The Savage Dawn

by Melissa Grey

  “Come again?” Echo said. Ivy wrapped her arm around Echo’s and rested her head on Echo’s shoulder. Ivy was shaking like a leaf. Echo brushed off the powdered sugar that had landed on Ivy’s feathers when Echo had reached over her for a doughnut. At least the sugar blended in with her feathers.

  “The rift Ivy and Helios witnessed open on the subway tracks,” the Ala said. “The mysterious seals Caius saw that Tanith used his power to help break open. The increasing instability of the in-between. They’re all connected.”

  “What exactly are the seals?” Rowan asked.

  The Ala pulled books off her shelves so quickly that Echo doubted she’d stopped to give the titles even a cursory glance. Most of them were bound in earth-toned leather that was worn with age and use, dark in places from oil from readers’ skin. These were well-loved books. Well-read books. The Ala probably knew every groove and indentation in their spines. “The seals have existed for as long as anyone can remember,” the Ala said.

  “Kind of like the war that has raged for as long as anyone can remember?” Echo was beginning to tire of things older than memory.

  “They are even older than that. Little is known about their creation.” The Ala scanned the pages of one book before snorting in disgust and tossing it over her shoulder. Echo winced as it hit the ground, covers spread like wings, spine cracked. “Most of it has been lost to time. What we do know we’ve managed to glean from fragments of memory passed down through generations, though it’s been considerably gilded by myth over the years. The seals are as much legend as the firebird was.”

  Echo spread her arms wide, jostling Ivy. “And yet here I am.”

  That earned her a tight smile. The Ala began arranging the books on her desk in an order that made sense only to her. “Indeed. And as the firebird is every bit as real as you, the seals are every bit as real. And from what the young prince told me, centuries—no, millennia—of neglect have rendered them disastrously vulnerable.”

  “Well,” Rowan said, “what do we know?”

  The Ala sighed. Her feathers shivered with the rise and fall of her chest. “We know that they were created thousands upon thousands of years ago by a tribe that predates our modern notions of Avicen and Drakharin.”

  Echo recalled the Oracle she had met in that cave hidden deep within the Black Forest. The feathers that had adorned her arms. The scales that had graced the back of her hands, dusted across her knuckles. She had not been one or the other; she had been both and neither. The Oracle had been something ancient and almost forgotten. A link to their past that had been cruelly severed before Echo had even begun to scratch the surface of her mysteries. Like the seals, the Oracle predated the division that had torn their ancestors asunder. Perhaps she had been the sole survivor of a time when hatred and mistrust had not so clearly delineated the battle lines. But since Tanith had brought the ancient creature’s long life to an end, they would never know. All they had was supposition.

  “There are several variations of the story of how that one tribe split into two,” the Ala continued. “But there are a few consistencies that crop up in different tellings of the tale, which leads me to believe there is a kernel of truth hiding in them.”

  “The Drakharin claim the war began when the Avicen stole their magic,” said Caius, brushing the powdered sugar off his hands. He was still ravenous. “I never put much stock in the story myself. It always seemed like a convenient tale to pass down to perpetuate the cycle of hate and mistrust. But perhaps there’s something to it, as much as I am loath to admit it.”

  The Ala nodded thoughtfully, considering his words. “It is possible,” she mused. “But I think there is more to the story than that. Far more.” She pulled another book off the shelf and flipped through it with speedy efficiency. “The seals Tanith used Caius’s power to break were part of a vast network of structures all over the globe that stabilize the in-between and fortify the barrier separating the world in which we live from the abyss. It’s how we’re able to travel through it without being lost to the void or torn apart by its magic. I visited one or two a few centuries ago, but they were never of particular interest to me, so I never pursued a study of them. But now I find them fascinating. Their creation would have consumed a great deal of power. Infinitely more than any one mage could wield, or even a group of mages working in tandem. A magical working like that would drain their reserves of energy, leaving them nothing more than lifeless husks once it was through. And even then, that amount of magic would hardly be enough for a spell of that magnitude. To maintain the spell, to keep it in place long after its original caster, or casters, had died would require something more permanent, a lasting solution that would survive the passage of time.”

  “Our magic,” said Caius. He pushed away from his seat by the window wearing the expression Echo had come to know as his thinking face. “They used it to lock the seals.” He started pacing, engulfed by the enormity of such a revelation. “It makes sense, when you consider it. Magic is generational. It’s genetic, passed from mother to child through the ages. They must have found a way to isolate it and then to harness it for some greater purpose. The level of skill that would have taken is tremendous.”

  The Ala nodded. “It’s possible Tanith can undo this magic—which should not be able to be undone—because the kuçedra is linked to it. The seals held back the dark from this world and the kuçedra is a creature born of that darkness. It has fed on conflict and pain and woe for millennia and that has made it strong, but it originated long before we ever took up arms and started hacking away at each other. Its evolution into the being we’ve encountered—and the ritual employed to lock it away forever—was the catalyst for the war that made it grow fat on our pain.”

  Echo rested her cheek on Ivy’s head. All that suffering. All that hatred. The only thing it had accomplished was creating more suffering, more hatred. “Is there anything we can do about the seals?” Echo asked. “Is there some kind of magical tape we can smack on them to hold things together until we find a permanent solution?”

  “I’ll send a team of mages to one of the seals we know is broken.” The Ala turned to Caius. “Do you think you would be able to locate the places Tanith brought you to?”

  With a chagrined expression, Caius shook his head. “I can try, but I was blindfolded and mostly unconscious during transport.”

  “Any details you remember will be helpful: whether you were underground or aboveground, the color of the stone or the smell of the soil.” The Ala began sorting through her papers again. She pulled out a slender leather-bound notebook. “I have noticed a pattern of irregularities in the natural ebb and flow of magical energies—”

  “Is that Seer-speak?” Echo asked.

  The Ala looked at her as if it was unreasonable that she didn’t know all about the natural ebb and flow of magical energies. “Yes.” With that out of the way, the Ala continued. “With your help, Caius, I believe we can locate the specific seals Tanith has already compromised.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to help,” said Caius. “My sister wouldn’t have been able to break them without me. I can’t help but feel at least somewhat responsible.”

  “It’s not your fault, Caius,” said Echo. She doubted he would believe her, but it merited mentioning regardless. He had that look about him, the one that told her he was so deep into self-abasement that there was little chance of her pulling him out of it with a few kind words.

  His black moods are never so easily dispelled, Rose whispered.

  “Oh my god, shut up.” Echo hadn’t realized she had spoken aloud until she noticed every pair of eyes in the room on her.

  The Ala must have realized who Echo was speaking to. A heavy tome slid from her hands and landed on the table with a loud thunk, drawing all those inquisitive gazes away from Echo. She mouthed a silent Thank you at the Ala, who acknowledged it with a wink. “Oh, how clumsy of me,” said the Ala, who in all the years Echo had known her had not been prone to clumsiness.


  The only person who had not fallen for the Ala’s distraction was Caius. That green gaze remained on Echo, so intently she felt her skin itch. He raised his eyebrows in a silent question, but she responded with only a very slight shake of her head. Not now, she tried to telegraph. And not ever. He was the last person she wanted to confide in on this particular point. It would make things exceptionally awkward if he knew that his long-dead lover was sharing personal insights into his character with Echo.

  The conversation continued without Echo’s active participation. She heard fragments of it: the Ala would work through the night, helping Caius recover his memories and craft a map by morning to lead them to the broken seals; the mages would concoct a spell to help close the seals. Echo let the familiar sound of her friends’ voices wash over her. The bubble of elation that followed Caius’s rescue hadn’t taken long to pop. She had known it would be a short-lived joy, but had hoped, foolishly, that it would last longer than this.

  But now the enormity of what they were facing threatened to overwhelm her. The very fabric of the world was beginning to unravel, and few beyond the walls of Avalon Castle even knew it was happening.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The refugees were exactly where Caius had been told he would find them on Avalon’s grounds. He watched the small cluster from beneath an archway leading to the ruined courtyard, hidden enough in the shadows that he would not be noticed.

  The refugees were mostly servants from the keep. Caius recognized one of the cooks who had worked in the kitchens for as long as he could remember. She was a portly woman who used to sneak him treats whenever he sought solace in the warmth of the kitchen, hiding from his tutors or his weapons instructor, or even the father he barely remembered but whose lectures on the soaring expectations he had for Caius and his sister had left an indelible imprint on his memory. The cook—Helena, that was her name—had never chided Caius for hiding behind the oak barrels or for stealing the spice cakes that had been his favorite. She had been one of the few people to treat him like a child, to direct indulgent smiles his way when he showed up covered in mud, his fine clothes a fright, looking as much a mess as any boy would at that age. She had been kind to him, but after he had grown into the role for which he had been bred—despite the fact that no Dragon Prince’s ascension to the throne was a certainty—he had barely spared her a thought. But to see her now, alive and well, made the ever-present worry in his chest decrease, if only by a few degrees. His people were not lost, not entirely. And now he was in a position to help them.

  Caius hung back, unsure of his welcome. What would they see when they looked at him? A disgraced prince who had failed them once before? Or someone worth putting their faith in again, after he had proven so undeserving of it the first time? He hadn’t protected them from Tanith. He should have. It was his most solemn duty to protect them, and he had not done so. His role, his purpose, was not to lead the Drakharin to an “age of glory,” words that were often bandied about among nobles deep in their cups at great feasts. The Dragon Prince was a guardian. A guide. And he had led his people, through his own willful ignorance, to ruin.

  Helena looked up just then and caught Caius’s eye. Never one to quail before nobility, she raised a hand to beckon him over. He hesitated for a moment, and her expression resolved into the fierce stare that had haunted his childhood. No one questioned that glare, not even a prince.

  Cautious steps led Caius to the small group huddled around the fire. Helena’s eyes lingered on the limp he couldn’t hide, try as he might. He stood—rather awkwardly—off to the side. Every set of eyes save Helena’s dropped respectfully. It was a gesture that marked the difference between them. They were all of the common class, even the soldiers who had guided them during their long and arduous flight from the keep. Caius was not one of them and never had been. Self-consciousness struck him as he realized he had no idea how to act. He was not their prince any longer, but their habits—and his—were harder to shake than he cared to admit.

  “Hello,” he said, for lack of anything better.

  “Sit down, boy,” Helena said gruffly, shifting to make room for him.

  Boy. She hadn’t called him that in centuries, literally. Caius realized then that he had no idea how old she was. She had been the same for as long as he could remember. Old, cranky, kindhearted Helena. As eternal as the rising and setting of the sun.

  With as much grace as he could muster, Caius sank into the seat she had vacated for him.

  “Leg bothering you?” Helena asked. A cast-iron pan of something fragrant was cooking over the open flames.

  “My leg and everything else,” Caius admitted. There seemed little reason to keep up appearances around Helena. Doing so would have been disingenuous, and she would see through him anyway. Perhaps it was time for his people to see him as he truly was, flaws and all. Caius sniffed at the scent of sizzling meat. Chunks of meat had been cut up and sautéed with root vegetables. Whatever the creature had been while alive was difficult to ascertain. “Please tell me you didn’t cook a bird,” Caius said. “The Avicen might kick us off the island for insulting their feathered friends.”

  Helena barked out a sharp laugh. “I won’t say it didn’t cross my mind, but rest easy, my boy. This here is scraps of rabbit and squirrel and whatever else we could get our hands on. The Avicen may have provided a roof over our heads, but I don’t fancy they’d take too kindly to us depleting their stores of food.” She glanced at the guards who were lounging stiffly at the edges of the courtyard designated for Drakharin use. They were looking more than a little gaunt. “Doesn’t look like they’ve got much to spare.”

  Caius nodded. It was no easy task, feeding a small island full of people without arousing suspicion. The Avicen had emergency stores, but they were burning through them fast.

  “How have you settled in?” Caius asked Helena. It was a vague enough question, but from the slight sigh that escaped her, he thought she grasped the nuance. She heard the things he didn’t ask.

  “As well as can be expected,” she said. After a moment of grudging consideration, she amended her statement. “Better than we expected. The Avicen…they have not been unkind to us. They offered us shelter when we had none and they had no reason to give it. The young one, the boy who brought us here…he spoke for us. Made our case to the others. Persuaded them to let us stay.”

  The boy. Rowan. The tiniest flame of jealousy licked at Caius, but he doused it as soon as he recognized the emotion. Rowan was a good person. After all, Echo was an excellent judge of character. She wouldn’t waste time on anyone unworthy.

  “The world is changing,” Caius said. “And we must change with it.”

  Nodding, Helena scooped up a heaping mound of stew with a wooden spoon and began distributing it into chipped porcelain bowls that had seen far better days. “Are you hungry?” She studied Caius with her piercing brown eyes. “You look like you could use a good meal or ten.”

  “That bad?” he asked.

  “Worse.”

  That earned a small laugh from Caius. “You were never one to mince words, Helena.”

  “Well, I won’t have no prince of mine going hungry.” Helena shoved a bowl into his hands, her expression daring him to argue with her.

  Shaking his head, Caius accepted the bowl. He reached for a spoon and stirred the stew a bit. It smelled divine. “I have no claim to that title. Not anymore.”

  Helena dropped a hunk of hard bread in his lap. “You know what else I won’t have? Self-pity.”

  Caius blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, I know you nobles like to think you’re bound by the rules you lot made up, but frankly, anyone who’s done what that tyrant has doesn’t deserve my obedience or my respect.” She brandished the wooden spoon at Caius when he failed to eat with the alacrity she expected. “Those things are earned. And she hasn’t earned them from me.” A somber look passed over her face. “Shame, that. She was always such a bright child.”

>   “That she was,” Caius said softly.

  One of the young Drakharin inched closer to Helena, wide blue eyes fixed on Caius, as if unsure whether approaching was a wise strategy. He winked at the child and tossed her his bread. She caught it with dirt-smudged hands and smiled, two dimples forming in her cheeks. She buried her face in Helena’s skirt as she chewed, her eyes never leaving Caius.

  “You weren’t perfect,” Helena said. “No prince is. I’ve lived long enough to see more than one rise and fall, but you”—she poked him with her spoon—“you cared. About us. About all the people who didn’t matter.”

  “Of course you matter,” Caius said with a frown.

  “That attitude is what sets you apart,” Helena said, pleased that Caius had seen fit to prove her point immediately after she’d made it. “That’s what we need. Not some tyrant who grabs at power for the sake of having it.”

  Caius looked around at the group of weary Drakharin. They had given up the pretense of polite disinterest and were now staring at him openly, waiting to hear what he would say. A great deal hung on his next words. Their anticipation coiled around him, an insistent pressure that would not be relieved until he found just the right assortment of words to reassure them.

  The little girl noisily chewed the hunk of bread, blinking up at Caius with wide eyes. When he caught her gaze, she pulled at Helena’s skirt to hide her face. They had traveled so far from their homes. His people were an insular lot. For them to have sacrificed so much, to have wandered away from the only safety they had ever experienced into the unknown, was nothing short of astonishing. It spoke to their need for change.

  “I lost my title,” Caius said. He would not lie to them or pretend to be anything other than what he was, no matter how badly they wanted him to be their savior. “It was not taken from me. I let it go because I was not strong enough to keep it.”

  Helena hummed in consideration. “I suppose that is the way of it,” she said with a tired sigh. There was defeat in her voice and, even worse, disappointment. That, Caius could not stand. These people had been through much, but they were not broken. And neither was he.