Page 5 of Heart of Chaos (Chaosborn #1)

Chapter five

Eisa

“You’ll freeze like that,” Arik warned as I emerged from the tavern wearing every single item of clothing I owned, which really wasn’t much.

Revna was helping Anders and Sigrid gather their belongings, while Henrik was shouting obscenities from his tiny office in the back of the tavern. I supposed he had not taken the loss of all three of his indentures particularly well.

I looked around for dragons, frowning.

“This is all I have.” I gestured down to literally my entire wardrobe. “Where are the dragons?”

“Nearby,” he replied, unclasping his cloak and tossing it to me. “Put that on.”

“Won’t you be cold?” I asked.

“Drage run hot,” he replied with a shrug as Revna and Sigrid emerged from the tavern with Sigrid’s battered old trunk. “Is it done?”

Something shattered behind them, and Revna winced. “Yes. He wasn’t pleased that I commandeered the mules too.”

“Mules?” I asked.

“I have them!” Anders called, panting as he dragged the stubborn creature around the side of the tavern. One tried to take a bite out of Anders’ shirt, and he skittered out of its reach. “Bloody awful beasts.”

“There’s a proper village five miles north,” Revna explained, smothering a laugh with a convenient cough. “Too far to walk, and I didn’t think the old lady would like flying very much. I’ll get your friends settled, then double back and meet you tomorrow.”

She glanced at Arik for confirmation of this plan, and he nodded stiffly. “Say your goodbyes.”

“Arik—” Revna warned, glancing at me.

“It’s time to go, Rev,” he replied with a voice like steel.

Revna smiled apologetically and patted my shoulder. “Be quick.”

She moved to join Arik, who was saddling the decrepit little mules with Henrik’s moldy tack.

“I…” my voice caught in my throat as I looked at Sigrid and Anders. I hadn’t really thought this part through, and I had never been particularly good at goodbyes. When Branka left, she wept. I was silent for three days.

“You’re really going?” Anders asked, eyes wide as he looked up at me. He had grown so much since first arriving that the distance in our heights wasn’t nearly as far as it used to be. “You told me people die there.”

“People die everywhere,” I replied, stealing Arik’s argument. “This was the only way to get you and Sigrid free.”

“But you don’t have to—”

“I do, Anders,” I replied, not feeling like giving him the whole sordid explanation of my predicament. “I promised to find a way to free you and this is it. You were right. They came to save us.”

Anders threw his bony arms around me, the bruising hug likely doing terrible things to my ribs. I didn’t push him off me, though, wrapping my arms around him in turn. “Listen to Sigrid. Take care of her.”

“I will,” he replied fiercely.

“I can take care of myself,” Sigrid replied haughtily, swatting the boy away from me. “My turn now, imp. Take my bag to the mules.”

Anders obeyed, giving me one last watery wave as he fought tears.

“Best not to let him get too upset,” Sigrid said conspiratorially as she hugged me. “A lad likes to feel useful.”

“And what do you know about raising teenage boys, Mormor?” I laughed thickly, breathing in the old woman’s scent of butter and lemon and home.

“A great deal more than you! Here.” She pulled away and dug around in her pocket, producing a small package wrapped in one of her floral handkerchiefs. “I have something for you.”

“Mormor,” I gasped, unwrapping the package to find a tiny, sparkling gem on a fine silver chain, so long it would likely hang to my navel. It was shaped like a teardrop and no larger than my pinkie nail, as blue as the eyes of the Hearthmother herself. I quickly covered the necklace, worried someone might see and steal it. “Where did you get this?”

“A family heirloom.” Sigrid smiled, revealing the treasure once more and looping the chain around my neck and tucking the gem beneath my blouse. “Passed down from generation to generation in my family, and now to you. The closest thing I have to a daughter of my own.”

“I can’t accept this, Mormor,” I whispered, covering the place where the gem lay hidden beneath my shirt. “It must be worth a fortune. You could use it to buy a house. Live like a queen!”

Sigrid laughed. “I’m no queen, child. You will take it. You are my family.”

“Mormor—”

“Keep it safe, my Eisa,” Sigrid insisted. “Keep it close. I have a strong feeling you’ll need it sooner or later.”

“Mormor—”

Sigrid wrapped me in one last hug, stifling my questions as I realized this would be our last. By the time I was allowed to leave Ironholm, if that day ever came, Sigrid would likely be gone.

“Go live, my Eisa. Show them what you’re made of.”

“Blood and despair?” I joked, wiping a tear from my cheek.

“Courage,” she insisted. “Fire.” She pushed me toward Arik, then hobbled toward the mules. Anders was already mounted, looking both nervous and excited, and Revna gave me a kind nod as she helped Sigrid mount.

“Bring your dragon to visit!” Anders shouted back as Revna guided them up the road, away from Henrik’s tavern and away from me.

I waved, certain that my voice would break if I tried to reply with words. I watched them ride north until it was nearly impossible to make out their silhouettes in the moonlight. I knew I was doing the right thing—knew I was saving them by sacrificing my future to the drage—but it didn’t stop my heart from cleaving in two.

“Let’s go, Eisa.” Arik’s command was sharp and impatient, and I quickly wiped away another tear.

“How far is it?”

“At least two days’ flight.”

Flight . Gods, of course we’d be flying. They had dragons after all. They must be waiting for the drage’s return somewhere large enough for the giant beasts to wait.

I suppressed a shiver of fear, keeping Sigrid firmly in my mind’s eye. This was for her and Anders.

“We’ll walk to the field beyond the tavern,” Arik said, picking up his pack and striding off down the road. “Baldur needs more space than this to take off.”

“Baldur is your dragon?” I asked, jogging a step to keep up with Arik’s long stride.

“He is.”

I waited for Arik to explain why Revna had called him Baldur, but he continued to walk in stony silence, his boots crunching over the gravel as we walked away from the only place I’d ever known as home.

“So you can speak to him?” I pressed, feeling awkward in the growing silence. “Your dragon?”

“In a way,” Arik replied. “We speak in my mind.”

I frowned, trying to imagine having another creature speaking to me that no one else could hear.

“You said he knew I was one of you. A drage.”

“Not drage.” Arik shook his head. “Not yet. Right now you’re only Chaosborn. You don’t become a drage until you bond a dragon during the Rifting.”

“I don’t know what any of those words mean,” I said, feeling frustrated at my own ignorance. “Chaosborn?”

“Someone born with Chaos in your blood,” Arik replied, looking like it taxed him to do so. “It’s what makes your blood burn. What allows you to bond a dragon.”

“But what is it? And what’s the Rifting?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. It’s not really something I can explain. Here.” He stopped in the middle of the muddy field and dropped his pack, turning around to survey the darkness. The tavern was no more than a pinprick of light in the distance, and I could barely make out anything in the weak moonlight. “This is far enough.”

I wanted to argue for more answers, but I felt testing Arik’s patience when I was about to be atop a dragon might not be the wisest move.

“Your dragon is here?” I asked, looking up into the inky sky as if I might catch a glint of scales or jagged teeth. “I don’t see anything.”

“He’s always here,” Arik replied, turning to face me. “I need you not to scream when he comes. I won’t be able to talk to you when he’s here, but he won’t hurt you. You’ll be safe.”

“Alright,” I said slowly. “But I don’t see—gods!” I whirled around as Arik dropped his leather armor and lifted his shirt over his head. I caught a glimpse of black tattoo swirling across an expanse of scarred chest before I turned, and my traitorous mind wondered how far north and south those tattoos roamed. “Why are you undressing?”

“Because leathers are expensive,” he replied, the sound of another buckle telling me his trousers were next. “And I can’t fly in them.”

I heard the thump of boots hitting wet grass, then rustling as if Arik were stuffing his clothes into the pack at his feet.

I pursed my lips, stifling to ask why in the name of gods he needed to be naked to fly. Did he expect me to fly naked too?

A strange, shifting sound was his only reply, like bones cracking and twisting and muscle stretching. Something warm nudged me in the back, and a huffing breath blew my braid over my shoulder, sending hot air skating over my neck.

I turned slowly to find two huge, slitted silver eyes looking at me expectantly in the face of the largest creature I had ever seen.

I stumbled backward and fell into the wet grass, earning a huff of what might have been amusement from the beast.

The dragon’s head was twice as large as Henrik’s sad little mule, spines over its eye ridges and head trailing down a neck longer than the tavern’s great room. The dragon’s scales were a glittering white, so bright they reflected the light of the scant, crescent moon, and he huffed another breath impatiently as he flicked his barbed tail irritably across the field.

The drage was nowhere to be seen.

“Arik?” I called, taking another step back from the gigantic beast. Hearthmother above, he’d left me alone with the creature.

I edged around the side of the beast to see if Arik had somehow climbed atop his back, the dragon following me with it’s silvery eyes.

The same eyes that had shone from Arik’s face.

“Is he gone?” I asked, uncertain whether dragons could even understand human speech.

The beast shook its huge head once, slipping a wickedly sharp claw through the pack that Arik had abandoned in the field.

Not abandoned.

“Are you Baldur?” The dragon nodded. “Are you—” I swallowed, almost unable to believe I was speaking to an actual dragon. Anders would be over the moon. “Are you Arik as well?”

The dragon huffed and shook his head.

“He’s in you,” I realized, lifting a hand toward the beast’s scaly snout. He held still, allowing me to place the palm of my hand against his nose. His scales were incredibly warm, and much smoother than they looked. “The drage are shifters?”

Baldur nodded, chuffing appreciatively as I scratched an eye ridge.

Gods above, I was touching a dragon.

Touching Arik.

I removed my hand hastily, taking another step back.

Shifters with two souls in one body. The only shifters I’d ever heard of lived in the Deep Wood far to the north, and I’d half thought they were merely fairy tales told to scare small children.

How was it possible that they could shift forms? As far as I knew, the dragons had been fighting the odemarksdyr in the south for thousands of years. Did people know that the dragons and the men were one and the same?

Baldur blinked and shook his head, as if disagreeing with someone, then turned his huge snout towards me. His teeth were the length of my arm, and I took another panicked step backward. He caught me with a back paw, his tail curling around me as he moved to nudge my hip.

“What?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

Baldur made a noise that I could have sworn was a sigh of annoyance as he lifted his tail and pointed to the back of his neck where it met his shoulders. He then nudged me again toward the place he had pointed.

“You want me to climb on?” I asked incredulously, shaking my head. “No. Absolutely not.”

Baldur chuffed in annoyance again and wrapped his tail around me, lifting me into the air and depositing me mid-scream atop his neck.

“Hearthmother above!” I gasped, digging my fingers into the scales of Baldur’s neck as he began to unfurl huge, membranous wings from his sides. I was sitting just above where the wings jutted out from his back, the strong bones and muscles locking me in place as I flattened against his neck. “Gods, please don’t drop me!”

Baldur let out a sound like a laugh as we lifted from the ground, his great wings carrying us high into the frozen night.

It was too dark to see much as we flew, and at some point I nodded off, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic beating of Baldur’s wings and the heat of his scales curling around me like a warm blanket.

We stopped only once in a misty field around midmorning so I could relieve myself and eat something from the pack hooked around Baldur’s claw. Communicating was challenging, but Baldur was oddly adept at making himself understood with nothing but snorts and growls, and I finally remounted to resume our flight across the realm.

If I hoped to see much of the kingdom I’d grown up in, it was a forlorn hope. Mist hung thickly over the ground, and we flew so high at some points that the most I could make out were tiny pinpricks of houses in gaps between the fog.

By the time the sun was setting again, every muscle in my body was stiff from my grip on his neck. I wondered how I hadn’t slid right off when I’d been sleeping for how tightly I’d been holding on while awake.

I was brimming with questions that had gone unanswered while Baldur—or Arik?—was in dragon form, but those questions warred for supremacy with my discomfort.

Baldur finally slowed, circling a spot several times as he descended. A tiny village dotted the shore with thatched roofs and smoke curling from chimneys, and I prayed to the Hearthmother that there would be a better place to sleep than the back of a dragon. We landed on a grassy cliff, the drop a good two hundred feet to a thin strip of sandy beach and rocky outcroppings below that were being battered by unforgiving waves.

Baldur snorted and shook his back slightly, which I took as a request that I get off. Sliding down his neck was an exercise in discomfort as every muscle in my legs protested moving after gripping tightly for so long, and I ended up tumbling into the grass between his left hind leg and foreclaw with an, “oof!”

“We’ll have to work on your strength and stamina,” came a gravelly voice I hadn’t heard in almost a full day. I blinked as the dragon shrank and warped into the shape of a man, cursing under my breath as I realized he was still completely nude. I covered my eyes only after getting an eyeful of muscular thighs and firm buttocks that were, unsurprisingly, also tattooed. “You’re weaker than a newborn foal.”

“Thirteen years of slavery and sickness will do that to a person,” I replied, a bit more defensively than I’d intended as I stumbled to my feet.

Arik’s chuckle told me he hadn’t taken offense, and I risked a peek through my fingers.

Nope. Still naked.

“Please put some clothes on.”

Arik huffed a small laugh, the sounds of rustling and buckles telling me he was at least acquiescing to my request.

I jumped when the warm pad of a thumb caressed my lip, and I opened my eyes to see Arik lifting away a drop of blood. He was wearing trousers at least, but his chest was completely bare, his armor and shirt still on the grass beside the pack. I blinked and averted my eyes from the planes of muscle and runic tattoos across his chest.

“How long will this last?” he asked, frowning at the blood on the pad of his thumb.

“You’re still not dressed,” I protested, trying to put distance between us.

He caught my wrist gently but firmly.

“You said ‘some clothes,’ not all of them.” He lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. He sounded calm—perhaps even slightly amused—but his face was serious. Grim. “How long, Eisa?”

“A few days,” I murmured.

He frowned. “Have you seen a healer?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve met Henrik,” I replied dryly. “Anyway, my mother was sick too. She died young.” I tried to shrug off the weight of the statement so that Arik wouldn’t see what it cost me to remember her.

To remember her face, pale as snow, as she tried to tell me something she couldn’t get out over the blood that poured from her lips.

Arik gave me one last piercing stare, his hand still holding my chin gently. The moment felt strangely taut as he looked down at me, and a curling warmth rose in me unbidden.

The spell was broken when he stepped away to don his shirt and jacket.

“You did well,” he said, stepping into his boots. I tried not to be offended by the fact he sounded surprised by this. “Baldur agrees.”

“Tell Baldur thank you,” I replied, flushing under the dragon’s praise. “He’s very beautiful.”

Arik rolled his eyes. “He’ll never let me hear the end of it if you compliment him. He’s a vain creature.”

I smiled faintly, thinking that I’d be vain too if I were covered in glittering scales and had teeth the length of a man’s arm.

Arik cleared his throat, pulling me from my thoughts. “Let’s go. There’s an inn a few miles up the coast. Revna should be waiting for us there.”

“A few miles?” I asked in dismay as I wrapped Arik’s cloak more tightly around me. It was bitterly cold, the breeze coming off the sea dropping the temperature several degrees, and every bone in my body rebelled at the idea of moving. “Couldn’t we fly closer?”

“Humans don’t exactly like having dragons land in the middle of their villages,” he replied, shouldering his pack. “Makes them more nervous than the pointed ears. The crown forbids it except during Dragejakt.”

“The crown forbids it?”

“We all have masters, Eisa.”

The walk was excruciating after hours of riding, and I was too focused on putting one foot in front of the other to ask any of my burning questions. By the time we reached the edge of the tiny fishing village, I felt as if my legs might fall off.

Arik glanced back at me, frowning at my hobbling steps. “You’ll need to train if you have any hope of becoming drage.”

“If?” I asked, certain I had misheard. “I thought your fire test confirmed I would.”

“It confirmed you could , which Baldur had already figured out,” he corrected. “Not all Chaosborn bond dragons.”

“What happens to the ones who don’t?” I asked, hobbling after him as he continued to what looked like the main square of the village.

“The ones who survive the Rifting serve Ironholm in other ways.”

I stopped, feeling the blood drain from my face. “The ones who survive ?”

Arik turned, frowning in confusion. “Yes. But it won’t matter. Baldur is certain you will.”

“How many die?” I asked. I flicked my tongue over my swollen lip and tasted blood, the sinking feeling hitting me that I might not be physically strong enough to survive whatever the Rifting was.

I knew people died on Ironholm. That many were taken from their families and never seen again. For some reason, none of that had seemed more important than getting Sigrid and Anders away from Henrik.

Arik pursed his lips. “You’ll be fine.”

“How many?” I pushed, adopting the same tone he’d taken with me when asking how long my lip would bleed.

“It varies,” he hedged.

“Guess,” I snapped.

Arik raised a brow, and I took a deep breath.

Maybe don’t lose your temper at the man with the dragon, Eisa.

“Please.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes screwing up as if he really didn’t want to answer. “Perhaps a third die in the Rifting. But you won’t be one of them.”

“You made it, I see!” Revna appeared rounding the corner to the square. Her grin faded as she took in my face. “What’s wrong?”

“She asked about the Rifting,” Arik said, frowning at me once more before turning to the other drage. “Is it done?”

“There was a bakery looking for hired help. Took both Sigrid and Anders,” she replied, still looking warily between us. “Are you alright, Eisa?”

“Yes,” I replied, clearing my throat and trying not to imagine my imminent death at the hands of whatever the Rifting was. I plastered a smile across my face and turned to Revna. “They’ll be paid? Not indentures?”

“I oversaw the contracts myself.” She put a hand on my shoulder and smiled warmly, concern still shining in her eyes. “They’re free, Eisa.”

A weight that I hadn’t realized was there lifted from my chest at the words, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. At least I didn’t need to worry about Sigrid and Anders.

Now I only had to worry about myself.