“Now that we will fight,” Kai said. He rested his hands on his knees and closed his eyes.
∆∆∆
The last light of gloaming had faded by the time the Butterfae finished shearing our hair and scrubbing our skin with mint-scented milk soap. They dressed us in white canvas tunics and left us with a pitcher of water and one large wooden bowl filled with fruit and nut porridge.
Kai and Kemi ignored the porridge and crowded together in a corner of the room, their arms linked and their heads touching. Kai used the cuff of his tunic to brush tears from his sister's face. He kissed her temple and whispered, “This is . . . this is nothing. We were born together, we faced the world together, and we'll face this together. I love you.”
“They stripped me naked in front of both of you.” Kemi rubbed her cheekbones, which were already red from tears and shame.
“Neither of us were looking.” I held my hand toward Lumin, who still hid behind the chamberpot. “Come here.”
Kemi crawled to my side, then sat with her side flush against mine and her head on my shoulder. Kai shifted toward the porridge and swept the wooden spoon through the thick grains.
“I was talking to Lumin, but this is fine, too,” I said.
Kemi's sparse and jagged hair tickled my cheek as she tilted her head upward to look at me. “Do you want me to go back?”
“No.”
The lantern light flickered, throwing spindly shadows upon the walls. A chilly draft licked at my bare arms and I wished our captors had given us blankets. I assumed they hadn't out of fear that their gladiators would strangle themselves before having an opportunity to entertain them in the arena.
“I hear the pain in your voice.” Kemi's palm traveled to my chest and a tiny measure of the agony I'd been failing to ignore released.
“I'm trying not to think about it. I'm trying not to think about anything at all.”
“I think . . . I have an idea but I don't want to make you hopeful in case it doesn't work. If we're lucky enough to receive even a fraction of moonlight, I want to try working a soothing spell on Serida through you. I've never done it before and it feels . . . it feels intimate to the point of invasive, but it's–”
“It's worth trying. Do it.”
Kai looked up from the porridge. “That spell is odd and can have strange side effects, but it might give him a better chance of surviving tomorrow, so do it. Mom did it to me that time Dad made Liantor hide Bronda in the hinterlands.”
“Why didn't he hide her himself?” I asked.
Kemi's fingertips twitched, sending a cold jolt through my sternum. “Liantor's a warlock. Our father isn't.”
“Is he magic-skilled?”
“Yes. He's . . . he's rare and a little different. I don't have the energy left to explain it.”
“That's okay.” I was curious, but it wasn't important enough to worry about. “I don't think I'll ever be hungry again, but we need to eat something.”
Kai shoved the bowl toward us. “It's not bad. Cold and a little too sweet, but palatable.” He glanced up at the window. “Wait.” He crawled to the corner and extinguished the lantern. A faint silvery light reflected off the wall opposite the window. Moonlight. “Quickly, find your link. Kemi, see what you can do for him. I'm going to try to soothe Lumin, but we both know I'm not very good at it.”
“Try anyway. He's terrified,” Kemi said as she pushed against my chest, forcing me from seated to flat on my back. “Tessen, don't be surprised if you wake up feeling odd. That window's not going to give us much time, so find Serida.”
I stared up at the tiny stream of moonlight. It wasn't much and I couldn't see the moon itself, but I had to find Serida's heartbeat within it.
And there it was, a tiny vibration on the plucked string of moonlight. I heard it at the same time as I saw it, the faint whump whump whump of an agitated rhythm that matched my own. I grabbed onto it and closed my eyes.
“He's holding us captive. His plans for you are not benevolent.” Marita's voice was in my ears, distant at first, then close and clear. I opened my eyes to see the slender lines of her fingers. She was close to us, close enough that Serida could kiss her fingertips with a flick of her tongue.
“I know. This might be the only chance we have, though, and we can't deny the benefits of this position when it comes to giving us that chance.” Shan's voice came from above me. I nudged Serida to look upward. She was curled into a ball on his lap. Shan's right hand rested on her back and his left was around Marita's shoulder. The warmth on our side and the shifting light turned my attention away from my brother's tense jaw and toward the nearby fireplace. We were sitting on a settee in the same room I'd seen the previous night. I didn't remember seeing a settee the first time so I wondered if it was new or if Shan had moved it from a corner of the room I wasn't able to see before.
“This is going to be difficult for both of us,” Marita said.
Shan's fingers walked along the ridges of Serida's back. “I know. I'm sorry about that. I didn't intend to drag you into this.”
Marita reached up to weave her fingers through his. “I choose to walk this path with you. It's going to be worth it in the end.”
Shan closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side until his temple was on Marita's shoulder. “I have to try. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't.”
“I know.” Marita kissed Shan's forehead, then looked down at Serida. “Something changed with her, just in the last minute or two. She's not breathing as quickly and her little hands aren't clenched into fists.”
“I have this brutal ache in my chest that I can't seem to account for.” Shan lifted his hand to brush his hair away from his eyes, then studied Serida's face. I coaxed her eyes to connect with his. He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “How are you doing that, Tessen?”
A quiet chirp was all I could manage in reply.
Marita sputtered her lips as she exhaled. “Shan, don't you remember what I told you earlier? Tessen isn't here. We don't know where he is.”
“He's right here. He wasn't earlier, but he is now. I see his aura within Serida's. He's figured out how to see through her eyes. How are you doing that?”
Show him the moon, Serida, I thought. Serida hopped off Shan's lap and trotted toward a window. She leapt onto the sill and stretched her neck toward the crescent moon. “Chirp!”
Shan knelt next to the window so his head was even with Serida's. He tilted his head and looked up at the moon. “Moon? What about the moon?”
Marita stood behind him and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Shan, I love you. Please return to reality.”
“I haven't left it this time,” Shan said, smiling. “Tessen, what about the moon? I know you're here right now. Help me connect with Lumin.”
Touch you nose to your chest, then tap your claws on the sill like a heartbeat. Serida let out a low trill, then followed my instruction. This was easy, far easier than trying to will her body to move like I done before. It was better to simply ask her. Now look back at the moon. Come on, Shan, I know you can figure this out.
“Heartbeat?” Marita suggested. “This is wishful thinking. She's preening and looking at the moon, nothing more. Maybe we should go to bed. How long has it been since you slept? I know you didn't last night.”
“Three days, and I'm not imagining this. I suspected there was a way to connect with our dragons. He must have figured it out.” Shan rested his hand on the sill next to Serida's feet. She nuzzled his fingers, then looked at the moon again while tapping her claws. She understood what I was doing and what I needed her to do.
“You need to sleep.”
Shan held up his hand, lining up the moon between his thumb and first finger. “Let me figure this out first. Moon. Moonlight. Heart and tapping. Heartbeat? I know our heartbeats are synced. Is that how you found her, Tes? Heartbeat in the moonlight?”
“Chirp!” Serida lowered her head and licked Shan's hand. Good girl. Help him find Lumin. Maybe he could fig
ure out some way to help us if he knew where we were.
Shan's eyes shifted from turquoise to green and his jaw muscles relaxed. He figured it out. He was with me now in the same way I was with him.
“Shan?” Marita whispered.
Shan exhaled deeply. “Stucco walls, small room, straw mattress on the floor. There is someone touching me, hand on my back. An elf with dark hair sheared close to the scalp. Eyes the same color as mine. I don't recognize him. He reminds me of Liantor, but closer to my age. Window above, moonlight streaming down. Two people on the mattress, one lying down and one sitting over him. Lying one is Tessen. His hair has been cut off and he's wearing white. All three are. Bare feet. Person sitting with him is an elf, cropped dark hair like the first. I can't see her face, but I hear her voice. Sounds like some sort of spell. Her hand is on his heart.”
“Where are you? Where is everyone else?” Marita asked. I was deep enough in the link that I couldn't hear Kemi speaking, so I assumed Shan couldn't hear Marita's questions, either.
“I see a lantern, but it's not lit. There's something in it. A skull, humanoid in shape. Pot on the floor. Water pitcher and a bowl that smells like oats and apricots. Nothing else, no one else. I don't know where everyone else is. It's just Tessen and Lumin and two strange elves.”
I needed to tell him. I focused on my own body, my own voice, and sat up. I still saw through Serida's eyes rather than my own, but our link was wavering. “Shan's linked with Lumin. Shan, we're in Parandor. We were trying to help Ragan, but it all went wrong, and now we've all been sentenced to fight to the death in a gladiator tournament tomorrow afternoon. The elves you see are Kembriana and Kailandrian Lightborn. They were trying to help us but now they're being sent to the arena, too. Their father is the High King. Tell him. Tell him the Fae King is going to execute his children. Maybe he can stop this.”
Back in Anthora, Shan slipped out of his link. He stood up to face Marita. “Oh shit. It worked. And it's bad. I need to speak with Liantor. Now. I can't go anywhere so you need to go find him.”
Marita's neck tensed as she shook her head. “He's not here. He went with Nylian to the eyrie at Wrath Peak this afternoon and won't be back until the day after tomorrow.”
Shan returned to the window and bent to look us in the eyes. “I don't know how, but I'm going to stop this.” He held his arm back toward Marita. “See if you can get this thing off me. I can't teleport with it on. I can't even leave this suite without permission.”
Marita examined the bracelet, then sighed and shook her head. “It's a binding lock. The only person who can open it is the person who put it on you. It can't be picked, cut, or otherwise broken, and if he happens to die before he releases it you're stuck with it for life. I'll go see if I can hunt down one of the warlocks, but it's late. I don't know if I'll be able to find anyone tonight.”
Shan closed his eyes and winced. “I'm going to figure this out. Tessen, I'm not sure if I can help you in time, so if I fail and you end up in that arena, you fight like you did on the plains, like you did that night in Jadeshire when the guards came to kill us. You're good at surviving, so you survive. I love you. Don't give up, because I'm not going to.”
I closed Serida's eyes and opened my own. The moonlight was gone and the room was shrouded in darkness.
“He knows where we are now, but there isn't anyone around to tell. Marita is going to try to find help.” I yawned and stretched my arms, nearly hitting Kemi in the head. “Sorry. Everything suddenly got bigger so my perception is off. I'm so tired. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep tonight, but now I think it's all I can do.”
“That's the soothing spell,” Kemi said. She reached for the porridge bowl. “Eat something before you fall asleep. How does your heart feel?”
I breathed deeply, deeper than I had all day. Had it only been a day since I first felt the lightning pain? Less than that. Twelve hours at most. “It's a tingle, more uncomfortable than painful. I think I love you.”
“That would also be the soothing spell,” Kai said. He let go of Lumin and crept onto the mattress. “Euphoria, bizarre notions masquerading as love. After my mother worked the spell on me, I kept asking her to marry me. I was seven.”
I swallowed a mouthful of cold porridge. I'd never tasted anything so rich and wonderful. “I wasn't being serious.”
“Good.”
Kai pried the spoon from my hand and gave it to Kemi. “You know what happened to Lyliana, Kemi. You can't be with a human, even a dragonbound one.”
“Don't be a dolt, Kai,” Kemi said, gritting her teeth. “He was just thanking me for helping him.”
I took another bite of the porridge, then laid on my back. “I can love someone without being in love. I love my family, I love my friends, I love the dragons, and I love both of you. I don't know why, but right now I just do. I can't keep my eyes open any longer. Don't wake me until the moon rises again.”
Serida's voice echoed through my dreamless sleep.
Come back to me.
Come back to me.
The moon is out, please come back to me.
Chapter 43
“What happens to a dragon whose person dies?” I asked while picking at a bowl of chestnut porridge. It was late morning and blinding daylight streamed through the window to render the room uncomfortably hot. The three of us had slept nearly on top of each other to stay warm through the frigid night, but now sweat dripped from our brows and trickled down our bare necks.
Kai rubbed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall. “She turns feral. Aggressive and violent at first, and then she calms and retreats into the wild once the initial shock of the severance wears off. She'll never be approachable by people again, even people she knew and trusted before.”
“And what happens to a person whose dragon dies?”
“He lives the rest of his life with a hollow in his soul that he cannot fill even if he becomes bound to another dragon. He knows there is something missing but nothing can replace what he's lost. Most lost dragonbound recover enough to live normal lives, but some lose their minds or hearts, and some try to fill the void with vices. Those ones don't live very long.” Kai stood and paced across the room. Lumin watched him from the corner, his green eyes narrowed. Kai pressed his hands against the top of his head and sighed. “Dragons become vicious immediately. I think Bronda and Lenna will kill a Fae or two each as soon as something happens to us.”
“What about Serida? What's going to happen to her?” I asked.
“She's tiny. She's more likely to bite, then run. She'll probably be loose in the Halls until someone manages to trap her. My father won't let anyone hurt her. They'll take her away from the city and release her.”
I wasn't sure if I believed him. Was he telling the truth or only trying to reassure me? Maybe she'd have a chance if she grew up wild, but a baby dragon could easily become prey for larger animals. Maybe she was as doomed as I was. I didn't want her to grow up alone any more than I wanted to die in the arena. She needed me and I would do my best to return to her alive.
I was also worried about Shan. He was already teetering on the edge of insanity and I didn't think his fragile mind could withstand anything happening to Lumin. Fight for Serida, fight for Shan and Lumin, fight for us all. It was all I could do, and it didn't feel like enough.
“You're grinding your teeth again. Is the pain back?” Kemi asked.
“No.” I took a deep breath and stretched my arms to reassure myself on the assertion. “I feel . . . physically I feel fine. My head though . . . the euphoria you gave me is fighting with worry and fear and all the what-ifs. Me defeating Morenno was luck more than skill, and I don't know how I'm going to take on multiple Fae champions while trying to protect everyone else.”
“Don't protect the rest of us,” Kai said with a wince. “Your mercenary friends can handle themselves and so can Kemi and I. Worry about yourself first.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “We need to work together a
nd protect each other or we all fall. We can't do this if we insist upon fighting alone.”
“We don't even know what we're fighting yet.”
“Death itself.” I set down my unfinished bowl and laid back on the mattress. Beneath the must, it smelled of mint soap combined with gardenia, jasmine, and lilac. That was us. We had each taken on the natural scents of our dragons. I hadn't noticed the lilac scent of my own skin before, but now that I had it was unignorable. “Why do we smell of flowers?”
“It's a dragonbound thing.” Kemi ran her fingers across the uneven remnants of her hair. “I notice it on Kai occasionally, but I must be too acclimated to it to smell it on myself. I think fear makes it worse. It's in our sweat, perhaps. I can't quite place what you smell like, but it's nice.”
“Lilacs.” I stretched my hands above my face. No matter how hard I fought to keep them locked away, thoughts of battle kept springing into my mind. Not long now, and we'd all be fighting for our lives and for each other. I knew in far-away Anthora, Shan was trying to find a way to save us, but so far we had no indication that he'd had any success. “I noticed it right after she hatched, but I must have gotten used to it. I didn't know I smelled like her now.”
And there were the tears I'd been storing away for days. There was the absence of Serida nuzzling my face and the weight of her sleeping on my chest. She was mine and I was hers and we had lost each other, likely forever. Everything was in tatters and Shan and Serida would be left alone, incapable of even being with each other. As wary as I was of my brother after what he'd done, he didn't deserve that. He was flawed and misguided, not a monster.
Kemi crept across the mattress and embraced me. Her touch was safe and familiar, far more than it should have been for the short time we'd known each other. I knew it must be a lingering effect of her soothing spell, but I wanted it to be genuine. Her lips brushed against my temple on their way toward my ear.
“You are going to survive today.” Kemi's voice was the music of loose parchment fluttering in the wind. “I know you are. It's the only thing I know for certain right now.”
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