. “No.”
“Well, let’s see how fast you pick it up.” Anna’s horse is waiting, a handsome chestnut gelding that stamps and snorts when they draw close but doesn’t actually shy away. Drake wishes he could remember this one’s name. “Here, reach up and take hold of the saddle. Are your hands all right?”
“Yes,” Gabriel says, and curls his fingers gingerly around the pommel. “No. Hurts.”
Drake winces in sympathy. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to hold on for long.”
Gabriel nods, but barely. Behind them there are shouts as someone notices the fire in the jail’s upstairs windows, and low curses from the prisoners just now escaping. Drake glances back, wary of an attack—someone trying to take the horse, or to recapture them—but the other prisoners are fleeing on foot, scattering down the streets.
“We should hurry.” Drake laces his fingers together and leans down, the way his riding instructor used to do for him when he was little. “Put your foot here, and I’ll boost you up. And then we’re getting out of here.”
“So clever,” Gabriel says, and steps into Drake’s braced hands. He’s shaky, almost doesn’t manage to get his leg over, and the horse sidesteps a little. But Drake holds him steady until he manages to more or less get settled, slumped forward in the saddle.
Drake unties the reins from the hitch and throws them over the horse’s neck. There’s a low swelling whoosh, and then a sharp outburst of crackling noises, heat washing the back of Drake’s neck. The fire’s reached the roof, then, caught the pitch there. Now the alarm bells do start to ring, and the horse tosses his head nervously, shying as Drake reaches for the saddle.
“Come on,” Drake coaxes, nervous, his heart racing. “I don’t like it, either. Let’s get going, then.” He gets a foot in the stirrup and pulls himself up, sliding an arm around Gabriel’s waist to reach for the reins as he settles his other foot in its stirrup. He tugs at the reins and the horse wheels under them—Mother, but it’s strange to be riding again after all these months—toward the river, toward their escape.
The clatter of hoofbeats on the cobbles comes almost in the same moment as the first sharp sound of a guard whistle. Not now, Drake thinks, when they’re so near—but the captain comes around the corner before he’s even had time to finish the prayer.
“You rotting bastard, Harwood,” he calls. “You could have lived.”
There are shouts from behind them too, so Drake knows the way back isn’t clear either. He needs to move, soon, before one of the guards comes up with a crossbow—there, Lady Arhon take him, someone jogging up to the captain’s side—and something bursts in the roof of the jail, sends flaming debris scattering down between them. Drake leans over the horse’s neck, shielding Gabriel as best he can, and digs his heels into its sides. His horse bolts forward, and Westfall’s horse rears, screaming like the fire must have caught it. They drive straight into the space between Westfall and his lieutenant, close enough to clip the horse’s flank, and Westfall loses his seat as they gallop past.
Let the fall kill him, Drake prays. Let him crack his skull on the cobbles.
The horse runs with pure terror to drive him, and Drake doesn’t try to rein him in just yet, holding on to Gabriel and doing his best to keep them both in the saddle as they tear down the darkened streets away from the fire. When they’re far enough that the scent of burning pitch isn’t quite so strong on the air, he pulls back a little, reins in the full gallop to a rolling pace that he doubts either he or Gabriel will want to keep up for long. He turns toward the harbor before they’ve reached the river itself. The west gate will be closed at this hour, but they need to get out of the city.
“Gabriel?” His voice feels raw in his throat. In the distance, he can still hear the shouts and alarms as people try to tame the fire.
“What is it, Drake?” Gabriel sounds tired, and he’s shaking a little in Drake’s arms.
“Help me find the way to south gate?” He might be able to find the way himself, but he wants Gabriel awake for his own peace of mind.
Gabriel takes a deep breath. “Find Cypress. I’ll show you from there.”
“All right.” They’re probably entirely too conspicuous like this, riding double and clearly in a terrible hurry, but Drake thinks he’d rather run that risk than try to go on foot. They need the extra speed right now. And with any luck, the fire will keep the guard from sparing a thought for them until it’s doused.
He finds Cypress easily, and nudges the horse into a canter as they start south. As long as it’s still safe, they may as well. The
cobbles become too broken and uneven for that before long, and they slow to a walk. Drake spares one hand from the reins to just hold Gabriel close against him. Soon, now, it must be.
“There,” Gabriel says, lifting one hand—not really pointing, like his fingers don’t want to curl that way, but at least gesturing. “Turn right there.”
Drake pulls lightly on the reins. It’s strange to see this part of town from horseback, to look down on the collapsing buildings and crooked alleys from a vantage point like this. He’ll miss it, he realizes. Gabriel’s Casmile. Broken and ruined as it is, they’ve shared so much here, and now they’ll be starting over in a place that’s strange to both of them.
“Left,” Gabriel says. He rocks in the saddle with the horse’s gait. “Then straight on to the gate.”
It’s a wide street, the one that leads down to the south gate’s remains. Drake wonders what it’s called, farther north where it matters. He peers into the dark ahead of them, looking for the gate, or what’s left of it.
Crossing the pile of rubble on horseback is tricky work; Drake winds up having to get down and lead the horse, nervous the entire time that Gabriel will lose his precarious balance, fall, and hurt himself further. As the excitement wears off, Gabriel’s starting to fade again. It worries Drake that he can’t tell whether that’s thanks to injuries, or just the way he retreats when he’s troubled enough.
Gabriel does slip, and start sliding off the horse’s neck, when Drake boosts himself back up in the woods beyond the gate. “Are you all right?” Drake asks, catching him, trying to keep him balanced.
“Tired,” Gabriel says, leaning back against him. “That’s all.”
“I know,” Drake says. “Me too.” The horse shifts impatiently, and Drake nudges him to start moving again. If they keep the city wall on their right, they should find their way out of the wood and make it to the Deradan road. “We’ll stop to rest as soon as it’s safe.”
Anna’s horse picks its way through the swampy wood, careful of its footing in the dark. Casmile’s fire bells ring in alarm, quiet enough at this distance not to drown out the breeze through the pines or the squelch of mud under hooves.
“You should tell me the rest of the story,” Gabriel says softly. He takes a deep breath. “About the dragon.”
“All right.” It’ll help to pass the time, and give him something to do besides worry. “Where were we?”
“You came to Casmile looking for treasure,” Gabriel says. One of his hands rests carefully on Drake’s wrist.
“That’s right.” This isn’t just a story about him, though, even if it could have been at first. “The dragon had seen a—seen a star fall,” he says, thinking of Deirdre’s northlands stories. “It was one of the jewels of the Green Lady of the Grave, fallen down to earth. Surely, he thought, if he could find such a rare and precious jewel, it would bring him luck. So he set out for the city to search for it.” He’s not sure how far the woods extend, but they seem thinner up ahead. They’ll have more light when they can get clear of the trees, and then they can cross the open fields to the road.
Gabriel pets his arm. “I knew you had to be after something. Go on.”
Drake takes a slow breath, thinking back to that first night, the chaos, Morgan’s toughs showing up at the Dragon’s Head. “The city was nothing like he expected, and he found himself lost almost at once despite his cleverness. Men were so loud and impatient, so quick to anger.”
“But that’s all right,” Gabriel interrupts. “Dragons are fierce when they’re angry.”
“I’m getting to that,” Drake says. Gabriel’s head rests against his shoulder, so he kisses Gabriel’s cheek before he goes on. “But not everything about the city was bad. The dragon happened upon a boy who wasn’t like any of the others, a boy who knew the Lady himself and knew the city just as well. He was as fierce as any creature the dragon had ever heard of, but he was also kind, and he took the dragon home with him, offered him food, and showed him the secrets of the city of men. The boy could see through the dragon’s disguise, but he loved secrets, so he told no one.”
“The dragon paid him well for his kindness,” Gabriel says. “By keeping him warm and fighting beside him, and making everything make more sense.” They are coming to the edge of the wood now, and the torches at the west gate are visible off in the distance. Drake turns the horse left a bit, away from the wall. They should try to put some distance between them and the city before they stop. He hopes the guard won’t know where to start looking for them, but it never hurts to be careful.
“They had all sorts of adventures together,” Drake says, and he finds he’s smiling despite how awful this day has been. “Everything they did was new and strange, and the dragon nearly forgot what he’d been seeking at first.”
Gabriel hums. “Flatterer.” He sounds pleased. Drake kisses him again.
“No, it’s true. So they lived together in the city, and people told tales about them, and perhaps they could have gone on that way for years, except . . .” This is the tricky part, he thinks, the bit he really needs to get right, only he’s not sure how to say it.
“Except,” Gabriel says after a minute, when Drake still hesitates, “except that they were caught in a trap, and the huntsmen of the city came to take the dragon away.”
A chill runs down Drake’s spine, and part of it is the cold night air but part of it is the memory of the view of the hanging square. “And when the huntsmen locked him up and took the boy away . . . all the colors went out of the city at once, like a spell breaking, and it was the ugliest place the dragon had ever seen.” His voice is getting hoarse, his throat tight. “And that’s when he knew. He’d found the Lady’s lost star after all. It had been right there with him the entire time. The—the boy must have swallowed it, because it was in his heart now, and its, its magic touched everything around him.” He has to stop, to swallow hard, to hold on to his composure.
“Drake,” Gabriel whispers. “Tell me the end.”
“So—so what else could he do? He smashed his way out of his cage and went to find the boy, who was the very treasure he’d always wanted. And the boy had grown sick—”
“Heartsick.”
“Heartsick,” Drake corrects himself, feeling his own heart pound, “without him. But the dragon lifted him up, and held on to him, and wished with all his might—” It’s become a true story, so he’d better give it the ending he wants. “And the boy recovered, and the light of his star grew bright again. The boy and the dragon fled the city to terrorize people on the wild roads beyond. And if nothing more wicked has come along—” his voice cracks, but this is how tales should finish “—they must be living there still.”
There’s silence for a long minute, broken only by the steady beat of their horse’s hooves as they make their way onto the packed road. Gabriel shifts, turning in the saddle enough to look back over his shoulder. “You love me,” he says very softly, “don’t you?” He sounds awed, and hopeful.
Drake nods. He can see starlight reflected in Gabriel’s eyes. “I do,” he says, stretching forward for a kiss. The angle is terribly awkward, but he doesn’t care. He’s shaking with relief and with nerves and it feels so strange to have said it, but he wouldn’t dream of taking it back.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” Gabriel says when he pulls back, relaxing into Drake’s arms. He sounds more certain of that than he has of anything in days.
“Yes,” Drake agrees. It won’t be easy, getting to Deradan from here, and the Fates only know what they’ll do when they get there. But they have enough determination between them that they’ll get by. “I suppose we’d best hope we’re bringing all our luck along.”
“Don’t worry,” Gabriel says. “We have each other. We can always bluff the rest.”
The caravan rumbles into Deradan late in the afternoon, shaggy draft ponies plodding up the street with their heads down. Drake barely looks up from the card game he’s playing outside a travelers’ inn.
He doesn’t want anyone to remember him being particularly interested, and besides, he’s winning.
He plays three more hands after the last wagon rolls by, down the cobbled main street toward the heart of the city. Then he collects his winnings—“Better take the blessings the gods give me and be grateful, aye?”—and sets off down a side street, whistling.
Deradan still feels small to him after Casmile, nestled as it is in the shadow of the mountains, bounded by sturdy cliffs at one end and the walled pass at the other. By the northmen’s standards, it’s a bustling metropolis; small wonder they always looked ill at ease back home.
Except Casmile isn’t home anymore. Drake circles through Deradan’s backstreets, the crooked and narrow lanes that wind behind artisans’ shops and miners’ bunkhouses. Along the north sides of buildings, where the shadows are never broken, dirty snow is still heaped against the walls. This doesn’t feel like home either, but it’s what he has for now.
When he judges he’s gone far enough, he cuts back inward to pick up the main road, following it down again to meet the caravan at its destination. The merchant in charge, a stout Casmilan with fashion sense that Drake would have scorned to tears a lifetime ago, is directing the unloading of the wagons.
Drake saunters up to the man. “Extra pair of hands might finish the job quicker,” he says. His accent is still terrible, he’s fairly sure, but only real northlanders seem to notice.
The merchant glares at him with the suspicion reserved for beggars and swindlers. “Not looking to hire day labor. Move on.”
Drake pulls a pendant from under his shirt so it hangs where the merchant can see it. “There’s always room for one more.”
The combination of the pendant and the passphrase makes the merchant’s spine stiffen. “Yes, well. I suppose I could spare a shilling.”
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