Fist of the Furor (18 page)

Chapter 24

Lochlen and Feras were waiting on us when we returned to the caves. Lochlen had transformed, his human form shrouded in a lightweight tunic and breeches, his auburn hair pulled back. The cold didn’t bother dragons.

“Powerful magic,” Lochlen mumbled, and I knew he’d felt Cadeyrn’s power, had felt it when I’d added my magic to his.

Feras’ red-tinged eyes found Cadeyrn’s face. “There is dragonfire in your blood, Prince.”

With those words, he ducked into the cave, keeping to the rebel camp’s outer perimeter. There was rejoicing within the camp, the sound of familiar laughter, and my heart warmed when I caught a glimpse of the red and green dragons curled once more within their velvet-padded pallets.

Daegan’s voice filled the cavern. “Ho!”

He rushed through the crowd, his cheeks flushed from the cold, but he was freshly bathed and cloaked in the colors of the forest. Maeve followed him. She had her hair plaited, and I knew Ena had pampered her. Both of them glowed.

“Fresh from the bathing pool, I see,” I teased.

Daegan
grumbled, “Finicky creatures, dragons.”

Maeve glared at him. “He splashes too much.”

The conversation was full of light teasing, but I saw the questions in their eyes. Uneasy murmurs passed through the crowd. Word passed quickly in small groups.

“Why didn’t you say anything, Stone?” Daegan hissed.

I ducked under his arm and followed the dragons. Feras was approaching the back of the chamber, his blue head swinging.

“I haven’t known long,” I answered.

Maeve hurried to catch up. “The goddess came to you?”

I glanced at her. “In a dream.”

Daegan exhaled. “A dream? Dreams are tricky. You could be wrong.”

I shook my head. “I’m not wrong, Daegan. It wasn’t a normal dream. Silveet was in my room. I spoke to her, and she told me I was not the phoenix.”

Daegan rubbed his brows. “Silveet! You were visited by the gods …”

I knew why his words trailed off, but I said nothing. Being visited by the gods was never a simple thing. They came to humans only when they wanted something.

We’d paused behind Feras at the back of the chamber, and I grasped Maeve and Daegan by the shoulders. “There’s worse news,” I mumbled.

They glanced at me, saw the worry in my gaze, and turned to Lochlen. The dragon ducked his head, his yellow-green eyes dilating when he looked up again. It took only moments to fill them in. It was at the end of the story that I added the words, “Prince Henri is dead.”

Cadeyrn had left us. He stood now with Feras, his head bowed near the dragon’s massive snout. It would take nothing for the rex to kill him. It said a lot about the dragons that they helped us now.

Maeve lifted her wrist. “So we were meant to die all along?”

I took her hand in mine and traced the burning star on her skin. “If we’re already meant to die, then let’s die overthrowing Raemon and Neill.”

Daegan’s jaw tensed, his hands fisted. “Aye, let’s stop him before his darkness spreads beyond Medeisia to the nine kingdoms.”

There was something utterly tragic about their gazes when they looked at me. We had gone from marked rebels full of hope to martyrs.

Maeve choked back a sob. “Nikalia …” she gasped. “The other young ones.”

There was laughter in the camp, the sound of children shouting. All of them marked. All of them too young to have their lives stolen from them.

Cadeyrn rejoined us. “We will march on the castle tomorrow. Feras says he feels magic building in the air. If Raemon hasn’t succeeded in mending the pendant, he’s close. Too close.” The prince’s gaze scanned our group. He noted the despair in Maeve and Daegan’s eyes, and he nodded at them. “I’ve fought with a lot of men in my lifetime, but I have never seen the kind of loyalty and determination in them that I have seen in each of you. Do not let fear stop you now.”

Something changed then.
Something about
Cadeyrn
and my friends.
I saw it in the way they looked at the prince, saw it in the abrupt way their jaws tightened. Cadeyrn wasn’t our ruler. He was the second son of another king married to the princesses of countries his future sons might someday rule. But right now, Cadeyrn was fighting for us, a group of men, women, and children destined to die. He was leading an army of the walking dead.

Feras’ massive blue head swung over our group. Maeve gasped, but didn’t shriek, her fingernails digging into Daegan’s arms. He grumbled, but didn’t push her away.

“I will send ten dragons to fight with you,” Feras revealed. “In all honesty, there are only forty of us left. Should you not return, the rest of us will fight with the men Prince Cadeyrn is sending to us from Sadeemia.”

Lochlen glanced up at his father. “I’m dispatching dragons willing to carry humans from the Ardus to the mountains. They’ll travel in waves to conserve their energy, but it will get men here quicker.”

Cadeyrn’s gaze filled with approval. “I have three hundred soldiers headed here on foot. My commander will remain with them until the end. He will be the last to leave the desert.”

The prince grew quiet, his eyes finding Daegan and Maeve. “How is Catriona?” he asked.

Maeve grinned. “She is a fierce woman, Your Majesty. I pity your men and Lord Gryphon. She will outlive us all.”

Cadeyrn’s lips twitched. “King Gregor sires very peculiar women in his family.”

The way my stomach twisted at his words surprised me. I cared about Catriona, and I cared about Cadeyrn. If anyone deserved happiness, it was them.

Only Lochlen noticed my unease. His hand found my elbow. “There are new tomes in the Archives,” he breathed.

His breath against my ear was hot, the smell of smoke heavy on his tongue.

I glanced at him, and his yellow-green eyes narrowed. “It will be a long night, Stone. How you spend it is up to you.”

Feras ambled up the stone steps, his blue scales shining in the light thrown off from flickering fires in the camp.

He turned to the crowd. “For months now, the dragons have protected you against King Raemon. That protection, though it continues, mostly ends now.”

Cadeyrn joined Feras. Even dressed in the colors of the forest, there was no doubt Cadeyrn was a leader. He stood heads above every man in the room, his broad frame filling the tunic he wore. He had a habit of leaving the top of his tunic unlaced, and he did so now, his pendant glistening in the V of his chest. His thick mahogany hair was left down. His blue eyes scrutinized the room.

Feras blew a stream of flames toward the ceiling. “I present Prince Cadeyrn of Sadeemia. He’s come here to lead you in a revolt against the king. He has a contingent of three hundred soldiers marching through the Ardus to join him. Dangerous things are brewing in Medeisia. Raemon’s threat is too imminent to wait. On the morrow, ten of my dragons will fly with you in an invasion against Raemon.”

The room erupted in chaos. Men stood, their hands reaching for weapons. Some women held their children close while others hefted swords and bows.

“Fight now?” Warwick bellowed. “In this weather? With no support?”

Cadeyrn met Warwick’s defiant gaze. “Tell me,”
Cadeyrn
asked, “were you a soldier before the mark on your wrist sent you to the forest?”

Warwick squirmed. Cadeyrn was a firm leader who allowed no resistance.

“I was a tenant farmer,” Warwick answered.

Cadeyrn stared at him, his expression unreadable. “Then I’ll forgive you for not bowing. You will henceforth address me as ‘Your Highness’. This is war, rebel. In war, you do not question your commanders. In war, there is no compromise. There is blood, death, and sacrifice. You can spend your lives in hiding, fearing the king’s retribution, or you can take up arms against a tyrant. However, should you choose not to fight, you forfeit the protection of the dragons and my country.”

Cadeyrn left only a moment of silence before he bellowed, “Choose!”

Most of the rebels went down on their knees, weapons lifted above their heads. I counted only fifteen men left standing. Warwick was not among them.

Cadeyrn glared at them. Three of the fifteen went to their knees. The rest remained standing.

“You have until morning to leave the camp,” Cadeyrn told them. There were gasps from those kneeling, but Cadeyrn gave them no reaction. “Rise,” he ordered. “There is no mercy in war. Children, mothers, and the elderly will be spared the fight. We march before daybreak.”

Feras ducked into the tunnels at the back of the cavern and Cadeyrn followed him.

Maeve whistled. “He would have made a good king,” she pointed out.

I was apt to agree. Neither Feras nor Cadeyrn had mentioned the dragon pendant and what it meant for the rebels. Fear can be a dangerous thing. They risked chaos if they told the rebels they weren’t expected to live.

There was a long night ahead. Lochlen was right. How I used the hours was up to me. There was a good chance I wouldn’t live past tomorrow.

Chapter 25

Being inside an Archive was a deeply spiritual experience for me. There was something about books that called to me, something about the stories they told, the histories they represented, and the ideas they revealed. Every time I opened a book, I was reinvented. I became something so much larger than myself. It was the same when I held a pen. I wasn’t much of a storyteller. Mostly, I just enjoyed the way a quill felt in my hand, the way the ink moved across parchment. I loved the smell of old paper and leather.

The dragon Archives was older than most, the stories within richer. There were forbidden books Raemon had never allowed in the villages, even before he’d had them outlawed. The circular cavern looked the same as it had months before. Leather-bound parchments filled the walls. Dragon orbs sat in niches between natural stone shelves, and a lone table sat in the center of the room. Two maps and a book lay open on its surface.

For a moment, I did little more than stand in the center of the room inhaling. Closing my eyes, I ran my fingers along the books in the shelves, reveling in the dust that fanned outward.

“Talk to me,” I whispered. Books spoke, but in a different way than people.

Further down the shelves, a book moved. I didn’t notice it at first. There was no sound, only an imperceptible fall of dust. It wasn’t until I heard leather scrape against stone that I looked up, my gaze finding a thick, leather-bound book sitting sideways on the shelf. It had been pushed forward, its current angle putting it in danger of falling.

I stared, my eyes wide, and whispered, “By Escreet.”

The book fell, the parchment within flapping as it caught the air. It landed with a thud, the book spilling open. There was an illustration on the open page, strokes of
color that had been bright once but were
faded now.

Pulling my bow from my back, I leaned it against one of the shelves before going to my knees on the cavern floor. Slowly, ever so slowly, I crawled toward the book.

There is magic in words
, the inscription read.
I am learning that words are often just a beginning. Words are like memories, fleeting at best. They consume. They fill the blood to bursting, waiting to be set free. It is often an overlooked power, words. So much awe surrounds magery—the ability to make things fly, the ability to draw fire or water, the ability to see the future or feel power—that words are forgotten. Words, once said, are hard to take back. Words are magic.

I sat back, my gaze scanning the scrawled script, but it was the awkwardly painted picture and the signature below the words that caught my attention. It was a crude painting of a young girl with long dark hair. She stood amongst a group of men and women, each of them sitting at a table piled high with parchment. All of them brandished a quill pen. Below the painting and just under the inscription was a single scrawled name.
Soren.

I crawled away from the book as if burned, my heart pounding.

“No,” I whispered.

I edged closer to the tome again. The image and script danced before my eyes.
There is magic in words.

Hesitantly, I reached for the page, my fingers running over the picture. I felt the tears before I saw them hit the floor.
Words are magic.

Edging away again, I leaned against the cavern wall. I stared unblinking for so long, I began seeing the image in the air above the book.
 

There was a sound at the Archives entrance, but I didn’t move. I knew by the smell of smoke who it was.

“It’s me,” I whispered.

The brown-haired little girl in the picture turned, her dark eyes meeting mine. The person who’d drawn her had made her eyes too large, had put too many freckles on the bridge of her nose, and had given her an ethereal quality that didn’t exist, but I still knew who she was.

“It’s me,” I repeated.

“The little girl in the picture?” a voice asked.

My head snapped up to find Lochlen standing near the table in the center of the room. With him stood Prince Cadeyrn.

I shot off of the floor, my hands finding the book before either of them had a chance to read it. I wasn’t sure why hiding it was important to me, but it was.

Lochlen gestured at the tome. “Your mother had a fondness for the Archives, too,” he admitted.

I shoved the manuscript behind my back. I’d caught a glimpse of the title. It was a collection of Medeisian histories. The page within had been added to the tome, shoved between a list of Medeisian kings and a recounting of the first Dracon War. It surprised me really. Defacing books was a crime punishable by death in Medeisia. Or it had been before scribery was outlawed.

Lochlen’s yellow-green gaze settled on my face. “It’s time.”

Neither Cadeyrn nor Lochlen asked me about the book, and for that I was grateful. I replaced the tome before grabbing my bow, my eyes catching the marks on my wrists as we headed into the tunnels. For a moment, I swore the marks glowed.

The image in the book taunted me, the inscription following me through the cave.
There is magic in words.