Chapter 29
Dawn was creeping across the land, the dull pinkish light moving slowly to cover the fields and forests below us. It stole over scattered homes and thick trees before edging on the more densely populated villages surrounding the capital. And then there were the ruins, the magnificent golden arches as they rose into the air, the rising sun glinting off of the tarnished metal. Jagged pieces reached into the sky like misshapen fingers, beckoning or warning us away, I knew not which. Feras flew beneath them, lowering until he was in the cover of the forest at the city's edge. We'd arrived in Aireesi.
Shops and small homes cluttered crude cobblestone streets just beyond the trees. There seemed no particular order in the city. Clothes lines hung out of second level windows. Packers moved quietly in the early morning, their horses loaded down with wood for forges, pottery kilns, and ovens. Small pots sat along the streets waiting for men to urinate in them, for the dyemakers to collect the waste to make their dyes. There were nice odors mingled with foul ones, and I scrunched my nose as Feras finally landed.
We slid off of the dragon just inside the treeline outside the palace, and I gawked at the fortress beyond, at the box-like stone turrets and wooden draw bridge. It was two times the size of my father's manor, but it wasn't as massive as I'd pictured it in my head. The stories about Aireesi were largely exaggerated.
“I put much faith in you, phoenix,” the rex rumbled. “We will be waiting and watching.”
His head lowered, allowing Kye to rub his snout before he stepped back, his reptilian frame moving into the trees. And then he was gone.
Kye unclasped his cloak, letting the green garment fall to the ground before he straightened his abused surcoat.
“It's now, Stone, or never,” he said.
He took my hands in his, removing my bow and sheath of arrows before using a length of rope he pulled from his pack to tie my hands firmly behind my back. His eyes met mine as he tested the knots.
“I hope I'll have more time to get to know the girl behind the prophecy,” he said.
And with that, he leaned over, his lips brushing my forehead. I closed my eyes. Things about Kye that made me wary of him also fascinated me. His scars, his career in the army, his link to Feras.
Kye hid my bow among the trees before spinning me around so that my back faced him, his hands closing over my arms. I took a deep breath, and he pushed me. I marched forward, my face even. A guard on top of the palace walls looked down, his attention caught by Kye's uniform as we neared the gates. I struggled to feign rebellion and Kye shoved me again. This time I went down on one knee in the mud.
“Forgive me,” Kye breathed just as a guard from above called down, “Ho! Account!”
Kye's knee went into my back, keeping me low to the ground. “Kyenar Grenville Berhest.”
I would have stood if Kye's knee hadn't secured me to the soil. Berhest? Kyenar Berhest?
“Kye?” the guard called down. “There's a price on your head, prince.”
Kye unsheathed his sword, plunging it into the ground next to me. It was so close, I could see where it'd been sharpened repeatedly.
“Tell my father I bring him a gift. A prisoner he will be more than interested to meet. Then let him decide what he wants to do about the price on my head.”
My heart broke, my face falling, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
No!
Kye, a prince? The son of Raemon Berhest himself? I wanted to cry, but bit my lip until I tasted blood instead, struggling on the ground where I lay beneath his knee. He exerted more pressure as the palace drawbridge began to lower.
The Prince of Medeisia? But there was no record of a son. None. Everything I'd ever read in the Archives had said Raemon was childless. He'd been married once, yes, but his wife had died mysteriously. An accident, the records said, but it had never gone into detail.
Kye, a prince . . . and yet the rebels trusted him, Feras allowed him as a rider, and his own father, the king, had placed a price on his head. A double-crossing prince.
“What is this?” a helmeted guard asked as he walked onto the bridge flanked by two other guards. All of them bore plated metal helmets with the wolf and crossed swords emblem etched in the center above a longer metal piece that sat over the guards' noses.
“Allow me passage,” Kye demanded. “I will see the king.”
Above us in the sky, a falcon called.
“Stay strong,” Ari yelled.
I struggled again, and Kye used enough force to send my elbows into the mud. I let some of it splash up onto my face.
“It's just a boy,” one of the guards said, his voice incredulous. “What would the king want with a boy?”
Kye reached down, twisting my wrist so that it faced the soldiers. “He bears the mark of the scribe,” Kye said. “Let me pass. Anything else worth knowing will only be revealed to my father.”
Kye's insistence seemed to make the guards nervous. They finally moved aside, allowing Kye to drag me onto the wooden drawbridge.
“Walk, boy!” Kye ordered, and I stumbled forward as he shoved me yet again. I kept my balance, my head down, a few short curls brushing my forehead as I marched.
All I could see were my muddy legs. My throat burned with unshed tears, with anger, and with doubt. Kye, a prince? And yet the dragon king would not trust him if he was not on the side of the marked folk. Would he?
The wood below my feet came to an abrupt end, and I was standing once more on mud. I glanced up only once, and then stared at the ground again. I was in a court yard, a large one with horses whinnying along the palace walls. A group of soldiers stood in formation, their stares on us as we were escorted forward. A flock of geese ran wildly past, a harried, red-faced girl in pursuit.
“Be calm,” I whispered as we passed.
The geese slowed. Kye's hand jabbed me in the back, the gesture a warning.
“What have we here?” a voice asked.
All I saw were shoes and stone floors, mud streaking the entrance as we moved into the palace. Sunlight was replaced by shadows. Torches hung along the hallways and the occasional ray of light slanted across the stone from thin, defensive windows. The atmosphere felt violent in the palace, dark and tense.
The shoes kept marching forward. They were big shoes with thick soles and caked in dirt. They stopped in front of a large oak door with tarnished brass hinges that creaked as it opened.
“We need to see the king.”
It was Kye who spoke.
There were more shoes. All well made.
A new pair stepped in front of us. “Kye,” a voice said, the sound low and menacing, and I had to bite back an exclamation.
Captain Neill! The captain had beaten us into Aireesi! How was that possible? Hatred burned through my gut. I wanted a sword, a bow, anything as long as I could pierce the man through the heart.
But then there was another pair of shoes. These were boots, black, polished, and expensive.
“And so my son has returned,” the voice behind the shoes said. It was a smooth voice with little inflection. No feeling.
The king.
Fear coursed through me.
“Give me one reason not to kill you now,” King Raemon demanded. “You have been nothing except trouble since your bastard birth. I made sure you were well taken care of, and you repay me how? By killing four of my soldiers! Four of them!”
Kye's hand tightened painfully on the ropes that bound me.
“They were children, Raemon.”
There was no respect in his tone.
“And you were part of my army. Orders are orders. Chain him!” the king yelled.
Soldiers flew into action. I went to my knees on the stone as Kye was jerked away. I could hear him struggling, and I glanced up to see them pulling Kye's head up by his hair, a knife going to his throat. He went still, allowing two guards to fasten his arms behind his back. My heart screamed. It was all falling apart.
Kye's eye
s found mine.
“You would kill me now, Father, when I seek clemency,” Kye called out.
The hall went silent. The king stepped forward. It was my first real look at King Raemon Berhest VII. He was taller than I'd pictured him, his large frame wrapped in a red silk tunic and black leather pants with knee high boots. His rugged face was covered in a thick, black beard. But it was his eyes that terrified me. They were cold, empty, and deadly.
“Your blood is enough clemency,” the king said.
I flinched, but Kye stood tall, his dark green eyes meeting the king's evenly. If Kye was shorter than his father it wasn't noticeable from where I kneeled on the floor.
“I think I've found you something worth more than my blood,” Kye said, and his eyes moved to me again. I looked down before the king could find me staring.
Raemon's heavy gaze settled on my back. “A boy?” the king snorted. “You brought me a child.”
I stiffened.
“A scribe,” Kye corrected. “I brought you a scribe.”
A rough hand found my wrist, and I almost gagged when I realized it was Captain Neill.
“He bears the mark,” the captain confirmed.
“A scribe,” the king said, laughing. “I have plenty of scribes." He pointed at his son. "Take him away!”
There was scuffling and then, "A mage, too!” Kye yelled. “He is also a mage who can speak, write, and read the same language as your enemy.”
The deafening silence that followed was as heavy as armor on my back.
“You lie!” Captain Neill snapped. “I know of no scribe with the powers of a mage.”
I could hear something his voice, unease maybe. Kye had said sorcerers didn't like to share their power. Was Neill afraid of me, of my risk to his power at the side of the king? It brought a new awareness … hope.
The king's boots were now in front of my eyes. His hand was suddenly in my hair, jerking my head backward until I was staring up into the cold, dead eyes of my sovereign. I prayed hard to Silveet that my disguise would pass muster.
“Speak to me as if you were my enemy,” Raemon ordered in Sadeemian.
For a moment, I said nothing. Raemon's use of the Sadeemian language surprised me, rendered me speechless.
The king's eyes narrowed, and he threw me down hard against the floor. Pain shot through my arm, and I rolled to my side, my knees coming up to my chest.
“Kill him!” Raemon ordered, and I knew he meant Kye.
I lifted my head.
“I would see you dead,” I said suddenly in Sadeemian, being careful to keep my voice low but loud.
The king's back was to me, but he stiffened. Silence again, and confusion. It was obvious the king, and Kye by the look on his face, were the only two present who could understand the Sadeemian language. I allowed myself only brief surprise over Kye's knowledge of it. He was continually surprising me.
The king turned slowly, his fierce gaze coming down to meet mine.
“Did you threaten me, boy?” the king asked in Medeisian.
So his knowledge of the Sadeemian language was sketchy after all? I kept my expression even.
“You asked me to speak to you as if I were your enemy, Your Majesty,” I pointed out. I had to tread carefully. I could feel Kye's eyes on my face, but I didn't look his way. “Your enemy would not have kind words to say.”
Silence. Deafening silence. I was beginning to hate silence.
The king took a step toward me.
“Are you a mage?”
I remembered Aigneis in the woods, and I channeled her words.
“I confess nothing,” I said.
The corners of the king's eyes crinkled as his eyes narrowed. Somewhere in their depths I saw a resemblance to Kye, but it was small.
“Would you rather die?” the king asked.
I wanted the king to see as much defiance in me as he did reservation. He would not want a mage who was weak willed, but he also wouldn't want a servant who would stab him in the back.
I stayed quiet just long enough to let the king think death may not terrify me as much as he hoped.
“I can heal,” I confessed.
The king's silence wasn't as long as mine, the hall echoing as he unsheathed a dagger he had at his waist. As deftly as he pulled the knife, he sunk it into the skin of the nearest guard. The man went down on his knees, his hands going to the wound, his eyes wide, terrified.
I cried out.
“Prove it!” the king said, his eyes bright as he watched the blood flowing from the guard's wound onto the stones below. It was black rather than red in the shadowed hall. I crawled toward him desperately, my hands burning.
“My hands!” I called out. “I need my hands!”
The guards looked at the king, and he nodded, drawing a sword before resheathing his bloody dagger. It cut through the ropes at my wrist. As soon as they fell away, I dove for the guard.
“Please,” I begged Silveet as I placed my hands against the guard's wound.
The guard was on his back now, his eyes glassy, and I closed my eyes against the nausea as my burning hands found the blood on his side. As soon as I touched him, the burning increased but not to the excruciating level they had when I'd healed Kye.
The guard below me writhed, grew still, and then suddenly took a deep breath. I opened my eyes.
“He did it,” one of the guards said, awed.
It took me a moment to realize he was referring to me as the wounded soldier on the floor sat up, his wild eyes searching his side as he groped at the now phantom wound. The fright I saw in his gaze when his eyes met mine spoke for itself. The king had gained another enemy. I would remember that.
The king approached me, the point of his sword resting between my shoulder blades. I lifted my blood covered hands in submission.
“Son, you may have finally done something worth your station. Where did you find the boy?” the king asked.
I didn't look Kye's way.
“He was in the forest outside Drannon,” Kye answered.
“And he can write and read Sadeemian as well as he speaks it?”
“Yes,” Kye answered without hesitation.
“Stand, boy!” the king ordered, and I came shakily to my feet, my body too bruised to move quickly.
The king looked at his guards.
“Take my son to the dungeons. The boy comes with me.”
My eyes widened, my gaze going to Kye. What he saw in my stare made him shake his head imperceptibly. “Don't,” his eyes said. “Keep with the plan.”
I wanted to run to Kye, to pull the guards off of him. They had killed children in the dungeon. Would they do the same to him now? My lips parted.
“No,” Kye's eyes said again.
I kept my tongue. There was nothing I could do as the guards dragged Kye backward, pulling him roughly down the hallway until the darkness swallowed them alive. I wanted to sink to my knees, to cry into my hands at the injustice.
But then, “We should not keep the boy.”
It was Captain Neill's voice, and it was enough to harden my resolve, the fire of vengeance igniting in my blood. I would see this man's ashes floating away in the breeze as Aigneis' had. I would see the king fail.
My eyes came up to meet Raemon's. His eyes narrowed.
“No, I see something useful in the boy. Bring him.”
Hands gripped me again, shoving me forward into the same palace abyss that had taken Kye.