Fist of the Furor (9 page)

As quickly as I was in Cadeyrn’s arms, I was no longer in them, my vacant stare finding the trailing grey beard and the wizened face of a mage. Mothelamew.

He leaned over me. “I know you’re there, Drastona,” he said.

“No!” Maeve gasped. “She can’t be feeling this. There’s no way she can be feeling this! Her thigh!” she sobbed harder. “It’s—”

“Maeve,” Daegan soothed. “If you don’t stop, they’ll remove you from the room.”

More screams joined the chaos, heart-wrenching screams, the terrible yells of a mother in pain.

“My baby!”

It was the Princess of Yorbrook, her shout followed by the most desperate cry I’d ever heard. My anguish was eased by her pain. No matter how much I hurt, how much I missed Kye, nothing could compare to losing a child. It made me wonder how Cadeyrn stood the pain. He’d lost an infant son once, and his baby wasn’t coming back.

Sudden cold fire ripped through me, and even though I couldn’t scream, my body arched off the floor. Cadeyrn and Mothelamew loomed over me.

“The forest,” Oran insisted. “Silveet!” he growled.

The pain intensified, ripping me apart from the inside. It tore me asunder, and I wanted to scream Kye’s name, to find a way to go to him in the afterlife.

“Let her die!” Gabriella screamed.

“You would want her to, wouldn’t you?” another voice asked. It was Catriona’s voice. “She poses that big of a risk to you.”

Risk? Me?

“Out!” Cadeyrn bellowed. “All of you!”

No one argued with the prince. But I knew by the voices in the room, Mothelamew, my brother, the rebels, and all of the royals still remained. I was in the Hall of Light. I knew it because I was suddenly looking at the sky again.

Pain …
so
much pain.

“You are closer to the gods here,” Mothelamew told me. “Do not be afraid. Look to the sky. Call on your power.”

“The forest,” Oran insisted. “Silveet.”

“We need to bind her thigh,” Cadeyrn said calmly.

I drew on his calmness even as I begged to go to the Great Veil.

My leg was lifted. I saw my kneecap as Cadeyrn’s wide hand spanned it. Someone handed him a long length of clean white cloth.

“Stone!”
The voice of the trees filled me, consumed me.
“Come to us, little one. Draw on our power.”

Something stirred inside of me, a glowing warmth that started in my heart. It melted the painful ice there, spreading slowly.

“Remember the rebels,”
the trees coaxed.
“Remember the marked people in hiding. Remember what Kye was fighting to change. If you give up now, you let his father win.”

The warmth kept spreading. My face relaxed, and I was suddenly in the forest. The Hall of Light vanished. The black, ominous clouds were gone. There was only forest and the haunting scent of pine. A tree branch swept downward, touching my cheek before lifting again. I reached for it.

Distantly, I heard someone gasp, “Her eyes! They’re white.”

The voice was distant enough it didn’t matter to me anymore. I was in the forest. I could feel grass beneath my suddenly bare feet. The cloying smell of soil, pine, and fresh air filled my nostrils.

Inhaling, I reached for the trees again, my voice hoarse when I begged, “Help me.”

The warmth continued to spread. More tree branches bent. The stalks of tall grass and saplings bowed.

“Our queen,”
they said.

I frowned. Distantly, I felt someone run their fingers over my forehead, smoothing the wrinkles there.

“Don’t,” I murmured. “Please don’t call me that.”

“And yet,
” the trees answered,
“that is what you are now. Your heart is good. You are strong, little one. You don’t need our help. Fight!”

There was another voice, a sweet female voice that called out, “Listen to the forest.”

It was Aigneis’ voice, and I sobbed, my heart clenching. My deceased companion stepped from the trees, a small smile on her face. She was transparent, her image shimmering in and out of focus.

Reaching for me, she called, “Listen to the forest.”

Then, she vanished.

“Aigneis!”

My cry was lost to the forest, to the mists that suddenly rose from the underbrush. Sunlight fell through the trees, dappling the ground and causing the mist to glow.

“Hold her down,” a distant voice ordered. Cadeyrn’s voice.

Another voice joined his. “She’s having delusions.”

Something grew in the mist. It was bright, too bright, and I shielded my eyes.

“Stone,”
a voice breathed.

This voice filled me, consumed me, and I would have went to my knees in the forest if it hadn’t been for the trees. Branches supported me. My heart shattered. It was Kye’s voice. His brilliant, beautiful voice. It cloaked me. He stepped from the mist into the clearing where I stood, his body unblemished. Even his scars were gone. His beauty was blinding. He circled me in the clearing, staying just out of my reach.

“Stone,”
his gaze raked my figure, love shining in his eyes,
“we must overcome and prevail. Go back and fight. Fight hard.”

I choked. “Kye!”

Somewhere in the distance, I heard Maeve sobbing. “She’s leaving us! She’s seeing the dead.”

I ignored them, my hand reaching for him. Something gripped my fingers, but it wasn’t Kye. He still stood too far away, his beautiful gaze on my face.
“You have to let me go,”
he said.

I struggled against the grip on my hand. This hand was anchoring me, and I didn’t want anchored. I wanted free.

Tears wet my cheek. “It hasn’t been long enough,” I sobbed. “I can’t let go.”

Kye smiled. It was a gentle smile, full of understanding. He’d always been too understanding.
“War often doesn’t give us time. Love comes fast and hard. It often ends too abruptly. Our time came, and it left us. Let it leave you with something bigger. Don’t let it hold you back. Fight for our people. Open your heart back up to possibility.”
He moved toward me, his hand stopping just short of my face.
“Go back. You have the power to beat this poison. You have the power to beat what no one else can.”

“Kye,” I whispered.

He shushed me. Mist curled around us. It lifted our hair, and swept our faces with cool moisture. Droplets of condensation left trails down Kye’s cheeks.

“The forest is your family, Stone. Embrace it. Let it embrace you. Use it to help the Prince of Sadeemia. In a different world, your paths never would have crossed. Now they are intertwined. I know you don’t believe in destiny. You’re right. Destiny can hold you back, but don’t forget it’s there. Sometimes destiny surprises us.”

Kye was fading, his voice along with it. His dark eyes beseeched me.
“Good-bye,”
he called.
“Let me go, Stone. Fight this war. Fight it for our people. Fight it for his people.”

With those words, he vanished. His absence left me broken. The warmth that had started in my heart suddenly flooded me, mending places I hadn’t realized were broken inside of me. I felt my body arch, my back coming off the floor.

The wyver poison was killing me before the forest brought me here. This place wasn’t a delusion. I was in the spirit realm. I was in the Great Veil. The forest had done the one thing no one else could have possibly done. It had given me a chance to say good-bye. To Kye and to my past. There was only the future left now. It wasn’t a particularly rosy looking future, but it was worth the fight.

I inhaled, the breath large and unsteady, my magic surrounding me, pushing at me. I welcomed it, opened my arms to it, and felt my body suddenly encased in vines. Mewling animals surrounded me. Somewhere in my forest, a falcon called.

A hand still anchored me to the hard marble in the Hall of Light. It anchored me in Sadeemia. Only I wasn’t sure any more if that hand was holding me or if I was holding it. I knew whose hand it was, knew it even though the forest still surrounded me.

The trees began to fade, Kye’s memory with them.

“Let me go, Stone. Fight this war. Fight it for our people. Fight it for his people.”

My back arched again, and in the fading light, I screamed, “Cadeyrn!”

Chapter 11

“She calls out my husband’s name, and I’m supposed to pretend it was nothing?”

Princess Gabriella’s voice slammed into me, causing my head to throb with an intensity I’d never felt before. Nausea overwhelmed me.

“He’s my husband, too,” Catriona murmured.

“And yet you hate him.” Gabriella laughed. “So of course you wouldn’t care.”

Moaning, I rolled onto my side, ignoring the shooting pain in my leg as I clutched my stomach, my eyes opening. The queasiness was too much. I was still in the Hall of Light, lying on a thin pallet on the granite floor. Thudding boots hastened across the marble, the sound loud.
Too
loud!
Everything
was too loud. Rain clattered against the ceiling. Distant thunder rumbled, and voices rose above the din in a heated mass of chaos.

“It’s not possible to survive a wyver attack,” a male voice pointed out.

Daegan answered him, “Obviously, you’re wrong.”

“Stone …” It was Maeve’s voice, but I didn’t answer her. Nausea rolled through me. My hands clasped my ears.

“Silence!”

The order came from Lochlen. My palms clamped my ears, my eyes wide. Everything looked strange. A halo of fuzzy golden light surrounded everything.

“We can’t keep her here,” King Freemont pointed out. “We’ve made spectacles of ourselves.” His voice faltered. “My grandson is gone.” A female sob met his words. “We must get him back.”

Something exploded inside my head, a bright light that blinded me and pushed me into the floor. My cheek met cold marble.

“Stone!” Maeve cried.

Her voice made it worse. I screamed, the sound ungodly in the echoing hall.

“By the gods!” Gabriella exclaimed. “We’ve got to quiet her before she brings down the whole palace.”

There were running feet, the sound so loud I crawled away from it, my hands digging cruelly into the sides of my head.

“Did you find anything? Where is my son?” The Princess of Yorbrook’s accent grated on my sensitive ears when she spoke. I whimpered.

Cadeyrn’s voice swept over me, his calmness soothing. “My men saw them flying for Medeisia. Henri’s captor may be from New Hope, but there’s no doubt Henri is being taken to Raemon.”

“Stone …”

Maeve’s voice was hesitant when she approached me. I moved away, the flesh on my thigh protesting.

“Don’t touch her,” Lochlen ordered.

My body pressed up against a wall, my hand gliding up cool marble. Somehow, I’d made it across the room.

 
“Look at her eyes,” Daegan murmured. “They’re still white.”

My lips parted, my breath frozen in my chest. I could hear voices. Not just the voices of the rebels and the Sadeemians, but other voices. Familiar, frightening voices.

“We should kill him, sire. It’s one less claim to the throne.”

It was Captain Neill’s voice, the Medeisian guard who’d burned Aigneis at the stake, the same man who’d ordered Kye beaten. He was inside my head! Tugging at my hair, I slid to the floor.

“Get him out,” I begged.

Footsteps approached me, but they were cut short by a roar.

“I told you not to touch her!” It was Lochlen again, his commanding voice low and feral. “She’s full of wyver poison. Look at her skin. You touch her, you die.”

Maeve gasped.

“And you think he’ll trade the pendant for his son? Prince Arien can have more children, Your Highness. Another pendant is harder to come by.”

Captain Neill’s voice was loud, the bass tones reverberating through my skull. I couldn’t escape. Nausea kept me on the floor, the captain’s voice ringing in my ears.

“You bastard!” I cried.

Horrified gasps filled the room. I paid them no attention. The Hall of Light was transforming, altering into the sinister halls of a dark castle. I was in Medeisia, and I wasn’t. Neill stood across from me, his dark gaze meeting mine. Surprise flitted across his features before his lips quirked, a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“Well, if it isn’t the young boy, Sax. Or should I say, Drastona?”

He watched me, his shady eyes swirling with shadows.

I stiffened and rose, my chin lifting. “I will kill you,” I told him. “One day, I
will
kill you.”

Captain Neill laughed.
“Not today.”

His hand came up and I screamed, my body crumpling, the nausea completely overwhelming me. I gagged.

“Stay back,” Lochlen ordered.

It was the last thing I heard before the retching began, before my body began purging itself of the wyver poison. Black fluid covered the marble floor.

“By the gods!” Gabriella cried. “She should be killed! You heard her! She threatened the king!”

Catriona groaned. “Are you so willing to murder? Can’t you see she’s delusional?”

The retching continued, and when it finally stopped, I was too weak to stand. I just managed to back away from the mess on the floor when my knees met marble. Pain shot through me, fire lancing my thigh. It was enough to make me scream, but I refused to give in to the pain. My head was clear, the haloed lights fading from my eyes.

I gasped. “Raemon wants the dragon pendant.” My chest heaved. “The infant heir for the pendant.”

“What?” King Freemont bellowed.

Fatigue and weakness weighed me down. Dizziness overwhelmed me, but I didn’t cower. My head lifted. “It isn’t Raemon who controls the wyvers,” I panted. “It’s Neill, the king’s captain.”

I was losing the battle with weakness.

“Do something!” Gabriella insisted. “Do you hear her? She speaks treason. Delusional or not, she knows too much to be innocent.”

My palms met the floor.

“Restrain her,” Freemont ordered. “Take her to the tower.”

A breeze fanned my face, a pair of boots skewing my vision. “Do not make me claim the warrior rights, Father,” Cadeyrn warned. “I did it before, and I will do it again.”

Gabriella gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“It’s not possible to claim ownership,” Queen Isabella said. “Not now in marriage.”

Cadeyrn stepped back just as I faltered. I fell against his leg, my cheek pressed up against his leather breeches. It was humiliating.

“The right of war says nothing about marriage making it null. I’ve already claimed her. Would you have me consummate it, too?” Cadeyrn asked.

Stunned silence swept the room. I was too weak to protest.

“You wouldn’t risk it!” Gabriella hissed.

The muscles in Cadeyrn’s leg tensed. “I’d risk much for a queen.”

Gabriella laughed. “A queen! She’s no queen.”

I felt Cadeyrn’s gaze on the top of my head. It was heavy and comfortable. “Try telling that to her people.”

Again, there was silence. Cadeyrn knelt, using his body to support mine. Pulling my arm across his shoulders, he lifted my chin with his fingers. There, in the Hall of Light, knelt Daegan, his head bowed. Next to him were Maeve, Oran, and Lochlen. All of them were on their knees, their heads lowered. Around the hall were silent murmurs of, “My Queen.” I knew there were mice and other creatures surrounding us in the shadows; I could feel their presence.

I shook my head. “No.”

Maeve’s head lifted. “I owe you my life,” she said. “For that, I am your servant.”

Daegan rose, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. “You bear the mark of the condemned, you survived wyver poison, and you command a legion of spies. You’ve fought with me. Now I fight
for
you.”

Lochlen’s reptilian gaze met mine. His subservience disturbed me the most. “I bow to no one,” Lochlen said. “I kneel before you now as an ambassador of the dragons. Should we fight, it will be with you.”

Oran’s snout lifted. “The animals are yours to command.”

No one except Lochlen and I could hear him, but his words resonated down my spine. Cadeyrn stood, his arms bringing me with him.

“King Raemon wants the dragon pendant,” Cadeyrn told his father. “You give him immense power if you forfeit it.”

The king’s eyes raked the rebels before finding my wilted frame. “It’s prophesied by my people that you will bring death to a prince. Could it be you will bring death to my grandson rather than my son?”

The Princess of Yorkbrook wailed, anger and grief catapulting her forward. Prince Arien and Queen Isabella seized her by the arms.

My gaze met the king’s. “A year ago I was the bastard daughter of an ambassador who wanted to be a scribe. I knew nothing of prophecy or destiny. There is blood on my hands now. Nothing will ever wash them clean. I’ve seen too much death. I won’t walk away from this fight, even if it means losing more. There are too many people depending on our success.”

The king stepped forward. “And if that means losing my son or grandson?”

I didn’t flinch. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Pushing away from the prince, I stood erect despite my ripped, bloody dress, bare legs, and bruised body. I didn’t consider myself arrogant, but I had my pride. Daegan and Maeve flanked me. Oran sank to the floor at my feet.

The king gestured at his guards. They stepped forward, although they didn’t draw their weapons. My eyes locked with Freemont’s. We fought a silent battle, a powerful man with an army at his command against a girl who commanded nature. Neither of us blinked.

My gaze fell to the floor, to the bow and quiver of arrows spilled out across the marble. There was a stench permeating the room from the black puddle of wyver poison. It smelled like death and decaying things. I wondered if I smelled that way, too.

“Do you believe you’ve earned the right to rise up against the king of your nation, to lead your people alongside a prince?” Freemont asked. His curiosity was genuine. I didn’t hear censure in his voice, only interest.

I held up my hands. They were scratched, my palms covered in dried blood and shallow cuts. “I’ve fought the idea that I was the phoenix too long. I’ve learned something, Your Majesty. There is often more blood on the hands of a hero than there is on the hands of a scoundrel. However, there is one difference.”

The king’s gaze watched my hands. “And what’s that?”

Inhaling, I breathed, “Guilt.”

Freemont slumped, his face suddenly full of lines I’d never noticed before. His gaze found mine. “Immeasurable guilt,” he agreed. He looked to Cadeyrn. “Gather your men. We march now on Medeisia. No more waiting. You will leave in a fortnight.”

Two weeks. It seemed too soon, and yet my heart rejoiced. I’d be returning to the forests. I’d be fighting once more for the rebels. If I died, so be it, but I would die fighting for freedom. I would die knowing I’d done everything I could to save the condemned, the marked folk. But first, I was going to kill Captain Neill.

Gabriella staggered forward. “You can’t do this, Your Majesty!”

Princess Tara of Yorbrook fell to her knees. “My son! You place your grandson in danger all because of a group of tattooed peasants? It’s my son!
Your
heir!”