Dragonsbane (Book 3) (39 page)

The forest woman was nearly two heads shorter than Setheran. He had to stoop to embrace her. His long arms wrapped around her waist and her hands went immediately to the back of his neck. They stood there for a moment, neither speaking a word.

Slowly, the woman’s brows relinquished their hold and slipped upwards. A smile bent her lips; her eyes brightened and she gasped in relief. “You’re well.”

“Of course I’m well, Amelia. I promised I would be.” Setheran pressed his lips against hers, moving gently. Kael was relieved when Kyleigh looked away.

They stood at the edge of a large, circular room. Instead of tapestries, the walls were lined with oaken shelves. Books covered their every surface, packed in as tightly as they would fit.

Kyleigh followed the light winking off their gilded titles to a small hearth at the side of the room. Her eyes rested briefly on the timid flames, on the padded chair and the small, whittled crib settled in front of it before she looked away.

A strange, twisted lump lodged itself in Kael’s throat when he saw the roughly-carved desk settled against the room’s back arch. The desk sat atop a slight platform — one that had likely been meant for a throne. He realized with a jolt that this room was a reflection of his Inner Sanctum.
This
was the place he’d held for so long inside his heart.

Kyleigh glanced briefly at the still-twined Setheran and Amelia before her eyes shot back to the floor. Kael wasn’t at all surprised to see the symbol of the Wright carved boldly into its surface, stretching nearly to the edges of the shelves until it looked as if the whole room watched through a bottomless, triangular pupil.

“How is he?” Setheran said, drawing Kyleigh’s eyes once more.

Amelia was still a little breathless from his kisses. “He’s strong, Seth. He’s calm, and sweet, and … perfect.” Her hands twined across her chest — as if bracing them might somehow keep the light inside her eyes from bursting out.

Setheran squeezed her tightly before he inched his way over to the crib. His large hands dipped inside and drew a bundle wrapped in white cloths from its depths. “Oh dear, he’s going to have my skin, isn’t he?” Setheran said through his grin. “I’m sorry about that, little one. I was so hoping you’d have your mother’s looks.”

“He could’ve come out green and you wouldn’t have cared one bit,” Kyleigh said.

Setheran laughed.

Amelia looked as if she’d just noticed Kyleigh was there. Her gaze traveled up and down. The softness in her features hardened into something a little more cautious. “Is this the warrior I’ve been hearing about?”

“It is, my love,” Setheran said distractedly. He cradled the bundle tightly in the crook of his arm and pestered it with a finger. A tiny, pink hand reached out and curled about the tip.

When Kyleigh looked back, Amelia had stepped closer. “You’re … surprised?” she murmured.

Amelia’s brows slipped upwards. “Setheran didn’t tell me you were a woman.”

“Did he tell you I was a man?” Kyleigh made a frustrated sound and her gaze shot back to Setheran. “You know I’ve been working on my manners.”

“Yes, and soon you’ll be able to eat dinner in His Majesty’s hall without everybody wrinkling their nose at you,” he sing-songed in reply, his eyes never once leaving the bundle.

“Well, since I’ve at least been trying, you might stop calling me a
man
.”

“Never!”

Kyleigh said something under her breath that made Amelia laugh. Her gaze turned back at the sound and Kael saw that every last troubled line had vanished from her features. “Sorry. We haven’t been anywhere civilized for quite some time. I really
have
been working on my manners.”

She waved a hand. “Please, I’ve heard far —”

“When was he born?” Setheran cut in.

Amelia smiled softly. “He came with the snow.”

Setheran’s fiery brows rose high. He
tsk
ed as he shook the bundle’s tiny hand. “One of Fate’s Forsaken,” he whispered mockingly. “Had you been born in the mountains, people would’ve thrown rocks at you. Most folk think it’s a cursed thing to be born on Death’s Day — but I say it’s lucky.” His eyes glinted as he lowered his voice: “You can do all sorts of naughty things and never have to worry about that wrinkly old bag giving you a slap on the hand —”

“
Seth
!” Amelia hissed. “We aren’t going to let him grow up thinking he can do whatever he pleases. He’ll spoil before he learns to speak.”

“And you certainly shouldn’t mention Fate’s wrinkles,” Kyleigh added, her voice tinged with amusement. “That’s a good way to get your hand slapped, whisperer.”

He scoffed at them before turning back to the bundle. “Have you looked?” he said after a moment.

“No, I’ve been far too nervous. You haven’t even named him, yet,” Amelia scolded when he took a step towards the hearth. “Give the poor boy a name before you go looking for his gifts.”

Setheran held the bundle high, smiling to either ear. “Kael,” he whispered. “That’s a good name — a woodsman
and
a warrior’s. You’ll hear both of us, that way. You’ll have a foot in both your homes.”

He strode towards the hearth, and Kyleigh’s gaze went back to Amelia.

After a moment, a slight pink tinged the forest woman’s cheeks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s strange,” Kyleigh murmured. “Seth talks about you so often … it’s strange to finally get to see you for myself. It’s like a story come to life.” Her finger appeared in Kael’s vision, pointing to the pink in Amelia’s cheeks. “You’re blushing, aren’t you? Setheran said you would.”

As if simply the mention had spurred it on, Amelia’s face turned all the redder.

“He says you blush a lot,” Kyleigh continued. “Especially when —”

“How about I run to the kitchens and fetch us a late dinner?” Amelia turned quickly. “Are you hungry, Seth?”

He didn’t reply. He stood before the hearth, holding the bundle in his arms. His body was so unnaturally still that Kael thought he might’ve turned to stone.

“Seth?” Amelia took a half-step towards him. “Seth? What is it? What’s wrong with the baby?” She rushed to his side, leaning to look when he tilted his arms. A moment later, she’d stumbled backwards. Amelia clamped a hand over her mouth and her eyes widened above her fingers. “What …? What does that …?”

“It means we’re going to fail,” Setheran said harshly. He was glaring at the bundle now — glaring with something that was a mix between anger and pain. “Why else would my son have been born a Wright?”

He placed the bundle into Amelia’s arms and stalked back to the desk. His fists came down with such force upon its top that Kyleigh actually flinched. Amelia gasped. The bundle began to wail in fright.

“It’s all been for nothing!” Setheran shouted over its cries. “Everything I’ve worked for, fought for,
bled
for — it doesn’t mean anything now, does it?”

“Seth,” Amelia said, her voice trembling. “Please, you’re frightening the baby!”

“He
should
be frightened!” Setheran raged on, pounding his fists. “He has every right to cry! Let him have his fear, for mercy’s sake — because he’ll be stripped of everything else! I took up my sword …”

His elbows bent sharply and he slumped forward, as if a mighty weight had just fallen across his back. When he turned, Setheran’s eyes burned red. But it wasn’t anger Kael saw in his face — it was sorrow.

“I broke my oath … I did it all for
him
, I did it all for Kael,” he whispered, his voice barely climbing over the bundle’s wails. “It was the one shred of good I thought would come of all this death. But he’s going to be just as broken, just as miserable … it’s all been for naught.”

Setheran bared his teeth, as if he was fighting a desperate battle against the words that swelled behind them. Finally, he could hold them back no longer: “Every drop of blood I’ve shed and spilt was wasted.”

“Seth — please!” Amelia called, but Setheran marched away.

Even from down the hall and over the bundle’s wails, Kael heard the keep doors open and slam shut behind him. Amelia’s worried pleas were for the bundle — her worried eyes for Setheran.

“Let me hold him a moment,” Kyleigh said. “I’m very good with pups — ah, children.”

Amelia seemed too grateful to notice. She passed the bundle gently into Kyleigh’s arms. “He’s not angry at anybody —”

“He’s angry at everything. I know: I’ve had to put a few fires out, myself. Go and see if you can’t beat the knot out of his knickers. I’ve got the child.”

“Thank you.” Amelia squeezed her arm tightly before she hurried out the door.

The moment she was gone, Kyleigh’s gaze went down to the bundle of cloths. She
shhh
ed quietly and peeled them back, revealing the little red-tinged face and the tiny, wailing mouth beneath.

“Hush, little one,” she whispered. “You father’s just got a bit of fire in his breeches, at the moment. Maybe he ought to sit in the snow for a while.”

The wails began to quiet at the sound of her laughter. The tiny mouth closed and a pair of tightly-shut eyes came into focus. Kyleigh’s finger brushed gently across the little wet lines that stained the pink skin, drying them.

Slowly, a set of fingers came up and grasped blindly for hers. They were so small that they were hardly able to wrap the full way around — and yet, Kyleigh froze at their grasp.

He could feel them. Kael could feel the warm, soft fingers wrapped about his. He could feel the shallow breaths against his chest. He felt the child’s slight, insignificant weight in every single fiber of his arm. And when those eyes opened, when the lids cracked and those two brown orbs locked sleepily onto his, he fell through —

Kael gasped as Kyleigh pulled away and the stark light of reality rushed in. For a moment, the chirping of the nighttime creatures sounded impossibly loud; the scents of the forest were too thick for his lungs. He blinked. He took deep, steady breaths. And slowly, the power of the vision eased back.

“She was a healer,” he said quietly, remembering how Amelia had grasped Setheran, how her worry had only lifted after she’d held him for a moment — how she seemed to know by merely touching him that all was well.

Kyleigh inclined her horned head. He’d guessed correctly.

There was another question in her eyes, but he pretended not to see it. Kael turned away as a memory of Setheran’s face rose unbidden. His hand twisted in his curls, pulling painfully on his scalp — but the memory of that look raged above the pain.

He’d been unlucky from the beginning. The symbol Setheran had seen in his eyes had turned his face from merry to dark. Had Kael been born any other way, Setheran and Amelia might’ve lived happily. He might’ve been able to grow up inside that castle with two people he knew as nothing more than
mother
and
father
…

But that wasn’t at all what had happened — he’d been born a Wright. He’d messed it all up from the very beginning … and that was precisely why he hadn’t wanted to look.

Dark things swirled inside him — their bubbling muses an angry, painful mystery. Kael would’ve spent all night with them churning beneath his skin, had it not been for Kyleigh.

“No, I don’t want to,” he growled when he felt her pointed teeth clamp around his shirt.

The garment was simply made — nothing more than a thick leather jerkin with iron studs clamped down its front. But Kyleigh had made it for him, and he rather liked it. So he told himself it was for the jerkin’s sake that he allowed her to drag him back against her, that he only fought a little when one of her wings pinned him to her side, and didn’t grumble at all about the heat that radiated from her scales. 

He could feel the rhythm in her chest: calm, steady, and remarkable deep. Most of the time he forgot she was supposed to be ancient. But when he listened to her heart, he believed it. There were centuries of depth in there — a calm beyond human.

With the song of her heart and the warmth of her scales, it wasn’t long before Kael’s eyes began to get heavy. He pushed the darkness cast by his shadow aside and instead, he focused on what lay before him … beside him …

And slowly, he fell asleep.

Chapter 36

Hundred Bones

For mornings on end, Kael rose with the gray dawn and followed at the back of the wildmen’s march.

The treacherous climb seemed to carry them quickly through the seasons. One day they crossed summer’s edge and passed into a land that looked like autumn, where the trees had burst in fiery shades of orange and red. They’d trekked through a snow of fallen leaves for miles after — a snow that hissed as it fell, a snow with flakes that danced in each gust of wind and often got themselves lodged in Kael’s hair.

The higher up the mountains they climbed, the sharper the weather became. Oaks shrank back under the chill; they grew bare and bleached as bone. The evergreen arms of the pines sagged on their limbs, as if the cold had drained them of their marrow.

Though the trees creaked miserably at every gust, the wildmen only grew stronger. Their laughter came more frequently. Their chatter filled the air in a near-constant, white-puffing stream. The warriors seemed to gain breath as the air grew thinner; the craftsmen stopped their moaning. Every time Gwen turned to bark an order, her teeth were bared in a grin.

The wildmen’s eyes brightened beneath their caps and helmets — as if the frigid air had somehow warmed their spirits. Occasionally, the brightness grew so fierce that they seemed unable to contain it: the warriors would break into a dead sprint with Gwen at their lead. They would howl and run with their weapons raised high while the craftsmen followed, beating their chests with their fists.

“Mountain folk,” Kyleigh muttered as she watched them gallop off. “The more miserable things get, the happier they are. I’ll never understand it.”

Not so long ago, Kael would’ve rolled his eyes and agreed. He would’ve said the wildmen were behaving like children, and that they ought to save their strength for walking.

But now as he watched the whole thundering, fur-clad lot disappear around the next bend, it felt strange
not
to run after them. The craftsman in him studied the wilderness: he saw the beauty in the sharp terrain, read the secrets that the mountains’ wild, untouchable spirit had cleft into the rock. The warrior in him was tuned to every deadly shift in the mountains’ temper. He felt the danger in every step.

He wanted to sprint along the rocks and streams, to battle against the slapping force of the wind, to dance the wild dance of the mountains …

“Oh, go on, then.”

Kyleigh was watching him — her exasperated look slightly muddled by amusement. “Go on where?”

She waved up the road. “I know you want to chase them.”

He did. Very much. His leg took one lurching step before he shook his head. “I should save my strength.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, because that’s far more exciting than spending it. Ah, well … it’s probably for the best.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’d only lose.”

She took off like a shot, and Kael was determined not to let her win.

He chased after her. He charged in behind her as they tore around the next bend. He stayed directly at her back, so close that he could’ve reached out and touched her.

Ahead of them, the wildmen had come to a stop. Some of the warriors spotted the dust flying up from their charge and they formed a wall — holding their arms
out, goading them into a faster sprint. Kael stayed behind Kyleigh until the last possible second. He matched her pace-for-pace, keeping his head ducked even with her shoulders. He waited until she risked turning back to see where he’d gone, and then he shot past her.

He whipped by her blind shoulder and thudded into the warriors’ arms. She thudded in beside him — just a half-pace behind.

The wildmen howled and shoved him roughly. Gwen hurled him away by the roots of his hair, laughing. “He stomps dragons, he beats them in a footrace. Is there anything he can’t do?”

Kael’s face burned under their looks. “Well, I can’t stop the snows from coming. So we’d better press on,” he said gruffly.

The wildmen glanced around each other before they shrugged in agreement. Gwen got them all moving with a snap of her fingers. They filed in behind her, heading straight for a section of the road that sat so precariously over a rift that it looked as if it’d been carved from the edge of the earth.

Kael waited until they’d gone before he turned back to Kyleigh. “You let me win, didn’t you?”

Her hands went to her hips; her elbows bent into dangerous points. “Kael of the Unforgivable Mountains,” she growled, “you know very well that I would never
let
you win at anything.”

“So you’re admitting I beat you?”

The fires in her eyes blazed hot. They glowed with that strange light he’d seen once before — with the fury he was certain wasn’t rage, with the heat that didn’t quite burn. There was a fierce and terrible danger there …

One that made his heart quicken its stride.

“If you force me to say it aloud, you’ll be sorry.”

His chest was pounding so violently that he was sure anything he might’ve said would’ve come out as a stutter. So instead, he offered her his arm.

And to his great surprise, she took it.

*******

More days passed, and Kyleigh walked beside him more frequently. When he asked her why she’d suddenly decided to stop running through the woods, she looked away.

White mist trailed from between her parted lips and the frozen air seemed to make the green in her eyes stand out all the more sharply as she gazed around the woods. “I thought Titus might have something planned for us after the … incident,” she said, giving him a smirk. “I thought for certain he would’ve answered by now, but he’s been quiet.”

“He’s frightened of us,” Gwen called as she passed. She pushed through the line of wildmen, the limp carcass of a badger hanging from her pack. “After my warriors were finished him, the Man of Wolves had to use rocks to pound the stains from his breeches!”

“It seems like only yesterday she was hurling a door at my head,” Kael muttered under the wildmen’s cheers. “And now it was suddenly all brilliant.”

Kyleigh didn’t reply. When he glanced at her, she was tugging at the end of her pony’s tail.

“You still think Titus has something planned,” he guessed.

She nodded. “To him, war is a game. Titus doesn’t charge out with his teeth bared: he circles, he waits, every move he makes is a step towards victory — no matter how sideways it seems. He doesn’t attack unless he knows he’s going to win. When he finally strikes, it’s with a blade measured to fit his enemy’s neck. The only blow he deals is the ending one,” she said quietly. “Mages are bothersome, but Titus is the real reason I’ve always given Midlan a wide berth.”

“How do you know so much about him?” Kael asked, trying to smother the chill that’d suddenly crept up his spine.

“I used to fight with him.”

“You fought
against
him, you mean.” When she didn’t reply, Kael felt as if he’d just had an iron fist clamp around his stomach. “You mean you’ve fought with Titus before?
On his side
?”

“I once fought alongside all the Sovereign Five, and Crevan. They were our allies during the Whispering War. I
told you I was a knight of Midlan,” she said testily, scowling at his look. “What did you think that meant?”

“You were only a knight for a day! What about all the days before? What in Kingdom’s name were you thinking, fighting with the Sovereign Five?”

“They were all the Kingdom had left,” she said sharply. “Most of the whisperers had abandoned Midlan to join the Falsewright, and King Banagher had tossed the rest out on their ears because he feared they might be spies. By the time Setheran and I joined the fight, war had been raging for two years across the realm. And who do you think held the rebels back all that time?”

“The Sovereign Five,” Kael said quietly, piecing it together.

The only story he’d ever read about the Whispering War had been the one at the end of the
Atlas
, and it hadn’t exactly been detailed. Now it was beginning to sound as if some bits had been intentionally left out.

“Why would Setheran have waited so long to fight?”

Kyleigh shrugged. “He’d given up his title in Midlan long before I met him, and he’d sworn never to shed blood again. When I asked him why, he said it was because he’d been broken. He would never tell me anymore than that,” she said with a hard smile. “The memory I showed you was the most he ever spoke of it.”

There must’ve been lead inside Kael’s boots.
That
was the reason he could hardly lift them. “But Setheran … I can’t believe he would ever side with villains, not even to save the Kingdom.”

Kyleigh sighed heavily. “They weren’t
villains
in those days. Crevan and the Five wanted power, but no more or less than any other humans. It’s what they did with their power that turned them villainous.” 

Kael couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t grasp it. The whole idea was far too hot to wrap his head around. If he tried, it would burn him up. So he didn’t. He forced his legs to move, hoping the mountain air would cool him.

“Don’t stomp off,” Kyleigh called from behind him. “I don’t want you to think badly of me —”

“I don’t. In fact, I don’t know what to think. Even if you thought the rest of the Sovereign Five weren’t villains, you can’t tell me you didn’t see it in Titus. You can’t tell me you didn’t know he was wicked from the start.”

“You’re right. I can’t.”

He whipped around to face her, matching her glare with one of his own. “Then just answer me one thing,” he said through his teeth. “If you knew Titus was a monster, why didn’t Setheran kill him? Why didn’t he save the Kingdom seventeen years of pain and suffering? Why did he let Titus live?”

Kyleigh studied him for a moment. “Titus was a hero during the Whispering War. His tactics were unbelievably cruel, I’ll give you that. But he kept the rebels from taking Midlan. Setheran always said that Titus was a necessary evil.”

With that utterance, a thing Kael had held onto all his life crumbled between his fingers. A hero he’d fought beside in his dreams, a warrior he’d aspired to be — a man who’d been such an unwittingly large part of his childhood perished before his eyes.

“I could never do that,” Kael said quietly. His eyes were on Kyleigh, but behind them he watched the last of the earth cover Setheran’s face. “I could never stand by and let a man with so much blood on his hands go on living.”

Kyleigh grabbed his arm before he could turn away. “I know how all the stories painted him, but the truth is that Setheran preferred to
spare
lives rather than end them. He wanted Fate to have her say. Setheran was very much a reluctant hero … a bit like someone else I know.”

I’m nothing like him
.

Those were the words he wanted to say — the ones that waited on the edge of his tongue. Kael wanted to twist out from under Kyleigh’s hand and sling his fist into the nearest tree. But then he would’ve been no better than Setheran.

So he swallowed the words back and instead of swinging, he placed a hand on top of hers. “I’m not angry,” he insisted, when he saw her searching. “I suppose I’m just a little … disappointed. I’ve spent my whole life thinking that Setheran the Wright was the greatest warrior who’d ever lived. Now I’m beginning to realize he was just an ordinary Wright who was very lucky in friends.”

She smiled at this — which made it much easier to forget his anger.

*******

One day, the wildmen marched out from between a forest of sagging pines and into the opened mouth of a field.

Here, the land was completely flat — as if the peak they stood upon had been cleft of its top. The nub it left behind was a gap between fall and winter: perched above the autumn slopes and cradled in the shadow of the mountains’ frosted peaks.

Three of the peaks stood higher than the rest, with the tallest, most formidable in the very center. “That’s the summit,” Gwen said, pointing. Then her finger trailed to the left, where the second-highest peak rose beside it. “Thanehold — our lands. And over there,” her finger went to the smaller peak on the right, “is Wynndom.”

Kael was more than a little surprised: he thought the wildmen would’ve put their castle at the very top of the mountains. The fact that they hadn’t made him wonder if perhaps the wynns truly
did
exist. Something powerful was obviously keeping them from the mountain’s top.

As he studied the harsh, frozen edges of the summit, he began to think that the
real
mystery was why anybody would want to claim it in the first place.

A scant layer of grass covered the field’s rocky skin. It was surprisingly green, though it wasn’t the crisp, healthy green of the Valley: it was a deep, defiant green — a green nearly blackened by its depth. Sickly-thin blades whipped violently in the wind, their roots clinging to their rocky perches. It was if the grass was green here because it
wanted
to be, as if it’d flexed the tiny fibers of every blade and willed itself to turn.