Soul of Smoke (5 page)

Chapter Four

Fords of the River

Rhys burned, fire licking the inside of his skin with tongues of icy flame. His bones cracked and sizzled. There was nothing but the black, frozen fire. Time didn’t exist, only dark and pain and cold.

Something pricked his arm. Warmth. Blessed heat. It seeped through his veins and into his shoulder. The soul-searing cold began to melt. The blackness drew back from his mind, coherent thought unfurling like wings.

He woke with a gasp, bursting through the last frozen crust of unconsciousness. Rhys shot up, his last memory of battle, of Kavar sinking long, yellow teeth into his shoulder, of thinking he was dead.

The movement sent pain crackling through him, making his eyes water. Through the blur of unshed tears, he saw a small, stone room. A fire. A bed. His friends.

They’d made it to the waystation.

Ashem scowled above him, a syringe in his hand. “Lay down.”

Rhys complied, dizzy. “What happened?”

Ashem tugged at the bandage on his shoulder and Rhys bit his tongue, stifling a groan. Across the room, Cadoc was leaning against a wall, glaring. The others were in various states of sitting or standing around the crowded space, watching him.

Deryn leaned over him. “You sundering scalebrain! You
used
it on me! If Kavar hasn’t killed you, be sundering sure I’m about to finish the job!”

Despite his exhaustion, Rhys gave her a patronizing grin. “I have to protect my beloved baby sister.”

Deryn slapped him across the face.

Rhys grunted in shock.

“I’m glad you’re alive.” There were suppressed tears in Deryn’s voice as she leaned close and pressed her fingers to his good shoulder. She blinked rapidly and moved away, scooting to a cushion near the wall, straightening her injured leg.

Embarrassed and fuming, Rhys touched his cheek. If Deryn’s leg was that close to healed, he had been unconscious for most of the day. “What happened?” he repeated, voice hard.

Ashem’s scowl deepened. “My brother happened. You were lucky. He’d already used most of his venom.”

Griffith regarded Rhys with eyes like still, green pools from where he and Ffion sat on a stone bench. “You were in the fords of the river, boyo, and we almost didn’t get you back. What were you thinking?”

Rhys raised his right hand to his face. His shoulder
hurt
. His right arm felt as heavy and numb as stone. His voice came out a grunt. “He was going after Deryn.”

Deryn leaned over and picked up a second cushion. Cadoc helped her prop up her leg. “If you hadn’t stopped me, I could have transformed and saved myself,” she snapped. “Ashem’s spent all day trying to keep you alive.”

“It took longer than I thought to create the anti-venom. This place has limited resources.” Ashem prodded the healing skin of Rhys’s abdomen with two fingers. “Did that hurt?”

Rhys shook his head. The motion set the room spinning.

“Good.”

“How about this, you wind-for-brains moron?” Cadoc punched him hard on his unbandaged left side.

“
Uffern dân
, Cadoc!” Rhys gasped. He rubbed his ribs, remembering to use his left hand.

Cadoc was unrepentant. “You should’ve left it to us. I’ve spent my life watching your back. Iain
died
saving you. Don’t demean our sacrifices with your stupidity.”

Rhys clenched his jaw against angry words and the pang of grief at Iain’s loss, still fresh. Ten years might be a long time for humans, but for a dragon, it was nothing.

“Sundering idiot.” Ashem’s voice came out as a growl. “I told you it was too dangerous for both you and Deryn to be out.” He opened his mouth, and then closed it, balling his hands into fists tight enough that veins stood out on his forearms. He looked like he wanted to throttle something. Or someone. “I
told
you.”

Rhys closed his eyes. “Seren didn’t foresee any problems.”

As Seeress, Rhys’s other sister, Seren, wasn’t supposed to have allegiances, especially not to family—meaning Rhys shouldn’t have been asking her personal questions about her visions at all.

“Seren? Her visions are so twisted up in symbols we’d hardly know if she had.” Cadoc’s guitar
bonged
as he collapsed against the wall, and he cradled it to his chest, looking for damage. “You’re lucky Kai was there.”

“The human girl? She lived, didn’t she?” Rhys had only woken long enough to see her inexplicably there, Kavar bending toward her, jaws wide.

“She stabbed Kavar.” Ffion leaned forward, her elbows on the closed book in her lap. “She saved your life and almost got eaten for her trouble.”

Rhys put a hand to his face. “I know. I saw her with the sword.”

“It’s my fault,” Ashem said, his voice gruff. “They might not have seen us if it weren’t for the fire. I never should have allowed it.”

The others exchanged looks. The fire had been allowed because the “mission” was nothing but a glorified holiday: secret and safe. This part of the world was well outside Owain’s territory. None of them had been cautious. But no matter what they said, Ashem would blame himself.

Rhys shifted. “It’s my fault Deryn was there. I should have made her stay in Eryri.”

“Like sundering hell,” Deryn snapped.

“It happened.” Ffion’s ice-blue gaze zipped from Rhys to Deryn to Ashem. “It’s over. Now we need to worry about getting home without getting killed.”

Rhys looked around again, and his fingers tightened in the blankets. “Where are Evan and Morwenna?”

“I sent them back to Eryri. Our communicators are still in the meadow, so we have no way of contacting anyone. They’ll bring the Invisible.”

“We’re going to stay here until they can make the entire trip there and back? It’s five thousand miles each way. That will take at least ten days.” Rhys gave his head a small shake then clenched his jaw against the protest the movement elicited from his torn shoulder. “We should try to get back.”

Ashem’s brows drew together. “It isn’t safe.”

Rhys pushed himself higher, sweat popping out across his brow as he ignored the screaming pain of his injuries. “If Kavar went back to Owain, his vee probably followed. We may be hiding from nothing.”

Ashem’s brows contracted further and he crossed his arms in front of his chest. He drew breath to speak.

“Will Kavar go back and steal our packs?” Ffion’s light voice cut off whatever Ashem was about to say. She ran her fingers along the wide, delicately worked cuff around her right bicep. Griffith had given it to her at their pledging ceremony, and she always toyed with the diamond-studded coils when she was troubled. “I had records in mine I’d rather not lose.”

Ashem shook his head. “The barrier is still intact over that meadow. Kavar could find the place again, but I doubt he’ll bother. The others aren’t Azhdahā.”

“Not many of us are, chief,” Cadoc commented drily.

Ashem shrugged. To Rhys, the gesture implied both Ashem’s apathy and the innate superiority of his clan.

But Ashem was right. Each of the ten remaining dragon clans had their own magic, and he and Kavar were the only Azhdahā left. Anyone else who tried to locate the barrier would fly right over the place. Their eyes would see it, but their minds wouldn’t perceive it, as if it didn’t exist.

“Well. Good. Perhaps Griffith and I can fly over and pick up my pack on the way home.” Ffion settled back against Griffith and opened her book. Cadoc produced a reed pipe from somewhere, raised it to his lips, and began an absurdly jolly tune. It was so at odds with the tense atmosphere that Rhys smiled.

A face intruded in his mind. A girl. Pretty, but not beautiful. Pale skin, ink-black hair, and eyes like a green sea. After so long in Eryri—the isolated archipelago of mountainous islands in the South Pacific that he and nearly two thousand other dragons called home—it had been almost shocking to see a person he didn’t recognize on sight.

Shocking, and fascinating.

He touched the bandage on his shoulder. Never in ten thousand years would he have thought he’d owe his life to a human. ”What happened to the girl? You never said.”

Cadoc’s gaze cut to Ashem. The tune turned even more absurdly merry.

“She’s here.” Ashem’s voice was a flat counterpoint to the song.

“What?” Rhys shot up. He gritted his teeth against a hot, rending pain in his shoulder. Warmth oozed beneath the bandage, red blossoming on its white surface. He must look pathetic. “Sunder it. Why did you bring her
here
? And how long will I be like this?”

“About a week. Stop moving.” Ashem examined the bandage, his tone long-suffering. “I’ll have to change it again.”

“Ashem, the girl.”

Ashem’s lip curled. “You’d prefer I left her to Kavar?”

“Of course not.” Rhys would have shrugged away if he thought he could manage without looking weaker.

“She saved your life and Deryn’s. She probably saved the world.” Ashem glared at Cadoc, whose song had morphed to an aggressively cheerful dancing reel.

Rhys had barely seen the girl, but for some reason, knowing she was there made him glance around again, as if he might have missed her presence in the room. “Where is she?” He cleared his throat. “How is she?”

Ashem shrugged and made an indifferent gesture toward the heavy brown and gold curtain that hung over the door to the small room. “Cadoc ap Brychan I swear on the blood of the Ancients that I will grind that pipe into powder and make you eat it!”

Cadoc grinned and stuffed the pipe back into his pocket. “All things considered, I think she’s done beautifully. I, for one, plan to delight in her company for as long as she’s here.” He flopped down onto an old wooden chair next to the bench and strummed a chord on his guitar. He chuckled at the expression on Ashem’s face as he plucked a somber ballad. “There’s no life without music, chief.”

Ashem didn’t stop glaring at Cadoc. “We will be here until Rhys is well. The quarters are confined, so try not to tempt me to kill you.”

“I’m well enough,” Rhys protested. “If I can’t fly myself, I can ride on someone’s back. Kavar has gone, so the others have, too. Let’s get back to Eryri while we can.”

“
Don’t push me
,
Rhys.
” Ashem spoke directly into his head. This, along with the ability to create barriers, was the magic of the Azhdahā. Though all dragons could communicate mind-to-mind in dragon form, only Ashem and Kavar could do so as humans.

“
We’re exposed here
,
Commander.
I’d rather make a break for Eryri while the coast is clear.
” Rhys held Ashem’s gaze. Though Rhys couldn’t actually send the thought, Ashem would be able to “hear” it.

Ashem ignored him. “About the human girl.”

Cadoc perked up.

Ashem noticed and sent his gaze skyward with a sigh. “She’s here because she saved Rhys and Deryn. Don’t tell her anything.” He hesitated then spoke again. “The unheartsworn males should see if she can be sworn.” He paused. “Well, Cadoc and I.” He looked like he’d rather cut off his own wings. “Not Rhys. Once we’ve made sure she can’t be heartsworn, we’ll take her home.”

Rhys gave Ashem an incredulous look. “Do you think it’s wise for any of us to bring a Wingless mate back home to Eryri?”

Ashem shrugged. “We’re at war, and heartswearing means extra magic and extra strength. The whining of a few discontented idiots hardly matters if I’m better able to do my job.”

Cadoc gave a dramatic sigh. “Alas, the fair raven is not for me. I’ve made direct skin contact twice and nothing happened.”

Deryn snorted. “The
fair raven
? Do you write your horrid poetry beforehand or does garbage spew from you as you speak?”

Cadoc winked. “I write it down, love. I’d hate to deprive the world of my words when I’m gone. Anyway, looks like you’re her only shot, Commander.”

Ashem’s face soured.

Griffith cleared his throat. “There’s also the matter of food,” he rumbled.

Rhys’s own empty stomach roiled, and he realized that he was starving. “
Another reason to leave here
,” he thought at Ashem.

Ashem threw up his hands. “Fine. Ffion, Griffith, you two range out about a hundred miles and see if any other dragons are in the area. If Demba and the others are gone, we’ll fly for Eryri. However, in the very likely case that we will be staying here until help comes, we need food. Deryn, your leg should be healed tomorrow. We’ve got food for two or three days. You and Cadoc find something that will last the rest of the time we’re here. Cadoc or I can take the human girl home after that.”

“
If
she isn’t heartsworn to you, chief,” Cadoc added. “In that case, I’ve already volunteered to take her back. But you never know. It could be love.”

Rhys stifled a laugh. Ashem spoke through gritted teeth. “Everyone be back by sunset on the second day.” He jerked his head at Cadoc. “Take your musical twiddlings and go sit the first watch.”

“Anything to please you, Commander.” Cadoc swept a bow to the room and left. Ffion went back to her book. Griffith, Deryn and Ashem sat around, speaking softly.

Rhys’s thoughts lingered on the human girl. Human mates weren’t uncommon, but Rhys would rather declare himself Unsworn than be bound to one. Yes, the Council—a governing body of dragons comprised of two representatives from each clan, plus two Wingless—would fly into a rage if Rhys turned up with a Wingless mate. But aside from that, humans were too changeable, too unpredictable, too apt to betray.

His mother had been human.

His lip curled. Thrusting thoughts of
her
into the deep recesses of his mind, Rhys settled deeper into his pillow. The babble of his friends washed over him. Kai would only be around a day or two, no more than an eye blink. Staying away would be no challenge at all.

Chapter Five

If You Need a Little Warming

Kai returned to the sleeping room only to find it empty. Voices came from beyond the stone archway, but they weren’t talking loud enough for her to hear much. Not that she’d understand the language if she could.

Kai grasped a carabiner, rubbing one thumb across the smooth metal bar. She looked around the empty room again, as if she might find someone to talk to. But she was alone.

Shrugging off the sudden, overwhelming feeling of isolation, Kai walked back out to the main cavern, hoping Cadoc, who was at least friendly, might emerge soon.

She examined the cavern wall. Reaching up, she slid each of her hands into crevices in the stone. As soon as her palms came into contact with the cool rock, her shoulders unknotted. Her headache dulled. She exhaled. As easy as breathing, she lifted her foot to a little outcrop and pulled herself up.

Someone laughed, warm and rich. Kai sprang away from the wall. Cadoc stood behind her, guitar over one shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Kai’s cheeks heated. “Nothing.”

“Are you literally climbing the walls? You haven’t even been here a day.”

“It’s good rock,” Kai said defensively. On the ground, her headache returned. Her stomach cramped, reminding her that it had been a really, really long time since she’d eaten something and kept it down. “Is there any food here?”

He cocked an eyebrow then walked toward a bend in the opposite side of the cavern, motioning for her to follow. As he approached, fires sprang up in the large alcove. It was a kitchen, of sorts. There was another fire pit, a low wooden table and a waist-high stone shelf that ran much of the perimeter of the room, like a countertop. There was even a basin-like sink sunk into the stone with a spigot above.

Something that could only be accurately described as a cauldron sat in the embers of the fire pit in the center of the room. Looking up, Kai spotted another chimney-like hole in the ceiling. Cadoc pulled a stone bowl off a set of shelves, which were filled with an assortment of bowls, plates and fat, round cups, all made of ceramic and stone. To one side of the shelves, a heavy curtain with a cream and brown pattern covered the entrance to another tunnel.

“What’s down there?” Kai asked.

Cadoc glanced toward the curtain. “Only storage. Here.”

He handed her a bowl and gestured at the cauldron. Kai peered inside. It was about a quarter full of beans and rice. She sniffed it. It smelled faintly of spices.

“This is what dragons eat?” she asked dubiously.

Cadoc glowered at the food. “Only when there’s nothing else to be had.” He took the bowl and dipped it in the cauldron. He handed it, filled to the brim with an assortment of beans and fluffy brown rice, to Kai. She took it then looked around. “Do dragons use silverware?”

Cadoc handed her a round, shallow spoon that had seen better days.

“Thanks.” Kai leaned against the stone countertop and shoved a lump of rice and beans into her mouth. It didn’t taste like much, but it was warm, and it was food. She closed her eyes in contentment, fighting the urge to stick her face into the bowl and snork it like a starving dog.

Cadoc watched her, a smile hovering around the edges of his mouth. “There will be meat, soon. Well, tomorrow or the day after.”

“Won’t I be home by then?” Kai asked, mouth full.

“Soon after. Deryn and I are leaving tomorrow morning to hunt. Ffion and Griffith will be gone, too. Scouting for any stragglers from Kavar’s vee. If they don’t find anyone poking around, we’ll all pack up and drop you at home on our way. We’ll be gone about two days.”

Kai swallowed a half-chewed lump. It stuck in her throat and she coughed. “We can’t just, I don’t know, sneak past whoever’s out there and get me home today?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

Choking down her disappointment with another mouthful of food, Kai shrugged. It hurt her that Juli would be so worried, and it frustrated her to think of what new restrictions her parents might dream up. Still, as long as she was
only
gone three days, it might be okay.

“So, you’re leaving?” She pushed thoughts of home from her mind and narrowed her eyes, mentally counting dragons. Cadoc, Deryn, Deryn’s brother Rhys, the two that had left, the tiny woman... Fee-something. Cadoc had just said it... Ffion. And massive guy, Griffith. And then Ashem.

She paled. If Cadoc, Deryn, Ffion and Griffith were leaving, she was going to be stuck here with an unconscious guy and Ashem. “I have to spend two days alone with Ashem?” Her voice might have been a little shrill. She pressed her lips together and took a breath.

Cadoc laughed. “It won’t be so bad,
brânwen
. He’ll stay out of your head. And Ashem only eats people when he’s annoyed.” He looked out to the red light of sunset spilling across the floor of the main cavern. “Ancients, I’ve got to get out onto the ledge. I’ve got first watch.”

Dread settled over Kai. She was going to be stuck here with no one to talk to for
two days
. She trailed after Cadoc. “Can I sit with you?”

His mouth curled into a grin. “Until the end of time, love.”

Kai almost choked on her rice. “Um...”

He winked and jerked his chin in a
follow me
motion. They walked onto the ledge, which was far colder than the interior of the cave. Kai ate her beans and rice while Cadoc swung one leg over the edge and pulled his guitar into his lap. His fingers ran like liquid over the strings and he started to sing, the notes of the guitar intertwining with his chocolate voice.

Kai didn’t understand the language—but she could
feel
the words, all longing and sadness. It went on for a long time—long enough for her to finish her food and set the bowl aside.

When the song was over, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “That was beautiful.”

He let out a short, self-deprecating laugh. “Thank you.”

“What language was that?”

“Welsh.” He caressed the guitar.

“Is that where you guys are from? Wales? The mystery language is Welsh?”

“Yes. Though it’s been a long time.” His voice was soft, and he stared into the distance at something beyond the moonlit valley.

“Question.”

Cadoc smiled. “Yes?”

“Why do you speak Welsh and English and not...dragon.”

He laughed. “Dragon?”

Kai nodded.

“We—dragons—have a language. It’s old and fairly dead, but we write in it a bit. When we’re actually dragons, our speech is telepathic.” He touched his forehead with a finger then touched Kai’s. “We speak whatever language our clans raised us speaking, mostly local human languages, and we try to keep up as times change.” He sighed. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve been back to dear Cymru.”

“You sound like you miss it.”

“I do.”

He sounded sad, so Kai changed the subject. “Can you play any songs I might actually know?”

Cadoc’s sadness dropped away. He gave her a stern look, taking up the guitar again. “Darlin’,” he drawled in an awful American accent, “I know
all
the songs.” He strummed a chord and sang the first line from “Blackbird” in a ridiculously high falsetto. Kai laughed then sang along with him. After another line, Cadoc stopped singing, though he still played, alternately strumming and plucking to accompany her.

She caught his eye, surprised to see genuine pleasure on his face. After a few more lines, he sang again, harmonizing. Silence crashed over them as the song ended, and Cadoc stared an instant too long before he started to laugh. Kai laughed with him.

“You’ve got a voice like fine gossamer,
brânwen
.”

Kai snorted. “Thanks. You, too.”

They laughed again, and Kai shivered. The sun had set, the light changing from orange and red to the washed out grayscale of a nearly full moon. Frigid night sank into her bones.

“Are you cold?”

“I’m okay.”

“That is an untruth.” He set the guitar aside and took her hands. Grinning wickedly, he exhaled warm breath on her fingers. A wave of tingling heat pulsed through her body. She gasped.

“Better?”

She could see the moon in his amethyst eyes. For a moment, they stared at one another. Then he let go. “If you need a little warming, that trick works like a charm. No good for anything serious, though. If you’re too cold, it can do some damage.”

“Wow.” Kai grinned.
Magic.
This, she could get into.

“You like that, do you?” He put a palm up between them. A white flame appeared. It darted along his fingers, rolling over and between them like a magician’s coin.

Kai laughed, entranced. She’d always had thing for fantasy, for magic and make-believe.

He closed his hand. The little flame died.

“That was amazing!”

“I’m a talented man,
brânwen
.”

Kai wrinkled her nose. “Brahn-wen. You keep saying that. What does it mean?”

He reached over and twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. “Raven. For your hair. Fair raven. White raven. A symbol of victory and good luck. Perhaps not according to the mythology, but according to me.” He let his hand drop then picked up the guitar and played again, for once refusing to make eye contact.

The song ended, and he began another. Not liking that they had fallen into an awkward silence, Kai touched Cadoc’s wrist when he finished the next song.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry, I’ve been wondering. What’s this?” Kai pushed up his sleeve. Red-orange scales glimmered in the moonlight. Beneath her hand, the design was pebbled and warm. It felt like...scales. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her, but it did. She resisted the urge to trace it with her fingers, and released his wrist.

He cleared his throat. “An indicium. We take human bodies, but we are always dragon. They’re same color as our scales. Left arm for women, right for men.”

Kai grinned, once again caught up in the magic. “Tell me more.”

He laughed. “You’re asking the wrong person. Ffion is our resident scholar. Or I suppose you could ask Griffith. I imagine he knows whatever she does.”

“Why? Is he her boyfriend or something? Do dragons do that?”

“Her what?” Cadoc looked confused then his expression cleared. “Ah. That’s what humans do to test each other out, isn’t it? Boyfriend, girlfriend, maybe we’ll be together and maybe we won’t?”

Kai nodded.

“No. We don’t really do that. He’s more like her...ah...husband. Except that’s not really the word.”

Kai sat back, aghast. “They’re
married
? What are they, like twenty-two? Are you guys a crazy religious cult or something? Child marriages and no dating? Seriously?”

Cadoc laughed, warm and rich. “Ffion and Griffith aren’t children.”

“Still! Why would anyone get married so young? And if ‘husband’ doesn’t work, what is the right word?”

“They’re heartsworn. Mates. It’s...more.”

“More? What does that mean?”

“That’s a question with a long answer.” He stopped playing and tinkered with the tuning pegs, giving her a sidelong look. “Care to trade the rest of it for a kiss?”

Kai snorted. She liked Cadoc. He had zero shame. “I’ll just ask Ffion.” Whenever she had a chance, anyway, since everyone would be gone for two days.

He sighed. “The sting of rejection. Alas.” A tune even more poignant than the first coiled through the air. He didn’t sing; the haunting, heartbreaking notes spoke for themselves. When it finally ended, Kai felt like she was waking up from a trance.

Cadoc nudged her. “I’ve kept you late enough, I think.”

Kai protested, but he put his hands over hers, engulfing them, warming them. She hadn’t even realized she was cold again. “I appreciate your company,
brânwen
, but you should go to bed. My watch will be over soon, in any case.”

“Okay.” She hesitated, and then shrugged. “Would it be weird if I asked you to play that song again before I go? The first one?”

“I’d love to.”

Music drifted into the air.