by Raye Wagner
Drak. How did he know all that? I wasn’t sure even Dyter knew I still went out to heal the land. I glanced at him, and the glower he wore let me know this was news to him. That didn’t explain how the old man knew.
“Does the king still keep the Phaetyn? We’d very much like to meet her. Emperor Draedyn is most anxious to have her visit.”
The old man chuckled. His gaze flitted my way, and his face seemed to blur a moment. I blinked, but when I looked again, his weathered features were back in place.
“Caltevyn would love to keep her, but she refuses to stay there,” the old man said.
“Where does she stay? It’s hardly safe to let his only Phaetyn wander,” said the brawniest of the three. The two other Druman were also focused on the strange man.
“Lord Tyrrik won’t let her out of his sight, so she’s plenty safe. Although why a Drae would be interested in a Phaetyn is anyone’s guess.” The man raised his eyebrows at me. “Were you going to bring me that drink, Ryn?”
My heart stopped.
How did he know my name? I’m sure there was an explanation for it; perhaps he’d overheard Dyter. I filled another mug and set it down in front of the old bloke, my anxiety climbing as he assessed the beverage but didn’t pick it up.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I breathed. He’d yelled at me through the kitchen for it only a minute before. “Why are you even—”
“Ryn,” Dyter warned.
I snapped my mouth shut with a click of my back teeth.
Several things happened at once. The three Druman stood and drew weapons, wicked curved swords with blades the color of blood. The noise in the tavern switched off as though a tap had been turned, and the silent and frantic crowd scrambled back to give the men space.
Lord Tyrrik appeared next to me. I tilted my head up and, as expected, his eyes were all midnight black, and ebony scales had appeared on his forearms and neck. As I watched, his fangs slid down.
The old man disappeared, the air shimmering for a few seconds before a man with silver hair and pointy ears sat in his place. A stunning man. He drew out a short blade the color of his hair and balanced it on the tip of his forefinger, eyes sliding to the standing Druman.
“Are you boys looking for a fight?” the stunning man asked in a lilting voice.
Tyrrik swore long and hard in Drae. The shadows gathered around him, heeding his call, and the strange flickering blue color in his onyx scales flashed for all to see. He stepped behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me to him, a menacing sound rumbling in his chest.
I stiffened and tensed to shove away from him, but he grabbed my bare wrist and spoke in my mind. Not now. I need to get you out of here. You can be angry at me later.
The darkness continued to coil around us, wrapping us in its silky embrace. Tyrrik pulled me closer. This was the first time I’d let him touch me since we’d left the castle, and something in my chest felt funny with the contact. Probably indigestion.
Come with me now. Tyrrik moved us out of the tavern room in a blur that left my head spinning. I gasped and opened my eyes to find we were in the back alley, and Tyrrik’s skin was rippling with black scales.
“No, Tyrrik,” I screamed. I knew what would happen if he turned into a dragon. My heart ripped and bled, the pressure mounting in my chest. “Please,” I begged. “Don’t shift here!”
The air around Tyrrik shimmered, and I covered my head, ducking as an inferno of heat erupted. The heat grew, sweeping upward, billowing and coiling until all I knew was the consuming warmth of the Drae.
My pounding heart settled as the sensation dimmed, and I uncovered my head.
Then blinked.
“Holy pancakes,” I murmured. I was standing between two huge, onyx-scaled Drae legs. “Holy pancakes,” I repeated, edging out. “Please don’t squish me. The community will be devastated.”
The Drae was oddly still. As I crept past Tyrrik’s armored chest and came alongside his giant fanged head, I saw why.
“The tavern,” I mouthed. The back half of Dyrell’s tavern was demolished, Tyrrik’s Drae butt now sitting where the kitchen used to be. It was the second tavern he’d demolished, and even though I hadn’t owned either of them, both The Crane’s Nest and The Raven’s Hollow had been safe-havens in my life.
“You ruined my tavern!” I grabbed at Tyrrik, and he lowered his head. Holding either side of his Drae face, I narrowed my eyes at his slightly sheepish expression. “You are so paying for that,” I snarled, staring into his inky eyes. “In coin, not carrots.” I released his head and sank to my knees. “Everything . . . I’ve worked for. In ruins.”
Tyrrik nudge me with his snout. It’s only been three days.
He breathed out warm air, and I shivered as it hit my back. Glancing back to shoot another insult his way, my breath caught as bright blue rippled through his scales in a wave.
“Why do they do that?” I whispered, getting to my feet. I laid my hand on his scales, and as I did, the blue flickered in its depths. Warm tingles ran up my arm, and the skin where my scales had started to appear pulsed. “What is that?”
But shouting and screaming broke my trance before he could answer.
“My patrons.” I burst into a run down the alley, leaping over the rubble of Tyrrik’s transformation. I got to the end, and a whining crack had me whipping back around.
Tyrrik was squeezing through the alley after me, demolishing the rest of The Raven’s Hollow and the wall of the store next to the tavern as he did so. Lifting his head, he huffed at me.
“I don’t believe this,” I muttered.
I was not waiting for him and his stupid Drae butt to squeeze from between the two buildings. I sprinted to the front and rounded the corner, skidding to a stop.
The crowd was outside and staring at the tavern in shock. Hopefully all of them got out. People from the nearby businesses poured into the dirt streets, and I scanned the increasing mass of humanity for the one person who mattered most. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw him.
Dyter caught sight of me and hurried to my side.
“Ryn,” he said, gathering me up. “What happened?”
I resisted the slight discomfort at Dyter touching me. I avoided touching most people now, but I refused to let what had happened affect things with my only remaining family. I jerked my head at Tyrrik as he escaped from the alley. “He accidentally shifted. Though, after one hundred and nine years, I’m not sure how that happens. I certainly don’t have accidents anymore.”
Tyrrik hadn’t done this on purpose, had he? After spending months in his company, only to discover he’d deceived me the entire time, I really couldn’t be sure. He was manipulative to the extreme.
The Drae stomped into the road, clearing a space in the crowd before the pile of wood, iron, and bricks that had been The Raven’s Hollow and the inn next door. There was a heartbeat of shocked silence, and then the screaming started anew. Really, it was amazing how quickly the crowd cleared after that.
The illusion I’d built of returning to my normalcy ran away with the patrons. I wanted to cry, scream, and run away, too. I wanted to scream and never stop screaming, but I shoved the emotion away, refusing to let it take hold of me. Standing next to Dyter, I stared after the crowd of humans fleeing. “I didn’t know Seryt could run that fast.”
Hearing a scratching sound, I turned to see Dyter rubbing his chin. “He’s in front of all the young’uns,” he said. “Impressive.”
Within seconds, the space was empty and the only ‘people’ remaining were the three Druman, the stunning man with silver hair, and the three of us.
Tyrrik stood over me, still in his Drae form, and puffed out a small jet of flame. The molten heat landed just in front of the three Druman before angling up.
A cloud of smoke appeared. I coughed, waving my hand to clear the air, and my jaw dropped.
“Where’d they go?” I went to stand where the three large men had been.
“Look dow
n, Rynnie,” Dyter said drily.
I glanced down and saw I stood in the middle of three piles of ash. I swallowed and, with my voice shaking, said, “You could’ve warned me.” Not so long ago, it hadn’t been Druman being burned to white ash; it had been two hundred rebels who had come to save me.
I swallowed again and stepped out of the Druman remains, avoiding Tyrrik’s gaze.
Dyter was eyeing the stunning man with pointy ears. I turned to study him and found I couldn’t really blame Dyter’s blatant interest; I wanted to keep looking, too. The stranger wore hugging brown breeches and a loose forest-green tunic ornamented with golden buttons down the front. The curved top of his chest muscles peeked through the open neck of the tunic, and I cataloged the sight. A leather belt with two sheathed daggers hung around his hips. Another loop of leather was slung across his torso, holding three more daggers. I should have been scared of the newcomer, but I couldn’t figure out how to connect with my emotions after I’d just banished most of them. I was curious, so maybe that was something.
A growl filled Tyrrik’s chest as I continued to look my fill.
Rather than being put off by the ginormous Drae at my back—when had I stopped being afraid of that, by the way—the stranger pulled his dagger again, stepped forward, and balanced it on the pad of his finger.
I watched the action, certain if I could learn that one trick, I wouldn’t need to actually learn to fight with a dagger. It’d be a great bluff.
The air shimmered, warmth flowing over me as Tyrrik shifted back.
I refused to look at the Drae even though his presence assured my safety from the strangers in the tavern. Instead, I folded my arms and asked Pointy Ears, “Who’re you?”
The man sheathed his dagger and extended his hand. “I am named Kamoi.”
Something about the man called to me, and without conscious thought, despite the fact that physical touch with anyone but Dyter had given me a sensation of bugs under my skin for the last three days, I clasped his hand. I gasped as I stared into his eyes for the first time. Violet. The area where our hands touched flared, and a smoldering heat swept through me.
“You’re Phaetyn?” I whispered, continuing to hold his hand though I knew the hand shake had officially gone on too long.
“The rumors are true,” he said as he bowed over my hand. “My lady, I am glad to find you, another Phaetyn.”
Unease crawled over me with his words where his touch hadn’t bothered me. I couldn’t help where my mind went. I formed the words with a thick tongue. “We’re the only two left?”
A teasing light entered his eyes. “No, my Lady. I am merely one of our kind. I am the Prince of the Phaetyn.”
3
“I . . .” I inhaled sharply. “I thought I was the only Phaetyn left.”
Tyrrik spoke from behind me. “The only one in Verald.”
“You knew?” Dropping Kamoi’s hand, I threw the accusation at Tyrrik. There were other Phaetyn, and he’d kept that from me? I wondered what else he knew that I didn’t, and a seriously long list of questions ticked through my mind. “How did you fail to mention that?”
“I’m fairly certain, I told you to go to Zivost when I tried to help you escape the dungeons.” He tilted his head at me, and continued in a dry voice, “And somehow, the Phaetyn didn’t come up again in the last three days when you were pretending I didn’t exist.”
I cleared my throat, refusing to dignify that with an answer.
The stunning Prince of the Phaetyn peered past me, and I felt the heat at my back increase as Tyrrik neared. The Drae stood just behind me, and I shot a look at Dyter who wiped the smirk off his face in a flash.
“The emperor would have felt his three Druman dying just now,” the prince said. “You’ve just alerted him that things here may not be as calm as they were.”
Tyrrik nodded. “Better that than having them carry back reports of what they saw here, or what they would certainly discover here in Verald. Even worse would be if they followed us on our journey.”
“I thought you couldn’t kill Drae,” Dyter said, joining the small semi-circle outside his sister’s ruined tavern.
The old coot hadn’t said a single thing about The Raven’s Hollow being ruined. Dyrell wasn’t even my sister, and I was pissed.
Tyrrik broke off his stare down with Kamoi and faced Dyter. Replying to the implied question, he said, “I cannot kill Drae. Or my blood. They were neither Drae nor my blood.”
Druman were half human, half Drae. The emperor had a hoard of them, and Tyrrik had been forced to create a large number here in Verald for King Irdelron, the only way to keep him safe from the emperor’s Druman force in our land.
The Drae’s comment about travel caught up with me. “Wait, wait. What journey? I haven’t signed up for a journey.” I surveyed the mess before me and in a voice trembling with emotion, said, “I will rebuild.”
The Phaetyn prince burst into laughter—if the sound of a quartet of singing birds, burnt-sugar candy, and fresh-cut grass could be called that. I smiled despite myself.
“You’re funny, my Lady,” he said. “I wasn’t happy to be sent here at first, but now I’m glad my mother assigned this quest to me.”
“We were coming to Zivost Forest anyway,” Tyrrik snapped, pulling me away.
I tilted my head up at the broody Drae. What’s got your aketon in a bunch?
Too late, I realized we were touching. The Drae’s lips quivered, but he made no reply.
Kamoi sighed. “I am glad to hear it, Lord Drae. I was sent to see if the rumors of a Phaetyn here were true. My mother wishes to assess her powers and teach her of the Phaetyn ways.”
I scratched my forearm through my long sleeves. I’d taken to wearing them when lapis lazuli scales began erupting all over my skin. Whenever I got emotional, which felt like all the time now, bits of my skin would change to scales. “There’s probably something you should know —”
“We need to speak with the king.” Dyter overrode me. “Before she can leave Verald.”
I frowned at him. What was his deal? Pointy Ears was clearly my kin. I felt it. He wanted to help me. Seemed impolite to not inform him I’d transform into a monster tomorrow. Maybe that would affect whatever training I needed.
Tyrrik covered the resulting awkwardness. “I agree. An audience with Caltevyn would be best.”
I closed my eyes, anger trickling into my body, and I dug in my heels. “I said, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to be a part of this fight! It’s not mine. I’m done with it.”
Dyter crossed to me and took my hand. “Rynnie, no one is asking you to be ready to fight tomorrow. If you still don’t want to fight when the time comes, that’s your choice. But wake up, my girl. There are other reasons to go to Zivost Forest. And if not to help yourself, consider the people of Verald. They may not be safe during your”—he shifted his eyes to the prince and cautiously finished—“transition when a certain person is alerted to your existence.” He pursed his lips before continuing. “I will be going to Zivost Forest, just so you know. There is much to discuss with the Phaetyn now that things have changed here.”
Drak, he knew just where to stab. Dyter was the only person I had left from my previous life. He’d first helped Mum and me when we arrived in Verald, and he’d always been my mentor, and in recent times, my boss. He was the only father I’d ever known. I needed him. I did want to learn how to be a proper Phaetyn, and I didn’t want to hurt the people here . . .
I opened my eyes, heaving a bone-weary exhale. “I’ll think about it. But the answer will probably be no.”
Despite my words, I’d already decided I’d be going. Judging by the gleam in Dyter’s eyes, he knew it, too.
Ignoring the other two man-creatures, I stomped in the direction of the ruined tavern to find a corner to spend the night. “I’m done now. I need some rest. You can all leave.”
“Be at the castle at first light,” Tyrrik said, I assumed, to Kamoi. The Drae knew bette
r than to talk to me in that voice.
I heard someone leave and glanced up to see both Dyter and the Phaetyn prince were gone. I paused, one foot on a pile of broken bricks. My birthday was tomorrow, and there was something I needed to know and only one person I could ask. I knew he wouldn’t leave me, he’d already said as much, so without turning around, I called out to Lord Tyrrik, “Is it going to happen tonight?”
I heard him inhale long and hard. Because that’s not creepy at all.
“Not tonight,” his silky voice carried to me. “Tomorrow, Ryn . . . when darkness falls.”
* * *
I was just going for the company, I decided. I didn’t want to spend my birthday alone. In a bout of morbidness, I’d elected to walk into the center of Verald to the King’s Castle through my old zone. And, potential birthday company aside, I wasn’t about to let Dyter leave the kingdom without me. Who knew what kind of trouble he could, and probably would, get in with Tyrrik there?
Harvest Zone Seven was still mostly a wedge-shaped hunk of ash from when Tyrrik burned it to the ground, with the exception of my Tyr flowers. Now he’d also demolished The Raven’s Hollow, I had nowhere else to go. The people of the Inbetween and Money Coil were yet to come back and rebuild Zone Seven. Who knew if they ever would? And I doubted any more of Dyter’s relatives would want to take me in, knowing I was cursed to be shadowed by a destructive Drae.
I trudged through the mostly barren Harvest Zone that had been my life only a few months ago. The Zone still had no buildings, but there was life now.
Harvest Zone Seven was filled with fields of blue flowers, the shape of the metal one my mother took me to during my childhood. In the moonlight, my vibrant blooms glowed. Thinking about them, I wondered if maybe it hadn’t been that hard for the Phaetyn prince and emperor to find me. The pressure of my emotions built behind my eyes as I moved between the thick stalks of blossoms, but I shoved the feelings back, instead concentrating on the soft petals as I trailed my fingers over them. Those blooms I touched flared with light, standing to attention as I passed.