Chapter 12
Lochlen took us to a cave, or something similar. It was more like a tunnel, earthen, deep, nothing more than a hole in the ground really.
The forest hid it well.
A gigantic tree stood in front of us when Lochlen finally stopped, its trunk covered in moss and dangling vines. It was old, very old. It was also dead. I felt no life in the bark when I touched it.
Lochlen pulled aside the thick growth of vines to reveal a narrow opening. The trunk was hollow. Inside, Kye picked up something I couldn’t make out in the dark and suddenly the whole tree was full of light. In the palm of his hand, Kye held an orb that looked strangely like a small ball the servants’ kids played with at the manor. Only this one appeared to be made of glass and it glowed.
“Dragon magic,” Kye said, as he moved the ball from palm to palm. It was a pretty sight, the orb. I wanted to touch it, hold it even, but Lochlen cleared his throat, bringing our attention to the tree itself.
The trunk hid a slanting tunnel dug into the earth beneath our feet.
“What is this?” I asked. “Is it a lair?”
I’d heard of lairs. Dragons liked dank, dark places to live. Their preference for this made caves a suitable dwelling. And then there were their hoards. Richly manufactured things, jewels, and gold.
“A lair?” Lochlen choked. “Is that what they really call it?”
I shrugged as Kye moved to stand at the end of the tunnel.
“The dragons spent years digging this. It leads to a cave on the edge of the forest, at the foot of the Mystic Mountains. The rebels make base camp near this tree for that reason,” Kye said. He avoided my gaze, his eyes on the tunnel instead.
Lochlen snorted. “We don’t call our homes lairs. They are simply homes as richly or not so richly furnished as your own. And we keep no hoards. Those are a human invention to scare people. Dragons need not steal from your kind.”
I watched the play of emotions on Lochlen’s human face; hatred, amusement, even understanding. His human form was of a young man, but it wasn’t hard to see what he must be like when he shed the mortal shell.
“I didn’t mean to offend,” I said quietly.
Lochlen stepped into the tunnel, his tongue silent. Kye stood back so I could move ahead of him, and I fell in behind the dragon. If other dragons were anything like Lochlen, then they were temperamental, moody creatures who were easily amused.
I concentrated on the tunnel. It smelled musty like damp soil and wet animal. I could feel things in its walls. Earthworms. Insects. I wanted to reach out and touch the hard-packed dirt to see if I could make out the creatures within, but I didn’t. I walked silently instead, watching as the narrow tunnel opened up, becoming large enough for several very large creatures to walk side by side.
“By the gods,” I muttered.
Lochlen fell back, his gaze looking down at the top of my head.
“Impressive, right?” he asked.
There was nothing special about the tunnel other than the size, and the orb that Kye carried in his palm. But the enormity alone was awe-inspiring.
“Why?” I asked. “Why dig it? And why kill a tree to hide it?”
Lochlen chuckled. “You noticed that, did you?”
When I didn’t answer, he looked away.
“Of course you would,” he said. “We needed access to the forest. If it makes you feel better the tree sacrificed itself for us.”
It didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel sad.
“Why sacrifice itself so dragons could have a way into the forest?” I asked.
Kye moved up, keeping an arm’s length distance between us.
“For the rebels,” Kye answered.
The rebels? Dragons did this to help humans? A tree sacrificed itself for humans?
“Why?”
I was beginning to sound redundant, but I just couldn’t understand why creatures who normally avoided humans both sought us out and sacrificed themselves for us. Lochlen patted the top of my head. He actually patted the top of my tangled, unwashed hair.
“I think you should save your questions for the king. First, a bath. Dragons have an insanely keen sense of smell, and unwashed human isn’t a nice odor.”
My cheeks flamed. He was right, but it didn’t make it any less embarrassing.
The tunnel before us was opening up even more, and the air was turning cooler, fresher. The ground beneath my thin slippers was cold now, and I looked down to discover the soil had turned into stone. Lochlen threw his head back as if he wanted to roar, but he sighed instead, his mouth wide open, his nostrils flared. It might have been a nice look for a dragon, but it was awkward on a boy.
“The mountains are not far from the part of the forest where we camp,” Kye said from beside me.
I looked over at him. He was too close to me now, his shoulder maybe an inch away from mine. Every time I saw him, I heard Aigneis scream, and yet he had helped me.
My eyes must have changed because Kye looked away a moment before his eyes met mine again.
“There are casualties in war,” he said.
His eyes were a dark green, not brown as I’d seen them before in the shadowy forest when the man, Derrin, had branded me. They were just dark like the woodland at dusk, but still green. He had tanned skin, and a thin body. Muscles played along his chest and arms. They weren’t large muscles, but the kind that came from fighting often with a sword, the kind I’d seen on my father’s men.
“Are we at war?” I asked him.
Kye glanced at Lochlen, and then away at the cavern ahead, leaving my question unanswered. My gaze had moved to the cave as well, and it left me speechless. All questions abandoned me.
There before me sat a room. It was a cave, and it smelled of stone and damp air, but it was also a room, everything in it five times the size of a human. The cavern walls and floor had been left alone, natural, but there was furniture, huge furniture. Against one wall sat a divan, a hard seat made out of dark wood. There were figures carved on it, scaly beasts with flared nostrils, exposed teeth, four legs, and a long thick tail. There were wings on the beasts’ backs, magnificent wings, and a small jutting horn on their heads, just between and above their eyes.
There were other things in the room as well—more of the round, glowing orbs sitting in tall upright iron pots and velvet-covered round pallets that resembled gigantic nests and looked soft enough to be stuffed with feathers instead of straw—but I was focused on the wooden divan. I suppose, being dragons, there was really no need for a cushion on the seat. Or maybe it was merely for ornamentation. The beasts carved within had me captivated.
“They are beautiful,” I breathed.
There was something about the way the dragons’ sinuous tails curled behind them, the way they held their heads proud, the way their sharp claws seemed ready to attack. It was their confidence, I think, that touched me the most.
“We prefer terrifying,” Lochlen said, his eyes following mine to the carved designs. “We made this ourselves, you know. We have our own artisans. We can do much in our original form, but we shift to human for the smaller things.”
I let my gaze move to him, at the proud way he held himself, tall, regal even. As a man, he was handsome, unique. It made me wonder at his dragon form.
“You don’t have to remain human for me,” I said.
His reptilian eyes met mine, and he smiled. “No, I suppose not, but where the carved designs are beautiful, the real thing is pretty overwhelming. Bath first.”
Lochlen gestured at a chamber just beyond the one we stood in now. The entrance was to the side of the room, a slight step down. Beyond was a pool where the cave floor simply fell away. Steam rose from its surface.
“It’s fed by a hot spring. As far as I know the temperature isn’t too hot for humans,” Lochlen said as we entered the other room.
“It’s not too hot,” Kye agreed.
So Kye had bathed in the pool be
fore? I stared at the water, at the mist that lifted off of it, curling into the air like fingers beckoning me to come. I walked toward it slowly, and then paused.
“Where will you go?” I asked the men.
“Wait a moment,” Lochlen said hurriedly, turning to walk out of the chamber. It left Kye and I alone. I stood awkwardly, staring at anything and everything but him.
“I would have saved her if I could have,” Kye said suddenly.
My head shot up.
“What?”
He was not a short man, Kye. He was taller than most Medeisian men, and his rough green tunic was left open at the neck, the orb in his hand revealing another scar on his chest I hadn’t let myself notice before.
“Your maid,” he said. “I would have saved her if I could. There was no way to infiltrate your father’s men. Even if I had fought, even if I had gotten her out, they would have killed you in her place. You were to be an example, the first marked scribe killed, the daughter of a noble, illegitimate or not. I had to make a choice. There are few unmarked rebels so we are used often to spy and rarely together. Alone, I couldn’t save you both.”
There was nothing I could say. He had chosen me. Was it because he believed I was the One? This phoenix?
“I only hope I am what all of you think I am. Maybe then it will not have been for nothing,” I said sadly.
Kye looked like he might have said something, but Lochlen returned then. His hands were full of garments, green cloth like I’d seen on the rest of the rebels. Kye looked away.
“The dress won’t do in the forest,” Lochlen said, holding out the clothes. I took them tentatively. A bar of lye soap sat on top.
“Thank you,” I said.
Lochlen nodded, and he and Kye ducked out of the chamber. My gaze went back to the water, and I began unlacing my dress, pulling it, and the ragged, dirty undergarments away from my body before I let them fall to the floor.
I moved toward the pool. It took a moment for my body to adjust to the heat before I could fully sink into the water, but when I did, I sighed heavily. The liquid was cleansing more than just my skin, it was melting away the stress and the tension I had been feeling now for days, and I let it.
I moved the soap through my hair, scrubbing at the tangles, before rinsing it and washing it again. My wrist burned in the water, and the soap irritated it even more. I stood now, the water just above my chest and lifted my hand.
The inkwell looked better than it had before, the redness around it still there but not as prominent. I outlined it cautiously with my finger, my skin moving over the scabs covering the design. A cracked inkwell.
In my head, I heard Aigneis again. This time I blocked out the screams from her last moment, replacing them with better memories, with greater moments.
I lifted my hand higher, watching as the water dripped from my wrist back into my temporary bath. Kye had left the orb sitting in a stone niche by the pool, and the light made the droplets still clinging to the design gleam. I stared at it.
“I’ll listen to the forest, Aigneis. I’ll listen to it well,” I whispered.
And when I lowered my wrist back to the water, it was with a new resolve. I was alive, and I wanted Raemon dead. I would listen to the forest, and if I was this One, I would do what needed to be done.