Dragoon (War of the Princes Book 2)

by A. R. Ivanovich

  “Yes,” I said, still battling with my surprise that they were all here. Was I dreaming? “I don't think I ever learned your name.”

  “Merritt.”

  “Merritt, how many of you are there?”

  “Two hundred and forty-nine,” he said with enough confidence to convince me that he was keeping track. “Nobody younger than six made it, except for Callie, because she's so quiet. Most of us are Dragoon initiates. A few are initiates from Cape Hill and other towns. The kids without Abilities got drained right after they failed the tests. Some of them were my friends. We only saved a few, but it's better than none.”

  I could see the pain on his face, the shock, and the hope. He was holding together remarkably well.

  “It's going to be okay now.” The words slipped out, and I wondered if I should be making promises. “They're all keeping so quiet. No one is even crying.”

  “The loud ones didn't make it. We're so close to getting home, not even the six-year-olds will risk ruining that. I think they had to grow up fast,” he said, as though he'd already done all of his growing up.

  “How did so many of you get aboard?”

  “There are shelves in the crates. We had to crunch in as many people as we could. It was hot and hard to breathe, but it was worth it. Pilot Rousseau smuggled fifty kids to the forward of the ship, and seventy below deck, so that it would balance better. I sent twelve and thirteen year olds with her to take care of each group. I don't think she's happy about us being here, but she gave us as much food and water as she had.”

  I stared at him, amazed. He was so organized, so determined, I was washed with a surge of admiration. “Merritt, you've done everything right.”

  The younger teen shrugged. “My dad's in the militia. He says when your soldiers are looking after each other, and someone is looking after them, everyone is safer.”

  “I think he's right, and I think he gave you the right name.”

  Merritt let himself look proud, just for a moment. “The Dragoons that helped us get out, they blew up the children's training halls to make it look like we all died. The Prince won't come looking for us.”

  All of those tremors, the perfectly timed explosions that had plagued the installment the whole time I was there. It wasn't enemy spies or Cape Hill rebels. It wasn't any of the people from the lower city, forcefully pulled in at the Prince's order to be interrogated.

  Rune. It was you all along. This was what you were hiding, what you sold your life for. If they'd failed, if someone needed to be caught, to take the fall, you were willing to die.

  My chest constricted and burned. Dawn was only an hour away. An eternity. He would make it. I knew he would.

  There was another Thayer who was important to me that I might finally be able to see. She was a brave girl, willing to demand my release from the installment in Breakwater while I was being held prisoner there. She was probably the only person native to the Outside World who'd refused to participate in pretending that Dragoons didn't exist.

  She was the reason Rune had fought to be the perfect soldier. So long as he didn't die, the Prince wouldn't need new recruits, wouldn't discover his sister or any other talented children. His efforts were wasted. Penalty was exacted. It had all been for nothing. It must have tormented him. I couldn't imagine anyone, Dragoon or not, escaping from that kind of emotional blow unscathed.

  “Merritt, do you know Lina Thayer?”

  “Yes,” he said looking up at me. “Her brother, he was the one telling the other Dragoons what to do. I think saving us was his idea.”

  I was right.

  “We were all together at first, while they were testing us. They took her away with the others. She didn't have an Ability.”

  No Ability? Then if Penalty hadn't happened, she was never in any danger of becoming a Dragoon, or suffering their tests. Rune's reasons for enduring military slavery were doubly pointless.

  “What part of the ship is Lina in?”

  “She's not on the ship.”

  “What? Why not?”

  Merritt looked back at the hold, packed with his peers and the other children that were so obviously happy to be on their way home, despite their condition.

  “Because she's dead.”

  Chapter 43: Paperglass To Be

  Lina Thayer.

  Leaving myself open to my instincts, I called on the Pull to find the little girl who’d been my friend.

  Nothing.

  I finally had my answer. When a person was dead, I didn't feel any desire to move in any direction. It was true then. I hadn't wanted to believe it. I was certain I could search for Lina's physical body, but I didn't want to. I didn't need any more evidence.

  “Kat,” Kyle said, resting his hand on my arm. “You can't save everyone all the time.”

  We were sitting in a bunkroom within the forward cabin. Professor Block lay in one of the beds, resting, and Kyle, Sterling and I sat on a cot opposite him. I wasn't crying. I wouldn't cry in front of them.

  “She was a sweet kid,” I stared at my hands in my lap. “I could have come back. I could have done something.”

  “Like kidnapping her from her family?” he asked, in a half-mocking tone. “That would have gone over really well.”

  He was right, but I didn't want to tell him that he was.

  “I don't understand how these people can choose to live like this,” Sterling said vacantly. “Why do they do this to themselves, to each other?”

  “I must have asked myself that question a million times,” I sighed.

  “Blood,” came Professor Block's worn, gravely voice. “And revenge. One side hurts another, hurts another. It is the snake that eats its own tail. The... ughn... circle redraws itself until it is broken, and the only way anyone can ever think to break the cycle is with force, thus contributing to the everlasting. Pride, murder, revenge. Pride, murder, revenge.”

  “You're awake,” I said, looking his face over. Carmine and Kyle had helped to clean his wounds. They'd gotten him into a fresh set of clothes while I was in the cargo hold with Merritt, and Sterling had tended to the horses. The swelling on Block's eye had gone down some and the slit of his lids were able to peel open a fraction. His face was still horribly bruised and he was weak.

  “Three of my students, in the Outside World… mister Mason, slower to grasp new concepts but quicker to put them to use. Mister Kiteman, intelligent beyond your years, but easily bored. Miss Kestrel, poor with assignments but rich with questions. I should be surprised least by seeing you here.” His words were air. Block swallowed, closing his eyes for a while before reopening them. “I expected to die.”

  “I'm sorry for what happened in the cell, sir,” I said, ashamed by how long it had taken me to break the spell I was under and help him. “I thought I was going to find my mother.”

  “With me? No, they wouldn't let her join the mission.”

  “Why not?” Kyle asked for me.

  “Kendra,” he broke off, coughing. “She has none of the gifts. No extra talents. No, Abilities, as they're so frequently called here. If she had one, it would be hard work and determination.”

  And selfishness.

  “I didn't know who she was when it happened,” I told him. “She came to recruit me, in Rivermarch, to come and look for you. She said her name was Sandra Loring.”

  “I've heard that. We were never close enough for me to understand why she used it. I knew who she was.”

  I explained our meeting to him, and her proposal, hoping the details weren't too difficult for him to absorb, in his current state. “She said my mother was Paperglass To Be.”

  That made him laugh and he groaned with discomfort. “Paperglass was the name of the team,” he said, through his teeth. “I'm Two B.”

  Two B's.

  “Barry Block,” I said, groaning and covering my eyes with my palms. The clue had been right there all along.

  “Hey,” Kyle said, shaking my shoulder. “Don't lose it. There’s no way we could h
ave figured that out.”

  Block sighed, looking exhausted. His eyelids drooped. “You need to know... but I'm so tired. You need to know Haven's secret.”

  “Professor,” Sterling said, rising to examine him. “He's unconscious.”

  “He'll be alright,” Kyle said. “He's just smarter than the rest of us. We all could use some sleep.”

  Kyle was right, but I couldn't rest, not without Rune safely aboard.

  Lina. You decided we would be friends for a long time. That didn't get to happen. I couldn't help you, but I can help your brother.

  * * *

  It was dawn. Light beamed behind mountainous clouds that dwarfed even the highest structures in Cape Hill. I stood on the deck of the Flying Fish, holding the orange scarf that Rune's mother had knitted for me.

  “No one's sorrier than me,” I said to no one and wrapped it around my neck. The comfort it brought me was instant. I was still cold, but a little less, and not because of the insulation the fabric provided. How had I ever let Dylan talk me out of wearing it? It'd been burned and battered, but I'd taken a whole class in my final year of high school simply to repair it.

  Icy rain began to spill over half of the cape, darkening everything it crossed.

  Where was he?

  Pink faded into the snow blue sky like watercolors in a painting. Gentle yellow light pierced through a hole in one of the great cumulonimbus, and sent a beam of light to lie over the city. In its path, tile roofs brightened, statues glowed, metal boats shined, and the dark sea sparkled. As the clouds moved, a fragment of the light touched the Fish and warmed my cheek.

  I spun away from it, like it'd hurt me.

  He should have been here by now. Hadn't I gotten to him? Convinced him he had reason enough to change his fate and live? His freedom frightened him, but he said he'd be here. He promised.

  “Should we begin our departure?” Carmine asked from behind me.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. When had she gotten there?

  “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “Listen, I don't want to be pushy here, but considering the cargo we have, I'm afraid I'll have to insist we're underway.”

  A Dragoon, beaten, brainwashed and molded into service, had broken away from his training. He'd saved me, and every one of the children aboard the ship, and we were going to repay him by leaving him behind. My feelings for him aside, abandoning him was wrong. I couldn't do it.

  I wouldn't.

  “Give me an hour. Just one more hour,” I told her. “If I'm not back by then, leave. If Dylan returns, take him with you, and whatever happens, don't let anyone off the ship.”

  C hapter 44: Freedom

  I'd finally lost it. It was official. My head had turned to custard. In the half rain, half shine of the cold morning, I began to laugh. The duality of the weather was my mirror image. I marched through the city on foot, hitching rides on the backs of overladen supply wagons whenever I could.

  I was going to get him, and nothing would stop me.

  Had the city shrunk, or did the installment and palaces crawl closer to the crescent cape harbor? The lanes had widened, making way for the grandiose entrances of the hulking structures.

  Rune Thayer.

  He was straight down the middle, directly into the oppressive shadow of the installment fortress. I stopped before I got to the portcullis, staring up at the iron teeth. Pressing my back against the outer wall, I stayed out of sight. The Pull had always served me honestly. It’d never led me wrong. Even when I'd lost faith in myself, its accuracy never strayed. I was lucky to have it.

  I crossed the threshold and came into full view of the scene in the courtyard. A breath ripped into my lungs and I froze.

  The broad entrance to the great hall was smashed, as though a massive explosion had taken place. Wood, metal, stone, and steaming ice solidified the wreckage, blocking anyone from getting in or out.

  Between the installment and myself, I faced a semi-circle of eighty Dragoons standing at attention. At their head stood two Cormorants with twisted, bird-like helms covering their faces. They each held a ten-foot-tall flag standard, black and red, and something else. I'd learned to recognize the elaborate fashion that the nobles of the region had prized. The two sets of clothes I saw here were better, more ornate, trapped in gold and silver... and spattered with blood. They hung like flags from each polearm, rippling in the icy breeze.

  In the center of the group, four Dragoons were on their knees. They faced outward, and their arms, stretching wide behind them, were tied elbow-to-elbow, wrist-to-wrist, forming a bound circle. Two of them hung, face down, lifeless, while the other two struggled to keep themselves upright.

  The two limp Dragoons had been drained. Their skin, even their hair, had been sapped of all color, leaving them grey. A drained person's body could go on living, but there would be no brain activity, no intelligence, no consciousness. Eventually, two or three days later, the body would perish. So I'd been told.

  “Thayer, wasn't it?” Margrave Hest growled, rounding on the Dragoon captives. Again, she'd changed. Her humanity all but vanished. Her arms and legs were longer now, and that one hand that had retained its natural appearance was slim and withered. Roping strands of metal had burst from her calves, and each of her feet had split into sets of claws. She was a monster worthy of nightmares.

  “Haven't I given you enough chances?” she asked with the voice of a disappointed parent. “Haven't we all been forgiving? You've had a perfect career record until these last few months. If you'd simply drained that sibling of yours you'd be on the front right now, riding alongside our Prince as a Commander. You'd feel the power of domination, and believe me, it is sweet.”

  She ran her claw arm over his taut shoulders.

  I heard Rune's voice. It was low, strained. “You... drained Lina, when I didn't.”

  “Yes?” she said, as though wondering at his point. “And you watched, so we’re both at fault.”

  “You forced me,” Rune growled.

  “Does that make me a monster? No, I’m afraid that’s not quite enough. What would you say if I told you I ate her too?” A laugh pealed out from her lips, heavy and shrill all at once. She actually found this funny.

  Rune's mouth formed a grim line. “I'd sooner die than spend another day following your orders.”

  “And I would be a wicked woman indeed to ignore such a compelling request.” Hest clucked her tongue. “Family is always the most tedious. You've been exhibiting signs of weakness since that mess at Breakwater, and you've brought it here with you. What did you think to achieve by sabotaging the installment? Did you really think that by killing the initiates, you'd hurt the Prince's army?”

  The Dragoon tied to Rune's left arm swung his head back, his dark eyes narrow with rage. “You'll get no more answers from us than you did from them.”

  She was going to kill him. I had to do something. Frantically, I cast about, looking for a way to help him. Thirty feet away, along the same wall I huddled beside, was a heavy wagon, laden with massive barrels. Liquid dripped into the dirt, and trailed in the direction of the center square.

  “Won't I?” she asked, smiling sweetly with those broken, round lips. I heard the pop, and jumped back on my heels. The dark-eyed Dragoon screamed. Hest had broken his arm with a single touch.

  “We won't fight for you anymore,” he shouted up at Hest.

  She struck him with her heavy, metal arm, and when he sagged into unconsciousness, she turned on Rune again.

  Holding my breath, I snaked against the back wall, keeping to the shadows. Everyone's attention was on Hest. Reaching the vat, I crouched and searched for the opening. It was on the side... a thin hairline crack. I took the Historian pin off of my shirt, and wedged it as hard as I could into the fissure. When I pulled it out, liquid began to spray through. I smelled it. Water.

  “So, you bought the Common-Lord and Lady with our weapons and armor. The Hibberns always were greedy, but I never thought they were ca
pable of sinking so low as to betray our Prince. They'll serve as the first example,” Hest said, pointing up to the bloody clothes rippling on the flag posts. “You'll be the second.”

  “It was you, wasn't it? You're the leader. Commander Stakes' coup de tat put ideas into that simple head of yours. Did you really think you could overthrow our Prince?” she laughed like the thought was utterly absurd.

  Rune's shoulders shook and when he turned his head up to hers, I saw that he too was laughing. “We have no leader, but there are more of us. We are infinite in number, corrupting your army with visions of freedom.”

  “You're bluffing.”

  Rune laughed again. I could see his rare dimple, but there was rage in his blue eyes. “Why should I bluff? What do I have to gain from the executioner’s block? We are many. We don't crave power, but we are strong. We'll quietly undermine you until everyone sees that we don't need to be your slaves anymore.”

  “If you don't fight for Raserion, will you fight for yourselves? Need I remind you that Prince Varion was the one who started this war? He the Coward, Liar, Murderer. His soldiers wouldn't think twice about lopping your head from your shoulders. Have you thought about that?”

  “We don't need to kill for you anymore. Our lives are our own.”

  I rattled my pin in the crack of the vat until my fingers hurt. Water poured free, seeping inconspicuously into the square.

  “Freedom fighters then? Could you really be so naive? Did you know that there have been over twelve hundred internal plots to disrupt Prince Raserion's rule throughout history? More than half of those were pitiful attempts for some misguided notion of freedom. Look around you. They all failed. Why should you succeed?”

  The dark-eyed Dragoon who was presumably unconscious nodded to Rune. His arms began to turn a white blue, and glazed over with frost, and Rune's burst into flame. The dark-eyed Dragoon cried out when the flames lapped against his arm, but gritted his teeth. Their bonds fell away to ash and Rune recalled the fire, rising to his feet. Still tied by one arm, the dark-eyed Dragoon chilled the strap around his broken arm until it cracked. He worked at it until he was free and able to clutch the broken limb.