Page 115

Domacridhan

The threat of a dragon loomed like a dragon itself, a black cloud over all their heads.

The column put the burned-out crater behind them, murmurs running through Oscovko’s war band. His warriors both feared and delighted in the prospect of a dragon. The Companions less so, with only Sigil looking eager to test her ax against a dragon’s fire.

“What do you know of them?” Sorasa murmured as they rode on, her voice low enough to be lost among the hooves and idle chatter. Her eyes shone with rare concern, her dark brows drawn close together.

Dom hesitated, casting a glance behind her to Corayne. She already had so much on her shoulders. He didn’t want to put the full weight of a dragon on them too. Thankfully, she was deep inconversation with Charlie, the pair of them bent over some scribble of parchment.

The Amhara followed his gaze. “If you’d rather not say, fine. But if you die without telling me how to bring a dragon down, I wager I’ll die soon after. And I’d simply rather not.”

His breath hissed through his teeth, his face torn between scowl and smile. “For once you’ve overestimated me, Amhara,” he muttered. “I was not there to watch the last dragon die.”

“Useless immortal,” she cursed, but the insult held no sting, her eyes no harshness.

His throat tightened. “I remember it, though.”

Her copper gaze flared.

“The beast fell some three hundred years ago, and took many immortals with it. Burned, broken, crushed.” Every word felt like a tiny cut, deeper than the scars on his face. “I do not know which ending my parents met, but I know they did not survive. Lord Triam and Princess Catriona, lost to the rocks and sea.”

Sorasa only stared, still but for the rhythm of her horse, her tiger eyes unblinking.

“I can barely remember their faces now,” he murmured, his voice fading.Silver hair, green eyes. Milk-white skin. His sword. Her bow. Only their cloaks came back, burned nearly to ashes.

But it was an old wound, long healed. Far easier to bear than the others.

“I remember when the warriors returned, the Monarch leading them. I was a child, and Isibel took me in, to raise her sister’s son as her own.” His sorrow turned to anger. His aunt had wielded thesword of war once, but no longer. And her cowardice might doom the Ward.

“She told me stories of that day. The way the dragon moved. The heat of its flame. They slashed its wings, using arrows and bolt throwers, siege engines. Anything they could to bring it down, close enough to drive spears through its jeweled hide, into its ember heart.”

Sorasa ducked her chin. “Wings first, got it,” she said stiffly. With a click of her tongue, her horse quickened its pace, carrying her forward through the column.

Dom was happy to be left behind. He wagered she did not know what to do with fear, nor sympathy. It was a confusion he understood, at least.

The immortal kept his eyes and ears trained on the sky, his focus outward instead of inward, so that he barely noticed every step farther into the foothills. The miles passed gently, with only his nerves a ruin, and not his weak, wretched heart. The weather helped too. It had been spring the last time he came this way, through lush green woods filled with birdsong. Now the forested hills were gray and skeletal, the tree branches like gnarled fingers, with only the pines still tall and evergreen. Dead leaves crunched beneath their horses and the wind blew bitter, smelling of snow and rot. Nothing was as it used to be, and for that Dom was grateful.

It was only when he dropped his guard that the memories crept back, slow but unstoppable. The figures around him changed, their silhouettes shifting. Sorasa became Marigon or Rowanna, black hair going red, bronze skin going white, brown leathers replacedby scaled purple mail. The rider behind him was no longer Sigil, but Lord Okran of Kasa, towering in his white steel armor, the eagle across his chest, a white smile like a crescent moon in his dark brown face. Oscovko, Charlie, the other Treckish soldiers and mercenaries, all faded. Even Corayne, who already looked so much like her father. She stared at him with Cortael’s face and Cortael’s stern manner, thin lips pressed into his usual grim smile. His face was as Dom remembered, not at the temple, but back home in Iona. Before the blood, before the slaughter. Before his body lay cold and still, torn apart. Dom wanted to reach out and touch the figure’s arm, to see if the memory felt as real as it looked.

He refrained, hands too tight on the reins, cracking and creasing the leather in his grip. With a will, he looked skyward again, searching the gray clouds for the shadow of a dragon.

“It isn’t far,” a voice mumbled at his side.

Dom turned and startled at Andry, sitting tall in the saddle. For a moment he thought the squire was a memory too. But his brown eyes were too dark, stricken, as haunted by the landscape as Dom was. Andry glared at the trees, a rare hatred on his kind face.

Reluctantly, Dom surveyed the landscape around them. The gentle slope of their path up the hill, the nearness of the mountains. The distant sound of the flowing Green Lion, the river low and weak this time of year. It felt familiar but wrong, like an old coat grown too tight.

The immortal steeled himself, reining his horse out of the column. He’d known this moment would come, and hated it.

“I will scout ahead and assess the temple ground,” he said. “To see what we might be up against.”

Among the war band, the Companions turned to watch him go, their faces like glowing lanterns.

Andry followed, grasping for Dom’s arm. The squire shook his head, dropping his voice.

“Take Sorasa with you.”

“Sorasa doesn’t know what to expect,” Dom replied, though part of him wanted to acquiesce. Sorasa was certainly capable enough to creep up on a few brainless skeletons and make it back alive.