Ice & Smoke

by Elizabeth Belyeu

  I made another circuit of the stable. "And he was with Danvael when he died?"

  "They were friends, in their fashion. Father served him willingly, if not always eagerly. Neither of us anticipated that his son would grow to be... so very different. We hoped, in fact, that he might choose never to make use of us at all, for twelve years passed with no word. On his twelfth birthday, however, Owain was given his inheritance from his father, as is the custom among his people, and immediately summoned his new dragon. It was apparent from that first meeting that Owain was little like his father."

  "Has Owain been planning this since he was twelve?"

  "Nay, it took him some years to concoct this plan. In the meantime, he used my father for petty mischief—thievery, vicious pranks, minor revenges. Mostly in human form, rather than dragon, for he wished to keep Father his great secret. I, meanwhile, was Father's secret, for he feared lest Owain should call me to oath, were he confronted with my existence." Braith gazed unseeing toward the window. "Though he found his tasks distasteful, Father performed them well enough—not only for the oath's sake, but for his own honor. He considered Owain his rightful master, for good or ill, and would not dream of undermining him. Until he presented his grand scheme for obtaining a kingdom."

  "It has been always about the kingdom, not my own self, has it not? Pray tell me so, for my skin would quite crawl to think that Owain imagined himself in love with me."

  "No, indeed, you were a means to an end. Owain was quite distressed, and had been for years, to see bound for a greater destiny not only his elder brother but also his younger—and his younger brother to be given rule of two kingdoms, and Owain himself none at all."

  "One does almost begin to see his point," I admitted.

  "His plan was rather clever, really. The only weapon at his disposal was a dragon; one of the few ways to win the hand of a maiden already betrothed is to rescue her from a dragon."

  "But then my brother was born." I sat at last, on the hay at Braith's feet, and drew my knees to my chest. "And so at last the question of the master's long delay is answered. He waited to see if Edric would die before he bothered to rescue me. But Edric did not die, unless Owain knows something Tristan does not."

  "Or intends something of which Tristan has no knowledge."

  My belly felt cold. "You think he would murder a child?"

  "I think he has invested too much now to stop halfway. Further than that, I cannot tell."

  I raised an eyebrow. "You do not know, or you cannot speak of it?"

  A ghost of a smile. "I do not know. I think we are at the end of the things I cannot tell you, now that Owain has so considerately spilled the beans himself."

  I drummed my fingers on my knees. It was less exhausting than pacing. "Very much of his plan hinges on my ignorance of it. He cannot think I would marry him, knowing the truth, even in the unlikely event that my father commanded it."

  "Do not do what you are thinking, Ariana."

  "But I need only reveal my knowledge—"

  "I tell you, Ariana, do not! Again I say, he has come too far to stop now. There is no knowing how he will react."

  "What do you propose, then? Let him kill you tomorrow, and go quietly home to marry him?"

  "He does not intend to kill me. I am too valuable to him. You heard him tell me to await further orders after the battle."

  "Sometimes things happen in battle that no one intends. Did he intend to kill Rindargeth?"

  Braith turned away from the window. "He said my father died from breaking his oath. Do you think as I do, then, that Owain was the knight he fought that day?"

  I felt chilled and sick, remembering Rindargeth's final battle through new eyes. "Much of that clash makes better sense, now, if one assumes that his aim was to take his master with him. The broken oath weakened him from the first moment, and more with each step, and Owain is a competent knight, if seldom brilliant. Rindargeth fought so strangely that day, so frantic, and disregarding his own safety completely. And his opponent…" I saw the figure of the knight again in my mind, and smacked my hand against the ground. "A knight on a white horse, glittering with overwrought armor, oh how could I not have seen it! A knight who shouted in surprise at meeting such resistance, who fled in terror from the inexplicable failure of his plan, whose horse bolted in panic… Owain," I echoed Tristan's words with a blackly amused smile, "never could control his horse."

  The stable fell into silence. Through the window, I could see bright blue sky, a faraway cloud, sunlight in the leaves of one of our few trees. It was like a different planet.

  "I do not know what happened that day," Braith said, low and grim. "I fervently intend to find out. But that is not the most urgent matter. We must deal with what is before us. By far the safest thing is for me to lose tomorrow, as ordered, and you to, yes, go quietly home—and tell your father the whole of the situation."

  "Leaving you enslaved still. And at Owain's disposal as a weapon, should he react violently to the upset of his plan. If he is so determined to rule, he may well start a war in his quest for a crown."

  "I would rather that than see you—" He cut himself off. "We have little other choice, Ari. You have just said yourself that he is liable to commit any act if this scheme of his fails. I would have you safe with your father, and all our other friends far away from him as well, when that happens."

  I made myself consider his words, but shook my head uneasily. "I cannot help feeling that the consequences will be worse, the longer we wait. If I confront him here, show him that the cause is already lost, I may convince him to rescind your orders, save face, pretend it never happened at all—"

  "Ariana, I do not think—"

  Tristan's voice drifted through the open stable door. "Though I cannot say I am surprised, brother, I am very sorry about it. The poor fellow deserved a better fate."

  "Hide, Ari!" Braith hissed, but I only stood and straightened my skirts.

  "Ah, Braith, just the fellow I was hoping to see," Tristan said as he came in on his crutch, Owain lagging a step behind. "And Ariana is here as well? I am most sorry that your valiant nursing efforts came to naught."

  "At least Lightning knew we cared to try," I said, trying not to stare openly at Owain. He looked very much like the Owain I had always known—a clumsy, round-faced prince, his shoulders now heavy with grief for his horse. It was hard to comprehend him as the same man who had been so vicious to Braith only minutes before. Except that he was looking sideways at me, a lurking nervousness in his eyes—wondering how long I had been here, what I had seen and heard.

  "Why am I the fellow you hoped to see?" Braith asked.

  Tristan sighed. "I know you are wounded as well, Braith, yet your strength far exceeds all of ours. I hoped we might persuade you to do much of the work of burying Lightning. I imagine that, in your larger form, digging a grave would take minutes only."

  "Less," Braith said. "It will be no trouble. Only pull the horse out of the building, if you will, and I can carry him the rest of the way."

  "You ought not to change shape," I said hesitantly, but he brushed this concern away.

  "It is a brief discomfort for me, or hours of the labor for the rest of you. I will not be silly about it."

  "Thank you, Braith," I said, and Tristan murmured a surprised agreement at his generosity. I made a note to thank him later, too, for making no mention of so much meat going to waste. It was not a trivial concern, with him wounded; even in dragon-shape it would not be easy for him to hunt, flightless and half-blind. I foresaw the loss of a few more chickens.

  Braith went off to dig, and the three of us took on the distasteful task of dragging Lightning out of the stable. Tristan, though willing, was little help; I wished Gareth would come, but I supposed he had gone to some hidey-hole to deal with his sorrow. We managed it, in the end, and Braith carried him up the hill in one claw, with his good wing spread for balance. He moved awkwardly, yet still more swiftly than we little two-legged creatures who follo
wed after.

  Tristan naturally moved slower still, and I allowed Owain and myself to pull ahead of him, touching his arm as if to offer comfort. The words I murmured to him, however, were no comfort at all.

  "I would not marry you, Owain, should you slay a thousand dragons."

  He started, glancing at me with ill-concealed fear and anger. "What are you talking of?"

  "You should learn to observe your surroundings before blurting out all your secrets. You might say the cat is out of the bag, and she will not be going back in it. Your plan has failed. As unlikely as our marriage might ever have been, it is laughable now I know who has kept me prisoner here. Yet all is not lost. Free Braith from his debt, and I swear I will take your secret to the grave. My captor will be forever a mystery, and you an honorable prince."

  Owain said nothing for long moments, his breath coming hard, fists clenching at his sides. I was patient; one could not expect him to surrender on a moment's notice the hard work of half a decade. I waited for him to make up his mind.

  A moment came when a great lump of hillside stood between us and Tristan. Immediately, Owain grabbed hold of my throat.

  "Hear my counteroffer," he snarled, before I could do more than claw at his hand. "Tomorrow's battle will proceed as planned. I will defeat the dragon and win your hand in marriage. Furthermore, you will insist upon being thoroughly in love with me, that we might be married as soon as possible. And you will tell no one, no one, not father nor fairy nor simpleton nor mute, and certainly not my brother. If you don't do as I have said, I will have but one more command for my dragon, of whom you think so highly—to dive a fathom deep into the sea, and take a long, deep breath. Do we understand each other?"

  Before I could reply, Tristan came back into view, and Owain released me so speedily that I knew Tristan could not have seen. The motion flowed into a most gentlemanly offer of his arm. I trembled with the desire to bite that arm rather than rest upon it, but the hard look in his eyes broke my nerve. Choking back my rage, I submitted to his chivalrous gesture. My one revenge was to dig my nails into his arm, deeper with each step, until they drew blood.

  "I did tell you!"

  "Yes, you did. Which we have now acknowledged three—no, four times. May we move on?"

  "Move on? In what direction, Ariana? We are worse off than when we began!" It was now Braith who paced the length of the stable while I sat on the stool, regarding my knees with unwarranted fascination.

  We had buried Lightning with full knight's honors, and left Tristan and Owain to finish all the prayers and rites that involved. Our presence for that would have been both unnecessary and unwelcome. As the others did not expect us back so soon, it was a perfect opportunity to talk alone. Or, as it happened, berate each other unobserved.

  "Braith, pray be still. You will only injure yourself further."

  "What does it matter? My death seems all but guaranteed at this point."

  "It certainly is not. We shall simply do as you first suggested, and when I am home again, with my own people to support me, we can then address this... problem."

  "No." He stopped at the window and absently pressed a fingertip to the torn skin around his eye. The poultice had been lost when he changed shape. "No, I have come to think you are right. Delay accomplishes nothing, it only gives Owain a better chance to cause chaos and catastrophe. This farce ends here and now."

  "Braith, what do you mean?" Uneasiness drove me to my feet, to stand beside him at the window.

  "I mean that I will do as I suspect my father did. Fight my master in earnest, and only hope to have victory over him before the broken oath exacts its price."

  "You cannot mean what I think you mean."

  "Then I will put it more bluntly—I shall endeavor to kill Owain before dying myself. You will be free, Owain will be dead, and I will be both, which is preferable to living a slave."

  "No! No, there must be a better way."

  "What could be better? All win in this."

  "I do not."

  "How not? Your way will be entirely clear to marrying your dear prince."

  "He is not my dear prince. That is, he is dear to me, but not... not..." My heart raced, as if I must battle uphill to breathe, much less speak. "We are not to marry. It is already decided. He is in love with Genevieve, and I feel toward him... only as a childhood friend, not as a betrothed. Not as... a l-lover."

  He stepped toward me, examining my face closely. All his grim, bitter hardness seemed laid aside, leaving him vulnerable as a child. "Truly?" he whispered. "Truly, you do not care for him?"

  "I do care for him." My hand had risen of its own volition, unsteady and cold, to trace the scar in the open throat of his tunic. "As I care for, for Gareth and Genevieve and Elaysius. But not as I care for—"

  He did not let me finish, crushing me to the wall with fever-hot lips on mine. In pure surprise, I tried to push him away—but the hands I pushed with were already pulling instead, tangling in his tunic and then his hair, I could not touch him enough, could not be close enough. His hands—the wounded one pulled from his sling—left a searing trail over my face and neck and down my back and through my hair, frantic and rough, and then slower, sweeter... I could not say how long this continued, only not long enough, before we pulled back somewhat for breath.

  "I thought kissing was awkward and ridiculous," I said.

  "It is," he said, and kissed me again, this time in a more... wandering manner. I tried to gather the will to check him while we had still some capacity for rational thought.

  "This plan of yours requires modification," I said. "I am not at all fond of the end result."

  "Nor I," he murmured against my throat, "if there is more of this to anticipate."

  "Oh you must stop that, truly. Truly." I pushed him away, half-heartedly. "Come, we must think."

  "Mm, no, I much prefer this to thinking..."

  "As do I. However." I put a hand over his mouth before it could distract me further. "It will not solve our problem."

  He sighed and nodded. I took away my hand and let him fold it into his, fingers twined against his chest.

  "I cannot break my oath and live," he said, leaning his forehead against mine. "It is quite simple. I must either follow my master's command, or pay the price. Handing you over to him is not a command I am willing to follow."

  "I am not willing to watch you die. We must therefore concoct some third option."

  We stood in silence some moments. I found it nearly impossible to think of anything outside the world-tilting reality of who, exactly, I had just been kissing, and wanted very badly to be kissing again, not to mention the very distracting heat pulsing off of him and how very good he smelled and the shy, shimmering idea of a future in which this was no unusual incident.

  Very well, so you are apparently in love with a dragon. There. Now turn your mind to the issue at hand.

  "I have spent considerable time trying to figure this problem," Braith said. "But the debt is fair, and he has my name. I can only serve him, or die. I have already expressed my preference."

  "That is not in the least acceptable. If you are right about Rindargeth, then this idiocy has taken one friend from me already. I'll not see it take another."

  I more felt than heard his laugh, through the warm skin of his chest. "I will take the liberty of assuming you do not act thus with all your friends."

  "No, indeed, Elaysius is much too small."

  He snorted smoke, glaring with his good eye. I took a moment to consider the other eye; the ghoul's teeth had torn the skin in every direction, the damage extending from the hairline nearly to his ear. Tattered skin would heal, whether prettily or not; the eye itself was more alarming, still so dark with blood that I could hardly tell where the pupil began.

  "What sight have you from that side?"

  "Shadows only."

  "I am relieved to hear there is anything at all. Still, you surely cannot fight, in your condition."

  "He will not be expect
ing any resistance."

  "He did not expect it from Rindargeth, either, who was hale and whole, and still could not prevail." I realized I was shaking, grief and rage mingling along my unsteady nerves. Braith held me tight to his chest, but it was little comfort when I thought of losing him down the same road.

  "Even if you win, Braith, it is no victory for either of us. I will not consider it an option."

  "I will not consider the option of letting Owain accompany you back to Caibryn. There are too many variables, and I will not be there to help you."

  "Then pray suggest another course."

  "I do not believe there is one."

  "What of your true name? I heard it, when you gave it to Owain; could I not countermand his orders?"

  "You heard it, but you do not have it, for I have not given it to you—nor can I."

  "Why not?"

  "You have no right to it. I owe you no debt."

  "Well, suppose I saved your life. Would that debt supersede the first?"

  "No. I might be grateful to you, but I cannot be sworn to two masters."

  "There must be some way to cancel the debt."

  "There is not."

  "There must be some loophole in your orders."

  "There is not."

  "There is a way around this!"

  "There is not!"

  We were glaring at each other now, Braith cradling his bad arm, perhaps as an alternative to throwing both hands in the air.

  "If Owain died," I said, "what would become of your debt?"

  "It would not matter. As previously discussed, I will be dead as well."

  "Only if you kill him."

  "You cannot be consider—"

  "I suppose Tristan would inherit the debt, or Taran. Tristan I believe we could trust to be decent about it—but I do not know Taran well. He is a king, with responsibilities, and might feel bound to make use of you."

  "Ariana."

  "Of course I cannot take Owain in any sort of fight, but if he were sleeping…" I was shaking again. Braith gripped my shoulders. His arm was bleeding again.

  "Ari, you speak of the cold-blooded murder of a childhood friend. Do not think of it."