Bones of the Empire (65 page)

“You traveled with more than that, from what I see,” the dragon replied, reaching over and plucking the feathered necklace from under Estin’s shirt. “Find the sapling, mortal. You can use whatever help you can acquire. I begin to understand Mairlee’s reckless plan. Do not cause her to fail.”

“Sapling? What are you talking about?”

The dragon grinned wickedly and shook its head. “All in good time, mortal. The threads are positioned correctly. You will figure it out. For now, you are on your own. I must help the others to keep the creatures in human bodies at bay while you work. Dorralt will know I am here if I linger too long. Without having the ability to surprise him, I expect the three of you to die.”

“You’re abandoning us…now?” demanded Feanne, approaching the dragon as though she intended to try to force him to stay.

“Abandoning? No,” the dragon replied, grinning wickedly. “I am leaving a portion of my life with your mate in the form of extra magic. If I leave more, I will have nothing left to distract the mists. Do your job, vixen, and I will do mine.”

“You gave him magic…what about me or Turess?” Feanne pressed.

The dragon chuckled. “Turess is on his own, as we left him gifts in the past that he must rely on. Mairlee ensured a few of his enchantments remained hidden within the structure. You…you are either ignorant or mocking me. You do not need my help. That is why so many of us have sacrificed to get you here. Vixen, do as you were taught, and do not let your heart stop again. We cannot save you this close to the end of the battle for Eldvar.”

Stepping back, the dragon vanished in a swirl of dust, leaving the room silent. Almost immediately, a rush of magic flooded Estin’s body, making his fur stand on end. He felt as though he wanted to run around, scream to the world, anything that might expend some of the raging power within himself. Instead, he forced his breathing to slow and clenched his hands, trying to control all of it. Gradually, his heart stopped racing.

“This was a better idea when we had dragon,” Turess said, frowning. “I wish to rethink it now. We are good, but not so good as having a dragon.”

“And what was the nonsense about me not needing his help?” Feanne added, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head.

Holding up the old feather, Estin decided not to let the topic drop. There was no time left to let anything pass, and he needed to think about something more than the buzz within his body. “Feanne, you’re a god…stop making me say it. Turess…you made this necklace. What’s the story?”

“Story?” Turess asked, shrugging. “Did not make. Was given to me by a fae who thought it was good reward for saving her master’s woods from being cut down to build a city for us. Altis, I believe it was. The feather was to bring who I needed when I needed them. I take this to mean that it brought you both to me. Without your help, I would not be alive, let alone so close to my brother. It has no other powers.”

“The dragon sure sounded like there was more to it.”

“Dragons say many things. They also killed me once. I put limits on my faith in them, as well as others. You two have never let me down, so I count you both as my friends. The dragon I will trust only as far as it advances our chances of facing my brother.”

Stepping between them, Feanne said, “Sitting here arguing over that old necklace is not getting us anywhere near saved from the mists. Fix the wards of the temple now, and we can figure the rest out later. We need to slow those mists.”

Estin agreed with her, as did Turess. Estin walked to the door of the room and pressed his ear to it. He could hear faint sounds in the distance, though they were too far off to be sure if they were voices or echoes of the fighting outside the temple. While he was listening, Feanne went to the window and snuffled loudly, clearly trying to get a better idea of where they were and what was around them.

“How far to the ward?” Estin asked without taking his ear from the door. “I can hear a patrol out there, so we’re stuck here for a minute or two.”

Turess shook his head. “Only a flight of stairs and few minutes’ walk. I know my brother, though. He will have guards, and they will be ones he trusts. None of the stairs will be usable with only three of us to clear them. If he has limited troops, most will be outside and rest will be where he expects us to go.”

“Then find us another way. You know this place better than we do.”

Frowning and rubbing at his tattoos, Turess thought a moment. “Without being able to scale walls of temple interior, there is no other good way than through the main floor by way of stairs.”

Feanne smirked at Estin knowingly.

“Assuming we had a climber?” Estin asked, leaving the door.

Turess watched him for a moment before grinning and nodding. “I am sorry. I forgot myself. Your breed always was one for climbing things, both practical and impractical. Once, I would have checked the ceiling for spies that looked like you.”

Estin’s heart skipped a beat as he remembered Turess knew what he was. There was little time left for that conversation. “You told me a while back that you didn’t need to tell me who I am. I think it’s time. I want to die knowing who my people are…were. It’s not because I need an identity. I just want to know for the sake of knowing.”

“Of course,” Turess said, his brows crinkling. “Is little reason to let it die with me.” Turess rubbed his stubbled chin and looked to Feanne before answering. “I do not have the word in your language, and even if I did, a word is not a person, as I have told you before. My word is not who you are. Another would call your kind something else.”

“Anything,” Estin begged. “Give me a word in any language for what I am. I don’t even remember my parents beyond fleeting memories. Please, give me something before we do this. I’d rather we go into this knowing who and what I am. I need it to feel complete, in case…” As Estin trailed off, Feanne came over and touched his arm gently.

Turess thought a moment. “Please do not take this wrong way, but I hesitate to say it only because I fear it gives you hope of finding more of your kind when this is done. I do not wish to instill hope where it may not have a place. Your breed was rare even in my day. I only met the one, myself.”

“Please, Turess. I’ve spent my life wondering. We don’t have long.”

“I will give you what I can,” Turess replied, leaning against the wall. “Those like you I have known were summer or southern folk. They lived in the trees, eating insects and fruit whenever possible. They were loyal, loving people who prized family, community, and their kin above all else. They made foolhardy decisions—”

Laughing, Feanne said, “That would be him, yes. Two thousand years and his breed hasn’t changed.”

“—while keeping their heart on their loved ones,” Turess finished, giving Feanne a glare. “I could trust all of them with any goal that would aid their families, though I would never have trusted any of them in a game of chance or when they were bored. We considered them some of the best-hearted among us. I do not even have their name in my own language. The only tongue I have ever heard used for your breed was from the far south, where they were called ‘lemur.’ What it means, I do not know. That is the only word I can offer you, Estin. Lacking anything else, it is what you are, though you are so much more.”

Closing his eyes and letting out a sigh of relief, Estin nodded and smiled. Such a small thing, and yet so fulfilling to finally have a name for what he was. He had spent his life hearing others called “fox” or “wolf,” while only knowing himself as “ring-tailed wildling.” It gave him a sense of self that he felt he had lost with the death of his own family as a child.

“Thank you,” he told Turess, as he turned back to the door. “Shy of my mate and children, that may be the greatest gift anyone has ever given me.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Feanne touch Turess’s shoulder and mouth “Thank you,” but he chose to ignore it. He had already stalled them longer than he would have liked.

“The hall’s clear,” Estin said, pulling the door open a crack to be sure. In both directions, the stone hallway remained dark and empty. “If we’re going to get to the wards and do something to help, we should do it soon. I don’t want Linn getting butchered while we dawdle.”

“Estin, what we do here will not save those outside the temple,” Turess said, coming up alongside the door. “You will need to clarify magic on the wards. I have seen you use magic and know you will be able to make out how I have built the wards when you see it. You do not need to know how I made it in first place. Use yours to smooth the edges, and it will hold that much better. This will push back the mists and hold them a little longer while also making them destroy everything at edge of the barrier as they fight to get in. It gives us time to trap my brother and learn what he knows. When mists break through, they will rush for the center of the temple. Those outside may be able to escape during the destruction…I do not know if we can. We do this to give time for Linn to strike at Dorralt. It will not help us defeat him by itself.”

“I understand,” he said, keeping his eyes on the hall.

“Good. No false hopes today, yes? I will tell you how to get there. We will go a different way and draw attention away from you. Once you begin working on the warding, Dorralt will come for you. There is nothing I can do about that. He will feel the changes and will know someone has slipped past. If he is smart, he will wait to attack you until you finish, so he has the added protection for himself without using his own magic. Once you finish…he will use everything he has to kill you out of hatred of what you are.”

Estin nodded and closed the door. When he looked up, he saw the subtle ear, whisker, and tail posturing Feanne was trying to hide. He knew the look all too well from when they had lost Atall and she had fought to control her fears. Knowing exactly what she was thinking, he hurriedly went to her, pulling her into a tight hug.

“This isn’t the end,” he whispered at her ear. “Don’t even think that. Don’t say good-bye.”

Feanne nodded into his shoulder, digging her claws into his back to hold him as tightly to her as she could manage without hurting him. “I will come for you, with or without half the Turessian army chasing me. We will be together at the end. I swear that to you. We will not die apart. When we finally run out of chances, we will die in each other’s arms.”

“We were hurrying?” Turess asked, stepping out into the hall and looking both directions. “Normally, I would encourage you two, but right now I think we need to get this done. Estin, up the hall that way, climb first pillar, and you will see the warding. You will need to get close to it to change anything. We will go the other way and circle back.”

Estin nuzzled Feanne’s cheek, and she did the same in return before pushing him away and joining Turess in the hall. They ran off, leaving Estin alone in the fortresslike temple. Almost immediately the stone walls seemed to become oppressive, making him wonder if he really wanted to stay. He pushed down the feeling, realizing it was somehow an extension of the magic in use there, making his skin crawl.

“Fix the ancient magic through guesswork and kill the godlike leader of the unkillable Turessians,” Estin whispered to himself as he padded into the hallway, bringing his paws down gently to keep from making any noise. Every few steps, he checked over his shoulder for Turess and Feanne, but the halls were dark in both directions. Wherever they had gone, they were doing a fine job of sneaking. “I’ve probably had worse plans.”

Keeping close to the wall, Estin crept in the direction Turess had told him to go. Every so often, his keen vision picked out faded paintings on the walls despite the dim light, though he mostly ignored them. His attention was held much more easily by the eerie way that shadows hung to the stones, giving the hall the appearance of a massive ribcage…finally explaining why Turess had made the place sound as morbid as he had.

Twice along the way, a click on the stone somewhere ahead made him stop and ready himself for an attack that did not come. He had been in enough crypts to know it was likely just the stones settling, but given where he was, he was not about to be careless. Everything in the temple probably wanted him dead.

Estin continued another hundred feet or so, following the curve of the hall, realizing it likely circled the whole temple. He had no idea how big the place was, but the gentle curve suggested it was huge, and the fact that he had not walked into Feanne and Turess yet confirmed it. Every dozen feet, a door or archway broke the otherwise smooth walls, forcing him to stop and check for anyone who would try to attack him. He passed four such doors and one archway before he came to an occupied room. While he could not hear the occupants, he did smell them well before reaching the room. Humans, from what he could tell, along with the scent of fresh blood.