by Milla Vane
One of Vela’s priestesses—yet it was not the priestess who gazed back in their direction. Her brown skin glowed as if made of moonstone, shining so brightly that her face was clearly visible through the black veil. The orbs of her eyes seemed filled with silver moonlight.
Ardyl’s back and shoulders blocked her view again as the warriors formed a king’s guard around Maddek.
Kelir shot over his shoulder, “What say you, Banek? Is it demon? A wraith?”
This time Yvenne would be heard. “It—is—Vela.”
Sharply she tugged on Maddek’s beard for each word. He tore his gaze from the figure ahead to meet hers, brows lowered, eyes dark. Sudden tense silence fell over the warriors.
“The goddess? You are certain?” Kelir asked, disbelieving.
“I am.”
“Then we had best follow the horses’ lead,” Maddek said grimly.
As one—and with reluctant grunts—the warriors sank onto their left knees, laying weapons at their sides. Steadying herself with a hand on Maddek’s shoulder, Yvenne began to lower herself but was dragged down to sit on his thickly muscled thigh.
“Bowed head is enough. If it is Vela, she will know you mean no disrespect,” Maddek growled softly when Yvenne pushed against him. “And if she demands that you kneel on your shattered joint, she will earn that disrespect.”
Yvenne would bear the pain. Yet she would not argue with him now. The goddess took a step in their direction.
The next moment Vela stood in front of Kelir. Startled by the quick movement, the warrior flinched and went utterly still. Maddek’s muscles became steel. As did Ardyl’s, Yvenne saw, as each of the warriors battled their instinctive response to defend against attack.
“And so I face the head of the Dragon.” The goddess’s voice held the ring of cold steel against stone. “But you do not bow that head to me?”
Kneeling before her, the big warrior trembled, yet there was no wavering in his reply. “A Dragon with bowed head cannot see threat coming, and would fail in his duty to protect his Ran.”
“You believe I am a danger to him?”
“I know not your intention. That is why I keep eyes up and watch.”
“And if I threatened your Ran, you would raise your axe against me?”
“I would, my lady, as is my duty.” His scarred face was bloodbare as he spoke that truth. “Forgive me.”
“Forgive what? Your loyalty and your courage serve you well, Kelir.”
“Thank you, merciful lady.”
“So, too, the Dragon’s claw is loyal and courageous—and has blood that burns like fire.” On silent steps, she glided past Ardyl, her glowing fingers drifting lightly over the warrior’s braided hair. “Ardyl, the last of your clan, whose memory you carry upon your face. Always you have feared that letting yourself fully belong to those who raised you and loved you would mean your own family would vanish from memory. But even as you belong to those you love, so they belong to you—and through the family you build, your clan will be renewed.”
A choked sob came from that warrior, who only nodded beneath the goddess’s touch. Vela moved on, into the circle of the Dragon guard’s protection, toward Fassad.
“And the Dragon’s fangs.” Though the veil Yvenne saw the curve of pale lips and shining teeth, the sickle moon of a smile. Down on her heels she sank, the billowing of her robes bringing icy wind to Yvenne’s face, yet there was warmth in the goddess’s voice as she scratched Steel’s ears, then Bone’s ruff. “I have always favored wolves.”
“Yes, my lady,” the warrior replied, his voice thick. “I have, too.”
“As they favor you, Fassad,” she said. “Had they been mistreated, I would feed you to them.”
“Had I mistreated them, I would cut off chunks of my own flesh for you to give them.”
Smiling, she touched his cheek and rose again. The seat of Maddek’s thigh shifted as he pivoted, keeping the goddess in view as she glided around behind them, where Danoh knelt with bowed head.
“And here is the Dragon’s tail, which holds deadly sting.” With a finger beneath the warrior’s chin, Vela raised Danoh’s gaze to meet hers. “Born of cursed rape, as were my children, Justice and Law. Even from pain, sometimes beauty emerges. Your rage is beauty. Your courage is beauty. Your compassion is beauty. Perhaps your mother will never have heart to see it, but all who know you do.”
A queen did not cry where there was someone to see her tears. Yet Yvenne’s vision blurred then, and the goddess was but a shining star as she continued on. Swiping her eyes, Yvenne watched her stop in front of a silently weeping Banek.
“Banek, my beloved, who serves as the Dragon’s golden scales, as armor and shield,” she said quietly. “You have never worn the red cloak or quested for me, but so faithful you have been—and you have received so little for it. What would you ask of me?”
The old warrior’s reply was thick. “Only to never again see anyone suffer at the Destroyer’s hands.”
Amusement swept through Vela’s cold voice like a summer wind. “You ask me to blind you?”
A rusty laugh shook from him. “No, my lady. Is it too much?”
“Only too much to accomplish alone. But I will do all that I can to grant that request, warrior. I vow to you.”
“You do me great honor, my lady.”
“No.” Sadness filled the denial. “It is you who has honored me these many years. Serve well as the Dragon’s armor, Faithful One—and be shield to his bride.”
“That is my vow to you.”
Her hand cupped his tearstained cheek for a moment before she turned away. Shaking and trembling, Toric watched her approach, his face lifted in helpless wonder.
She stopped before him. “My brother’s poison resides within you.”
Vela’s brother—Stranik, the serpent god. Yvenne had not truly needed confirmation that her own brother had called upon Stranik to give him power. Yet now that confirmation made her throat close and her chest burn, for it meant Aezil had used blood sacrifice to gain those foul magics.
“I am still healing, my lady,” he said, in a voice uncertain whether he should be sorry for not being well or to boast that he was recovering.
“Your injury is,” she agreed, then lowered her veiled lips to his. Yvenne could not see if there was a kiss through the silk, only heard Vela’s murmur. “You are the Dragon’s wings. Tell me, how far will they take you?”
“Never far from my duty, my lady,” was his passionate reply. “I swear it.”
“Do not make vows you cannot keep, young warrior.” She sighed against his lips, and Toric’s breath frosted against hers. “You will fly so far that you will no longer be yourself when you return.”
Confusion furrowed his brow. “Who will I be?”
“Still the Dragon’s wings, perhaps. Or perhaps also the head and the claws, the teeth and sting, and the scales.”
“And the burning heart?”
Vela laughed. “Do you wish to have it all? Or will you let another be the heart?”
“What is best?”
“If I tell you the answer now,” she said in a voice still ringing with her laughter, “then you would learn nothing from your quest.”
“My mother did not stick my hand in a fire to teach me it would burn. Instead she told me it was hot, and I learned well enough.”
“That is how a child learns, young Toric.” All amusement bled from her voice. “Do you want to be a child or a man?”
His face flamed red. “A man.”
“Then be at ease. Already you learn quickly. And you are not the only one taking lessons.” Straightening, she faced Maddek and Yvenne. “So grudgingly kneels the warrior who is not yet a king.”
Maddek’s hardened jaw unclenched. “My bride will forge me into one.”
“A king is not forged as a sword is
, from fire and steel. That is a warrior’s way of seeing.”
“I am a warrior still,” Maddek admitted gruffly.
“So you are . . . and also more. A warrior who is already the burning heart of a Dragon.” Her gaze shifted to Yvenne. “And you are a queen who does not yet sit on a throne—except for the throne this warrior provides for you now, made of his own flesh and blood and bone.”
Upon Maddek’s thigh. “Would you have me kneel, my lady?”
She held out her hand. “I would have you rise, daughter.”
Her fingers were icy and hard as stone when Yvenne took them, but the goddess did not help Yvenne to her feet. Instead Maddek slipped his arm beneath her knees and stood, his forearm braced against her back as he held her in a seat made of his embrace. Still serving as her throne of his flesh and blood—and rising with her, though the goddess had not instructed him to.
For the first time since the goddess had appeared, fear slipped into Yvenne’s veins. Vela was merciful and generous but could be vain and cruel—and she had little patience for the arrogance of men.
Yet his arrogance had also lifted Yvenne, so she knew not how the goddess would respond to it.
That sickle moon smile curved Vela’s lips again, but there was a sharper edge to it. “This is the one you’ve chosen, daughter?”
“He is.”
“You are brave or foolish.”
“I prefer brave.”
“As you will need to be.” Her gaze held Yvenne’s so easily. “I have a task for you.”
Unease clutched her chest. “A quest?”
Which she would accept, because those who quested for Vela received great reward—such as power to defeat sorcerers or strength enough to free a people. Yet those quests also took them on a journey from all they knew.
“Nothing so easy as a quest,” the goddess said, and Yvenne’s chest clutched ever tighter. Nothing so easy? Everyone who quested for Vela faced pain and doubt at the edge of their enduring. “And I would not see you so lonely again.”
“She would not be alone.” Maddek’s grip had tightened on her. “What is the task?”
Such coldness filled Vela’s gaze that Yvenne’s heart seemed as ice. “Do not speak to me unbidden, warrior. As you would take the tongue of my chosen for speaking what you do not wish to hear, so I would take yours—and I know not how you will be Ran and speak for all of your people if I do.”
His jaw became as stone but his burning eyes asked the same question.
Vela turned an exasperated gaze on Yvenne. “If you wished to lie beneath a man and be used as a vessel, you could have married your father’s choice.”
Toleh’s selfish lech of a king. Who would never have helped her secure her throne or have intention of killing her father.
“This is not the same.” As Vela must know, for through Yvenne’s eyes the goddess had seen all that had been done and spoken between her and Maddek. So now the goddess only poked at her would-be husband. Perhaps testing him. Yvenne was unsure of the purpose. “And he also sees to my pleasure.”
“Because his warrior’s heart perceives you as a walled city to be conquered. When you open to him, when you writhe in his arms, he believes you are defeated.”
All of this Yvenne already suspected, by the way he’d been so content of late. Ever since the night by Hanan’s pool. Secure in his role and purpose, and comfortable in it—and the warrior’s role was the one he best knew.
Yet Maddek responded as if these were secret battle plans revealed. Tighter and tighter he held her.
“Your mother advised you against him. Will you not seek one of her chosen suitors, instead? You would not have to journey far. One resides in this city.”
Maddek said not a word, but such hot denial was in his face and in the growl rumbling from his chest, not a word was needed.
“Though I value my mother’s wisdom and counsel, I have chosen Maddek,” Yvenne told the goddess, though her response was for the warrior who held her. “I have filled my sheath with his seed.”
“So I have seen,” said Vela wryly. “Many times.”
And so she knew Yvenne’s purpose. “Have we been blessed by Hanan?”
“Not as yet,” the goddess replied, and pain stabbed through Yvenne’s chest.
She had hoped. Oh, she had hoped that in the palm of the god’s hand, Maddek’s seed would take root. That by the time they reached the Burning Plains, they might be certain she was with child.
“You shed no tears, though I know your heart aches,” Vela said softly, cupping Yvenne’s cheeks in cold iron hands. “But understand, my daughter—if you choose him, you will know much greater suffering than this.”
Maddek stiffened against Yvenne.
Dread seized Yvenne’s heart. Suffering. “How?”
“At your father’s hand.”
A fierce volcanic sound erupted from Maddek. As if denial exploded within him and stopped at his lips yet still burst through his eyes and his skin and the tightness of his grip. With bared teeth, he took a step back from the goddess, as if distance would be an escape from the fate Vela had seen.
Yet Yvenne knew there would be no escape. “And if I choose another suitor?”
Her shining gaze on Maddek’s face, Vela said, “You will not know so much pain.”
“What of my people?” Her own pain mattered less than theirs.
“What of them?”
“Will they be freed? Will my father die? Will choosing another suitor make both outcomes more likely?” Yvenne was not a goddess, but she already knew the answer to that. She had already told Maddek the answer to it.
“It is not certain that this warrior will prevail.”
“But is it more likely?”
“Even my eyes cannot see everything,” Vela said with a narrowing gaze.
Twice the goddess had evaded the answer of what was more likely. Which was answer enough.
“Then I will choose the suffering,” Yvenne said with quiet resolve, but Maddek shook his head. Pain slipped through her heart again. “You think I should choose another suitor?”
Savagery flared anew in his eyes. On a snarl, he unclenched his jaw as if to speak. Yvenne clapped her hand over his opening mouth.
“Vela will not be merciful, warrior,” she hissed. “And I am fond of your tongue.”
His gaze shot to hers, his features a dark mask of fury and frustration.
“I still hear him well enough,” the goddess said. “He vows to protect you.”
He would try, Yvenne knew, and that knowing lifted her heart. Because when facing inevitability, trying was the most one might hope for. “I have allied myself with you so that we might kill my father and take my throne,” she told him. “Perhaps then you did not trust my word, but with Vela as my witness, I vow that I will never look to another ally and deny your vengeance. Do you hear me, Maddek of Parsathe, son of Ran Marek, rider of the Burning Plains? Do you trust that vow?”
Though his jaw clenched again so hard that she knew not how his teeth didn’t shatter, he gave a short nod.
She looked to Vela. “What task would you ask of me?”
“To destroy the Destroyer,” said she.
Yvenne’s breath stopped. In disbelief she glanced at Maddek to see his response. All fury had left his face. He stared at Vela, and his expression was one Yvenne recognized. It was the same one he’d worn at the stream with dozens of revenants approaching. She’d seen no fear in him then as he’d commanded his warriors to form a defense. Only fierce determination.
The same fierce determination that filled her, too. “So he is returning?”
“He is already returned,” Vela said. “His army has landed on the sunset shore.”
With a full continent between that shore and the western realms. So there was time to prepare. So little time. But more than none. “Fi
ve years it took for his army to march that distance.”
“So it will again.”
Only five years. Her breaths came fast and shallow. “How do I destroy him? With my arrow?”
“You may try that. In the endless ages that I have lived, I have seen gods felled by less. But the task I require of you is in forming a strong alliance to stand against him.”
Blindly Yvenne found Maddek’s hand and curled her fingers around his. “We will. Already we hope to purge my father’s and brother’s corruption, and to strengthen—”
“Not the alliance of Parsathe and the five realms, daughter. That will serve as the heart, but it is a heart already formed. You are imagining a puddle; I task you with an ocean.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “You ask me to unite the western realms?”
Vela nodded. “That might be strength enough to stand against him.”
Might. Yvenne could hardly catch her breath. “With five years to prepare.”
“With no years to prepare. The Destroyer and his army are five years distant. But already his poison is here. It has never truly left. Instead that poison festers and waits—foul seeds planted a generation past so that he can reap the harvest on his return. And it is poison designed to weaken any attempt to stand against him.”
A poison that festers and waits . . . and weakens an alliance. Sour bile shot up Yvenne’s throat. “My father?”
Nothing did Vela say. Perhaps for the same reason she’d given Toric no easy answer. Some must be discovered, not told.
But Yvenne thought this journey had already given them part of the answer. “And my father has in turn corrupted my brother. Now Aezil courts Stranik’s dark power—”
“No,” said Vela. “You think of the wrong brother.”
Which one? All but the youngest, Tyzen, had been influenced by her father. But Lazen was dead. So was Cezan. If not Aezil, that only left one other, Bazir—who had a clever tongue but was also selfish and indolent. Yvenne could imagine of her brother many evil things. But all of those cruelties would bring him pleasure, and courting a god’s power required sacrifice and pain. Never could she imagine Bazir stabbing out his own eye to gain sight beyond what was seen or castrating himself to gain immortality beyond a bloodline of children.