Dragonsbane (Book 3) (35 page)

The young man’s fingers were curled slightly; his legs raised one over the other, as if he’d been struck mid-run. His face, though frozen in shock by Argon’s spell, was remarkably handsome. The crop of his hair was dark like a forest man’s, but his skin was strangely pale. Crevan took a step closer and balked at the color of his eyes.

They were a cold, furious blue. Flecks of white drifted in a burst from his pupils — like caps of ice across the northern seas. There was the same strange mix of danger and allure in his stare as there had been in his song.

“What is he, Your Majesty?” Argon said.

Crevan wasn’t sure. Was
this what the Firecrowned King had sent him into the ruins to find? Was
this
the hunter he’d spoken of? This — this,
child
of a man?

Red mist clouded his eyes when he realized he’d been tricked. He grabbed the young man by the front of the shirt, enough rage coursing through his limbs to rip him in half. But just before the madness could take hold, something caught his eye.

A half-moon of wood peeked out from behind the young man’s cloak. Crevan dropped his body on the ground and cast the cloak aside, revealing the wooden medallion that hung around his neck.

There was a symbol carved into the medallion’s surface: a pair of trees sprouting from the same root. Their trunks wound together like a braid until they met at the top, their foliage bursting in a single, indistinguishable bloom.

Crevan’s hand shook as he flipped the medallion over. When he saw the image carved into its back, he laughed. It was a wild, booming laugh — one that echoed across the graveyard and made his men take a hasty step back.

“What is it, Your Majesty?” Argon said. Even
he
sounded worried.

Crevan ripped the medallion from the young man’s neck and stuffed inside his pocket. “Have the beastkeeper send word to Countess D’Mere — I plan to meet her in the swamps.”

The Seeing stone rose from the ground and shot off towards the castle. “Done, Your Majesty,” Argon said. His eyes went back to the young man. “What about —?”

“Take that whelp to U
lric,” Crevan said, motioning to the guards. “He’ll keep an eye on him while I prepare for the journey north.”

Argon watched as the guards hoisted the young man between them, a strange look on his face. “
Ulric…? But Your Majesty, there’s no need to trouble your archmage with so small a task. Why don’t you allow me to look after him?”

Crevan thought about it. “I suppose that makes more sense. A worthless task for a worthless Seer. Take him to the tower, then.”

The guards marched away, but Crevan held Argon back. “Once they’ve delivered the whelp, send them to Ulric. He knows what to do.”

Argon’s gray brows rose high. “But —”

“The longer a man lives, the more secrets he tells. I’ve discovered that the only way to keep their mouths shut,” Crevan said quietly, “is to blast them to pieces. As for you … you’ll never speak of this place to anyone. People can’t know that the ruins of Draegoth exist.”

Argon’s shackle glowed red-hot with the command. He had no choice but to nod. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”    

Crevan smirked as he marched away. The mist of his madness had lifted. His mind was sharp. He strode from the ruins, arms swinging beside him — moving with all the ill-intentioned haste of a rogue fresh out of prison.

He wouldn’t have to wait much longer. The hour was nearly here.

Soon, the Dragongirl would trouble him no more.

Chapter 32

In the Counsel of the Mountains

When Kael woke the next morning, his mouth was stuck in a smile. He’d felt no pain as he’d fallen into bed. Now as he woke, he could feel the twinge of his busted lip against his smile. But his wounds didn’t bother him. They
couldn’t
bother him. Even when he rolled over and saw Gwen scowling at him from the hearth, it did nothing to shake his mood.

“My brother’s lost his marble.”

“Well, that was bound to happen eventually. He only had one to begin with.”

The world turned sideways and Kael found himself dumped upon the floor — buried beneath a small mountain of pelts and a heavy mattress of goose-stuffed skins. 

A hollow
thud
shook the planks as Gwen dropped the bed onto the ground. She dragged him out from under his covers by the heel. “He’s hidden it somewhere, and he says
you’re
the only one who knows where to find it.”

Kael wrenched his leg out of her grasp and rolled onto his feet. “Well, I don’t have time to find it. Why don’t you ask …?” He ripped the covers off the cot and realized that the lumps he’d thought were Griffith weren’t actually
Griffith
at all: they were a rucksack and a set of Baird’s ragged clothes.

“He tricked me. He said he wasn’t feeling well and then he slipped out the moment I left him alone with that blind old fool,” Gwen said, scowling back at the office. “The pest found him in the woods this morning.”

Kael didn’t understand why she looked so concerned. “It’s only a marble. I’ll make him a new one.”

“It isn’t
only
a marble. It’s a perfectly rounded piece of stone-ice.”

“Stone-ice?”

“Yes, mutt. Parts of the mountain’s top have stayed frozen for so long that the ice has turned to stone. All of Thanehold is built atop a hill of stone-ice. It’s the one thing too dense for the wynns to tunnel beneath — the marble has healing powers!” she snapped, cutting over the top of his next question. “That’s all you need to know. Now hurry and help me find it.”

She was being ridiculous. He doubted very seriously that a marble had any sort of power and even if it did, there was no way they were going to be able find it out in the woods. If he ever wanted to see his marble again, Griffith would have to give up his game and tell them where he’d put it. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“You can’t.” Gwen’s voice was suddenly hard; the edges of her eyes were sharp. “You can’t talk to him. He’s too far gone.”

*******

Kael found Griffith inside the forge. He was sprawled upon Kyleigh’s bed, his head resting on Silas’s tawny back. The halfcat’s tail flicked sharply when Kael burst in. His eyes glowed in warning.

So he inched carefully up to the bed. “Griffith?”

There was dirt under his nails and the stripe of his hair was slightly damp. But aside from a few bramble scratches, the boy seemed unhurt. He stroked Silas roughly between the ears, mumbling through his grin.

“Griffith?”

“Walk to round it wants, Silas.”

Kael froze. “You know about Silas?”

A rumbling growl drew his eyes back to the halfcat. Silas’s tail flicked angrily. He wanted Kael to notice something, to pay closer attention. It was when he leaned to look at Griffith’s face that he saw his eyes were strangely empty.

His pupils were stretched wide, as if he sat in darkness even though the morning light streamed in. He breathed heavily through his mouth — a mouth that seemed to dip constantly between a frown and a manic grin. If that wasn’t enough proof that something was amiss, Silas didn’t growl when Griffith flattened his ears.

“Walk to round it wants, Silas?”

His words didn’t make any sense. “What are you saying?”

“He keeps calling my cat
Silas
,” Gwen said as she entered. She glanced around outside before she shut the door. “Sometimes he’ll laugh and say the cat’s naked. I don’t know why.”

“Well, neither do I,” Kael said quickly — perhaps a little too quickly.

Gwen narrowed her eyes. “Why would you? This isn’t your brother and that’s not your cat. The pest is out trying to make some sense of Griffith’s trail,” she went on while Kael breathed a sigh of relief. “But I doubt she’ll find anything. It looks as if he stumbled through the woods for half the night.”

“Walk to round it wants, Silas.”

Gwen pursed her bluish-black lips. “His words are scrambled. Gah … it just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?” Her fingers left red lines down the side of her face. “The moment I think we’ve finally made it into the sun, Fate sends another storm.”

Kael thought that was probably his fault. Rotten luck seemed to follow him wherever he went. “What’s wrong with him?”

“There’s nothing
wrong
with him,” Gwen said vehemently. She stepped over and parted the stripe of Griffith’s hair — revealing the raised, purplish scar beneath the red. It was nearly as long as a man’s finger. “When he was five years old, Griffith lost his footing and cracked his skull on one of the rocks outside the castle. He shouldn’t have lived. But my brother’s stronger than he looks.

“When he finally woke, his eyes were out of focus. His words were always mixed. Thane Evan locked him away and told our people he was ill. He never paid Griffith much attention after that. If my brother tried to speak, Evan would just ruffle his hair and say:
Poor, scrambled Griff
. But I didn’t give up.” Gwen’s hand pressed down firmly as she ran it across his hair. “I asked Fate for an answer, and she led me into one of the caves beneath our castle — where I found that stone-ice marble. Its powers keep him focused. As long as he has it with him, he’ll be all right.”

Griffith had once mentioned the blue marble helped him gather his thoughts. Now, as Kael met that strangely blank stare, he found himself believing. “Why did he think I would know where the marble was?”

Her shoulders rose and fell. “I’m not sure. Knowing Griffith, it was probably another one of his blasted tests. He kept trying to convince me about you, kept putting you through the caddocs, trying to prove that you were ready …” Her hand dragged down her face again and she let out a frustrated growl. “I should’ve listened sooner. He knew it — he could see it all along. Why didn’t I listen? Why did I have to be …?”

She went on, but Kael didn’t hear her.

He’d thought that the wildmen had been caddocking him for their own amusement. He hadn’t realized there’d been any purpose behind it. But as he thought about it, he realized it made sense.

Griffith had been pushing him all along: he’d believed Kael could topple a tree, led him into his first caddoc — he’d even begged Gwen to teach him how to use his warrior’s edge. Kael realized that all the while he’d been focused on climbing the mountains, Griffith had been right behind him, pushing.

Now he lay stark-eyed and empty upon the bed, and Kael knew there must’ve been a purpose behind it. Griffith must’ve had a reason for hiding his marble. Kael was certain he’d been intending to give him one final push … but how?

He combed frantically through his memories, trying to think of anything that might lead him to where Griffith had stashed the marble. He remembered the last thing Griffith had said to him — about how he was determined to get Gwen to listen.

He’d hidden the marble somewhere in the woods. He said that Kael was the only one who would know where to look …

And all at once, he knew where the marble was.

*******

Gwen took one look at the Tail and snorted. “It can’t be climbed.”

“Don’t tell me you can’t when you haven’t tried,” Kael retorted.

She glared at him. “I
have
tried. I know every inch of forest around my village. Do you honestly think I would’ve let such an interesting rock go unconquered? Of course I’ve tried.” She walked beside it, tracing her hand around its perfectly smooth surface. “How high does it go?”

Kael squinted through the clouds. “I’m not sure. You can’t exactly see — no, don’t hit it! If you knock it over, that marble’s going to go sailing into Kingdom knows where and we’ll never find it again. Honestly, don’t you think?”

She paused mid-swing. “No, I don’t. That’s the problem. Griffith’s much better at thinking — obviously,” she added, glaring up at the Tail. “But if the others know he’s scrambled, they’ll never let him be Thane. Then
I’ll
have to do it.”

Kael could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You don’t want to be Thane?”

“That’s the last thing I want, mutt. I’m my mother’s daughter, and I want to live as she did — freely, with the wilds at my feet.”

As far as he could remember, Gwen had never mentioned anything about having a mother. He’d begun to imagine that she’d simply hatched from the ice. “What happened to her?”

“She was mortally wounded during a battle with the wynns. And so she grabbed their Queen by her horns and flung herself off the mountain’s top, sending them both into the icy depths of the northern seas.” Gwen smiled fiercely. “If I die half as well, I’ll be pleased.”

Kael didn’t doubt it. But though she was mad in at least a dozen other ways, there was one thing they could both agree on: the wildmen would be better off with Griffith.

So as he walked the Tail again, his eyes searched for weakness. His hands memorized the smooth texture of its hardened skin. The climb itself wouldn’t be all that difficult. What made the Tail such a challenge was the fact that there was absolutely nothing to grasp onto. If there’d only been some holds …

“I have an idea,” Kael said. He waved Gwen back and stepped up to the Tail alone. “Wait here —”

“Not in a thousand rolls of the die, mutt. I want to see what’s up there.”

“Well, one of us needs to survive. If I don’t make the climb, you’ll be the only one left who knows where the marble is. Think of Griffith,” he said quickly, when he saw the argument forming on her lips.

Her scowl hardened and froze. “Fine. I hope your bones rot in the under-realm, mutt.”

“I hope I’ll see you there,” he said back.

He could practically feel her grinning behind him as he placed his hands on the Tail. He tried not to think about the infinite drop beneath him. Instead, he focused on the cloud of mist that covered the Tail’s top. He remembered the day when Griffith had thrown a rock up there, how so many long moments had passed before they finally heard the faint echo of it striking the top.

There was no doubt in his mind that was precisely what he’d done with the marble.

Kael was staring up at the impossible task before him when Roland’s words struck his ears:
There’s no way to know how high it goes, or what it would take to get there … when you think about it, I suppose it’s really a
question
that keeps us grounded — not the height
.

If he wanted to reach the top, Kael knew he had to focus. He couldn’t climb if he was worried about the journey down. So he wouldn’t worry. He wouldn’t leave anything to chance — he wouldn’t trust the rock to give him the holds he needed.

Kael would carve his own path.

He dug his hand into the smooth side of the Tail, molding its flesh like clay. It curved into a hold beneath his grip. He latched onto it and his muscles tensed. They tightened around his bones and held him firmly as he reached to form the next hold. Then the next. He wedged his feet into the holds that his hands had left behind and focused on the patch of rock above him.

The warrior and the craftsman worked together: one part of his mind carried him up the path while the other carved it out. It was an easy rhythm, like putting one leg in before the other.

He felt the cool breath of mist on his neck and across his bare chest. White fogged his vision, but he didn’t panic. The rock was above him: he could feel it. He mapped his next move one-handed, letting his fingers see what his eyes could not — trusting his strength to hold him.

On and on he climbed. He pulled himself up the Tail, making a way where there’d been none. He’d gotten so used to the motion, so entranced by the rhythm of the climb, that he nearly lost his balance when his hand swung up and touched nothing.

He felt tentatively through the empty air until he came to a lip of rock. He crawled over the final ledge, dragging his knees across the earth. When he pulled himself out of his trance, he saw that there was nothing left to climb. He’d reached the top.

Kael stood on a shelf of rock — a platform no wider than a table. Wind hissed across his ears. It whipped through his hair and tugged on his trousers, making them flap like a pirate’s sails. But that was the only sound for miles.

Rolling gray clouds crowned the sky. They hung all around him, marching on a thousand silent, wispy feet towards the land below. Peaks of the neighboring mountains stood in a watchful ring. Their jagged white tops pierced the clouds like a set of monstrous teeth.