“I’m an officer of the Jingen City Watch – or I was,” Marielle said, feeling her cheeks blushing even in the cold. She’d never have that title again. She’d lost it when she’d failed to be sacrificed. “I can take risks. I’m not made of glass.”
Tamerlan muttered something under his breath – likely a curse by the way his hands tightened around the sword handle at his side. His affection and protectiveness were understandable, but if she let that rule her, he’d stifle the life out of her. She needed the ability to still take risks on her own. He’d have to learn to deal with that if they ... but her mind stuttered over the idea that there was more to their relationship than friendship. Just because she’d spent time in his head, in his past, in his heart, didn’t mean that she should expect anything from him. He might just be this obsessed with her out of guilt.
And yet those thoughts felt hollow. She knew him. She’d been with him in his mind. His love for her was real. And so were those burning emotions in his eyes.
She swallowed, not sure how to manage this level of intensity between them while still achieving their goals. It was like lightning bolts were connecting them, sizzling with power and destructive energy. And she loved the way it made her feel like she was tingling from the inside out.
“Why don’t you tell me about how the Legends are our enemies while I try to negotiate what’s left of the staircase?” Marielle suggested, picking her way through the rubble of what had once been a fine guild house to the stairway and trying to ignore the way her heart seemed to skip a beat when she brushed past him or how he half-closed his eyes as if to savor that barest touch.
Many of the stairs were missing, shaken to pieces by the movement of the city, and the few that were left wavered dangerously, ready to give at a moment’s notice.
She swallowed. It had been hard to find warm clothing in the city, even with her ability to smell wool and fur. The Dragonblood Plains were warm enough not to need the heavy clothing of the mountains even in the dead of winter fur was rare. They’d had more luck in finding wool stockings and cowls, but they needed fur. And she could smell it above – the musky scent left smoky tendrils through the air.
“Isn’t it obvious how they are enemies?” Etienne said coldly. “They stole Anglarok and Liandari from us.”
“I think, they’ve always been playing us – playing me.” Tamerlan’s voice was steadier without the smoke, though his hands shook from withdrawal.
Last night when they’d huddled in the corner of a freezing building trying to wait out the shaking and cold, his hands had shaken so badly that Etienne had told him sharply that he had a problem. Tamerlan hadn’t denied it.
“Do you still think I’m insane?” he’d asked the other man. At least he knew, even if it did him no good to know. He’d keep smoking until it killed them all – if he had to. And it was shattering him.
“Yes,” Etienne said harshly. “But I will work with the insane if that is all I have.”
Marielle swallowed, coming back to the present. She was in love with a man who was losing his mind – she’d realized that in the dark of the night. She was deeply in love with an insane man. That should worry her. Instead, all she could think was that there had to be a way to fulfill her promise to him – that she would put his pieces back together again.
“They know so much more than we do about how this world was built,” Tamerlan was saying about the Legends. “About where the dragons come from and what makes them rise, about how the Legends were made. They can make us dance to their tune without any way to fight back. That’s what they’ve been doing with me all along. I need them. I need the power they give me, but they’re also the enemy.”
“Strange thought coming from you, Alchemist,” Etienne said. From the moment they’d pulled her from the clock, Marielle had seen that the strange balance of friendship and tension between the two of them. Insanity bred mistrust. “I thought that if anyone was a Legend-lover it would be you.”
“Don’t mistake necessity for love,” Tamerlan said mildly, but there was a bite behind his words. He was edgy without the spice he smoked. It turned him from the sweet soul Marielle knew he had inside to a sharp-eyed desperate man. And yet under that were still those sudden glimpses at the softness of his heart, the sweetness of his soul.
“So, the Legends are enemies,” Marielle said, wincing at a cracking sound as she stepped up onto the next stair. She tested her weight, but it seemed to be holding, so carefully, she took another step. “Or, at the very least tools like Etienne says. What does that mean to us? Can we just avoid them now that we have all the other dragons chained again and only this one underneath us to worry about?”
Her voice faltered a bit at the end. She didn’t like remembering that they were flying on the back of a dragon. It gave her chills. What if the dragon decided to roll in the air like a fish in the sea? They’d all fall to their deaths.
“I don’t think so,” Tamerlan said calmly. “And that’s why I’m worried. What about that new Maid Chaos we found? What about the new Legend that the Retribution created in Choan to deal with that city? Can they be contained like the others? It worries me how easily the other Legends were found and dispatched. Do you think that Grandfather Time could have killed other Legends that we didn’t know about?”
“Yes,” Etienne said, and Marielle looked back to see him and Tamerlan with eyes locked on each other and strained expressions. Etienne’s lip curled as he said it and Tamerlan sighed so loud that Marielle could hear his sigh even from halfway up the stairs.
“You can hear him,” Tamerlan breathed, his face white. “Now that he’s back in the clock he’s in your head, isn’t he?”
“Who can he hear?” Marielle asked, but her foot fell through the wood of the step. She reached out, catching the banister as the stair she was on and the ones below fell from the wall, smashing into the ground below. The banister was shaking, pulling, twisting.
She realized it was about to fall right before it did, smelling the problem in the wood before her mind could even process it. She leapt to the next step, taking the last four at a run. Either she’d make it, or she’d fall, but trying to go slow at this point would be a sure disaster.
She hit the landing with one foot as the rest of the stairs fell, leaving her teetering on the edge before she flung herself forward across the dusty landing.
She sat up, coughing, clutching her ribs. That had hurt.
Below her, the others were coughing, too.
“Tamerlan?” she called, and then belatedly, “Etienne?”
“Are you hurt?” Tamerlan called back between coughing fits while Etienne called, “We’re fine!”
Two very different men.
She shook her head. The floor felt ... unstable. That wasn’t good. Carefully, she pulled herself to her feet and took a wobbling step toward the scent of the furs.
“I’m going after the fur,” she called down. “You two should get out before this place comes down on you.”
“Jump down and I’ll catch you!” Tamerlan offered.
She ignored his offer. He’d always sacrifice what he needed for someone else. She didn’t want him to die of cold before they chained this last dragon. They had to think practically. And yet, he was barely holding off madness with a thousand voices in his head, and yet he was taking time to show her kindness. She shook her head. His tender heart left him vulnerable in a thousand ways.
She carefully picked her way along the corridor toward the scent of the furs. The house was in disarray. The residents could have left at any time, but it was likely that the smoke from the fires that tore through Choan was what had prompted them to leave. This upper floor hadn’t even been touched by flame, but black soot coated everything. That was the problem in H’yi. Finding supplies was nearly impossible in a city half-burned. Even the districts that hadn’t been ravaged by flame were so heavily coated in soot that finding food or water of any kind was nearly impossible.
They were all thirsty. Th
ey were all cold. They were all hungry. She needed to calm down and stop feeling like every one of her emotions were untrustworthy and every sensation was a threat to her. It was just hard to get over being in the clock for two months. Hard to get used to having a body again – especially one that was constantly responding to Tamerlan’s gentle voice and burning gaze.
She shook her head. She was here for furs. She could sort out emotions later.
But she had a bad feeling that if she didn’t sort them out soon then she was going to damage any chance she had of saving Tamerlan from himself. She knew she wanted that – wanted it almost more than to save the cities of the Dragonblood Plains from themselves. Was everything so bent on its own destruction?
It’s just that she felt confused by that desire. She kept feeling like she was missing parts of her mind since exiting the clock – like having lost the ability to jump from time to time and space to space had also lost her the ability to keep it all straight. She’d never been so invested in personal things before. She’d thought justice was more important than personal love or faithfulness. And more than that, it was as if having lost the ability to ride around in Tamerlan’s mind had erected an impenetrable barrier between them, leaving her confused and frustrated.
There!
She opened a closet. There was less soot in the small, tight space, but there was a thick grey fur cloak – wolf, perhaps – that she quickly wrapped around herself. Reaching in, she drew out a larger one, also wolf, but with more black in the fur and a slight golden hue. That would do for Tamerlan. There was one more – a dark brown robe with a deep hood. Quickly, she grabbed them both and hurried to the window. This must have been quite the guild house at some point. This room had a balcony. She opened the wide soot-stained window and stepped out to the narrow balcony.
“Catch,” she called to the two figures below, throwing the fur cloaks down but before she could consider how she might want to get down, her eyes were drawn away to a figure in the distance, clinging to the spire of one of the last towers still standing. From this distance, she couldn’t make out who it was but whoever was watching her ducked into the tower the moment her eyes caught him.
Her heart raced as he disappeared. Was it Liandari or Anglarok? Why was he watching from the spire – were they being stalked by a Legend? That couldn’t be good. Her throat felt dry at the thought. It would be even worse if it was someone else out there in this ruined city. Someone they didn’t know. But no one would stay in a ruin like this – would they?
She swallowed roughly as the dragon dipped so suddenly that her heart was in her throat, her head swimming. She lost her balance, tumbling from the balcony to the street below.
2: On a Dragon’s Back
Tamerlan
“It will be Winterfast at home soon,” Etienne said as they stood outside the building. It was strange how much he whipsawed back and forth between utter condemnation of Tamerlan and companionability. “I suppose it will be Winterfast here, too, but while the rest of the Dragonblooded Plains might fast for two days, we will be fasting indefinitely.”
“Marielle said she could smell preserves somewhere,” Tamerlan said. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the windows of the floor above. The whole structure shook with every step Marielle made. She shouldn’t be up there, but he’d sensed the warning in her words when she told him she was doing this. She didn’t want him protecting her when she could do it herself. It felt – wrong – after his obsession with saving her for the past two months. He felt hollow without that in sight.
And yet you aren’t hollow, pretty man, and this game isn’t over. You are still ours, willingly or unwillingly.
Unwillingly today. Though of all the Legends, he probably liked Lila the most.
Be glad you aren’t that other one – the pretty one with the black hair. I can hear the lies the Grandfather whispers to him. They are not pleasant at all.
Tamerlan clenched his jaw. Was the Grandfather really whispering lies into Etienne’s ears? Or was Lila whispering lies into Tamerlan’s ears to bend Tamerlan to her will? She’d done it before.
When have I ever lied to you?
When she tried to force him to smoke and bring her back to the world.
That’s good for both of us. Her tone sounded almost vicious now that he knew what was behind it. Don’t be a fool. It would be better for you to succumb to me than to anyone else. Soon, the decision will no longer be yours.
“Etienne, the Legends,” he began, but his attention was stolen away before he could continue.
He felt a tugging, like a sixth sense and he looked up just in time to see Marielle at the edge of the balcony above.
“Catch!” she called and a cloak dropped down from the sky right before the bottom seemed to drop out of both the street and his stomach as they plummeted through the air. He was never going to get used to riding on the back of a dragon the size of a city. He felt his stomach flip. The thought of their precarious position made it tumble like those cloaks.
Dragon. Ram rumbled in his mind but Tamerlan wasn’t paying attention. His eyes had never left Marielle. He gasped as she slipped from the balcony and through the air.
His heart jumped into his throat. He leapt forward, arms stretched out.
Could he catch her without hurting them both?
Before he could finish thinking it, she was hitting his arms and he clung to her the second he felt her, gritting his teeth as he tried to absorb her weight in his knees and ankles. He took most of it, but he stumbled and they both fell to the ground, tangled up in her wolf cloak. He rolled under her as he fell, taking the hit on his shoulder and grunting as the wound in his leg flared from the impact.
Marielle landed on his chest, her small frame quivering – whether from shock or fear he didn’t know. He released her immediately, his hands refusing to hold her unless she willed it. He never wanted to see her imprisoned again, not by him, not by anyone. A flash of guilt rushed through him even though another part of him ached to hold her, to pull her into his embrace.
He swallowed down the question on his lips – the desperate need to know if she was hurt. She hadn’t liked it the last time. He had to be careful. He had to protect her from everything – even from himself – especially from himself. If he was really mad, like Etienne thought, then he needed to give her the chance to stay away from him – to stay safe from his madness.
He drew in a breath quivering with pent up desire – not for her physical body, oh it was so much worse than that now. He knew that what he was trying to conceal was his insatiable need to have the right to ask if she was okay. To possess her heart in the way that made concern for her safety natural, that made sacrificing himself for her normal, that made this obsession of his as simple as breathing.
He let out his breath in a half-whispered apology. “Sorry.”
Her hair slipped across his face as she pulled herself up, her face flaring hot and red. He bit his lip at the brush of those silky strands. If he lived only a few more days, he wanted to remember this. If all he could reasonably have were those accidental touches, then he would savor every one.
“Thank you,” she said, sincerity and awkwardness warring in her voice.
Etienne cleared his throat. “You were saying something about the Legends being our enemies, Tamerlan?”
“Yes,” Tamerlan agreed, shaking his head to clear it, pulling himself to his feet and scooping up the cloak Marielle had found for him. He had it pinned around him and his trembling hands back under control before he looked up to meet Etienne’s eyes again. “They’re linked to the dragons and the dragons binding is what keeps the Dragonblood Plains safe. So, one way or another, we will have to deal with the Legends if we’re going to deal with the dragons.”
“Then maybe we should have let Grandfather Timeless kill all their avatars,” Etienne said smoothly. His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed.
Tamerlan knew Etienne was watching for a response, but he couldn’t help it
when he flinched from the sudden cursing in his head.
Dragon’s spit in a cup! Kill him now! Lila sounded shrill. Tamerlan closed his eyes and kept his lips firmly sealed against the words she wanted to pull from him.
The dragons are the enemy, not the Legends. They must be bound! Bound forever by the blood and magic of men! That raving sounded like Ram, but behind it, more voices were screaming in a tangle of sound he couldn’t sort out. It bashed at his mind like an internal hammer.
“Is that you speaking, or the Grandfather, Etienne?” he asked schooling his voice to calmness, eyes still closed. He snapped them open at the last second to see Etienne’s response.
“What are you asking me, Tamerlan?” Etienne asked. It was a challenge.
Tamerlan held up his hands, asking for peace. “We are on the same side. We want the same thing.”
“Do we?” His eyes blazed and Tamerlan’s heart kicked up to another level. Was Etienne going mad, too? Would everyone touched by the Legends go mad now? He could feel his pulse in his neck, pounding so hard he was afraid a vein might burst.
“Of course, we do,” Marielle said, her chiming voice splitting through their tension. Tamerlan could almost feel his body relaxing at her words. “We want to save as many people of the Five Cites as we can. We want the dragons gone or back asleep. We want the Legends to remain on the other side of the Bridge. That’s what we want. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” Tamerlan said, but his eyes were on Etienne, looking for signs that the Grandfather had hold of him. Was it possible that he’d been taken over just like Anglarok and Liandari?
“Yes,” said Etienne, biting off the end of the word, but his assurances weren’t enough for Tamerlan.
He was not taken over. He simply hears the Grandfather like you hear us. Only the Grandfather is less benevolent. Lila sounded wary.
Since when were any of them benevolent?
If you think we are not, then perhaps we have been too lenient.
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 61