Dragonshadow

by Elle Katharine White

  Alastair shook his head.

  “I pray the Riders stationed in Selkie’s Keep are able to finish what Theold and I started,” Chirrorim said. “But no more of this. Theold was a faithful servant of Mikla and he will welcome him into the Fourfold Hall with open arms. It is not our calling to dwell on the dead, my friend,” he said to Alastair. “Tell me instead what we fight here.”

  I watched Cordelia as Alastair and Selwyn took turns summarizing the deaths of the last few weeks. She moved the empty oyster shells around her plate without looking at them, her eyes fixed instead on a point beyond the table, on something I could not see.

  Selwyn noticed her abstraction halfway through the final course and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, my sweet. This is no conversation for the dinner table. Lord Daired, Chirrorim, let’s continue this discussion in my study. Captain Rhys, I trust you can manage the evening’s patrol on your own?”

  Rhys’s response to that, if any, was lost in the scrape of wood on stone as the men pushed back their chairs and followed Selwyn out of the Lake Hall. Chirrorim padded behind them.

  “Would my lady like to retire for the night?”

  I should’ve expected Mòrag. The silence the men had left in their wake held too much frost for her not to be present. Cordelia shook her head. “No. It’s early yet.”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t my lady like—”

  “It’s Martenmas, Mòrag. I don’t want to sleep. Aliza, will you sit with me?”

  “Aye, if you like.”

  “And you, Mòrag. Come sit with us.”

  “I have things to attend to, child. The meal, the kitchens . . .”

  “The servants can take care of them.”

  “My lady—”

  “Please,” Cordelia said. “Just for a little while.”

  Mòrag sighed. “Oh, very well.”

  We followed Cordelia into the library. Moonlight threw strips of silver across the hearth where the remains of a fire still smoldered in the grate. Mòrag set another log on the fire and settled on a stool near the wood cradle with an air of someone keeping vigil. “Our men will talk through the night,” Cordelia said to me as we curled up on the sofa opposite. “For once let’s you and I not concern ourselves with their affairs. Do you sing?”

  I looked up, surprised. “What?”

  “Your mind is already far away. I asked if you sing.”

  I laughed. “Not at all.”

  “Then Mòrag must do it.” The housekeeper made an extraordinary face at the suggestion, but Cordelia would not be deterred. She knelt next to Mòrag’s stool. “Oh, please do. Sing for us ‘The Lay of Saint Ellia.’”

  “My lady, now is not the time for that.”

  “It’s Martenmas. There is only one day of the year better suited to the tale.”

  “Then I will wait until Saint Ellia’s Day to sing it,” she said. Cordelia’s face fell, and for an instant Mòrag’s icy expression cracked, showing the waters below roiling with feeling. Hesitantly, almost reverently, she tucked an idle strand of hair behind Cordelia’s ear. “I won’t sing it, child, but if you wish I’ll tell the story.”

  She brightened. “I would like that. Thank you, Mòrag.”

  “Let me see. It begins—”

  “Many years ago, in the dark of the world,” Cordelia said.

  “Yes. Many years ago, in the dark of the world, a daughter was born to the king of a monster-plagued isle. Rhydian was the king’s name, and Arle the name of his kingdom.”

  Cordelia sat back on her heels and watched Mòrag’s face, mouthing the familiar words along with her. Mòrag gave me a sidelong glance.

  “Now generations had passed since Edan the Fireborn and Aur’eth the Flamespoken Sire had been called up to the gods, and the kingdom was once again in turmoil. The blood of the Fireborn had run thin in Edan’s descendants, watered down by greed and corruption, and while they and their dragons lived safe in their fortresses of stone, the people of Arle suffered under the teeth and talons of the ancient monsters that plagued the land.”

  That was new. I thought of my assurance to Alastair on the Langloch beach of the honor of his ancestors and wondered what he would say to hear Mòrag’s version of the tale. The song we’d grown up with didn’t hold nearly so much indictment for House Daired as Mòrag’s recitation.

  “What kind of monsters, Mòrag?” Cordelia asked.

  “All kinds. There were no Shani in those days, you see. Save for the sworn dragons of House Daired, every creature you met in the time of King Rhydian was as likely to kill you as look at you. It was—”

  “Even gnomes?”

  Mòrag blinked. “Well, yes, I suppose. Now, it was during the dark of the world that certain men and women went in search of other creatures that might become their allies, as Edan had once with the dragons. Many died in their attempts to bargain with valkyries and direwolves, but some were luckier and found comrades-in-arms among wyverns and beoryns. These warriors called themselves Riders and spread throughout Arle, protecting towns and villages under attack from the Oldkind.”

  I drew my knees to my chest and watched the firelight dance along the windows on either side of the chimney, trying to imagine those first battles. Blood had flowed on all sides, human and Oldkind alike. Dark of the world indeed.

  “King Rhydian was neither a kind nor gentle man, but he was a wise king and it troubled him deeply to see his people suffer. When his daughter was born, he made an oath to the people of Edonarle: by the time the Princess Ellia wed he would bring peace to the kingdom, no matter the cost.”

  “No matter the cost,” Cordelia echoed thoughtfully.

  “Princess Ellia was a singular child, gifted with a silver tongue,” Mòrag said. “The queen consort died in childbed, leaving King Rhydian to raise his daughter alone. He saw her gifts grow as she did and, though he raised her harshly and without affection, he marveled at her ability to make people listen, to turn the unyielding and soften the hardest of hearts.”

  Except his own. The thought came to me unbidden, the sad truth at the heart of Arle’s oldest tragedy. Henry’s master had sung of it once when I was a child at the Merybourne Midsummer bonfire. No one liked the improvisation and he never tried to change the verses again, but I’d never forgotten the lines he’d sung of the young Ellia: “For all her fine words she could not convince her father to love her.”

  “By her eighteenth birthday he had devised a plan,” Mòrag continued. “A treaty, he called it—”

  “The Accord of Kinds,” Cordelia finished.

  “Indeed. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday the king summoned his daughter and presented her with the Great Task: bring the Accord of Kinds before as many of the Oldkind as she could find and offer them a truce if they would swear an alliance with the humans of Arle.”

  The hum of her words wrapped around me like a blanket. I sank back into the cushions, eyes half closed as she continued in a singsong voice.

  “Now the princess was no fool. She agreed to his task on the condition that she would not go alone. King Rhydian saw the wisdom in this and summoned the new Riders from all corners of the kingdom to a tournament in Edonarle, to compete in contests of skill and courage and win the chance to serve as Ellia’s guardians.”

  “And there the princess first laid eyes upon Marten, and Marten upon Ellia,” Cordelia sang softly, “and in a single glance kindled a love such as there has never been before, nor ever will be again.”

  “As you say, my lady. It was there she first saw young Marten Hull, a Rider out of the Western Wastes, and his wyvern Jadewing Jeweltalon,” Mòrag said. “Rider and wyvern both fought valiantly, defeating all who raised their swords against them and winning the honor of a place at Ellia’s side. And as Marten—”

  “Do you think it’s true, Mòrag?” Cordelia asked. “Do you think he loved her at first sight?”

  “What? Goodness me, of course not, child! That’s an invention of the bards. There is no such thing as love at first
sight.”

  “But was that not how it was for you, Aliza?”

  I opened my eyes. “Sorry?”

  “When you first saw Lord Daired? Did you not love him then?”

  Only her expression of perfect credulousness kept me from laughing out loud. “Good gods, no. I didn’t even like him until a few months ago.”

  “But then how—?”

  “My lady, you asked me to tell the story,” Mòrag said gently. “Will you let me tell the story?”

  “Yes, Mòrag. I’m sorry.”

  Mòrag set another log on the fire and settled back on the stool. “As Marten climbed the steps to receive the blessing of the king, a great silver dragon descended into the tournament ring, bearing the only daughter and heir of House Daired. Niaveth Daired had heard of the king’s challenge, but it was her dragon Sanar who convinced her to fly south and join the fray. King Rhydian accepted the offer of her pledged sword and together Ellia, Niaveth, and Marten set out across the wilds of Arle to fulfill the king’s task, or to perish in the attempt.”

  My eyelids drooped again as she told of their adventures among the Oldkind, of Ellia’s successes with the creatures who would come to be called Shani, and of her flight from the creatures who refused the Accord—those who would become Tekari. Words bled into words, their meaning growing dim as sleep drew me down into warm darkness.

  “So the three returned in triumph to Edonarle . . . great celebration among the people, for there was the rumor of marriage between Marten and their beloved princess . . .”

  I imagined the towers of Edonarle, glowing white and red in the setting sun as the city welcomed back their brave princess. Royal heralds trumpeting their return . . . this sofa really is quite comfortable . . . crowds cheering, banners waving . . .

  “But when Marten asked King Rhydian’s blessing, the king refused, claiming the Task was yet undone . . . and so he sent his daughter and her guardians on one final journey across the southern sea . . .”

  The glint of moonlit water and the crash of waves against creaking timbers . . .

  “. . . for even then the distant land of Els had a dark and doubtful reputation, and Rhydian wanted to know more of it . . .”

  Els.

  I opened my eyes. Cordelia still sat at Mòrag’s feet, absorbed in the tale. The fire burned with quiet heat, sending specters of shadow quivering along the walls. The silhouettes of bare tree branches moved beyond the window as the moon set behind the castle’s eastern ramparts.

  “But the three found the High Citadel closed to them, and its guardian, the monstrous Sphinx of Els, waiting outside the gates. Niaveth’s dragon fought the sphinx, but dragonfire could not defeat a desert creature and the noble Sanar was slain.

  “The sphinx turned next to Ellia, but Marten stepped between the monster and his love. The battle was terrible. In the end Marten and his wyvern slew the sphinx, but his victory came at a great cost. Marten was mortally wounded, and while Ellia and Niaveth were able to flee with him to their ship, he did not survive the storm-tossed voyage back to Arle.

  “They say Ellia looked out over the sea as she cradled Marten’s body and placed a terrible curse on the Kingdom of Els. No one knows what she wished upon them, for if Niaveth heard her, she never spoke of it afterward. All that is known is that the High Citadel fell silent from that day forward.”

  More shadows crept along the windowpanes. And so the Silent Kingdom was born . . .

  I jolted upright. Within the shadow I’d seen a flash of—something. Red and white, a face in the dark, fair-haired and smiling the sunken grin of a corpse.

  “Lady Daired?”

  “Did you see that?”

  Mòrag and Cordelia looked at each other, then at me. “See what?” Cordelia asked.

  I went to the window. An empty parapet ran beneath the sill. “I thought I saw something moving out there.”

  “You’ve been asleep for the last quarter hour, my lady,” Mòrag said. “You must have dreamed it.”

  I touched the pane, my breath fogging against the glass, and prayed to every facet of the Fourfold God that she was right.

  “Sit, Aliza,” Cordelia said. “The story’s not ov—”

  “Lady Daired!”

  I yelped. The scream severed my last worry-frayed nerve. “Mikla save us, what is Rhys playing at?” Mòrag muttered, but I was already halfway to the front hall.

  Alastair, Selwyn, and Chirrorim were already there, Alastair with one hand on his sword hilt, Chirrorim’s fur standing rigid along his spine and a growl in his throat. Rhys stood panting in the middle of the hall, the limp, towheaded figure of Jen Trennan in his arms. Several voices spoke at once, but Mòrag drowned them all out.

  “Owin Rhys, what have you done to that boy?” she demanded.

  “Found him—like this,” Rhys panted.

  “Is he dead?” Cordelia asked over Mòrag’s shoulder. “Nouroudos save us, is he dead?”

  “Not dead.” Rhys’s voice edged toward panic. “Found him outside the gates babbling something about forgiveness and then . . . schetze, I shouldn’t have left him alone! Lady Daired, you’re a healer, aren’t you?”

  “Aye—”

  “Can you help him? Please, gods, say you can help him!”

  “Take him into the library,” I said. Rhys fairly charged off down the hall before I could finish. Alastair caught my eye and followed him. “Madam Mòrag, can you—?” I turned around, but she was already ushering Cordelia away.

  “Go, Lady Daired,” Selwyn said. “I’ll bring you what you need.”

  My mind raced. What would Uncle Gregory say? “More wood. And blankets.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I followed the men into the library and helped Alastair pull the sofa closer to the fire. “Lay him down, Captain.”

  As soon as Trennan touched the cushions he curled into a ball, shaking from head to foot with silent sobs.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Chirrorim asked.

  I knelt next to the sofa. “Master Trennan?” He shook his head, his fists clenched on either side of his face. Back and forth he rocked, a wordless whine in his throat. I tried to take his hand, then settled for patting his arm when he refused to unclench his fists. “Master Trennan, it’s all right. You’re safe now.”

  “Why was he asking for forgiveness?” Alastair asked Rhys. “Did he say whose?”

  “No.”

  “And you saw nothing?” Chirrorim asked.

  “Nothing to see,” Rhys said. “Clouds are rolling in. It’s black as pitch beyond the walls.”

  I felt Trennan’s forehead. It was damp with sweat, though not of the feverish sort. “I don’t think he’s ill. Just badly frightened.”

  “By what?”

  Rhys stopped his pacing. “The monster. He saw it, didn’t he?”

  “She didn’t want me.”

  Every head turned to Trennan.

  “Who didn’t want you, boy?” Alastair asked. “Tell us what you saw.”

  Trennan squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in his hands, still rocking. “She’s not here for me. Not for my sins. Not for me . . .”

  The words trailed off into sobs as the door opened behind us, admitting Selwyn with an armful of logs. “What you asked for, Lady Daired.” He deposited the logs into the wood cradle and cast a glance over Trennan’s prone form. “Will he live?”

  “Aye, I think so.”

  “Good. Mòrag will attend you if you need anything else. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention this to the other servants. I don’t want to start a panic. Chirrorim, Lord Daired, Captain Rhys, we’d best make the castle secure.”

  “I’m not leaving my wife,” Alastair said.

  “As you will,” Selwyn said stiffly. “Rhys, with me.” He swept out of the library.

  I tended Trennan through the night. Mòrag did not reappear, so at my request Alastair brought mint, hush, hot water, and blankets from the kitchens. When the tea
I made failed to have any effect, I sent him back for some valerian, and after several draughts Trennan passed from his strange catalepsy into a fitful sleep.

  Alastair sat with me on the opposite sofa as we watched him toss and tremble, muttering nonsense. “You should’ve gone with Selwyn,” I said. “If this thing is close to the castle, he may need your help.”

  “Chirrorim can take care of the defenses. No one else is going outside tonight.”

  I looked at the boy on the sofa. The dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced now, and I fancied there were a few gray streaks in his hair that hadn’t been there before. “Alastair,” I said quietly, “before Rhys came in I thought I saw something at the window.”

  “What did you see?”

  The face of a dead man. The words had the tang of impossibility even as I rehearsed them in my head. “It—never mind.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders. “Aliza, tell me.”

  “It was just a dream.”

  “It scared you, whatever it was.”

  “It did, but it’s gone now.” The log in the grate split with an ashy sigh, coughing sparks onto the hearth. “He wasn’t there.” He isn’t anywhere.

  “He?”

  “Wydrick.”

  Alastair’s expression went blank. “Tristan Wydrick is dead.”

  “I know.”

  “I drove my sword through his heart.”

  “Alastair, I know. It was just a dream.” I tucked my feet beneath me and laid my head on his shoulder. “Forget I mentioned it.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. Exhaustion tugged at my eyelids but sleep was busy elsewhere, leaving me groping around in a tense twilight. The haze had just begun to settle when Alastair shifted.

  “I do too,” he said in an undertone.

  “Hm?”

  “See his face. That expression when I ran him through. He looked me right in the eye and then—Thell, I wish I could forget.” He pressed his hand to his brow. “He was the first human I’d ever killed.”

  I turned so I could see his face. He’d never said as much—no Rider I’d ever met said as much—but I’d always assumed their blades had drunk more than just the blood of the Tekari. Enemies to the kingdom came from outside the Oldkind as well as within.