Soul of Smoke (8 page)

Kai made a face. “You’re probably going to have to repeat all that for me at some point. No wonder Cadoc didn’t want to talk about this the other night.”

Distracted by the sound of his name, Cadoc turned. Griffith seized the opportunity and kicked Cadoc’s knee out from under him. He landed hard on his back, gasping. Griffith laughed and pulled him to his feet. “You’ve got to stop being such an idiot when girls are around, boyo.”

Cadoc grinned. “There’s nothing wrong with a little harmless flirtation.” He pulled off his sweaty shirt and tossed it aside, winking at Kai. Kai shook her head, but Rhys saw the way her eyes followed him as he and Griffith squared off again.

Rhys smothered a spark of irritation. Of course she was watching Cadoc. Women always watched Cadoc. Rhys usually found that convenient, but sometimes it got under his skin.

“Why do their scales only cover their arms?” Kai asked.

Rhys hadn’t been listening. “Sorry?”

Kai turned her frown on him and gestured at his shirt. “Yours take up the entire right side of your body. Theirs don’t.”

He cleared his throat. “I—uh—it happens like that. Sometimes.”

“Hm.” Kai raised an eyebrow. “Does it take up the
entire
right half of your body?”

He nearly choked. “No.” He indicated the area from his shoulder to his lower abdomen.

“Hm,” Kai repeated, her eyes narrowed as if she could see through his shirt.

Cadoc struck inside Griffith’s guard. One, two thuds of fists against skin before Griffith could block. Cadoc tried to bring his knee up into Griffith’s stomach, but the large man recovered and blocked him with a hand, shoving Cadoc’s leg hard to one side and using his other hand to push Cadoc off balance. Cadoc staggered, and Griffith wrapped him in a bear hug, grappling him to the ground.

Rhys shifted restlessly, glad Kai had looked away. He didn’t mind missing drills, but sparring was another matter. He should be up there, moving. Not sitting and doing nothing. He was going to go insane if he stayed like this much longer.

“Switch!” Ashem barked.

Cadoc groaned and lay flat on the floor. Ashem made an exasperated sound. “You broke him, Griffith.”

“Sorry,
awenydd
.” Griffith held out a hand and hauled Cadoc to his feet. “It wouldn’t be so easy if you weren’t so skinny.”

“Sure, mate. It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re sworn and I’m not.” Cadoc bled from a cut above his eye, had a bruise on his right cheek, and was grinning like an idiot. He slapped Griffith on the back.

Griffith laughed. “As if the Ancients would ever curse any poor woman to become your heartsworn.”

“Stars save my entire sex from
that
fate,” Deryn said loudly as she settled next to Rhys. She and Ffion had also finished their match.

Cadoc staggered over and sat on the other side of Kai. She picked up a towel from a stack Ashem had brought out of the lavatory and pressed it to the cut on his face. Rhys smothered another spark of irritation.

“You’re an angel,
brânwen
.” Cadoc tugged a strand of Kai’s dark hair. Rhys gave him a flat look. Cadoc saw and grinned.

“She’s a sucker,” Deryn muttered as Kai sat down again.

Cadoc leaned back against the stone, holding the towel in place. “Don’t be jealous, love. I’ll always treasure our time behind that squatty old barn in Gwynedd.”

Rhys burst into surprised laughter. Across the room, so did Ffion and Griffith. Even Ashem cracked a smile. Deryn shrieked in outrage.

Cadoc leaned over to Kai and said in a whisper loud enough to be a shout, “She quite literally leaped off the roof onto my head. Wouldn’t let me up until I kissed her.”

Kai pressed both hands to her mouth, but that didn’t stop the sound of her mirth.

“I was barely old enough to fly!” Deryn’s cheeks had gone pink—Rhys wasn’t sure if it was outrage or embarrassment. “I should’ve stabbed you instead and saved myself from a lifetime of annoyance!”

Cadoc leaned back against the stone, his expression blissful. “Sweet Aderyn. I reckon you still taste like strawberries and dirt.”

“She was a determined little thing,” Ashem observed drily.

Rhys gave a bark of laughter.

Deryn leveled one of her daggers at Cadoc. “I will murder you.”

“Don’t.” Rhys said, his voice dry. “I’m not up to protecting him at the moment.”

“Rhys defends my virtue, which was forced from my virgin lips as a lad,” Cadoc whispered loudly to Kai.

Rhys had to put his good arm out to keep Deryn in place. She shoved at him, but stayed where she was. “Nothing about you is virgin or virtuous, you fire-belching git!”

“Enough!” Ashem shouted. When they quieted, he turned to Ffion and Griffith, still in the middle of the floor. “Begin.”

Rhys settled back, exhaustion crashing over him suddenly. If Cadoc wanted to continue baiting Deryn, he’d have to do it at his own risk.

“Poor man doesn’t stand a chance,” Cadoc muttered, studying Griffith.

“I don’t know how heartsworn pairs do it, fight when they’re in each other’s heads like that,” Deryn muttered. “It’s like they’d have to have a whole fight inside their minds before they start.”

“They’d have to do what?” Kai glanced from Cadoc to Rhys in confusion.

Rhys opened his mouth to explain, but Ffion darted inside Griffith’s guard and drove the heel of her palm at his jaw. Griffith jerked his head up at the last second, stepping back. Ffion drove forward again, coming at him from the side. This time Griffith turned his dodge into a low spin kick in an attempt to knock Ffion’s legs out from under her. Instead of falling, she jumped over his sweeping leg. The whole thing took less than a second.

“Holy crap,” Kai squeaked.

Rhys glanced at her. She leaned forward, eyes wide. Tendrils of soft hair fell across her face. He had the sudden, ridiculous urge to reach out and brush them behind her ear. He tightened his hands into fists, grateful when she moved the wavy black strands herself.

Cadoc chuckled. “I told you it would be a show.”

Skin smacked against skin, and Rhys turned back to the fight. Ffion had gotten behind Griffith and was landing a series of sharp blows to his back.

“Holy crap,” Kai repeated.

“Though she be but little, she is fierce,” Rhys murmured.

Cadoc nodded. “And Griff would never hit her.”

“Then how is this fair?” Kai asked. “She’s hitting him.”

Deryn shrugged. “She’s not hurting him. It’s a game. See if she can touch him a certain number of times before he pins her.”

Ffion and Griffith sped until every movement was a blur. Each of Ffion’s punches seemed to find an answering block in Griffith even as all his attempts to catch her met with her slipping out of his reach.

After thirty minutes, Ffion suddenly sprang forward, hooking her legs around Griffith’s waist and planting a fat kiss on his lips. “I win.”

Griffith wrapped his arms around her and kissed her deep and hard.

Ancients
,
what would it be like to love a person the way those two love each other?

“All right, enough.” Ashem shook his head in disgust. “Cadoc and Deryn, get up here. Griffith, with me. Ffion...”

Ffion, cheeks flushed, slid from Griffith’s arms with a giddy giggle. Griffith shot Ashem a warning look and opened his mouth, but Ffion stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“I’ve marked some records for study in the library.” Ffion smoothed her hair. “If that’s all right with you, Commander.”

Ashem nodded, giving the pair of them a narrow-eyed glare. Rhys studied them, as well. They were always happy, but something else was going on.

“There’s a library?” Kai watched Ffion don the small pile of jewelry she’d removed to spar.

Rhys caught himself tracing the outline of Kai’s profile and looked away. “Down the tunnel in the kitchen.”

“Oh.” Kai fell silent and stayed that way for a long while, staring into space.

Rhys cleared his throat. “So...what were you doing in the mountains?”

Kai shrugged, looking at nothing. “Just hiking with my roommates.”

More silence.

“What do you do when you aren’t hiking?”

Kai glanced over, as if surprised to find him speaking to her. “I’m a college student. I go to school. I work at a climbing gym. I climb.”

“Climb...?”

Her mouth twisted with wry amusement. “Rocks.”

Climbing rocks did not sound like something people should do for fun. “Have you always been a climber?”

Her smile faded, and Kai shook her head. “I used to be a gymnast. It took my mom about five years longer than me to figure out I was never going to the Olympics.”

He lifted an eyebrow. He was aware that modern humans had revived the Olympics, in a vague sort of way. “And?”

Her eyes snapped. “
And
I was a competitive gymnast until I was eighteen. Every second of every day. Practicing. Starving myself. Memorizing routines. I barely had time for homework, let alone friends. Not that it mattered. My dad wouldn’t let me drive until I was eighteen. Eighteen! He thought I was going to get carjacked or get into a wreck and die.”

Rhys flinched at the outburst. Kai groaned and put her hands to her face. “They’re never going to let me leave the house after this. Not ever. They’ll probably make me move home. Dammit!” She pulled her hands from her face and looked pleadingly at Rhys. “There isn’t any way you could
make
Ashem let me go, is there? Let me guess. You’re
just a soldier
.” She made air quotes around the last part of the sentence.

Rhys glanced over at Ashem. “I—”.

“It doesn’t even matter,” Kai cut him off. “My life is already over. Oh, hell. They’re probably already going to get me one of those tracker ankle bracelet things. If I get home soon, I could probably still convince them it was just a misunderstanding. If Juli helps, maybe...”

Time to steer the conversation in a different direction. “Juli?”

“My friend.” Kai laughed quietly. “More than that. My family. We did a project in fifth grade about ancestry. Turns out that we’re something like first cousins eight times removed.”

“I see.” Rhys hesitated, counting myriad small scars on the backs of his hands. He’d gathered them over a long, long life of training and war. Kai’s hands were similarly scarred, though more likely that came from climbing rocks. He couldn’t escape thoughts of his own parents. How they’d hated each other. How they’d died. “Kai, it sounds like your parents want you safe. Perhaps they’re trying to make you happy by sharing the things that made them happy when they were young.”

Kai snorted. “Yeah, well, there’s safe and there’s paranoid. There’s sharing, and there’s forcing your child to live your own unfulfilled dreams.” She shook her head. “I
was
free, finally, until you guys brought me here. I’m really glad I could help you and Deryn, but this is going to cost me everything.”

Rhys didn’t respond. When it came to costs, Kai had no idea what she was talking about.

Chapter Seven

Harmless Flirtation

Kai jumped when Cadoc slid her plate away from her after dinner, taking it and the last few dishes from the table to put them on the counter next to Griffith, who was washing them. When the plates were delivered, Cadoc plopped down next to her again.

“Thanks.” The food had been more bland meat and rice. Salad had never been her favorite, but she was starting to crave green things. “Brendan and Colm could learn from you.”

“Brendan and Colm?”

Kai’s mood dipped further. “My brothers.”

He smiled ruefully. “I am sorry,
brânwen
. I wish I could take you home.”

“You could.”

Cadoc shook his head.

Kai tamped down frustration. It was like she’d been climbing a crag, not realizing the rock was chossy until it crumbled beneath her hands. It wouldn’t be pretty when she hit the ground. Not just because her parents would put her under house arrest until she was eighty, but because they’d be worried about her. So would her brothers. She didn’t have the best relationship with her family, but that didn’t mean she wanted them to think she was dead.

Kai jerked her head toward the curtain in the corner of the kitchen. “I was thinking, I’ve been here two days now, and I still haven’t seen most of this place. Care to give me a tour?”

Cadoc grinned and winked. “I’ll give you a tour of anything you want.”

“Ha ha.” The words came out too flat.

Cadoc laughed and pushed back his chair. “Come on.”

Kai followed him to the corner, where he pulled back the heavy cream and brown curtain. They entered the darkened tunnel. With a wink, Cadoc snapped his fingers. A ball of golden fire blossomed above his hand. He held out his other arm to her, smiling slyly. “Wouldn’t want you to trip.”

Kai laughed and took his arm. He was fun and comfortable. And pretty, with his messy black hair, chiseled cheekbones and amethyst eyes. In her opinion, men as pretty as Cadoc made better friends than romantic leads.

The tunnel tilted downward, heading deep into the mountain, but it widened enough not to make Kai feel claustrophobic. They passed an off-shoot, then descended farther until the tunnel opened into a vast, dark space.

Here, Cadoc’s golden light only illuminated the ground around them. The air was abnormally still; it smelled like dust and age.

Cadoc exhaled and twisted his wrist so his palm faced the floor. The ball of light disappeared into his hand like it had been sucked back into his body. Blackness closed over them like water. For a breathless, silent second, Kai drowned in darkness.

In the distance, a white light flared. A circle of flame blazed into being on the ceiling of the cavern, moving like a gunpowder trail in a cartoon. Another circle rippled to fiery life. It passed through the first and out again, like links in a chain. There was another flare of light, this one almost above her head. Another circle forming. They took shape all over the ceiling, all joined like chain mail, slowly lighting the enormous space.

Awe and wonder sparked inside her like the fizzing happiness of a child on Christmas morning. Kai’s mood lightened.

What would Juli think if she could see this?
Practical Juli, who saw the world so black and white. She’d probably try and come up with some kind of scientific explanation. Maybe there was one; some heretofore unknown law of the universe that allowed Cadoc and Rhys to vibrate atoms in a way that made heat and flame. Kai didn’t care. She’d always believed in magic. Explanation didn’t make miracles any less miraculous, only easier to understand.

“Impressed?”

She tore her gaze from the ceiling. Cadoc was grinning again, his hands in his pockets.

She grinned back. “Show off.”

“I told you I was a talented man.” He stepped closer, and Kai had to tilt her head to look at him. Her heart gave a little jump when she saw the
I’m going to kiss you
look on his face. Not that she’d seen it that often, but enough to recognize the small smile and the laser-focus of his eyes on her lips.

Cadoc, however, was not the dragon she would choose to kiss.

“I’m sure you are.” Kai smiled and put a hand on his chest, pushing him gently back.

His smile turned rueful. “Maybe later.” His chocolate voice was meltingly soft.

“Maybe.” Kai squeezed his shoulder and stepped around him, half-sure she was crazy. It wasn’t like a kiss meant they had to get married.

When she saw what lay beyond, however, all thought of kissing Cadoc was swept from her mind. The room, as large as the cavern above, was filled with...everything. A tall, ancient stone covered in cuneiform stood next to a desk-sized record player with what looked suspiciously like a Faberge egg sitting on top. A large pile of yellow-black rocks dominated the right front corner of the room. Filing cabinets and shelves lined the walls, the only order in the chaos.

“Um. Is this the Room of Requirement?”

Cadoc gave her a confused look. “Requirement for what?”

Kai sighed. “You said this was storage. It’s a freaking museum.”

“Don’t you know anything about dragons?” He flung his arm wide, encompassing the immense cave and all it held. “This is the hoard.”

“I thought a dragon’s hoard was treasure.” She gestured at his bracelets, armbands, and pendants. “I thought you were wearing the hoard.”

“Ah,
brânwen
, history
is
treasure.” He jerked his head toward the pile of rocks in the corner. “But over there you’ll find gold ore and uncut gems.” His grin went wicked. “And I bet Deryn would loan you a crown if you asked her. The room is climate controlled, thanks to Ffion’s magic, so the delicate things stay intact. It’s not uncommon for the dragons of Eryri to have hoards away from the island. It’s why we come here, from time to time. It’s why we had the sword you used to such great effect. We were bringing it here.”

Cadoc showed her around the room. Some of the pieces were truly historic, some not so much. A Monopoly game peeked out from underneath a breathtaking red and gold sari. Behind that, a first-generation Gameboy leaned on a cracked and peeling painting of the Virgin Mary. She gazed at the centuries-long history of several countries on display, feeling suddenly young, ignorant and small. “Cadoc, how old are you?”

“Old.”

She folded her arms, waiting.

He gave her a small, almost sympathetic smile. “Let’s just say your people write my birth date with a BC at the end.”

The air seemed to go out of the room. “How long do dragons live?”

His voice was gentle. “A long time,
brânwen.
Too long, I think. But relatively speaking, I’m not much older than you. All of us in the vee are roughly the same age. Except Deryn, who’s a bit younger, and Ashem, who’s a bit older.”

Kai snorted. “If you’re that old, I feel like you should be wiser.”

Cadoc laughed, a deep, full-throated, rich sound. “You’re not the only one.”

Kai smiled, but shook her head. “Seriously. I think most humans who get close to the century mark are ready to die. How do you deal with so much time?” She walked around a screen beautifully painted with cranes and flowers in red and yellow. Everything in the cave was exquisitely made, though some of the clothing and papers were old enough disintegrate at a touch. “So some of this is thousands of years old?”

“Some. Nothing lasts forever.” He walked to a shelf and picked up a little horse carved from white marble. “My father made this for me. I’d forgotten about it.”

“Where are your parents?” Kai asked.

Cadoc’s voice went oddly expressionless. “Dead. I was nearly too young to remember them.” He put the little horse back on the shelf.

“Oh. I’m...I’m sorry.” She looked around for something to bring back his smile.

A gorgeous gown in shades of blue satin had been thrown carelessly over a black and gold statue of an Egyptian dog. Kai’s breath caught at the sight of it, covered in delicate silver embroidery and beaded in crystal on the bodice and hem.

“That was Deryn’s.” His smile came back, though some of the light had gone out of it.

Kai ran her fingers over the fabric, smooth as water and soft as clouds. It was almost painful to tear herself away, but there were so many things to see.

“Is this a phonograph?” Kai touched the curved horn of the amplifier.

Cadoc smiled, almost normal again. “It’s mine.”

“Of course it is.” She smiled back.

He turned it on, and the tinny sound of a piano from almost a century before jangled out of the cone. The song ended, and they were almost to the tunnel mouth when they came across a more practical section of the room. Tarps, ropes, extra blankets, a few mattresses, reams of paper, office supplies, stacks of raw wood, and boxes of tools and clothes. She could even see a few backpacks among the piles and what might have been a tent.

She glanced at Cadoc, who was adjusting a trucker hat on a very dignified marble bust, and mentally cataloged what she’d need. He caught up to her, and they walked past most of the equipment without comment, except to point out the clothes. Ffion had placed a small stack next to Kai’s rolled-up mattress on their first night in the cave, but Kai took a few more for good measure. Dragon clothes were like human clothes in the sense that they were pants and shirts, but the colors were either jewel-tones or neutrals, and the fabric—warm, comfortable, and soft—was like nothing Kai had seen before. She touched the scale-like octagons sewn down the sleeve.

“These are field clothes,” Cadoc explained, tossing her a purple shirt and indicating the simple gray one that he wore. “They’re passable as human. The clothes in Eryri are a different story.”

Kai caught the shirt. “What
is
Eryri?”

Cadoc put his hands behind his back as he strolled. “It’s an archipelago in the South Pacific. When the war started a thousand years ago, we were driven from our home in Wales—a place also called Eryri—and the dragons of the Pacific took us in.”

Kai’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “A
thousand years
?”

He elbowed her playfully. “I told you I was old.”

They were almost past that section of the room when she spotted the gleaming metal of a lantern. She waded into the chaos and picked it up, almost whooping with joy when she flipped its switch and the light blinked on. Apparently, even dragons used batteries.

Cadoc folded his arms, his expression mock-severe. He gestured at the ceiling where the interlinked rings of fire burned. “Not good enough for you?”

“We aren’t always together.”

“We could be.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Kai snorted. “You are a silver-tongued devil.”

Cadoc leaned toward her, eyes wicked. “Silver? Never. My tongue is made of gold.”

Kai burst out laughing. Grinning, Cadoc banished the circles of fire on the ceiling, recalling the golden flame to hover above his hand. He offered Kai his arm. She took it as they climbed back up the long, winding tunnel, clutching her lantern.

Ashem might have grounded the dragons, but he wasn’t
her
commander. She’d grown up in the Rockies; camping was almost as natural to her as climbing. With the things in the hoard, she just might be able to make it home.

When they were all asleep, she would come back.

* * *

Two hours later, Kai snuck through the main cavern. Cadoc had first watch, but he was outside with his guitar and not at all concerned with the goings-on inside the cave. She flicked on the lantern when she was safely inside the tunnel. Her memory was good, so it didn’t take long to find what she needed. She was grateful for that. Without Cadoc, the hoard was creepy. Shadows jumped and jittered along the walls in the lantern light.

She took a large backpack and stuffed it full. Knives, blankets, extra clothes, a couple of small, tightly-rolled tarps, and more. But her best find was the rope: three lengths, lighter and stronger than any she’d ever used. She shoved as much as she could into the pack, then left it near the door to the massive room, hidden inside an empty, ancient cedar chest. She couldn’t run when one of them was on the ledge.

She’d have to figure out a distraction. But not tonight. She wasn’t desperate enough to rappel down that cliff in the dark.

Not yet.