The Dragon's Queen (Dragon Lords) (13 page)

* * *

Crossing the border into Var land for the second time was nothing like Mede’s first run. Before, it was only her pride that mattered. Now, Cynan’s life was on the line. The man might already be dead. No one knew why the Var had taken him. Cynan often camped in the woods outside the palace, living off the land and always opening his tent to a friend.

She couldn
’t think about Llyr, or how frustratingly mad he’d made her when he’d doubted her abilities in front of Rolant. He’d actually tried to order her home because it was too dangerous.

“
Save your anger for the Var,” Rolant whispered, coming to a stop near her. He didn’t shift back to human, instead speaking to her in the Qurilixian language. They ducked behind a tree, waiting for the signal to continue forward. “I know my brother can be a pain but he means well.”

“
I don’t know what you are talking about,” Mede lied, also not bothering to shift back. She needed her senses on full alert.

“
Then you weren’t just cursing him under your breath just now?” Rolant gave a small laugh. He was trying to lighten her mood, but she saw the worry around his eyes.

“
Perhaps I was.” Mede held up her hand to end the conversation and then nodded to the far brush where she saw a flicker of movement within the leafy cluster.

Rolant followed her gaze. For a long moment, they held still. Someone ahead of them made a small whistle and a bird flew from the brush. She r
elaxed her guard and stood to continue forward.

The green of her clothes blended with the surroundings, as did the brown of her armored skin. Var were at a disadvantage when shifted in the marshes
, for their colorful fur didn’t always lend itself to hiding. So far they had traveled with little incident, following Saben’s lead to where the trail ended.

They were close to the marshes, so close there were times they were forced to step into the putrid water. Nests of snakes squirmed in muddy burrows, warning t
hem of how dangerous the water really was. Mede leapt over a particularly thick grouping, vaulting over the red and black tailed givre only to slide upon landing across a muddy plateau. Luckily, she retained her footing and didn’t make the journey on her backside.

“
Careful marking the ground.” Rolant commanded. Mede grimaced. She already knew, but couldn’t say anything to dispute his reprimand. The slip had been an accident. He nodded over the swamp to where she could just make out a stone wall rising up over water. “Myrddin’s fortress.” Moss a sickly shade of yellow-green that reminded her of puss and infection clung to the castle. From what she’d heard of Myrddin, it was a fitting scene for the man was a walking infection.

Rolant led her away from the fort
ress. Seeing the other dragons gathered next to a small outcropping near drier land, they moved to join them.

“
I smell wet cat.” Arthur touched the tip of his crooked nose.

“
Myrddin’s castle fortress is right over there,” Rolant said.

“
Whoever took Cynan camped back there,” Saben pointed north from whence they’d come and then moved his fingers to point southeast, “but they continued on that way.”

“
That’s away from the fortress.” Rolant frowned. “So we are not blaming the old house nobles?”

“
What about the marsh farmer?” Mede asked. “The still I found wasn’t too far from here. He was angry that we kept knocking over his batch of liquor. I don’t see him being able to formulate the plan, but if he has friends…”

“
I thought the same thing,” Saben answered. “I checked the stills after the trail went cold. There was no evidence those drunks did anything more than pass out somewhere in the forest.”

“
Myrddin could have left the trail to throw us off and then doubled back here to the fortress,” Arthur said.

“
I don’t trust Myrddin, but we follow the trail,” Rolant said, his decision made. “If we storm the gates now and Cynan is not there, we lose any chance we have of finding him.”

“
Agreed.” Saben nodded once and stood to lead the group away from the fortress.

Not much was said as they traveled on, deeper into Var land. Mede kept sharp eyes on the ground and trees, looking for clues that a group had passed.
It was Dylan who finally picked up several tracks. The footprints were easy to follow but there was no guarantee it was the right group of Var.

“
Drag marks,” Saben pointed out.

“
Could be a hunting party,” Arthur said.

“
No prey in this marsh is that large. This has to be it.” Rolant didn’t wait for an agreement as he quickened their pace through the trees. Mede followed without question. The apprehension she felt was shared by all, she saw it in their unusually serious expressions. But not a single person showed their fear, not a single warrior hesitated.

“
They stop here.” Rolant frowned, looking at the ground. They stood in a small clearing of dry land next to a rocky ledge. The forest was quiet, perhaps too quiet, but she couldn’t detect the presence of the Var. “They just vanish.”

Mede l
ooked up the cliff and slowly stepped back. Directly above where the tracks ended was a small inlet in the stone. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “A cave. There.”

In unison the dragon men looked
upward and backed away from the cliff to see where she indicated.

“
We can climb it,” Saben said.

“
Mede and Dylan, you are the smallest. We’ll need you in case there is a tight space. You two will climb with me. The rest of you stay down here on watch,” Rolant ordered before leaping to scramble up the steep rock wall. His footing slipped but he quickly righted himself. Mede and Dylan obeyed, following him up. The stone was mostly smooth and the occasional jagged pieces did not allow much in the way of handholds. As she neared the top, Rolant reached down for her arm and jerked her up and over the edge, before doing the same for Dylan.

They stood on a narrow ridge
in the cave’s opening. A rope ladder was coiled on the ground near the entrance. Mede kicked it down in case the others needed to fight their way up. Rolant had to shift into human form to squeeze through the narrow opening into the dim cave. His dragon body wouldn’t have been pliable enough to pass.

Mede followed him, forced to use her
human hands to claw her way through. “There is no way they could have brought Cynan through here.”

Rolant pointed to a thick smear of blood on an interior rock.

Dylan emerged through the opening and instantly went to touch the blood. He sniffed it. “It’s Draig.”

* * *

Llyr looked out over the forest from the office balcony. The stone railing kept him from leaping over the side. The desire to go after Mede became so strong he could barely contain it, but the fall would probably kill him. She was out there in the distant Var forest, trudging through marshes and the gods only knew what else. His talons clawed into the stone.

The palace was more fortress than grand castle. If
someone looked up at him from the ground, they wouldn’t see the windows or balconies attached to the royal quarters. The exterior was carefully carved to look natural, like the cliff edge of a mountain. The surrounding valley would be where the wedding festival would be held. Beyond that, the small village was nestled near the enormous trees. He could make out the rock-lined roads placed on an even grid between wooden homes. The village was a reminder as to why he couldn’t go after Mede. Like all Draig villages, it was under the protection of the House of Draig, his father’s house. Under his family’s rule, the people of his land prospered. No one went hungry. No one went without shelter unless they wanted to. Everyone worked and contributed to the best of their abilities.

His gaze went from the village toward the Var marshlands. Prince and man. How could h
e choose which path to take when they led him in opposite directions? The people of his village? Or Mede, his heart, his very reason for living? Even now she might be in danger.

He clawed the stone harder, scratching it in his frustration.
At the sound of one of his parents finally joining him, he turned eagerly. “I know of Cynan. I saw Rolant on my way here. What else has happened?”

Queen Lorna lifted her hands and moved forward as if to calm the wild beast brimming inside her son. She was not a
dragonshifter, but she handled the Draig well. The queen had come to Qurilixen when she was just old enough to marry. She had the dark hair and eyes of her people and did not cower from obstacles put in her path. As the only daughter of a poor Serean craftswoman, her mother had taught her to make furniture at a young age to help around the workshop. She’d done this instead of going to school and had not known how to read anything but Serean blueprints for the first twenty years of her life. That childhood had left her with tiny scars on her hands that she never tried to hide.

“
Relax, my son,” the queen said. She placed her hand on his chest. “Your heart is beating too fast with worry.”

“
Lorna, are you in…” The king’s voice always had a raspy quality to it, as if his vocal cords had permanently locked in a half shift and affected his tone. “There you are.”

King Tared was very much like Llyr
—born heir to the title, passionate about his people, and protective of his family—insomuch that the two men even looked like replicas of each other, plus or minus a few battle scars. Rolant looked more like a combination of his parents, with the king’s coloring and his mother’s Serean features.

“
What is happening? I should be with the others looking for Cynan.” Llyr gestured behind him toward the borderlands.

“
Good, then you know the most urgent half,” the king said.

“
There’s more?” Llyr stepped away from the ledge.

“
All know Cynan camps alone,” his father put forth. “I don’t think we were meant to discover he’d gone missing so quickly. It’s possible he was taken for information about the Dead Dragons, or our military, or the palace. He has privileges with all three.”

“
Cynan would not have gone down gently.” Llyr knew that much for a fact. The warrior was very strong.

“
We are not sure what happened. There were drag marks at his camp. It is possible he did not even get a chance to fight.” The king studied his son. “What do you know of our female dragon? This Lady Medellyn?”

“
I’ve met her,” Llyr said carefully. He guiltily thought of the stone hidden in his pocket. “She is with the Dead Dragons going after Cynan.”

“
You let a woman go?” King Tared’s voice rose in surprise at the very notion.

“
She’s tougher than many men of our kind. Rolant assures me she is trained for war and she is a member of the Dead Dragons. You decreed all Dead Dragons within a five minute hard run were to be gathered for the search party.” Llyr had to look away from his father’s probing gaze. “You ordered her to go, my king.”

“
Why not a woman?” Queen Lorna demanded of her husband.

“
Women are to be protected at all costs. Men are warriors. Women belong in the home under our protection. That is the way the gods created the genders.” The king defended his position, but Llyr had a feeling his father would be apologizing profusely to his wife once they were alone.

Queen
Lorna made an unamused humming noise but said nothing more. Yeah, his father was going to be doing a lot of begging later.

“
Why do you ask about Lady Mede?” Llyr drew his parent’s attention back to himself.

“
I received a missive from the Var king inquiring about our female. He has requested to be allowed at our wedding festival.” King Tared shook his head in disbelief. “In all my years, I have never heard of a Var being invited to attend our sacred festival. I cannot find reason for the request. We’ve had a female dragon for years. Why ask about her now? The timing is too close to Cynan’s disappearance. Until now, I had thought King Auguste wanted our peace to last. The Var stay on their side. We stay on ours. Neither side has anything to do with the other. I like it that way. This request makes me uneasy.”

Llyr
’s heart pounded violently. What did King Auguste want with Mede? And she was out there, at this very moment, in Var territory. Was the kidnapping a trap? “When Mede did her initiation run into the Var forest, she came back with blond fur, not the fur from a marsh farmer like most of the runners. What if that is how King Auguste heard of her? If she’d met up with someone from the royal palace, they would have told the king about it. She is beautiful and strong and makes an impression.”

“
There is nothing more we can do about this but wait for word about Cynan.” The queen touched her husband’s arm. “We should go to the temple and ask the gods to protect them. It is more productive than speculating.”